Appearance vs. Reality

     The two women, Kitty and Jenny patiently await the return of their soldier, Chris. However, these women’s hopefulness is shattered by the visit of Mrs. Grey whose lowly appearance makes them doubt the honesty of her announcement of Chris’ sudden illness. Kitty’s anticipated delight in Chris’ return is devastated by his amnesia, causing him to forget she is his wife and to remember his former love Margaret Allington. What makes Kitty’s situation worse is the fact that the destitute messenger, Mrs. Grey is revealed to be the beloved girl from Chris’ past. Instead of happiness, Kitty is met with misery when her husband comes home and treats her as if he has never met her. 

     I would like to discuss the settings in which the story takes place. The home at Baldry Court is beautifully kept by Kitty and Jenny, so that upon Chris’ return, he may find solace and relief from the pains of war. Jenny explains in the grandeur of her surroundings, “That day its beauty was an affront to me...” (5) because she and Kitty faced the harsh reality, like many women in England during the war, that their spouses, fathers, brothers, and cousins were abroad and confronting dangerous circumstances. 

     Similarly, the place described by Chris in his recollection of memories with Margaret is very dreamlike and beautiful while the reality is pessimistic and Margaret, the girl he once loved, is now the aptly named and lackluster Mrs. Grey.

1. How does the juxtaposition of the fantasy-like descriptions to the desolate and threatening conditions of war affect the overall understanding of the setting and time of this novel?

     Kitty and Jenny are not convinced by Mrs. Grey’s news of Chris’ shell shock; much of their reason behind this is based on her poor appearance, making them believe she is simply a beggar looking for a handout. There is a clear divide between class in this scene. Yet, it is ironic that the woman who is degraded so much by Kitty is the same girl that Chris was one enamored by. 

2. By comparing and contrasting Kitty and Margaret, what do you think the author strives to show us? Is the appearance a reality or is it just an illusion?

     I find it interesting that Jenny is the narrator of this story rather than the usual, unnamed, omniscient narrator. She is a part of the story because Chris is her cousin and Kitty is her friend, so she must struggle through the pain of reacquainting Chris with his present state of life. Therefore, she is greatly entwined with Chris’ recovery, making our usually objective narrator a subjective character and a key aspect to the novel’s progression.

3. What did the author, Rebecca West intend by choosing to have Jenny narrate the happenings of the novel?

Heart of Darkness

The final section of Proud Man begins with a rather grim tone, to say the least, as it involves a deeply troubled and traumatized individual, Gilbert Hassall. This man has spent a great deal of time in dark places, but after his encounter with the Person, he begins to spend time more frequently in lighter and brighter places. This section has an interesting stance on locale, or place, that I would like to parse out, as I find it to be an important element to this section in particular.


First and foremost, the dichotomy of light and darkness, along with similar opposites, is seen in full here. Gilbert often indicates that he wants to relish in the sunshine; he wishes to be in bright places where he can read classical literature with enthusiasm and feeling (293). Despite his inner desire to be in these cheerful places, where "young" Gilbert was once happy and good, Gilbert has not been able to escape the tendrils of dark places. He refuses to enter or even to look into his mother's room for a number of days, as the dark tree obscures all light from entering. Even after Gilbert removed the tree, and entered the room, he becomes very cold, and wishes to be in the company of the Person (311). Curiously, Gilbert has no difficulty being alone, but not in a cold place like the moon (262-263). Even in his dreams, Gilbert is prone to be exposed to the horrors of his childhood.


I am drawing attention to these specific events for this reason: Gilbert has obviously lived a hard life, having grown up in a broken family. It is especially in childhood when one is most vulnerable to be damaged by traumatic events, and Gilbert certainly had his share of them. As the Person helps him to realize, Gilbert does not fear the darkness simply because it is dark, but because of who might be lurking inside it. It is in his mother's dark room that he observes one of her terrifying "fits", and thus, it is in places of darkness where his painful memory is attached. The Person examines this woman in his earlier dreams, where she has a fluid and terrifying face. It appears that moments of strong feeling and emotion, be they pleasant or horrible, often remain in the place of origin; when Gilbert cuts the throats of innocent little girls, he buries the bodies in their respective places, one of which happens to be a watery pit near a wood, not unlike the bog or swamp that appears in his dreams (271). On the other hand, the locations that Gilbert deeply wishes to be in are appropriate, based on the feelings he derives from what happens there. He finds delight and relief in an orchard near his house, where he connects with Elsie and her kitten. These beautiful places can also be traced in Gilbert's dreams, where he finds himself on the sunny side of a river.


