<?page no="0"?> M a n n h e i m e r B e i t r ä g e z u r S p r a c h u n d L i t e r a t u r w i s s e n s c h a f t Nora Kuster/ Stella Butter/ Sarah Heinz (eds.) Subject Cultures: The English Novel from the 18 th to the 21 st Century <?page no="1"?> M A NNH E IM E R B E IT R Ä G E Z U R S P R AC H - U ND L IT E R AT U RW I S S E N S C H A F T herausgegeben von CHRISTINE BIERBACH · HANS-PETER ECKER · WERNER KALLMEYER SUSANNE KLEINERT · JOCHEN MECKE ULFRIED REICHARDT · MEINHARD WINKGENS Band 81 <?page no="2"?> Umschlagabbildung: Erste Spalte: Gardening by Underground - Stanislaus S Longley (1933) - © TfL from the London Transport Museum collection „I'll tell you what! That "such things are" we must allow, but such things never were till now.” Print by Henry Wigstead. [England] : E. Jackson, ca. 1790. Image courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C., USA. http: / / hdl.loc.gov/ loc.pnp/ ds.02957 Please avoid rush hour travel - Victor Galbraith (1957) - © TfL from the London Transport Museum collection (Schriftzug wurde entfernt) Zweite Spalte: „High-change in Bond Street, ou la Politesse du Grande Monde“ Engraving by James Gillray. [London]: H. Humphrey, 1796 March 27th. Image courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C., USA. http: / / hdl.loc.gov/ loc.pnp/ cph.3g08766 Wordle „Subject England“ ©NL Kuster Theatres and halls by tram - Charles Sharland (1913) - © TfL from the London Transport Museum collection Dritte Spalte: „Charles Dickens.“ Graffiti by Don (2011). Photo by Garry Knight. https: / / www.flickr.com/ photos/ garryknight/ 6526645707/ Under public license from https: / / creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by/ 2.0/ legalcode (Schriftzug wurde entfernt) Brightest London is best reached by Underground - Horace Taylor (1924) - © TfL from the London Transport Museum collection Signet: Motiv vom Hals der Oinochoe des ,Mannheimer Malers‘ (Reissmuseum Mannheim, Mitte des 5. Jh. v. Chr.) <?page no="3"?> Nora Kuster / Stella Butter / Sarah Heinz (eds.) Subject Cultures: The English Novel from the 18 th to the 21 st Century <?page no="4"?> Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http: / / dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. © 2016 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Gedruckt auf chlorfrei gebleichtem und säurefreiem Werkdruckpapier. Internet: www.narr.de E-Mail: info@narr.de Printed in Germany ISSN 0175-3169 ISBN 978-3-8233-6932-5 <?page no="5"?> Table of Contents S TELLA B UTTER , S ARAH H EINZ & N ORA K USTER Introduction: Literature and Subject Cultures ................................................... 1 I. Reckwitz’ Theory of Subject Cultures: Concepts and Debates M AURUS R OLLER Reckwitz’ Theory of Subject Cultures: Fundamental Concepts and the Issue of Individuality .................................. 11 N ORA K USTER Reckwitz’ Theory of Subject Cultures: Chronology and Sequence............... 23 E LISABETH S. M AUBACH “Smiling Girls and Rosy Boys, Come and Buy my Little Toys”: On Postmodern Subjectivity in its Double Form of the Creative Consumer................................................................................... 39 S TEFAN G LOMB The Hybrid Individual: Reading Literature as a Critical Commentary on Reckwitz’ Theory of Subject Cultures ................................. 49 II. Literary Case Studies: Subject Cultures in the English Novel M AURUS R OLLER Samuel Richardson’s Pamela: The Aristocratic Subject and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture ................................................. 81 M EINHARD W INKGENS Re-Reading David Copperfield as a Polysemic Imaginative Exploration of Bourgeois Subject Culture and its Supplementary Romantic Other ...... 109 S ARAH H EINZ The Ambivalent Bourgeois: Sherlock Holmes and late Victorian Subjectivities in Detective Fiction ........................................... 155 <?page no="6"?> N ORA K USTER Bringing Down the House: De/ Constructing 20 th -Century Middle-Class Subjectivity in J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise ................................... 193 M ARIE -T HERES W IEME The Quest for the “the true exercise of freedom”: A.S. Byatt’s Possession and The Children’s Book as Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity ..................................................................................... 209 T ATJANA H IMMEL Julian Barnes’ England, England: The Postmodern Subject between Authenticity and Performance ......................................................... 235 S TELLA B UTTER Representations of Ideal Homes in English Culture: Gracious Living and the Creative Self in Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home ............................................... 251 <?page no="7"?> List of Abbreviations CSM Andreas Reckwitz. “Creative Subject and Modernity: Towards an Archeology of the Cultural Construction of Creativity.” Konstanzer Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolloquium: Diskussionsbeiträge Neue Folge 2 (2007): 1-15. PDF file. EK Andreas Reckwitz. Die Erfindung der Kreativität. Zum Prozess gesellschaftlicher Ästhetisierung. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012. Print. HS Andreas Reckwitz. Das hybride Subjekt: Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft. Print. (Editions: 2006, 2010, 2012.) The cited edition is indicated in the bibliography at the end of each individual article. <?page no="9"?