Research Challenges for Anglophone Studies in the 21st Century 8490121745, 9788490121740

Table of contents :
Research challenges for anglophone studies in the 21st century / Pedro Álvarez Mosquera … [et al.] (eds.).
Portada
Créditos
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Agradecimientos
Foreword: Challenge to the Future of Anglophone Studies
Introducción: Desafío al futuro de los Estudios Ingleses
1. Cultural Studies
The Countercultural Connection between the Beat Generation and Bob Dylan
Domestic Violence in American Drama and Film: A Preliminary Approach
Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s Translation of Hamlet
2. Linguistic Studies
Language Skills from a Communicative Approach: A Focus on ELT Textbooks
Students’ Views on the Teaching of English Pronunciation in Spain. A Survey-Based Study
Exploring the Errors Made by EFL Students at the University Level
Prosody and Deafness “Are Hearing Aids the Main Key to Deaf Children’s Acquisition of Language?”
3. Literary Studies
The Nursery Glass and the Wild Moor: The Ambivalent Vision of Nature in Theodore Roethke’s “Greenhouse Poems” and Ted Hughes’s Wodwo
A Progressively Edulcorated Vision of Masculinity in The Philadelphia Story: Play, Classical Comedy and Musical
Jeannette Armstrong and her Feminism of Decolonisation
Studying A.S. Byatt’s Fiction Is Like a Game
A Retrospective of the 50s through Postmodern Cinema: Pleasantville and The Majestic
Re-creating the Past: the Neo-Victorian Meaning in Sarah Waters’ Neo-Victorian Novels
David Richards’ The Taming of the Shrew (2005): A Shrew for the New Times

Citation preview

PEDRO ÁLVAREZ MOSQUERA, MARÍA JESÚS FERNÁNDEZ GIL, MIRIAM BORHAM PUYAL, MARÍA JOSÉ DÍEZ GARCÍA, SANTIAGO BAUTISTA MARTÍN, JAVIER RUANO GARCÍA, BLANCA GARCÍA RIAZA (Eds.)

RESEARCH CHALLENGES FOR ANGLOPHONE STUDIES IN THE 21st CENTURY

COLECCIÓN aquILafuENtE 186 © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca y los autores

1ª edición: noviembre, 2012 I.S.B.N.: 978-84-9012-174-0 Depósito legal: S. 724-2012

Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca Apartado postal 325 E-37080 Salamanca (España) Realizado por: Trafotex Fotocomposición, S. L. Tel. 923 22 81 03 37005 Salamanca (España)

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Todos los derechos reservados. Ni la totalidad ni parte de este libro puede reproducirse ni transmitirse sin permiso escrito de Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca ♣ Texto (visual) : electrónico RESEARCH challenges for anglophone studies in the 21st century / Pedro Álvarez Mosquera … [et al.] (eds.).—1a. ed.—Salamanca : Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2012 1 disco óptico (CD-ROM) + 1 folleto.—(Colección Aquilafuente ; 186) Tít. tomado de la etiqueta del disco Sistema requerido: Windows 2000/XP/NT (Pentium, 128MB RAM, lector CD-ROM) ; Windows Vista (Pentium III o equivalente, 128MB RAM, lector CD-ROM) ; Apple Macintosh (Power PC G3/Intel, 128MB RAM. Sistema X) 1. Filología inglesa. I.Álvarez Mosquera, Pedro. 811.111 821.111.09

TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS FOREWORD ARTICLES 1. Cultural Studies The Countercultural Connection between the Beat Generation and Bob Dylan PEDRO GALÁN LOZANO Complutense University of Madrid ............................................................................

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Domestic Violence in American Drama and Film: A Preliminary Approach MAIKA AIRA GALLARDO University of Santiago de Compostela......................................................................... 18 Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s Translation of Hamlet MELANIA RODRÍGUEZ ROMÁN Univeristy of Valencia .............................................................................................. 26 2. Linguistic Studies Language Skills from a Communicative Approach: A Focus on ELT Textbooks VICENTE BELTRÁN-PALANQUES Jaume I University........................................................................................................ 37 Students’ Views on the Teaching of English Pronunciation in Spain. A Survey-Based Study YOLANDA JOY CALVO BENZIES University of Santiago de Compostela.......................................................................... 51 Exploring the Errors Made by EFL Students at the University Level Mª ESTHER MEDIERO DURÁN, AINHOA ROBLES BAENA Autonomous University of Madrid............................................................................... 63 Prosody and Deafness “Are Hearing Aids the Main Key to Deaf Children´s Acquisition of Language?” ALMUDENA PASCUAL IGLESIAS Complutense University of Madrid................................................................................ 75 3. Literary Studies The Nursery Glass and the Wild Moor: The Ambivalent Vision of Nature in Theodore Roethke’s “Greenhouse Poems” and Ted Hughes’s Wodwo BORJA AGUILÓ OBRADOR University of Salamanca...………................................................................................. 84 © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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A Progressively Edulcorated Vision of Masculinity in The Philadelphia Story: Play, Classical Comedy, and Musical. PATRICIA ÁLVAREZ CALDAS University of Santiago de Compostela ………............................................................. 93 Jeannette Armstrong and her Feminism of Decolonisation FÁTIMA SUSANA AMANTE University of Salamanca ……………........................................................................ 101 Studying A.S. Byatt’s Fiction Is Like a Game SORAYA HEIS RODRÍGUEZ University of Granada ................................................................................................. 113 A Retrospective of the 50s through Postmodern Cinema: Pleasantville and The Majestic SUSANA SÁNCHEZ RENIEBLAS Complutense University of Madrid ……..................................................................... 125 Re-creating the Past: the Neo-Victorian Meaning in Sarah Waters’ Neo-Victorian Novels ARIADNA SERRANO BAILÉN University of Alicante.................................................................................................. 132 David Richards’ The Taming of the Shrew (2005): A Shrew for the New Times LAURA TUPONE University of Málaga ................................................................................................... 145

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank all the people who have generously provided their time and energy to make this publication possible. We acknowledge the support of the University of Salamanca, of the Faculty of Philology, and, particularly, of the English Department. They have provided a privileged context in which to develop this challenging project. Professor Román Álvarez and Dr. Antonio López have always been more than happy to share their expertise, as well as to give us a good dose of encouragement. The contributions of the Scientific Committee are also noteworthy. We are very fortunate to count on experts belonging to a wide range of fields of study. Finally, our thanks go to all the contributors, who are willing to be a part of this project. These young researchers give meaning to ASYRAS, which from its very beginning set itself to give voice to a new generation of scholars. The editors Salamanca, September 2012

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AGRADECIMIENTOS Nos gustaría agradecer a todas las personas que generosamente han contribuido con su tiempo y energía a hacer realidad esta publicación. Hemos de reconocer el apoyo prestado por la Universidad de Salamanca, la Facultad de Filología y, en especial, el Departamento de Filología Inglesa. Sus instalaciones nos han brindado un marco incomparable en el cual desarrollar el reto que supone este proyecto. Los doctores Román Álvarez y Antonio López siempre han estado dispuestos a compartir su experiencia así como a darnos una buena dosis de ánimo. Las aportaciones del Comité Científico también son dignas de mención. Nos consideramos afortunados de contar con expertos pertenecientes a un amplio abanico de disciplinas. Por último, les debemos las gracias a los autores, que han querido participar en este proyecto. Estos jóvenes investigadores dan sentido a ASYRAS, que desde sus comienzos se propuso como objetivo dar voz a una nueva generación de académicos. Los editores Salamanca, septiembre de 2012

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FOREWORD: Challenge to the Future of Anglophone Studies Once again young researchers of Spanish universities in the field of English Studies unite their efforts to present a new volume of excellent collaborations under the title of RESEARCH CHALLENGES FOR ANGLOPHONE STUDIES IN THE 21st CENTURY. The title not only does not disappoint readers’ expectations, but also responds to the main concerns of the latest research carried out in our present academic system. This volume, following the model of previous publications, centres on the three major research areas related with English Studies that include cultural, linguistic and literary investigations. Interdisciplinary approaches to English-speaking studies remain the spinal axis of this publication. From a quantitative point of view, cultural studies take up less space. But the three articles presented here give an account of the variety of possible perspectives within this section. They cover not only the different literary genres, but they also encompass different historical periods, from the Renaissance to the present. Thus, we can mention the reception of Shakespeare adapted to the prevailing aesthetic principles of 18th century Spain; the emergence of relevant issues, such as domestic violence in the theatre and cinema of the mid-19th century; or the underlying connection between the countercultural Beat Generation and the music of Bob Dylan. All these studies explore, therefore, the relationship between cultural practices, daily life, and the historical contexts in which they take place. As usual, a great number of the contributions presented in this volume focus on the learning of English as a second language, one of the main concerns of the Spanish education system at the moment, both in the pre-university and university stages. Therefore it is reasonable that these young researchers investigate an issue that affects a large number of students in today's society. Studies range from the analysis of textbooks used in the teaching of English, in order to check if these materials correctly adopt the four basic skills (listening, speaking, speaking, writing) of the language learning process from the point of view of a communicative approach, to the relationship between prosody and the use of hearing aids by blind people or the perception that the students of English have of pronunciation. Their articles remain very close to real pedagogical problems. Literary contributions focus on authors of the 20th century, although there is also an adaptation of a Shakespearian play to present-day London, and cover all literary genres, and explore new territories of the inter-disciplinary studies, such as the relationship of literature and cinema. In general these studies focus on specific works and analyse them from a wide range of cultural, sociological and psychological perspectives. We can find studies of highly acclaimed authors such as the American Theodore Roethke and the British Ted Hughes, together with other less known writers, such as the Canadian Jeannette Armstrong, whose works are scrutinized from a wealth of postmodernist paradigm, both in novels and films. In short, this book constitutes a highly promising selection of articles, which poses a clear challenge to the future of English Studies. Therefore, congratulations go to all individual participants and, above all, to the editors of this volume, who have displayed a great capacity of work and enthusiasm. Antonio López Santos Chair of the Department of English Studies University of Salamanca Salamanca, September 2012 © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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INTRODUCCIÓN: Desafío al futuro de los Estudios Ingleses Un año más los jóvenes investigadores de las universidades españolas en el campo de los Estudios Ingleses reúnen sus esfuerzos para presentar un nuevo volumen de excelentes colaboraciones bajo el título RESEARCH CHALLENGES FOR ANGLOPHONE STUDIES IN THE 21st CENTURY. El título no solo no defrauda al lector, sino que responde a las principales preocupaciones de la investigación más novedosa desarrollada en la universidad. Este volumen, siguiendo el modelo de anteriores publicaciones, gira en torno a las tres grandes áreas clásicas relacionadas con los Estudios Ingleses: estudios culturales, lingüísticos y literarios. De ese modo, la aproximación interdisciplinar a los estudios anglófonos continúa siendo el eje medular de la publicación. Desde un punto de vista cuantitativo, los estudios culturales ocupan sin duda un espacio menor. Sin embargo, los tres artículos aquí presentados dan cuenta de la variedad de perspectivas posibles dentro de este apartado. No solo abarcan estos estudios diferentes géneros literarios, sino que recorren diferentes épocas históricas, desde el renacimiento hasta nuestros días. Así, destaca la recepción de la obra de Shakespeare adaptada a los principios estéticos del siglo XVIII español, la aparición de un problema tan actual como la violencia doméstica en el teatro y el cine de mediados del siglo XX o la vinculación de posicionamientos contraculturales de la generación Beat en la música de Bod Dylan. Todos estos estudios exploran, pues, la relación entre las prácticas culturales, la vida diaria y los contextos históricos en los que se producen. Como suele ser habitual, gran parte de las contribuciones presentadas en este volumen se centran en el estudio del aprendizaje del inglés como segunda lengua, una de las principales preocupaciones del sistema educativo español en estos momentos, tanto en la etapa preuniversitaria como universitaria. Es lógico, por tanto, que estos jóvenes investigadores muestren interés por un asunto que atañe a un elevado número de estudiantes en la sociedad actual. Los estudios van desde el análisis de libros de texto utilizados en la enseñanza del inglés, para comprobar si estos textos adoptan correctamente las cuatro destrezas básicas (listening, speaking, speaking, writing) al aprendizaje de la lengua desde el punto de vista de una aproximación comunicativa, hasta la relación de la prosodia y la utilización de audífonos por parte de personas sordas o la percepción que tienen los estudiantes de la pronunciación del inglés. Como se ve, problemas muy cercanos a la realidad pedagógica. Las contribuciones literarias se centran exclusivamente en autores del siglo XX (incluida una adaptación al Londres actual de una obra de Shakespeare), pero recorren todos los géneros literarios, así como el cine. En general, estos estudios se fijan en obras concretas y las analizan desde perspectivas culturales, sociológicas o psicológicas. Podemos encontrar autores consagrados, como Theodore Roethke y Ted Hughes o escritoras más localistas, como la canadiense Jeannette Armstrong, y sobresalen miradas postmodernistas, tanto en el ámbito de la novela como del cine. En definitiva, se trata de una selección de artículos altamente prometedora, que supone un claro desafío al futuro de los Estudios Ingleses. Por todo ello, hay que felicitar a todos los participantes y, sobre todo, a los editores de este volumen, que han demostrado una enorme capacidad de trabajo y entusiasmo. Antonio López Santos Director del Departamento de Filología Inglesa Universidad de Salamanca Salamanca, septiembre de 2012 © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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Cultural Studies

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Pedro Galán Lozano

The Countercultural Connection

The Countercultural Connection between the Beat Generation and Bob Dylan

Pedro Galán Lozano Complutense University of Madrid The increasing interest in the study of music as an integral part of literature makes necessary a literary evaluation of Bob Dylan as one of the greatest contemporary poets. The countercultural value of his early music can be considered as his taking the baton of the Beat movement in the 1960s. The aim of this paper is to disclose the features that make up the relationship between Dylan’s music and Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti’s poetry within the context of the 1950s and 1960s counterculture. This connection will be explored through the analysis of several common tenets: their philosophy of artistic creation based on spontaneity and performance; their worship of the individual in opposition to the community, which threatens the identity of the self; and their dissatisfaction with mid-century pre-war paranoia. In spite of the countercultural nature of their art, we will see that it arguably does not pursue any political revolution but an alternative to the establishment. Key words: Beat Generation, Bob Dylan, counterculture, individual and community, performance poetry. The academic interest in studying music as an integral part of literature has increased considerably in recent times, as certain musicians, such as Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, are starting to be included in courses on contemporary literature. In fact, the origin of poetry is deeply rooted in the tradition of the troubadours —those who composed and subsequently performed Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages. This approach to creation aimed at performing is thus one of the most irrefutable bonds that connect music and poetry, making it clear that both are in no way mutually exclusive. The following analysis will depart from this premise in order to explore the relationship between Bob Dylan’s music and the poetry of the Beat Generation —which will be represented in this paper by Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s texts. The aim of this paper is to disclose the countercultural features that make up this relationship within the cultural context of the 1950s and 1960s. A trademark feature of the the Beat Generation is its challenging the American normative culture. The 1950s were a time of conformism and self-satisfaction after the nation had claimed its position as the leading superpower in the Western world in the aftermath of World War II. Cultural homogenization prevailed in President Eisenhower’s America as part of the quest for a standardized American identity. In © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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these years, the nation likewise found itself “consumed by cold war paranoia and impaired by a serious case of cultural myopia” (Gray 2005: 213). This sociohistorical context provided the breeding ground for the appearance of the Beat Generation; this group of writers placed themselves and their art at the very edge of a society made up of individuals whose main dream was to be part of the prevailing American way of life of the 1950s. The decade of prominence of this generation yielded to the “rebellious and liberating atmosphere of the 1960s, which the Beats partly inspired and helped sustain” (A. Charters 1992: 370). In the wake of this decade, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan emerged bringing a genuine progressive mood. An example of this is his timeless song “The Times They Are a-Changin’” (1964): . . . admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You’ll be drenched to the bone. ......................... Then you better start swimmin’ Or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’. (Dylan 1964)

Anthemic lines like these turned Dylan into a prominent voice of social unrest, especially thanks to his second and third studio albums, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) and The Times They Are a-Changin’ (1964); both albums feature the lyrics that best show the connection between Dylan and Beat poetry. Critic Joseph Wenke “has interpreted Dylan’s insistence on spontaneity as a link between him and the Beats, along with his sharing their ‘attitudes toward social authority, politics, and drugs, emphasizing the primacy of the self and rejecting institutionally prescribed norms’” (qtd. in A. Charters 1992: 370). Spontaneity is a central concept for the Beats, whose understanding of poetry is inseparable from the notion of performance. This is not an isolated countercultural trend within the 1950s at all, as it is linked to other contemporary artistic movements such as the so-called action painters of the Abstract Expressionism. Harold Rosenberg explains this new approach from the pictorial point of view: A sketch is the preliminary form of an image the mind is trying to grasp. To work from sketches arouses the suspicion that the artist still regards the canvas as a place where the mind records its contents—rather than itself the ‘mind’ through which the painter thinks by changing a surface with paint. (Rosenberg 1952: 2)

Rosenberg’s point is extrapolable to Beat poetry: we would just have to replace “canvas” with “paper” and “painter” with “poet”. At the same time, it is instrumental in Allen Ginsberg’s theory of composition, “which he . . . labelled ‘First Thought, Best Thought’” (Portugés 1978: 5): Ginsberg decided he would experiment with a technique more like Kerouac’s spontaneous prose. As Ginsberg recalled the moment, ‘I thought I wouldn’t write a poem but just what I wanted to without fear, let my imagination go, open secrecy, and scribbling magic lines from my real mind . . .’ He used a triadic verse from he admired in the poetry of William Carlos Williams, extending the line out to the length of his own long breath, thinking of himself . . . as a jazz musician. (A. Charters 1992: 61) © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti likewise embraces this process that breaks with the traditional approaches to composition, as his poetic voice claims in the poem “I Am Waiting” (1958): “and I am waiting / for some strains of unpremeditated art / to shake my typewriter” (Ferlinghetti 1958: 52). This poem is part of the series titled “Oral Messages”, in whose introduction Ferlinghetti himself explains that they “were conceived specifically for jazz accompaniment and as such should be considered as spontaneously spoken ‘oral messages’ rather than as poems written for the printed page” (Ferlinghetti 1958: 48). Thus, in the same way as the action painters turn the canvas into their own minds—over which the spontaneous process of composition should take place with neither previous nor subsequent elaboration—the Beat poet turns the piece of paper into his own mind; likewise, in the same way as the jazz musician bases his performance on spontaneous improvisation, the Beat poet conceives his lines as strokes of the most authentic stratum of the self. This process of creation leads to the most direct oral spontaneity, which even lacks the constriction of any punctuation marks. The feeling can be grasped in Ferlinghetti’s “Dog” (1958), an approach to everyday reality through the innocent eyes of “a real live / barking / democratic dog”— which is a reflection of the poet himself—that wanders about the streets of San Francisco: engaged in real free enterprise with something to say .................. about reality and how to see it and how to hear it (Ferlinghetti 1958: 68)

The innocence of the aforementioned dog is therefore that of the poet as well. Nonetheless, Samuel Charters argues that this innocence is in no way “an expression of ignorance, but a refusal to accept the society’s corruption” (S. Charters 1971: 81) — which in turn means the corruption of the pure spontaneity of the self. How can Dylan keep out of this artistic background provided by Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti a few years before? Paul Williams considers that an outstanding part of Dylan’s genius “rests squarely on his spontaneity and on his stubborn reliance on and trust of his spontaneity” (Williams 2004: 273). This creative approach is exemplified by the way his song “Forever Young” (1974) came out: “The lines came to me. They were done in a minute. I don’t know. Sometimes that’s what you’re given. . . . You don’t know what it is exactly that you want but this is what comes. . . . I was going for something else, the song wrote itself” (Williams 2004: 273-74). Dylan takes his attachment to the genuine performance of his lyrics to an even higher level of authenticity. As Ann Charters recalls, “in the recording studio [he] preferred not to do retakes, explaining, ‘I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible’” (A. Charters 1992: 370). Yet again, Dylan’s words seem to collect the concept of spontaneous performance that the Beats uphold. This concept is eloquently explained by Lawrence Ferlinghetti: It amounts to getting the poet out of the inner esthetic sanctum where he has too long been contemplating his complicated navel. It amounts to getting poetry back into the street where it once was, out of the classroom, out of the speech department, and in fact © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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—of the printed page. The printed work has made poetry so silent. (qtd. in Smith 1983: 56)

Consequently, we should ask ourselves whether, for instance, Ginsberg’s “Howl” (1956) would have had such a significant impact were it not for its performative condition or its composition of lines conceived to be read as a single breath unit each. It is reasonable to argue that it would have not; “Howl” this way would have faded into history as a bunch of lines confined to the printed page. As a result, according to Ferlinghetti’s point, it would have remained a mute poem. This is the performative condition of art inherited by Dylan’s art, which has been applauded even by his fellow musicians, such as Rolling Stone Keith Richards: “Bob has not got a particularly good voice, but it’s expressive and he knows where to put it, and that’s more important than any technical beauties of voice. It’s almost anti-singing. But at the same time what you’re hearing is real” (Richards and Fox 2010: 136). Dylan’s “anti-singing” style has thus made him go beyond plain music; Bob Dylan transcended the countercultural atmosphere of the 1960s. In fact, this style places him on the trail of the Beat Generation —to such a great extent that, as Gordon Ball claims, “in our era Bob Dylan has helped return poetry to its primordial transmission by human breath[,] . . . reviv[ing] the traditions of bard, minstrel, and troubadour” (Ball 2007: 15). After analyzing spontaneity and performance as basic links that relate Bob Dylan to the Beats, we can perceive a latent concept that is in turn central to this connection: their stance in favor of the primacy of the individual in opposition to a community so prone to cultural homogeneization as post-war America. Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” is the literary piece that represents the outbreak of the Beat countercultural phenomenon, as it begins with the following words: I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix. (Ginsberg 1956: 9)

These first lines intend to give voice to those “best minds” who are excluded from the American way of life —and even from the American Dream. Those are the individuals who do not conform to the homogeneity and place themselves at the very fringe of normative society. These individuals are ultimately confined to the underworld of the “negro streets at dawn” and mental institutions, as Ginsberg’s poetic voice pays homage to those “who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic / pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia” (Ginsberg 1956: 18). Dylan likewise seems to honor them in “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” (1963): “Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’, / Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter, / Heard the song of a clown who cried in the alley” (Dylan 1963). Ginsberg’s “Howl” is clear about who is responsible for the marginalization of the above-mentioned individuals: Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities! (Ginsberg 1956: 21)

It is Moloch, the reflection of normative America, in whose honor the community sacrifices the singularity of the individual as a scapegoat in order to purify and thus © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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homogenize. This suppression of the authenticity of the self is furtherly described by Ginsberg in “America” (1956): Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine? I’m obsessed with Time Magazine. ......................................... It’s always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody’s serious but me. (Ginsberg 1956: 41)

These lines present the iconic and self-complacent America that the Beats blame for ruining the individual “on freeways fifty lanes wide /. . . / spaced with bland billboards / illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness” (Ferlinghetti 1958: 9). The questions Bob Dylan poses in “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963) are particularly pertinent within this context, for they align with the concerns expressed by the Beats: How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? ............................... How many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky? ............................... Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist Before they’re allowed to be free? (Dylan 1963)

This concern for dignity and freedom points at the singularity of the self as an instrumental basis for liberty. Therefore, amidst a sociocultural context that tended to equal the individuals for the sake of the American way of life and excluded those who did not fit the standard, the Beats, and subsequently Dylan, emerge as a voice in favor of the prevalence of the self over the community. Ginsberg’s celebration of subjectivity in “Howl” is an example of it: The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy! ....................................... Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul! (Ginsberg 1956: 27-28)

Ginsberg’s poetic voice thus comes to the point that America is not just the greatness of its symbolic institutions nor the uniformity of its citizens; these texts suggest that the richness of America actually lies on its variety of individuals. “It occurs to me that I am America” (Ginsberg 1956:41), reads Ginsberg’s poem “America”. In this statement, the poetic voice becomes aware that, instead of addressing his nation, the poet should address himself because he is his nation as well as so many more millions of individuals are. This assertion is also echoed by Ferlinghetti in “Autobiography” (1958): I am an American. .......................... I have eaten hotdogs in ballparks. I have heard the Gettysburg Address © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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and the Ginsberg Address. (Ferlinghetti 1958: 60-61)

Not only does the poetic voice celebrate once again the reality of the everyday American in these lines; it also mixes up a situation of the average individual with the solemnity of a historical landmark that is part of the collective memory —i.e. Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. That is to say, he puts Ginsberg and his statements in favor of individual subjectivity on an equal footing as the normative solemnity of the President of the United States of America. For the nation is neither Lincoln’s nor the established institutions’ private property; instead, the nation belongs to every individual that constitutes it. This is why Ferlinghetti’s poetic voice affirms: “I hear America singing / in the Yellow Pages” (Ferlinghetti 1958: 63); it is the everyday reality of the American individuals concentrated in, for instance, the Yellow Pages which actually makes up the real America. Both the Beats and Dylan may be regarded as two of the loudest and clearest opposing voices amidst the nation’s sense of Cold War paranoia. We must not forget that both the 1950s and the 1960s were marked by a deep anti-communist hysteria focused on neutralizing any sign of communist influence —which was supposed to become a corrupting alien element that would threaten the purity of the community. The steady confrontation with the Soviet Union also raised the fear that nuclear proliferation eventually ended up in mankind’s self-destruction. In this sense, Ferlinghetti declares in “I Am Waiting”: . . . I am waiting for the atomic tests to end .................... and I am waiting for the human crowd to wander off a cliff somewhere clutching its atomic umbrella (Ferlinghetti 1958: 50)

Allen Ginsberg’s poem “America” is another example of dissatisfaction with the United States’ participation share in this paranoid atmosphere. In a fit of irony, Ginsberg, while addressing America, says: America you don’t really want to go to war. America it’s them bad Russians. Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians. The Russia wants to eat us alive . . . (Ginsberg 1956: 42-43)

This tension with the Soviet Union therefore drew the attention to the possibility of a nuclear confrontation. The pessimistic feeling of those who thought that such catastrophe was inevitable is echoed by Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”, which prophesizes about a hard rain, that which feeds upon hatred and would eventually bring the void: I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’, I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest, Where the people are many and their hands are all empty, .......................................... Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten, © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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Where black is the color, where none is the number, .......................................... It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall. (Dylan 1963)

The dense imagery of this text suggests suffering and warfare, which is in turn related to the questions about war and piece that Dylan himself poses in “Blowin’ in the Wind”: Yes, ‘n’ how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry? Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take ‘till he knows That too many people have died? (Dylan 1963)

According to Dylan, the answer to this questions “is blowin’ in the wind”, which suggests that it is floating in the air in front of those who are expected to find solutions. The above-mentioned lines however complain that we will have to wait until they stop turning their heads away every single time the answer blows in front of them, just in the same way as Ferlinghetti’s poetic voice is “. . . waiting / for Ike [Eisenhower] to act” (Ferlinghetti 1958: 50). Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’” appeals to them in order to put an end to inaction: Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don’t stand in the doorway Don’t block up the hall ................... There’s a battle outside And it’s ragin’. (Dylan 1964)

In this sense, Ferlinghetti’s poetic voice is also waiting “for the American Eagle / to really spread its wings / and straighten up and fly right” (Ferlinghetti 1958: 49). Ginsberg’s, on the contrary, is a little less politically correct: in “America” his poetic voice sums up its feelings about the role of the United States in the Cold War paranoia by telling his nation: “Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb” (Ginsberg 1956: 39). Nevertheless, instead of not wanting to have anything else to do with America, the poetic voice calms down and ultimately poses the question that has continuously been in the air in Dylan, Ferlinghetti, and Ginsberg’s texts: “America is this correct?” (Ginsberg 1956: 43). In short, Dylan’s early music remains an evidence of his taking the baton of the Beat movement in the 1960s. Even though the times were a-changin’, the background of artistic expression the Beats had already set in the 1950s serves as the starting point for Dylan. The Minnesota singer-songwriter developed his early music career sharing some basic concepts with Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti that are framed within the context of countercultural expression in mid-century America: their philosophy of artistic creation based on spontaneity and performance; their worship of the individual in opposition to the community, which threatens the identity of the self; and their dissatisfaction with mid-century pre-war paranoia. Dylan’s works thus join those of the Beats integrating with the anti-establishment discourse of the American counterculture. However, we have seen that, in spite of the patent countercultural nature of both the Beats and Dylan’s art, this does not necessarily mean that they champion a brand new system that breaks with the existing one; we can argue that their texts defend the © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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The Countercultural Connection

regeneration of the existing system on the basis of the above-mentioned values, given that their countercultural stance is just an alternative point of view situated on the fringe of the establishment. Works Cited Ball, Gordon 2007. Dylan and the Nobel. Oral Tradition 22 (1): 14-29. . 28 December 2010. Charters, Ann (ed.) 1992. The Portable Beat Reader. London: Penguin. Charters, Samuel 1971. Some Poems-Poets. Berkeley, Calif.: Oyez. Dylan, Bob 1963. The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Columbia. --1964. The Times They Are a-Changin’. Columbia. Ferlinghetti, Lawrence 1958. A Coney Island of the Mind. New York: New Directions. Ginsberg, Allen 1956. Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights. Gray, Timothy 2005. “A World without Gravity”: The Urban Pastoral Spirituality of Jim Carroll and Kathleen Norris. Texas Studies in Literature and Language 47(3): 213-52. . 28 December 2010. Portugés, Paul 1978. The Visionary Poetics of Allen Ginsberg. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Ross-Erikson. Richards, Keith, and James Fox 2010. Life. New York: Hachette. Rosenberg, Harold 1952. The American Action Painters. Course on Modern Art and Modernism at Ferris State University. . 20 October 2010. Smith, Larry 1983. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Poet-at-Large. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press. Williams, Paul 2004. Bob Dylan, Performing Artist: The Early Years, 1960-1973. London: Music Sales.

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Maika Aira Gallardo

Domestic Violence in American Drama and Film

Domestic Violence in American Drama and Film: A Preliminary Approach Maika Aira Gallardo University of Santiago de Compostela The exposition of the problem of domestic violence on mass media has contributed to the emergence of a social response against this shameful blot. However, people tend to forget that Literature, being the most faithful reflection of society, has been denouncing this unfair situation for women when the media has ignored this problem, partly because of the sense of privacy inherent to it. In this paper, I will analyze some of the most renowned cases of victims and victimizers of domestic violence in American theatre. In this respect, I will consider the cases of Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) or Regina Giddens and Birdie Hubbard in Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes (1939) to try to prove how these playwrights were conscious about this situation and were some of the first to denounce it openly. I will also use the film versions (Kazan 1951 and Wyler 1941 respectively) to compare the visualization of this social problem at different times. Key words: domestic violence, power, stereotype, drama, cinema. The issue of domestic violence has been neglected in literature and literary criticism for a long time, although lately, its exposition on the mass media has contributed to the emergence of some kind of social awareness about it. This neglect occurred mainly due to a sense of privacy inherent to domestic problems as they usually happened within family boundaries, a territory where authorities had no right to interfere. As M. Natarajan (2007: xv) affirms, “Domestic violence has been a neglected topic in most parts of the world because it has often been considered a private matter that does not warrant public attention. In recent decades, however, it has gained recognition worldwide as a serious social problem”. It seems, then, that this sense of privacy, of ‘domesticity’, transformed this important matter into a taboo for a long time in history. However, if we pay a closer look to some of the plays written throughout the 20th century, we will observe that some of them show an overt denunciation of this unfair treatment of women (and some men). In this essay, I will focus on Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes published in 1939 and Tennessee Williams’s 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire and two of their film versions (Wyler 1941 and Kazan 1951). In these texts, I will not only describe the examples of domestic violence but I will analyze the disappearance of some traditional

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Domestic Violence in American Drama and Film

southern families because of the questioning of patriarchy through the progressive acquisition of power by women. The use of the term ‘domestic violence’ applied to texts published and released before the 1970s might be problematic, taking into consideration the debate running between domestic violence and gender violence. Nonetheless, in the context of both plays mentioned, we have decided to use domestic violence because the abuses discussed take place inside family and house boundaries, which is precisely the context usually described as ‘domestic’. Besides, the term gender violence encompasses a wide range of human rights violations, including sexual abuse of children, rape, domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment, trafficking of women and girls and several harmful traditional practices […] Violence against women has been called ‘the most pervasive yet least recognized human rights abuse in the world.’ (Harne and Radford 2008: 18)

Thus, as shown in the explanation above, gender violence implies, by definition, the use of any kind of violence (physical, sexual or/and psychological) exclusively against women. Hence, we would be obviating one of the cases under analysis in this essay (The Little Foxes) where we will find a male victim of domestic abuse. On the other hand, in addition to these explanations, we have to add that many specialists, among them Mullender (2000: 26), point out the inadequacies of using the term domestic violence because “la palabra ‘doméstica’ está asociada a la trivialización de los abusos en el pasado”. But, at the same time, the use of this term is universally familiar nowadays. Therefore, the ordinary reference to domestic violence is another reason to employ this term in detriment of gender violence. In a patriarchal society, domestic violence can be considered as a consequence and a result of old-fashioned Victorian ideas about the purity and chastity of women, and the image of the cold, untouchable lady on the pedestal. As Lawson and Shakinovsky (2002: 2) explain, “[d]omestic violence is thus itself a rupture in a cultural order that stressed the house as a woman’s sphere, as the place of her security and her rule”. These ideas were especially important in the 19th century, particularly in the ‘Old South’, the South of cavaliers and southern belles. These ideals were upheld by southern society because they were basic for the sustenance of the social status, as Anne Firor Scott observes: Churches, schools, parents, books, magazines, all promulgated the same message: be a lady and you will be loved and respected and supported. If you defy the pattern and behave in ways considered unladylike you will be unsexed, rejected, unloved, and you will probably starve (1995: 20-21).

In fact, it was widely believed was that the use of domestic violence was more than justified in those cases where women dared to defy the established patriarchal system. After the Civil War, these old-fashioned values lost strength, but domestic violence continued to be part of everyday life. In both plays under analysis for this essay, there are, in my opinion, two main victims of domestic violence,1 Birdie Hubbard (The Little Foxes) and Blanche Dubois (A Streetcar Named Desire). Both are anchored to the past, as they desperately try to fit 1

For further information about the victims see Begoña Núñez Perucha (2004) Image Schemas and Folk Models. A Study of the Language of Victimization in English narrative texts. Castellón de la Plana: Asociación Española de Lingüística Aplicada. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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into this pattern of southern-belle behavior which has no room in the new 20th century. Thus, they both represent the decadence of an old South which, as Margaret Mitchell affirmed, is “Gone with the Wind”. In contrast, we find two other women, Regina Giddens (The Little Foxes) and Stella Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire), who try to go with the times and could be described as ‘new women’. This new female stereotype, which appeared around 1894,2 is ready to fight for her rights, though timidly at first. As Regina Giddens wisely declares at the beginning of The Little Foxes, she only claims for what she is certain she can achieve, on what could be considered a declaration of principles for all the emergent new women, “[y]ou should know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be asking for things I didn’t think I could get” (Hellman 1979: 167). The Little Foxes portrays the transformation from an agrarian to an industrialized South, and also the disappearance of the old aristocratic southern gentry represented by the character of Birdie Hubbard. From the very beginning, we see a clear contrast between two ladies. One is Regina Giddens, an impressive woman (more impressive still in the film version as she is performed by Bette Davis, the femme fatale par excellence of the 1940s) who holds power over the family household. Regina and her brothers Oscar and Ben have invited a Chicago businessman to a dinner which takes place at Regina’s house, and shows the spectator the power this woman exerts on the rest of the family. Besides, it is Regina who leads the conversation, who decides when to leave the table and who uses her ‘womanly charms’ to convince the northerner to make business with them. In contrast with this powerful woman, we see Birdie Hubbard, her sister-in-law. Birdie is an old southern belle who was forced by circumstances to marry Oscar Hubbard.3 She was treated as a mere object to satisfy the Hubbard family’s ambition. As Ben, the older brother, explains to Mr. Marshall: “Twenty years ago we took over their land, their cotton, and their daughter” (Hellman 1979: 158). Birdie’s main obsession in life is to go back to Lionet, her old plantation house and thus, she is always remembering her youth, which is as lost as Lionet. From the very beginning of the play and film, Birdie is the object of abuse. She is continually told to be quiet, to shut up, and she is clearly insulted by her husband: “stop acting like a fool” (Hellman 1979: 153). She is afraid not only of her husband, but also of her son, Leo. Moreover, at the end of act I, we are witnesses of an actual scene of wife-beating, as the stage directions indicate: “ALEXANDRA4 is almost out of view when BIRDIE reaches OSCAR in the doorway. As BIRDIE quickly attempts to pass him, he slaps her hard, across the face. BIRDIE cries out, puts her hand to her face” (Hellman 1979: 174). Whereas Birdie is terrified whenever her husband is close to her and resorts to alcohol to cope with the trauma of domestic violence, Regina is not afraid of confronting her two brothers to satisfy her enormous greed for money, which brings about power, and, for her, power represents life. Although Regina has been a witness of domestic violence since her childhood, as her mother was also beaten up by her father, she does not mind what happens to Birdie, or that she is a victim of her brother’s violence. Regina has learnt to overlook these ‘incidents’ in order to focus just on pursuing her aims. From the moment when she was forced to marry Horace Giddens, 2

Date proposed by Martha H. Patterson (2008) in The American New Woman Revisited. New York: Rutgers University Press. 3 The story of Birdie’s marriage is developed in the prequel to TLF Another Part of the Forest, published in 1946. 4 Capitalized in the original. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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she learnt that money is the most important thing in life. Forced marriage is mentioned as an example of domestic violence since, as Harne and Radford explain, it violates the article 16 of the Declaration of Human Rights:5 (1) Men and Women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.6

Since then, her main objective has been to control money and power. Consequently, Regina first confronts her brothers, pretending to defend her husband’s interests. She knows the Hubbards need Horace’s money to make business with Mr. Marshall and Regina is ready to do anything to convince her husband to get it: “I could say that I wouldn’t like to persuade Horace unless he did get a larger share. I must look after his interests. It seems only natural” (Hellman 1979: 167). Later, she wants more money. It can be seen that Regina is protecting her own interests. She is not the innocent, delicate southern belle brought up to obey the male members of the family and to sacrifice herself for the benefit of others. Rather, Regina is the incarnation of what Entzminger defines as a “belle gone bad”7 because [t]he bad belle challenges the one-sided, abusive distribution of power. The character serves as vehicle for disguised social criticism in the works of southern women writers, a way for them to confront the injustices perpetrated against black and white women by the patriarchal South […]. The belle gone bad uses her sexuality to control the male, attacking him at the source of his patriarchal power, the phallus (2002: 21)

Like any other ‘bad belle’, Regina is willing to employ all her ‘female weapons’ (that is to say, her sexuality) in order to achieve her aims. At the beginning, we see Regina flirting with Mr. Marshall to persuade him to make business with them. Later, when her husband comes back home after recovering from a heart attack in Baltimore, she tries to seduce him again. Nonetheless, her husband soon realizes that Regina does not want him, she only wants his money. Thus, as his retribution, Horace wants to punish Regina for not loving him and he plans to leave her with only a small amount of money, as it can be deduced by the following words: “I’m going to let them [Oscar and Ben] keep the bonds as a loan from you. […] for once in your life I am tying your hands. There is nothing for you to do. […] after my death I advise you to talk to been and Oscar […]” (Hellman 1979: 210-11). This punishment he wanted to inflict on her will precisely bring about the end of his life. As he suffers another fatal heart attack, Regina lets him die, for she does not give him the medicine he needed, because while he is alive, she is not going to have her money. It seems that everything was arranged to finally get what she wanted. Her 5

Harne, Lynne and Hill Radford (2008), Tackling Domestic Violence: Theories, Policies and Practice. Berkshire: McGraw Hill. 6 Article 16 of the Declaration of Human Rights taken from the web page http://www.un.org/en/ documents/udhr/index.shtml#a16. Accessed on November 8, 2011. 7 Betina Entzminger (2002), The Belle Gone Bad: White Southern Women Writers and the Dark Seductress. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. The concept bad belle refers mainly to the new women who appear after the War period and who, after having substituted men, are not ready to be mere objects and start to claim for their rights. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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power is skillfully described without words in Wyler’s film: in her rocking chair, she listens to her husband’s begging for help without moving a finger to help him. When at last she decides to move, the spectator cannot be sure if she gets up to help him because she repented or if she comes by his side to make sure he will die. I lean toward the second opinion. In the end, she achieves the money she wanted but she also becomes a murderer and a perpetrator of domestic violence because, in my opinion, she is actually killing her husband. The other case-study in this essay is Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Its main protagonist, Blanche Dubois, like the above mentioned Regina Giddens, has been defined as a ‘belle gone bad’ in the sense that, from the very moment she enters her sister’s house, Blanche Dubois defies the established male power represented by Stanley Kowalski. Nonetheless, in contrast to Regina, she cannot be defined as a new woman, since, like Birdie Hubbard, she is obsessed with recovering her plantation house, Belle Reve, in a desperate attempt to recover her lost youth. In A Streetcar Named Desire, as in The Little Foxes, we find two women who show different attitudes towards life. On the one hand, we have Stella Kowalski. She has left Belle Reve and has married a ‘common’, vulgar man, the son of Polish immigrants: Stanley Kowalski. The Kowalskis live in a poor street in New Orleans because Stella has come to terms with the fact that she has to adapt to the new circumstances of the new south, and cannot go on living under the rules of the old south, of southern belles and gentlemen. She tries to advance with the times. On the other hand, we have the ‘delicate piece’, Blanche Dubois, the only remnant of the true southern womanhood who pursues a broken dream: the dream of marrying a true gentleman who would rescue her from poverty and from her current ‘indecent’ life. Blanche hides a dark secret which comes from a traumatic episode in her life, that of her young homosexual husband’s suicide: When I was sixteen, I made the discovery of love. […] there was something different about the boy, a nervousness, a softness and tenderness which wasn’t like a man’s. […] then I found out. In the worst of all possible ways. By coming suddenly into a room I thought was empty – which wasn’t empty, but had two people in it … […] we danced the Varsouviana! Suddenly, in the middle of the dance the boy I had married broke away from me and ran out of the casino. A few moments later – a shot! (Williams 2000: 182-83)

From this moment onwards, the Varsouviana, the tune they were dancing to when he escaped and killed himself, will be stuck in her mind to remind her of this episode. Since then, she became a nymphomaniac, who tried to overcome this moment by having sex with very young men and soldiers, a woman who clearly had no room in the society of the south in the 1930s and thus she was expelled from Laurel due to this immoral behavior. In fact, Blanche Dubois has been largely considered among the critics as the epitome of the fallen woman who is punished for her sexual desire. We can say that if for Regina Giddens money means life and the lack of it death, for Blanche, desire (sexual desire) means life, the opposite is death: “Death—I used to sit here and she used to sit there and death was as close as you are. […] The opposite is desire” (Williams 2000: 206). When she comes to her sister’s place (actually, to her brother-in law’s house), after being expelled from the town of Laurel, she still pretends to be this refined, delicate southern belle. However, Stanley distrusts her from the beginning because she interferes in his ‘kingdom’, where he can do anything he wants, including beating his © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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Domestic Violence in American Drama and Film

pregnant wife whenever he wants to: “what do you think you are? A pair of queens? Remember what Huey Long said—‘every man is a king!’ and I am the king around here, so don’t forget it!” (Williams 2000: 194-95). From the beginning of the play and film, there is a strong tension, both sexual and aggressive, between Stanley and Blanche. Acquainted with the situation, Blanche tries to convince Stella to leave Stanley and flee with her. After witnessing a terrible argument between the married couple, when the drunken Stanley slaps his wife on the face, Blanche becomes horrified, even more so when she is told that this episode is not exceptional but that she should not worry because, after all, “[t]here’s nothing to be scared of. They’re crazy about each other” (Williams 2000: 154). As happens today with many cases of domestic violence, love justifies everything, even beating up your partner. As she has lived on her own for her whole life, it seems that Blanche does not follow the rules established for women because she is able to recognize and denounce that a man cannot hit his wife, because it is wrong and has to be sanctioned by society. However, Stella seems to be accustomed to Stanley’s behavior and she is even proud of her man who has “always smashed things” (Williams 2000: 157). For Stella, “there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark—that sort of make everything else seem—unimportant” (Williams 2000: 162). Stella forgives her husband and she cannot see that it is unfair for her that he holds this kind of control over everything, including the money. Stella is still trapped within a patriarchal system that she does not question because she loves her husband too much. However, in the end, the confrontation between Stanley and Blanche culminates with the rape of Blanche, the fallen woman, symbolized by the broken mirror and the hose cleaning the streets in Kazan’s film version. This rape is again an example of domestic violence, of sexual abuse which, as Harne and Radford indicate: [SEXUAL ABUSE] is a wide term used to describe rape and the humiliating range of unwanted, pressured and coerced ex that may be experienced in domestic violence contexts. Sexual violence is often linked to physical violence, often perpetrated immediately after a physical assault and commonly accompanied by verbal violence. It is normalized in male stream representations of heterosexuality, where sex was, and in some cultures still is, represented as ‘duty’ for women. (2008: 4-5)

Moreover, this particular case of sexual abuse perpetrated against Blanche Dubois is actually named ‘rape’ by specialists in contraposition to ‘forced sex’. The difference between these two terms dwells in the perpetrator, that is, ‘forced sex’ is the sexual aggression committed by a partner or an ex-partner, whereas ‘rape’ is the act committed by a stranger or a person who is not the partner or ex-partner of the victim. Apart from being a repulsive and cruel action perpetrated against Blanche, this act of rape can also be considered as an exemplary punishment for a woman who has transgressed the norms. As Entzminger perfectly describes: Tennessee Williams similarly portrays the southern belle’s modern fate through Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1947). Taught to value only luxury, charm, and her power over men, Blanche is left with nothing when her youth and beauty fade, as did her family’s wealth. Though she attempts to continue her selfserving manipulations, her eventual destruction speaks of the crimes of the social structure that created her as much as to her own. Like Faulkner, Williams emphasizes the traditional belle’s lack of preparation for the corrupt modern world through

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Blanche’s rape by Stanley, the modern man, and her subsequent commitment to an insane asylum. (2002: 27)

Blanche is not ready to live in this new south. There is no room for women like her. Like Birdie, her incapacity to adapt to the present and forget the past causes her unfair and cruel reclusion to a mental asylum, “depending on the kindness of strangers”. However, Kazan’s film version of the play offers the possibility of an alternative life for Stella: “in the film version of streetcar, Stella’s attitude eventually becomes more ambiguous. After Blanche is led to an asylum, Stella picks up her baby and runs up the stairs to Eunice’s apartment” (Gronbeck-Tedesco 1991: 123). In fact, with her words: “I’ll never be back again” and with Stanley shouting desperately “Stellaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh”, it seems that she is really determined to leave her aggressor for good. However, this scene was forced to be like that due to censorship. Moreover, the scene where Stanley slaps Stella ends in a very similar way and Stella comes back, so we cannot be sure that this time is going to be any different. In this paper, we have tried to show how domestic violence is exercised and undergone by both, men and women. We have also seen how there is a clear connection between the victims of domestic violence and their attachment to the past, to this old south which has disappeared. However, there are characters like Stella Kowalski who still lives in the boundaries of the two worlds. Therefore, we cannot classify her as either a Southern belle or a New Woman, although she is closer to the latter. Thus, we could say that it is her own choice to take the possibility of becoming a free, independent woman, leaving Stanley behind. But there still exists a great chance of becoming anchoraged to the past, to Stanley, and to a life of violence and aggression forever. Besides, we can affirm that the empowerment and the acquisition of women’s rights during the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century are two of the causes of the disappearance of the traditional southern family. As a consequence, the image of women changed from southern belles to femme fatales, thus provoking the derogation of patriarchy and the destabilization of men’s position in the family. It was necessary for the southern society to introduce these new women as dangerous, as immoral, as ‘whores’ if we want to use the traditional binomial virginwhore. In this respect, domestic violence is associated to an old ill South which resists the inevitable fact of its disappearance. I would like to conclude by saying that we have seen how domestic violence is denounced directly or indirectly in these two plays. As this is part of a larger and wider research, I have to say that the denunciation is made more explicit as the 20th century advances. Thus, for example, in plays like For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf (Ntozake Shange 1975) or Getting Out (Marsha Norman 1977) there is an explicit exposition of the trauma caused by sexual abuse within the family (African-American in the former and white southern family in the latter) and the sequels suffered by their female protagonists. Moreover, there is still space for offering a comic overview (if possible) of wife-beating in cases such as Crimes of the Heart (Beth Henley 1979). What seems clear is that playwrights, especially female playwrights, were highly conscious of this crime occurring within the familiar environment. It is our work now to vindicate them and help them to make their denunciation useful through the analysis of their works.

