Author: ValiantVirtuoso

In D.A. Miller’s book, “The Novel and the Police,” he writes, “Disciplinary power constitutively mobilizes a tactic of tact: it is the policing power that never passes for such, but is either invisible or visible only under cover of other, nobler or simply blander intentionalities (to educate, to cure, to produce, to defend)” (Miller, 17).

In Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, religion has taken the form of various entities. From Betteredge’s personal Bible, Robinson Crusoe, to the religious Rachel Verinder and her mother, all the way to the esteemed Godfrey Ablewhite and his respectable charity work (yeah, not for long), religion has manifested itself in different ways throughout the story. However, when introduced to Miss Clack, the second narrator, religion is presented in a different way. Here, we catch a glimpse of evangelical Christianity.

“Oh, Rachel! Rachel!’ I burst out. ‘Haven’t you seen yet, that my heart yearns to make a Christian out of you? Has no inner voice told you that I am trying to do for you, what I was trying to do for your dear mother when death snatched her out of my hands?’ (Collins, 269).

After the death of Lady Verinder (that made really sad, of course), Miss Clack tells Rachel that she wants to “make” her a Christian (isn’t she already a Christian?). In a way, Miss Clack feels guilty because she feels that it is her fault that she wasn’t able to “save Lady Verinder’s soul [from hellfire].” As a result, she feels that her moral duty is to spread the word of God – to use religion as a policing power – to others to prevent them from eternal damnation. Throughout her narrative, we have seen her do exactly that: force books onto others, persuade others to go to church, etc.

Nevertheless, there is something mysterious – and fallacious – about Miss Clack’s character. To be honest, I’m not even quite sure if she understands what it means to be a Christian. In chapter 1 of the second period, she says, “Let your faith be as your stockings, and your stockings as your faith. Both ever spotless, and both ready to put on at a moment’s notice!” (Collins, 204-205).

In this passage, Miss Clack relates Christianity to a stocking – an odd and unseemly comparison, if that. If Miss Clack were truly a Christian, she would argue that we are Christians all of the time. Of course, we are sinners, but we are always under God’s love and protection because we have been saved. The fact that she believes Christianity can just be “put on at moments notice” shows that she truly isn’t as pious as she seems. Instead, it seems to be a facade – a veneer that she puts on to seem superior to others. Doesn’t that make sense? Think about it: she even takes her “stocking” off at the end of chapter 5 – remember how indignant she was for not being written into Lady Verinder’s will?

While Miss Clack repeatedly uses her religion – Christianity – as a policing power to “save others” through invisible means such as words, and visible means such as books and pamphlets, she never really abides by her own rhetoric. To be honest, Lady Verinder should have been the one “policing” Miss Clack, as she seemed much more reverent and pious. Despite Miss Clack’s eccentricity (what’s a better word I can use?), I am nevertheless moved by her character. Although her understanding of Christianity seems skewed, she finds her cause (to make others Christian) noble.

In all, this novel is marked by misleading appearances and dispositions. Nevertheless, because we are dealing with a mystery, I think Collins is trying to prove a point. Because we are in the midst of a disappearance, we should keep in mind that these “misleading appearances” are marked by differences in systems of value. Similar to Miss Clack, the Indians, on the surface, seem evil and dangerous, but further down, they find their objective to return the sacred gem to India, virtuous and noble. In other words, if Miss Clack feels that she is doing the “right” thing, should we judge her (even if we don’t agree)?

I may be going out on a limb here, but what if The Sound of Music is actually the 1964, re-interpreted filmic version of Jane Eyre’s story? Ever since I was introduced to the idea of Jane Eyre as a governess, I have had difficulty wiping my mind clear of Fräulein Maria from the musical. After all, when thinking about it, Jane and Maria’s stories aren’t all that different. Let’s take a look.

Here, I am going to quickly compare the two women’s stories. Then, I will show how, despite their similar backgrounds, there is actually a difference (within the similarity) that is quite revealing.

