"Indirectness" in theme and structure

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to focus on for this blog. My first idea involved looking at the marginal figures in the text: in particular, the army of voiceless servants and menials without whose ministrations one would hardly have the time to “[snuggle] comfortably beneath the eiderdown” (XXIV). The Pontelliers – together with their social circle – live, as do most of us, in an environment which is climate-controlled. (Or does the climate control them?)

Then I thought I ought to inject some bloodless formalism into our discourse.

And then I thought we might use formal inquiry as a bridge to the thematic. Let’s try this last option.

I want to look at the places where our narrator adopts an indirect rather than a direct reporting of dialogue. 

Here’s what I mean.

Direct: “When is he going?” she asked of everyone in general.

Indirect: Madame Ratignolle hoped that Robert would exercise extreme caution in dealing with the Mexicans, who, she considered, were a treacherous people, unscrupulous and revengeful.

We’ve read so many novels that most of us probably hardly ever register the distinction consciously: a “skillful” narrator will often interweave the two so that “lulls” in the conversation – or dialogues that, for whatever reason, would be too long or tedious in the reporting – are condensed into little bridges that lead to the next bit of directly reported speech. Paying attention to the proportions of direct and indirect speech can help us get a clearer idea of the text’s thematic or narrative emphases. We can also think about which characters regularly receive “indirect” rather than “direct” treatment. (Or which get no speech at all.) These observations can lead to conclusions that have to do purely with narratology (the nuts and bolts of how a story is structured); or we can ask whether the text thematizes its own inclusions and omissions.

To make my meaning clearer, I’ll provide a kind of “dialogue map” for the beginning of chapter XV. Edna has just entered a dining room. I=indirect, D=direct. Speakers in parentheses, addressees in parentheses in parentheses. Subject of speech outside parentheses. Actions capitalized.

DIALOGUE MAP:

I (several persons, Victor’s voice predominating(no particular addressee)): No subject reported.

EDNA SITS AT TABLE

I (several persons(Edna)): Robert’s going to Mexico.

EDNA LOOKS AT ROBERT

D (Edna(everybody in general)): "When is he going?"

D (unspecified speakers(Edna)): "To-night!" "This very evening!" "Did you ever!" "What possesses him!"

D (Edna(unspecified)): "Impossible!... How can a person start off from Grand Isle to Mexico at a moment's notice, as if he were going over to Klein's or to the wharf or down to the beach?"

D (Robert(unspecified)): "I said all along I was going to Mexico; I've been saying so for years!"

MADAME LEBRUN KNOCKS ON TABLE WITH KNIFE HANDLE

D (Madame Lebrun(everybody)): "Please let Robert explain why he is going, and why he is going to-night…Really, this table is getting to be more and more like Bedlam every day, with everybody talking at once. Sometimes—I hope God will forgive me—but positively, sometimes I wish Victor would lose the power of speech."

I (Victor(mother)): Victor laughed sardonically as he thanked his mother for her holy wish, of which he failed to see the benefit to anybody, except that it might afford her a more ample opportunity and license to talk herself.

One could go on. But from the short passage I’ve examined, one can make a few observations. The scene opens with animated conversation on an unspecified topic. Something is clearly afoot, though we, as readers, don’t yet know what it is. We, like Edna, are in the position of a person who has just entered a noisy room and for whom no single thread of conversation is yet distinct. We then learn, along with Edna, that Robert will be going to Mexico. But this very important piece of information is not attributed to a particular speaker. The most important thing about the “source” of this information is, in Edna’s mind, that the source is NOT Robert: Edna learns this personally affecting piece of info from an indiscriminate social chorus.

In the bit that I’ve transcribed, all of Edna’s dialogue is direct, and all of Victor’s is indirect. This trend continues throughout the rest of the scene at the dinner table, despite Victor’s apparent “predominance” in the conversation. Most of Victor’s effusions are only tangentially related to the subject that is of most concern to Edna: Robert’s departure. Through the use of indirect discourse, Victor provides us with the “background chatter” of a lively dinner table even as he is prevented from usurping the narrative focus.

I’ll end with three questions about “choral characters”: that is, characters who, like Victor at the dinner table, fill in the background: characters whose speech is mostly indirect. I want to know if this “indirectness” has thematic as well as structural meaning.

What is the role played by the isle’s ever-present lovers? The lovers “speak in whispers of matters which they rightly considered were interesting to no one but themselves.” Couldn’t we extend the narrator’s judgment to cover Edna and Robert as well?

 What about Edna’s quadroon servant? Has she been given a single line of direct (or indirect?) dialogue thus far? Does her constant but “silent” attendance shed any light on Edna’s narrative? Allow us to think about her plot in a different way?

The same questions can be applied to the ever-present “lady in black.”