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Works Cited Entzminger, Bettina 2002. The Belle Gone Bad: White Southern Women Writers and the Dark Seductress. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Gronbeck-Tedesco, John L. 1991. Absence in the Actor’s Body: Marlon Brando’s Performance in A Streetcar Named Desire on Stage and in Film, Studies in American Drama, 1945-Present, Philip C. Kolin and Colby H. Kullman (Eds.). Ohio State University Press, pp. 115-126. Harne, Lynne and Jill Radford 2008. Tackling Domestic Violence: Theories, Policies and Practice. Berkshire: McGraw Hill (Open University Press). Hellman, Lillian 1979. Six Plays by Lillian Hellman: The Children’s Hour, Days to Come, The Little Foxes, Watch on the Rhine, Another Part of the Forest & The Autumn Garden. New York: Vintage Books. Kazan, Elia (Dir.) 1951. A Streetcar Named Desire. Warner Bross Pictures. Lawson, Kate and Lynn Shakinovsky 2002. The Marked Body: Domestic Violence in Mid-Nineteenth Century Literature. Albany: State University of New York Press. Mullender, Audrey 2000. La Violencia Doméstica, una Nueva Visión de un Viejo Problema. Barcelona: Paidós. Natarajan, Mangai 2007. Domestic Violence. The Five Big Questions. Hampshire, Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Limit. Núñez Perucha, Begoña 2004. Image Schemas and Folk Models. A Study of the Language of Victimization in English Narrative Texts. Castellón de la Plana: Asociación Española de Lingüística Aplicada. Patterson, Martha H. 2008. The American New Woman Revisited: a Reader (18941930). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Scott, Anne F. 1995. The Southern Lady: from Pedestal to Politics, 1830-1930. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. United Nations . 08 November 2011. Williams, Tennessee 2000. A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays (Sweet Bird of Youth, The Glass Menagerie). London: Penguin Classics. Wyler, William (Dir.) 1941. The Little Foxes. Samuel Goldwyn.

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Melania Rodríguez Román

Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s

Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s Translation of Hamlet Melania Rodríguez Román University of Valencia The first translation of Hamlet directly into Spanish was signed by Leandro Fernández de Moratín under the pseudonym Inarco Celenio, and published in 1798, favored by the rise of Neoclassical Theater in Spain. This paper analyzes the role of Moratín as a translator, his attitude toward the text and his position within the sociocultural context of the Spanish Enlightenment, in order to establish the level of influence of Neoclassicism on the translation. The text will be explored at the paratextual level—concerning the peripheral text that accompanies the translation, i.e. preface and translator’s notes—and then compared with and assessed by the norms and principles of 18th Century Spanish and French Neoclassical Theater, based on Aristotle’s Poetics and revisited in Spain by Ignacio de Luzán in his essay Poética o reglas de la poesía en general y de sus principales especies (1737). Key words: Hamlet, Leandro Fernández de Moratín, Enlightenment, Neoclassical Theater, drama translation. 1. Introduction A comparison of Hamlet and its Spanish translation by Leandro Fernández de Moratín (1798) reveals the significance of the amount of discrepancies between both texts. If the reader is acquainted with Moratín’s trajectory as a neoclassical playwright during the Spanish Enlightenment, the adequacy of most of the changes in the translation to the rules of Neoclassicism seems a fair a consequence of his strict conception of theater. It is accepted, however, that sometimes the role of the translator involves a slight acculturation of the text in order to adequate it to certain conventions of the target system. Is this transformation, therefore, the result of Moratín’s defense of Neoclassical Theater, or is it a mere acculturation of the text so that it would fit into the wider context of Spanish theater, i.e. not specifically within the parameters of Neoclassicism? The starting point of this study is the hypothesis that Moratín indeed adapted Hamlet to Spanish Neoclassical Theater, which adopted the canons of French theater and was characterized by a strict adherence to norms. For the purpose of validating this theory, the study was approached from two different, overlapping levels of analysis. In the first part of the study, we examined the substantial changes found in the translation with regard to the original text. Through the analysis of the dramatic and textual aspects of the text, these changes were identified,

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Melania Rodríguez Román

Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s

classified and quantified, whereby we found that the transformation stepped beyond the boundaries of acculturation. Likewise, it was pertinent to explore the figure of the translator through the analysis of the paratext, in order to determine whether he consciously altered the text, following the dictates of French translators, or if it was an altogether unintentional process. 2. The Translator It is only logical that the translator will be present in the translation, since it is his words that the reader is presented with. Carmen Valero argued that literature is not a set of unchanging realities; instead, these realities are subject to variables that affect the text and influence it (Valero Garcés 1995: 23). In this way, translations become tools to create realities as translators manipulate texts according to a certain function and a given context, which is best epitomized by the claim that “translations are not made in a vaccuum” (Lefevere 1992: 14). A translation cannot be judged as good or bad from our own reality and its variables, since literature—including translation—cannot be separated from the culture in which it is born. According to Toury (1980: 34), translations should do justice to its original but also be acceptable in the system into which they have been translated, so it is not possible to judge a text without considering the circumstances involving its conception. Therefore, our interest with this study is not to assess Moratín’s translation, but to examine his intention and role as a translator, i.e. is he too visible in the text? Two of the three elements which constitute the paratext of the translation will be explored in this article, namely the prologue and the translator’s notes. The document “Vida de Guillermo Shakespeare” will be disregarded, since it is based on the original Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespeare (1709) by English playwright and editor Nicholas Rowe and does not provide any information of interest regarding the neoclassical tone of the translation. 1.1. “Advertencia” The prologue is a valuable piece of information, as it exudes subjectivity. The fact that Moratín entitled it “Advertencia” is a clear declaration of intentions: he is warning the reader. His main objective is to justify his decision to use an English text for his translation—which had not yet been attempted in Spain. It is therefore a great testimony regarding the translator’s position with respect to the text and his opinion on the author. In the opening lines, Moratín indicates that Hamlet is Shakespeare’s best-known and most acclaimed tragedy, perhaps in an attempt to claim some credibility, since Shakespeare was barely read in Spain at the time. While Moratín admits that the play is magnificent, however, he remains critical. He considers the plot interesting and tragic, but he does not approve of its development: Sometimes the story proceeds lively and quickly, and sometimes it is weakened by inconvenient accidents and badly-written, useless episodes, unworthy of mingling with the great interests and emotions that are presented. Perhaps it rises again, and acquires all the agitation and tragic movement that are proper to it, only to fall later and suddenly change character, making those terrible passions, worthy of Sophocles’s shoes, cease and give way to the most vulgar dialogues, capable only of exciting the laughter of a wine-drunk, coarse mass. Come the ending, the knots become unnecessarily

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Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s

complicated, and the author breaks them at once, instead of untying them, piling unlikely circumstances that destroy all hope [...]. (1825: 3)1

As Susan Bassnett (1998: 102) pointed, Shakespeare’s plays are inconsistent in dialogue and composition, which inevitably clashes with Moratín’s neoclassical position, according to which plays should be perfectly lineal and consistent from beginning to end: in Neoclassical Theater, passions are suppressed. This inconsistency, as contrary to Moratín’s beliefs as it is, contributes to the play’s beauty: the translator describes Hamlet as an “extraordinary, monstrous whole” (1825: 3), thus admitting that the overall effect of Shakespeare’s irregular style is impressive. Moratín emphasizes the difficulty of translating Shakespeare’s irregular style, but it is those moments of excellence that encourage him to make this tragedy known within the Spanish audiences, who were not yet acquainted with British theatrical tradition. Perhaps in an attempt to protect his work and to assert himself, he explains that speaking a language does not suffice in order to translate a text; it is also necessary to possess a certain poetic sensibility so as to write with as much emotion as the author put into his own words. He seems to hereby hint at his suitability to the task, given his playwriting abilities. When analyzing previous translations, Moratín initially applauds Letourneur, considering him superior to Laplace, but soon discredits him for lack of faithfulness, accusing him of manipulating the text in order to polish a sometimes mediocre Shakespeare, “by enforcing his own ideas and words over those found in the original” (1825: 6). Thus he found it necessary to move away from the French translations published so far, unlike previous Spanish translators of Hamlet. Although Moratín’s purpose in this prologue is to explain why he had chosen to render a direct translation, and to guarantee his faithfulness to Shakespeare, his commitment to Neoclassical Theater becomes manifest in the last few lines, where he describes the state of Spanish theater as disastrous, noting the “pitiful state in which the study of humanities lies, the few students that good poetry now has and the earned neglect and discredit into which modern theater productions are falling” (1825: 7)—a clear allusion to a failed attempt at reforming the Spanish theater on the part of Spanish neoclassical playwrights. 1.2. Translator’s notes Ideally, a translator should never attempt to subjectively interfere in the translation. For Moratín, the solution to this obstacle lies in his notes, where he exposes his opinion on the play and the author. Far from avoiding value judgments, his personal opinion and his views on drama plague these notes, thus confirming the neoclassical tone of the translation. Juan Jesús Zaro analyzed these notes in Shakespeare y sus traductores: análisis crítico de siete traducciones españolas de obras de Shakespeare (2007) by classifying them according to different categories. A similar task is conducted here; in addition, Moratín’s criticisms will be compared to the rules of Neoclassicism established by Ignacio de Luzán in his Poetics (1974), in order to justify that these are indeed the product of a neoclassical approach to theater, rather than arbitrary attacks against the author.

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All quotations by Leandro Fernández de Moratín and Ignacio de Luzán have been translated from the Spanish originals. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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Melania Rodríguez Román

Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s

1.2.1. Plot Newmark argued that the drama translator cannot “gloss, explain puns or ambiguities or cultural references” (1988: 172), yet Moratín openly does, constantly commenting on the play and explaining meanings, assuming that the reader will not be capable of following the development of the story. Some of these comments are superfluous or redundant, as in the case of I-13 and 2 I-15. In the former, we are informed that it is the first time since the beginning of the play that Elsingor is mentioned, while in the second, we learn about the emotions that induce Hamlet to express in this way—deducible from the character’s own speech. Moratín also indicates several times that Hamlet’s madness is not real, which is reflected in I-33—where we are told that it is at this point that the prince’s feigned madness begins—and II-11—where he explains that the expression used is meaningless, for Hamlet is pretending to be crazy. Another use of this type of note is to clarify certain “dark” passages which, in the translator’s view, require explanation. It is the case of I-20, where Moratín exalts Shakespeare’s sarcasm and explains its underlying criticism. 1.2.2. Historical accuracy Moratín’s comments on geography and history are meant to point at certain errors in the tragedy, since historical accuracy was one of the obsessions of neoclassical playwrights. As Ignacio de Luzán exposes: The most frequent errors in our comedies are against history, chronology and geography. [...] And although the poet can feign names and events regarding individuals, because history does not mention such people; as for emperors and kings, whose names and deeds are distinctly recorded in the annals, the poet has no authority to feign, against history, the names and events. (1974: 419)

Thus, in I-5, Moratín clarifies that the character Fortinbras does not correspond to any actual Norwegian king. In I-6, not only does he condemn the mentioning of emperor Julius Caesar, but he also censures Shakespeare’s blending of fact and fiction. The reason why Shakespeare mentioned Caesar in Hamlet is none other than the fact that both tragedies were written and performed around the same date. Moratín cannot seem to accept that Hamlet is fiction, and that it should not necessarily be restricted by facts. The same applies to I-29, where he argues that St. Patrick existed long after the Danish story of Prince Amleth, and it was therefore impossible for the characters to be acquainted with the saint. Finally, in terms of geographical errors, IV-5 exposes that it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that Hamlet meets a Norwegian army heading to Poland, due to the geographical location of both countries, thus questioning Shakespeare’s geographical knowledge. 1.2.3. Language Moratín has an almost obsessive fixation with language, therefore most of his notes deal with language decorum.3 This fascination was not exclusive of the translator, 2

Regarding the structure of the notes, the Roman numeral indicates the act, while the second refers to the note number. 3 See Homem, Rui Carvalho 1997. At the damsel’s feet: Translation and Decorum in a NineteenthCentury Hamlet. Eds. Juan Antonio Prieto Pablos et al. SEDERI 8. Universidad de Sevilla: Sociedad Española de Estudios Renacentistas Ingleses: 203-09; and McAlindon, Thomas 1973. Shakespeare and Decorum. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s

but a characteristic applicable to all neoclassical playwrights. In Luzán’s Poetics, tragedy is declared the ultimate, finest genre, so vulgar language was inconceivable: “The affairs in a tragedy are great, the passions are violent, the people are distinguished, so that, rightfully, all this calls for a high style with rhetorical figures, which are the most appropriate language for the passions” (1974: 406). It is no surprise that Moratín eliminated all samples of obscene language in his translation (swearings, sexual innuendos, profanity...), since inconsistency in language and lack of decorum was viewed by neoclassics as one of Shakespeare’s worst defects. Moratín repulses the vulgarity of certain passages (I-2, II-1, II-13, III-7, III-12, IV-3) which contain sexual references, obscene images or foul language, saying “it is necessary to be very ignorant or very passionate, to err in such a manner” (1825: 249). Hamlet is the most criticized character for impropriety, as sometimes his language does not match his position: he frequently modifies his register and style according to the moment of the action, but also depending on whom he addresses, sometimes ignoring his status and surrendering to his lower passions. Let us recall his encounter with the gravediggers—during which his language becomes regular and coarse– or his naughty puns with Ophelia. Sometimes, the offense is not to be found in the vulgarity of the discourse; in I6, Moratín complains that Horatio’s speech is too refined for his interlocutors, who are undeserving of it and will most definitely not understand him. He also dislikes pompous language, as in II-20, where he considers the language gigantic and overelaborate. The translator adds that it is not enough to possess poetic skills for language, one also needs to know when and how to show it. This is the problem described in III-2, which questions Hamlet’s famous monologue. While Moratín profusely applauds the character’s grandiloquent language, he criticizes how unfortunate it is at this point of the action, claiming that doubt is unworthy of a prince, a tragic hero. Obscurity of speech is, according to Moratín, one of Shakespeare’s weakest points, as reflected in III-9 and IV-2. He explains that it confuses the reader and that it is not proper to tragedy (I-22), since good speech should avoid repetition of ideas (I-17, III-10, IV-6) and enhance simplicity. In I-11 and I-23, he rejects the countless digressions regarding concepts that might have been expressed in a simpler manner. Lastly, the rule against combining verse and prose is reflected in II-10 when Moratín rejects Shakespeare’s use of this method, adding sarcastically that others have considered it a virtue. Since, for neoclassics, tragedy and comedy are ideally two different genres, it follows that they require different styles, which Shakespeare completely disregarded; not only did he combine prose and verse, but he wrote most of the tragedy in prose, which was absolutely despicable for the neoclassical mind. Despite criticism, Moratín admits that, sometimes, Shakespeare manages to easily convey concepts “filled with important truths” (I-10), like Ophelia’s manifestation of love for Hamlet (I-16). Not all of his comments are negative, then; he often celebrates Shakespeare’s style and themes (III-17, III-20, III-24), which, he says, compensate for his defects. In IV-14, specifically, Moratín dignifies Shakespeare’s use of images, saying they were quite Calderonian. Furthermore, he is fond of Ophelia’s death, so naturally narrated by the Queen in such a brief manner, since such an event, designed to impress the public, should not be smeared with long speeches (IV-17). Other examples are found in I-19, I-24, I-25—one of the few passages that, in the translator’s view, prove Shakespeare’s genius and makes up for previous mistakes—and I-26. In his internal conflict between criticizing and flattering Shakespeare, Moratín complains that he is able to express the very same idea in two such different ways: one

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Melania Rodríguez Román

Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s

so vulgar, the other so elegant. This he attributes to lack of artistic sense, as reflected in his claim in I-12 that “Shakespeare was ignorant of the art” (1825: 250). 1.2.4. Plausibility It appears that Moratín considered the rule of plausibility to be the most important of neoclassical norms, so it is no surprise that many of his notes address the story’s lack of credibility. Luzán elaborated the rule as follows: It seems, therefore, that plausibility is nothing but an imitation, a painting, a well-drawn copy of things as they are in our opinion, on which plausibility depends; [...] However, with that being said, there are poets who delight excessively with images and things that are incredible to many, and therefore unlikely. (1974: 150)

Andrew Gurr (1982: 246) claimed that no dramatists had tried so hard to blur the boundaries between illusion and reality like the Elizabethans, something especially true of Shakespeare and, particularly, of Hamlet, where viewers are exposed to ghostly apparitions, exhibitions of madness—real and feigned—and drama within the drama, among other resources. This blurring of boundaries between the real and the illusory is not welcomed by Moratín, who from the beginning maintains that the ghost is a ridiculous character (I-3). The final scene, wherein so many characters die, also seems particularly far-fetched to him (V-13), as it looks more like “a resource of need, than a feature of art” (1825: 279). Equally unlikely is the fact that the ambassadors are back from their conquest in such a short period of time (II-7) or that Fortinbras travels to Poland in order to conquer it and is able to come back before the end of the spectacle (IV-4, V-17). Transgression of the rule of plausibility is also found in the modus operandi of certain characters. Hamlet, for instance, stops in the darkness of the woods to write in his notebook what he has witnessed, and keeps doubting whether to kill the king even though he has plenty of chances to do so over the course of the play (II-23). Claudius, in turn, convinced that Hamlet will eventually uncover his crime and turn his people against him, also contemplates killing the prince, which is quite dubious, since a king would find safer ways to get rid of Hamlet without risking his life or the throne (IV-15). In IV-10, Moratín observes that Laertes’ speech, although sublime, is more suited to an ode than a tragedy and therefore unconvincing. In IV-9, he is disturbed that the people of Elsingor, having had no previous disagreement with the current king, claim Laertes as their king upon his return—also denying Hamlet, legitimate heir to the throne. Moratín attributed this to the fact that Shakespeare did not plan his tragedy well, but excuses him by saying that at that time playwrights wrote very quickly. Moratín is not particularly fond of the scene where Hamlet and Horatio reunite (V-9), and considers that both the circumstances surrounding Horatio’s liberation and the fact that his dear friend does not inform him about recent events upon seeing him are far from credible. The translator says that “there is in it no appearance of truth” (1825: 278). 1.2.5. Unity of action Unity of action—as well as unity of time and unity of place—was one of the strictest rules of neoclassical tragedy; neoclassics believed that it was key to perfection. Luzán (1974: 342) described it as follows: “In short, the unity of action consists of an individual action, whose parts all conspire to one end and meet at one point, which is the target of all”.

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Melania Rodríguez Román

Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s

As expected, Moratín exposes the violation of this norm in his notes. However, nothing is said in relation to the unities of time and place, even though they are obviously disregarded as well. In I-4 he tells the reader: The challenge between the kings of Denmark and Norway, Fortinbras’s premeditated invasion, the preparations made to resist him and everything Horatio says to his comrades have nothing to do with the action of the tragedy: this and nothing else should be addressed. (1825: 249)

For Moratín, parallel actions consume a time very valuable in theater; he even claims in I-14 that this is where the tragedy should really start, since, except ten or twelve lines, all of the above is not essential or interesting to the action. In I-8 and I-21 he disapproves of other dispensable scenes which contribute nothing to the action and distract the viewer’s attention: Fortinbras’s conquest and Laertes’s journey are two examples. Furthermore, in II-17 he opposes to those who insist that unity of action already existed in Shakespeare’s England, because “there is no authority or documentation to support this opinion” (1825: 259-60). 1.2.6. Characters Characters in a tragedy should, according to neoclassical precepts, not only be of a high social position, but also behave accordingly. Hamlet is the most offensive character in this regard; among his many weaknesses lie the poor development of his madness (II-4), his mistreatment of Ophelia (III-3), or his lack of consistency and decision (III-4, III-13, III-18, III-22, IV-6). According to Moratín, in moments that require a vengeful attitude of the prince—i.e. when he learns about his uncle’s secret crime—the young man engages in various entertainments, and when he finally seems to have resolved to avenge his father, he questions once again his motives; his friendliness to Laertes also seems unconvincing (V-12). Polonius is not immune to criticism either; the translator deems him ridiculous and vulgar (II-2, II-3, II-8 and II-9). Although he agrees that the character is well developed, he considers Polonius more pertinent to one of Molière’s comedies. In this way, Shakespeare transgresses one of the main rules in Neoclassicism, according to which tragic and comic characters should be differentiated, since they serve different purposes: Firstly, Aristotle divides men into better and worse; the former are typical of the tragedy, the second more proper to comedy. And it is clear that Aristotle understands as better the best in fortune, power, riches and fame, and as worst the common people and particular men. (Luzán 1974: 353)

After this rule, Moratín maintains in II-2 that art should not reflect the lower passions, but elevate the decent ones. King Claudius, who reveals himself to be stupid and contradictory—characteristics highly inappropriate for a king—is also reprimanded in this regard (III-8, III-11, III-17). Moratín especially dislikes the clowns, who “would hardly be tolerated in the rudest, coarsest farce” (1825: 274). He is appalled that two clowns are in charge of burying the dead, and in V-1 he denounces the lack of taste of British audiences. While neoclassical tragedy presents characters from a relatively high social position who use an equally elevated style, Shakespeare rebels against the rigid social divisions, mixing nobles, guards, kings, gravediggers, comedians, etc. This allows for the gravedigger to

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Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s

teach Hamlet lessons, who, in turn, adopts the vulgar language of his plebeian subjects with sexual jokes or remarks. Finally, Moratín views the prince of Norway (IV-4), Osric (V-10) and Fortinbras (V-17) as unnecessary and completely unrelated to the main plot of the tragedy. More importantly, Fortinbras is, in his opinion, a flawed character, set to conquer Poland simply on a whim (IV-6). 1.2.7. Dignity of the tragedy To the neoclassics, tragedy was the most honest expression of human virtue, and as such, it should deal with rational issues and be refined. This meant, therefore, that supernatural matters were automatically rejected. The absence of this rule in Hamlet is evident from the very beginning of the play, with the apparition of King Hamlet’s specter. Several of Moratín’s notes adress the horrific aspects that result from introducing comedy into tragedy, which ultimately damages the play and takes away its dignity. Not only is this exposed in the characters, but also in the themes. The idea is discussed in the Poetics: Tragedy and comedy were assigned therefore, with rightful distinction, since their first institution, to different purposes, and to be useful to men in different ways: the one, moving violent emotions of terror and compassion, and representing the fall of kings and other distinguished people, as a lesson for the public and for moderation of its passions, the other, as in a mirror, showing the common faults and defects exposed to the laughter of the people, and surrendered at the feet of virtue, as example and encouragement of listeners. (Luzán 1974: 405-6)

In I-7, Moratín considers an insult to good taste the fact that Shakespeare used a man of knowledge like Horatio to ramble about spirits, which could only have been aimed at pleasing “the London masses” (1825: 249). Moratín believed that playwrights should correct the vices of the people instead of entertaining them, by exposing them to characters devoid of the lower passions, since “the dramatic poet is not to flatter public ignorance” (1825: 250). The translator continues his critique of this aspect through the cemetery scene and Ophelia’s subsequent burial (V-6), explaining that the audiences are fond of these scenes—which indicates that he had seen the play during his stay in London. Finally, Moratín expressed in V-15 his dislike of the final scene, whereby Shakespeare killed almost all the main characters simultaneously, thus robbing each of these deaths from the attention they deserved, the episode being more horrific than tragic. He is so disturbed by the scene as to declare that “the author criticized his own work when he said in Fortinbras’ words that such spectacle is only proper to a battlefield” (1825: 279). Moratín had already stated in the prologue that the play ends with no moral teaching, since everything is overshadowed by death and destruction. 3. Conclusions After analyzing Moratín’s position with respect to the play and his role as a translator, the prologue and notes appear to be a justification of the changes made in the process of translation, which indicates that he is indeed conscious of his manipulation. These changes made are due, in fact, to his contempt for Elizabethan theater and the English taste, and to his desire to adapt to neoclassical rules. Moratín promised in the prologue to be faithful and impartial to the original text—unlike many other translators at the time. However, the result is an evident adaptation to Neoclassicism and a paratext © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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Paratext and the Role of the Translator: Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s

replete with value judgments. It seems as though his neoclassical education was too deeply-rooted. Once the theory that Moratín consciously altered the text is proved, one question is inexorable: why did he do it? Peter Newmark agreed that the primary target of a translation should be the reader, and in the case of a dramatic text, the viewer, since performance is the ultimate purpose of drama: The main purpose of translating a play is normally to have it performed successfully. Therefore a translator of drama inevitably has to bear the potential spectator in mind […]. (Newmark 1988: 172)

There is no evidence that Moratín’s Hamlet was taken to stage, or indications in its prologue suggesting that the work was translated with that intention (Campillo 2005: 33). But, if Moratín’s translation was never represented—bearing in mind that at that time authors translated foreign plays almost expressly for the stage—what was then his intention? What kind of audience was it aimed at? Translations can serve as a way of manipulating and influencing the process of creating a new literary canon (Valero Garcés 1995: 29), and this translation is no exception in this regard. It is known that, despite holding different ideas on the nature of theater, Moratín deeply admired Shakespeare; so, in love with Shakespeare’s talent— despite criticism—Moratín decided that his own public needed to admire the Bard as much as he did, but, of course, duly filtered through neoclassical conventions. At the time Moratín translated Hamlet, he was most supportive of French neoclassical rules, yet the system never came off nor earned sympathy from the public. Moratín aspired, therefore, to ultimately instruct the reader into a neoclassical reading of the play, in order to show what such great talent could accomplish when combined with the right canons, with neoclassical canons. André Lefevere (Lefevere 1982: 4) called this phenomenon refractions, “the adaptation of a work of literature to a different audience, with the intention of influencing the way in which the audience reads the work”. Works Cited Bassnett, Susan 1998. Still Trapped in the Labyrinth: Further Reflections on Translation and Theatre. Susan Bassnett & André Lefevere. Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation. London: Multilingual Matters. 90-108. Campillo Arnáiz, Laura 2005. Estudio de los Elementos Culturales en las Obras de Shakespeare y Sus Traducciones al Español por Macpherson, Astrana y Valverde. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. University of Murcia, Spain. Gurr, Andrew 1982. The Elizabethan Stage and Acting. Ed. Boris Ford. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature. Vol. 2: The Age of Shakespeare. London: Penguin Books Ltd. 245-59. Lefevere, André 1982. Mother Courage’s Cucumbers: Text, System and Refraction in a Theory of Literature. Modern Language Studies 12 (4): 3-20. Lefevere, André 1992. Translation, History, Culture: A Sourcebook. London, New York: Routledge. Luzán, Ignacio 1974 (1737, 1789). La Poética o Reglas de la Poesía en General y de sus Principales Especies. Ed. Isabel Cid Sirgado. Madrid: Cátedra. Newmark, Peter 1988. A Textbook of Translation. London: Prentice Hall. Shakespeare, William 1825 (1798). Hamlet. Trans. Leandro Fernández de Moratín. Iberian & American Translation Portal . 09 June 2010. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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Toury, Gideon 1980. In Search of a Theory of Translation. Tel Aviv: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics. Valero Garcés, Carmen 1995. Apuntes sobre Traducción Literaria y Análisis Contrastivo de Textos Literarios Traducidos. Alcalá de Henares: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alcalá de Henares. Zaro, Juan Jesús 2007. Shakespeare y sus Traductores: Análisis Crítico de Siete Traducciones Españolas de Obras de Shakespeare. Bern: Peter Lang.

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Linguistic Studies

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Vicente Beltrán-Palenques

Language Skills from a Communicative Approach

Language Skills from a Communicative Approach: A Focus on ELT Textbooks Vicente Beltrán-Palanques Jaume I University It is widely accepted that the Communicative Approach (CA) is the most appropriate instructional model within second/foreign language (SL/FL) teaching practices, whose goal is to foster learners’ communicative competence. Hence, it is paramount to increase learners’ competence in the four language skills (i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing). Thereby, they can achieve certain knowledge which enables them to communicate efficiently in various modes. To reach to that end, in most instructed settings, English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks are employed. Bearing in mind those assumptions, the present paper presents a revision of both the concept of CA and the teaching the four language skills from this particular approach. Then, it provides a descriptive analysis of the treatment of these skills in a set of three contemporary ELT textbooks to verify whether the CA is followed. Finally, the results will be discussed and the pedagogical implications derived from presented. Key words: ELT textbooks, communicative approach, the four language skills. 1. Introduction The Communicative Approach (CA) has been broadly recognised as the most appropriate instructional model within second/foreign language (SL/FL) language teaching practices whose main goal is to increase learners’ communicative competence. This particular approach emphasises the idea that learners should communicate efficiently in different domains. In order to reach to that end, it is necessary to increase learners’ competence in the four language skills (i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing) (Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor 2006: 15-18). In so doing, learners can understand input and create meaningful discourse in its various forms (i.e. written and spoken). Implementing this specific approach, however, is rather complex since it implies not only the appropriate understanding of the main competences of the CA, but also the adequate development of both language teaching materials and instructional activities. In most instructed settings, English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks are widely employed in language teaching practices. In fact, they are regarded as the “visible heart of any ELT programme” (Sheldon 1988: 237). In this respect, this type of written materials should present instructional activities that aim to develop the four © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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Language Skills from a Communicative Approach

language skills from the perspective of the CA. In so doing, learners can achieve full comprehension as well as use language in a contextualised manner. Concerning this, several authors have proposed the basic communicative aspects that instructional activities should incorporate when following the CA. In the case of listening, it is suggested that instructional activities should provide learners with opportunities for integrating bottom-up and top-down information (i.e. interactive process) in order to help them reach full listening comprehension (Hedge 2000: 230-35; Lynch 2006: 93104; Rost 2006: 57-59; Martínez-Flor 2007: 208-10). Regarding speaking, it is pointed out that instructional activities might tackle the three main functions of speaking (i.e. interaction, transaction and performance) in order to better assist learners’ development of this particular language skill (Richards 2008: 21). Concerning reading, it is stated that instructional activities should promote learners’ integration of the interactive processing model for obtaining information (Anderson 2003: 72; Usó-Juan 2007: 23941). By adopting this particular processing model, which combines aspects of bottomup and top-down processes, learners are given with appropriate opportunities for achieving reading full comprehension. Finally, in the case of writing, it is considered that instructional activities should promote a focus on both process and product so that learners can understand the whole process of writing (Hedge 2000: 302). Given the importance of adopting the CA as a way to foster learners’ communicative competence in its various forms and considering that ELT textbooks are chiefly employed in the instructed setting, the present paper attempts to review the concept of the CA and the treatment of the four language skills from the perspective of the CA. Then, it provides a descriptive analysis of the treatment of these skills in a set of three contemporary ELT textbooks (published 2000 onwards) to verify whether the CA is followed. Finally, the results will be discussed and the pedagogical implications derived from presented. 2. Theoretical background 2.1. The communicative approach The discussion about the teaching of English as SL and FL within the CA has been the concern of several researchers (i.e. Canale and Swain 1980: 1-47; Canale 1983: 2-27; Bachman 1990: 81-110; Celce-Murcia et al. 1995: 5-35; Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor 2006: 3-25), since Hymes (1972: 269-93) advances some of the major components of the CA. The author suggests that linguistic competence (i.e. knowledge of grammatical features to create sentences) and sociolinguistic competence (i.e. knowledge of language use in a given context) are the crucial components for developing language from a social perspective. Following Hymes’ ideas, Canale and Swain (1980: 1-47) provide a further developed CA model which includes grammatical competence (i.e. knowledge of the linguistic features of language); sociolinguistic competence (i.e. knowledge of the sociocultural conditions that can affect language use); and strategic competence (i.e. knowledge of how to use strategies to compensate breakdowns in a communicative event). Thereafter, Canale (1983: 2-27) incorporates the discourse competence (i.e. knowledge of how to use language beyond the level of a sentence) within the CA model. Subsequently, Bachman (1990: 81-110) proposes a model which consists of three main competences, more specifically, language competence which compromises organisational competence (i.e. knowledge of grammatical and textual competence which refer to the appropriate use of language for creating sentences and texts), and pragmatic competence which is divided into illocutionary competence (i.e. knowledge of how to use language functions) and

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sociolinguistic competence (i.e. knowledge of how to use language in a particular context); strategic competence (i.e. knowledge of how to use pragmatic and sociolinguistic competence); and psychological mechanisms (i.e. psychological and neurological aspects which are employed when communicating). Another influential CA model is advanced by Celce-Murcia et al. (1995: 5-35) who include linguistic competence (i.e. knowledge of the basic elements of communication); socio-cultural competence (i.e. knowledge of how to use language in a given context); strategic competence (i.e. knowledge of how to use communicative strategies); discourse competence (i.e. knowledge of how to select, sequence and organise words to create sentences); and actional competence (i.e. required knowledge to understand the communicative event). More recently, Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor (2006: 3-25) propose a CA model which consists of five main components, namely those of discourse competence (i.e. knowledge of how to choose and sequence sentences to create cohesive and coherent messages); linguistic competence (i.e. knowledge of how to use the linguistic system); pragmatic competence (i.e. knowledge of illocutionary and sociolinguistic aspects of language); intercultural competence (i.e. knowledge of sociocultural aspects, social norms and non-verbal communicative elements); and strategic competence (i.e. knowledge of how to use linguistic strategies to communicative efficiently). The models suggested by Canale and Swain (1980: 1-47) and Canale (1983: 227), despite the fact that they advance some of the major components of the CA, do not account for certain aspects of language such as pragmatic and intercultural competence. Pragmatic competence, however, is understood as an element within the sociolinguistic component. Nonetheless, other researchers such as Bachman (1990: 81-110), Murcia et al. (1995: 5-35) and Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor (2006: 3-25) include the pragmatic competence as an independent component within the CA model. Regarding intercultural competence, scant attention is paid with the exception of Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor (2006: 3-25) who emphasise that this particular competence is key for communicating efficiently. Concerning strategic competence, the models proposed by Canale and Swain (1980) and Celce-Murcia et al. (1995: 5-35) indicate that this component has a different level within the CA model. On the contrary, Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor (2006: 3-25) place this component at the level of the other components. Furthermore, some of the above models described do not specify the relationship amongst the components (Canale and Swain 1980: 1-47; Canale 1983: 2-27; Bachman 1990: 81110). Contrariwise, more recent models (Celce-Murcia et al. 1995: 5-35; Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor 2006: 3-25) show the existing interrelation amongst the competences. Finally, regarding the function of the four language skills, the models proposed by Canale and Swain (1980: 1-47), Canale (1983: 2-27) and Celce-Murcia et al. (1995: 535) do not give much emphasis to their development. Nevertheless, Bachman (1990) and especially Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor (2006: 3-25) advance some of the basic functions of the four language skills within the CA model. Thereby, Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor (2006: 3-25) present a CA model which shows the function of the four language skills and how the different competences are interrelated in order to create discourse. 2.2. The four language skills from the perspective of the communicative approach 2.2.1. Listening Regarding listening, research shows that there are two major ways of processing aural input, namely those of bottom-up and top-down (Hedge 2000: 230-35; Lynch

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2006: 93-104; Rost 2006: 57-59; Martínez-Flor 2007: 208-10). The difference between them relies on how learners understand and process input. It has been claimed, however, that both processes should be combined in order to help learners achieve full comprehension as they integrate the information coming from both processes. The bottom-up process suggests that learners should make use of their linguistic knowledge as well as their ability to interpret the incoming speech by paying attention to small units of language such as those of phonology, lexis and grammar (Hedge 2000: 230-31; Lynch 2006: 96-98; Rost 2006: 57-59; Martínez-Flor 2007: 208-09). This particular processing model is usually done in a hierarchical manner. Hence, speech is segmented into different structures such as sounds, words, phrases, clauses, sentences and intonation patterns. More precisely, learners should first pay attention to specific sounds and small meaningful units that permit them to restructure input. Then, by activating their lexical knowledge, they might recognise words. Finally, learners may apply their grammatical knowledge to create meaningful spoken texts with the information obtained. The top-down process involves learners’ activation of background knowledge to make connections with the incoming input (Hedge 2000: 232-33; Lynch 2006: 93-95; Rost 2006: 53-57; Martínez-Flor 2007: 209). In Rost’s (2006: 53) words “top-down processing in listening refers to the use of expectations in order to infer what the speaker may have said or intended to say”. Those expectations might be based on learners’ own experience and knowledge of the word. Therefore, in the top-down processing model, learners might make inferences from contextual knowledge (i.e. setting, participants and topic) and from prior knowledge (i.e. content schemata and formal schemata) in order to achieve full comprehension (Hedge 2000: 232-33; Lynch 2006: 93; Rost 2006: 54). 2.2.2. Speaking Concerning speaking, Richards (2008: 21-28), based on previous research in the field (Brown and Yule 1983: 5), identifies three major language functions, namely those of transaction, interaction and performance. In this regard, fostering the different language functions is equally importance since learners should be able to use language communicatively in different domains and in various forms. Transaction refers to the type of spoken situations which usually involve information-exchange in which attention is paid to what is said or done (Richards 2008: 24). In line with this, Burns (1998: 109) identifies two main types of transactional language, namely giving and receiving information and obtaining goods or services. The former refers to the situations in which learners focus on what is said and what they should do, while the latter implies that learners need to exchange information so as to obtain a particular result. Regarding this, Richards (2008: 26) suggests that this language function can be employed for different communicative purposes such as providing an explanation or an opinion, making suggestions, or asking for clarification, amongst others. Interaction is concerned with the use of language as a social event. In this respect, some of the main features of this type of language function are those of social function, reflection on participants’ role and speakers’ identity, use of conversational conventions, degree of politeness, and use of both generic words and conversational register (Richards 2008: 22). Moreover, within this type of interactions, Richards (2008: 22-24) points out that learners should have the ability to perform certain actions such as opening and closing conversations, taking turns, managing the topic, amongst others.