To be honest with you, I was waiting for Jane to break out in song multiple times throughout the novel, especially when traveling to Thornfield (remember… “I have confidence in sunshine!”). Now consider the similarities between the two stories: before becoming a governess, Maria is a nun in an abbey. Before becoming a governess, Jane is a student at a devout Christian school, Lowood. Later, Maria, as a governess, falls in love with Captain Von Trapp, a wealthy man who is her employer. Similarly, governess Jane falls in love with her employer, the wealthy Mr. Rochester. Meanwhile, Captain Von Trapp is engaged to the beautiful and wealthy Baroness Schraeder of Vienna. At the same time, Mr. Rochester is engaged to the beautiful and powerful Blanche Ingram. Nevertheless, these relationships crumble. However, different entities get in the way of their possible marriages: Bertha Mason (in Jane Eyre) and the nazis (in The Sound of Music). In the end, both Jane and Maria marry who they want and live their lives happily ever after (kind of).

On the forefront, Jane and Maria’s stories are quite similar. However, let’s think about a difference: the fact that the stories take place in different centuries. While The Sound of Music occurs slightly before World War II (probably the early 1940s), Jane Eyre takes place within the early decades of the 19th century. The differences in class and gender are made apparent too. While Jane battles frequently for equal footing throughout the novel (she wants women to be treated equally as men), Maria doesn’t fight for this equality (at least, this battle isn’t presented throughout the musical). She takes the children throughout the city, rides bikes with them by the river, and yet she really isn’t treated subserviently. Although I don’t have an exact answer, I am presuming that, by the 1940s, gender and class were understood differently than in the early 1800s (of course, with more progress needed to go). The fact that she was a governess may have played apart too – perhaps they were more appreciated in the mid-1900s?

Nevertheless, to throw in another similarity (I guess that makes this similarity-within-difference-within-similarity), “expected” gender roles – and female subservience – are still interfused throughout The Sound of Music (in bits and pieces). For instance, Liesl, the youngest daughter of Captain Von Trapp, sings to her beloved Rolf (who later becomes a member of the Nazi Party):

In the video above, “Carol Atherton explores the character of Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre through ideas of the ‘Other’, Charlotte Brontë’s narrative doubling and 19th-century attitudes towards madness and ethnicity.”

“The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously. Mr. Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled his throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled. She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the contest — more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her with a well-planted blow; but he would not strike: he would only wrestle. At last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him a cord, and he pinioned them behind her: with more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a chair. The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then turned to the spectators: he looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate” (Brönte, 289).

Bertha Mason is a Creole, the daughter of a European settler in the West Indies. “Tall and large, with thick and dark hair, as well as a discoloured [black] – savage face,” Bertha’s “alienness” is made apparent upon her introduction in Chapter 25, when she tears Jane’s wedding veil (Brönte, 280). In addition to her “alien” appearance, Bertha even exemplifies a disposition entirely different from those of cultivated England. For instance, described as a “hyena,” Bertha stands on her “hind feet,” crawling on the floor, “[gazing] wildly at her visitors” (Brönte, 289). The imagery is vivid and unsettling, leaving the impression that Bertha is anything but human. Perhaps that is what Englanders thought of those from the East?

Trapped and forced to live in an attic, Bertha is left marginalized. Her rights, both as a woman and, actually, as a human, have been removed because she is forced to live in a room where she is “incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger” (Brönte, 300-301). Even worse, the only way that Bertha articulates herself is through demonic laughter and strange, cannibalistic gestures, as seen in the instance where she “[grapples Mr. Rochester’s] throat viciously, and [lays] her teeth to his cheek” (Brönte, 289). Mr. Rochester and Grace Poole literally have to tie Bertha down to prevent her from becoming too dangerous.

Despite the understanding that Bertha is actually mad, as Rochester states, Brönte shows that, in some ways, Bertha is still perceptive. After all, she figures out that Mr. Rochester and Jane are planning to get married, as seen in her tearing apart the wedding veil. Perhaps Bertha is trying to warn Jane, and tell her not to marry Mr. Rochester? Taking this into account, we are led to sympathize with Bertha because we really don’t know her side of the story.

Nevertheless, Bertha’s character is important because she seems to be a representation of the “other,” as she is not fully English. Here, she is represented as coarse, lustful, and unrestrained. After all, her vampiric appearance suggests that she is sucking the blood – aka life – away from the “innocent” Mr. Rochester. In other words, she is a complete opposite of the polite, educated, and restrained Victorian woman. Perhaps she has been brought to England because she is in need of British enlightenment?

