Читать книгу Side-Stepping Normativity in Selected Short Stories by Sylvia Townsend Warner - Rebecca K. Hahn - Страница 9

To Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “paranoid readings” are driven by the desire to expose “truths”, dominant ideologies and hegemonic structures in texts and other cultural phenomena. She writes, “[…] paranoia is characterized by placing, in practice, an extraordinary stress on the efficacy of knowledge per se – knowledge in the form of exposure” (Sedgwick, Touching Feeling 138). In her essay “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Essay is About You” (1997, revised and reprinted in Touching Feeling 2003), an essay “[…] in which she diagnoses current research in the humanities with a pathological need to find ‘meaning’ in everything, and make knowledge explicit”, Sedgwick discusses “paranoid readings” and considers “reparative” ways of engaging with texts (Bauer 40). In this context, she highlights the parallels between paranoid readings and what Ricoeur terms the “hermeneutics of suspicion”, an approach favoured by Marx, Nietzsche and Freud which is marked by a strong distrust of given structures. Sedgwick suggests that little benefit can be gained by repeatedly querying how a text and other cultural, political, and historical phenomena address, for example, hidden homoerotic desires, criticise capitalism, or question other norm-enforcing structures. She maintains that it is much more beneficial to concentrate on the intricacies of a text and allow for surprises than to paranoically search for systemic oppression. The authors of the special issue of Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, entitled Queer Theory without Antinormativity (May 2015), discuss similar questions. Like Sedgwick, the authors – prominent queer theorists such as Annemarie Jagose, Robyn Wiegman and Heather Love – address the question how readers can approach texts from a non-antagonistic position. They do not distinguish between “paranoid” and “reparative” readings, but between oppositional and non-oppositional ways of addressing a text or an event. This discourse on non-dualistic thought, analysis and action reveals a strong desire to abandon former ways of thinking. My hypothesis is that, on a narratological level, Warner’s short stories do exactly what Sedgwick and the authors of Queer Theory without Antinormativity set out to show on an analytical level.

Nonnormative, that is, deviant, marginalised, non-heterosexual behaviours, desires and structures have traditionally been a topic of exploration for queer studies. In an attempt to sum up the objectives of queer studies, Donald E. Hall and Annamarie Jagose state,

Queer studies’ commitment to non-normativity and anti-identitarianism, coupled with its refusal to define its proper field of operation in relation to any fixed content, means that, while prominently organized around sexuality, it is potentially attentive to any socially consequential differences that contribute to regimes of sexual normalization. (xvi)

Hall and Jagose emphasise that queer studies seek to question and debunk modes of normalisation, particularly those related to sexuality, and choose to identify normalisation and normativity as the starting point for most of the research conducted in queer studies. In the special issue of Differences, Jagose, Wiegman and Love et al. discuss the possibility of queer theory without antinormativity and question why queer studies are so automatically linked to antinormativity. In their introduction, the editors Wiegman and Elizabeth A. Wilson ask “[C]an queer theorizing proceed without a primary commitment to antinormativity?” (1). They question whether it is possible to do queer studies without a constant focus on normativity (i.e. the rules and regulations that determine the so-called norm), normalisation, and, in addition to Hall and Jagose’s list, normalcy (the state of being “normal”). Wiegman and Wilson do not claim that queer studies should ignore focusing on norms and regulations, rather they seek to explore whether it is possible to do queer research without encountering norms and regulations on oppositional terms (“anti-normativity”). Wiegman and Wilson argue that by insisting on the belief that antinormative criticism is the only way to dismantle norms and normativity, queer theory creates a duality that it, in effect, is attempting to eliminate.

The introduction of Queer Theory without Antinormativity in particular, but also the journal in general, has met with harsh criticism. Jack Halberstam, for example, maintains that the editors create their own, simplified version of queer theory, which is mainly characterised by its opposition to existing norms (see “Straight Eye”).6 On this point, I would agree with Halberstam who contests the fact that all queer theorists follow a notion of antinormativity characterised by a simple stance against normativity – see, for example, Sedgwick’s work on non-dualistic thought in the introduction to Touching Feeling. Rather than insisting on antinormativity, which entails being against any form of normativity, I would argue that queer critique creates spaces in which normativity is tested, debated and toyed with – spaces in which nonnormative modes, in all their diversity, can be explored.