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Finally, performance is defined as a public talk in which speakers convey meaning and information to an audience (Richards 2008: 27). This particular type of language function is presented in the form of a monologue which is characterised by showing a concrete organisation and sequencing of the spoken discourse in which form, accuracy and content matters (Jones 1996: 14; Richards 2008: 27-28). In this specific case, the discourse features that are employed in this type of language function appear to be rather formal and it might show certain linguistic aspects that are typically attributed to written discourse. 2.2.3. Reading As regards reading, different comprehension processes have been identified, namely those of bottom-up, top-down and interactive (Anderson 2003: 70-73; Usó-Juan 2007: 239-41). The different processing models differ mainly in the manner in which learners perceive and process input. The bottom-up processing model implies that learners should first pay attention to the smallest units appearing in a given text in order to create meaning from that information (Anderson 2003: 70; Usó-Juan 2007: 239). Hence, learners, in trying to create meaning, should focus on the recognition and interpretation of morphemes, words, grammatical features, sentences and texts. Then, it seems that, mechanically, learners transmute the data obtained in the reading passage into meaningful sentences. The top-down processing model views reading as an active process in which learners need to activate their cognitive processes to achieve full comprehension (Anderson 2003: 71; Usó-Juan 2007: 239). Learners should draw on their background knowledge and make predictions about the forthcoming reading passages to better understand the input (Anderson 2003: 71). Hence, learners should integrate their linguistic knowledge as well as their experiential and general conceptual background (Hudson 1998: 47). In so doing, learners are provided with opportunities for reaching reading full comprehension. Finally, the interactive processing model is seen as the most appropriate model since it integrates features of bottom-up and top-down processing models. It is suggested that in order to better help learners achieve full comprehension the two processing models should be combined (Hudson 1998: 48; Anderson 2003: 72; UsóJuan 2007: 239-40). In this way, certain aspects of top-down and bottom-up processes seem to work either simultaneously or alternatively to assist learners in the reading comprehension process. 2.2.4. Writing The process of writing implies the generation of ideas, their examination as well as critical-thinking development to create a text in which it is shown author’s intention and it written for a particular audience. Learners need to follow certain steps in order to learn how to elaborate texts such as those of “setting goals, generating ideas, organising information, selecting appropriate language, making a draft, reading and reviewing it, then revising and editing” (Hedge 2000: 302). In other words, the process of writing could be summarised as planning, revising, and producing reader-based prose. Hence, in order to tackle appropriately this particular language skill and help learners to generate cohesive and coherent texts, learners need to focus on the whole process of writing. Firstly, learners should plan their writing, think of the purpose of it (Hedge 2000: 302) and consider the potential audience. In organising the writing activity, some techniques such as brainstorming, word-mapping, quick-writing might be employed

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(Sokolik 2003: 97). Regarding the purpose and the potential audience, learners should be presented with sufficient information about these particular aspects so they can elaborate purposefully and communicative-oriented written texts. Secondly, learners need to revise their first draft in order to see whether the activity is appropriately accomplished (Hedge 2000: 306-307; Sokolik, 2003: 98). The revision of the draft can also be done by peers or teachers. In fact, using peer-review is highly recommended since it might serve not only to identify possible problems as regards form and content, but also to see whether a potential reader might understand writers’ intentions. Furthermore, it is important that learners take into account certain linguistic and cultural conventions. Finally, after editing the text, learners should submit the final product. It seems, therefore, that learners should take part actively in the whole process of writing in order to appropriately understand how to write communicatively. 3. Methodology 3.1. Textbook selection Data for this study was excerpted from a set of three contemporary ELT textbooks (published 2000 onwards) which shared the same proficiency level and contained the same number of units (Table 1). In this particular case, the three ELT textbooks had 10 units each and they belonged to the advanced level (i.e. C1 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) according to their publisher. ELT Textbooks Upstream Cutting Edge Face2Face

Authors Evans, V. and Edwards, L. Cunningham, S. and Moor, P. Cunningham, G. and Bell, J.

Year

Publisher

Level

Number of Units

2003

Express Publishing

Advanced

10

2003

Pearson Longman

Advanced

10

2009

Cambridge

Advanced

10

Table 1. ELT Textbooks

For the purpose of this study, all the different activities devoted to the development of the four language skills were examined to determine whether the CA was appropriately followed. However, the instructional activities appearing in sections designed for revising content were not considered. 3.2. Procedure In conducting this study, all the different instructional activities were identified and classified according to the type of language skill that was taught in each one. After that, we proceeded with the analysis of each instructional activity to verify whether the CA was adopted. In examining the data, we followed the major recommendations made by researchers as regards the treatment of the instructional activities that are designed for developing the four language skills. More specifically, regarding listening, it is suggested that instructional activities should provide learners with opportunities for activating their background knowledge and with contextual information about the spoken texts (Hedge 2000: 232-33; Lynch 2006: 93-95; Rost 2006: 53-57; Martínez-

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Flor 2007: 208-09). In so doing, learners can better identify the different units of language and increase comprehensibility. Concerning speaking, it is indicated that instructional activities should foster learners’ ability to exchange information (i.e. transaction), communicate and interact in different social domains (i.e. interaction) as well as to encourage learners to provide speeches to a given audience (i.e. performance) (Richards 2008: 21-28). In the case of reading, similarly to listening, the instructional activities should encourage learners to activate their background knowledge as well as to recognise and interpret the different linguistic units appearing in the reading passages (Anderson 2003: 70-72; Usó-Juan 2007: 239-40). Finally, with reference to writing, it is pointed out that instructional activities should given learners opportunities for focusing on the whole process of writing (i.e. planning the text, drafting, revising and editing the last version) so that they can learn how to elaborate appropriately written texts (Hedge 2000: 302). Furthermore, writing activities should encourage learners to write for a potential audience. Bearing in mind the major aspects that should be taken into account when teaching the four language skills from the CA and considering that ELT textbooks are widely employed in most instructed settings, in this study it was examined (1) whether the bottom-up and top-down processes were combined (i.e. interactive process) regarding listening; (2) whether the three major language functions (i.e. transaction, interaction and performance) were equally fostered in the case of speaking; (3) whether bottom-up and top-down processes were combined (i.e. interactive process) concerning reading; and (4) whether there was a balance between focus on process and focus on product in the writing activities. 4. Results In the present study, a total of 482 instructional activities were examined. Those activities were distributed as follows: 92 activities with reference to listening, 307 as regards speaking, 56 dealing with reading and 27 in the case of writing. Surprisingly, a disparity regarding the number of activities devoted to each language skill was found. A possible reason for incorporating more listening and speaking activities than reading and writing could be that, in some cases, the opportunities for being exposed to input and to produce output are limited to the instructed setting. Moreover, it was also identified a dissimilar number of instructional activities included in each ELT textbook. Then, it was identified a particular ELT textbook (i.e. Upstream) that offered more activities than the others (i.e. Cutting Edge and Face2Face). In this respect, we consider that, in general, ELT textbooks, especially when belonging to the same proficiency level, should provide a uniform number of instructional activities. This particular issue, however, might depend on publishers’ criterion. However, we also contemplate the idea that some language skills such as listening and speaking are more difficult to tackle in FL contexts. Overall, the disproportion concerning the number of activities devoted to each language skill could also be related to a misunderstanding of the CA model in which special emphasis is given to communication. However, focusing on communication does not necessarily imply that certain language skills such as reading and writing are not part of a communicative event, since the combination of the four language skills is what provides learners with the appropriate knowledge for communicating efficiently and create discourse.

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4.1. Listening The present subsection shows the results obtained when examining the treatment of the listening skill from the CA. The total number of activities examined amounted to 92. In Upstream 39 instructional activities were found and examined. A total of 15 (i.e. 38.5%) activities promoted exclusively the bottom-up process, while 24 (i.e. 61.5%) activities combined bottom-up and top-down processing models. Similar results were obtained in Cutting Edge in which 19 activities were identified and analysed. Results showed that 6 (i.e. 31.6%) activities followed the bottom-up processing model and 13 (i.e. 68.4%) of them employed both processing models. Concerning Face2Face, 34 activities were found and examined. The bottom-up processing model appeared to be followed by 17 (i.e. 50%) activities, while the remaining 17 (i.e. 50%) combined both processing models. Overall, results revealed that of the total number of activities identified and examined (i.e. 92), 38 (i.e. 41.3%) of them followed exclusively the bottom-up processing, while the rest of activities, which amounted to 54 (i.e. 58.7%), employed both processing models. The following examples (i.e. Example 1 and Example 2) might illustrate how instructional activities are presented depending on the processing model that is followed. (1) Example 1: Source: Face2Face (2009: 106, Unit 4) Listen to the song. Choose the correct words/phrases. (2) Example 2: Source: Upstream (2003: 172, Unit 8) You will hear a radio report about ways to get into a British university. Before you listen, discuss in pair the following. What is the procedure for going to university in your country? How difficult/easy is it? Is there a way for older people (i.e. over 30 years old) to go to university in your country? What is it? You will hear the following words in the recording. Find out their meanings, then discuss how they are connected with university entry: A-levels, skill shortages, formal qualifications, financial assistance. Now listen to the recording. For questions 1-8, fill the gaps with a word or short phrase. [...] Do you think it is important for universities to offer vocational courses as well as academic ones? Discuss in pairs. Example 1 shows an activity in which the bottom-up process is followed. The purpose of the activity is to focus on specific items of language by recognising the linguistic features that appear in the spoken text. On the contrary, Example 2 shows an activity which combines both processing models. Then, learners are encouraged to activate their background knowledge before listening to the spoken text. Moreover, they have the opportunity for discussing about the given topic, making predictions as well as for developing their vocabulary knowledge. After that, learners may listen to the spoken text and complete the activity with the information obtained.

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Language Skills from a Communicative Approach

4.2. Speaking This subsection presents the results obtained from the analysis of the instructional activities in which the language skill of speaking was fostered. A total of 307 activities were identified and examined. In Upstream 142 activities were found. Results showed that there was a tendency to promote the function language of transaction. In fact, it was found a total of 124 (i.e. 87.3%) instructional activities designed for developing such language function. Concerning the other two functions of language, results indicated that a scant number of instructional activities were presented for fostering such language functions. More precisely, 16 (i.e. 11.3%) activities regarding interaction and 2 (i.e. 1.4%) concerning performance. Similar results were found in Cutting Edge. In this particular case, the number of activities identified amounted to 66. Results revealed that more attention was paid to the teaching of the function language of transaction, more specifically 53 (i.e. 80.3%) activities. Regarding the other functions of language, few activities were identified; 2 (3%) activities related to interaction and 11 (i.e. 16.7%) regarding performance. Finally, results obtained in Face2Face were akin to the findings of the two previous written materials. Precisely, a total of 99 activities were found and 75 (i.e. 75.8%) of them focused on the language function of transaction. By contrast, a limited quantity of instructional activities designed for the development of the other functions of language was found. In this respect, results indicated that 22 (22.2%) activities were devoted to performance and 2 (i.e. 2%) to interaction. As a whole, results demonstrated that of the total number of activities analysed (i.e. 307), the majority of them, 252 (i.e. 82.1%), focused on the development of the language function of transaction. Concerning the other functions of language, results demonstrated that little emphasis was given to their development. More specifically, 40 activities (i.e. 13%) in the case of interaction and 15 (i.e. 4.9%) concerning the language function of performance. The following examples (i.e. Example 3, Example 4 and Example 5) show the treatment of the language skill of speaking from the perspective of the three functions of language (i.e. transaction, interaction and performance). (3) Example 3: Source: Cutting Edge (2003: 101, Unit 10) Discuss these questions: Did you find any of these techniques surprising? Which seem to be the most/least reliable? In what circumstances do you think such tests should be used? What objections can you think of? Have you ever been in a situation where you were telling the truth and nobody believed you? (4) Example 4: Source: Upstream (2003: 33, Unit 2) Study the table, then in pairs act out short of exchanges, as in the example. Student A, start telling your partner about a film, a book, a play, a CD, an excursion, an activity, etc. Student B interrupt, using language from the table. After a few exchanges, swap role. (5) Example 5: Source: Face2Face (2009: 91) Work in pairs. You’ve agreed to take part in an experiment in which a group of people is left in a remote area of your country, with no money and no contact with the outside world. Make a list of the problems you’ll face and the skills you’ll need to overcome them. Work with you partner and tick the things on your list that you could do. Work in groups. Discuss these questions. What skills each person contribute? Are there any essential skills

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your group is missing? Tell the class how well and how long you think your group would survive. Which group has the best chance of survival? Example 3 shows an activity in which it is fostered the language function of transaction. In this activity, learners should provide some information and certain descriptions. Hence, the focus is on what is said and on the use of communication strategies. Example 4 presents an activity which aims to make learners practise language from an interactive perspective. Learners should interact and use strategies for interrupting. Finally, Example 5 shows an activity which focuses on the language function of performance in which learners should produce an oral speech to an audience. 4.3. Reading This subsection presents the results obtained concerning the language skill of reading. In this case, 56 activities were identified and examined. Results obtained after having analysed the three ELT textbook (i.e. Upstream, Cutting Edge and Face2Face) revealed that all the activities combined the use of bottom-up and top-down processing models to teach the reading skill. The distribution of the number of activities included in each written material is the following; 20 in the case of Upstream, 10 regarding Cutting Edge and 26 concerning Face2Face. Thereby, results indicated that the interactive processing model was employed for integrating this particular language skill in the three ELT textbooks. The following example (Example 6) show how a reading activity is presented by combining both processing models. (6) Example 6: Source: Upstream (2003: 200-01, Unit 9) You will read an article about ghosts in photographs. Before you read, in pairs discuss the following: Look at the title of the passage. What does it imply? Read the introduction of the article. Do you think the writer believes that the photographs of ghosts are authentic, or is he a sceptic? The following words/phrases appear in the article. Look at the photographs and title for each section of the article and guess in which section each word/phrase will appear. Then read the article quickly to check your answers: manor, burials at sea, deceased celebrities, soundstage, and symbols of private meaning. For questions 1-16, choose from the answers A-E. You might have to choose some photographs more than once [...]. Vocabulary practice [...]. Discussion [...]. The example shows an activity in which learners are encouraged to activate their background knowledge by discussing certain questions that are related to the forthcoming text. Attention is also paid to specific vocabulary aspects by focusing on word recognition. Moreover, some further vocabulary is also expected to be developed by revising the reading passage. Finally, there is also a section that promotes a discussion to better understand the content of the reading activity.

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Language Skills from a Communicative Approach

4.4. Writing The present subsection shows the results regarding the language skill of writing. More specifically, 27 instructional activities were identified and examined. Results obtained in the analysis of the three ELT textbooks showed that the different instructional activities seemed to focus on the final product rather than of the whole process of writing which involves drafting, revising, editing and elaborating the final version. Nevertheless, some of the different writing activities included in the ELT textbooks analysed seemed to integrate some of the aspects suggested in the CA. More specifically, the instructional activities provided information about how to plan and organise the writing texts. However, this fact does not necessarily imply that there is a focus on process since the major aim was to develop a product. The distribution of the instructional activities found in each ELT textbook is the following: Upstream 10 activities, Cutting Edge 8 activities and Face2Face 9 activities. Taken together, results suggested that, the major aim of the different instructional activities was to elaborate a final product by paying special attention to format and content, while no emphasis was given to drafting, editing and revising as well as to the elaboration of purposeful and audience-oriented texts. The following example (Example 7) shows the treatment of this particular language skill. (7) Example 7: Source: Upstream (2003, 114-118, Unit 5) Interpreting the rubric [...]. Analysing the model […] . Brainstorming [...]. Paragraph planning [...]. Sentence variety [...]. Interpreting the rubric [...]. Analysing the model [...]. Brainstorming [...]. Writing about people [...]. Error correction [...]. Discussion clock [...]. Using the information you have learned in this unit, write one of the task above. You should write about 250 words. Example 7 shows an activity in which the main aim is to develop a final product. In fact, no emphasis is given to the whole process of writing which implies drafting, revising, editing and creating the final version. 5. Discussion and pedagogical implications The goal of this study was to verify whether the CA was appropriately adopted by a set of three contemporary ELT textbooks. In particular, the aim was to evaluate (1) whether the bottom-up and top-down processes were combined (i.e. interactive process) regarding listening; (2) whether the three major language functions (i.e. transaction, interaction and performance) were equally fostered in the case of speaking; (3) whether bottom-up and top-down processes were combined (i.e. interactive process) regarding

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reading; and (4) whether there was a balance between focus on process and focus on product in the writing activities. Concerning the listening activities, results indicated that despite the fact that some of the instructional activities combined both processing models, only 54 (i.e. 58.7%) activities out of 92 followed the suggestions established by the CA. In fact, the way in which the different listening activities are presented might have an impact on learners’ comprehension. By promoting exclusively bottom-up processing learners’ opportunities for activating background knowledge and for obtaining contextual information are restricted. The combination of both processing models facilitates learners’ understanding of the receiving input which, in fact, might benefit their listening comprehension. Regarding the speaking activities, results revealed that this particular language skill was mainly fostered from the perspective of the language function of transaction. A total of 252 activities (i.e. 82.1%) out of 307 were designed to develop this particular language function. By contrast, results showed that scant attention was paid to the fostering of the other language functions, more specifically 40 activities (i.e. 13%) in the case of interaction and 15 (i.e. 4.9%) concerning performance. Therefore, it was found a disparity in the number of activities that were devoted to each language function. Consequently, learners might not be provided with appropriate opportunities for developing their speaking competence. With reference to the reading activities, results demonstrated that the treatment of this language skill was done by following the suggestions of the CA. All the activities that were examined seemed to integrate bottom-up and top-down processing models, that is to say, they followed an interactive processing model. Hence, learners appear to be given with further opportunities for achieving full reading comprehension. Finally, in the case of the writing activities, results indicated that, as a whole, there was a tendency to focus on the final product despite the fact that some of the activities presented seemed to incorporate some techniques for developing texts such as brainstorming. However, this fact does not imply that those instructional activities followed the recommendations established by the CA. Hence, results demonstrated that learners cannot appropriately understand the whole process of writing since the main goal was to create the final product. In light with our results, some pedagogical implications might be suggested. In this respect, ELT textbooks writers should apply the recommendations established by the CA in all the different instructional activities. In the case of listening, instructional activities should combine both processing models in order to better assist learners’ comprehension. Concerning speaking, it would be interesting to design a balanced number of instructional activities which foster appropriately the three functions of language (i.e. transaction, interaction and performance). In the case of reading, instructional activities should continue showing a combination of both processing models. By providing learners with opportunities for activating their background knowledge and by paying attention to the different linguistic features learners can better comprehend the reading passages. Finally, with reference to writing, instructional activities should emphasise the importance of the process of writing by encouraging learners to elaborate drafts, receive feedback on the written output and revise the text in order to edit the final version. Alternatively, language teachers might design extra instructional activities to overcome drawbacks in the instructional activities appearing in ELT textbooks, if any. To do so, teachers should first become familiar with the treatment of the four language skills from the perspective of the CA. Then, when identifying any limitations in the instructional activities, teachers could incorporate certain modifications. Furthermore, it

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Language Skills from a Communicative Approach

will be interesting to design activities which provide learners with an authentic representation of language use as well as with purposeful output activities (BeltranPalanques forthcoming). In this respect, the use of audiovisual materials for designing listening activities could be very beneficial for learners since they might be exposed to aural and visual input. This, therefore, might increase learners’ possibility of reaching full listening comprehension. Moreover, learners can also focus on certain pragmatic and discourse features which might enrich their speaking and writing competence. Similarly, in the case of speaking, the use of elaborated-texts from authentic data and audiovisual materials might be extremely beneficial for learners. They might become aware of how the three function of language are performed and which discourse and pragmatic features are employed. Then, teachers should elaborate specific instructional activities which develop each function of language in a contextualised manner and purposefully. Concerning reading, it would be interesting to further develop activities that promote extensive reading and vocabulary development as well as to present learners with a variety of authentic reading passages. Finally, regarding writing, learners might be provided with opportunities for taking part actively in the whole process of writing as well as for writing purposefully and for an audience. 6. Conclusion The current study was guided by one aim; to examine a set of three contemporary ELT textbook to verify whether the CA was followed for the integration of the four language skills. Results indicate that in general the activities examined in the three ELT textbooks do not adopt appropriately the CA as regards the treatment of the four language skills. This fact could affect negatively learners’ adequate development of communicative competence. Hence, it seems that ELT textbooks writers should make an effort to incorporate further instructional activities which follow accurately the CA. Nevertheless, the results obtained in this study might not be generalised due to the small amount of data. In fact, further research is needed in this particular field in order to examine whether current language materials adopt appropriately the CA. Works Cited Anderson, Neil 2003. Reading. Ed. David Nunan. Practical English Language Teaching. New York: McGraw Hills. 67-86. Bachman, Lyle F. 1990. Fundamental Considerations in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beltrán-Palanques, Vicente Forthcoming. Teaching the Four Language Skills from a Communicative Perspective: Some Pedagogical Implications. Brown, Gillian and George Yule 1983. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burns, Anne 1998. Teaching Speaking. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18: 10223. Canale, Michael 1983. From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language Pedagogy. Eds. Jack C. Richards and Richard Schmidt. Language and Communication London: Longman. 2-27. Canale, Michael and Merrill Swain 1980. Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing. Applied Linguistics 1: 1-47.

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Language Skills from a Communicative Approach

Celce-Murcia, Marianne, Zoltan Dörnyei and Sarah Thurrell. Communicative Competence: A Pedagogically Motivated Model with Content Specifications. Issues in Applied Linguistics 6: 5-35. Hedge, Tricia 2000. Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hudson, Thom 1998. Theoretical Perspective on Reading. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18: 43-60. Hymes, Dell H. 1972. On Communicative Competence. Eds. John Bernard Pride and Janet Holmes. Sociolinguistics. Baltimore: Penguin Books. 269-93. Jones, Pauline 1996. Planning an Oral Language Program. Ed. Pauline Jones. Talking to Learn. Melbourne: PETA. 12-26. Lynch, Tony 2006. Academic Listening: Marrying Top and Bottom. Eds. Esther UsóJuan and Alicia Martínez-Flor. Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 91-110. Martínez-Flor, Alicia 2007. Research-oriented Perspective on Teaching Listening. Eds. Esther Usó-Juan and Noelia Ruiz-Madrid. Pedagogical Reflections on Learning Languages in Instructed Settings. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 202-19. Richards, Jack C. 2008 Teaching Listening and Speaking. From Theory to Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rost, Michael 2006. Areas of Research that Influence L2 Listening Instruction Eds. Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor. Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 47-74. Sheldon, Leslie 1988. Evaluating ELT Textbooks and Materials. ELT Journal 42(4): 237-46. Sokolik, Maggie 2003. Writing. Ed. David Nunan. Practical English Language Teaching. New York: McGraw Hills. 87-108. Usó-Juan, Esther 2007. Research-Oriented Perspective on Teaching Reading. Eds. Esther Usó-Juan and Noelia Ruiz-Madrid. Pedagogical Reflections on Learning Languages in Instructed Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 239-54. Usó-Juan, Esther and Alicia Martínez-Flor 2006. Approaches to Language Learning and Teaching: Towards Acquiring Communicative Competence through the Four Skills. Eds. Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor. Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 3-25.

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Yolanda Joy Calvo Benzies

Students’ Views on the Teaching

Students’ Views on the Teaching of English Pronunciation in Spain. A Survey-Based Study Yolanda Joy Calvo Benzies University of Santiago de Compostela Although the teaching of English pronunciation has changed a great deal in the last decades (the materials and techniques used have altered, the type of activities have changed from simple drills to exercises with a more communicative purpose), has the role of pronunciation in EFL classes in Spain actually changed? What do the current Spanish students learning English really think? This project aims at analysing the views of 26 Spanish students of English belonging to different levels of proficiency, regarding their answers in a questionnaire on several topics, such as the time devoted to pronunciation in their EFL classes, the error correction by teachers or the role of pronunciation in their textbooks. This paper intends to be a contribution to the teaching of English pronunciation in Spain, a field that is rather neglected if compared to other areas, such as grammar or vocabulary. Key words: teaching, textbooks, pronunciation, students’ views. 1. Introduction It is a fact that pronunciation has been traditionally neglected in the teaching of English. This situation is somewhat surprising since many authors (Martínez Flor, UsóJuan and Alcón Soler 2006; Aliaga-García 2007), believe that English pronunciation is one of the most difficult areas to acquire and develop for several reasons: 1) the irregular correspondence between English spelling and pronunciation, 2) personal learner factors such as motivation, L2 background and language aptitude or 3) the fact that it is not enough to simply pronounce a word or sentence correctly, but one should also communicate with some degree of fluency and accuracy. A quote extracted from Aliaga-García explains this situation perfectly: The results from the literature on L2 speech learning suggest that factors other than age of learning also have a significant influence on the accuracy of Second Language (L2) learners to perceive and produce non-native speech segments. Whereas it appears reasonable to introduce foreign languages (FLs) as early as possible, successful L2 pronunciation is also dependent on a wide variety of variables such as L1 background, amount of L1 and L2 use, length of residence in a L2-speaking environment, gender, language aptitude and motivation (2007: 1).

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Students’ Views on the Teaching

Nevertheless, this situation of inferiority has begun to change in the last decades in Spain, with the inclusion of the four skills in the classroom thanks to the introduction of new methods, the Common European Framework (CEFR) in 2001 and the reduction in some cases of the number of pupils per group. Thus, if we take into consideration all of these changes and innovations in language teaching, we could assume that the role that pronunciation has in EFL classes as well as in the teaching materials used has also improved in the last few years. However, what is the opinion of the students? Do they consider that pronunciation has the role it deserves in their EFL classes or is it still rather neglected? This project is a preliminary contribution to this topic; therefore, it aims at 1) analysing the views of 26 Galician students of English belonging to different levels of proficiency, namely secondary school, Bachillerato and university, concerning aspects related to the role that pronunciation has in their EFL classes, aspects such as, how frequently do their teachers correct their pronunciation mistakes, the presence of pronunciation in their EFL textbooks, their particular segmental difficulties or the time devoted to pronunciation in their classrooms; 2) to compare the opinions and perspectives of students in two different ways: a) firstly, with the other students from the same level of education and b) secondly, with the rest of the subjects, i.e. as a whole group; and, 3) to see whether the segmental pronunciation difficulties mentioned by these subjects coincide with those stated by previous studies conducted concerning this topic, i.e. the specific difficulties that Spanish learners of English have with pronunciation (Kenworthy 1987, Sánchez Benedito 1994, Alcaraz and Moody 1999, Palacios Martínez 2000, Estebas Vilaplana 2009): the distinctions between short and long vowels, schwa, /V/, /T/, /D/, /s/, /z/ and /Ù/. In other words, the third aim of this study is to identify whether Galician students of English are aware of the segmental problems they tend to have due to the influence of their mother tongue/s (in this case Spanish and/or Galician) on their English pronunciation. 2. Methodology 2.1. Subjects A total of 26 subjects, belonging to different levels of education, participated in this study. Out of these 26 learners, six belonged to a pilot study carried out so as to test whether students from the lowest level of education selected (i.e. third year ESO) would be capable of understanding the different items of the questionnaire.1 The remaining 20 subjects belonged to the main study. 2.1.1. Pilot study subjects Three of the participants in this preliminary study were female and the remaining three subjects were male. They were between 14 and 24 years old and belonged to several levels of proficiency in English: two of them were in their third year of secondary school (third year ESO), one was in his first year of post-secondary school (first year Bachillerato) and the remaining three subjects were in higher education: one was enrolled in a two-year course of Hotel Management (Known in Spain as Ciclo Superior de Restauración), another subject had completed a two-year course on tourism (Ciclo Superior de Animación Turística) and the remaining participant had a BA in English Language and Literature (Filología Inglesa) and was in her first year of postgraduate studies. 1

See section 2.1.1. for more information regarding these subjects.

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Students’ Views on the Teaching

2.1.2. Main study subjects The 20 subjects in the main study belonged to one of four specific levels of proficiency: five were students of the third year of secondary school (3rd year ESO), five were in their first year of post-obligatory secondary school (1st year Bachillerato), five of them were enrolled in the third year of English studies (Filología Inglesa) and the remaining five were in their last year of this English degree. The main reason why students from several levels of English proficiency were selected was due to the fact that, as mentioned above, one of the main aims of this project was to compare the opinions and perspectives of students from different levels of proficiency regarding the role that pronunciation currently has in their EFL classes. A total of 13 subjects belonging to this study were female and the remaining 7 were male.2 Their age ranged between 14 and 22 years old. 2.2. Research materials A questionnaire was designed so as to obtain the data for this preliminary study. It was formulated in Spanish as we considered that some students, especially those in the lower level of education studied, i.e. third year ESO, would not have been able to understand the whole content of this research material if it had been given to them in English. It was organised in 26 items divided into two sets (see appendix 1) some personal data questions (regarding the students age, if they had ever been to an Englishspeaking country, whether they had native relatives or friends [...]); and, 2) some pedagogical features in the teaching of pronunciation in Spain, aspects such as those mentioned in the introduction (frequency of error correction by the teacher, time devoted to pronunciation, the presence of this aspect in the students’ EFL textbooks and teaching materials, etc.). The questionnaire had a closed format in which the subjects had to choose from several options provided. Moreover, there were many yes/no type questions and, in one item, number 22, the students had to rank the difficulty that each of the English sounds had for them according to a 1-4 scale, 1 representing ʻvery easyʼ sounds and 4 ʻvery difficultʼ. 2.3. Material preparation and administration As aforementioned, the questionnaire was tested by the subjects in the preliminary study and, in a second stage, administered to the participants selected in the main study. Regarding the material administration, the subjects belonging to the lower levels of proficiency, thus, third year ESO and first year Bachillerato filled out the questionnaire during one hour of their EFL classes at their own school whereas the participants of either year of English Philology as well as those in the pilot study filled out their questionnaire in their free time. 3. General data analysis The data obtained will be presented in tables and figures to illustrate the main points and to understand more easily the main differences according to the different groups of subjects involved in the study.

2

The reason why there were a higher number of female subjects was due to the fact that all of the ten subjects in English Philology were female, mainly because there is a tendency for female subjects to outnumber males in this degree. However, this situation is beginning to change with the new degree of English studies, Grado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesas.

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Yolanda Joy Calvo Benzies

Students’ Views on the Teaching

4. Main results Due to reasons of space, only some of the main and interesting results will be referred to in this section. However, all of the results obtained in this preliminary project will be considered in the last section, i.e. in the conclusions. 4.1. Item 9 In question number nine, the subjects were asked whether they considered that speaking English with a native accent was important or not and thus, sounding native to other native speakers. In figure 1 below, we can see that most of the subjects (76.92%) believed that speaking English with a native accent was important whereas 23.08% thought it was not. Regarding the answers given by the different groups, the majority of the subjects in the pilot study and those in either year of English Philology clearly considered it important to have an English accent when speaking in this language whereas the answers given by the subjects in third year ESO and first year Bachillerato were more varied.

Figure 1. Importance of speaking English with a native accent

4.2. Item 11 Question 11 was related to the frequency with which pronunciation activities are carried out in EFL classes in Galician schools and universities. Half of the participants (50%) answered that pronunciation activities were hardly ever carried out in their EFL classes; 30.76% affirmed that such activities were often included in the classroom and 19.20% claimed that pronunciation tasks were never carried out. Regarding the answers given by the different groups, there was a total difference between the ones given by the lower level groups and those chosen by the higher level ones since the majority of the participants in English Philology said that such tasks were hardly ever or never carried out in the classroom whereas in the questionnaires of the students in the lower levels and those in the pilot study, several subjects affirmed that pronunciation activities were either often or hardly ever carried out in the classroom. Therefore, it seems that the higher the level, the less pronunciation activities are carried out in the classroom. These results are shown in figure 2 below:

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Yolanda Joy Calvo Benzies

Students’ Views on the Teaching

Figure 2. Frequency with which pronunciation activities are carried out in the classroom

4.3. Item 12 In question number 12 the subjects were asked whether they believed that the time devoted to English pronunciation activities in their EFL was sufficient. As can be seen in figure 3, the majority of the subjects (73.07%) believed that not enough time was spent on pronunciation tasks in their English classes whereas the remaining 26.98% of the participants were happy with the time their teacher spent on carrying out this type of exercises. Once again, there was a great difference in the number of answers given for each option by the different groups since 100% of participants in English Philology (both those in the third year and the fifth year) agreed on the fact that the time devoted to English pronunciation in the classroom was not sufficient whereas in the rest of the groups, some subjects claimed that enough time was spent on such activities whereas another group of students maintained that not enough time was dedicated to this kind of tasks in the classroom. Thus, once again, it seems that the higher the level, the less importance is given to pronunciation by teachers in the educational system.

Figure 3. Amount of time devoted to pronunciation in the classroom

4.4. Item 13 Question 13 was related to the previous one. In this item, the subjects were asked if they believed that the skill of pronunciation should be emphasised. The majority of the subjects (92.30%), as can be seen in figure 4, agreed on the fact that more attention should be paid to pronunciation. In fact, there were only two subjects

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Yolanda Joy Calvo Benzies

Students’ Views on the Teaching

(one from the pilot study and one from third year ESO) who believed that the skill of pronunciation should not be emphasised.

Figure 4. Should the skill of pronunciation be emphasised?

4.5. Item 17 In item 17 the participants had to answer whether they liked their teachers or classmates to correct their pronunciation mistakes. The vast majority (92.30%) affirmed that they did not mind their pronunciation mistakes being corrected by their teachers or classmates whereas only 7.69% admitted the opposite (particularly two participants from the pilot study), cf. Figure 5 below.

Figure 5. Students’ views on correction

4.6. Item 18 In question number 18, the subjects were asked how often their teachers of English corrected their pronunciation mistakes or the ones made by their classmates. They could choose between the following options: 1) always; 2) often; 3) sometimes; 4) rarely; and, 5) never. As can be observed in figure 6 below, the majority of the subjects chose the option sometimes (50%), followed by rarely (23.07%) and often (19.23%). Regarding the different groups of proficiency, there were some differences: all fifth year Philology students agreed on sometimes, whereas the rest of the groups had more varied opinions.

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Students’ Views on the Teaching

Figure 6. Frequency with which teachers correct students’ pronunciation mistakes

4.7. Item 20 In item number 20 students were asked whether their textbooks included many activities on pronunciation. In figure 7, we can see that 69% per cent considered that such materials did not present many pronunciation exercises while 30.76% replied in positive terms. However, there was a clear difference between the answers given by the students from a particular level: those participants from the pilot study and the ones in English Philology almost unanimously affirmed that their textbooks did not include a lot of pronunciation activities whereas the majority of the subjects in the lower levels (i.e. third year ESO and first year Bachillerato) agreed on the fact that their textbooks did include a lot of pronunciation tasks. Therefore, once again, it seems that the higher the level, the less importance is given to pronunciation, in this case, the higher the level, the less amount of pronunciation activities are included in the students’ textbooks.

Figure 7. Inclusion or not of pronunciation activities in the subjects’ textbooks

4.8. Item 21 In item number 21 the subjects were asked whether the pronunciation activities their textbooks included, varied in format or if, on the contrary, they were structured in a similar manner. Regarding the results, depicted in figure 8, seventy three per cent answered that the pronunciation activities in their textbooks did not vary in format; hence, they were rather repetitive, and 26.98% affirmed that such tasks were quite diverse regarding their structure. Once again, there was a total difference in the answers given by the lower levels and the higher ones. The vast majority (100%) of the subjects in English Philology (both in the third and fifth years) agreed on the fact that the © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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Students’ Views on the Teaching

pronunciation activities included in their textbooks were presented in the same way. On the other hand, some of those subjects from the pilot study and from the two lower levels selected believed their textbooks varied concerning the structure of the different pronunciation activities included, whereas another subgroup of these subjects affirmed that such tasks had the same format. Thus, according to the subjects, it seems that the higher the level, the less importance is given to variety for pronunciation activities in EFL textbooks.

Figure 8. Variation in format or structure of the pronunciation activities included in textbooks

4.9. Item 22 In item 22 the subjects had to decide how difficult each English sound was for them to pronounce. They could choose between number 1 (representing an easy sound to pronounce) and 4 (representing a difficult sound to pronounce). For each sound or pair of sounds, the subjects were given the phonetic symbol and some examples of words containing such sound; however, phonetic transcriptions were not used in this questionnaire since we considered that most of the participants, especially those in the two lower levels of proficiency, would not be familiar with such symbols and thus, they would not have totally understood the question if phonetic transcriptions had been included. In table 1 below, we find an example of how the questionnaire presented the different sounds, in this case, the distinction between /&/ and /a:/ and the consonants /S/ and /Z/: Distinción entre /&/ y /a:/ (cat vs car) /S, Z/ (shut, explosion)

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

Table 1. Example of how the sounds and phonetic symbols of English pronunciation appeared in item 22

In order to analyse the answers given by the different subjects, those sounds that had been ranked with 3 or 4 by two or more subjects belonging to the same group of proficiency were considered in the analysis since these figures are the ones that really represent difficulty or high difficulty for students. Thus, the following were the English sounds that the subjects from the different groups ranked as difficult to pronounce: - For those subjects belonging to the pilot study, two or more subjects marked with 3 or 4 the following sounds: the distinctions between /ae/ and /a:/, /Q/ and /O:/, /V/, schwa, the diphthongs /OI/, /aU/, /@U/ and /U@/ and the consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/ and /S/, /3/. - Two or more students in third year ESO marked the distinction between /U/ and /u:/, the diphthongs /I@/ and /U@/ and /m/, /n/, /N/ as difficult sounds to pronounce.

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Students’ Views on the Teaching

- Concerning the subjects in first year Bachillerato, the majority of them considered the distinctions between /U/ and /u:/, /Q/ versus /O:/, and /e/ versus /3:/, the diphthong /U@/, schwa and the consonants /T/, /D/ /s/, /z/, /r/ and /m/, /n/, /N/ as complex sounds. - The students in their third year of English Philology considered the following English sounds as the most difficult ones: the distinctions between /&/ and /a:, /I/ versus /i:/, /U/ versus /u:/ and /Q/ versus /O:/, the diphthong /U@/, and the consonants /s/, /z/. - Finally, the subjects selected in the last year of English Philology chose the distinctions between /ae/ and /a:/, /e/ versus /3:/ and /Q/ versus /O:/, schwa, the diphthongs /@U/, /e@/ and /U@/ and the consonants /f/, /v/, /D/, /T/, /s/, /z/, /h/, /Í/, and /Ù/ as the most complex sounds for them to pronounce. Thus, once we took into consideration the total number of difficult sounds marked with 3 or 4 by the different subjects, we could observe that the sounds that more students affirmed to have problems with were the following: - The diphthong /U@/, which was considered as a difficult English sound for 12 subjects. - 11 subjects rated the distinction between /Q/ and /O:/ and the consonants /s/ and /z/ as complex sounds to pronounce. - The distinction between /U/ and /u:/ seemed to be quite difficult for the participants since eight of them marked these sounds with 3 or 4 in the questionnaire. - The next complex sound for the subjects was schwa as seven participants considered it difficult to pronounce. - Other sounds that seemed to be of some complexity for the subjects were: /f/, /v/ (six subjects marked these sounds as difficult); the distinctions between /&/ and /a:/ and /e/ versus /3:/ and /D/, /T/ (marked by five subjects); followed by the diphthongs /@U/ and /e@/, the consonants /S/, /Z/, /Í/, /Ù/ and /m/, /n/, /N/ (four subjects ranked these sounds as difficult); the distinction between /I/ and /i:/ and /V/ were affirmed to be difficult for three subjects and the diphthongs /OI/, /aU/ and /I@/ together with the consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, /r/ and /h/ were considered by two subjects as complex sounds. 5. Conclusions After analysing the answers given by the different subjects in their questionnaires, the following conclusions can be drawn from this preliminary study. 5.1. Conclusions regarding the students’ opinions on speaking English and pronunciation The majority of the students affirm that speaking English is difficult and therefore, teachers should emphasize such skill as well as pronunciation. Moreover, the subjects believe that it is important to speak English with a native accent, a result that is somewhat surprising since nowadays emphasis is placed on intelligibility rather than on sounding native (Kenworthy 1987; Ur 1996; Palacios 2000; Fernández Carril 2002 or Brown 2007). However, it is understandable since there continues to be a wide belief among students that the more similar one´s pronunciation is to that of a native speaker, the better. 5.2. Conclusions regarding the students’ opinions of the current situation of pronunciation in their EFL classes The results obtained in this study show that EFL teachers normally speak English or a combination of English with an official language in the classroom, in this case Spanish and/or Galician. Secondly, the students believe that the time devoted to the teaching of pronunciation in their classes is insufficient and should therefore be

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Students’ Views on the Teaching

emphasized. Furthermore, according to the participants, pronunciation activities are not frequently carried out in the classroom. Regarding error correction, students affirm that they like their teachers or classmates to correct their pronunciation problems; nevertheless, their teachers only do so on some occasions. Moreover, it seems that students normally ask their English teacher, listen to the native speakers´ way of pronouncing or they use a pronunciation dictionary when they desire to correct their pronunciation mistakes. However, it is mainly English Philology students who use pronunciation dictionaries. Finally, the subjects affirmed that oral exams are generally part of their assessment in their English as a foreign language classes. 5.3. Conclusions regarding the students’ opinions on their EFL textbooks It could be affirmed that the students generally have a negative view of their EFL textbooks. On the one hand, the majority of the participants affirmed that their textbooks do not include many pronunciation activities and that such tasks normally share the same format. However, the subjects believe that the activities included in their textbooks generally help them improve their pronunciation skills. 5.4. Some further conclusions Some further conclusions could be extracted from this study: firstly, as mentioned several times throughout this article, the higher the level, the less importance seems to be given to pronunciation in EFL classes and teaching materials. This is somewhat surprising due to the fact that students who obtain a BA in the degree of English Language and Literature (Filología Inglesa3) should be able to communicate themselves correctly and fluently, both in oral and written language and, if pronunciation does not have an important role in this degree, they will not achieve a good level in this language aspect. Finally, the results obtained in this study showed that students are not aware of the segmental difficulties they have with English pronunciation when compared to the difficulties pointed out by previous studies such as those conducted by Kenworthy (1987), Sánchez Benedito (1994), Alcaraz and Moody (1999), Palacios Martínez (2000) and Estebas Vilaplana (2009). Works Cited Alcaraz, Enrique and Brian Moody 1999. Fonética inglesa para españoles. Alcoy: Marfil. Aliaga García, Cristina 2007. The Role of Phonetic Training in L2 Speech Learning. Proceedings of the Phonetics Teaching and Learning Conference. ˂http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/ptlc/ptlc2007_web_procindex.html˃. 17 November 2011. Brown, Douglas 2007. Teaching by Principles. An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. USA: Pearson Longman. Estebas Vilaplana, Eva 2009. Teach Yourself English Pronunciation: an Interactive Course for Spanish Speakers. Oleiros: Netbiblo. Fernández Carril, Raquel 2002. Pronunciation Strategies and Language Teaching. Eds. Ignacio M. Palacios Martínez, María José López Couso, Patricia Fra López and Elena Seoane Posse. Fifty Years of English studies in Spain (1952-2002). A Commemorative Volume. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. 355-62. 3

Currently known as Grado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesas.

