Northanger Abbey

Between pages 112 and 115 in Northanger Abbey there are two scenes in which Austen does one of two things, and I have not been able to decide which. At first, I thought it was pretty obvious that she was satirizing the gothic genre. The scenes are almost too dramatic, too intense, to be taken seriously. The first one involves a chest that Catherine believes to be special and important enough to become really involved in a deep study of it. The second a cabinet that catches her eye, and she simply must know what it contains. She finds a collection of papers amounting to little more than bills and shopping lists, but as she is discovering them and reading them, it is described feverishly, as though she is in some sort of danger or committing a crime in which seconds decide the success or failure. Of course it's all over the to, and of course the papers and the cabinet are essentially meaningless, as if Austen, at the end of the scene is to say, "Of course there was nothing to it. It's a cabinet. In a house, where people live. Why would there ever be some sort of hidden horrible mystery hidden in the cabinet in the very room they assigned to you?" 
And yet, and perhaps it is just me, but I actually felt Catherine's anxiety. Even knowing that this was not intended to be a horror or suspense novel, but a parody, I felt the way I might while reading one. We might account for this on the skill of Austen as a writer, to parody a genre so well, and make the reader feel so foolish as to get caught up in the same nothingness as Catherine. The scenes, the descriptions, and Catherine's own disappointment verge on being so well done that it becomes difficult for me, as the reader, to not be disappointed in the contents of the papers. So then I am left to wonder, how much of the novel may be read as a caution to believing to strongly, or being to entirely caught up in the world of fiction, and how much of it is an admission to how easy it might be to so completely lull the reader into that state of acceptance? A further turn might be to consider if the novel is perhaps about learning that the real world does not so often reflect the world in books, how does that affect the reading of John Thorpe, the character least given to reading novels and being under their influence? He is rarely portrayed in a good light, and in one scene this is directly attributed to his aversion towards novels. 

Alternative Blogging

I found Novak's article to be pictured in my mind as a man attempting attempting to defend too much ground from too many attackers. There are points of self-defense, a rather lengthy defense of Defoe (a general one about his life, and another one of Robinson Crusoe), a brief but extremely kind defense of Ian Watt and his work. I think the hinge pin of his many defenses comes on page 249 when he states, "Although I have recently been accused of 'condescension' towards these writers, none was intended." And I don't think this door is going to stay up very long. On the surface, the use of the words 'these writers' produces at least a sense of dismissal of their abilities and the works produced by them.  As Novak progresses, he only seems to be digging himself a deeper whole, especially at the point where he professes that it is simply more difficult to teach Behn and Haywood than Defoe, as I am not sure where the objective metric for difficulty of classroom usage can be found and Novak certainly does not offer one. I would think, that for a man working in defense of himself, Defoe the author, and Watt the scholar, Novak might have put a little more care into his language so as not to be the exact thing he is writing in defense of. If, as Novak points out, a criterion for inclusion into the canon is level of influence, not only natively, but internationally, than it logically follows that the same mechanisms Novak points to in place in France to marginalize female authors (and uses as a defense of why a feminist argument on canonical inclusion works in French literature, and not in English) would also work against the import of feminine writing, therefore limiting the amount of influence they are likely to have regardless of skill/importance?
Switching to Max  Byrd's "Two or Three Things I Know About Setting," everything changed. My irritation from Novak was soothed by Byrd's nearly self-deprecating tone and tongue in cheek wordplay. Even more remarkable, on the second reading I noticed that Byrd structures this essay in the format that he espouses for what makes the setting in a work effective. In the 'Divide and Contrast' section he talks about how a novelist will use one part of the setting against the other one, is quite effectively (or obviously) duplicated by Byrd's use of both his scholarly career and his wayward diversion into fiction writing. After reading the section titled "Present Your Setting in Motion" I cycled back to note that he remarks on his change in career as the action of 'straying' and presents two opposing spaces with himself as a line moving between them.
To round out my three articles Michael Siedel left me a bit perplexed. Throughout I had much trouble attempting to identify his stance in relation to Watt, suggesting a fair amount of ambivalence about him. So I wonder how well an argument can be made while attempting to play on alternate sides of it. On the one hand Siedel wants to hold up Watt's work (albeit not as admiringly as Novak) as something like truth while attempting to point out flaws and missed opportunities in it.