My understanding of the term “queer” builds on Halberstam’s and Lisa Duggan’s definition of “queer”. Halberstam does not employ the term “queer” to merely refer to sexual identities but to a way of life that defies the norm, to “eccentric modes of being” (Queer Time and Place 1). Halberstam states, “If we try to think about queerness as an outcome of strange temporalities, imaginative life schedules, and eccentric economic practices, we detach queerness from sexual identity […]” (1). To me, the temporal and the uneconomical aspect of Halberstam’s definition is particularly important. In his writing, Halberstam does not exclude sexual orientation, but refrains from making it the focal point of his work. Duggan breaks the term “queer” down into three different categories – which, as she maintains, can exist simultaneously.

(1) Identity, or queer as a synonym for LGBT populations; (2) Practice, or queer as a broad umbrella term for dissenting sexual practices and gender expressions, and (3) Politics, or queer as a designation similar to feminist that appears quite independently of an advocate’s identity or sexual/gender practices. (Duggan)

Duggan describes how the term “queer” can be applied to different contexts – identity, practice, and politics. I find Duggan’s approach useful since she, in contrast to Halberstam, explicitly refers to queer as a “broad umbrella term for dissenting sexual practices and gender expressions”. This aspect of queer is particularly relevant for the first three chapters which revolve around nonnormative sexual desire. Accordingly, the term “queer” will henceforward be used to refer to nonnormative temporalities and desires.

Based on my understanding of queer, the stories selected for analysis have been grouped into different headings to reflect different forms of queerness. Chapter 2, “Homoerotic Desires” takes a closer look at the stories “The Shirt in Mexico” (1941), “Bruno” (1971) and “The Green Torso” (1970) to discuss how Warner deals with homoerotic affairs. Chapter 3, “Cross-Species Relationships”, analyses the “Introduction” to The Cat’s Cradle-Book (1940), “The Traveller from the West and the Traveller from the East” (1940), as well as “The Wineshop Cat” (1942). The focus of this chapter is on representations of sexuality, power and control in cross-species encounters. Chapter 4, “Incestuous Longings” revolves around the diffuseness of incestuous relationships. It takes a closer look at “A Love Match” (1964), “A Spirit Rises” (1961) and “At a Monkey’s Breast” (1955). Chapter 5, “Avenues of Escape”, depicts how Warner’s heroes and heroines find unusual ways of escaping interpellations, as seen in the short stories “But at the Stroke of Midnight” (1970), “Trafalgar Bakery” (1955), and “An Act of Reparation” (1964). Chapter 6, “Vanishing”, examines “Boors Carousing” (1941), “A Dressmaker” (1961), and “A Work of Art” (1961) to consider how Warner enables her characters to temporarily disappear into non-existence. The last chapter, Chapter 7, takes a closer look at selected stories from Kingdoms of Elfin (1977). It contains an analysis of the elfin world with reference to Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of the friend/foe dichotomy outlined in Modernity and Ambivalence (1991) to illustrate why some readers may consider these stories utterly strange. Emphasis here will be placed on the elves’ behaviour and the consequences of their actions, as opposed to speculating on what the elves in the stories symbolise. Side-Stepping Normativity in Selected Stories by Sylvia Townsend Warner will conclude with a discussion of the different analyses and examine the techniques employed by Warner in her writing (Coda).

The introduction started with an exemplary reading of “The Children’s Grandmother” to introduce first-time Warner readers to the oddness of her fiction. It ends with a reference to Warner’s first novel Lolly Willowes or the Loving Huntsman (1926) and discusses why this novel may be termed a “foot-off-the-ground novel” to highlight the relevance of this term for my research question.

Lolly Willowes tells the story of Laura Willowes – known as “Lolly” to her family – who, in the course of the novel, gradually changes from being a dependent unmarried woman into an independent witch. Following strict patriarchal structures, Laura’s family takes the decision that Laura must leave her old home in the country and move to London to live with her brother and his family after her father dies. At the time, Laura does as is expected of her without question. Some twenty years later, however, at the age of 47, Laura seizes the opportunity to move away from the clutch of her family and London to a place in the country called Great Mop. Her family objects strongly to the move, but despite this Laura goes ahead with her plan. She rents a room and soon settles down in her new home. The novel, which has described fairly realistic events up until this point, gradually starts to introduce more and more fantastic elements into the story. Laura’s encounter with Satan – “the loving huntsman” and not the evil entity feared by most religious groups – causes her to become a witch, a move that eventually enables her to free herself from all the social constraints imposed upon her throughout her life.