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Kenworthy, Joanne 1987. Teaching English Pronunciation. New York: Longman Group UK Limited. Martínez-Flor, Alicia, Esther Usó-Juan and Eva Alcón Soler 2006. Towards Acquiring Communciative Competence through Speaking. Eds. Esther Usó Juan and Alicia Martinez Flor. Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 139-57. Palacios Martínez, Ignacio Miguel 2000. Improving Learner’s Pronunciation of English: some Reflections and some Practical Tips. Ed. José María Ruiz, Patrick Sheerin and Cayetano Estebánez. Estudios de Metodología de la Lengua Inglesa. Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid. 17-40. Sánchez Benedito, Francisco 1994. Manual de Pronunciación Inglesa Comparada con la Española. Madrid: Alhambra Longman. Ur, Penny 1996. A Course in Language Teaching. Practise and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Appendix 1 Some examples of the items included in the questionnaire: Item 9

•

¿Consideras que es importante hablar inglés con acento inglés? Sí

No

Item 10

•

¿Qué idioma(s) suele usar tu profesor en la asignatura de inglés? Inglés •

Gallego/Castellano

Combinación del inglés y una lengua oficial

Item 12

¿Consideras que el tiempo dedicado en las clases de inglés a actividades de pronunciación es suficiente? Sí No •

Item 13

¿Piensas que se debería enfatizar más esta destreza (la pronunciación)? Sí •

No

Item 16

¿Cómo sueles corregir tus errores de pronunciación? (Puedes marcar más de una opción). Le pregunto a un amigo. Le pregunto a mi profesor/a de inglés. Uso un diccionario de pronunciación. Escucho a hablantes nativos. Hago listas de palabras difíciles con su correcta pronunciación al lado. Memorizo reglas y normas de pronunciación. Uso otro método (por favor, especifique) ____________________________ © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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•

Students’ Views on the Teaching

Item 17

¿Te gusta que tu profesor/a o compañeros corrijan tus errores de pronunciación? Sí No •

Item 18

¿Con qué frecuencia corrige tu profesor/a tus errores de pronunciación o la de tus compañeros? Siempre A menudo A veces Raramente Nunca •

Item 26

¿Sueles tener exámenes orales de inglés? Sí

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No

Mediero Durán and Robles Baena

Exploring the errors made by EFL students

Exploring the Errors Made by EFL Students at the University Level1 Mª Esther Mediero Durán, Ainhoa Robles Baena Autonomous University of Madrid This paper reports on some preliminary results of the TREACLE project, which analyzes a learner corpus of texts written in English by Spanish university students in order to explore the structures that students use at different levels of linguistic competence and the errors they make in producing them. We will focus, in particular, on the error annotation of the corpus. First we will explain the methodology used, briefly present the taxonomy of errors which was designed by the research team for annotating the corpus. We will also mention the problems found by the coders in the project during the corpus annotation and the ways in which these problems have been minimized. Finally, we will present the results of the broadest error categories and their distribution across levels, providing detail about the most relevant results within the category of grammar errors found in the corpus. Key words: learner corpora, error analysis, EFL. 1. Introduction I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error. Rene Descartes Error is discipline through which we advance. William Ellery Channing In the light of these two initial quotes, we would like to predispose ourselves and the reader to adopt a positive attitude towards errors, which represent motivation to progress and new opportunities to learn. Error is present in all aspects of our lives, especially when it comes to acquiring a new language. Various approaches to the treatment of errors have been propounded over the years with the aim of providing correction and achieving accuracy. In his pioneering study, Corder (1982: 12) compared the learning process of one’s mother tongue to the acquisition of foreign languages. Corder considered the learner’s native language facilitative and that errors were not to be considered as a sign of inhibition but as evidence of the student’s learning strategies. In the same way infants formulate utterances that do not follow adults’ speech rules, learners of English will attempt to test 1

The TREACLE project is funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) under project grant FFI2009-14436/FILO. TREACLE stands for Teaching Resource Extraction from an Annotated Corpus of Learner English.

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if their mother tongue rules are transferable to the new language. This approach accounts for the large number of errors which are related to the interference of their mother tongue. Selinker (1972) called this class of idiosyncratic dialects interlanguage and defined it as a dialect whose rules share characteristics of two social dialects of languages, whether these languages themselves share rules or not. These rules will refer to the areas of grammar that are problematic for our students. We share LarsenFreeman’s view on the potentiality of grammar when she states that “[…] grammar affords speakers of a particular language a great deal of flexibility in the ways they can express propositional, or notional, meaning and how they present themselves in the world” (Larsen-Freeman 2002: 104). The purpose of this paper is to explore errors as a natural phenomenon in the learning process of English as a foreign language at the university level. In doing so, we want to offer an opportunity for both students to reassess their own work and for teachers to re-schedule the syllabus or prioritise certain areas if necessary to meet students’ needs and improve efficiency based on empirical data obtained from TREACLE. Our study forms part of the TREACLE project. TREACLE stands for Teaching Resource Extraction from an Annotated Corpus of Learner English, and it seeks to create a methodology for producing grammatical profiles of Spanish university learners of English. The project links the relevant areas with the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) levels to improve the curriculum. The CEFR uses some abbreviations for the traditional levels: beginners and pre-intermediate students correspond to A1 and A2, the intermediate levels is designated by B1 and B2, the advanced level is identified as C1 and C2. We will refer to these levels when reporting the results. The empirical evidence around which our study revolves is university students’ written production. This thorough analysis allows us to explore the areas that are more difficult for our students. In highlighting errors in their compositions, we learn which parts of the language need to be reinforced at every level. Thanks to this type of work we can observe the general trend and propose alternatives to improve the development of the linguistic competence in the syllabus design. We must point out that our notion of error follows Corder’s classification of errors. In our work we will focus exclusively on the errors of competence as opposed to the errors of performance such as slips of the tongue which are unsystematic. As English teachers we are aware that the acquisition of foreign languages is demanding. In addition to the challenge of learning foreign languages, the task of writing poses some difficulty for students, as Widdowson (1983: 34) acknowledges: “[…] getting the better of words in writing is commonly a very hard struggle. And I am thinking of words which are in one’s native language. The struggle is all the greater when they are not”. Although this project is mainly concerned with grammar-related errors, the broad error taxonomy will give the reader a better understanding that the notion of grammar that we refer to goes beyond formal accuracy. As we have mentioned before, we believe grammar is a powerful tool that enables students to use the language system not only to convey meaning, but also to match intentions to particular contexts, emphasizing the actual impact grammar has on communication as a social phenomenon with multiple aspects, linguistic and sociolinguistic (politeness principles and appropriate register to the communicative context). In this paper, we will discuss some preliminary conclusions that we reached from a manually annotated corpus. This project aims at analysing students’ written

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Exploring the errors made by EFL students

production to explore the more problematic areas for students at different levels of linguistic competence. For this purpose we will explain some specific features of the project: the corpus, the methodology and error taxonomy. Then we will present some results of the texts we have coded, the conclusions we have reached so far, TREACLE contributions to the field of learner corpus and some future areas of research. 2. The corpus The project was born with the compilation of a corpus that includes university students’ compositions both from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Most writings deal with current topics such as immigration. The corpus that we use is the result of combining the MiLC Corpus from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (UPV) and the WriCLE Corpus from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). MiLC has 780 texts totalling up to 150,000 words whereas WriCLE includes fewer texts but the total amount of words is higher due to the genre the students were covering. Most compositions in MiLC discuss topics related to immigration and those in WriCLE comprise a wider variety of current affairs such as immigration, homosexuality, marriage, and traffic problems. Research has proved that writing in a foreign language combines L1 and L2 resources, and that the mother tongue resources can be particularly useful at the stage of pre-planning the contents (Manchón 1999: 439-78). In both cases the level of students contributing to MiLC and to WriCLE was assessed with the Oxford Quick Study Placement Test (UCLES 2001) and they range from A1 to C1 at MiLC and from A2 to C2 in WriCLE as per CEFR. Texts coming from MiLC are generally shorter than those from WriCLE and most of them are opinion texts. The latter are longer and sometimes adopt the form of essays, and therefore include opinions. The most important characteristics of the corpus can be summarized as follows:

MiLC Corpus – UPV (Andreu et al 2010) WriCLE Corpus – UAM (Rollinson and Mendikoetxea 2010)

Amount of Texts 950 compositions 180,000 words

Length of texts 220-250 words per text

Genre / Topic

Students

Level

Opinion texts mainly devoted to Immigration.

Spanish University Students of all Levels from UPV

A1- C1

750 essays 500,000 words (Selection of 521 texts)

1,000 avg. words per text

Essays / Variety of topics such as immigration, homosexual marriages, traffic problems.

Students of English Philology

A2 - C2

Figure 1. Chart with the most representative features of our corpus

3. Methodology A relevant and essential part of our work could not have been achieved without the help of ICT. This section will first give some information on the tool, then about the

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error coding process, the steps we follow manually, the coding criteria and finally about the reliability, that is, how we standardised the coding criteria across the corpus. Regarding the tool, the UAM Corpus Tool was designed and developed by Michael O’Donnell in 2008. It is free software and can be downloaded from http://www.wagsoft.com/CorpusTool/. It allows you to manually code the errors of each text following the error taxonomy that was created for this project. The error taxonomy has 113 errors at the narrowest level in the hierarchy and the software allows the scheme to be changed to cope with novel cases. The tool also includes glosses (coding criteria) associated with each feature, helping coders choose the correct category and greatly increasing inter-coder agreement. 3.1. Error taxonomy One of the main differences between the TREACLE corpus and other existing learner corpora is the error taxonomy. If we compare TREACLE with other relevant corpora (Pravec 2002) such as The International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) directed by Grangers, we observe a slight difference in the approach. The ICLE scheme deals with grammar errors, but it does so in terms of word classes, with no notion of phrase or clause. Our taxonomy, in trying to relate errors to the university grammar curriculum, is focused on placing errors in relation to the grammar category in which they are taught, as we teach clause and phrase more than word classes. Despite the greater resemblance of TREACLE with the error taxonomy of NICT JLE Corpus (Izumi et al. 2005) that focuses on intelligibility and naturalness, TREACLE goes much further in the total amount of errors. Due to space constraints we cannot offer a full description of each error category. However, the major categories are presented below. lexical-error

error

spelling-error lexical-transfer-error... wordchoice-error... np-error...

adjectival-phrase-error... adverb-phrase-error... prep-phrase-error... grammar-error vp-error... clause-error... clause-complex-error... special-structure-error... other-grammatical-error unnecessary-capitalisation capitalisation-required punctuation-inserted-not-required punctuation-error punctuation-required-not-present wrong-punctuation missing-space-separator

pragmatic-error

phrasing-error

cohesion-error... coherence-error... register-error... other-pragmatic-error transferred-phrasing other-phrasing-error

uncodable-error

Figure 2. Error Taxonomy - Broad Categories *The dots mean that there are further subcategories

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Mediero Durán and Robles Baena

Exploring the errors made by EFL students

To better cater for the specific requirements of the project, we redefined the error scheme on the basis of two inter-coder reliability studies (ICRS). In the latest version, the tool also allows a visualisation of the text with corrections and description of the error to be saved which can be sent to the student. Additionally, the error coding manual has been extended with more description of error categories, and examples drawn from real texts to help coders select the appropriate error type. 3.1.1 Major error categories The error taxonomy includes five main error types: lexical, grammatical, punctuation, pragmatic and phrasing. We also have an extra category for uncodable errors which is used when the coder cannot sufficiently understand the student’s text to decide what the error is. At the current stage of development, the error scheme accounts for almost all errors students make. One of the main design principles has been to ensure that the error scheme should map cleanly onto the organization of grammar topics which are taught within EFL courses. This design has a pedagogical orientation as the coding of errors moves from the more generic grammatical classes to more precise ones, thus it allows us to see which units of grammar present in normal grammatical courses are challenging for students. As for grammar references, we generally follow Quirk and Greenbaum (2008). 3.2. Error coding process The error coding process is rather straightforward and usually follows three steps: 1. We first select the text that is incorrect. To provide better agreement between coders, coders are advised to select only the text that needs to be corrected, rather than whole grammatical units. 2. We assign error codes to the segment, starting with the broadest category appropriate for the error and then successively choosing more specific categories in the taxonomy. Given the large number of error codes in the taxonomy, this process allows the coder to quickly zero in on the appropriate category without searching through hundreds of categories. 3. We propose a correction. To illustrate the steps, we include a shot of the screen coders work on.

1. Select text containing error.

3. Assign features to current segment here. 2. Provide the corrected text here.

Figure 3. Screenshot showing the coding steps

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Mediero Durán and Robles Baena

Exploring the errors made by EFL students

At the top, we can see the text written by the student. Immediately below, we have three successive boxes. The first two correspond to the error taxonomy, the last one glosses shows coding criterion for the currently selected error category, sometimes with examples. This additional application has proved to be very useful for coders to familiarize themselves with the error taxonomy, especially at early stages. At the bottom there is space to write the correction and any comments that the researcher may find relevant for the team to discuss. These notes by the team of coders were extremely relevant while performing the inter-coder reliability studies. The tool allowed the TREACLE members to compare the cases where all coders agreed and those where a consensus needed to be reached. 4. Problems and solutions, reliability The more delicate aspect of the manual tagging is the mastery of the error categories and the standardisation of error classification across the corpus. For this purpose, two inter-coder reliability studies (ICRS) were carried out. As an initial step, the leaders of the research team created a Coding Criteria Manual, specifying the criteria for the applicability of error categories. The manual seeks to maximize the degree to which all members follow the same criteria. Although most rules were established in the first version of the manual, after working on some texts we held meetings to compare the cases that were classified differently by some coders and discussed problematic areas. As a result, some new error categories were created or redistributed in the hierarchy and a new version of the manual was created. Moreover, we calculated Consensus Rates whereby reliability scores were obtained by comparing each individual’s coding to the consensus model. One major problem we encountered related to the extent of text selected in identifying an error. Some coders selected the entire phrase (i.e. a noun phrase), while others selected only the word or words within the phrase which were erroneous. To resolve this error, we proposed as the basic segment identification criteria that only the words that need to be corrected should be selected. The final principle is straightforward but points at the fuzzy barrier between coding errors and corrected versions that are quite often used interchangeably. We must code what the learner has written and not what should have been written. Following this principle, the error ‘the car of John’ would not be classified as a determiner problem but as a postmodifier error. The procedure just described is pedagogically oriented as we focus on the phrase where the error occurs and anticipate which areas of the syllabus need to be reinforced. Let us suppose that a student wrote ‘very browner’. Although the error might be related to the inclusion of an adverbial premodifier, for didactic purposes, we will cover this type of error when teaching the adjectival phrase whether the error is in the adjective itself or in the adverbial premodifier. Let us now focus on some specific cases that were problematic while coding and then see how we solved them. We will see how we dealt with problems of segmentation and coding. In this example we can see how coders mostly agreed on the type of error but segmented differently. We observed that some members used to select the phrase where the error was inserted. We decided against this practice for the reasons we have explained above.

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Exploring the errors made by EFL students

(1) The education in Spain is a subject that given a lot of play because for one people versus The education in Spain is a subject that given a lot of play because for one people The following image shows another example.

Figure 4. Error classification by coders. Consensus rates

Here coders agreed regarding segmentation but disagreed on how to code the error type. After the meetings for the inter-coder reliability studies, a consensus was reached. The changes that we implemented involved creating new error categories such as ‘missing-space-separator’ or ‘incoherent-connector-for-cotext’ under ‘pragmaticerror’. We also added error types for the three types of non-finite clause: ‘infinitiveclause-formation-error’, ‘present-participle-formation-error’ and ‘past-participleformation-error’. In other cases we modified the hierarchy such as when we decided to include ‘vp-missing’ under ‘clause-error’. The tool was also refined and some additional functions were included such as the option to visualize the corrections provided to students. 5. Preliminary results So far, we have coded 233 of the student texts (88,600 words) in the corpus, and identified a total of 12,000 errors. The large number of errors coded allows us to draw fairly clear statements, at least regarding general trends in the kinds of errors our students make. Clearly, a larger corpus would allow us to make clearer statements as to more specific types of errors. Figure 5 shows the number of errors per 1,000 words. As you can see there is a clear inverse trend in the errors students make as they become more proficient in the language.

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Mediero Durán and Robles Baena

Exploring the errors made by EFL students

Errors / 1,000 words 300 250 200 150 100 50 a1

a2

b1

b2

c1

c2

Figure 5. Graph showing errors per 1,000 words at every level

The sharpest drop takes place from A1 (starters) to A2. Out of 1,000 written words 300 are erroneous on average. Another significant decrease is observed in between B1 and B2. 5.1 Results per level of CEFR As students improve their linguistic skills, the type of error evolves. At the A1 level, grammar errors account for 46% of errors, whereas at the B1 level, grammatical errors increase to account for almost 50% of all errors. At higher levels such as C2, punctuation and pragmatic errors now surprisingly become the two most significant ones. This could be due partially to the fact that at higher levels the message becomes more elaborate and students tend to use longer sentences. We also must bear in mind that coders may pay more attention to this type of error as the number of grammatical and lexical errors decreases. 50% 45% 40%

a1

35%

a2

30%

b1

25%

b2

20%

c1

15%

c2

10% 5% 0% np-error

adjectivalphraseerror

adverbphraseerror

prepphraseerror

vp-error

clauseerror

clausecomplexerror

Figure 6. Most relevant error types per level

Grammar errors are the most common type of error across all levels. What seems surprising is the rise of grammar errors as we move from beginners (A1 and A2)

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to the intermediate level (B1). A possible answer is that students start to experiment more with the language, trying to form new structures. As we progress with the coding we will be able to confirm or dismiss this hypothesis. Regarding lexical errors, we observe very similar percentages across different levels. However they decrease at higher levels. We also observe an increase in punctuation and pragmatic errors from B1 level up to C2. 5.2 Main error categories 60% 50% 46%

49%

46%

42%

39%

40%

grammar-error 34%

lexical-error

30%

punctuation-error pragmatic-error

20%

phrasing-error

10% 0% a1

a2

b1

b2

c1

c2

Figure 7. Main error categories per level

As a general trend, most errors fall into the grammatical error type, and within this category most of them occur in the noun phrase, with the determiner being the most problematic area for Spanish students. Besides the noun phrase, prepositional phrases are the next biggest problem, in particular concerning the selection of the preposition. Noun phrase errors are definitely the most widely spread across all levels. Prepositional errors also seem to be quite consistent at lower and intermediate levels; they even rise in higher ones. Clause errors reach a peak at C1 and C2. 6. Conclusions As we have just seen, the empirical study based on TREACLE Learners Corpus suggests that the error-coding system we are using is viable and provides codes for most errors encountered in error-coding a text. The data compiled so far suggests that the number of errors decreases as the proficiency level increases. With regards to the type of errors, we would like to highlight two areas which require more emphasis in the teaching: the noun phrase and prepositions. Although time-consuming, projects like TREACLE are extremely useful to provide data on learners’ interlanguage and contribute to a potential improvement in the curriculum design. This type of studies is essential for a more fine-grained grammar syllabus at the university level. 7. Contribution We believe the use of learner corpora can promote learners’ autonomy which is one of the more important goals in current language teaching, especially in higher education as stated by Littlemore (2001). In this regard, the UAM Corpus Tool has proved to be very versatile as it includes the necessary functions for researchers to analyse students’ errors in a © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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Exploring the errors made by EFL students

meaningful context (task based approach) and it can also be used to give feedback to students and to promote learners’ autonomy. Indeed, providing students with feedback is one of the five components that Holec (1996: 89-93) includes in his definition of ‘self-directed process of learning’. In addition to learners’ autonomy, language awareness plays a key role in the assimilation of accurate grammar use. Many authors such as Mendikoetxea et al. (2010: 180-94) agree on the benefits of error exploration in the EFL context as a tool to raise language awareness. We hope that this work contributes to spreading the notion of grammar as not only referring to rules governing form but also to the grammatical knowledge that matches language uses to students’ intentions in particular contexts (Larsen-Freeman 2002). If we adopt a broader perspective, we can appreciate the relevance of this work as it may contribute to further postulate hypotheses on the acquisition of foreign languages. As Storjohann states, the use of corpora to study language use in an empirical way has revealed new research possibilities in linguistics and cognitive linguistics. Through the use of corpora, for example, we gain a different notion of language as it emerges from language use. The central function of language as a means of natural communication and its role in social interaction are no longer ignored. Both cognitive linguists and corpus linguists share an interest in contextualised, dynamically constructed meaning and in the grounding of language use in cognitive and socialinteractional process (Storjohann 2010: 8). We believe TREACLE is a pioneering work in learner corpora at higher education in the Spanish context. The detailed annotation and granularity of the corpus certainly offer a wide variety of options for further research (Meunier 1998: 20). We will mention some of them in our final section. 8. Areas of further research Although we have not devoted time to exploring transfer from L1 to L2, it could be interesting to analyse how students’ interlanguage evolves at different levels of proficiency. At present we do not have statistics in this area. However, during the coding of texts from various levels, the degree of lexis and structures transferred from L1 to L2 was salient. At lower levels, students tend to rely more on L1 linguistic resources, but as they evolve, this dependency on L1 resources tends to disappear progressively (Larsen-Freeman 1978). A factor that can discontinue this progression could be related in some cases to the writing process’s own cognitive dynamics. In general, students with stronger writing skills in their mother tongue may find it easier to overcome the transfer from L1 to L2. Nonetheless, we have observed that some of these errors persist in lower and more advanced levels. Another possible area of research would be finding a rationale for the increase of grammar errors when we move from the basic to the intermediate level. Although we need to progress with the coding to allow more significant results, it may be worth exploring further samples by cautious learners and other more adventurous students. Moreover, it would be interesting to observe the general trend in errors and compare it with the sequence of elements in the curriculum and with the processability model advocated by Pienemann (1998). With regards to vocabulary acquisition, a contrastive analysis of the lexis used in essays per topic with other compositions by native speakers on the same topics could

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offer a more accurate idea of the lexical gap that students need to cover. In the long term, it would be desirable to create specific materials catering for these special needs. Works Cited Andreu, Mª Ángeles, Aurora Astor, María Boquera, Penny Macdonald, Begoña Montero and Carmen Pérez 2010. Analysing EFL Learner Output in the MiLC Project: An Error it’s*, but which Tag? Eds. Begoña Belles-Fortuno, Mª Carmen Campoy and Mª Lluisa Gea-Valor. Corpus-Based Approaches to English Language Teaching. London: Continuum. 167-79. Cook, Vivian 2008. Second Language Learning and Language Teaching. London: Hodder Education. Corder, S. Pit 1982. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Díaz-Negrillo, Ana and Jesús Fernández Domínguez 2006. Error Tagging Systems for Learner Corpora. RESLA 19: 83-102. Greenbaum, Sidney and Randolph Quirk 2008. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Harlow: Longman. Holec, Henri 1996. Self-directed Learning: an Alternative Form of Training. Language Teaching 29: 89-93. . 24 September 2011. Izumi, Emi, Kiyotaka Uchimoto and Hitoshi Isahara 2005. Error Annotation for Corpus of Japanese Learner English. Proceedings of the Sixth International Workshop on Linguistically Interpreted Corpora (LINC-2005) . 20 July 2011. Larsen-Freeman, Diane 1978. Evidence of the Need for a Second Language Acquisition Index of Development. Ed. William C. Ritchie. Second Language Acquisition Index of Development. New York: Academic Press. 127-36. --2002. The Grammar of Choice. Ed. Eli Hinkel. New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. Mahwah: L. Erlbaum Associates. 105-20. Littlemore, Jeannette 2001. Learner Autonomy, Self-instruction and New Technologies in Language Learning: Current Theory and Practice in Higher Education in Europe. Eds. Angela Chambers and Graham Davies. ICT and Language Learning: A European Perspective. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers. 39-52. Manchón, Rosa M. 1999 La Investigación sobre la Escritura como Proceso. Algunas Implicaciones para la Enseñanza de la Composición en una Lengua Extranjera. Ed. Sagrario Salaberri. Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Lenguas Extranjeras. Almería: Universidad de Almería. 439-78. Mendikoetxea, Amaya, Michael O’Donnell and Paul Rollinson 2009. WriCLE: A Learner Corpus for Second Language Acquisition Research. Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics Conference. CL2009. 20-23 July 2009. . 02 July 2011. Mendikoetxea, Amaya, Susana Murcia and Paul Rollinson 2010. Focus on Errors: Learner Corpora as Pedagogical Tools. Eds. Begoña Belles-Fortuno, Mª Carmen Campoy and Mª Lluisa Gea-Valor. Corpus-Based Approaches to English Language Teaching. London: Continuum. 180-94. Meunier, Fanny. 2002 The Pedagogical Value of Native and Learner Corpora in EFL Grammar Teaching. Eds. Sylviane Granger, Joseph Hung and Stephanie Petch-

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Tyson. Computer Learner Corpora, Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Teaching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 119-42. Pravec, Norma A. 2002. Survey of Learner Corpora. ICAME Journal 26: 81-114. . 27 September 2011. Quirk, Randolph 1998. A University Grammar of English. Harlow: Longman. Richards, Jack C. 1970. A Non-Contrastive Approach to Error Analysis. San Francisco: TESOL Convention. Ritchie, William 1978. Second Language Acquisition Research. Issues and Implications. New York: Academic Press. Rollinson, Paul Martin and Amaya Mendikoetxea 2008. The WriCLE corpus. . 10 September 2011. Storjohann, Peter 2010. Lexical Semantic Relations. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Widdowson, Henry G. 1983. Learning Purpose and Language Use. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Almudena Pascual Iglesias

Prosody and Deafness

Prosody and Deafness “Are Hearing Aids the Main Key to Deaf Children’s Acquisition of Language?” Almudena Pascual Iglesias Complutense University of Madrid Being able to express what you want to express in the way it needs to be expressed is crucial for communication. But what if someone is deprived of one sense and the task of expressing oneself becomes a very difficult, if not impossible task? This paper describes a case study: the analysis of the linguistic competence of deaf people in their use of prosodic features. Departing from Bonetti et al.’s study of 2008, two deaf people—one with a hearing aid and the other one without it—were asked to read out loud twelve sentences containing the most salient instances of suprasegmental usage: loudness and quietness, intonation, speech, pauses, rhythm and body language. Two variables were taken into consideration when doing the test: the level of education received by these two people, and the kind of linguistic influence acquired before losing their hearing. The results indicate that wearing a hearing aid is not an indicator of prosodic success, and that the two applied variables are influential in performing linguistic ability. Key words: deafness, prosody, hearing aids. 1. Introduction Since relatively recent times, communication has been the object of study of sociologists, anthropologists and linguists, among others (for more information, see “Communication Theory” 2011). From a linguistic viewpoint, there are two main ways of communicating: verbally—in the way you utter sentences—and non-verbally—using body language, gestures, etc. Up-to-date, studies have focused on the non-verbal part of deaf-people’s communication (Armstrong 2008; Blondel and Tuller 2000; Maclaughlin et al. 2000; Cuxac 2000). Recently, there has been great interest in the study of how deaf people combine a gestural pattern with a verbal one: Heracleous et al. (2009) inform on the advances of Cued Speech in French; Marschark et al. (2007) tried to evaluate the deaf students’ reading and understanding capabilities through a question-answer game; Rodríguez Ortíz and Mora (2008) established a comparison between the efficiency of sign communication and oral communication. In spite of all these advancements in the field, there seems to be few information about the study of deaf people and prosody (Rodríguez Ortiz 2008; Moog and Stein 2008; Bonetti et al. 2008). As mentioned in the online dictionaries Oxford and Collins

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Almudena Pascual Iglesias

Prosody and Deafness

(2010), the concept of prosody only includes the verbal part of communication; leaving the poetic usage aside, the Oxford Dictionary defines prosody as “The patterns of stress and intonation in a language”. Similarly, “the vocal patterns in a language” is what the Collins Dictionary provides as a description for prosody. Although prosody may be considered innate in people’s manner of communicating, this opinion is not shared by everyone: deaf people may find difficulties in using it when expressing themselves, especially in front of hearing people. In order to avoid this problema—or reduce it as much as posible—deaf people use hearing aids, among other resources. Nevertheless, not every deaf person can wear them, maybe because they do not feel at ease when making use of them, or because their hearing loss is so severe that even a hearing aid is not a solution. This paper is concerned with the way deaf people with hearing aid and deaf people without hearing aid use prosody. Taking this into account, the main hypothesis can be formulated as follows: people with hearing aids can understand and use language better than those people without hearing aids. The objectives can be summarized in the following way: (1) to compare and classify both kinds of deaf people according to their application of prosodic features, and (2) to see if some variables, such as the type of education received in childhood, or the period of time of prelingual language contact, are determinant factors in the correct employment of prosody. The rest of the paper deals with the following: in the second section, the methodology, as well as the participants and instruments of the study are presented; the third section reviews the literature which is central to this paper, the fourth section is concerned with the analysis, results and discussion of the prosodic data mentioned in the second section, and the last section takes the form of a final conclusion. 2. Data and Methodology The present section provides a description of the materials analyzed in the study, as well as an account of the participants, the procedure and the approach that will be followed in the analysis section. 2.1. Data The data analyzed in this paper are twelve sentences divided into four groups depending on the type of sentence, as the following table shows: AFFIRMATIVES

NEGATIVES

INTERROGATIVES

IMPERATIVES 10. Ven aquí un momento.

1. Hay muchas 4. No hay muchas cosas que comprar. cosas que comprar.

7. ¿Hay muchas cosas que comprar?

2. Tengo una casa en el pueblo.

5. No tengo una casa en el pueblo.

3. Este reloj es muy bonito.

6. Este reloj no es bonito.

8. ¿Tienes una casa en 11. ¡No dejes eso ahí! el pueblo? 12. Llámame mañana 9. ¿Es este reloj para saber cuándo bonito? vienes.

Table 1. Classification of sentences in terms of prosodic features

The reason for choosing these sentences is that they contain the main examples of prosody: intonation, loudness or quietness, speed, pauses, rhythm and body language—such as facial expressions—among others.

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2.2. Methodology The study consisted in the analysis of the prosodic features of those twelve sentences, which appear in the following table:1 Variations in speed Loudness/quietness Gestures/body language

Intonation

Stress Rhythm Pausing

It is generally faster than writing The volume of your voice They can substitute words It is the melodic movement, the rise and fall in the pronunciation of a sentence. It varies depending on the type of sentence. For example, an interrogative sentence usually has a rising intonation pattern (sentences 7-9 in table 1), whereas affirmatives and negatives present a falling intonation pattern (sentences 1-6 in table 1). In the case of imperatives, it depends if the sentence is placed between exclamation marks (sentence 11), which presents a rising intonation pattern, or not; if they are declarative sentences (sentences 10 and 12), they present a falling intonation pattern.2 It is used to mark emphasis or contrast It is based on stress It can be a tiny gap or a longer pause

Table 2. Characteristics of spoken discourse

2.3. Participants and procedure The subjects for the experiment are two adult deaf Spanish people, one with a seventy per cent grade of impairment and without any hearing aid (subject A), and another with a fifty-three per cent grade of impairment and with hearing aids (subject B). Both subjects, deaf since childhood, combine sign language and oral language when they communicate. Subject A confronted difficulties at the time of birth: the umbilical cord wound up his or her neck, resulting in a cochlear atrophy in both ears. In contrast, subject B was born hearing well; but at the age of eighteen months, he or she suffered from meningitis, which caused a very high fever and subsequent hearing loss. The analysis was carried out in a qualitative way, divided into two stages: first, (1) the subjects have read the sentences out loud and their results were analysed separately, and then (2) they were compared in order to see if they share some features or not. This is the best way to proceed to determine if hearing aids are important for the correct prosodic understanding of a piece of text. 3. Literature Review Before dealing with suprasegmental features per se, it is worth noting that all prosodic skills have their origin in the brain. Passig and Eden (2003) adhere to the idea that deaf people perform certain mental capabilities—i.e. rigidity of thinking and inductive reasoning—in a poorer manner when compared to hearing people, and 1 2

Some of the elements in this table are based on Halliday’s (1989: 46-60) account of spoken languages. For more complex intonation patterns, see Halliday (1989: 46-60).

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propose to use Virtual Reality as a means to improve such brainwork procedures in “hearing-impaired” children in their study. The subjects were divided into three groups: the experimental group, playing a VR 3D game; a control group, playing a VR 2D game; and another control group, playing no game at all. The outcomes “clearly indicate that practising with VR 3D spatial rotations significantly improved inductive thinking and flexible thinking of the hearing-impaired” (2003: 1). Continuing research with deaf people, Rodríguez Ortiz (2008) related lipreading to features such as intelligence and intelligibility. Thirty-two people with a wide range of ages and different levels of sensorineural hearing loss had to identify isolated terms from a set of four different pictures which indicated the options. The result reflected the connection between the competence of lipreaders and the two variables previously mentioned. The author states that “it is concluded that the best lipreaders among prelingual deaf people are those with a higher level of intelligence and more intelligible speech” (2008: 498). In this paper, a resembling pattern of co-occurrence of linguistic ability and variables is going to be pursued. Similarly, but in a less conceptual way and not so successfully, Bonetti, Utovic and Dulcic (2008) studied the relations between the degree of hearing loss and the good use of prosody in their experiment: 12 teenagers were divided into two groups according to their PTA—i.e. Pure Tone Average: those with a PTA between 90 and 110 dB, and those with a PTA above 110 dB. Five particular prosodic characteristics were employed during the experiment: speech frequency, intonation, accent, pauses and speech rate. After performing ‘robust discriminant analysis’ and ‘descriptive analysis’, they concluded that PTA is not the appropriate tool to analyse deaf people’s control of prosody (2008: 12). The difference between using hearing aids or not will be the point of departure to measure deaf people’s use of prosody in the present paper. In order to avoid future linguistic problems, Moog and Stein (2008) propose an innovative and precocious way of improving deaf children’s linguistic abilities. According to these authors, “the combination of earlier diagnosis and intervention and improved access to sound have made it possible for deaf children to develop speech and language skills that approach those of their hearing age-mates” (2008: 133). They take two experiments belonging to a “model intervention program” of the Moog Center as examples to explain that the earlier deafness is discovered in the child, and the earlier he or she uses a cochlear implant (among other resources), the better the child will not only speak, but also understand language better. The idea of how to improve linguistic abilities thanks to hearing aids is the basis of the present paper. 4. Presentation, Comparison and Discussion of Results Concerning loudness and quietness, both subjects did not read very loud, although subject B read louder than subject A. The most obvious reason appears to be connected to the absence of hearing, in the case of subject A, and the reduction of the hearing ability in the case of subject B. As they are deaf, they felt embarrassment in front of the possibility of pronouncing the sentences incorrectly, and to adjust and modulate the volume of their voices represented a more than difficult task, so they opted for not raising their voices louder, and consequently, using their voices as ‘quietly’ as possible. Nevertheless, there exist differences in subject A’s and subject B’s capacity of controlling their voices: subject B uses a hearing aid, and with this ‘little’ help it was possible for this person to adjust his/her voice better than subject A, who does not use a hearing aid.

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With reference to intonation, both subjects did not manage to pronounce all the sentences correctly: the intonation was uniform, and the ability to discriminate between sentence types such as affirmatives, negatives, interrogatives and imperatives could not be carried out solely by making use of intonation;3 for those Spanish sentences to be properly understood, it was necessary to turn to alternatives, that is, to some ‘key’ words contained in the sentences, such as the negative particle in negative sentences— “No hay muchas cosas que comprar”, “no tengo una casa en el pueblo”, “éste reloj no es bonito”—or the form of the verb in the imperatives—“Ven aquí un momento”, “¡No dejes eso ahí!”, “Llámame mañana para saber cuándo vienes”. Affirmatives and interrogatives, as they have a similar structure in Spanish, they were not easy to distinguish; for instance, a person would not be able to distinguish between the affirmative sentence “Hay muchas cosas que comprar” and the interrogative sentence “¿Hay muchas cosas que comprar?” without any intonation pattern. What both subjects have in common in speed, pauses and rhythm is that they did not read fluently. However, the results were slightly different in both cases: (a) Subject A did not pronounce some words. (b) Subject B confused some words, not pronouncing well some letters: • In sentence eleven, the bad pronunciation has to do with stress: ‘ahí’, whose correct pronunciation carries the stress at the end, was pronounced carrying the stress at the beginning, in letter a. Besides, letter /i/ was pronounced like the English front half-open vowel /ɛ/. This weakening in the utterance of a letter might be related to the relaxation produced in falling intonation when an affirmative sentence ends. This is the most alike with an intonation pattern found in this test. • In sentence twelve, ‘llámame’ was uttered as a bi-syllabic word—’llame’ instead of ‘llá-ma-me’—and the same omission of syllables happened to the words ‘cuándo vienes’—‘cuán ve-nis’. Subject A stopped at every phrase and subject B at every word. In the same way as with volume management, the most logical outcome to be expected is the other way around, that subject B could read more naturally than subject A. This surprising happening might be related to their education: although both subjects have not had any education superior to primary education, they received a different type of primary education: subject A went to a special school for deaf children, whereas subject B attended a normal school. A received an education adapted to his/her needs and condition and B did not; therefore, it is not strange that A stops at every phrase and B at every word. Furthermore, this result is even more astonishing if we add the factor of their language contact. The contact that these two people might have had with language before becoming deaf is minimum; subject B had at least one year and a half before his illness caused his hearing disability, but subject A could only be in contact with language inside the womb, and subtracting the months before the ear is formed, just a couple of months are left. Subject A’s prelingual language contact was almost inexistent in comparison with subject B, who might have learnt some words and sounds.4 3

As it can be seen in table 2, sentences 1-6, 10 and 12 present a falling intonation pattern, and sentences 7-9 and 11 a rising intonation pattern. 4 The linguistic stage between twelve and eighteen months old is called the “one word” or “holophrastic” stage (Liberman 2003), in which the child utters words that sometimes have a sentence value. The holophrastic stage receives that name because the child’s utterances function as if they were sentences, © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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However, despite the little pre-deafness contact that A had with language, this person demonstrated a better linguistic competence than B. Subject A and B’s body language did not experiment any change at all when reading the sentences, that is to say, their gestures and attitude in general did not vary in the time the test was in process; although it was different in each subject, as in the case of the prosodic aspects discussed above: subject A looked uncomfortable when reading the sentences while subject B looked relaxed. This appears to be connected to the selfconfidence that wearing a hearing aid can give to the subject: subject A does not wear any hearing aid and looked uncomfortable, whereas subject B wears a hearing aid and looked relaxed. The following table summarizes the results previously discussed and interpreted: SUBJECT A

SUBJECT B

Subject A did not read very Subject B did not read very loud loud, the volume was enough to Loudness/quietness either, but the voice could be heard be listened to just by the people by the people from the same room. around. Subject A did not distinguish between affirmatives, negatives, interrogatives or imperatives; they were read in the same way without any variation in intonation.

Subject B did not distinguish between sentence types. However, in the pronunciation of the word ‘ahí’ in sentence eleven, the letter i was weakened, as if indicating a falling intonation pattern.

Subject A stopped at every phrase, and not all the words Speech, pauses and were pronounced. For example, rhythm in sentences three, six and nine the demonstrative ‘éste’ was not pronounced. Subject A looked uncomfortable Body language when reading the sentences.

Subject B stopped at every word and confused some of them: ‘reloj’ in sentence three, ‘ahí’ in sentence eleven, and ‘llámame’ y ‘cuándo vienes’ in sentence twelve.

Intonation

Subject B looked relaxed at the time of reading the sentences.

Table 3. Results of the analysis of prosodical features in deaf people without hearing aid (subject A) and deaf people with hearing aid (subject B)

5. Conclusion The purpose of the present paper was two-fold: in the first place, to examine if the fact of wearing a hearing aid or not by deaf people influences the way in which those people use prosody, and second, to determine if the linguistic contact they had before becoming deaf and their level of education is influential in that use. In the same way as in Bonetti et al.’s study (2008), the fact of using hearing aid or not is not useful to determine the good use of prosody. Comparing subjects A and B, a common pattern concerning the application of prosodic features can be observed, that is, both of them committed almost the same mistakes when they read the sentences: they did not read very loud, did not read fluently—one of them stopped at every phrase and the other at every word—or made mistakes—not pronouncing some words, or pronouncing some of them in a wrong way. i.e. “dada” does not appear to mean the same as “dada?”, with a rising intonation pattern. For further information, see O’Grady (2005: 114-7). © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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The difference that these two people could have in the test appears to be related to the level of education that they received when they were children. This issue is shown with more clarity in the aspect of speed, pauses and rhythm: because of the fact that subject A went to a school for deaf children, is able to read a few words without stopping, but subject B is not able to do so. The circumstances of subject A’s birth make her linguistic ability even more impressive. This subject had less contact with language before being deaf than B, and she still made a better linguistic performance. On the contrary, the signs of an attempt of a falling intonation by subject B—the one who lost hearing at eighteen months—might indicate an identification of intonation patterns, or at least a kind of ‘intuition’ that at the end of a sentence the intonation falls down. Taking the results into account, the main hypothesis needs to be re-formulated: “people with hearing aid may not understand and use language better than those people without hearing aid”. The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the degree of deafness affects prosody but other variables have to be taken into account, such as the level of education received or the quantity of linguistic input you receive during childhood. Furthermore, other conclusions need to be established: • Loudness/quietness: to hear oneself is important for the correct modulation and adjustment of the voice. • Intonation: if you don’t hear, you don’t use intonation, and then you pronounce all the sentences in a similar way. • Speed, pauses and rhythm: to have a better education or not is a factor in the number of mistakes you make, independently of the amount of language you are in contact with before suffering from a hearing disability; but as far as prosodic features are concerned, the linguistic influences you may have before suffering from hearing loss might be helpful. • Body language: the fact of wearing a hearing aid or not may affect the way of behaving in front of people from whom a disadvantage may be felt, such as in the case of deaf people in front of hearing people. Nevertheless, the “education vs. language contact before deafness” debate that has been taking place does not appear to offer satisfying conclusive remarks. In order to be able to formulate more accurate conclusions concerning the relationship between hearing aids and the good/bad use of prosody, a more exhaustive research needs to be carried out: for example, by increasing the number of subjects, or specifying the subjects’ grade of deafness more carefully. This research is only a part of the whole investigation on deafness necessary to understand many issues that cannot be understood at the moment, such as (1) how deaf people manage to acquire linguistic ability when they actually cannot hear?, (2) how they manage to express abstract concepts, such as emotions, in a verbal way?, or (3) determine if they remember anything about the language heard when they were in the uterus –such as some words, or even some tone pitch variation that suggests a pattern of intonation. Works Cited Armstrong, David 2008. The Gestural Theory of Language Origins. Sign Language Studies 8 (3). 289-314. Blondel, Marion and Laurice Tuller (eds.) 2000. Langage et Surdité. Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes. Vol. 29. 5-156.

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Bonetti, Luka et al. 2008. The Influence of the Degree of Deafness on the Control of Prosodic Features. Hrvatska revija za rehabilitacijska istraživanja, Vol. 44(1). 1-13. “Communication Theory” 2011. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. . 3 February 2011. Cuxac, Christian 2000. Morphemic-iconic Sublexical Compositionality in French Sign Language. In M. Blondel and L. Tuller (eds.) Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes. Vol. 29. 55-72. Online Collins Dictionary 2010. . 7 January 2011. Online Oxford Dictionary 2010. . 7 January 2011. Frías Conde, Xavier 2001. Introducción a la Fonética y Fonología del Español. Ianua. Revista Philologica Romanica. Vol. 4.1-23. Halliday, Michael Alexander Kirkwood 1989. Spoken and Written Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heracelous, Panikos et al. 2009. Cued Speech Recognition for Augmentative Communication in Normal-hearing and Hearing-impaired Subjects. Speech Communication, Vol. 52(6). 504-12. Liberman, Amy M. 2003 Stages of Language Acquisition in Children. Linguistics 001. Introduction to Linguistics. . 4 January 2011. Maclaughlin, Dawn. et al. 2000. Morphological Inflections and Syntactic Representations of Person and Number in ASL. In M. Blondel and L. Tuller (eds.) Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes. Vol. 29. 73-100. Marschark, Marc et al. 2007. Understanding Communication Among Deaf Students Who Sign and Speak: A Trivial Pursuit? American Annals of the Deaf, Vol. 152 (4). 415-24. Moog, Jean and Karen Stein 2008. Teaching Deaf Children to Talk. Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders, Vol. 35. 133-42. O’Grady, William 2005. How Children Learn Language? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Passig, David and Sigal Eden 2003. Cognitive Intervention Through Virtual Environments Among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children. European Journal of Special Needs Education. Vol. 18(2).1-10. Rodríguez Ortiz, Isabel and Joaquín Mora 2008. The Efficiency of Information Transmission of Sign and Spoken Language. American Annals of the Deaf, Vol. 152(5). 480-94. Rodríguez Ortiz, Isabel 2008 Lipreading in the Prelingually Deaf: What makes a Skilled Speechreader?. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, Vol. 11(2). 488-502.