> Stella Butter, Sarah Heinz & Nora Kuster Introduction: Literature and Subject Cultures ‘Subject cultures’ is a title in need of explanation. While much ink has been spilt on literary negotiations of subjectivity (cf. for example, Wolfreys; Gagnier; Zink), the concept of ‘subject cultures’, developed by the German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz in his comprehensive study Das Hybride Subjekt (2006), is new to critical debates in literary studies. In his examination of subject cultures since the 18 th century, Reckwitz introduces this term to foreground how hegemonic forms of subjectivity are generated through interlocking practices and discourses in three social fields: the sphere of work, intimate personal relations, and the field of ‘technologies of self’. The latter refers to everyday practices that enable the subject to become attuned to its inner life. The image of the solitary woman writing a letter, which is depicted on the cover page of this volume, is but one prime example of such a technology. These diverse practices in different social fields generate and mutually reinforce “the same cultural pattern” (CSM 12), namely a dominant subject form. The variety of images on the cover page of this book point to the different hegemonic subject cultures that Reckwitz identifies in the history of “European-North American culture” (HS 30), specifically Great Britain, France, Germany, and the USA. The graffiti of Charles Dickens, for example, can be connected with the contemporary imperative to be creative and the concomitant valorisation of creative appropriations, in this case both of the city space and a canonical author. Taking its cue from Reckwitz, this volume is concerned with the emergence and transformations of subject cultures since the 18 th century and the vital role that literature plays in the critical reflection and development of subjectivity and ways of life. The aims of this volume are threefold. Our first aim is to show the added value of Reckwitz’ sociological theory for literary analysis. Literature is steeped in the stuff of social and material worlds: it explores interwoven subject forms and life-worlds by offering imaginative access to embodied selves acting out different forms of life. Literature thus unfolds, as the literary scholar Rita Felski (91) stresses, a phenomenology of social interaction. Reckwitz’ model of subject cultures enables a nuanced analysis of the social phenomenology staged in literary texts, as the case studies in this volume show. The theory of subject cultures is especially helpful for explaining tensions within literary texts, both in terms of form and content. The different cultural practices and discourses that feed into the formation of subject cultures inev- <?page no="10"?> Stella Butter, Sarah Heinz & Nora Kuster 2 itably introduce frissons precisely because these practices and discursive elements stem from different social fields with their own logic and semantics (cf. CSM 12). Literature often examines these dissonances within subject forms and ways of life, evaluating the failures and successes of hegemonic subject cultures’ responses to the challenges of modernization (cf. Basseler, Nünning, and Hartley). Reckwitz provides a precise vocabulary to analyse these fraught subjectivities, for example codes that underpin each subject culture or the binary opposition of subject and anti-subject. His complex but clearly structured model can be easily adapted for the study of characters in fiction, genres or modes of writing. In George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, for example, the tension between the two different aesthetics in the novel, realism and romance, arguably results from the specific fissures within bourgeois subject culture: the hegemonic ideal of the moral subject and its internal other, the speculative subject (cf. Butter 123-82). Moreover, Reckwitz’ theory offers valuable prompters for reflecting on issues of reader response: how does literature serve as a training ground for specific kinds of subjectivity? This question is especially worth pondering because Reckwitz makes much of the role that literature and the arts play as a motor for the transformation of subject cultures. The crucial role afforded to literature and the arts in Reckwitz’ sociological study serves as an ideal basis for continuing the interdisciplinary dialogue between sociology and literary studies, which is the second aim of our volume. Precisely because literature offers a speculative “social phenomenology, a rendering of the qualities of a life-world, that is formally distinct from either non-fiction or theoretical argument” (Felski 89), scholars of literature can enrich and complicate the existing research on subject cultures. As Rita Felski persuasively argues, literary texts do not just represent, but make newly present, significant shapes of social meaning; they crystallize, not just in what they show but in their address to the reader, what Merleau-Ponty calls the essential interwovenness of our being in the world. Their fictional and aesthetic dimensions … should be hailed as the source of their cognitive strength. (104) It is for this reason that the theoretical part of this volume does not comprise solely an introduction to Reckwitz’ theory. Instead, the last chapter of the theory section consists of Stefan Glomb’s article on “The Hybrid Individual”. Glomb uses literature, Ian McEwan’s novel On Chesil Beach, as a “medium of knowledge” (49) that allows him to pinpoint the shortcomings of Reckwitz’ theory, while at the same time drawing on Reckwitz to interpret McEwan. His article encapsulates how both the literary text and Reckwitz’ sociological study “bring something to the table, rather than one being ‘applied’ to the other” (49). <?page no="11"?