Based on these observations, I will put forth a few questions that will hopefully lead to some healthy discussion.


     -Using Gilbert's fascination for the classics, I am able to distinguish between his dark times in Tartarus and his light times in the Elysian Fields. Are there other instances in Proud Man where location drastically changes or somehow affects the characters in the story? If so, what places can you cite and how do they relate to the main figures?


     -All three individuals of the story (Andrew, Leonora, and Gilbert) all describe the Person in the same way: as cold, devoid of all feeling, or like a stone, motionless and still. Are these descriptions of the 'human', as opposed to the 'subhuman', in any way, enlightening to you? If you met such a Person in this life, would his/her countenance give you the same impression?


     -What do you make of Proud Man's ending? Based on the Person's "analysis" of the dream, did the Person reach a satisfying "conclusion" in his/her "experiment"? It should be noted that the Person himself/herself is in a state of confusion for some time after the dream ended, and even notes that it remains a possibility, albeit a remote one, that the subhuman was indeed the ancestor of the human.

Gilbert, Humbert, and Verona OH MY!

Before I get into the meat of my post I really wish to make a comparison between Gilbert Hassall and Humbert Humbert. These two characters, though their obsessions with young girls are completely different and their texts are obviously different, they have surprisingly similar thoughts on young girls. They both love the innocents of young girls and they both hate the way a girl becomes contorted by the evils of adulthood. Of course for Humbert this love accumulates into a sexual urge, while Gilbert's urge, though he thinks it sexual, accumulates into homicide. There are even more similarities in the characters as they are both literature scholars with impeccable mental capability and their incapability to truly reason through their attraction to their crime. Both characters also have a history of mental instability that they try to ignore and avoid treatment for.

The thing I wish to focus mostly on is the lack of gender complications in relation to the Person in this section of the text. In the previous sections of the book there was always a complication between Verona and their subhuman friend due to Verona's put-on gender. With Andrew the complication came when he fell in love with the "female" Verona, but that love was not reciprocated. This could be seen as not being a gender related issue due to Andrew's knowledge that the Person was in fact genderless, but it becomes a gender problem because Andrew had already associated Verona as a woman and was inclined to think if them as such, even though a strange woman Verona made. With Leonora there was attraction to Verona's gender first and the rest of the Person later. If Verona had been masked as a man there would have been no interaction between the two of them that could have lead to a friendship due to Leonora's issues with gender. For Gilbert, it isn't until after Verona engages with him and Gilbert has agreed to sit with Verona that we discover his aversion to women. Gilbert doesn't even look at Verona until he's already been drug in by the other's personality.

After Gilbert discovers Verona is not actually human, which is pretty quick into their interactions, there is no question of "his" gender. It never comes up. Gilbert's aversion to women is the meat and potatoes of the chapter, but Verona's gender is never questioned. Gilbert even mentions how his house keeper thinks that they're homosexuals, but Verona never mentions gender. This feels like such an unusual chapter because of this.

Questions:

Do you think that the lack of focus on the gender of Verona changes the feel of this chapter?

Do you think that Gilbert has actually changed due to Verona's interference or that he just merely gives up in the end?

Do you think that Verona's gender would have changed how Gilbert and the Person interacted initially?

Men are from Mars, Women from Venus, and Persons are from the future

So for my post this week I am sort of thinking about some of the things that we brought up in class during the last session, especially in regards to the ideas of masculinity and femininity, as well as male and female, that continue to be brought up within the text and I apologize now for the rambling that is about to take place as I try to get my thoughts out.

In class we started to touch on the feminine and the masculine, or rather gender, as being separate from sex, the male or the female, or the biological differences that exist. In the eyes of the Person, and in the theory that is seemingly posited by the text, gender or rather masculinity and femininity, seems to have arisen as a result of the biological differences, and the inferiority felt by men as they are not the ones that are able to produce life, and in the early section of the text, the Person states that as a result of this men placed themselves in a position of superiority becoming the dominants within society, “males in the beginning had every reason to seize power, while the females, deeply content with their biological importance, had none” (28). Leonora describes these as being artificial differences between the two sexes, that have been created and are therefore hindering a true development that could occur between men and women.