Why is it that the real is never as good as it should be?

The Female Quixote holds even today to be an interesting example of social critique. I a not sure that I see Arabella as not having a firm grasp on reality, but instead I think she fits a trope of the unrelenting mythic hero, until the death of her independence, and therefore her power, at the end of the novel. What is striking is that Charlotte Lennox even provides for the removal of most societal norms that would force her hand toward marriage, were she opposed to it. Her guardian wont force her, and she has enough money to live comfortably single should she wish to. It feels as though the ending is Lennox throwing in the towel on her fight to provide a viable female protagonist that her audience can see as surviving and behaving in a socially acceptable manner without a husband. The rather rushed nature of the ending, and the coinciding pressure to publish, might function quite well as a metaphor in this case. Were she to choose for Arabella to not marry, to drag out a courtship or maintain some sort of power over her existence, she might well have felt a need to write to the end of Arabella's life to provide for the extraordinary way that she lived. While single she has the power to defeat robbers, and debate with the men around her, and marriage is likely to take any of that away.
But It occurs to me that the character of Arabella offers up a little more than that. She evokes something of the Shakespearian fool in the novel. She has the ability to operate outside, or at least less restrained, by the societal norms that surround everyone else. From one perspective she might be seen as rebellious, and her readers might agree that one cannot simply view the world however they wish to. From another, however, she seems to represent one of the few people in the novel prepared to do 'the right thing,' versus what makes them appear in the best light. From that perspective, the idea that while the romance may be dead, the characters they offer are a far sight better than one is likely to find in a given circle of people. Perhaps the sudden realization at the end, the loss of the innocence that allowed her to have control over more of the world around her than most other characters in the novel, can be seen as part of the social contract dependent upon the exchange of women. Her refusal to acknowledge that aspect, or even be able to see marriage as that, throws the system into chaos, giving her power, at times, the equivalent of life and death over men. So then I wonder what that acknowledgement might mean in the larger picture?

The Governess and Crowd Control

Reading The Governess, I find I am touched in quite a different way from Richardson's Pamela. Somehow, Fielding has managed to find a morality tale that reads as more real to life, and yet at the same times includes quite a bit of shameless allegorical storytelling as its teaching vehicle. There were even a few bits about how to act as a governess, or one responsible for educating young people, which I found to be quite amusing. Both of the pieces are directed towards the improvement of the reader, but it seems that Fielding wanted to avoid the criticisms that Pamela/Clarissa and Richardson received for their attempt at showing the virtuous path to self improvement. In Pamela, the narrative presided over the moral messages, leaving room for the audience to spread doubt on the virtue of Pamela. The lessons to be spread were left largely implicit until the end, where Richardson attempts to tell the reader exactly how to understand and interpret each character. Fielding, writing a simpler narrative, avoided that with a rather simple rule of grammar that might have saved Richardson all the headaches of criticism against his characters and novels (although may also have cost him not a small fortune in sales). That rule is to put the modifier as close to the object that it modifies as possible, and you will avoid much potentially devastating miscommunication so common to the reader, as opposed to the interrogative prerogative of the listener. In this way, Fielding manages to stop the critical train of thought from ever gathering steam, while Richardson's reader finds enough of time and material to be critical in spite of his attempt to regain that control.
This brings to mind the idea that a person wishing to write literature that promotes proper conduct, should probably consider the potential audience that one is writing for. With Richardson the audience occupies an odd space where the reader is not the focus, but it seems to be expected that the reader will have their own conclusions. His explicit instructions occur too far away from their poignant moments to have any dramatic effect upon the reader. In The Governess Sarah Fielding produces a work that clearly marks the role of the reader, and in part positions them in a position alongside the other girls as they listen to the chosen reader for the day. This produces an odd sensation of reading what someone else is supposed to be reading aloud, and also having to fill in that voice, making the reader both audience and participant in an activity that leaves little room for their own individual input and none at all for their voice to be heard. The state of explicitness regarding the moral lessons for the novel essentially employs the reader while removing them from the process of criticism, which I believe is one of the morals of the Fairy Story -  that we should all listen to our wise mother, or in this case Sarah Fielding.