> Introduction 3 As Reckwitz’ theory offers valuable impulses for literary studies, the third aim of the volume is to make this theory of subject cultures accessible to an English-speaking public. Up until now, his two key works on subjectivity, Das hybride Subjekt (2006) and Die Erfindung der Kreativität (2012), have not been translated. Reckwitz has written two English articles on creativity, but these texts cover only some of the ground of his books and do not provide an extensive overview of the historical transformation of subject cultures since the 18th century. The first part of the volume hence introduces readers to the main concepts and terminology of Reckwitz’ theory as well as summarizing his historical account of modernity. Where authors considered the original wording of Reckwitz to be important for their argument, the German original of translated passages is provided in the footnotes. All translations of Reckwitz into English are by the contributors themselves, both in the theoretical articles and the literary case studies. The theory section is divided into four chapters. The first article by Maurus Roller provides a concise introduction to Reckwitz by explaining key concepts and how the different elements of his complex model connect. It thus lays the ground for the ensuing two articles on the historical development of subject cultures. Nora Kuster summarizes Reckwitz’ analysis of the three hegemonic subject cultures since the 18 th century, namely the bourgeois subject culture of the 18 th and 19 th century, organised modernity, and the creative consumer subject of our contemporary times. She only briefly addresses the latter subject culture because the third article by Elisabeth Maubach specifically focuses on a summary of postmodern creative consumer culture and its subjectivity. Beyond this concise introduction, the first part of the volume also opens up critical and divergent perspectives on Reckwitz by addressing the issue of agency. While Roller claims that Reckwitz’ theory “tentatively transcends postmodern doctrines by suggesting a position in between the subject’s autonomy and heteronomy” (11), Stefan Glomb insists that the culturalist onesidedness of Reckwitz’ theory precludes the conceptualization of acts of autonomy or freedom, very much in the vein of postmodern approaches to the subject. Both agree, however, in their critique of Reckwitz’ terminology with its primarily negative terms to describe the individual. The case studies in the second part of the volume trace how literature engages with changing forms of subjectivity and critically discuss literary strategies of representation. The first three articles deal with bourgeois subject culture and, taken together, map its different phases, starting from its ascendancy in the 18 th century to its hegemony in the middle of the 19 th century and finally its crisis at the end of the 19 th century. In the first article, Maurus Roller concentrates on Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novel Pamela to explore the interplay between the new middle-class values of the 18 th -century bourgeois subject and the negative depiction of its anti-subject, the excessive aristocrat. He shows that Pamela’s relation to Mr B. <?page no="12"?> Stella Butter, Sarah Heinz & Nora Kuster 4 and his reformation through the novel’s middle-class programme are evaluated as positive and morally necessary and seem to endorse the new subject culture’s premises. However, he equally tracks the novel’s subversive subtexts, which are indicative of frictions within bourgeois subjectivity, e.g. the role of gender and ideals of femininity, the pornographic tendencies of the novel, or the bourgeois re-interpretation of the aristocratic gentleman ideal. Meinhard Winkgens’ article on Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield continues this analysis of bourgeois subjectivity by focusing on its hegemony in the 19 th century. He traces how the contradictions between the novel’s manifest meaning and its latent sense can be explained by the fissures characteristic for this phase of bourgeois culture. While the novel’s explicit endorsement of bourgeois codes, e.g. the dignity of work or the role of self-control and moderation, seem to lead to the narrator-protagonist’s final contentment, its subtext shows how the values of Romantic counterculture shape David’s personality. Throughout his development, Winkgens argues, the Romantic subject remains a supplementary other that fundamentally influences both David’s development and the reader’s relationship to him. The third article uses detective fiction and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes to analyse the crisis of late-bourgeois subject culture towards the end of the 19 th century. Sarah Heinz shows that the shift from the early bourgeois code of morality to the later code of respectability leads to a deeply felt ambivalence within middle-class subjectivity. In her analysis of A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, and of short stories from the first collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, she outlines how Holmes and Watson embody bourgeois culture while at the same time also transgressing its boundaries. In her discussion of detective fiction, Heinz then relates the ambivalences of late-bourgeois subject culture to the genre’s conventions and to the specific reception process that it trains the reader in. The ensuing chapters examine literary responses to changing subject cultures in the 20 th and 21 st century and address the continued influence of bourgeois subject culture. The ‘organisation man’ (Angestelltensubjekt) takes centre stage in Nora Kuster’s