I also found the section in which Leonora and the Person discuss love and finding love, as well as its shift into talking about art to be fairly interesting as well. Leonora gives, what seems to me, a fairly modern version of love, if you can call it modern, but more in the sense that it seems to be an idealized version of love that she has separated from the elements of masculinity and femininity, where the expectations are not on them to act “masculine or feminine”, which is interesting to think about in today’s world as to whether or not this has been truly achieved even in our time, (of course this is in thinking as a subhuman rather than as a person within the text, in which these things do not matter). However, the move into the discussion of art or work struck me as to the tasks that men and women were assigned by Leonora, “Men would be the inspirers, the initiators, the inventors, women would be the interpreters, the adapters, the moulders, the ones who carry out” (177). The Person then goes on to respond that this is then different from how it works now in regards to art, where women are the inspiration for men and then uses the term fertilizes in regards to women, who have been the inspiration for men, as she says, across generations. Men here take on a feminine role, being the ones who have been fertilized rather than the ones fertilizing and Leonora complains that this is not natural and therefore should be different, which ties it back into the idea of sex rather than gender, as in her eyes women should always hold the responsibility of being the ones fertilized rather than the other way around.

However, back to the idea of reading the two chapters of the text differently, I feel that it is these ideas that have influenced the reading and that despite Leonora’s opposition to masculinity and femininity, it is not yet something that has been drained from culture as she wants it to be, because although she is not feminine in some aspects she is still in others as a part of what subhuman society dictates, as is Andrew when it comes to the masculine.

Discussion Questions:

1. These ideas being raised by Leonora certainly seem to come from an early feminist perspective, as they wish for a sort of equality between men and women, as she wants her and her husband to work together as a “unit”. However there is the question as to whether or not this equality can be achieved as she sees it, and do we see it as being possible, as both the subhumans we are living in a more modern world, or as fellow Persons, as Alethea suggests we must then be devoid of the idea of importance? And is importance something we can rid humanity of? This seems to be one of many of the big questions and whatnot that the text is asking rhetorically.

2. I think it is interesting the ideas that both Leonora and Alethea put forth on the production of art in subhuman society or rather the roles that she feels that men and women would take on in her more idealized world where men and women can live and work together, and I was wondering what do you think of the roles that she gives to each? Do any in your mind seem to fit with either sex, or is that idea just a product of thinking in relation to gender? Why are men still the inventors, and women become interpreters? Why then are there still distinctions between what each can or should do? (Also as a side note it was really strange to see Alethea's wording and think of the idea of Helen of Troy as a fertilizer to many men across generations rather than just a muse or an inspiration. But it showed that even things such as these that one does not normally think of are still influenced by gender codes.)

3. For my last question, I found it weird that after all of this discussion that takes place, that Leonora then goes on to marry James Grey. How then do you take it that she sacrifices her own ideals and beliefs for love? Did you expect her to not marry him? Does it change anything about her character that she did? 

Fatal Attraction

     In Part III of Burdekin's Proud Man, we are able to see Verona/Alethea's second major interaction with a character; her encounter with Leonora offers an alternative worldview than that of Andrew. Even though Verona still maintains the "cold" but "gentle" personality, the reader is able to draw more insights from her way of thinking, her own "island", and her apparent inability to feel any emotion at all. I will try to advance the class dialogue using some of the observations I have made, and hopefully they will be useful ones.


     We learn that Leonora has had a difficult past, having lost a daughter, Cordy. She has also struggled with having a book published, which has eroded her self-confidence as a writer (181). This pains her tremendously upon reflection, but at other times, Leonora is very cheerful and content when she is with Alethea. Interestingly, Leonora is described as two people in one (173), and this arrangement of two is seen elsewhere in the chapter, particularly of both men and women. Leonora makes clear to Verona that maleness and femaleness are themselves opposites, but they are NOT synonymous with masculinity and femininity. The latter two seem to be more outward projections, like one 'Leonora', while the former two seem to be more inward, like the other 'Leonora'.


     At a social scene, Verona is also the center of attention, particularly toward the male figures. Her two encounters with Fernie and Mitchell are uncomfortable for both men, but Verona has a curious tendency to act as a sort of mirror. This is especially seen in the case of Philip Mitchell, who, acting initially as the dominant figure, leaves the party bewildered and frightened (206-7). Ironically, the Proud Man has lost his pride from one encounter with Verona. All of his fame, power and prestige cannot save him from realizing that he is very fragile; he seems to have been too confident in his prowess as an artist, and discovers that perhaps all his pursuits have been in vain.