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Literary Studies

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The Nursery Glass and the Wild Moor: The Ambivalent Vision of Nature in Theodore Roethke’s “Greenhouse Poems” and Ted Hughes’s Wodwo Borja Aguiló Obrador University of Salamanca The poetry of Theodore Roethke and Ted Hughes is characterized by its profound awareness of nature’s mythical and imaginative force. Both poets enact in their poems visionary incursions into the unconscious which blur the distance between the intimate realm of the lyric voice and the external world of the other. In this way, the poem becomes a textual representation of the Jungian concept of the self as the psychic totality of the individual. However, Roethke and Hughes’s responses to the noumenal unconscious, as symbolized in the natural reality they recreate in their work, differ significantly. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Roethke’s “Greenhouse poems” and Hughes’s Wodwo in order to compare the different representations of nature and the notion of self constructed by means of a surrealistic techniques that can be traced back to writings of Baudelaire and Lautreamont. Key words: Roethke, Hughes, unconscious, ambivalence, representation. Theodore Roethke’s influence on Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes has been noted by several critics such as M. L. Rosenthal, Christopher MacGowan or more extensively, Roger Elkin. During the couple’s 1959 stay in Yaddo,1 Hughes provided Plath with a copy of Words for the Wind (1958) and she immediately developed a personal kinship to Roethke’s poetic world. On the one hand, this intimacy was to be strengthened by the biographical fact that both Plath and Roethke shared the traumatic loss of their fathers at an early stage and the suffering of several mental breakdowns during their lives. On the other hand, it is also true that at a formal level, Roethke’s experimental language and techniques provided Plath with a psychological frame that would allow her to write more personal lyrics.

1

This name is given to a 400 acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York, which was originally purchased in 1881 by Spenser and Katrina Trask and was later to become an artist’s retreat. The word yaddo is an invention of one of the Trask children with the intention of rhyming it with shadow. From 1900, Yaddo is said to have hosted more than 6000 artists including Hannah Arendt, Truman Capote, Flannery O’Connor or David Foster Wallace. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  As regards Hughes, although he knew and appreciated Roethke’s poetry, he was always very careful not to acknowledge any particular debt to his work. When asked about the role the poetry of Roethke had in his writing, in a 1977 interview that Hughes gave to the writer Ekbert Faas, Hughes immediately switched to Plath and avoided a direct answer: “Faas”: According to Letters Home, Lowell and Roethke were the only poets of their generation you both really admired. HUGHES: Well, she came to Roethke rather late. “Faas”: After you had given her his Words for the Wind in 1959. HUGHES: Reading Lowell in 1958 had really set her off to break through whatever blocks there were. And then suddenly at Yaddo she was isolated, reading Roethke. At first she plundered him directly but then developed her own style out of it. (1980: 210)

Ted Hughes’s resistance to admit Theodore Roethke as an influence in his poetry reveals a more problematic and ambiguous attitude than Plath’s. As a matter of fact, Hughes’s conscious or unconscious rejection of Roethke’s significance to his work, is a classical case of anxiety of influence.2 However, the aim of this paper is not to determine any recorded or explicit influence between Theodore Roethke and Ted Hughes but to establish a common dialogical ground for their poetry and to analyze a particular psychological situation that is dramatized in two specific poems and which concern the positioning of the lyrical subject vis-à-vis the fascination which nature exerts on him. The poems I have selected are “Orchids”, from the greenhouse section of Roethke’s The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948) and “Ghost Crabs”, from the first section of Hughes’s Wodwo (1967). Although Theodore Roethke and Ted Hughes began their poetic careers by writing formal and traditional poems under the auspices of New Criticism’s theory and praxis, there was a point when they felt compelled to transgress to a lesser or greater extent the strict boundaries that had snared the speaking subject or the subject of enunciation within the static notion of a closed text.3 Roethke’s The Lost Son and Other Poems and Hughes’s Wodwo definitively constitute a movement towards surrealism and introspective exploration that was mostly stimulated by the reading of depth psychology, that is, William James, Sigmund Freud and in particular, Carl Jung. A regressive turn towards the primitive and pre-symbolic origins of the psyche, as represented by the ambiguous otherness of the natural scenery, permeates these two collections.4 In the greenhouse section of The Lost Son, the reader sinks into an unstable and tumultuous poetic space, the heaven and hell of an impossible womb, which tends to 2

"Poetry is the anxiety of influence, is misprision, is a disciplined perverseness. Poetry is misunderstanding, misinterpretation, misalliance. Poetry (Romance) is Family Romance. Poetry is the enchantment of incest, disciplined by resistance to that enchantment" (Bloom 1997: 95). 3 I take this reference from Julia Kristeva’s experimental book Revolution in Poetic Language: "By positing a subject of enunciation (in the sense of Benveniste, Culioli, etc.), this theory places logical modal relations, relations of presupposition, and other relations between interlocutors within the speech act, in a very deep ‘deep structure’" (1984: 22-23). 4 It is necessary to note that this otherness is ambiguous in the sense that it attracts and repels at the same time. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  absorb the lyrical subject within its fantasized otherness and its uncanny familiarity. This is the revisited site of Roethke’s childhood, the unconscious substratum of a textual persona that might exist within the desired object of representation. While it is also true that the scarce and raw landscape of the moors can be traced back to Hughes’s own childhood and to his married life with Plath, Part I and Wodwo as a whole, seem to work differently. Hughes’s poetic approach to nature seems less experimental. He makes use of narrative technique and draws his materials from collective experience in order to produce a more resistant image of the self. This resistance seems to be the consequence of an intense effort to contain the invading forces of nature. Nevertheless, is Hughes’s textual persona, at least in the example of “Ghost Crabs”, placed in a more unequivocal position than Roethke’s when faced with nature? Are we dealing with radically different manifestations of desire in the two poems? What is the role of this disrupting otherness in relation to the lyrical consciousness of the individual? In Roethke it is clear from the beginning that the voice of the poet is easily confounded with the orchids to the point that they are indistinguishable. In Hughes though the lyrical voice apparently remains clear all through the poem distinctness. This is why he uses a narrative voice that intends to preserve the compact identity of the self. However, as I try show in this essay, he too fails in the end. In the case of “Orchids”, the analysis presupposes a deranged perceiver that has fallen prey to the fascinating and repelling qualities of an ambivalent nature. In this sense, the reader gets caught within this shifting of different points of view that both suggests and suspends meaning: ORCHIDS They lean over the path, Adder-mouthed, Swaying close to the face, Coming out, soft and deceptive, Limp and damp, delicate as a young bird’s tongue; Their fluttery fledging lips Move slowly, Drawing in the warm air. And at night, The faint moon falling through whitewashed glass, The heat going down So their musky smell comes even stronger, Drifting down from their mossy cradles: So many devouring infants! Soft luminescent fingers, Lips neither dead nor alive, Loose ghostly mouths Breathing. (1-18)

In this poem Roethke carefully chooses to separate the orchids from the innocent company of other greenhouse flowers such as lilies and roses, which in the previous

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  poem of the section, “Weed Puller”, were related to purity.5 A mixture of fascination and fear lures the speaker to the proximity of the orchids. They stalk over the path, like malignant and venomous serpents (“adder-mouthed”) waiting for a passer-by to stumble into their fangs. Besides, they are invested by an infecting quality that comes from the outside as an external threat. The point of view of the scene is that of the phantasmatic young boy of the greenhouse who is engrossed in contemplating the arching of the monsters. The orchids “lean over the path” and recall the image of the Dantean pilgrim about to enter the depths of Hell, thus suggesting the subject’s immersion into his personal netherworld. The proximity of the perceiver and the perceived is signalled by the orchids “[s]waying close to the face” (3) of the child, who is torn between attraction and suspicion. The plants move surreptitiously, like a feline about to pounce on its victim (“soft and deceptive”). Furthermore, the “fluttery fledging lips”, which enforce the associations with erotic desire, conceal the toxic adder’s fangs behind their curtains. The imprint of decay in the “lips neither dead nor alive” is strengthened by the pairing of the adjectives “limp” and “damp”. For all this however, the first stanza is bathed in sunlight, the “warm” light of pulsating life that transforms the orchids into a totem of pure sensual animality. This hallucinatory imagining removes the orchids from the purely vegetal, for they breathe the warm summer air that relates to passion and sexuality. The coming of night produces a similar associative effect in the description of the scene but in the same way that the light of the sun was not able to fully conceal the deadly aspects that lie in ambush behind the ‘delicate’ sensual tongues of the orchids, the moon only intensifies the sense of unreality and ambiguity that resists differentiation and thus the polarization of the stanzas. In this way, once the suffocating pressure of the artificial summer heat is lowered and the pale moon gives way to shade, the saturating effects of their “musky” emanations intensify the presence of the orchids. The sense of sight gives way to the sense of smell in a movement that suggests a more physical type of invasion. It is at this moment of nocturnal apprehension when the hallucinating perceiver places the orchids into fantastic “mossy cradles”, an image that I believe hybridizes the disturbing world of the weeds with the world of man.6 The expressive function that characterizes the exclamation “So many devouring infants!” (14) explicitly brings the speaker to the attention of the reader. There is fear and horror stemming from the subject’s emphatic cry. The devouring-child figure seems to be an inversion of the archetypal devouring-mother of earlier matriarchal myths, which in the context of the poem might also point to certain self-destructive drives that the boy recognizes in the orchids. The devouring aspect of the child-orchids, which startles the speaker to the point that one graphically detects the speaker’s very agitation, seems to suggest the phantasmatic dismembering of the body that threatens the self both from the 5

With everything blooming above me, Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses, Whose fields lovely and inviolate,— Me down in that fetor of weeds, Crawling on all fours, Alive, in a slippery grave. (11-16) 6 Language makes no possible distinction between the two levels, the human and the inhuman, or in Kristeva’s terms, between the semiotic and the symbolic (Kristeva 1984: 21-106). © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  inside and the outside recalling, thus, Orpheus’s fate in the hands of the frenzied maenads. The boundaries that separate vegetal from animal, inside from outside and dark from light are far from being clear and as a result the identity of the speaking subject is literally about to be ingested within the uncanny ambivalence that emanates from the imagined site of his own prehistory.7 It is in this sense that one might be drawn to interpret the last four lines as the nightmarish representation of the foetus inside the womb of the mother. In line with this interpretation, one could say that the perceiving eye of the boy magically irrupts within the belly of his mother as it was an ultrasound scan and, as a consequence, the darkness of the womb (the darkness of the night in the greenhouse) acquires an uncanny luminescence that challenges the structures of the subject’s symbolic representation.8 The lips of the orchids have lost their associations either with desire (“fluttering”) or death (“adder-mouthed”) and thus remain unqualified. Their mouths are seen as pale ghosts that feed on the warm air. Therefore, the imagined foetus inside the womb is beyond the coordinates of either being or nonbeing. It is inscribed within the domain of the “undead” or the “living dead”. In other words, the orchids could be seen as immortal foetuses that rejoice within the lost warm belly of the mother. In this sense, the subject may be said to have a hallucinatory perception of his prehistory before his birth into life and death. I would argue that by means of the fantasy of the devouring undead as well as the unborn child, the poem produces a disturbing representation of a nightmarish immortality (a death without a death) that hungers for the symbolic stability of the subject’s discourse. Apart from the sudden exclamation of horror at the central part of the second stanza, the speaker remains enraptured by the spell of the orchids. Hughes’s “Ghost Crabs” has at its core a similar morbid fascination for this invading natural athanasy that overflows the symbolic protections of the self. The narrative structure of the poem, which in “Orchids” remained in an embryonic phase marked by the transitions of light and space, is expanded to a more distant point of view that lessens the ambivalence of the narrator’s language. While in Roethke’s poem, the subject could barely separate himself from his representation of nature, Hughes’s subject has a much stronger notion of his position within the text that nonetheless, does not reduce the menace of destruction springing from the depths of the sea. The narration in “Ghost Crabs” consists in a gradual unveiling of the potential dangers the ghostly creatures present to the individual self that, in the case of this poem, is represented by a communal voice that situates the reader within the text. The subject in “Ghost Crabs” has already established relational bonds with an other and seems to be in control of his symbolization but nonetheless, he is aware of its fragility, of the discontinuities that lie below the surface of his speech: At nightfall, as the sea darkens, A depth darkness thickens, mustering from the gulfs and the submarine badlands, To the sea’s edge. To begin with It looks like rocks uncovering, mangling their pallor. 7

Notice that the arching of orchids might suggest the entrance to a cave. I must remit to another of Kristeva’s concepts, which she draws from Lacan, that is, to the idea of the “symbolic” as “a social effect of the relation to the other, established through the objective constrains of biological (including sexual) differences and concrete, historical family structures” (1984: 29).

8

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  Gradually the labouring of the tide Falls back from its productions, Its power slips back from glistening nacelles, and they are crabs. Giant crabs, under flat skulls, staring inland Like a packed trenched of helmets. Ghosts, they are the ghosts-crabs. They emerge An invisible disgorging of the sea’s cold Over the man who strolls along the sands. They spill inland, into the smoking purple Of our woods and towns—a bristling surge Of tall and staggering spectres Gliding like shocks through water. Our walls, our bodies, are no problem to them. Their hungers are homing elsewhere. We cannot see them or turn our mind from them. Their bubbling mouths, their eyes In a slow mineral fury Press through our nothingness where we sprawl on our beds, Or sit in our rooms. Our dreams are ruffled maybe, Or we jerk awake to the world of possessions With a gasp, in a sweat burst, brains jamming blind into the bulb-light [...]. (1-27)

In contrast to Roethke’s “Orchids”, where the symbolic mediation of light and darkness was undermined by the subject’s hallucinatory imagination, “Ghost Crabs” inscribes itself within the romance and folk-tale tradition that associates nightfall with the coming of demonic powers and dawn to their withdrawal into darkness. In the words of scholar David Porter, Hughes pretends “not so much to domesticate reality’s depredations by word manipulation, but to put his readers, like the crowd before the jaguar’s cage, into the presence of the demons themselves” (1992: 61). I would agree with this statement only to the extent that Hughes not only domesticates these “depredations” but he also confronts them by means of a symbolic narrative that conjures the black magic of their sorcery. “At nightfall” the ghost crabs emerge from the cold sea and deep gulfs to invade the world of men and civilization. Once the veil of the tide is gradually removed from sight, they appear at the liminal site (“sea’s edge”) of two worlds, having decided to trespass this unstable threshold. Although these crustaceans actually leave the sea at nightfall in a natural environment, Hughes gives them a phantasmatic motivation that changes the level into which they are inscribed. In this way the poem does not represent the natural organisms in particular (as the actual orchids in Roethke) but the imagined threat of their disrupting otherness. The crabs are at the same time something dejected (“disgorging”) and something that dejects itself (“they spill inland”), bringing war to the subject (“the man who strolls along the sands”) in the form of an invasion. The protective shelter of “woods”, “towns”, “walls” or “bodies” is assaulted by these ghostly undead entities that respond to an unquenchable desire (“their hungers are homing elsewhere”) to devour us. On the one hand, just as the “devouring infants” in “Orchids” might induce a certain reaction of

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  self-cannibalism on the part of the perceiver/reader, the spectres of Hughes’s poem filter through the texture of the reader’s symbolic structures and direct him towards the possibility of the disintegration of his identity. It is in this way that the demons are presented. The speaker in the poem struggles to retain his control over this infecting otherness and tries to objectify it. [...] Sometimes, for minutes, a sliding Staring Thickness of silence Presses between us. These crabs own this world. All night, around us or through us, They stalk each other, they fasten on to each other, They mount each other, they tear each other to pieces, They utterly exhaust each other. They are the powers of this world. We are their bacteria, Dying their lives and living their deaths. (27-37)

In these lines, the pressure of the blank space of the margins effects a disrupting violence upon the body of the text that is clearly visible to the eye of the reader. Just as the sea monsters “spill inland” in order to go through man’s defences, their otherness constitutes a constant threat to the symbolic coherence of the poem, thus introducing discontinuity. Moreover, the thick silence that places itself around the subject and the desired other points to the impossibility of achieving an actual communication with one another, which lies behind the façade of social interaction. The subject in Hughes’s poem actually recognizes the superior quality of disillusion and disintegration embodied in the crabs. As dawn breaks in the East, the violent creatures begin their slow descent into the waters. Before they disappear from sight though, they leave a reminder in the form of a voice: At dawn, they sidle back under the sea’s edge. They are the turmoil of history, the convulsion In the roots of blood, in the cycles of concurrence. To them, our cluttered countries are empty battleground. All day they recuperate under the sea. Their singing is like a thin sea-wind flexing in the rocks of a headland, Where only crabs listen They are God’s only toys. (38-45)

One could say with Porter that Hughes does domesticate his demons, but to what cost? It is my interpretation that once the narrative structure is concluded, there appears in the text an unexpected rebound that functions as a disrupting supplement to the symbolic order of the poem. The mermaid-like “singing without singer”, which in the Odyssey attracts vulnerable sailors to their doom, catches the attention of the unprepared narrator who is fatefully brought to the fantasized place of “the rocks of the headland” (another parallel

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  to the Greek myth in the way that the mischievous sirens also await for their victims in the rocks). Until this last moment, the subject had managed to inscribe the otherness of the crabs within a more or less delimited narrative in of land/sea and light/darkness. In this way the subject’s identity had been given certain stability because of smooth transition between phases. However, with the introduction of the nightmarish song, the speaker succumbs to an uncanny fascination that breaks the circularity of narration. In the place where one would expect “where only we listen” the poet inverts the identity of the perceivers into “where only crabs listen”, in this way shattering the frontier between subject and object just as in “Orchids”. The final increase of size in the blank spaces between the lines marks the disintegration of the narrative’s homogeneity and the violence of separation. It is difficult to either identify the crabs as the tormenting work of a grotesque God or to relegate their negativity to the myth of the Jungian unconscious. Although the crabs have been the active agents of the poem in opposition to the passive “we” that received the influence of their actions, in the last poetic utterance they are turned into the passive objects of God’s play. This inversion of roles had already been prefigured in the previous line “where only crabs listen” (44) and its relation of interdependence was marked by the repetition of the adverbial “only”. On the one hand, the poem seems to present a contradiction, as the crabs are the only listeners of their own song. On the other hand, the exclusiveness of the adverbial clause situates the pair God/crabs within a separate capsule that splits visually and semantically from the poem. How can this resistance to analysis be explained without deforming the text? It is true that Hughes’s representations of God, such as the one in “Logos” or “Gog”, often reflect a bloodthirsty super-ego quality intermingled with certain narcissistic innocence that makes one think of the child: the child that plays with the crabs in “Ghost Crabs”. Seen through this light, the significance of the last line of the poem might lie not so much in the explicit meaning of the god-figure but in the hypothetical regressive turn that characterizes the fascination with otherness that I discerned in Roethke. Therefore, the song of the crabs, functioning as an invading element within the narrative of the subject, produces a disruption of levels and identities that brings ambiguity and ambivalence into the poem. I have tried to show that the role of nature’s otherness has an external as well as an internal importance. Both the subjects of “Ghost Crabs” and “Orchids” get caught to a greater o lesser extent within their own frightening fantasy of non-being. While in “Ghost Crabs” the identity of the speaker remains clear until its final collapse in the song of the crabs, the textual beyond of his narrative, in “Orchids” the subject is immersed since the first line within the heterogeneous landscape of his fantasy. Works Cited Bloom, Harold 1997. The Anxiety of Influence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Elkin, Roger 2000. Hidden Influences in the Poetry of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Earth-Moon. Information about Ted Hughes . 29 November 2011. Faas, Ekbert 1980. The Unacommodated Universe. Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press. Hughes, Ted 2003. Collected Poems. London: Faber and Faber. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  Kristeva, Julia 1984. Revolution in Poetic Language. New York: Columbia University Press. Porter, David 1992. Beasts/Shamans/Baskin: The Contemporary Aesthetics of Ted Hughes. Ed. Leonard M. Scigaj. Critical Essays on Ted Hughes. New York: G. K. Hall & Co. 49-66. Roethke, Theodore 1991. The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. New York: Anchor Books.

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Patricia Álvarez Caldas

A Progressively Edulcorated Vision of Masculinity

 

A Progressively Edulcorated Vision of Masculinity in The Philadelphia Story: Play, Classical Comedy and Musical Patricia Álvarez Caldas University of Santiago de Compostela Philip Barry satirised the lives of the higher classes in his play The Philadelphia Story (1938). The male protagonist, C.K. Dexter Haven, was originally presented as a drunkard and a wife-beater, a characterization that was softened once the play was transformed into a Hollywood classical comedy, and years later, into a musical film. The story underwent the changes associated to its transposition into a new medium, not to mention the changes derived from the so called Hollywood Star System. As a consequence, part of the play’s social criticism was softened, such as the references to domestic violence and drunkenness. The essential characteristics of each medium triggered the creation of diverse variations of the character of C.K. Dexter Haven in the Broadway play, the Hollywood classical comedy and the musical film, ending up by giving a sanitized male role model instead of the more complex character that appeared in Barry’s play. Key words: The Philadelphia Story, comedy of manners, Hollywood classical comedy, Hollywood musical, masculinity. 1. Introduction When studying the play The Philadelphia Story, written by the American playwright Philip Barry in 1938, one cannot avoid paying attention to the author’s treatment of gender and class issues. By the time the play was staged for the first time, Barry already was known by his satiric presentation of the rich bourgeoisie in previous plays such as, for example, Holiday (1928), a text in which we find a female character whose attributes are very similar to the ones of the protagonist of The Philadelphia Story. For years, the interest of many critics who wrote about the latter play was centred on the character of the female protagonist, Tracy Lord, who has been analysed both in film and in gender studies. This essay, however, is not devoted to the female character but to the role of her ex-husband, C.K. Dexter Haven. Following this line of study, a future step in this analysis could be to apply the notions of masculinity and gender studies not only to this, but also to the other male characters in the play and films. There is, nevertheless, a reason behind the decision of focusing on just one character: this resolution relies on the intention of showing how the cultural and the historical contexts © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  can affect the vision of a single character in three different versions of the same text: the play The Philadelphia Story (Barry 1938), the film The Philadelphia Story (Cukor 1940) and the musical film High Society (Walters 1956). For this purpose, it would be necessary to approach these texts through a comparative analysis, focusing on the representation of the male protagonist, C.K. Dexter Haven. Because our study is devoted to the way in which the alterations undergone by the presentation of this character are related to the changes on the historical and cultural contexts; a combination of different notions from gender and class studies would be required, as well as the addition of some innovative ideas from the cultural studies’ field. This approach allows us to embrace different perspectives because, as Rado states, Cultural studies is less a theory than a loosely connected series of critical approaches and methodologies whose only unifying principle is the assumption that since cultures have unique historical contexts, an understanding of these contexts and the interactions between them is central to the understanding of any form of cultural production. (1997: 3-4)

Therefore, the three texts will be used as the means through which I intend to study how the Hollywood Industry works and how the conventions of the time in which the texts were produced could have affected the creation of the literary and filmic works. Following Johnson’s explanation (1986: 297), I will use the individual text [as a] means to cultural study, a kind of raw material for a part of the practice. In order to make the analysis more thorough, I will also make reference to some important ideas from the areas of the film studies, genre, class and gender studies. 2. The Philadelphia Gentleman The first presentation of C.K. Dexter Haven is provided by the 1938 Broadway play. In the original text, the main protagonist is the young heiress Tracy Lord and Dexter is just a secondary character, her ex-husband. Although his presence in the play is quite important, he plays a small part concerning the development of the plot. As we can read in the brief summary included in the 1969 edition of Barry’s play, The Philadelphia Story, Dexter’s participation in the events is barely mentioned: Tracy Lord, of the Philadelphia Lords, has married C.K. Dexter Haven and divorced him when he, resenting her chilling attitude toward the comforting virtues of domesticity, takes to liquor. A little while later she has taken up with a handsome snob of the mines named Kittredge and is about to marry him. One of the calender social gossip weeklies sends a reporter and a camera woman to cover the wedding. They are injected into the house by Tracy’s brother, who hopes to divert their attention from Father Lord’s affair with a Broadway actress. Tracy, already a little shaken in her urge for Kittredge, finds herself suddenly bowled over by Connor, the fascinating reporter. At the end of a pre-wedding party, at which the champagne flows like ginger ale, she and Connor go for a dip in the pool. Tracy always had been an uncertain champagne drinker. The last time she drank a lot of it she went out on the roof to salute the moon. Now the wedding is threatened. Kittredge takes his frock coat and goes home. (Barry 1969: 4)

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  The playwright Philip Barry, the author of The Philadelphia Story, presents Dexter as a member of the upper class, a gentleman whose family belongs to the so called Philadelphians (i.e. the “first families”). His wealth has been inherited and his position has been earned by his ancestors. As Baltzell defines the type in his book The Philadelphia Gentlemen, The upper class concept, then, refers to a group of families, whose members are descendents of successful individuals (elite members) of one, two, three or more generations ago. These families are at the top of the social class hierarchy; they are brought up together, are friends, and are intermarried one with another; and, finally, they maintain a distinctive style of life and a kind of primary group solidarity which sets them apart from the rest of the population. (2004: 6-7)

But Barry, who was not from Philadelphia but from New York, took the essential background of the members of this class and wrote about the stereotypes of Philadelphian suburbia, adding a series of flaws and vices to his characters’ personalities. In the case of Dexter, for example, we talk about alcoholism and domestic violence. Before going any further into the analysis of this character, we will take into consideration some brief historical and cultural facts relating to the context in which the play was written, since they may help us understand the reason why the author decided to present the characters in the way he did. The Philadelphia Story was written in 1938, in a decade in which the Great Depression had transformed many lives all over America. Meanwhile, the entertainment business offered an evasive solution to the current reality and, among the offered genres, the Comedy of Manners was the one ordinary people most enjoyed. As Hirst explains, The subject of comedy of manners is the way people behave, the manners they employ in a social context; the chief concerns of the characters are sex and money (and thus the interrelated topics of marriage, adultery, and divorce); the style is distinguished by the refinement of raw emotional expression and action in the subtlety of wit and intrigue. The comedy of manners is at its most expressive when all three of these aspects interact. (1979: 1-2)

Since The Philadelphia Story presents the lives and manners of the rich bourgeoisie, the play can be included, then, among this genre’s most representative plays. Nevertheless, despite providing a way of forgetting the poverty surrounding the audience’s real lives, the theatre also meant to reflect the political, economical, and social interests of the time. The play connected with the audience, which belonged mainly to the middle class, and showed them a glamorous world ruled by wit and elegance while, at the same time, satirized the emptiness and the decadence of the members of the high class. As Murphy has stated, The Philadelphia Story shows “the destructive effects of too much money and the empty lives of society people” (1999: 318). C. K. Dexter Haven originally belonged to this frivolous and empty world described by Barry. Through his characterization, the playwright condemned all the members of his class and the patriarchal world they protected with their morals and their old-fashioned codes of manners. In the play, infidelities, alcoholism and domestic © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  violence were vices associated to the male characters; and, at the same time, he also described the passivity and silence that was taught to the female characters. In this scenario, at least at the beginning of the play, Tracy can be considered an exception. She has taken action and decided to leave Dexter because he was a drunkard who used to beat her. Although we never witness this behaviour on stage, Dexter himself admits his drunkenness and his violence and blames ‘his high spirits’, saying that, “It was the problem of a young man in exceptionally high spirits, who drank to slow down that damned engine he’d found nothing yet to do with –I refer to my mind” (Barry 1969: 54). This was the catalyst for the eventual downfall of his marriage, which led to Tracy taking a strong position against her husband’s “thirst” because, as she herself admits, “it was disgusting. It made you so unattractive” (Barry 1969: 54). As a consequence, Dexter fell into a state of depression that drove him to think that his wife was a cold and unforgiving goddess who could not tolerate any kind of weakness. This realization constitutes the main reason for his decision of seeing in alcohol drinking the only way out to escape from his wife’s judgments. The issue of domestic violence arises, thus, from Dexter’s alcoholism and his resentment towards Tracy’s attitude about it. Of course, this is just one more stereotype added by Barry. Many male abusers blame on alcohol their violent impulses, arguing that they temporarily lose control of their strength. Nevertheless, it has been demonstrated that all cases that involve domestic violence arise due to the need of one of the members in a relationship of exerting power over the other. In her book, Staging Masculinity: Male Identity in Contemporary American Drama, McDonough studies how carrying out different types of domestic abuse is often subjected to the necessity of asserting power over an inferior member of the social system. Dexter felt like a “kind of high priest to a virgin goddess” (Barry 1969: 55), instead of a ‘loving husband’, a feeling that can be seen as the reason behind his need to assert his power over a woman who, despite being his equal in the social hierarchy, was still subjugated to him by patriarchy. Despite all these “flaws” presented regarding his behaviour, the audience never witnesses on stage any of the blemishes imputed on him. On the contrary, he is the hero we expect to find in a comedy of this type. He is stylish, witty, and he is always suspected to have a double intention in all his actions and statements. In another paragraph of his description of the genre, Hirst writes about the characteristics of the “heroes” presented in the comedy of manners, and explains that “style is all-important in these plays. By style is meant not merely a superficial manner of expression but a definition of behavior. The winners are always those with the most style: the sharpest wits, the subtlest intriguers” (1979: 2). Therefore, it is not surprising that, despite all his imperfections and his past actions, Dexter becomes the final “winner” in the race for Tracy’s hand. 3. The Hollywood Gentleman Due to its huge success on the Broadway stage, the play became a classical Hollywood comedy in 1940. Although the story and the dialogues remained mostly the same, there were some important changes that affected, mainly, to the portrayal of C.K. Dexter Haven as the main male leading character.

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A Progressively Edulcorated Vision of Masculinity

  In their film version of the play, the Hollywood industry decided to focus on the romantic plot and to leave aside the more controversial issues regarding class differences. Dexter became, then, a romantic gentleman whose role was going to be performed by no one better than the stylish, funny, and charming Cary Grant. This decision became the catalyst of a process of change in the characterization of C.K. Dexter Haven. The power of the Hollywood Star System made it possible for the audience to identify a series of features on a particular actor or actress and therefore, as Donald argues, “the star image carries powerful cultural connotations that both exceed the fictional codes of character and identification and work and bind us into the fictional world of the film” (1997: 112). Cary Grant was known by “his elegance, his sense of comedy, fineness, intelligence, and a childish touch” (Echart 2005: 127, my translation); and performed both roles, as a “good” romantic hero and a comic buffoon. In addition to the qualities that his persona added to the character, his prominence in the Hollywood Industry and his fame among the audience allowed him to ask for a protagonist role in the film. The result was achieved through an amalgamation of the features of C.K. Dexter Haven and Sandy Lord (Tracy’s brother, who does not appear in any of the films) and, of course, Grant’s greater involvement in the plot. He even seems to be a sort of “director” in the constructive elements of the film as, for example, when he introduces the whole plot in the scene at the Spy Magazine headquarters (a scene that was added to the film and which did not appear in the play; maybe due to the necessity of presenting the main characters or maybe to show the audience different scenarios, something that could not be made on stage). But Dexter seems to be also in control of the “inner” events of the plot, as for instance, when bringing in the photographers that would cover Tracy’s wedding, something that can be seen as an attempt to sabotage Tracy’s future with George Kittredge. Dexter becomes, then, a more overt intriguer in the film than in the play, and thus the audience can easily think that he is, deep down, trying to get his wife back. Moreover, he saves Tracy’s father from appearing on a scandalous article at the end of the film, a fact that wins both Tracy’s and the audience’s affection, and help us to sympathise with him because, as Onaindia wrote, “characters are defined not only by a set of features, but also by the actions they perform” (1996: 131, my translation). Despite the fact that Dexter appears as a plotter, he is always presented as a charming man who still worries and cares about the woman he loves. Although the theme of alcoholism appears in both play and films, there are slight changes as far as domestic violence is concerned. A new scene was added by the director, George Cukor, at the very beginning of the film, a flashback that takes the spectators to the moment when Tracy and Dexter broke up. It is a very funny silent gag in which Tracy breaks one of Dexter’s golf clubs and then he, in retaliation, grabs her face and pushes her to the floor. The comic music sets the atmosphere and tone of this scene as no dialogues are introduced, as if it were a slapstick Buster Keaton movie. Tracy’s final pose, lying on the floor and staring at her ex-husband has nothing to do with the vision of the traumatised or frightened woman we had when reading the play. The addition of this scene has, of course, an effect on the audience. Whenever domestic violence is mentioned, we no longer associate it with rude, violent gestures but, instead, with the comic moments we had witnessed at the beginning of the film.

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  4. The crooner1 Finally, in 1956 a new film version of the play, High Society, was released. The changes made on the text affected not only to its title, but also the story, the characters, and most clearly, the genre of the film. High Society is a musical directed by Charles Walters in which Barry’s story had to be adapted to the conservatism of the 1950s and the peculiarities of the Hollywood musical films. On the one hand, the historical context demanded an “element of conservatism and anticommunist feeling” (Lone Star CollegeKingwood 1998) and, on the other, the film had to fit the conventions of the musical genre. Thus, the story was completely changed and the themes of alcoholism and domestic violence—which had room to be criticised in the previous texts—were erased from this new adaptation of the play. As a consequence, Dexter became the protagonist of the story and his whole background was changed. This time, the man who performed the character of Dexter was the famous ‘crooner’ Bing Crosby. Again, and as happened to Cary Grant in the previous adaptation, his personal qualities crossed the boundaries between his persona and the character. Dexter becomes, then, a romantic singer who composes beautiful love songs dedicated to the woman he loves. Also, he is presented as a man closer to the middle classes, so the audience could more easily identify with him. He goes so far as to apologize for his wealth by saying that “that’s what happens when you have a rich grandfather” (Walters 1956). Because of the deletion of his past as a drunkard and wife beater, there is no real reason for his divorce with Tracy. The explanation given in the film for their separation is that he has become a “juke box hero” (Walters 1956) something that Tracy considers improper for a man with his social status. In this film version, Tracy seems a much more frivolous, capricious, and snobbish girl while, on the contrary, Dexter is presented as a charming, funny man closer to the bourgeoisie. The sympathy of the audience towards this character is already induced by the first song of the film, in which the setting, the story and the characters are introduced: Just dig that scenery floatin’ by/ we’re now approachin’ Newport Rhode 1./ We’ve been forever in Variety./ But Cholly Knickerbocker, now we’re goin’ to be/ [...] I wanna play for my former pal-/ He runs the local jazz festival./ His name is Dexter and he’s good news,/ But sumpin’ kinda tells me that he’s nursing’ the blues/ [...] He’s got the blues ‘cause his wife, alas,/ Thought writin’ songs was beneath his class,/ But writin’ songs he’d not stop, of course,/ And so he flew to Vegas for a quicky divorce./ [...] To make him sadder, his former wife/ Begins tomorrow a brand new life./ She started lately a new affair/ And now the silly chick is gonna marry a square./ [...] But, Brother Dexter, just trust your Satch,/ To stop that weddin’ and kill that match./ I’ll not toot my trumpet to start the fun,/ And play in such a way that she’ll come back to you, son. (Walters 1956) [my italics]

1

The Webster’s Online Dictionary describes the term as follows: “Crooner is an epithet given to a male singer of a certain style of popular songs, dubbed pop standards. A crooner is a singer of popular ballads and thus a ‘balladeer’. The singer is normally backed by a full orchestra or big band. Generally, crooners sang and popularized the songs from the Great American Songbook” (Parker 2011). © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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Patricia Álvarez Caldas

A Progressively Edulcorated Vision of Masculinity

  Louis Armstrong sings the song looking directly to the camera, addressing the audience and explaining to them the main events that have already taken place. He is, thus, the narrator of the story, and by means of this song, he is introducing the story of Dexter, and the relationship he has with him. The use of affectionate names helps to make the audience sympathise with Dexter, a character they had not met yet. Here we are told that it was he who asked for a divorce, and that the story we are about to see is that of “how-Dexter-got-his-wife-back”. Although Dexter’s past was erased from the script, the dialogues between him and Tracy were transposed literally from the play. His resentment towards Tracy can be understood by the audience, although it is born from a different type of conflict: now, it has nothing to do with Tracy’s lack of fulfilment of the traditional gender roles but, instead, with Tracy’s intolerance towards his liking jazz music. Tracy’s behaviour seems capricious and exaggerated, and it is hard for the audience to understand her replies without Dexter’s original background. The story looses weight and credibility, but as Butler suggests, “the how of the musical concerns and entertains the viewer much more than the what” (1986: 17). 5. Conclusion We have analysed the transformation of the character of C.K. Dexter Haven from the original play The Philadelphia Story to its two film adaptations. By making a comparative analysis, we have been able to see how the changes on his characterization attended to the social practices of the historical context and to the needs of the Hollywood Industry which produced the films. The play was a production of the famous Theatre Guild, a company that staged plays that were committed to the social upheaval of the moment. But when The Philadelphia Story became a Hollywood production, it had to fit into the industry’s standards. Cinema may be a means for social criticism, but the truth is that in its origins it mainly showed stories related with “worlds of fantasy” which would entertain the audience. Moreover, censorship and the appearance of laws such as the famous Hays Code during the 1950s, provoked that themes had to be further changed, “edulcorated”, or even erased from the plots of the classical Hollywood films. In consequence of these changes, the character of C.K. Dexter Haven, who had been born as a caricature of the Philadelphia Gentleman, became first one of the most charismatic characters performed by Cary Grant and then a jazz singer and a crooner performed by Bing Crosby. From an upper class gentleman with alcohol and domestic problems, he became just a funny and romantic intriguer who was later transformed into a “one-gal-guy” (Walters 1956), in a greatly edulcorated version of what was once a satire of the lives of the members of the Philadelphia “high and mighty” (Barry 1969: 50). Works Cited Baltzell, E. Digby 2004 (1958). The Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Barry, Philip 1969. The Philadelphia Story: A Comedy in Three Acts. New York: Samuel French, Inc. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  Butler, Jeremy March 1986. The Hollywood Musical: Peel away the Tinsel. Jump Cut, 31: 17-18. . 02 March 2011. Cukor, George (dir.) 1940. The Philadelphia Story. Metro Goldwyn Meyer. Donald, James 2007. The Hollywood Star Machine. Ed. Pam Cook. The Cinema Book. London: BFI. 110-13. Echart, Pablo 2005. La Comedia Romántica de Hollywood de los Años 30 y 40. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra. Hirst, David L. 1979. Comedy of Manners. London: Methuen & Co. Johnson, Richard 1986. The Story so Far: And Further Transformations? Ed. David Punter. Introduction to Contemporary Cultural Studies. London: Longman. 277313. Lone Star College-Kingwood 1998. Screwball in the 1950s. American Cultural History 1950-1959. . 23 January 2011. McDonough, Carla J. 1997. Staging Masculinity: Male Identity in Contemporary American Drama. Jefferson: McFarland & Co. Inc., Publishers. Murphy, Brenda 1999. Plays and Playwrights: 1915-1945. Ed. Don B. Wilmeth and Christopher Bigsby. The Cambridge History of American Theatre: 1870-1945. Vol.2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parker, Philip M. 2011. Webster’s Online Dictionary. . 02 December 2011. Onaindia, Mario 1996. El Guión Clásico de Hollywood. Barcelona: Paidós. Rado, Lisa 1997. Modernism, Gender, and Culture: A Cultural Studies Approach. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. Walters, Charles (dir.) 1956. High Society. Metro Goldwyn Meyer.

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Jeannette Armstrong and her Feminism

 

Jeannette Armstrong and her Feminism of Decolonisation Fátima Susana Amante University of Salamanca Jeannette Armstrong, an Okanagan from Canada, is both a teacher and a writer. Her novel, Slash, has been much criticised by feminists, because of its male protagonist. By assuming a male perspective in her novel, this Native Canadian did not intend to legitimise and reinforce patriarchal power; rather, she argues that her choice was inextricably linked to a time when machismo and the European notion of leadership ruled the day. She further advances a philosophical reason: she wanted Native peoples to reconcile themselves with their traditional worldview, one which regarded masculinity and femininity not as opposites, but as synergistic; their relationship should be one of balance, reciprocity, complementarity and responsibility. Taking Slash into consideration, then, I intend to prove, together with the Okanagan author that, despite criticism, her novel is feminist and empowering, though not in a conventional sense: a different kind of feminism is here at stake—a feminism of decolonisation. Key words: feminism; decolonisation; First Nations’ literature. Feminism is about women, their structural and social relations between and among each other and between women and men. It is about how the gendered and racially inscribed character of those relations is imagined, violated, transformed, reproduced, negated, survived, lived, and reasoned Julia V. Emberley, Thresholds of Difference (1993: 86)

The choice of the quotation that starts this paper has not been casual. In fact, in the next few minutes, I intend to reflect upon feminism, but not on the individualistic kind of “I am Woman, Hear me Roar” feminism which has developed in the West. Instead, this paper is devoted to a discussion of what Julia Emberley named “a feminism of decolonization” in her Thresholds of Difference to refer to the need of a different notion of gender formation within traditional Aboriginal societies in relation to dominant capitalist societies (Emberley 1993: 4). As this critic suggests, Native women need to understand themselves first on Native terms, that is, within their Native communities, and then they will be able to confront the role they must play in the dominant capitalist society.

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  Why is that so? Why can’t we simply place Native women’s struggle within the larger movement of feminism? As the very same critic quoted above claims, feminism shall not be “abstracted into a universal category to meet the needs of a select few women” (Emberley 1993: 86); it must be seen and understood as an ideology of gender relations in the context of specific social, economic and historical circumstances. In other words, the analysis of gender relations in a Native society must necessarily be different from the one which takes into account women from other races or classes. For instance, we cannot integrate the experience of Native women as part of the universal oppression of women,1 because we need to take into consideration the effects of colonisation and its associated ideology, and only as such may the process of decolonisation2 begin. Jeannette Armstrong, an Okanagan who was born on the Penticton Indian Reserve in British Columbia, is one of the many cultural critics who chose to develop a feminism of decolonisation, rather than follow a traditional liberal feminism that focuses exclusively on the struggle between male and female and ignores the social relations among women of different races, cultures and classes. Actually, Jeannette Armstrong provides us with one of the most intelligible and lucid commentaries on the colonisation process, in which she reminds us that, as colonisation progressed, it forced Aboriginal peoples in general, and women in particular, to adapt themselves to the presence of the larger dominant society. One example of this adaptation is the formation of a hierarchy, leading to relationships of domination and subordination, namely in the structure of male and female power. We are all very much aware of the history of the colonization process, which has systematically achieved, through various well-known measures, a breakdown in the structures upon which the well-being and health of our peoples depended. [...] What is not well known is that the influences of a patriarchal and imperialistic culture upon a people whose systems were fundamentally co-operative units has been not only devastating, but also dehumanising to a degree that is unimaginable. [...] I speak in specific of the severe and irreversible effects on Aboriginal women, and the resultant effect on our nations. The role of Aboriginal women in the health of family systems from one generation to the next was one of immense power. The immensity of the responsibility of bearer of life and nourisher of all generations is just becoming clear in its relationship to all societal functioning.