Lolly Willowes deals with Laura’s gradual withdrawal from her family and society and the theme of female liberation. In her new environment, Laura comes to realise that she is no longer the person she once was:

She was changed, and she knew it. She was humbler, and more simple. She ceased to triumph mentally over her tyrants, and rallied herself no longer with the consciousness that she had outraged them by coming to live at Great Mop. (Warner, Lolly Willowes 152)

Laura gradually learns to leave her past behind her. Step by step, she disengages herself from her former life and gives up defining herself by her relatives and family background. She resultantly ceases to derive pleasure from speculating on her relatives’ reactions to her departure as she cuts herself off. However, Laura does not remain passive to what has been done to her and deals with her past in her own way:

There was no question of forgiving them. […] If she were to start forgiving she must needs forgive Society, the Law, the Church, the History of Europe, the Old Testament, the Bank of England, Prostitution, the Architect of Apsley Terrace [her London home], and half a dozen other useful props of civilisation. All she could do was to go on forgetting them. (152)

Instead of harbouring ill feelings towards all the institutions that confined her – emphasised here by the use of capital letters – Laura simply decides to forget about their existence. By admitting to their existence, she would have to accept the role they had cast her in and would always be tied to them. Only by forgetting them can she liberate herself from her past life. Bruce Knoll calls Laura’s reactions to society “an assertiveness that falls between the two extremes” of “feminine passivity” and “masculine aggressiveness” (344). Whereas Knoll calls the result of her behaviour “separatism”, I would argue that Laura’s behaviour cannot be regarded as a political reaction, but rather a casting off of her old life. She finds the strength to detach herself from her surroundings and, ultimately, society as a whole. Forgetting “useful props of civilisation” is not the same as consciously separating from them. If Laura had merely detached herself from these institutions, she would still have had to acknowledge their existence, thereby endowing them, and the society that produces them, with both meaning and power.

The institutions that Laura decides to forget (such as the Law and the Church to mention a random few) are firmly entrenched within society. According to Foucault’s concept of power, set out in The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality 1 (1976), institutions are powerful because society gives authority to them. Laura realises that in order to detach herself from these aspects of society, she must renounce society as a whole – an impossible task, since she herself is also a product of society. The only route that lies open to her is to detach herself from society as far as is possible. Foucault does not believe that power is imposed hierarchically from top to bottom, but considers power to work within a net-like system. Foucault states that

[o]ne needs to be nominalistic, no doubt: power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society. (WtK 93)

Foucault explains that “power must not be sought in the primary existence of a central point, in a unique source of sovereignty from which secondary and descendent forms would emanate” and that it is always and continuously maintained by society (93). Since there is no single point to attack or to separate from, forgetting about society’s existence is an efficient way of dealing with society and all its institutions. In this way, the influence society has on Laura gradually loses significance since she does not confirm its value system ex negativo. As Foucault states, with regard to power and power formations, resistance is always possible. He notes that, “Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority to power” (95, emphasis added). Foucault highlights the fact that power and resistance are coexistent and that resistance automatically becomes part of the same structure as power. Foucault shows that ultimately there is no way out since whichever side you choose, you will never be able to disassociate yourself from one or the other side completely. Therefore, instead of fighting society or showing aggressiveness or resigning and remaining passive, Laura chooses to turn her back on society. She decides that she does not want to be part of any society that operates with means she abhors. Laura knows intuitively that by fighting patriarchal systems, she will only be perpetuating them.

It is not until Laura encounters Satan and eventually becomes a witch that she feels that she is getting close to achieving her personal freedom. Throughout the novel Satan remains an enigmatic character that not even Laura can pin down. In reply to her question, “Tell me about yourself”, Satan counters, “Tell me first what you think” (LW 238, emphasis in the original). Inevitably, this question prompts Laura to start talking. She speaks out for herself and womankind when she says:

When I think of witches, I seem to see all over England, all over Europe, women living and growing old, as common as blackberries, and as unregarded. […] Well, there they were, there they are, child-rearing, house-keeping, hanging washed dishcloths on currant bushes; and for diversion each other’s silly conversation, and listening to men talking together in the way men talk and women listen. Quite different to the way women talk, and men listen, if they listen at all. […] Nothing for them except for subjection and plaiting their hair. (239–40)

Laura continues talking in this manner and Satan patiently listens to what she has to say. At a later point, he even encourages her to continue talking to structure her thoughts (cf. 244). She explains that women become witches to “escape all that – to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out […] by others” (243). Laura clearly recognises that society treats women unjustly, but does not make plans to change the situation for women by, for example, becoming politically active.