     Using some of the above information, I will try to put forth a few thought-provoking questions...


1] Verona seems to bring out the weakest or most vulnerable aspects of everyone she meets. Apparently, her cold, almost Spock-like personality is impervious to the entire spectrum of human emotion, leaving others feeling afraid, both of Verona and of their own shortcomings. Is it "human" (or in this case, subhuman) for us, as human beings, to feel natural emotions like love, anger, sorrow, fear, and countless others? Or, does being human imply only a logical, or somehow more rational approach to life, as Verona shows?


2] What, in your own words, does it mean to be "male" or "female"? What does it mean to be "masculine" or "feminine"? This question is raised frequently throughout the book, but perhaps only Verona knows the answer for sure. Are we, as either males or females, capable of understanding the opposite sex's viewpoints entirely? In other words, do you agree more with Leonora, who claims that one sex may understand how other members of that sex think, but not how the opposite sex thinks? (174) Or, do you side more with Verona/Alethea, who maintains that both male and female are at fault when it comes to understanding one another? (212)


3] In the same page number just mentioned above (212), Alethea also makes mention of "getting over the importance idea". What does this mean? Being a man is, for the male, both the source of his greatest pride and his greatest unhappiness, according to Alethea. Do you agree?


-Brandon Gerlinger

Jealous Much?

So many insightful ideas were expressed in the first chapter of Katherine Burdekin's Proud Man. For starters, the idea of having a gender neutral narrator from the future that interacts with their possible ancestors, the subhumans, in a dream really perplexed me at first. However, as I began to look over the reading, I began to understand the importance of it, being that the narrator would be able to understand to lifestyle of both sexes a lot better. This, therefore, makes me trust the narrator more when he or she begins to talk about topics such as war, sexism, and the jealousy that comes from it. However, I still had issues in agreeing with what the narrator was saying. One of the things that grabbed my attention was when the narrator stated that men where jealous of women's biological importance when it came to making children (thus making them feel inferior and envious) and both genders cannot live together in peace since they hate and fear each other but at the same cannot live without the other due to having strong animal desires, which is sex. This claim regarding men and women not being able to live in peace because of their loathing one another seemed too extreme for me and can't seem to understand the reason for making that claim. Another thing along the lines of this that I had difficulty comprehending was the claim that war was the best method for relieving "...restlessness caused by the unnatural misery of their sex lives" (26). This struggle of inferiority that is expressed both between the males and females then leads to the dramatic ending of the chapter, where the narrator expresses the temptation to say that subhumans spend most of their time "In hating." (62). Perhaps since I see myself as a hopeful and optimistic person I was not able to digest the negativity and the lacking of a solution towards the problems mentioned throughout the chapter.

Some of the questions that I had throughout the reading include:
1.) What do you all think of the opinion regarding the struggle of men and women living peacefully? Has there been any kind of significant change that can argue against this or are we still dealing with the same issues today?

2.) What kind of significance do you see in having the narrator interact with the subhumans in a dream? Based on our discussions in class about having one's dreams differed, does this text seem to carry the similar idea of reaching towards something that can't be reached?

3.) Do you agree with the idea that art, religion, and war are the best methods in escaping the jealousy and tension between men and women?

Subhuman Circumstances?

       The first chapter of Proud Man was heavy for it gave great detail of the troubles conflicting England in the 1930’s. “The Person” is narrated by a hermaphrodite, The Genuine Person, visiting or dreaming of England’s past. There they (I guess that’s a proper pronoun for a hermaphrodite) describes the prevalent classism, racism, and sexism of the time. The critical focus is the inequality of men and women based on chauvinistic practices and the apparent, blind religious devotion of the subhuman characters.

The narrator explains that males invented their dominating power when they became conscious of their lesser part in sexual reproduction, because of “...a deep rooted jealousy of the female’s greater biological importance” (24). If men and women are equals, why does the author attempt to make the reality of women better/dominating to men? Is this her attempt?

Being a religious person, I was struck by the controversial notions raised by Burdekin and found it hard to reconcile her words with my understanding of Christianity and Catholicism. It made this a complicated read for me to say the least. I am not sure if anyone else felt this way, but we are at a Jesuit, Catholic university, after all, so I thought I would ask, how this chapter, based on your religious or non-religious/philosophical outlook, struck you? I’m hoping someone might help me contend with this work in a more agreeable way!