Bertha’s character poses another interesting question, however. In terms of Jane’s story, Bertha is a mad, unrestrained “monster,” living in the confines of a secure, domestic home. Now apply this to an even greater scale: what if these monsters are actually running around England? Even worse, what if these “others” are hiding in the streets of London? In this sense, Bertha represents both the British fears of foreigners and the unrestrained, lustful woman.

In Peter Brooks’ article “Reading the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative,” he argues “our lives are ceaselessly intertwined with narrative, with the stories that we tell and hear told… We live immersed in narrative, recounting and reassessing the meaning of our past actions…” (Brooks, 3).

In Henry James’ novella, Daisy Miller, narration plays an important role. Whereas in A Tale of Two Cities, the story is told by an all-knowing third-person narrator, in Daisy Miller, the story is told in third-person (objective), with bits and pieces of first-person narration. However, what I am really interested in are those moments of first-person perspective. Let’s take a look.

In the second paragraph of the novella, readers hear from, presumably, the narrator: “I hardly know whether it was the analogies or the differences that were uppermost in the mind of a young American, who, two or three years ago, sat in the garden of the ‘Trois Couronnes,’ looking about him, rather idly, at some of the graceful objects I have mentioned” (James, 4).

In this paragraph, we hear from a first-person narrator (perhaps Winterbourne or maybe not, as this passage seems to indicate that it is someone else) who speaks very casually, relaying the story of an event that took place years prior. However, something in the tone of the narrator’s voice suggests that we are not hearing this story as fact, but, rather, as hear-say that was picked up on the street. For instance, he is swift to point out that he “hardly [knows],” and that this event could have occurred “two or three years ago,” although no exact time is given. Much like the rest of the novel, the second paragraph helps to set an ambiguous tone. Should we believe what we are about to hear?

As a result, the novella is marked by subjectivity. Even though the story seems to focus on Daisy, we hardly know anything about the narrator, who is just as much involved in the course of events as Daisy (or so it seems). Therefore, is it safe to say that we can trust his/her judgement? After all, we never really hear about Daisy from anyone else – we only hear about her through the details that the narrator relates.

This begs the question, why did Henry James choose to write his story in such an ambiguous manner? Why not tell the story the same way that Charles Dickens chose to in A Tale of Two Cities (third-person omniscient)? When you take into account a common theme from the book – that is, the concept of Americans abroad – it becomes more apparent why James chose a third-person method of storytelling that is not all-knowing. By writing from the perspective of an observer (which is what it seems), he is trying to show the incompatibility of American values and British tradition (an American living in Europe).

Winterbourne may be an American, but he has lived most of his life in Switzerland, so one could argue that his actions and mentality have been “Europeanized.” Therefore, I will treat him as though he is European. From the beginning, Daisy’s attitude is considered wrong in the eyes of others, as her mannerisms conflict with the morals of European culture. For instance, Mrs. Costello, Winterbourne’s aunt, exclaims that Daisy Miller is a “dreadful girl” because she agrees to go on a trip with Winterbourne after only knowing him for half an hour (James, 19). Meanwhile, in chapter 4 at St. Peters, “a dozen of the American colonists in Rome came to talk to Mrs. Costello…” telling her that “poor little Miss Miller’s going really too far” (James, 54) because of her relationship with Mr. Giovanelli. Even these Americans have begun to understood the nature of European culture.

In these two scenes – of which others exist – Daisy is put into an unfavorable light, and much of that is achieved through the narration: that is, characters engaging in gossip about Daisy. However, what makes this interesting is that we really know nothing about any of the characters in which we are dealing. Therefore, it is difficult to accept any of these characters’ accounts as truth. Even more interesting, we do not really know if any of these characters are saying anything negative about Daisy – this is just what the narrator is saying. Nevertheless, maybe James wrote his story in this way to prove the stereotype surrounding Europeans’ views on Americans abroad – to show how Europeans feel about American traveling from the progressive New World to the proper, old-fashioned Old World?

In all, I think James is pointing at something important through his narration – something that we can apply to our lives today. While it may appear normal to take someone else’s word about another person, it is important to question how information is shared, and also the ways in which we process that same information. Because if we do not, we merely become engaged in the gossip ourselves, much like the characters are in Daisy Miller (or at least that’s what the narrator says).