Fielding and Haywood Hate Pamela

Well, what horrible people Eliza Haywood and Henry Fielding have lampooned of poor Pamela. I mean really, I never would have expected such behavior in titles such as Anti-Pamela and Shamela. It does seem quite terrible that a mother and daughter would go to such great lengths to ensure an easy living, and yet for some reason all the more entertaining. With Pamela I found myself rooting that she might get away from Mr. B and getting back to her parents, if only because there was never any indication that she had intended to manipulate Mr. B into any sort of arrangement. She seemed to be truly the victim and helpless to the point of despairing of ever receiving her freedom before relinquishing her 'vartue.'
And yet, in the end how much of a stretch is it to assume she had planned it from the start, and had every intention of ensnaring Mr. B into a long term commitment based on mutual affection and respect? The hussy! Also, sawcy chops. (Which I will hopefully be able to enjoy as a phrase for a long time.) The seething reactionary writing of Haywood and Fielding seems to be saying in a phrase: No virtuous women would hold out for marriage above her station. What stands out as a major diversion from Richardson's work is the larger role that the mother plays in the narrative. In Pamela, the is little back and forth between the parents, and what there is seems strictly cautionary. Then we have in Anti-Pamela, a character in the mother that goes so far as to have her daughter abuse herself in order, not to win over Mr. L, but to trap him in a situation where his confusion would only serve to deepen his appearance of guilt. How horrifically does Eliza Haywood portray the women in her writings?
Haywood's language between how women and men pursue the opposite sex shows a great rift, if not necessarily in itself privileging one or the other, between the sexes.  on Page 76, Haywood is describing the scene where Vardine is attempting to force Syrena to drink enough wine to make some poor decisions. Granted she only sees it as a poor decision as Vardine is not rich enough to warrant the later fake rape gifted toward Mr. L. Haywood describes a battle, "the young Officer perceiving the Ground he gain'd, did not fail pursuing the Attack, and bombarded her... with speeches... pressures, kisses... and the Juice of the Grape, that at length the Town was wholly his." While the plans of Syrena and her mother are referred to as 'plots' or 'tricks' and 'stratagems' as if playing a game rather than fighting a war to achieve the most favorable terms.
Haywood seems to have a dimmer view of women even than Fielding, given that Fielding was attempting a satire of Richardson, while Haywood's work, while still critical of Richardson, seems to be more serious. There is less of the scandalous language involved in Anti-Pamela that makes Shamela more entertaining to read, and yet a great deal more detail involved describing how cunning and deceitful the main character and her mother are.