The men and women of England are referred to as subhuman to signal their state of half-consciousness. The Genuine Person also points out the intellectual and rational gap between the subhumans of the past and of the humans who are contemporaries of them (again, the hermaphroditic pronoun).

We discussed the difference and meanings of what it is to act like a human as opposed to an animal concerning the blurred human and inhuman behavior of Yank in the Hairy Ape. We often hear about the great intelligence of animals as equal to that of young children, for example, the chimp’s ability to make tools, a faculty that was thought to be exclusively human. In Proud Man, the Genuine Person considers these subhumans to be worse than animals. They also explain that, “One of the major differences between subhumans and human beings, besides the difference between a half-conscious being with a split mind, and a fully conscious being with a whole mind, and perhaps arising out of that difference, is caused by the subhuman idea of privilege” (17). Clearly, our narrator sees nothing special about human beings and that the subhumans were sorely mistaken to believe in their privilege. This leads me to ask, what do you believe differentiates human beings from animals?

Tinkin' is hard

The Russian formalist Viktor Shlovsky writes that “the technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’”: through strategic “roughening” of language or distortion of forms, the artist creates an object that forces us to confront it afresh: we are removed from the “automatism” of perception that dominates our daily lives.

Shkovsky’s distrust of automation, like O’Neill’s, is partly a response to historical realities.  On the assembly line, men almost literally become “cogs in a machine.” The progressive dream would have these cogs “wake up” and “bust trou” the cages that gird them. But if The Hairy Ape is an evocative record of what can happen when one of those “cogs” struggles to self-consciousness, which one of us might not, if even for a cowardly instant, prefer a state of blissful nescience? “Drink, don’t think”: sound advice, if ignoble? “Tinkin’ and dreamin’, what’ll that get yuh?” By the end of O’Neill’s play, what indeed? What if the “defamiliarized” object remains permanently estranged? 

“Wandering between two worlds, one dead / The other powerless to be born, / With nowhere yet to rest my head, / With these, on earth, I wait forlorn”: one waits, alongside Paddy, as an anachronistic token of discarded meanings: or stumbles, alongside Yank, toward a violent defeat. Many people – according to Yank, the hairy ape itself – can draw upon alternative communities past or to come as a source of solace in an otherwise unlivable present (the past inflection we call a golden age, the future a utopia). But Yank “ain’t got no past to tink in, nor nothin’ dat’s comin’, on’y what’s now – and dat don’t belong.” Paddy’s golden age is the “right dope”: Yank “[gets] it aw right,” but he can’t “get in it.” Yank can’t “get in” Long’s worker’s utopia, either. This distinction between “getting it” and “getting in it” ought to serve as a discouragement (or challenge?) to self-help gurus everywhere: one might very well see the promised land and yet be incapable of entering it. A person can truly measure the worth of an ideal without being able to participate in it. A golden age – or utopia – so perceived only exacerbates the perceiver’s anguish. “Tinkin’ is hard”: “Tis only thinking / Lays lads underground.” Why bother?

Is this a purely cynical play? Should we join the chorus and blow a raspberry at a list of powerless pieties that includes self-reflection itself? Here’s a list of terms that gain a “brazen metallic quality” as though they’d been passed through a “phonograph horn” (that is, a list of consoling abstractions “made strange,” somehow, inhuman: incapable of solving a dilemma): think; love; law; government; God. From the prisoners in Scene VII, the “glorious Constitution of these United States” draws “a perfect storm of hisses, catcalls, boos, and hard laughter.” Democracy’s given “the boid.” 

If, as one critic claims, Yank himself is an “Everyman made strange,” then his choral compatriots, be they shipmates or jailmates, merge into an ominous presence that speaks almost entirely in mockeries. Perhaps it’s this “tone of mockery” itself that incites the ape’s rage and brings about Yank’s death. Even with crushed ribs, Yank is alienated enough turn his own situation into the “comedy” promised by the play’s subtitle: he jokes about kisses and about Zybszko; he stands apart from himself and displays his own crushed body to us, the audience, as if he were  a carnival barker. Yank’s final gesture is an impersonation that mocks itself: the self is an object become permanently estranged. Are we, as an audience, supposed to have woken up from something?