1

By way of illustration, it should be noted that the Aboriginal women’s movement, instead of employing a discourse of “them” versus “us” when referring to First Nations’ men, claim that their own healing and/or empowerment requires the same of the Aboriginal collective; that is, men, women, youth and elders must work to the same end. Women’s healing is not a separate process; rather, it must be a concerted effort by both sexes. 2 The process of decolonisation must be distinguished from a postcolonial critical practice. This latter, according to Thomas King, quoted by Kit Dobson, “‘will not do to describe Native literature” (Dobson 2009: 125); it “is inappropriate for discussing” it, since the term postcolonial “reduces all Native literatures to ones that deal with the colonial encounter and that assumes a temporal progress beyond colonialism” (Dobson 2009: 124). Decolonisation, on the other hand, is a multi-dimensional process that implies the interrogation of the relationship between knowledge construction, representation and ideology, and it eventually aims at liberating and healing Native peoples. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  In traditional Aboriginal society, it was woman who shaped the thinking of all its members in a loving, nurturing atmosphere within the base family unit. [...] (Armstrong 1996a: ix)

As the Okanagan writer puts it, Aboriginal societies were egalitarian in nature,3 but colonisation indelibly affected Aboriginal women’s roles and responsibilities.4 Traditionally, there was a holistic approach to life, and balance reigned as previously noted, because communal efforts were recognised as beneficial to all Aboriginal communities’ development. Prior to the colonising influences, being an Aboriginal woman meant a connection with the spirit of the Creator: thus, the image of the Aboriginal woman as lifegiver, caretaker and nurturer. One of the traditional roles of Aboriginal women was actually to maintain tribal identity for their future generations and, as a result, they were seen as the real leaders of their communities. However, with the introduction of the European educational system, Native women’s role as guardians and carriers of culture gradually started losing its significance, because children were taken away from their families and communities. Aboriginal children were expected to spend so many hours in school that the school’s teacher soon became one of the main influences in their learning. In Slash, Tommy, the protagonist, tells us that “[s]ometimes, the days were so long before [children] went home [...] [that i]t was already dark when [they] got [there]” (Armstrong 1996b: 16). It is not surprising that this compulsory rupture with traditional ways of life resulted in metaphysical questions regarding personal identity and culture. Bearing this in mind and using the persona of the above mentioned Okanagan youngster, which may be said to be the author’s alter ego,5 Jeannette Armstrong describes the life and political commitment of her character in the Aboriginal militant period of the American Indian Movement, during the late sixties/early seventies, while he searches for his true identity in contemporary times. For that, Tommy needs to reconcile with himself completely, letting go of the anger that consumes his soul, and finding a sense of belonging in his community, much like in his childhood when life seemed easier: As I begin to write this story, I think back. I search my background, back to when, as an almost man, things seemed so simple. I look at that child and find him a stranger and yet he is nearer to me, as I am now, than when I became a young man full of a destructive compulsion to make change happen. (Armstrong 1996b: 13)

Powering nostalgic feelings and fond memories, in the prologue Tommy seems to have just arrived from a journey of self-discovery and introspection, a circular 3

Even though Jeannette Armstrong may seem to be embracing and promoting a binary view of the relationship between men and women in the excerpt above, the truth is that she is arguing in favour of the different, but reciprocal and complementary roles that they performed. 4 As Carol Devens points out, “the friction between men and women is in fact the bitter fruit of colonization” (Devens 1992: 5), because, as we are told, “[a]s men grew more receptive to introduced practices and values that they hoped would allow them to deal successfully with the whites, women stood only to lose status and autonomy. Thus, whereas many men favored accommodation, women tended to stress ‘traditional’ ways. As a consequence, asymmetrical, even antagonistic relations between the sexes eventually prevailed in many communities” (Devens 1992: 4). 5 This novel is framed by a prologue in which the protagonist seems to embody exactly the same aims and intentions as those of Jeannette Armstrong. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  journey that brought him “back together [...] to wholeness”, because “[...] as a whole, as a circle, as a continuum [...] [Armstrong] wanted to take him from health and bring him back to health again [...]” (Lutz 1991: 19). Afterwards, in an analepsis, the reader is transported into the protagonist’s school days and, from onwards, s/he is allowed to see this character’s spiritual growth to maturity. From this description, it would be easy to characterise this novel as a bildungsroman. In light of such theory, Jeannette’s choice of a male character comes as natural, especially if we remember Susan Fraiman’s words that this genre has “define[d] development in emphatically masculine terms” (Fraiman 1993: 5). Nonetheless, in “Is There a Female Bildungsroman?”, this critic assents to its existence and argues that this genre came to be used by women writers to “[...] dramatize female development in contradictory ways”, to depict “the ‘feminine’ as a site of ideological confusion, struggle, and possibility” (Fraiman 1993: 31). If female bildungsromans do exist,6 wouldn’t it make much more sense for Jeannette, a feminist, to write this fictional autobiography through a feminine lens? On this issue, she reveals: I really wanted to write it from a female point of view, but one thing that was really clear to me was that it was the young Native male who was at the forefront of that movement. There were young women involved, strong women like Anna Mae Aquash, and some played leadership roles, but they were very unique personalities, whereas with the men there were enough of them that I could generalize and do a composite. (Freeman 1988: 36)

Thomas Kelasket, or Slash as he came to be nicknamed by Mardi after a knife fight, is not an individual hero, typical of traditional bildungsromans; instead, he takes a backseat to the evolution of the community as a whole. We may even wonder if he is a hero at all, because, rather than an autonomous individual who is “superior to the community” (Al-Issa 2003: 152), Tommy appears as a composite character by the end of the novel, shaped by a variety of influences and a myriad of voices of all those whose lives have touched his. The protagonist is, as Jeannette Armstrong points out, made up of various generalised fragments, but I would venture to say, together with Sabiha Al-Issa, that those pieces ultimately culminate into one grand picture of a role model, “a contemporary warrior” who lives in harmony with the Earth and with his own community, in touch with his past, present and future, and who “[...] shows the light to thousands of Native youths who are bogged down in the mire of assimilation with its repercussions, or confrontation with its violent consequences” (Al-Issa 2003: 158). The protagonist himself refers to this idea of a role model, when he declares: “It was clear then that the only way I could work to help that change come about was to set up a model or an example of myself. I had to be a teacher in that sense” (Armstrong 1996b: 218).

6

Laura Sue Fuderer, among others, also contributed to prove that this genre does exist, because in her The Female Bildungsroman in English: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism, she lists one hundred and thirty-three critical studies of “a new or at least revised genre, the female bildungsroman, the novel of the development of a female protagonist” (Fuderer 1990: 1).

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  Furthermore, in consonance with the author’s views of the Self in communion with the Land and its People, she could not have done it any other way. As Armstrong puts it: [...] in terms of the characters and the character development of Slash as a character in the novel, in the writing process I couldn’t isolate the character and keep the character in isolation from the development of the events in the community, and the whole of the people. [...] The character development of the people around him, the pieces of character that come in and out, are all part of his character development, or his being [...]. (Lutz 1991: 16)

If the protagonist’s development is anchored on his connection with his People, and if he is representative of an entire community, that the novel is framed by a prologue and an epilogue where his voice enjoys a privileged position, while the main body of the narrative presents a variety of competing discourses, seems to me a contradiction. I can only explain it, because, by that time, the protagonist was already a composite individual, whose experiences were to be shared with future generations, embodied in his infant son, Marlon.7 Similarly to Jeannette’s speech, in which she exhorts “The Youth Warriors in the Present Day” (1989), Slash also addresses his child, telling him: You are our hope. You are an Indian of a special generation. Your world will be hard but you will grow proud to be Indian. [...] [Y]ou will be the generation to help them white men change because you won’t be filled with hate. That’s why the prophesies say yours is a special generation. [...] You are the part of me that extends in a line up towards the future. (Armstrong 1996b: 250)

Slash, personifying the author’s view, keeps faith in the idea of embracing Aboriginal ways to bring about change “[...] not only for their survival but for the survival of what is human in an inhuman world” (Armstrong 1996b: 251). Simply put, it is only in embracing one’s difference, in practising and sharing it within a larger context, regardless of gender or other characteristics, that our world will become a more tolerant and communal place. Despite these explanations, Slash has been read with suspicion by white Canadian feminists, because, as Betsy Warland remarks, “it is narrated from the point of view of a young Indian man” (Armstrong and Warland 1989: 45). On this issue, Julia V. Emberley informs us that in June 1988, at the Third Annual Feminist Book Fair conference, held in Montreal, “Jeannette Armstrong came under attack from colonial white feminists over her use of a Native man, rather than a Native woman, as her central character” (Emberley 1993: 148). In her defence, the Okanagan writer asserts: “I’ve been called by feminist groups for making the central character male, and I’m saying that’s the exact reason I did it [to allow changes/healing in the male role]” (Williamson 1993: 15).

7

Out of curiosity, in the epilogue, Thomas Kelasket expresses a similar concern as the Okanagan author with regards to his story’s recipients, when he states: “[...] I decide to tell my story for my son and those like him because I must” (Armstrong 1996b: 253).

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  Jeannette Armstrong, in her interview with Janice Williamson, makes us understand that, in an Aboriginal contextual framework, male and female come to signify different equals in terms of power relations. In Native languages, there is no gender distinction and, thus, no hierarchies placing the female term subordinate to the male. In her own words, [...] if we refer to a person as a woman, it’s always in terms of that woman’s connection or relationship to us or to another person or to the work that’s being done. There’s no way of connecting that to gender. The culture doesn’t separate by gender—though it recognizes that certain things are attached to male and female out of necessity—but in terms of who we are, what we do, and how we think and feel, and gender doesn’t have anything to do with how well we do things or how as human beings we connect to one another. (Williamson 1993: 14)

Therefore, contrarily to Native languages, which tend to regard the individual as a balanced whole, that is, first and foremost as a Human Being, in Western languages— and English, in this particular case—practices of gendering are the norm:8 the category of gender is installed in language and it is very difficult to hide it, unless one tries to avoid the use of pronouns, which is altogether something very difficult to do. Even when we use the masculine generic (man, mankind), which intends to function androgynously representing both the male and the female, we are empowering man, because we understand the male gender to be universal. Christine A. Smith et al. elaborate on this problematic: Grammar books have traditionally advised writers to choose “he” when the gender of the individual is unknown. This (and the use of “man” or “mankind” to describe people in general) is known as the “masculine generic.” Feminists argued that the masculine generic omits women from the conversation; indicates that men are the “standard” and women are the “other” [...]. Psycholinguistic research indicates that the masculine generic shapes the thoughts of those who hear and read it, sometimes below the level of awareness”. (Smith et al. 2010: 363)

The fact is that from the moment of one’s birth, and even earlier while in the mother’s womb, there is the compulsive need to immediately identify a baby as a boy or a girl, because we come to our personhood by and through language. It is in the act of naming someone/something that we bring her/him/it into conceptual existence and make meaning in the world. By assuming a male perspective in her novel, Jeannette Armstrong did not intend to legitimise and reinforce patriarchal power; rather, as pointed out, she argues that her choice was inextricably linked to “the politics at that time” (Williamson 1993: 14), a time when machismo and the European notion of leadership ruled the day, a time when female activists were seen as pathetic, because an AIM member was supposed to show “a mean look [...]. A mean image” (Armstrong 1996b: 152). According to the 8

Norms are implicated in the exercise of power, that is, in the action on the Other’s action(s). In other words, subjection takes place through norms: the “I” becomes no more than a subject of the society where I live in. In terms of gender ideology, we are expected to display behaviours and attributes that enable others to recognise us as appropriately “feminine” or “masculine”. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  protagonist, it is only when “young chicks” adopt a more masculine appearance that they become less ridiculous: “They kind of looked silly for the first few days until they got the hang of how to loosen their hair and wear jeans and old army jackets” (Armstrong 1996b: 152). And, as if this argument was not enough, Armstrong further advances a philosophical reason: she wanted Native peoples to reconcile themselves with their traditional worldview, one which regarded masculinity and femininity not as opposites, but as synergistic; their relationship should be one of balance, reciprocity, complementarity and responsibility: Healing needs to take place between male and female, and the males need to reconcile their own female power, compassion, love, and caring. Their need to feel and be sensitive can only be learned from the Native females, or through the long process that the character Slash had to go through. (Williamson 1993: 15)

The importance of women to Native cultures is well documented in Armstrong’s Slash, especially at the point when the protagonist comments that “[i]t’s really the women who keep things going smooth. All Indian men know that. We learned early from our mothers and grandmothers that it is women who are the strength of the people” (Armstrong 1996b: 153). But this acknowledgment, however, does not imply that men treat women as they should be. On the contrary, at the beginning of the novel we are informed that “[...] none of the Indian girls ever got asked to dance at the sockhops because us guys wouldn’t dance with them because the white guys didn’t” (Armstrong 1996b: 35). Additionally, as Tommy confesses, colonial distorted perceptions on the Aboriginal women as easy and dirty squaws9 were transferred to Aboriginal men, whom objectified women as sexually servile and treated them as commodities to be used and abused: “We learned the drum songs and learned how to dress to look the part. [...] A lot of chicks were impressed with it. Enough of them that we got pretty arrogant in the way we treated them. We were the bad guys nobody should mess with” (Armstrong 1996b: 122). Native women’s adaptations and reactions to colonialism have varied: while some have been hindered or overcome by the continuous barriers that were placed in front of their traditional lifestyles, others have developed survival strategies, maintaining and passing on their traditions and customs to their future generations. Tommy’s mother, for instance, represents all Aboriginal women who are strong-willed, powerful and assertive, providing their children with advice and guidance. She claims that changing the negative and stereotypical perceptions/constructions of Native peoples is of utmost importance, and that this change requires a holistic connection to one’s family and community, instead of following the white man’s path:

9

As Emma LaRocque remarks, even though this word sounds like a mispronunciation of the Algonquian word “squoh”, which means woman, generally speaking the white man’s use of the former has no direct correlation with the latter (Lutz 1991: 191-2; 201-2). In literature, Aboriginal women are usually defined in binary terms as either Princesses or Squaws. As Gordon Johnston explains it, “most common Indian figures in such [Native] stories clearly represent the masculine projections of their authors and societies. ‘Princesses’ such as Pocahontas and Minnehaha are idealized, self-sacrificing soul mates; ‘squaws’ are perfect drudges and sexual conveniences” (Johnston 1987: 54). © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  Then why don’t you quit your drinking and doping? I ain’t dumb, I can see what you’re doing to your body and head. Tommy, you and so many others just can’t seem to see that the answers are right under your noses. [...] We want you to be able to help our people by using your smartness that was given to you for that. [...] You and young people like you are our hope. You ain’t brainwashed and you got a good education. Now you acting the same as those who ain’t got parents teaching them any better. [...] How you gonna change the world? How you gonna fight, as you say, for your people, if you do the very stuff that you are fighting against?” (Armstrong 1996b: 165-6)

Mardi will be even more important to Tommy; she will be his inspirational power, the strength that encourages him to see the brighter side in the never-ending darkness that he had created for himself. Mardi advances Native social and political movements as a way to foreground the voices of the oppressed: the third choice is then presented as a struggle for self-determination, or in Noel Elizabeth Currie’s words, as “direct political action to change the conditions of oppression” (Currie 1990: 143). But if Mardi, together with the Red Patrol, attempts to “[...] set up an example of pride and power in being Indian” and “tr[ies] to educate people about their rights” (Armstrong 1996b: 70), on the other hand she is not able to fully provide Slash with the spiritual dimension that he needs, because she herself lacks in rootedness to a traditional Aboriginal community,11 and she looks to undo her incompleteness through Tommy’s stories about his “home life, about Uncle Joe, and how it used to be on the farm” (Armstrong 1996b: 61). As Currie explains... 10

Mardi’s understanding is incomplete in Slash’s eyes because it arises out of her experience [...]. Having proved her strength by saving her own life, she looks beyond herself to the larger community and commits herself to “‘what’s really going on in the Indian world’” (S 61) and to changing the personal and systemic oppression they all face, until she is “eliminated,” like many other low-profile leaders, by the FBI (S 121). (Currie 1990: 143-4)

Mardi helps Slash, as well as the reader, to understand that full recovery and holistic prosperity can only be achieved through his reconnection with his cultural/spiritual roots. Her instruction is fundamental to the educational principles that Armstrong wanted to convey, when she decided to write this pedagogical tool. So, Lee Maracle’s assertion that Slash is a guidebook for the Aboriginal youngsters “that would need something to hang on to” (Maracle 1988: 42) is complemented by Margery Fee’s remark that just like the novel under study, “[m]ore recent works are not so much aimed at educating white audiences as at strengthening Native readers’ sense that there must be a better way to think about themselves than that presented by the dominant 10

Mardi is described as “extra deluxe. Tough with hard eyes and long black hair that hung below her hips. [...] [S]he knew her way around” (Armstrong 1996b: 59). 11 Let us not forget that Mardi left reservation with her family at a tender age to be raised in settler society, after her father’s return from the Second World War. However, her father’s ambition of better living conditions did not come true, because “[...] he started drinking a lot” (Armstrong 1996b: 60), and her mother followed his steps, which eventually led to her death, when Mardi was thirteen. Thereafter, Mardi married a violent old man, from whom she had “two kids that welfare got” (Armstrong 1996b: 61). Then, her divorce, prostitution and addictions further deepened her self-destruction, which was only avoided by the help she found in an Aboriginal rehabilitation centre. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  discourse” (Fee 1990: 169). In other words, through creative literature, decolonisation is achieved and political education is promoted. Decolonisation is indeed achieved through a different approach to feminism and through the resulting polyphony inherent in the “I-am-We” stance, as it contributes significantly to disrupt the dominant literary culture; it means an interpenetration of (masculine and feminine) voices rather than the imposition of a single one, as Sabiha Al-Issa reminds us: “[i]f the typical Western self sees himself as ‘I-am-I’, the typical Native stance is ‘I-am-We’” (Al-Issa 2003: 152-3), because the narrator-protagonist becomes, as noted, an integral part of the community. Therefore, at the end of the novel, he acts as a supersystem, as he is self-composed of a myriad of voices. In fact, just like Jeannette Armstrong herself, her protagonist also notices that, in Okanagan culture, an individual’s identity is not so much one of the Self, but one of belonging, while assuming a specific place and role within one’s social group and community. Tommy realises that the survival of his community depends on him accepting his responsibilities and personal obligations that go beyond the realm of the individual-self to the very heart of his Okanagan counterparts. That is the reason why he refuses to leave the ones that need him in the Okanagan, not even to accompany his wife, Maegdaline.12 In his words, “I can’t go along with supporting anything that will compromise what I know to be at the center of all that I believe in” (Armstrong 1996b: 244); “My place is here. Here is where the real fight will be” (Armstrong 1996b: 250). Tommy’s convictions ultimately keep him from turning his back on his extended family, as he used to do. He is not ashamed of whom he or his relatives are anymore, even if they are different from white people. Actually, he comes to recognise that he had previously sought comfort in sameness, in an acute desire to belong to mainstream culture, but this frantic search could only emphasise his difference and, thereby, open way to feelings of alienation, marginalisation, misunderstanding and intolerance. Difference between Native and white peoples will always be there, as it is ingrained in the supposed incompatibility of cultural traditions –be they political, linguistic, religious, among others– through time and across social spaces or, when that is not enough, in irrefutable biological differences, as Abdul JanMohamed and David Lloyd make clear: The colonialist stresses those things that keep him separate rather than emphasizing that which might contribute to the foundation of a joint community. In those differences, the colonized is always degraded and the colonialist finds justification for rejecting his subjectivity. But perhaps the most important thing is that once the behavioral feature of historical or geographical factor which characterizes the colonialist and contrasts him 12

Maeg, a traditional Okanagan woman who is committed to preserving the Aboriginal rights by having them built into the Canadian Constitution, becomes Tommy’s wife and the mother of his son (Armstrong 1996b: 229-31). According to Tommy, she is not pretty, but surely “something to look at” (Armstrong 1996b: 224): her soft intense eyes “didn’t miss a thing”; “[h]er hair was thick, brown and wavy [...] past her shoulders and her skin was smooth and light brown”. As to her outfit, Maeg “hadn’t worn any choker of beads or braids” and “her clothes were just plain” (Armstrong 1996b: 225). She helps her husband integrate land, community, healing, traditional spirituality and political activism into his life, as she concentrates her activist efforts on environmental concerns (they first get to know each other in a meeting on the uranium mining explorations in a sacred site) and on child welfare issues, besides the above mentioned interest in entrenching Aboriginal rights in the Canadian Constitution of 1981-2. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  with the colonized has been isolated, this gap must be kept from being filled. The colonialist removes the factor from history, time and therefore becomes labeled as being biological or preferably metaphysical. It is attached to the colonized’s basic nature. Immediately the colonial relationship between colonized and colonizer, founded on the essential outlook of the two protagonists, becomes a definitive category. It is what it is because they are what they are, and neither one nor the other, will ever change. (JanMohamed and Lloyd 1990: 71-2) [my italics]

Taking this into consideration, sameness/togetherness for Tommy can only be found within his Okanagan community, because this social network had been built on a common faith, where members have shared the same physical space (community of place), maintained cohesive relations with one another (community of friendship) and a common belief system that has shaped their values, attitudes and purposes (community of mind/spirit). That is, as he says, what culture is after all: I understood then that the practice of things separated us from other peoples. I realized then that’s what culture is. The things I had seen about my people which were different came from the way things were approached. [...] The ones who were strong and confident in their ways were different. The way they looked at the world and how they fit into it was different. (Armstrong 1996b: 211) [my italics]

Culture is, as previously noted, a human-made reality that gives meaning to life, because it provides the framework upon which individuals construct their understanding of themselves and of the world. As a consequence, culture –the beliefs, traditions, rituals, conventions, norms, myths, languages and other legacies and artefacts of human life– is the cement that binds community together.13 This means, as Tommy realises and as defined by Howard Adams, being a member of particular racial/ethnic group that is culturally different and unique from the dominant group. [...] It means [...] look[ing] inward to their own private world of indigenous customs, rituals, symbols and language [...] [aiming at] a reconstruction of authentic Aboriginal history and heritage, and at the same time, a rejection of the stereotypical images of white supremacy. (Adams 1995: 131-2) [my italics]

And there lies the core notion of Aboriginal cultural nationalism, which “generates from a desire to reverse an intolerable situation, and to challenge the legitimacy of the dominant system. It is a desire for freedom from both domination and contempt [...]” (Adams 1995: 132). It is the third choice that the AIM and other social and political movements advocate, and which Tommy from then on pursues, because, as he optimistically puts it, “maybe its [sic] not too late after all. Maybe the seed is starting to sprout finally. Maybe it will grow” (Armstrong 1996b: 249).

13

In emphasising the idea of identity categories and community boundaries, culture is also inextricably linked to power; it is a site of struggle or of distinction, used to mark Otherness, as Foucault points out: “The dialectical sovereignty of similarity consists in permitting differences to exist, but always under the rule of the negative, as an instance of non-being. They may appear as the successful subversion of the Other, but contradiction secretly assists in the salvation of identities” (Foucault 1977: 185). © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  Eventually, Tommy is healed, because he understands that he had already “plant[ed] the seed[, Marlon,] which can make revolutionary changes in the future” (Currie 1990: 149) and he now battles a more balanced revolution: one that looks at life as a commitment, a gift to be respected, cherished, protected and passed on to his son and, as he points out in the epilogue, to “those like him” (Armstrong 1996b: 253), namely the readers. These are, just like Marlon, “Little Chief[s]” (Armstrong 1996b: 250), warriors that “will grow to be strong and straight for [their] people” and that will “help them white men change because [they are members of a special generation that] won’t be filled with hate” (Armstrong 1996b: 250). Taking it all into consideration, then, we may say together with the Okanagan author that, despite criticism, her novel: [...] is a very feminist book, and it really works with, and talks about, female thinking and the empowerment of people through love, and compassion, and spirituality. And whether you want to call it female power, that’s beside the point, but that’s currently what it’s being called. I think it’s human at its best. (Lutz 1991: 18)

Works Cited Adams, Howard 1995. A Tortured People: The Politics of Colonization. Penticton, B.C.: Theytus Books. Al-Issa, Sabiha 2003. The “Homing” Myth in Jeannette Armstrong’s Slash. Eds. Hartmut Lutz / Coomi S. Vevaina. Connections. New Delhi: Creative Books, 1509. Armstrong, Jeannette Christine 1989. Aboriginal Youth: Warriors in the Present Day. Report of the National Aboriginal Youth Conference: “From the Past, In the Present; For the Future”, February 10-13. Ottawa: DammIng Words Productions, 1-10. --1996a. Invocation: The Real Power of Aboriginal Women. Keynote Address: The National Symposium on Aboriginal Women of Canada, University of Lethbridge, 19 October 1989. Eds. Cristine Miller and Patricia Chuchryk. Women of the First Nations: Power, Wisdom, and Strength, Manitoba Studies in Native History. Winnipeg: The University of Manitoba Press, IX-XII. --- 1996b. Slash. Penticton, B.C.: Theytus Books. --- 1998. “Indian Woman”; “Threads of Old Memory” and “Keepers Words”. Eds. Daniel David Moses and Terry Goldie. An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 229-36. --and Betsy Warland 1989. Slash/Review. Resources for Feminist Research 18(1): 45-7. Currie, Noel Elizabeth 1990. Jeannette Armstrong & the Colonial Legacy. Ed. W.H. New. Native Writers, Canadian Writing. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 138-52. Devens, Carol 1992. Countering Colonization: Native American Women and Great Lakes Missions, 1630-1900. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dobson, Kit 2009. Transnational Canadas: Anglo-Canadian Literature and Globalization. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

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  Emberley, Julia V. 1993. Thresholds of Difference: Feminist Critique, Native Women’s Writings, Postcolonial Theory. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Fee, Margery 1990. Upsetting Fake Ideas: Jeannette Armstrong’s “Slash” and Beatrice Culleton’s “April Raintree”. Ed. W. H. New. Native Writers and Canadian Writing. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 168-80. Foucault, Michel 1977. Theatrum Philosophicum. Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ed. Donald F. Bouchard. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 165-96. Fraiman, Susan (ed.) 1993. Is There a Female Bildungsroman? Unbecoming Women: British Women Writers and the Novel of Development. New York: Columbia University Press, 1-31. Freeman, Victoria 1988. Rights on Paper: An Interview. Fuse Magazine XI (5): 36-9. Fuderer, Laura Sue 1990. The Female Bildungsroman in English: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism. New York: MLA. JanMohamed, Abdul R. and David Lloyd 1990. The Nature and Context of Minority Discourse. New York: Oxford University Press. Johnston, Gordon 1987. An Intolerable Burden of Meaning: Native Peoples in White Fiction. Eds. Thomas King, Cheryl Calver and Helen Hoy. The Native in Literature. Oakville: ECW Press, 50-66. Lutz, Hartmut 1991. Contemporary Challenges: Conversations with Canadian Native Authors. Saskatoon/Saskatchewan: Fifth House Publishers. Maracle, Lee 1988. Fork in the Road: A Story for Native Youth. Fuse Magazine 11(6): 42. Smith, Christine A. et al. 2010. Words Matter: The Language of Gender. Eds. Joan C. Chrisler and Donald R. McCreary. Handbook of Gender Research in Psychology: Gender Research in General and Experimental Psychology, Vol. One. New York: Springer, 361-377. Williamson, Janice 1993. Sounding Differences: Conversations with Seventeen Canadian Women Writers. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.

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Studying A.S. Byatt’s Fiction is Like a Game  

Soraya Heis Rodríguez

Studying A.S. Byatt’s Fiction Is Like a Game Soraya Heis Rodríguez University of Granada In this essay I illustrate the main lines of research done on Byatt’s fiction up to now and I argue how she develops in several of her fictional works the metaphor ‘Life is a Game’, which Wallhead noted in The Game. My purpose is to go more deeply into how and why Byatt does this and what the implications might be. Game Theory, as devised by von Neumann and Morgenstern, suggests that there are winners and losers in the ‘game’ of life and Byatt gives examples of how this can work in fictional versions of ‘real life’ both in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. The application of concepts from Game Theory is useful as it relates to the Darwinian idea of ‘the survival of the fittest’. Therefore, it fits in the recent trend which explores concepts of utopia and traumas. Also, Byatt’s creation of characters who are ghosts helps in the rearticulation of past traumas. Key words: A.S. Byatt, Game Theory, utopia, ghost. 1. Introduction: A.S. Byatt and intertextuality In the context of our postmodern days, A.S. Byatt’s fictional works occupy a predominant position in English literature. With a range of novels published between 1964 (The Shadow of the Sun) and 2011 (Ragnarök: The End of the Gods), Byatt’s oeuvre has been widely studied by critics all over the world. But it was after the publication of Possession: A Romance (1990) that Byatt’s popularity rose enormously. Such was the acclaim of Possession that its year of publication came to be considered her annus mirabilis, as it became a best-seller in the United States and in the United Kingdom shortly after its publication and it was awarded the Booker Prize of the year 1990 (Coyne Kelly 1996: 10; Todd 1997: 1-6). This moved her into “the category of eminent British novelists” (Franken 2001: 83) and gave her an excellent reputation not only as a creative writer but also as a critic (Todd 1997: 1). Partly because of the fact that A.S. Byatt is also a critic and taught at the University of London, the first critical works of her oeuvre centred her place in the tradition through the pervasive presence of other texts and art works in all of her books (Coyne Kelly 1996, Todd 1997, Lara Rallo 2006 and 2007, etc.). Other works focused on gender and feminist issues and the use of myth (Franken 2001, Campbell 2004, etc.), fairy tales in her works (Ashworth 1994, Sánchez 1995, Flegel 1998 or Tiffin 2006) or

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metaphors (Wallhead 1997). The fact that much investigation has been done on Byatt’s creative writing is, therefore, the first difficulty one may find in the early stages of a research project. As I worked on a rough draft for what will be my future PhD thesis, I had to find a small gap in order to contribute something new to all the ground-breaking investigation already done. Possession: A Romance was the first Byatt novel I read, it was the book that originated the urge to study all of her literary works, and, as with many scholars, intertextuality was the feature that most engaged my attention. One of postmodern fiction’s outstanding features is its outgoing referentiality through intertextuality and its inward self-referentiality. Possession has been studied as an example of “historiographic metafiction”, analysing “what is left out of histories” (Shiller 1997: 547). Historical metafiction has been defined by Patricia Waugh (1984) and by Linda Hutcheon: In the postmodem writing of history - and fiction [...] there is a deliberate contamination of the historical with didactic and situational discursive elements, thereby challenging the implied assumptions of historical statements: objectivity, neutrality, impersonality, and transparency of representation. (Hutcheon 1988: 370)

Without wanting to ignore the features that make of Possession a postmodern fictional work, but still wanting to be innovative and creative, and coinciding with the inauguration of the electronic journal Neo-Victorian Studies in 2008 by such scholars as Kirchknopf, Kolhke, Llewellyn and Shiller, I started to read about the increasing trend in contemporary British authors of setting their historical novels in the Victorian period as well as the reasons for doing so. Neo-Victorian critics consider this type of novel a “sub-genre” of “historiographic metafiction”, as they still reflect the problematic approach to history but there are other precise reasons for the return to this specific historical period which have been partially studied by neo-Victorian researchers (see Shiller 1997). Thus, these new researches open new fields for future investigation already necessary in neo-Victorian fiction. 2. Ghosts in Byatt’s neo-Victorian fiction The journal of Neo-Victorian Studies provided with different perspectives for the study of Byatt’s neo-Victorian novels, such as the contributions by Shiller (1997), Llewellyn (2008 and 2009), Hadley (2003 and 2008), Candel Bormann (2002), Edwards de Campos (2005), Lara Rallo (2006-7), Kontou (2009), among many others. I was particularly attracted to spectrality, to learn, later on, that it has been considered a “literary subset” of neo-Victorian fiction itself (Arias Doblas 2005: 87). The idea of the revenant might have an origin in the dissatisfied individual in society. Ghosts come back to our world because they are not satisfied, claiming justice. This is an idea related to one of the main endeavours of neo-Victorian literature, as all the researchers in the field have shown: The main aim is to revise and re-vitalise, to look back to past issues with a ‘new’, ‘fresh’ and contemporary look and, in that way, bring to the present issues which, though distant in time, seem to be equally relevant in our days, while at the same time they establish a temporal ‘bridge’ between the two time

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frames.1 The trope of the spectre proves to be apt for this endeavour as it is could be a metaphor for the genre in itself, and it helps to rearticulate silenced voices, be they in the form of revenants or by giving prominent roles to real and historical characters, who, the author of the book thinks, have not had the recognition and relevance they should have had. “The Conjugial Angel” is an example of this. It brings to the fore the ‘disgrace’ of Emily Jesse, or Emily Tennyson, sister of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson and fiancée of the late Arthur Henry Hallam, the addressee of Tennyson’s In Memoriam. In making Emily stand up for her flesh-and-bones husband Captain Jesse, instead of choosing to be the perennial widow of Arthur Hallam, Byatt, metaphorically, liberates Emily from the burden, as “she had mourned nine years [...]. She had known Arthur, alive, for four years, of which she had spent no more than a few weeks in his company” (1992: 231), and yet, Arthur’s father had given her “a generous annuity of £300 per annum”. The reasons for which had been “to buy affection? to alleviate guilt? to ensure perpetual devotion? This at least had not been wholly or perfectly achieved, for there had been Captain Jesse” (1992: 174). The husband of the medium, Mrs Papagay, was thought lost at sea, but returns as if from the dead and equally, Tennyson appears in a dream as if he were a ghost. 3. Ghosts and Game Theory Byatt’s masterpiece, Possession (1990), also deals with the trope of the spectre, and an analysis of one of her Victorian characters, Blanche Glover will be of interest as, in my view, it is closely related to aspects of Game Theory. One of the definitions of Game Theory, in broad terms, is the following: “the study of the ways in which strategic interactions among economic agents produce outcomes with respect to the preferences (or utilities) of those agents, where the outcomes in question might have been intended by none of the agents” (Ross). In other words, Game Theory consists of anticipating what decisions will our counterparts take in order to have the best outcomes, and, although it was, mainly, applied to economic purposes, “it works not just in economics, but also in evolutionary biology or political science” (Binmore 2007: 3). Thus, it is also valid for understanding how social institutions work, and it relates to utopias because individual choices will affect the general outcome of a social group. In this manner, ghosts return to the world of the living to vindicate their rights and to denounce their dissatisfaction in the past. Therefore, they bring utopian ideals for a better world, but they also expose their past traumas, an idea that will contribute to studies on trauma like Anne Whitehead’s (2004) or, recently, Kohlke and Gutleben’s (2010). It is frequent to find in Byatt’s oeuvre a large number of characters who experience an inability to perform adequately their individual tasks is life. Many of 1

Concluded from the readings of the following articles: Kirchknopf, Andrea 2008. (Re)workings of the Nineteenth-Century Fiction: Definitions, Terminology, Contexts. Neo-Victorian Studies 1(1): 53-80; Kolhke, Marie Louise 2008. Introduction: Speculations in and on the Neo-Victorian Encounter. NeoVictorian Studies 1(1): 1-18. Llewellyn, Mark 2008. What is Neo-Victorian Studies? Neo-Victorian Studies 1(1): 164-85.

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those characters, out of frustration, decide to put an end to their lives. Furthermore, following the metaphor LIFE IS A GAMBLING GAME, which Wallhead noted underlied the structure of Byatt’s The Game (1967) (Wallhead 1999: 163), we could say that these characters struggle to find an identity and play the ‘game of life’, with some of them becoming ‘winners’ of that game and becoming successful artists or writers, or ‘losers’, that is, frustrated characters who fail to be part of a society and, at the same time, maintain their own selfhood. Possession, with its double temporal framework, narrates the story of Roland Mitchell, a contemporary character who is a researcher in the University English department working on the (for us, fictitious) Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash. The Victorian framework tells us the love story between the poet and Christabel LaMotte, a little-known poetess with whom Ash exchanges a multiplicity of letters dealing with the topics of love, art, life, and several other 19th century aesthetic and social issues. Roland counts on the help of Maud Bailey, another erudite researcher of LaMotte, and together, they discover the secret liaison engaged in by the two poets. Ash and Christabel LaMotte had consummated their love and the result was a daughter called Maia, who turns out to be Maud’s great-great grandmother. The liaison is obviously disapproved of by Christabel LaMotte’s close friend and companion, Blanche Glover, who commits suicide out of frustration with her art and love, and comes back as a form of revenant in the Victorian temporal framework. The relationship between Roland and Maud comes to parallel that of their 19th century counterparts. Blanche Glover is one of the examples of Byatt’s group of ‘failed’ characters. Having suffered extreme anguish, she finally commits suicide, with the hope that her conscious return in the form of a revenant will claim justice. There are several reasons for her to wish to put a halt in her life. In my view, there is a generalised wish among the female Victorian characters in the novel, shown in the words by Sabine de Kercoz, Christabel’s French cousin who also fights to be a poetess in a patriarchal society: “I do not want to be a relative and passing being, anywhere. I want to live and love and write. Is this too much?” (1990: 340) [my italics]. These words represent, precisely, Blanche Glover’s inability to play ‘the game of life’. Unable to live on her art, she finally feels stifled because of her decision to live a “Life of the Mind” (1990: 187) secluded from the rest of the world with Christabel. Her failure in resisting all this social pressure leaves her no other option but that of a spiritual return: [...] I do not believe that Death is the end. We have heard many marvels at the spiritual meetings of Mrs Lees and had ocular testimony of the painless survival of the departed, in a fairer world, on the other side. Because of this faith, I feel strong in the trust that my Maker will see and forgive all, and will make better use hereafter of my capacities— great and here unwanted and unused—for love and for creative work. (1990: 308-09) [my italics]

Whether or not Blanche’s spectral return helps her to resolve dissatisfaction in the past is something arguable, however, it is clear that, at least, she manages to frighten the poor Ash at those mysterious séances in Mrs Lees’ house. Cassandra Corbett, in The Game (1967) could be considered another example of a ‘failed’ character. Byatt’s second novel tells the story of two middle-aged sisters named Cassandra, an unmarried Oxford don and mediaevalist, and Julia, a fiction writer married to Thor Eskelund, who also has a teenage daughter called Dorothy. The two

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sisters do not have an easy relationship, and when they are ‘obliged’ to return to their family home after their father’s death, they are forced to face their past rivalry over the love of the naturalist Simon Moffitt, who now appears on television filming animals in the Amazon. Their rivalry, however, goes further than mere love for Simon. The fact that Cassandra is a writer of criticism while Julia is a writer of fiction, seems to reinforce their differences as well. Furthermore, their marital status, and their motherhood also makes them diverge. It seems that Byatt is exploring, once again, the difficulties experienced by women to combine motherhood, and success in their art. Cassandra, who did not become a mother, ends up committing suicide, as Blanche did in Possession. We might say, therefore, that the reasons for Cassandra’s suicide are very similar to those of Blanche Glover: her inability to become a mother and a successful artist. The difference is that Cassandra’s writing instead of being creative, is academic, and she is not a failed writer, as she is an Oxford don. However, she is not like her sister, who is a successful fiction writer. In my view what pushes Cassandra to suicide is more related to the fact that she feels betrayed after Julia uses Cassandra’s life to make what would be a successful novel, in exchange, of course, for ‘selling’ all the private life of her sister. Cassandra’s position seems to be opposed to her sister’s, who is to be considered a ‘winner’. As Simon Moffit notices in the novel regarding Julia: “‘[...] You have such a capacity for living—for attacking life. You are happy, aren’t you?’” (1987: 168). Whereas, Cassandra, unable to face the facts, chooses suicide, refusing to participate in the world of competition that so many times her friend, the naturalist Simon Moffit, had tried to show her: “Clearly one ought to know oneself well enough—not to destroy oneself through making immoderate demands on oneself. [...] One ought not to live by a theory of human nature that won’t bear treading on, that caves in, under one’s feet” (1987: 188). Besides, one of the peculiarities of this novel is the fact that: The particular game chosen by Byatt for the novel is at once an original one invented by her character Cassandra, with the help of her sister Julia, and at the same time, it is also essentially Snakes and Ladders. This latter game is also based on an accepted spacial metaphor defined by Lakoff in the pair GOOD IS UP/BAD IS DOWN. (Wallhead 1999: 163)

As said before, the metaphor LIFE IS A GAMBLING GAME (see Lakoff and Johnson 1980) seems to underly the structure of the novel, together with other related metaphors, such as, STAYING ALIVE IS A CONTEST, and VIRTUE IS UP/DEPRAVITY IS DOWN (see Lakoff and Johnson 1980). The novel not only compares life to a game, but also to a contest, with its inherent arbitrariness. This arbitrariness is shown in Byatt’s penultimate novel, The Children’s Book (2009), which also reflects life as an arbitrary gambling game. The book covers the lateVictorian, the Edwardian and the Georgian periods. At 616 pages, the novel, which covers nearly three generations, allows Byatt to have the opportunity and free hand to explore in depth political, social, psychological and even ethical questions related to suicide, sexual abuse, and other traumatic aspects that the ‘children’ of this novel have to endure. It would be beyond the scope of this essay to analyse each of these issues in depth. Therefore I will provide, as an example, a description of some of the characters who ‘fail’ to play the game of life, deciding to end their lives: Tom Wellwood, the

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youngest son of the fiction writer Olive Wellwood, and the horrific Benedict Fludd, the failed artist and father who sexually abuses his teenage daughters. The idea that life is like an arbitrary gambling game is shown especially at the end of the book with the outbreak of the First World War, when “[o]f the eleven male children who go to war, only four return alive” (Wallhead 2011: 166). Thus, she gives the impression of “superabundance and arbitrariness in survival” (Wallhead 2011: 210). Yet, Byatt’s decision to ‘save’ or ‘condemn’ her characters seems not to be completely arbitrary. This is due to the novel’s postmodern character, which reinforces its fictional status: “Byatt ‘reprieves’ the morally aware who take difficult choices, the altruistic and the artistic” (Wallhead 2011: 166). From this point of view, fiction is an artifice, a construct, but in real life people are killed indistinctly, arbitrarily, and chance plays a great part in your redemption. But fighting means taking risks and participating in life, especially in creating good art. On contrast, you will fail if, for example, you act amorally or refuse to react against a threat towards your intimacy, failing to perform adequately and, in this way, create an ideal society. In The Children’s Book the patriarch of the Fludd is a frustrated artist and feels sexual desire for his daughters. Benedict has a secret collection of obscene objects: “The pots had obscene chimaeras, half vessels, half human [...] and were contorted into every shape of human sexual display and congress. [...] Some of them had Imogen’s long face and drooping shoulders: some of them were plump Pomona” (2009: 279). He finally commits suicide out of his frustration either at being secretly unable to perform his role of a good father or of a great artist. Fludd had warned the Anglican vicar Frank Mallet that he intended to do away with his life at “[...] Dungeness, where the currents are thick and violent and the water is deep” (2009: 456). Tom Wellwood’s suicide is more related, however, to questions of privacy: the publication of his mother’s play Tom Underground without his consent. The sensitive Tom, who had been very shy and had sometimes found refuge from big crowds in a tree house near their house, cannot endure the pressure of being the focus of attention in the big Elsyum Theatre in London, and leaves the place. After meandering for several days through the surroundings of the city, through roads and woods, with no fixed direction, he arrives at Dungeness, and has the same idea that Benedict Fludd had: He started walking again. He walked down the shingle and on, without hesitating, into the waves and the lashing wind, the flying froth and the sinewy down-draft. He was still walking, in his socks, on the pebbles, soaked to the skin, when he slipped, and the wave threw him into the current. He didn’t fight. (2009: 533) [my italics]

The representation of traumas like incest or sexual abuse, or the violation of privacy are instances which confirm the idea that many of Byatt’s novels: [R]ather than harking back nostalgically to some idealised notion of “Victorian family values” [...] more often mirrors the dysfunctional, exploitative, and commodified, not to say gothicised domestic relations [...], where “the familial bower of bliss and security is exposed as a fantasy, its supposed humanist values nothing but a thin screen, beneath which lurk unacknowledged conflict, abuses, and perversities”. (Kohlke 2009-10: 264)