Pamela Continued

I must confess that I do not understand quite how Pamela turned out the way it did. The turns of emotion just don't make all that much sense. Even if you trace back the actions of the Squire throughout the novel, and can think, "Perhaps he really did love her and was just incredibly confused at feeling this way," why, or how, does Pamela just forget all of the events of the novel as soon as Squire B proposes to make her his wife in an honest fashion? The common strain of 'love' between Haywood's Love in Excess and Pamela suggests an idea of love  as uncontrollable, irrational, and confusing. For Haywood, at least, there were examples where love is depicted as being somewhat constant, but then the main character, in both novels, seems only to be truly in love with the one woman that continues to reject them.
Still, I found "Pamela Censured" a great deal more disturbing. From this vantage point a few hundred years later, I found the criticisms of Richardson's form of advertising to be rather flat, and somewhat nonsensical. It just seems to be common sense to have only good things about your novel printed inside of the actual novel, regardless of whether or not they are real. Who is going to print their own criticism (except in those rare circumstances where it might help sales)? Which is part of the reason that I found the article disturbing, as from where I am standing the criticism is written in just such a way as to amount to a teaser of the actual novel, including several of the more racy bits of prose, all in a show for just how immoral the novel is. The author himself even seems to be secretly delighting in the scene where Squire B molests Pamela, putting his hand inside of her shirt, while condemning the scene as putting impure thoughts into the readers head that they should never have had otherwise, and now young girls will be running around attempting to concoct ways of putting themselves into similar situations. If indeed a scene like this is so damaging to the morals of youth, why then are you reprinting it nearly in full, in a letter to the editor? Were I think of effective forms of censorship or protest of a work, this is nearly the exact opposite of a book burning.
How effective is a censorship that shows what is deemed to be the worst aspects of the novel? The article reads more as a free advertisement to any not so morally outraged that a teenage girl would behave in a fashion as to drive her master to such lengths to possess her. Which in itself is ignored as a no win situation for Pamela. If she relents, she is shameful, if she resists, she is shameful. I find it quite wondrous that the book could be read as a great 'how-to' guide for ensnaring your employer to enable class jumping, and that this might be portrayed as the most reprehensible part of the story. Sure, the author of "Pamela Censured" addresses that the squire should have known better, but with a 'wink and a nod' he couldn't help himself in his desire. The true moral problem with the novel, is not the attempted rapes, the kidnapping, or the plans for sham marriages. What is morally askew is that a serving girl was allowed, and accepted, as a member of the upper class,and if this becomes a common place who will bring the dinner?

Virtue is not so much rewarded as kidnapped...

Pamela - a teenage girl is sexually molested, but displays the strength to fight off her attacker and shame him with her speech. Unused to rejection as the finest and most powerful man around, he stoops to such great lengths as kidnapping her and holding her ransom to his own demands of while simultaneously employing people to either look the other way, or to AGREE that she is the sort that you just don't let go. And of course, if she would just submit to his wishes, everything would be fine.
And it makes for such great fiction (I do hope it is fiction...) that I am not surprised at all of the anecdotal blacksmith in the introduction reading the copy on long summer nights to the gathered villagers. Yet, what I find most compelling is that Pamela's main argument seems to be closer to an economic one than one of love, or age, or even proper behavior as Richardson seems to have written so many conduct manuals. Before she is kidnapped to Lincolnshire, the character ominously referred to as Mr. B offers her a literal sack load of money, and a yearly sackful to her father as well as gainful employment. While Mr. B never fully names the price of this, which I assumed at this point would make Pamela a mistress or even a wife, her argument against acceptance is as much for her father as it is for her. She seems to be stating that her father rejecting the money is as much a matter of virtue as it is for rejecting becoming a mistress. She asks, "How many ways are there to undo poor creatures?" on page 84, but she does not seem to be referring only the assumed loss of innocence from sexual behavior.
There is definitely a connection between the hard work and poverty of her parents, and her idea of a virtuous life as evidenced by her repeated embrace of their poverty (My poor parents, with their poor house...) and by their willingness to borrow money in order to pay back a gift to a man that continually attempts harm to their daughter. I wonder if there is not a connection here as well to the life of Robinson Crusoe and his finding God, and therefore the supposed virtuous life that accompanies it, only when he has no room for considerations other than his very survival. It seems that the idea stretching between them is that money and power bring with them wicked diversions, and abuses of power through money. While the opposite is the idea of virtue and innocence through poverty and labor.  It seems that what Mr. B could not take by force, he was more than willing to buy what was not for sale, but is unable to understand why poor people might reject wanting to be made rich. So I wonder, is Mr B. not a similar case to D'elmont, in that he seems to want only those things that reject him? If Pamela, like Melliora, had been less conscious of their virtue, would the interests of their respected crazy men have persisted?