Laura eventually comes to realise that she does not fit into any of the groups of society open to her – neither in London nor in Great Mop. She therefore “[finds] herself moving even further into the indifferent, non-social company of shrubs and ditches” (Hotz-Davies and Gropper 1). Knoll finds this aspect of the novel problematic and expresses his dissatisfaction at the way Laura rejects society and gradually isolates herself from it at the end of the novel by stating, “It is not a perfect solution, in that Laura is effectively cut off from all others” (361). Knoll overlooks the fact that Laura is not cut off by society, but cuts herself off from the society towards which she has become indifferent. He does not recognise that Laura is content with her chosen lot and does not wish to join the society of any particular group. When Laura finds herself alone after Satan’s departure, she realises that the sun has gone down and that she has missed the last bus back home. Instead of feeling intimidated by the situation, Laura experiences a new sense of freedom:

First Satan, then the sun and the bus – adieu, mes gens! With affectionate unconcern she seemed to be waving them farewell, pleased to be left to herself, left to enter into this new independence acknowledged by their departure. (LW 250)

At the end of the novel Laura starts walking – and literally disappears – into the woods. This scene hints at the fact that death is possibly the only way to end the quandary of having to “keep one foot on the ground” (cf. Schabert 154).

In view of the narrative style of the novel and the behaviour of the main protagonist, Laura, Ina Schabert describes Lolly Willowes as a “foot-off-the-ground novel”. The term “foot-off-the-ground novel” was originally coined by the female protagonist, Pompey, of Stevie Smith’s Novel On Yellow Paper Or Work it Out For Yourself (1936). Referring to the novel she is writing, Pompey states,

This is a foot-off-the-ground novel that came by left hand. And the thoughts come and go and sometimes they do not quite come and I do not pursue them to embarrass them with formality to pursue them into a harsh captivity. (38)

Pompey’s novel does not follow a chronological order; it describes events, actions and people that randomly spring to the narrator’s mind. Pompey further states that the only reason why she adheres to traditional rules of writing in the structure of her novel is to make it more accessible to the reader.7 With regard to foot-off-the-ground novels, Schabert states:

Der Boden, von dem die foot-off-the-ground novels abheben, ist die allgemeine Kultur, die akzeptierte gesellschaftliche, politische, moralische und literarische Sinnstiftungspraxis. Die Autorinnen halten Abstand zu dem, was das Ihre nicht ist. Sie erzählen mit anderen als den gewohnten Prioritäten, Ordnungs- und Wertvorstellungen. Ein solches Erzählen ist in letzter Konsequenz paradox, da jede Literatur, um verständlich zu bleiben, sich der etablierten Diskurse bedienen muss. Ganz ohne diesen Boden geht es nicht; strenggenommen kann deshalb auch nur ein Fuß gehoben werden und ‘woanders’ sein. (153, emphasis in the original)

Schabert claims that it is impossible for authors to write literary works without employing established literary “tools” and referring to certain aspects of human society. For this reason, Pompey is forced to use, for example, punctuation and orthographic rules. The above quote further implies that literary works are, by necessity, connected with human systems of thought, language and knowledge since humans are unable to comprehend anything that exists outside the domains of these systems. In Lolly Willowes this point of view is reflected by the actions of the protagonist. The protagonist, Laura, demonstrates how impossible it is to live outside the boundaries of the human world, that is, outside what Lacan terms the symbolic order (cf. also Hotz-Davies and Gropper 1).8 Laura forms a life for herself in which society and all those “other useful props of civilisation” gradually become insignificant to her. In line with Schabert’s description of foot-off-the-ground novels, Lolly Willowes does not feature any “[h]arte Gegenüberstellung, Antagonismen, Polemik gegenüber dem allgemein Akzeptierten, lautes Verlachen” (153). Laura ultimately displays a form of indifference that enables her to cope with her surroundings through detachment. Schabert points out: “In der Regel entwickelt sich kein feindseliges Verhältnis zu [der gesellschaftlichen Welt], sondern eher Gleichgültigkeit, verbunden mit Kompromissbereitschaft” (159).

Readers will recognise that this particular mode likewise prevails in Warner’s short stories. As the following chapters will illustrate, this is one of the reasons why Warner’s fiction readily opens itself up to the form of reparative reading suggested by Sedgwick – that is, to a reader who is willing to explore the intricacies of a text, a reader who will accept that the stories sometimes shift to eccentric positions, that they open up gaps but do not close them, and that they do not always offer neat and tidy solutions. In this, they undoubtedly contain many queer moments. In the following analyses, it will become apparent that Warner has long disengaged herself from oppositional, dualistic ways of writing.