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Failed societies, or in this case, failed familial ‘bowers of bliss’ are dystopias. Generally, each time Byatt creates a ‘failed’ character, there is a dystopian household: The Children’s Book, “Morpho Eugenia” and Possession show corrupted societies. In Possession, Blanche Glover’s decision to live a “Life of the Mind” transforms her into ‘the other’, as she lives isolated, and also because she seems to love with Christabel. Similarly, Bethany Cottage, where the two women live, is named after the biblical town where Martha and Mary lived. Mary was the visionary, while Martha was the servant, but “[f]or us Females, it was a place wherein we neither served nor were served” (P, 186). Thus, it was intended to be an egalitarian household, a kind of ‘utopian’ house where both women could develop their artistic talents freely, and thus acquire that artistic voice so hard to make heard in Victorian days. But, as with many other households described in other Byatt stories (for example, Bredely Hall in “Morpho Eugenia”), the ideals of complete isolation that both women had intended should predominate within the confines of Bethany Cottage, are finally impossible to sustain. The idea that trying to create a perfect place is ultimately an impossible task comes to the fore and what is more, this impossibility is what pushes Blanche Glover to suicide, therefore, it has a fatal ending. Besides, novels like The Children’s Book, or “Morpho Eugenia”, have, in addition, neo-Darwinian ideas. In trying to understand the structures and functional processes of societies, the neo-Darwinian perspective brings to the fore ideas of competition and collaboration and how selfhood is forged, and hence, it also relates to Game Theory. As we have seen in the analyses of ‘failed’ characters, personal success requires a balance between preserving your intimacy and individuality, and being part of a larger society. Ultimately, you will get some advantages as a result of giving up a small part of your identity. There is a, therefore, a confrontation of interests, that is, individuals have to cooperate and collaborate for the common good of society. Societies have been compared, from early on, to a big superorganism, where each individual has a special role to fulfill. Sometimes there can be dystopias, “negative utopias- societies in which utopian dreams of the ‘old reformers’ have been realized, only to turn out to be a nightmare”, as Elliot notes (qtd. in Booker 1994: 5). Byatt’s short novella “Morpho-Eugenia” is one of the two novellas that make up Angels and Insects (1992). It tells the story of William Adamson, a middle-aged naturalist, entomologist, and Darwinian follower, who, having been in the Amazon for several years, and having discovered that the social insects were one of his main interests, is employed by the obssessive collector of natural eccentricities, Sir Harald Alabaster. It is in Bredely Hall, the house of the Alabasters, that William meets all the family members, and ultimately falls in love with the beautiful Eugenia. But he soon realises that the apparently perfectly-organised household strangely resembles an insect colony, where he seems to have been assigned a role from which he will have to struggle to escape. Collaboration is necessary and he finds this in a member of the household who is in a similarly deprived situation: Matty Crompton. In this novella, as in The Children’s Book, Byatt depicts malfunctioning families, where corruption, sin, and amorality predominate. Byatt’s “Morpho Eugenia” reflects a malfunctioning ‘society’ through the use of the trope of natural history. Sorensen argues that “[Byatt’s] discussion of ants and butterflies [...] parallels ideas about human aggression and sexuality” (Sorensen 2003/04: 181). Besides, Bredely Hall is like a sect, analogous to an anthill, albeit a malfunctioning one. For instance, Harald Alabaster’s studio was “hexagonal in shape, with wood-panelled walls and two deep windows, carved in stone © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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in the Perpendicular style: the ceiling too was carved in stone, pale grey-gold in colour, a honey comb of smaller hexagons” (1992: 14) [my italics], with clear resonations of a bee hive. Byatt would be taking up an old topic as, from early on, societies have been compared to ant hills or bee hives, and this is acknowledged by recent game theorists like Binmore (2007: 65). The specific role assigned to each member resonates with what Binmore says about Game Theory: for the ‘anthill’ to function at its best, each member has to reject his or her individuality, it seems that Byatt agrees with the idea that improvement in our individual behaviour benefits the social circle around us: Understanding daily life in Bredely Hall was not easy. William found himself at once detached anthropologist and fairytale prince trapped by invisible gates and silken bonds in an enchanted castle. Everyone had their place and their way of life, and every day for months he discovered new people whose existence he had not previously suspected, doing tasks of which he had known nothing. (1992: 22) [my italics]

But the analogies can be taken further. William Adamson and Matty Crompton’s roles in the house are the same as a sterile worker in an anthill, where “very large numbers of sterile workers specialize in protecting and caring for the young, while the queen specializes in being the egg-lying machine” (Binmore 2007: 132). While Eugenia could be the queen, forced to have children, pure Alabasters, as they are engendered by her and her evil brother Edgar. Harald, the patriarch of the family, is, in my view, charged with preserving the species, the purity of their blood, forming, as a consequence, “[...] a charming and homogeneous group” (1992: 4). Thus, his aim is related to Eugenics, as the name of Eugenia suggests. The Alabasters in “Morpho Eugenia” try to preserve the purity of their blood by committing incest. Eugenia’s children are born out of the incestuous and secret relationship that she has with her half brother while her husband is totally unaware that his marriage is a cover and he is being used. Improving the species, therefore, is one of the subjects discussed here. Creating the perfect race relates to utopias, and, generally, it is represented as resulting in a fatal outcome. William, with the help of Matty Crompton, escapes from this malfunctioning household, which rather than achieving the perfect and utopian ‘society’ with desires of creating a superior race, results in a horrible place where sin, exploitation and incest are hidden: Forced to realise that “his” children are not, in fact, his own, he (William) further recognises that the “survival of the fittest” might result not just in the “natural” progress of the species, but also facilitate deeply unethical and degenerative practices, such as incest and the rape of unseen/unheard female servants. (Kolhke 2009: 246)

A neo-Darwinian perspective, and the debate between the individual and the species is to be found also in The Biographer’s Tale (2000). Edwards stated that “the overall spirit of the novel seems to be anti-individualistic” (Edwards 2005: 187) as “[i]t presents the reader with images of humans as types, species, composites, races—or, to use Ibsen’s image—shiny buttons cast from the same melting pot” (Edwards 2005: 187). This is reinforced, once again, in the words of the protagonist of the novel, Phineas Nanson, who, intending to write the biography of the biographer Scholes Destry-Scholes, realises, by the end of the book, that he is writing his own story:

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I have admitted I am writing a story, a story which in a haphazard (aleatory) way has become a first-person story, and, from being a story of a search told in the first person, has become, [...] a first-person story proper, an autobiography. (2000: 250)

The novel also compares societies with insect life. The entomologist Fulla Biefield: [...] had always been both attracted and repelled by the idea of the superorganism. The bivouac of army ants, the hive of honeybees, the genetic repetition, the single will. [...] Anyone going to the airport might suppose that humans are a superorganism. We are held together by threads of dependence as much as ants. (2000: 240)

Furthermore, as the plot unfolds, Nanson comes up with social Darwinist ideas as well as Eugenics through the works of Linnaeus, Sir Francis Galton, and Henrik Ibsen. The critique of the idea of improving the human race is significant, and it resonates with similar ideas in “Morpho Eugenia”: Galton thought the Australian Aborigines were the lowest form of human life [...]. Having said that, Galton did believe that Victorian gentlemen were two rungs below the Athenians (but, on the negative side, the Athenians owned slaves). Phineas is much at a loss as to how to compose the story of a man’s life, since there are so many ways of looking at man, and at a man. Now the human genome has been mapped, and Galton’s genetics is experimented upon in our fields. Fulla believes in the interdependence of life, Vera the radiographer can see cancer weave its web across a patient’s body. (Mahoney, n.p.)

This constitutes an appropriate path for further research which I intend to follow in the near future. 4. Conclusions Trying to find the right direction in a research field which has been so widely studied is a challenging task. One has to find something new, but still taking into account foundational and ground-breaking investigation already done. A.S. Byatt’s fiction has been studied from many different points of view. I have tried to illustrate in this essay how I came to find what I think to be quite an innovative theoretical framework in which to cast my future investigation: Game Theory. In particular, I have just explained the basic ideas that, in broad terms, I find that I will need to follow in order to continue with my investigation. A superficial look at the novels I mentioned above suggests that there are many characters in Byatt’s fiction who struggle to find their right path in life, like Benedict Fludd in The Children’s Book, failing to do so and finally committing suicide, like Tom Wellwood, or Cassandra in The Game. All in all, it seems that it was their inability to adapt to their social circle which pushed them to put an end to their lives. Identity is a very important concept for all these characters who, in order to maintain it, refuse to collaborate and play in the ‘game of life’. Other game theoretical concepts are related to the arbitrariness in life, not present in fiction, as this aims at reinforcing its status as an artefact. Other Byatt stories show the intention of creating a utopian ‘society’ but the result is a dystopian one, like the one in “Morpho Eugenia” or in The Children’s Book. All these are instances in which Byatt’s characters © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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fail to perform their social role in the ‘game of life’ adequately. Similarly, my own research on A.S. Byatt’s fiction is analogous to playing a game, as having to choose the right path that will lead to a successful outcome is as tricky as learning to cooperate and collaborate with each other in every context of our daily lives. Similarly, A.S. Byatt’s success and critical reception is the result of the choices that she herself has had to make, that is, a negotiation between what readers are willing to read, and what she wants to write about. Works Cited Arias Doblas, Rosario 2005. Talking with the Dead: Revisiting the Victorian Past and the Occult in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace and Sarah Waters’s Affinity. Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense 13: 85-105. Arias Doblas, Rosario and Patricia Pulham (eds.) 2009. Haunting and Spectrality in the Neo-Victorian Novel. Possessing the Past. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ashworth, Ann 1994. Fairy Tales in A. S. Byatt’s Possession. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 15(1-2): 93-4. Binmore, Ken 2007. Game Theory. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Booker, M. Keith 1994. Dystopian Literature. A Theory and Research Guide. Westport: Greenwood Press. Byatt, Antonia Susan 1987 (1968). The Game. Harmondsworth: Penguin. --1990. Possession: A Romance. London: Chatto & Windus. --1992. Angels & Insects. London: Chatto & Windus. --2000. The Biographer’s Tale. London: Chatto & Windus. --2009. The Children’s Book. London: Chatto & Windus. --2011 Ragnarök: The End of Gods. London: Cannongate Books. Candel Borma nn, Daniel 2002. The Articulation of Science in the Neo-Victorian Novel. A Poetics (and Two Case-Studies). Bern: Peter Lang. Campbell, Jane 2004. A.S. Byatt and the Heliotropic Imagination. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Coyne Kelly, Kathleen 1996. A.S. Byatt. New York: Twayne Publishers. Denenholz Morse, Deborah 2000. Crossing Boundaries: The Female Artist and the Sacred Word in A.S. Byatt’s Possession. Ed. Abby H.P. Werlock. British Women Writing Fiction. Alabama: The University of Alabama Press. Edwards de Campos, Amy J. 2005. The Critical Reception of A. S. Byatt 1964-2002: A Contextual Reading. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. Worcester College, Oxford. Elliot, Anthony 2008. Concepts of the Self. Cambridge: Polity Press. Flegel, Monica 1998. Enchanted Readings and Fairy Tale Endings in A. S. Byatt’s Possession. English Studies in Canada 24: 413-30. Franken, Christien 2001. A.S. Byatt: Art, Authorhip, Creativity. New York: Palgrave. Gutleben, Christian 2010. Shock Tactics: The Art of Linking and Transcending Victorian and Postmodern Traumas in Graham Swift’s Ever After. NeoVictorian Studies 2(2): 137-56. Hadley, Louisa 2003. Spectres of the Past: A. S. Byatt’s Victorian Ghost Stories. Victorian Institute Journal 31: 85-100. --2008. The Fiction of A.S. Byatt: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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Hutcheon, Linda 1988. The Postmodern Problematizing of History. English Studies in Canada 14: 365-80. Kirchknopf, Andrea 2008. (Re)workings of the Nineteenth-Century Fiction: Definitions, Terminology, Contexts. Neo-Victorian Studies 1(1): 53-80. --2009. Ghosts of Many Shades and Shadings: Review of Mariadele Boccardi, The Contemporary British Historical Novel, Tatiana Kontou, Spiritualism and Women’s Writing and Rosario Arias and Patricia Pulham (eds.), Haunting and Spectrality in Neo-Victorian Fiction. Neo Victorian Studies 2(2): 237-56. Kohlke, Marie Louise 2008. Introduction: Speculations in and on the Neo-Victorian Encounter. Neo-Victorian Studies 1(1): 1-18. --2009-10. Familial Complications: Review of A.S.Byatt. The Children’s Book. Neo-Victorian Studies 2(2): 264-71. Kohlke, Marie Louise and Christian Gutleben (eds.) 2010. Neo-Victorian Tropes of Trauma: The Politics of Bearing After-Witness to Nineteenth-Century Suffering. Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi. Kontou, Tatiana 2009. Spiritualism and Women’s Writing: From the Fin de Siècle to the Neo-Victorian. London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lara Rallo, Carmen 2006. ‘The World Was All before Them’: Intertextual Echoes from Milton in A.S. Byatt’s Quartet. Eds. Gascueña Gahete, Javier and Martín Salván Paula. Figures of Belatedness: Postmodernist Fiction in English. Córdoba: Universidad de Córdoba, Servicio de Publicaciones: 141-53. --2007. Keeping the Past Alive: The Dialogue with Mediaeval Literature in A.S. Byatt’s Fiction. Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense 15: 79-103. Llewellyn, Mark 2008. What is Neo-Victorian Studies? Neo-Victorian Studies 1(1): 164-85. --2009. Neo-Victorianism: On the Ethics and Aesthetics of Appropriation. Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory 20(1): 27- 44. Mahoney, Kevin Patrick n.d. Authortreck.com. In search of New Writers. . 16 May 2010. Ross, Don 2011. Game Theory. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 05 August 2011. Rubinstein, Ariel 1991. “Comments on the Interpretation of Game Theory”. Econometrica 59(4):909-924. . 01 May 2010. Sanchez, Victoria 1995. A. S. Byatt’s Possession: A Fairytale Romance. Southern Folklore 51(1): 33-52. Shiller, Dana 1997. The Redemptive Past in the Neo-Victorian Novel. Studies in the Novel 29(4): 538-60. Sorensen, Sue 2003/04. A.S. Byatt and the Life of the Mind: A Response to Jane Sturrock. Connotations 13(1-2): 180-90. Su, John J. 2004. Fantasies of (Re)collection. Collecting and Imagination in A.S. Byatt’s Possession: A Romance. Contemporary Literature 45(4): 684-712. Tiffin, Jessica 2006. Ice, Glass, Show: Fairy Tale as Art and Metafiction in the Writing of A.S. Byatt. Marvels and Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies 20(1): 47-66. Todd, Richard 1997. A.S. Byatt. Plymouth: Northcote House. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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Wallhead, Celia Margaret 1999. The Old, the New and the Metaphor: A Critical Study of the Novels of A.S. Byatt. Atlanta, London & Sydney: Minerva Press. --2011. Using Genopro to Create Family Trees: the Example of A.S.Byatt’s The Children’s Book. Eds. Crespo Jiménez, Rosalía and García de Sola, Mª Angeles. ESP Teaching and Methodology: English Studies in Honour of Angeles Linde López. Granada: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Granada. 15979. Waugh, Patricia 1984. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. London: Routledge. Whitehead, Anne 2004. Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

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A Retrospective of the 50s through Postmodern

A Retrospective of the 50s through Postmodern Cinema: Pleasantville and The Majestic Susana Sánchez Renieblas Complutense University of Madrid

Throughout the postmodern films, Pleasantville (Gary Ross, 1998) and The Majestic (Frank Darabont, 2001), we will study the 1950s in the United States analyzing how irony and exaggeration can achieve a comical approximation to the period, once historically distant enough from it. This essay will cover several features that characterized those years. Among others, it will deal with the relation between individual and community (manifested in both films by using a trial), the red scare, and the role of women during the decade of the 1950s in The United States. The perspective of a past period can be more objectively faced, or even stereotyped once time has passed and generations have been developed. Most of the time a mixture of both is prevalent, as the films Pleasantville and The Majestic both demonstrate. Key words: postmodern cinema, the decade of the 1950s, the United States. 1. Introduction In any historical period, different issues have been socially rejected, not only during the period itself, but also once the period is over. It is when time goes by and generations develop, that the perspective of past periods can be more objectively faced, or on the contrary, stereotyped. Societies return to past times through history, literature, cinema or any art expression. The question arises when we look back to past decades from contemporary periods: Maureen Ryan, in her article “Woodstock Nation: The Vietnam Antiwar Movement in Postwar American Fiction”, exposes how the 1990s has been a period where the interest in past decades is evident (she uses the 1960s as an example). She also wonders: “is it fading memory or lack of understanding, even at the time, of the complexities of that era that account for the simplistic representation of the 1960s in contemporary American culture?” (Ryan 2002: 261). From Ryan’s assertion, this paper discusses how postmodern cinema looks over the 1950s in The United States. As it is exposed in Connor’s introduction to the work The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism: “Postmodernism […] is concerned almost exclusively with the nature of its presentness […] the past appears to be included in the present or at the present’s disposal” (Ryan 2002: 10). © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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The analysis will cover several particular features that characterized the decade of the 1950s through the films Pleasantville (Gary Ross 1998) and The Majestic (Frank Darabont 2001) both being the result of the 1990s retrospectives of the past 1950s. These two films depict many themes of this period: the relation between individual and community, the horror and traumas of World War II, the consumer society determined by mass media and advertising, and the way in which art, in the form of cinema, painting, literature and music, has tried to provide an alternative perspective. Nevertheless, this paper is going to focus on the following two main themes: the red scare and women’s role during the 1950s in the United States. As Gair points out in the introduction to his work The American Counterculture, these films give a vision of the 1950s through a highly critical means of approach: “some recent attempts try to revisit the 1950s more critically” (he uses as an example films such as The Truman Show (Peter Weir 1998) and also Pleasantville) (Gair 2007: 18). The last one parodies this age reinforcing the conformism and ‘false happiness’ (Gair 2007: 20) of those years. In fact, irony would be the best term to define Pleasantville, as a way of approximating to past times once being distant enough from them. Its comical nature disguises the dramatic frustrations and disenchantments of that period. Nevertheless, the characters and their different personalities, their predetermined and well-defined roles, provoke anything but laughter for the spectator. Turning the spotlight on Darabont’s film, it would be more accurate to classify The Majestic as a drama. It hardly has any comical moments, so the frustrations and traumas provoked by previous horrors, in this case World War II, are easily distinguished, not being hidden behind any laughable scene. Neither film faces the period in the same way. On the one hand, Pleasantville focuses on the private daily life, so the individual’s community is reduced to a pleasant and suburban neighborhood. On the other hand, The Majestic, having the cinema business as its backdrop, deals with more political and social problems. Among others, the most highlighted ones are the red scare conflict, the consistent black lists, where its protagonist is going to be involved, and the traumas originated by World War II. As Gair exposes in his introduction, while The Majestic is highly contextualized representing the outside, the public sphere, Pleasantville results just the opposite because it emphasizes the private and domestic world. By analyzing both films, the spectator has a panoramic view of life in the United States in the 1950s. 2. “Going to Poetry Readings doesn’t Make me Carl Sandburg”: The Red Menace in Darabont’s and Ross’s Films According to Banks’s work Dreaming up America, it was not until the Vietnam conflict that “Europeans began to seriously question American values” (Banks 2008: 103-104). This dispute is developed and examined in great detail in Ross’s and Darabont’s productions. Both films were shot long after the period that they took place, so it would be unthinkable to show these films during the 1950s. Time lets us perceive things differently, even in dealing with matters that in those years were considered taboo, having been overcome in our present time. During the 1950s, America appeared as one of the most powerful countries in the world, even from a European perspective. But as Gair exposes in his article: “prosperity also brought other conflicts and problems” (Gair 2007: 19). Among many

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others, the red scare emerges. Its emergence is shown in both films through the characters of Luke in The Majestic, and also through David, who is the Pleasantville protagonist. David’s name changes into Bud when he finds himself inside his favorite TV series which is set in the 1950s America. At the end of both films, these two characters, Luke and Bud, are accused of being a social red menace. Gair claims that the 1950s decade was “celebrated by those of the political right as a time of sexual consensus, cultural accord, and moral and economic stability” (Gair 2007: 18). In fact, this ‘celebration’ is ironically evident in the films titles. On the one hand, according to the online Oxford dictionary, pleasant is defined as: “giving a sense of satisfaction or enjoyment”. When talking about people the dictionary states: “friendly and considerate; likeable”. This is precisely what the suburban Pleasantville neighborhood represents: a place where “nobody is homeless” (Pleasantville) and where everyone should be happy because of living there. In fact, this pleasant place is what America seemed to be in the mid 1950s, when, as Gair points out: “business was good and the country was easy” (Gair 2007: 17). On the other hand, the film title The Majestic is also quite significant. By identifying its title with the topics developed in the film, this adjective corresponds to the name given in the film to the town cinema. It is a place where everything can happen and where real beauty and majesty are shown every afternoon. In fact, according to the online Oxford dictionary, majestic is defined as: “having or showing impressive beauty or scale”. In this sense, inside The Majestic cinema, people can cross their boundaries being aware that their own houses, jobs, children wives and husbands are not the only things they could have or even know. The Majestic is a place where “Chaplin, Ginger Rogers […] all were gods” (The Majestic). Picking up the thread of the Communist theme, Banks proposes a theory about the red scare and its subsequent paranoia in the United States. He exposes that it was only a political way of making people forget the economic expenses after the Marshall Plan: “in order to justify the expense that was coming out of the pockets of all Americans, you had to make people afraid, and the only thing handy was the Communist menace” (Banks 2008: 102). The communist scare is accompanied by the technological paranoia, both being the main threats to their comfortable and safe American lives. The latter one is the cause of the protagonist arrival to their new home in both Ross’ and Darabont’s works. The films show the consequences of a technological failure. In The Majestic, Peter arrives to the town due to a car accident, while Jen and David (Mary Sue and Bud during the 1950s) arrive to the Pleasantville series because of a TV failure. Therefore technological developments arose as a danger that could bring risky consequences. Peter Appleton, The Majestic main character, lives in the middle class. He is a cinema producer whose life is reduced to his job and his girlfriend: “we were young, we were in love, and we work in the pictures. Life was good” (The Majestic). Peter, after having a car accident, arrives to a very little American town where everyone confused him with Luke, Harry’s long-lost son, due to their physical similarity. Luke was a boy who disappeared during World War II and his name instantly reminds us to luck, a lost fortune, now recovered. The whole town receives Peter (thinking he is Luke) as a War hero and he will still be a hero, not only because of his amazing arrival, but also because of the fact that he will reopen The Majestic town cinema. Nevertheless, Peter Appleton (once his real identity is discovered) is accused of being a communist by the same town that once considered him a hero. The cause is that © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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during his college years he attended a meeting related to Communism. The comical fact is he attended it because of a girl, not even knowing the nature of that kind of appointments, admitting that “[going] to poetry readings doesn’t make [him] Carl Sandburg” (The Majestic). This kind of accusations, together with the black lists can be read as a frequently groundless political prevention. In this domain, justice appears to be, to say the least, confusing. Justice should be the necessary means for people to be protected. However, sometimes it seems to be just the opposite. Peter will be harshly judged when he finds himself involved as one of the possible red menaces. When Luke confesses his real identity as Peter, he loses his heroic image for the village, and for the United States he is no more than a villain. It is during his trial that he admits “tell[ing] the committee what they really want[ed] to hear” (The Majestic). Meanwhile, the phrase ‘out of order’ comes from the judge. These words are also repeated in Pleasantville during Bud’s trial when he is judged by the town for being a red menace too. The judges reflect a kind of tyrannical authority; it is a justice characterized as very aggressive in these two films. Both trials (Peter’s and Bud’s) start with their judges in an obvious furious mood. When America was looking to arrest Peter Appleton, aggressiveness is transferred to others charges of the court. One of them, in a choleric way too, dares to claim when referring to Appleton’s hearing: “his trial will lead us to a nest of Communist that will make the Rosenbergs look like Ma and Pa kettle” (The Majestic). So not only their obsession, but also their pride towards violence is present in authority when trying to solve the red problem. In the case of Ross’ film, the red scare is poetically and allegorically represented in the pleasant neighborhood. Pleasantville is a black and white TV series set in a 1950s suburban neighborhood where people become colored when individual freedom is discovered and repression disappears. When all this happens, everything is in color, and not surprisingly enough, red appears as the first and main color. Red flowers bloom after two teenagers have sex in Lovers Lane, and when women (such as Bud’s mother) discover real love and sexual pleasure, their lips become red too. So through its symbolical meaning, red does not only represent the communist threat but also passion and sin. 3. The Majestic and Pleasantville Women: The New Woman and the Housewife As mentioned at the beginning of the analysis, women should also be considered part of the American social life. In this analysis, they must be examined independently because both films show a rich variety of women together with the roles they were given. In The Majestic, Adele, Luke’s girlfriend, and now Peter’s, would be considered an exception in the way she is portrayed if we compare her with the prototypical 1950s housewife. Adele is a very independent and cultivated girl. She reads anything she wants and goes to the cinema whenever she wishes, although never on her own. She is the mayor’s daughter and she is encouraged by him and by Luke to continue her studies. They both feel proud of her achievements and how she collaborates in society. Adele represents, although not entirely, the kind of “new woman” (Friedan 1963: 25) who arises during the 1950s. She has her own social status and her own political opinions, but according to some town women mentality, she pays a very high price for it: she is not married, being just engaged to Luke, who is actually dead, having not children either. However, living with her father allows her to take some liberties © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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that any housewife would desire. According to what Betty Friedan clarifies in her wellknown work The Feminine Mystique: “I never knew a woman, when I was growing up, who used her mind, played her own part in the world, and also loved, and had children” (Friedan 1963: 56). A woman could be culturally, socially and economically independent. But if not, she was destined for cleaning her house and cooking for her family during the rest of her life. Both things seemed to be incompatible. Women roles were clearly predetermined although due to the temporal distance they are being examined, it can also be claimed that these roles could also be, to some extent, stereotyped. Generally, the 1950s women only “exist for and through [their] husband and children” (Friedan 1963: 32), and most of them had been educated for achieving this aim. They suffered what Betty Friedan considers a lack of identity, finding their only models in advertisements which reflect the kind of life they must follow in order to be happy. Most of these women imagined their lives inside a good and comfortable house surrounded by children and by a prosperous husband, being all these things their only concern in life: this image -created by the women’s magazines, by advertisements, television, movies, novels, columns and books by experts on marriage and the family, child psychology, sexual adjustment, and by the population of sociology and psychoanalysis- shapes women’s lives today and mirrors their dreams. (Friedan 1963: 21)

In Pleasantville, this kind of woman is accurately represented by Betty, Mary Sue’s and Bud’s mother. This character exemplifies the prototypical 1950s housewife. She fulfills all the social requirements expected of a woman: she is married, she has a beautiful house, and she has two lovely children, being her husband the family breadwinner. On the contrary, Betty is entirely devoted to the housework and caring for her family. She should not want anything more, and she must feel enormously grateful. There is a scene where Betty represents this ideal of the perfect housewife: she fills the kitchen table with a huge breakfast with an excessive amount of food: scrambled eggs, a tower of pancakes, coffee, milk, orange juice and many other things. She does everything in order to please her husband: “I’ll put blueberries just the way you like!” (Pleasantville). This seemingly innocent event, suggests her hidden anxiety of showing the rest of her family all she can do, as the actor that comes to stage showing his best performance. As an actor would do, Betty has to pretend to be happy for having spent the entire morning cooking. She has to ignore hearing that her husband only wants some coffee for breakfast. That is Betty’s life. She lives devoted to a family who never looks after her. Her marriage is just a social pattern and she spends the whole day alone while her children are at school and her husband is at work. Although she and her husband both live in the same house they behave as if they were strangers, not sleeping in the same bed. Living with a stranger has nothing to do with her personal situation; it was the general feeling for many American married women. And suddenly, when the years pass, some of these women would wonder: “is this all?” (Friedan 1963: 5). Precisely Betty will escape from her oppressive reality thanks to the people who surround her (Mary Sue, Bud and Bill, the town cafeteria owner), who let her know that a lifestyle where she feels terribly powerless is not the only thing she can aspire to be or to do with her life.

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Mary Sue (Bud’s sister whose name is Jen in during the 1990s, before they find themselves in the TV series) introduces Betty to sexuality. It appears to be quite paradoxical. Normally, the typical scenes are the ones in which parents explain what sex is to their children. Betty, feeling ashamed asks her daughter: “what’s sex?” (Pleasantville). The spectator feels quite confused because of the fact that she is bringing up two children, so she must know what sex is. But the kind of sexuality that Mary Sue discovers to Betty is not the one she is used to, the one reduced to reproduction. For the first time, Betty is introduced to two new terms: passion and pleasure. Once having paid attention to her own daughter, she begins to cry, being conscious that “your father would never do anything like that” (Pleasantville). Subsequently, Mary Sue tells her mother: “there are other ways to enjoy yourself without Dad” (Pleasantville). For Betty, Mary Sue’s answer becomes the first open door for achieving her independence, because this statement can be applied to any field, not only to the sexual one. The 1950s women should have looked for some independence without feeling themselves guilty of becoming bad mothers and wives because of that. Only when the TV series characters realize what their real identities are, and what their role within society is, they begin to appear colored. When Betty finally becomes colored, she is firstly ashamed: “how do I go out this way?” (Pleasantville). In fact, the people who begin to appear colored, moreover women, are considered sinful and immoral, what Friedan would call: “whore[s] of the desire of the flesh” (Friedan 1963: 31). So Betty, who is still concerned with her image towards society, decides to put her black and white makeup on. However, when she realizes that she cannot continue hiding her real self she will radically state: “I don’t want to put on my makeup” letting her husband know that “[she] is not [his] sweetie anymore” (Pleasantville). The dangers of social conformism are not only typical of America in the 1950s. Any society is exposed to take these risks. Societies suffered and will suffer power abuse, and even nowadays, many women still live in their particular Pleasantville. In his essay, and related to Pleasantville’s ending, Gair states: “the film closes with Pleasantville accepting individual freedom and with the suggestion that all can be made well in both past and contemporary America” (Gair 2007: 20). For its part, in The Majestic, Peter finally comes back to the little town once he is acquitted of Communism. He decides to come back to the little town in order to win back Adele, recovering at the same time his real identity within society. Like Betty, Peter finds his place within the social life not feeling threaten anymore. Both films end similarly: their characters have escaped from conformism and they start to open their minds, and consequently, their lives as well. The last sentence Peter Appleton says in The Majestic is: “I got a what if”. Meanwhile, Pleasantville ends with a dialogue between Betty and her husband, both now seen in color and not black and white: “So what’s gonna happen now?” “I don’t know, do you know what’s gonna happen now?” “No I don’t”. Just after saying the last sentence, they both begin to laugh in the same way Peter Appleton smiles at the end of Darabont’s work. It seems as if the characters find their own tools for accepting social novelties and changes. They are not afraid of developing and changing. Little by little conformism and tradition are considered to be a part of their own past lives. If history has taught us something is that repressive rules and lack of real freedom, only result in mechanized and dissatisfied societies. People will be not able to © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

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think on their own, following the kind of lifestyle that others have told them to follow, not even living their own lives. Norms are necessary, but authorities and society must offer people more than rules. One should not be blind to history, and through examining the possible failures one could learn from them in order to objectively change the present, so that hopefully pleasant and majestic lifestyles will come in the future. 4. Conclusions Once both films have been analyzed, it is true that the spectator could think that the manners and lifestyle during the decade of the 1950s in the United States were, in a way, absurd and even funny (moreover according to what Pleasantville shows). However, it is the temporal distance that separates us from this period what makes us perceive this decade manners as out of fashion. Our temporal distance and also the social changes which had happened, let us face past periods not only from a dramatic perspective as in The Majestic, but also through a more ironic vision as in Pleasantville. It can be claimed that the temporal distance is a necessary tool in order to examine past times. Although these films reflect this period falling into several stereotypes, they also reflect, with more or less skill, what that decade could be, or rather, they contribute to show a postmodern vision of the decade of the 1950s. We should look at the prototypes and stereotypes present in these films into greater detail, so the truth they hide could be discovered. In the specific vision of the decade of the 1950s in the United States, both films have the capacity of adding irony and comedy to it. The postmodern perspective that both films share can be considered a privileged position for looking back to past periods, in this case, the decade of the 1950s in The United States. Works Cited Banks, Russell 2008. Dreaming up America. New York: Seven Stories Press. Darabont, Frank (dir.) 2001. The Majestic. NPV Entertainments. Friedan, Betty 2010 (1963). The Feminine Mystique. London: Penguin Modern Classics. Gair, Christopher 2007. The American Counterculture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Oxford Dictionary. . October 2011. Ross, Gary (dir.) 1998. Pleasantville. New Live Cinema Ryan, Maureen 2002. Woodstock Nation: The Vietnam Antiwar Movement in Postwar American Fiction. War, Literature & Arts. 14 (1): 260-79.

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Re-creating the Past: the Neo-Victorian Meaning in Sarah Waters’ Neo-Victorian Novels Ariadna Serrano Bailén University of Alicante The aim in this paper is to explore the reason why the neo-Victorian novel has attracted the talent of many contemporary writers who have provoked the reader’s reaction in facing a concealed past that now reveals obvious as well as hesitant. Most of these novelists have researched and studied the Victorian age in depth. This fact has compelled them to stress obscure aspects of such a glorious period of time. In doing so, they have moved on and have created a new literary sub-genre known as neo-Victorian. Although this rediscovery of Victorian society and culture is not an innovation of the present, as novels and studies datable to 1950 and 1970 show; neo-Victorian writing means to approach the silenced and marginalized subcultures of the past to the present through the critical analysis of current writers. The ones who enshrine an almost new world in their novels that they re-interpret and translate to the neo-Victorian reader. Therefore, this article examines the main issues of Sarah Waters’ novels concerning this Victorian camouflage. She considers the Victorian age as a mask of moral values and scientific success and utilizes it in order to fill the gaps that history has left uncovered to contemporary readers. As a neo-Victorian author, she reflects the anxieties she keeps regarding the similarities this past shares with our contemporary reality. That is why she assigns complex identities and lifestyles to the mainstream that is Victorianism by maintaining a Victorian frame narrative which she represents and recreates as a new dialogue of difference and otherness. Waters seeks to visualize those items she is keen on such as the Victorian construction of female identity, sexuality and insanity whilst applying new concepts and possibilities for their manifestation in a parallel version of Victorian authenticity. Placing Waters novels in the context of this discourse, this essay highlights the way she intertwines the hybrid space her faux Victorian novels constitute inasmuch as she weaves a net of historical veracity and a possible feminine space within that oppressive reality. Key words: neo-Victorian novel, nostalgia, reinterpretation, haunting, sexuality, female identity, madness.

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  As a new term coined by Dana Shiller (1997), the neo-Victorian novel has become a suitable sub-genre concerning the writings a great number of contemporary authors (Sarah Waters 1998, Peter Ackroyd 1983, A. S. Byatt 1990, Michel Faber 2002, Angela Carter 1979, just to name but a few) have published under the umbrella of the Victorian age.1 Nowadays, different studies bring to light discussions and debates related to the reasons why these novelists engage in such a provocative task of revealing a past which is connected to the present. In this paper I will mention some of the explanations and arguments with which different scholars have contributed to the better understanding and classification of the neo-Victorian novel. Although a large range of concepts about what is neo-Victorian exist, I do want to approach the reader to those that I consider really clarifying, as the aim in this paper is to emphasize the main issues that make of Sarah Waters’ three first novels neo-Victorian. According to Daniel Candel, the definition about the neo-Victorian novel Shiller establishes in her study “The Redemptive Past in the Neo-Victorian Novel” (1997) is at once valuable and insufficient from the historical point of view of fiction, above all due to the following words: “novels [...] set at least partly in the nineteenth century” (1997: 558). This is why he takes Ansgar Nünning’s definition of historical fiction and transforms it into his own definition of the neo-Victorian novel: A neo-Victorian novel is a fictional text which creates meaning from the background of an awareness of time as flowing and as poised uneasily between the Victorian past and the present; which secondly deals dominantly with topics which belong to the field of history, historiography and/or the philosophy of history in dialogue with a Victorian past: and which thirdly can do so at all narrative levels and in any possible discursive form, be it through the narration of an action, through static description, argumentative exposition or stream-of-consciousness techniques. (2002: 62)

In addition, Candel introduces a scheme based on what he calls an “I-it” relationship between the postmodern and the Victorian period, and presents three main “it”-views of the Victorian period. The first “it”-view, as he names it, is related to the loss of a society where questions of economy, scientific research and imperialistic development were at stake. The power England experienced in that moment of its history would become a feeling of decline especially evident after the Second World War, and in consequence, a nostalgia for an old representative time (2002: 66). As the second ‘it’view, Candel defends secularisation and sexualisation of society as the main characteristics neo-Victorian writers point out when writing about an epoch whose static social rules were extremely restrictive thus they were challenged and questioned by its own population. In fact, this Victorian population becomes so tempting for a postmodern analysis because their actions and attitudes manifest different as well as similar to ours 20th - 21st century individuals. Following Candel’s study, Postmodern authors represent how a society whose values were raised from a religious faith, set aside its religious commitment but revealed an interest for the spiritual world; as well 1

See Dana Shiller’s definition: “[...] neo-Victorian novels as those novels that adopt a postmodern approach to history and that are set at least partly in the nineteenth century. [...] texts that revise specific Victorian precursors, texts that imagine new adventures for familiar Victorian characters, and ‘new’ Victorian fictions that imitate nineteenth-century literary conventions” (1997: 558). © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  as how a repressive and productive sexuality through the scientific and religious discourse gave birth to a complex debate about sexuality. Finally, the third “it”-view Candel proposes has to do with the challenge it implies to dismantle the apparent stability the Victorian period enjoyed. That is, postmodern novelists transgress epistemological areas of the Victorian past when they revise literary, historical and scientific concerns that formed the Victorian notion of knowledge (2002: 70). Precisely because of that, it is understood that the postmodern reader searches for a neo-Victorian novel that dares epistemological codes through questioning the past with present inquiries. According to Maria Micaela Coppola, Sarah Waters, for example, introduces transgressive components to her narrative in order to challenge the dominant culture and normalize what is considered aberrant, deviant and negative by the 19th century society (2008: 153). In fact, Esther Saxey exposes the argument of the “liberation plot” to explain the recurrence of topics such as sexuality and criminality in neo-Victorian fiction (2001: 65-66). Saxey demonstrates that both the sexual repression women and homosexuals suffered and the social oppression the class distinction exerted on people are brought to light by neo-Victorian novels explicitly as a liberating phenomenon. She considers this “liberation plot” allows postmodern writers to represent some significant, even unknown aspects, of the Victorian society. Thus, their main characters escape or transgress its repressive rules in order to show an evidence of historical progress (2010: 61). For example, in the last two pages of Fingersmith (2002) by Sarah Waters, the two protagonists meet again, declare their love to each other and live as a couple while one of them keeps writing pornography making a living of it: “They say that ladies don’t write such things. But, I (Maud) am not a lady [...] she led me (Susan) to the fire and made me sit, and sat beside me [...] and began to show me the words she had written, one by one” (547-48). The nostalgia for a glorious past comes to the fore of numerous works about neo-Victorianism but it is approached from different perspectives. In his book appropriately titled Nostalgic Postmodernism (2001), Christian Gutleben considers this turning back to a bygone era as a reflection of the impossibility postmodernism has to prosper. In his words: “Postmodernism returns to a period before modernism as if it were not able to progress and had to turn around and step back: this is the fundamental aporia of nostalgic postmodernism” (2001: 10). However, other critics (Candel 2002; Heilmann and Llewellyn 2010; Smith in Heilmann and Llewellyn 2010) expound that this is an understandable nostalgia as it has been rooted in our admiration for a glorious epoch as well as the 19th century English novel beauty. Moreover, Rosario Arias determines that this nostalgia is not an expression of sorrow for the past but the way the sense of the return “home” invades a neo-Victorian novel. She also employs Fredric Jameson’s argument about the sense of “déjà vu” and Freud’s “return of the repressed” in The Uncanny as two aspects that can be found in texts with historical facts. Thus she adapts both concepts to the neo-Victorian fiction and claims that the neo-Victorian narrative entails a sense of familiarity that is defied by the emergence of repressed or concealed feelings and sensations that makes the novel even more appealing (2010: xv). Ann Heilmann and Mark Llewellyn, likewise, in their work Neo-Victorianism: The Victorians in the Twenty-First Century, 1999-2009 (2010), discuss that the prefix neo- means: “more than a short-hand indication of style, period, or costume in relation © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  to a specific text or film” (2010: 6). They state that not all novels published after 1901 can be included in the category neo-Victorian as this term implies innovation, recycling and a more modern style, either in a progressive or in a conservative representation. In the same vein, Heilmann and Llewellyn take Gutleben’s use of the words “parody” and “pastiche” referring to the contemporary British novel, and construct the oppositions “parody / innovation” and “pastiche / reinterpretation” (2010: 6). They intend to highlight the boundary line that exists between the historical fiction set in the 19th century and a proper neo-Victorian text which focuses on the metahistoric and metacultural meaning. For instance, in the following quotation, Waters through Nancy’s narration denounces prostitution in known places of London: “The gay girls of Haymarket, I believe, transformed themselves in the public lavatories of Picadilly - put their make-up on at the wash-hands basins, and changed into their gaudy frocks [...]” (1998: 193). The metahistoric and metacultural intertwined approaches displayed in the neo-Victorian fiction seek to affirm that a different or uncompleted reality took place in a representative old past. Neo-Victorian writers from their own critical perspective draw their attention to colonial, repressive and silenced issues which happened in the age of the empire. As it is posed by Heilmann and Llewellyn, these novelists manifest an attraction to as well as a rejection for this period of time and its individuals (2010: 9). Another suggestive view is that of Samantha J. Carroll (2010) who ponders that a “binary logic” exists which opposes Victorian to Neo-Victorian by giving privilege to the former. Therefore, she refuses the nostalgia and fetishism that some scholars (Gutleben 2001; Flint 2005) maintain is a hallmark of contemporary literature because they evoke a somehow medical condition that denigrates its reference to Victorianism. Besides she highlights the contemporaneity of the 20th and 21st century novelists by explaining some of the purposes of the neo-Victorian novel, as it follows: [...] Neo-Victorian fiction’s representation of the Victorian past is also the lens through which a variety of present concerns are examined: the interaction of advances in cultural theory and developments in postmodern criticism; the deliberate complication of the supposedly separate jurisdictions of history and fiction; metafictional commentary on the mechanisms of fiction and the effect of narrative techniques on the construction of historical discourse; and, the imaginative restoration of voices lost or constrained in the past, with repercussions in the present. (2010: 180)

Alexia L. Bowler and Jessica Cox (2009) examine the processes of adaptation and appropriation of Victorian literary works or historical facts, which have been reproduced by using the technological materials at our disposal nowadays.2 Bowler and Cox manifest that the neo-Victorian characteristics of nostalgia for a bygone era and the admiration for the aesthetic forms share their ground with renewed perspectives and crises of our contemporary society. Postmodern writers adapt Victorian society idiosyncrasy to their works in order to establish a dialogue between the past and the present, through which they show the evolution post-Victorian society has undergone up to the present-day. In so doing, neo-Victorian novelists recognize effaced voices of 2

Sarah Waters’ neo-Victorian novels Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith have been adapted to television in series of three chapters each by BBC2.

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  women, homosexuals and criminals, as it is the case of Waters’ approach to a female prison in London in her second novel Affinity (1999): “There was all the female gaol before me; and behind each of those windows was a single cell, with a prisoner in it” (11). Thus, according to Bowler and Cox, postmodern writers represent the traumas and social injustices which have shaped our contemporary identities and are still part of the current socio-cultural concerns (2009: 3-5). For example, at the beginning of Fingersmith (2002), through one of the character’s narration, Sarah Waters denounces the use of children for begging as a usual business: “There was a girl named Flora, who paid Mrs Sucksby a penny to take me begging at a play [...] You (Flora) want a infant for prigging with, you take one of my other babies [...]” (2002: 3-5). Those marginalized and unheard individuals along with the social and cultural traumas 19th century brought with itself are perceived as “ghosts” of the past emerging to haunt the present. Therefore, a great number of the scholars (Kolhke 2008; Arias and Pulham 2010; Wolfreys 2002; Llewellyn in Arias and Pulham 2010) studying the neoVictorian subject matter have attributed the “haunting” effect and the “spectral” atmosphere as essential phenomena taking place in the neo-Victorian fiction. This haunting process and the spectral trace are sometimes represented through the spiritualist trope as the way writers resurrect the past and hence the anguish and preoccupations which persist in our postmodern society. As it is expressed by Silvana Colella: In a general sense, all neo-Victorian novels are haunted. They are haunted by the ghosts of other texts and forms of writings, by authoritative voices from the past, by the spectral traces of Victorian characters whose actions still resonate within contemporary narratives, and by the shadows of histories and plots that resist closure. (2010: 85)

In the light of the haunting and the spectrality discourse, Julian Wolfreys expresses a broader sense of the haunting effect on narratives. He understands that all texts and even other technological forms of reproduction such as television have become permanent containers of the fiction-factual events and of the authors’ voices they keep. This means that all texts are at once haunted and able to haunt the reader since the voices, characters and facts they register come from the past, and will turn into tradition and heritance maintaining a spectral trace in future readings. To borrow Wolfreys’ words: [...] to tell a story is always to invoke ghosts, to open space through which something other returns, although never as a presence or to the present. Ghosts return via narratives, and come back, again and again, across centuries, every time a tale is unfolded. (2002: 3)

That is why Marie-Luise Kolhke, considers novelists must be aware of their selfreflective and self-interrogative interpretation of the 19th century past since their critical approach and creative strategies contribute to the transmission and understanding of cultural and historical facts in the present and in the future. Thus the spectres, the secrets, the voices enhanced in neo-Victorian texts depend also on writers and critics’ own interest in making them appear (2008: 13). Therefore, from now on I will concentrate on the phantoms and hidden gaps which Sarah Waters has brought to light

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  especially in her trio of neo-Victorian novels: Tipping the Velvet (1998), Affinity (1999), Fingersmith (2002). After this general introduction to the neo-Victorian subgenre, I will analyse the different approaches considered above as regards these three novels. As a researcher of homosexual meaning and manifestation in the Victorian period and hence as a postmodern writer keen on visualizing specially female homosexuality in the Victorian age, Sarah Waters invites the reader to envisage a reality that has never existed. A reality whose depiction concerning the temporal and historical framework is so close to authenticity that the story and the characters, although being part of a fiction, become vivid figures of that recreated truth. Waters’ characters and the story they develop acquire a phantasmagorical dimension because of their imagination and non-existence quality. As Wolfreys states, we as readers want to “believe in the characters” materiality when involved in the story since the boundaries between the real or the imaginary are blurred (2002: xiii). That is, as readers, we take the characters as real individuals even though it has been the author’s volition to make them and their reality come true. Waters is trying to rewrite history from a new perspective so she presents new figures who revisit the past. First of all, the role Waters’ characters play keep some aspects in common, although the plots and endings of the stories differ from each other. In the case of her first novel Tipping the Velvet, the protagonist Nancy Astley entails what in the 19th century novels was a device called Bildungsroman, as Nancy goes through different stages not only of the Music Halls but of her own life. In this long journey, she will find three influential companions who will contribute to her identity recognition. Each of these secondary characters represent three different kinds of women’s life in the city of London: Kitty Butler, her first lover and Music Hall partner, who will marry their manager due to her impossibility of facing the society’s rejection of her love. Then, after some time impersonating a man and doing as a sort of male prostitute, Nancy will meet Diana Lethaby. A rich childless widow who lives her homosexuality as she pleases and takes Nancy as a sexual servant. Finally, Nancy will choose to share her life with Florence Banner who as a social worker and a defender of her sexual orientation will give to Nancy the emotional and personal balance she has been searching for all along the novel. In Waters’ second novel Affinity, the main character Margaret Prior is a single middle-class woman who is keen on establishing an intellectual career, even though her social status and female condition become an obstacle to her after her father’s death. She finds the way to escape from the oppression she is living in under her mother’s control at her house by employing herself as a lady visitor at Millbank Prison. In this prison, Margaret meets Selina Dawes, a medium accused of fraud and assault, she falls in love with her and she believes in Selina’s plans to run away from home as well as prison which means they would be able to live as lovers freely in another country. Nevertheless, Margaret’s own servant, Ruth Vigers, like a real ghost and the truth Selina’s lover, makes possible that all tricks Selina is playing to deceive Margaret and steal her identity and wealth finally work. This last treachery will lead Margaret to commit suicide due to the shame and despair she feels after having been rejected by a lover for a second time and the fact that her secret love for a woman and her deceit come to light.

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  As the third of Waters’ neo-Victorian novels, Fingersmith belongs to the sensationalism that characterizes the last decades of the 19th century. Although the novel intertwines the life of the two main characters, Maud Lilly and Susan Trinder, it is Susan who the reader meets first. The story is disclosed through three Victorian meaningful spaces: a secretive mansion, the asylum and a hideout of thieves in a borough of London. The protagonists fall in love with each other and overcome the betrayal others have plotted against them. They finally achieve to remain together as a couple but in the ostracism and solitude of the mansion at Briar. One of the issues that is essential to the analysis of the different characters is that of “doubling”, since the identities of the main characters are divided due to their homosexuality. In the process of the novel their inner feelings, the ones which have been repressed or even concealed to themselves, come to light and frighten them as their “double”. The question of doubling is one of the manifestations of the haunting effect and therefore, another phenomenon of The Uncanny by Freud.3 As Freud states, this “double” is a “creation long left behind” and it emerges as a “vision of terror” (1998: 163), an effect the protagonists perceive once they have become aware of their secret and its repercussion into society. However, the figure of doubling is experienced by the characters from diverse perspectives. For instance, in Tipping the Velvet, Nancy Astley’s innocence and ingenuousness allows her to understand her homosexuality as something natural: “I (Nancy) know that this ain’t wrong, what we do. Only that the world says it is” (1998: 131). Thus, she is visited by the shadows and the ghosts of desperation and confusion when she isolates herself to overcome the depression that invades her after being rejected by her first lover, Kitty Butler. Kitty tries to enjoy their love but as a secret and once this queer relation is turning evidence to society she marries their manager as a cover: “Can you not see, how this is for the best? With Walter as my husband, who would think, who would say?” (1998: 172). Then Nancy thinks she has been neglected because of something wrong in her which she is not aware of and cannot conceive. She just wants to disappear so she locks up herself in a horrible rented room and behaves as a tormented soul. Suddenly, after weeks desiring to be swallowed by the darkness of her room, she decides to impersonate a man in order to walk freely across the streets: “[...] should now be afraid to walk upon its (London) streets, because of my own girlishness! If only I were a boy [...]” (1998: 191). Therefore, she finds her “double” in the hybridity of her appearance as a “fe-male” subject, who is in search of a space where she can express herself as she pleases and be accepted as such. Nancy creates a double identity and she internalizes it as well as she exteriorizes it in such a way that in some moments she even hesitates whether she is a boy or a girl: “[...] I think she was never quite sure if I were a girl come to her house to pull on a pair of trousers, or a boy arrived to change out of his frock. Sometimes, I was not sure myself” (1998: 195). On the other hand, Affinity is shrouded in the atmosphere of haunting from the beginning to the end. This novel gathers the spiritual movement that flourished in the 19th century, which seems to spread its phantasmagorical energy throughout the story. The different domains where the two main characters live are bewitched by secrecy: the middle-class house, which is Margaret Prior’s home, and the prison of Millbank, 3

“[...] uncanny is in reality nothing new or foreign, but something familiar and old—established in the mind that has been estranged only by the process of repression” (Freud in Rivkin and Ryan 1998: 166). © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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Re-creating the Past: the Neo-Victorian Meaning

  where Selina Dawes is incarcerated. Margaret, through her diary, approaches the reader to her inner feelings, that is, her secrets, but also to her reflections and descriptions about the situations that arise around her. The language she uses to express those observations accompanies the novel’s haunting and doubling effect. For example: “They might be ghosts!” (1999: 20) referring to the hearing and not seeing of the prisoners when they walk through the corridors. From the beginning, the changing circumstances she is living in induce her to find out social aspects which concern her personal life and intend to control the rest of it. Then she should accept her position as a spinster lady of the middle-class and remain at home with her mum and be in charge of ‘proper’ duties there: “You are not Mrs Brown, Margaret—as much as you would like to be. You are not, in fact, Mrs Anybody. You are only Miss Prior. And your place—how often must I say it?—your place is here, at your mother’s side” (1999: 252-53). On the contrary, Margaret, encouraged by Selina Dawes’ mysterious acts and words, reveals against these constraints since she finds something different in her which makes her feel closer to the women in prison. According to Ann Heilmann, it is the affinity she feels with the prisoners which provokes in her the sense of ghostliness as well as the invisibility she acquires when she realizes what it means to be a spinster and a lesbian (2010: 123). Therefore, the figure of the ‘double’ and the meaning of the ‘uncanny’ takes shape in the character of Margaret, and she expresses it as something coming from a repressed ‘old self’: “I knew my trips to her (Selina) had made me strange, not like myself –or worse, that they had made me too much like myself, like my old self, my naked Aurora self” (1999: 242). Margaret experiences the apparition of a ‘double self’ firstly once she is aware of the ‘uncanniness’ of her passions, then she internalizes her spectral image and is scared of what she has become: “I look at my own face, that is reflected in my bulging window: it seems strange to me, I am afraid to gaze too hard at it” (1999: 116). Furthermore, since her first lover Helen rejected her and married Margaret’s brother instead, Margaret repressed feelings and fantasies are developed through her anxiety, the one she is being treated of with drugs and which represents what is uncanny. On the other hand, the other protagonist, Selina Dawes, evokes a ghostly figure. All in her is perceived as strange and spiritual, and not only because she is a medium but because the reader receives very limited information about her through her own diary and Margaret’s research. In fact the first entry to her diary opens the story and her last words leave the reader trying to guess what Selina must be hiding: “I know what she (Mrs Brink) would say, if she could do that. I know it so well, I think I can hear it. Her quiet voice, that only I can hear, is the most frightening voice of them all” (1999: 4). Besides, part of this knowledge remains unknown to the end of the novel maintaining a mysterious and enigmatic atmosphere around Selina. That is why the reader can be deceived or confused by Selina’s original plans as it is Margaret herself. In fact, Mark Llewellyn points to ‘the desire to believe’ since influenced by our social and cultural prejudices we are unable, the same as Margaret two centuries before, to recognize the presence of the servant woman Ruth Vigers as the perpetrator of the spectral machinery (2010: 30). In Waters’ third neo-Victorian novel, Fingersmith, the nature of haunting is manifested especially by means of shadows, silence or unexpected sounds in the mansion at Briar and in the asylum. In these places, darkness and madness loom large in the essence of misunderstanding, secrecy and perplexity that surrounds the novel. As © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  an explanation concerning the figure of the ‘double’ in Fingersmith, Georges Letissier (2006) reflects on the way in which Waters constructs two characters whose similarities are so evident that their identities are exchanged in the middle of the plot. Although she also employs elements such as fine clothes and a healthy and rich diet, which manifest the different characters’ social scale, to deceive the madhouse’s doctors: I gazed at my sleeve of silk, and at my own arm, that had got plump and smooth with careful feeding; and then at the bag at my feet, with its letters of brass—the M, and the L. It was in that second that I guessed, at last, the filthy trick that Gentleman had played on me. (2002: 174)

Letissier calls this technique ‘le jeu de doubles’ and compares Waters’ use of it to the classical novels Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1862) and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (1859). In this way, he expounds how the recurrence to classical literary texts means that new characteristics are applied to them in order to devise a modernized and advanced narrative style: La logique de l’hypertexte va toutefois consister à donner un petit tour d’écrou supplémentaire aux textes sources. Ainsi Waters complexifie-t-elle le stratagème collisien de la substitution d’un personnage par un autre, en l’espèce Laura Fairly pour Anne Catherik, un introduisant un véritable tour de passe-passe narratif: le récit siamois. (2006: 284)

Letissier remarks on several similarities that can be found between Waters’s novel Fingersmith and Dickens’s literary work. He manifests not only the fidelity of Waters’ novel to the original Victorian text but also the characteristics used by the author to make it an innovative and a different project through which she represents the contemporary concerns she is interested in (2006: 291). In Fingersmith, Letissier observes the technique ‘le jeu de doubles’ in the apparition of two first-person narrators, Susan Trinder and Maud Lilly, whose voices and thoughts are intertwined along the novel. Moreover, the emergence of the double is displayed by the distortion and the betrayal committed by the ones both heroines trust in. Therefore, Esther Saxey observes that the figure of the double belongs to the Victorian gothic novel, although it is represented in a ‘mundane’ manner in the sensation novel. She also takes as an example the sensational novels quoted by Letissier above to illustrate this ‘mundane double’. As a sensational novel, in Fingersmith, the protagonists’ identities were exchanged by their own mothers when they were just babies and wrote a letter to be read in their eighteenth’ birthday. However, their real names and lives are returned to them before they and the reader reach to know the truth thus they feel helpless and distrustful because it is actually a treachery committed by heartless thieves: “‘Do you see?’, says Richard. ‘We keep Sue as my wife in the madhouse, and with the opening of her mother’s statement, her share of the fortune—Maud’s share, I mean—comes to me’” (2002: 340). Saxey points to the contemporary author’s fascination to portray two characters whose identities are replaced one by another or one character whose personality has an obscure part, which is more proper in gothic fiction (2010: 68). In any case, this ‘uncanny double’ allows Waters to declare social and sexual distinctions, to borrow Saxey’s words: “The

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Re-creating the Past: the Neo-Victorian Meaning

  presence of the uncanny double often heralds social or sexual transgression” (2010: 67). In all Waters’ novels, the traumas of the 19th century period and the social injustices practiced everyday under a camouflage of beauty, politeness and wealth are represented explicitly. In order to do so, Waters creates a dialogue between a high middle-class lifestyle and the humble and poor side of reality. This is a very common technique which enables the author to establish parallel versions of the Victorian society which give evidence of the mistakes and imperfections of its discourse. That is why she depicts several communities and reveals matters which took part in the Victorian idiosyncrasy and have evolved along the decades until nowadays, showing a connection between the past and the present. For instance, in Tipping the Velvet, the author approaches the reader to the Music Hall world and the artists; the male prostitution; and poverty from the social workers’ perspective. Affinity is pervaded by the presence of spiritualism, as a movement acquiring importance among the middleclass, and its haunting effect in the significant domains of prison and the middle-class house. In the same way, in Fingersmith, Waters gives life to an unusual kind of family in a borough of London. This is a weird family for two things: the family bonds are not real ones if we consider them from a genetic point of view as any of them is not blood relation, and the family business which consists of stealing and reselling and the care of babies which is not a usual one. Besides, the author presents the business and distribution of pornography among the aristocratic population and the great peril a young woman is exposed to in the city of London. But the most striking figure in this novel has to do with the critical approach Waters maintains when she re-creates the asylum and its functioning: “He (Dr Christie) said my calling myself Maud showed, not that I was better, but only that my malady had taken a different turn [...] there was no point in trying to cure me [...] the truth was he had gone off cures altogether” (2002: 445). The veracity of her narrative when describing the treatment the patients received in the asylum as well as the rude behaviour of the nurses or the depiction of the building and its interior makes really difficult to distinguish, as Samantha J. Carroll poses it: “[...] the supposedly separate jurisdictions of history and fiction” (2010: 180). This blurring boundary usually occurs, as Jacques Derrida observes, when ‘imagination’ and ‘reality’ are intertwined (Wolfreys 2001: 19). Furthermore, every repetition of the past contains a difference which implies innovation and re-interpretation. For instance, Sarah Waters resorts to specific narrative conventions and historical and geographical accuracy in order to give authenticity to her text and guarantee the reader’s immersion in the Victorian society. That is why her three neo-Victorian novels have imitated some aesthetic forms which are proper to Victorian narrative. The use of a first-person narrator in the three of them; the technique of the Bildungsroman in Tipping the Velvet; the epistolary passages and secrets revealed in diaries in Affinity and the Victorian sensationalism spread à la findu-siècle in Fingersmith. These narrative strategies try to combine the surprising and the revelation effect borrowed from the traditional Victorian novel with a transgressive element. Waters’ depiction is so close to reality that even those facts which she sheds light on and are a recreation motivated by contemporary preoccupations emerge in the text fluidly as a part of that reality. As it is expressed by Christian Gutleben:

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Re-creating the Past: the Neo-Victorian Meaning

  Again, if the contemporary novels comply with the convention of a realistic chronotope,4 it is not (only) to be coherent with the Victorian world they fictionalize since those novels which also present a twentieth-century diegesis next to or in addition to the nineteenth-century universe do it in the same spirit of verisimilitude. (2001: 60)

In fact, the aim of the author is to produce a real effect by means of depicting the existence of individuals whose lives were trapped under the 19th century social conventions and rules. Thus, Waters evinces that there could have existed different communities despite the absence of documents from the past and a language to name the facts. For instance, in Tipping the Velvet, she utilizes Diana Lethaby’s character to introduce us to a particular rich ladies’ club: “At the club I (Nancy) would sit and drink and smoke, and be flirted with by Maria, and eyed by other ladies, while Diana met friends and wrote letters” (1998: 280). As a conclusion, Sarah Waters’ neo-Victorian novels are inserted in a historical framework whose social and cultural discourse and its consequences have been questioned since the middle of the 20th century. In these pages, it has been observed how Waters, as so many neo-Victorian novelists, intends to tell a story from a contemporary language and understanding, to rummage in a past whose incongruities and injustices most of the 21st century individuals believe that have been solved. Therefore, Waters is keen on recreating the past in a sense of authenticity in order to approach the reader to the mentality and cultural moment her characters are living in. She precisely wants to remind the reader that culture and society are temporary elements and the facts concerning sexuality, class or gender are not fixed. As she expresses it in an interview with Abigail Dennis: “[...] it’s a fundamental thing of mine that history is a process, and in a sense a good historical novel is a celebration of that” (2008: 48). In the three Waters’ novels briefly analysed above, the author has shed light on the main aspects which are essential to the complex definition of this new genre: neo-Victorianism. The subversive quality that she applies to her narratives allows her to revise history and create a new possibility for the silenced and marginalized voices. Waters’ three first novels are especially focused on the Victorian female subject regardless of her social status. On the one hand, this gives her the opportunity to visualize the homosexual identity that all her protagonists share as core of her inventiveness and the way they face up to it from their high or lower position. On the other hand, she shows the realms of criminality, madness, Music Hall business, children abuse, pornography business, poverty and prostitution which are matters that loom large in neo-Victorian novels. The approach to these social, sexual and cultural concerns along with Waters’ contemporary stance provides her writing with a transgressor element which dismantles the glorious image of the 19th century and opens a bridge to the present where these factors are still relevant.

4

Term coined by Bakhtin in The Dialogic Imagination (1981) which refers to the spatio-temporal component of fiction (Bakhtin in Gutleben 2001: 60). © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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  Works Cited Arias Doblas, Rosario and Patricia Pulham 2010. Introduction. Eds. Rosario Arias Doblas and Patricia Pulham. Haunting and Spectrality in Neo-Victorian Fiction: Possessing the Past. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. xi-xxvi. Bowler, Alexia L. and Jessica Cox 2009. Introduction to Adapting the Nineteenth Century: Revisiting, Revising and Rewriting the Past. Neo-Victorian Studies 2(2): 1-17. . 20 Septiembre 2011. Candel Bormann, Daniel 2002. The Articulation of Science in the Neo-Victorian Novel: A Poetics (and Two Case-Studies). Germany: Peter Lang. Carrol, Samantha J. 2010. Putting the ‘Neo’ back into Neo-Victorian: The NeoVictorian Novel as a Postmodern Revisionist Fiction. Neo-Victorian Studies 3(2): 172-205. . 20 Septiembre 2011. Colella, Silvana 2010. Olfactory Ghosts: Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White. Eds. Rosario Arias Doblas and Patricia Pulham. Haunting and Spectrality in Neo-Victorian Fiction: Possessing the Past. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 85-110. Coppola, Maria M. 2008. ¿Historia de quién? Sarah Waters y la Modernidad de la Novela Histórica. Eds. J. M. Estévez Saà and M. Estévez Saà. Escritoras y Pensadoras Anglosajonas: otras Voces y otras Lecturas (siglos XVII al XX). Sevilla: ArCiBel. 137-61. Dennis, Abigail 2008. Ladies in Peril: Sarah Waters on Neo-Victorian Narrative Celebrations and why she Stopped Writing about the Victorian Era. NeoVictorian Studies 1(1): 41-52. .15 September 2011. Flint, Kate 2005. “Why ‘Victorian’?: Response”. Victorian Studies 47(2): 230-39. Foucault, Michel 2010 (1976). Histoire de la Sexualité I: La Volonté de Savoir. Paris: TelGallimard. Freud, Sigmund 1998. The Uncanny. Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Inc. 154-67. Gutleben, Christian 2001. Nostalgic Postmodernism: The Victorian Tradition and the Comtemporary British Novel. Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi. Heilmann, Ann and Mark Llewellyn 2010. Neo-Victorianism: The Victorians in the Twenty-First Century, 1999-2009. England: Palgrave Macmillan. Kolhke, Marie-Luise 2008. Introduction: Speculations in and on the Neo-Victorian Encounter. Neo-Victorian Studies 1(1): 1-18. . 15 September 2011. Letissier, George 2006. Le Texte Victorien à L’âge Postmoderne: Jouvence ou Sénescence? Fingersmith de Sarah Waters et le Mélodrame Victorien. Cahiers victoriens & édouardiens 63: 277-93. Llewellyn, Mark 2008. What Is Neo-Victorian Studies? Neo-Victorian Studies 1(1): 164-185. . 15 September 2011. --2010. Spectrality, S(p)ecularity, and Textuality: Or, Some Reflections in the Glass. Eds. Rosario Arias Doblas and Patricia Pulham. Haunting and Spectrality in Neo-Victorian Fiction: Possessing the Past. England: Palgrave Macmillan. 23-42.

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  Saxey, Esther 2010. The Maid, the Master, her Ghost and his Monster: Alias Grace and Mary Reilly. Eds. Rosario Arias Doblas and Patricia Pulham. Haunting and Spectrality in Neo-Victorian Fiction: Possessing the Past. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 58-82. Shiller, Dana 1997. The Redemptive Past in the Neo-Victorian Novel. Studies in the Novel 29 (4): 538-60. Waters, Sarah 1998. Tipping the Velvet. London: Virago. --1999. Affinity. London: Virago. --2002. Fingersmith. London: Virago. Wolfreys, Julian 2002. Victorian Hauntings: Spectrality, Gothic, The Uncanny and Literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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David Richards’s The Taming of the Shew  

Laura Tupone

David Richards’ The Taming of the Shrew (2005): A Shrew for the New Times1 Laura Tupone University of Málaga Broadcast by the BBC in 2005, the series ShakespeaRe-told consisted of four television adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays, including Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The whole series was conceived for a young audience, following the conventions of more recent film genres, such as divorce comedies and career women comedies. Focusing on David Richards’s version of the Shrew for the television series, the aim of this paper will be to examine the processes of rewriting and relocation which fill in the gaps between the original 16th century setting in Padua and Richards’s 21st century London. Special attention will be paid to the reinterpretation of domestic matters, (sexual) politics, and the on-going battle of the sexes. And technical aspects of the production, such as camera work and sound, will be highlighted as they constitute a key element in the adaptation process. Key words: Retold, BBC, Shakespeare, Shrew, Richards. Broadcast by the BBC in 2005, the series ShakespeaRe-told consisted of four television adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. The series included modern-day adaptations of Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As the title of the series suggests, the plays were adapted for a young audience after the great success achieved by The Canterbury Tales in 2003.2 This aim is once more reflected on the familiar faces of the popular television actors cast involved in the project. This essay will focus on David Richards’s The Taming of the Shrew, which calls for the so-called thirty-something comedies, divorce comedies conventions and the familiar London atmosphere. This idea of a common background shared by the audience can also be applied to the cast of characters, as Shirley Henderson and Rufus Sewell had played Catharine of Braganza and Charles II respectively in the BBC period series Charles II: The Power & The Passion in 2003. Regarding this, Ruth Morse suggests that “the conviction or convincingness of actors’

1

Research leading to the writing of the present essay has been funded both by a Spanish FPU Fellowship and the Junta de Andalucía (Proyecto de Excelencia P07-HUM-02507). 2 For further information on the BBC series’ relocation process see Calvo and Hoenselaars (2008). © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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David Richards’s The Taming of the Shew  

Laura Tupone

interpretations are often a function of audiences’ familiarity with their previous roles” (2010: 289), and can even categorize a film into a specific genre: [A]ctress Shirley Henderson, draws attention to that connection [the romantic comedy film genre] as a cast alum of Bidget Jones’ s Diary and Bidget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004) […]. In the Retold adaptation, Henderson similarly plays the driven London careerist who leads a dreary personal life […] Thus, Henderson brings to her pugilistic embodiment of Katherine a romantic comedy past that stresses career savvy and relationship ineptitude, a personal inadequacy requiring a cure in the formulation of the genre. (Pittman 2011: 158)

As another point of reference in terms of familiarity, it should be borne in mind that this adaptation was scripted by Sally Wainwright, also responsible for The Wife of Bath tale of 2003. This production fact serves as a hint on the stream of thought that we can expect from this renovated shrew. The reading behind the Kate-and-Petruchio story is that of the new woman who can ultimately combine a demanding career as a politician with a seemingly ideal family life under the triumph of romantic love, despite the tempestuous initial clash between two clearly flawed characters. In the case of Bianca (Jamie Murray) we find the figure of the coquette who makes a living out of being admired by others as a widely-known top model, and she obviously enjoys it. In the original play, the link between the character of Bianca and the idea of independence and freedom of thought is found in the fact that she tricks her father in order to marry the suitor she has chosen. However, in this version, the idea of her independence is based mainly on financial terms (and sex appeal), reaching its climax when she pleads for a prenuptial agreement to protect her interests from her husband-to-be, thus cancelling her wedding plans. Independence for these two women is based on their successful careers. This is a key element which is introduced in this adaptation if we compare it to Shakespeare’s play, mainly because this removed the figure of the father-trader from the plot. Consequently, the two main female characters are allowed to show their inner intentions behind their own decisions. We can picture how things would differ had the sisters not belonged to the upper class based in the posh heart of London. Ultimately, Kate is fully responsible for her marriage and Bianca for finally not doing so. In fact, career plays such an important role in the plot that the idea of marriage for Kate emerges as a political strategy of public image to become the leader of the opposition party. Likewise, Mrs. Minola’s interest in Kate’s marriage is more image-conscious-type orientated as there is no hidden purpose of self-profit by trading with her older daughter. She thinks marriage would disperse the rumours concerning Kate’s extravagant life style, which are explicit when she asks her daughter “You don’t shop around the corner, do you?”3 In replacing Baptista Minola for Mrs. Minola, the plot also adds the complex element of the mother-daughter relation. Once more, familiarity with the chosen actors becomes important as an invitation to spectators to read between the lines: this character is performed by actress and internationally known ex-model Twiggy Lawson, placing her at Bianca’s side by default in terms of the compatibility of personalities.

3

All quotations of this adaptation have been extracted from the DVD.

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David Richards’s The Taming of the Shew  

Laura Tupone

Going back to the Kate-Petruchio story, we can speak of the triumph of romantic love. If we focus on the final speech we do find traces of irony (“He is the boss. Day and day out he submits his body to painful labour. […] I know we would sit all day in front of the telly eating chocolate. I know I do when I’m not running the country”) but the purpose is mainly humorous. The reason for this is that the main phrases are performed without irony: “I would [place my hands beneath my husband’s feet], if he asked me too but he won’t ask me to because he feels exactly the same way about me and he wouldn’t expect anything from me that I wouldn’t expect from him [...]”. If we take a closer look at this modern shrew, her condition as a character is levelled to that of Petruchio. In the source text, Kate is dragged into marriage by the pressure of a patriarchal society: women first belonged to their fathers and subsequently to their husbands. The twist in Richards’s version is that Petruchio confesses during his second meeting with Kate that a good marriage would solve his money problems. Kate then agrees to arrange a third meeting after she knows of the existence of a house which belonged to his family. And it is during that encounter when her interest is fully aroused: she learns that Petruchio belongs to the nobility.4 She immediately thinks of how convenient it would be for her professionally, as recommended by her political mentor: “To get the support you need within the party there may be the odd life style issue which may be pertinent to address”. Thus, marriage would provide both characters with a different type of social ascent: financial in the case of Petruchio, in status in the case of Kate. Both characters have ulterior motives to celebrate the wedding, but as spectators it is not hard to find other similarities between them: they are both eccentric and flawed characters who meet at a certain point, and one works for the other. When Kate describes Petruchio she refers to him as “big, eccentric, overwhelming; he talks too much, he hits people when they get in his way”. The truth is that most of her description could be assigned to herself as she also appears as irritable and at times violent. In this manner, Kate is also placed at the same level of Petruchio as equally horrible characters, which is taken up to the extreme in the name of farcical humour. Kate’s duality as an aggressive and fragile character at once (definitely a feature of the Shakespearean heroine) is also kept in this adaptation. We cannot but empathize with Kate in her moments of solitude in which she shows her true feelings about her sister and her mother, her love life, and her inability to interact with others. In fact, there are various high angle shots taken in her office which highlight how small she looks on her own in comparison to the furniture within the room, reinforcing a feeling of emptiness, as work fills in all the spare time that should be dedicated to personal affairs. These moments of complete silence allow Kate to share her weaknesses with the audience. It is hard to tell whether her personality is either cause or consequence of her social isolation. But it is clear that work becomes a self-defence mechanism to avoid facing the reality Kate is conscious of. When Mrs. Minola picks her up to go to Bianca’s party, Kate refuses to go with her because she still has phone calls to make. However, when her mother suggests that she should make only a brief appearance as she could not “loose her temper and make a fool of herself in five minutes”, Kate confesses that she could. This shows her awareness in spite of her denial. 4

According to Margaret Jane Kidnie, “this matter of the title [16th Earl of Charlbury] is used by Wainwright to lever an unexpected gap between production and work, his central character gaining a title by losing a name” (2009: 107). Petruchio is at all times related to the idea of marriage, thus appearing more attached to Kate and less as Petruchio the character itself. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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David Richards’s The Taming of the Shew  

Laura Tupone

Silence and close-ups create this complicity which also enables the spectator to witness her true feelings for Petruchio. For instance, when he calls her office to arrange their first meeting she smiles briefly on her own. Again, after her political mentor congratulates her for the good news, which he calls “trick of genius”, she has the same reaction. Only this time she realises Tim Agnew, her assistant, is observing her from the adjoining office. She suddenly frowns and asks: “What are you gawping at?”, as if annoyed by the fact that someone could see her happy for the engagement as such, and not as a political strategy. Nonetheless, there is an inexorable dictatorial phase in her role as a politician and there are countless examples throughout the adaptation. In fact, it opens with a sequence showing a shot of her feet walking around the Houses of Parliament with a non-diegetic Jaws-like music, while everyone else moves out of her way with an expression of either fear or disgust on their faces as they see her pass by. In the subsequent office scenes, Kate slaps her assistant in the face after accusing him of giving her wrong information and shows the middle finger on two occasions. When Tim reads her messages out loud we also learn that she had left a message containing “the F word” on someone’s answering machine and that she might be sued for calling another member of parliament “an illiterate Northern git”. She is also a potential candidate to become leader of the opposition, setting a subtle analogy between her character and Margaret Thatcher, “The Iron Lady”. And just in case that analogy is too subtle, she is outspokenly criticized as an authoritative figure by Harry, Petruchio’s friend, when described as a possible wife-to-be to the later: “Everyone thinks she is a dyke, or mad, or Hitler, or something”. After her famous speech, we learn that she believes either in getting married or not getting married at all, against the idea of marrying with conditions. Bianca’s disappointment after young Lucentio declares not to be willing to sign the prenuptial agreement leads Kate to state that she is against them. Her first explanation is that they are not binding as they should be, but later she admits that she never thought of drafting one for her engagement. Again, the idea of romantic love comes into play since Kate got married in order to make it last against all odds, which is certainly a contemporary idea. During the Renaissance, marriage meant money and engagements were considered a financial transaction. Nowadays, even though one can see that there is still a certain social stigma over single women in some societies, marriage is a choice. Thus, there is coherence in Kate’s view despite Mrs. Minola’s statement that we are living in “the age of divorce”. Apart from Kate’s wedding, there are two more: Bianca and Lucentio’s and, unexpectedly, Mrs. Minola and Harry’s, which equals to Hortensio and the older widow in the source text. If we focus on Bianca, in most adaptations she is presented, opposed to her elder sister, as a feminine, docile daddy’s girl at the beginning. There is normally a deep turn at Kate’s speech scene, in which there is an inversion between the two sisters. However, frequently we find that the performance of this character tends to include little hints (gazes, body language or voice tone) that could suggest that this docility is partly a pose. After all, in the play Bianca is the sister who marries her chosen candidate. In the case of Richards’s Bianca, the character remains constant throughout the adaptation. What we notice is a change in the way she is perceived by her suitors, Lucentio and Harry. Her presentation scene is located in an airport where dozens of paparazzi are following her on her way to the check-in desks. As they pass by, a mural-size ad picture of Bianca and the camera flashes catch our eyes—and Lucentio’s—and the effect of the © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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David Richards’s The Taming of the Shew  

Laura Tupone

sequence in slow motion makes the spectators experience his perception as we see blinding white light reflected on the young lover’s glasses. Some seconds later, Harry is carrying her suitcases while she manages to upgrade Lucentio’s seat on the plane to place him right next to her in first class. In a later scene back in London, the environment in Bianca’s apartment is loaded with sensuality: there is background music and a video clip on TV (sound and sight) while she drinks champagne (taste) and plays with the bath foam (touch and smell). Shortly after we learn that this ritual means that she is getting ready to receive Lucentio in the house. In less than five minutes she breaks up with Harry, also her manager, and makes a move on Lucentio. And she does it in quite a naughty way as she asks Lucentio: “How do I say ‘I want you to make my pips squeak’ in Italian?” Bianca appears as a confident, daring and sensual woman with no taboos whatsoever in making advances to a much younger man. In the battle of love, Bianca conquers Lucentio right after defeating Harry. In this version, the idea of her marriage not being possible before Kate’s has its origin in her joking rejection of Harry’s proposal: “I’ll get married when Katherine does”, thus implying that it was very unlikely to occur. Both scenes contain sound and visual support which also add to that rounded portrayal of her character. Let us go back to the airport billboard: “Amore. Belleza. Gioielli [Love. Beauty. Jewellery] [...] Bianca”. With such slogan, Bianca’s name is associated to these three concepts, linking love with material possessions and shallowness. Moreover, back in her apartment, the background song is “Round Round” by Sugarbabes playing the chorus: “Round, round baby round, round/ Spend the night on me/ I don’t need no man/ Got my kicks for free/ Realise the vibe gonna be down low/ I don’t need nobody got my honeys/ When I go”. Lyrics not only elucidate Bianca’s pattern of behaviour in regards to men, but also foreshadows the upcoming action, which is dismissing Harry. When Kate finally gets married and Harry reminds Bianca of his proposal, he finds out that she is already engaged to the young student. Bianca and Lucentio’s wedding is finally planned but when the time comes she does not hesitate to cancel the wedding because of his denial to sign the prenuptial agreement. In opposition to Kate, Bianca represents the image of the woman who chooses her career and who protects her own interests to the detriment of becoming a wife. Her eager interest in the agreement may suggest that she was indeed expecting the relationship to fail. If we focus on her partner, we see that Richards’s Lucentio is slightly different from the source character. In Shakespeare’s play, he and Bianca represent the young lovers. In this adaptation he is much younger than Bianca, reaffirming her role as a femme fatale. But his character evolves from a young and innocent student, who is intimidated by a more mature woman, into a tabloid star who wants to drop school and live off his wife’s fortune. Being self-confident towards the end of the film, he dismisses his father’s advice to continue studying: “Sposare una donna non significa far carriera” [Getting married is not a career]. At that very moment, Bianca’s lawyer knocks on the door to make him sign the agreement. The outcome, as we know, is a wedding cancellation, which suggests that their relationship was based on physical attraction and Lucentio’s pursuit of financial convenience, rather than on love and comprehension (to the grotesque extreme of requiring a translator to argue for them). Now, the third engagement comes motivated by Harry’s disappointment with women. During his visit to Petruchio in the Italian villa, Harry complains about women’s inability to perceive his inner beauty, even though he is able to perceive © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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theirs. Regarding Bianca he truly believes that “nobody knows her like he does, nobody is right for her like he is, nobody can give her more than he can”. Harry’s discourse about love seems honest considering that his words not only inspire Petruchio but also guide Katherine to realise and accept love as the main reason for her marriage. However, his actions result in contradiction. As a consequence of his personal failure, his plan B consists of attempting to marry a rich widow out of a list compiled by himself. Ultimately, the widow in question ends up being Mrs. Minola. This particular turn of events has an open ending because they do not seem to agree on the issue of prenuptial agreements, as Harry thinks that “they assume things will go wrong”. When this discussion finishes, there is not enough evidence for us to know whether their wedding would take place or not. Of course, the sexual life of the sisters also hits the headlines in this film even though there is no sign of it in the play. Most modern adaptations include scenes which either reveal or suggest the Shakespearean heroines’ sexual life. We may, for example, remember that Oliver Parker’s Othello (1995) was labelled “an erotic thriller” when it was released or think of Kenneth Branagh’s sex scene with Kate Winslet in his Hamlet (1996), when in the source play the idea of a possible love affair in the past is only suggested. In Richards’s Shrew, the fact that Bianca is sexually active is made perfectly clear and we would not expect anything different from such a character: she seduces, dismisses and plays as if love was a game and sex also represents a part of it. On the contrary, Kate’s depiction as a grumpy, bitter, lonely woman in her late thirties also includes the rumour of her virginity. This fits the general portrayal of the character because, as Harry advises Petruchio, this would not be something you would “want, not these days”. The rumour comes out again in Kate and Petruchio’s love scene in Italy when another moment of solitude and Kate’s playful smile make us believe that the rumour was probably true. Kate and Petruchio share two love scenes during their honeymoon in the Italian villa, the first one based partially on the source text, the second one written for the sake of consummate love. The first scene corresponds to Petruchio’s attempt to force Kate after an intense argument in their holiday home. Petruchio chases Kate into the bedroom and he only stops claiming “his rights as a husband” after Kate confesses that she wants him. This goes further than what we read in Shakespeare’s Shrew because Renaissance Petruchio, despite what we expect from the play, respects Kate in that sense. Petruchio’s torture is more psychological than physical, especially if we compare him to the husbands in other European tales of shrewish wives of the same period.5 In Richards’s version Kate slaps Petruchio in the face twice. He takes it playfully the first time and he flicks her the second. And even in this scene in Italy we do not have enough evidence to affirm that he would not have found another excuse to let her go. Kate’s attraction to Petruchio is suggested on several occasions and fully confirmed in this particular scene. The following scenes correspond to Petruchio’s plans of psychological torture to tame Kate but they do not seem to work until Harry visits the couple in the villa. Kate, who is deprived of food and sleep, looks weak but it is not really clear that she surrenders to his plan. During her conversation with Harry she undergoes an epiphany in which she comes to the conclusion that love is more important than her career and, consequently, she does not fight Petruchio anymore. On the contrary, she kisses him 5

For further reading on European tales of wife-taming see Vasvári (2002).

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goodnight. Immediately after that, Petruchio follows her to the bedroom in a deja vu that reminds us of the chasing sequence in the previous love scene, but this time also suggesting the fulfilment of the intercourse. The next scene shows morning light and the couple waking up thanks to the use of ellipsis. Their sexual encounter is only suggested, with the double function of meeting the expectations of a young audience watching a romantic comedy and also respecting the demands of broadcasting in prime time of a Monday evening on public television. Finally, there are two scenes which I would like to refer to briefly, being innovative additions. The first one is the wedding scene. In the church, Petruchio appears drunk and dressed as a woman to the sound of “Mucha muchacha” by Esquivel. One of the few lines kept from the source text actually makes reference to it, when Petruchio claims that “It’s me you’re marrying, not my... [clothes]”. On a surface level the female outfit incident might come forth as plainly humorous but it is more relevant as it serves to understand Petruchio better. Even though he makes an obvious mistake that results in Kate’s public humiliation, the reason behind the incident seems genuine. Petruchio feels that there are certain things that she needs to know if she is to become his wife, including his secret tendency to transvestism. After their wedding and on their way to the airport, Petruchio tells Kate: “You can’t not speak to me for the next fourty years, Kate. It’s not feasible”. She replies: “Oh! You think it’s going to last that long”. But the fact is that his line becomes a sort of declaration of intent to have a long-lasting marriage. On the other hand, the song is about a man and a woman who speak different languages. This idea is then recurrent in the adaptation, working literally for Bianca and Lucentio and also as a metaphor for Kate and Petruchio, as an image and sound representation of someone who cannot cope with his/her partner. Secondly, I would like to mention the final sequence of photographs. Most Shakespearean comedies’ happy endings coincide with the celebration of one or several weddings. In this modern-day Taming of the Shrew we get to see the life of the couple after the wedding: this version goes a step further in time with a sequence of images showing her at the entrance of 10, Downing Street with male triplets. Kate has become both the head of a mainly male family and the leader of her country, two tasks which certainly take a lot of courage. There is also an inversion of the traditional gender roles as she provides financially for all them while Petruchio is shown cooking and playing with the three siblings. To sum up, David Richards’s The Taming of the Shrew—and the series in general—offers a refreshed line of reading Shakespeare, in which there is a much clearer female involvement in the outcome of the plot because women take control of their lives. We, as spectators, have the choice to agree with their decisions or not. In the process, men become targets in their search for desire or love which leads to the conclusion that there is a decided feminist emphasis if we compare this adaptation with, for example, Jonathan Miller’s 1980 production for The BBC Shakespeare. And in wider terms we observe this tendency in the majority of the recent adaptations. Kate’s portrayal appears more humanized due to the addition of romantic love within marriage and maternity. And yet the latter is included hyperbolically, in line with the general structure of the adaptation, making us perceive this particular Kate as a Shakespearean heroine despite relocation and other changes. And, albeit the newly added elements may incline the more purist Shakespearean spectators not to accept these additions (such as the pictures at the end), I believe that the essential elements of the plot, the fast pace of the action and the farcical humour keep the spirit of the play intact. © Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca

 

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Works Cited Calvo, Clara and A. J. Hoenselaars 2008. Shakespeare Uprooted: The BBC and ShakespeaRe-Told (2005). Shakespearean International Yearbook 8: 82-96. Kidnie, Margaret Jane 2009. Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation. London and New York: Routledge. Morse, Ruth 2010. Twice-telly-ed Tales. Shakespearean International Yearbook 10: 281-98. Pittman, L. Monique 2011. Authorizing Shakespeare on Film and Television: Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in Adaptation. New York: Peter Lang. Richards, David (dir.) 2005. The Taming of the Shrew. BBC. Vasvári, Louise O. 2002. Examples of the Motif of the Shrew in European Literature and Film. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 4/1: 1-9. . 15 March 2011.

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