article on J.G. Ballard’s High Rise (1975). She shows how this novel deconstructs middle-class subjectivity by featuring the archetypical home of the organisation man, namely the high-rise building, as “a sort of pressure-cooker that amplifies the tensions of organised modernity” (194) to the breaking point, allowing new forms of subjectivity and spatial practices to emerge. Her analysis offers a new reading of the frequently discussed violence in High-Rise because she does not link it to discourses of regression, but instead to the “transition from the post-bourgeois subject culture of the organisation man to that of the post-bureaucratic culture of post-modernity” (193f.). The final three articles concentrate on the hegemonic subject culture of the late 20 th and 21 st century: the creative subject. Marie-Theres Wieme’s article on A.S. Byatt’s Possession and The Children’s Book as critical origin stories of the <?page no="13"?> Introduction 5 creative subject features first because she is interested in the way these novels trace elements of today’s hegemonic subject culture back to previous times. In her analysis of Possession, Wieme concentrates on the Victorian plotline, specifically the correspondence between the poets Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte, before shifting her attention to the avant-garde subcultures of the early 20 th century as depicted in The Children’s Book. While in both novels creativity is cherished as a pre-requisite for the art of living well, these narratives are also critical origin stories because they issue an ethical warning against “a singular focus on the creative impulse” (209). In her article on Julian Barnes’ England, England, Tatjana Himmel questions previous interpretations of this novel by re-evaluating the depiction of Sir Jack Pitman. Her central claim is that Reckwitz enables a more nuanced reading of this character that eschews reducing him to a mere cliché. She explains the frictions in both Pitman’s but also Martha Cochrane’s subjectivity via residual elements of older subject cultures that continue to exert influence in postmodern culture. While both characters, Himmel argues, “appear to the outside world as economically successful subjects [,] ... their personal striving for self growth and authenticity cannot really be fulfilled” (249). The home as a site for creative expressivity is the key topic of Stella Butter’s article on Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home. She argues that practices of ‘doing home’ are practices of the self that help to bring the subject of creative consumer culture into being. Home therefore “is not only a site forged by the creative self but it is also constitutive of the creative self” (251). In her reading of Reynolds’ novel, Butter shows how the story of the protagonist Alizia Tamé, a successful interior designer, critically assesses the creative subject by illustrating how Alizia’s imperative to be creative is also a will to power that treats people like parts of a designed interior and that supresses inconvenient and messy bodily urges. The novel thus asks the reader to decide what ethical value rests in creative practices and how issues of agency, community, and power hierarchies are connected in today’s hegemonic subject culture. Overall, the articles provide a panorama of how the English novel has been a vital part of the development and transformation of subject cultures since the 18 th century, serving as a medium in which the problematic legacies and norms of these models of the subject can be debated. At the same time, we hope that this volume serves as an incentive for further research in this field. As one can see from the list of articles, there are still many gaps to fill when tracing literary engagements with subject cultures, not only in terms of chronology. In its entirety, the volume has a strong focus on white middle-class subjectivity. Hence, topics such as the working classes or the new ‘underclass’ (cf. Welshman; Tyler) and queer sexualities still await being explored through the lens of Reckwitz’ theory as do the voices of Asian-British or Black-British <?page no="14"?> Stella Butter, Sarah Heinz & Nora Kuster 6 writers and further female authors. Another desideratum results from Reckwitz’ focus on Europe and North America. The question is whether his model also offers insights for understanding the development of subjectivity in cultural contexts beyond these Western countries, for instance, by helping gauge the impact of exporting European or North American subject models in the wake of (neo-)colonialism. *** Although not officially a Festschrift, the articles in this volume can be seen as a tribute to the stimulating research environment fostered by Meinhard Winkgens at the University of Mannheim. The Oberseminar (PhD and postdoc colloquium) that he regularly taught for many years certainly had a formative influence on us three editors: we appreciated the lively debates and challenging theoretical discussions that he initiated as well as his valuable suggestions for exciting research projects. The most recent of his colloquia concentrated on Reckwitz’ theory of the subject and how it opens up an innovative perspective for readings of literature. It is this seminar that forms the point of departure for the collected essays in this volume and the people involved in the project. The colloquium brought together scholars from different generations and in different stages of their academic biography, ranging from young researchers who have recently completed their Master’s Degree to postdoctoral researchers and professors. This volume documents the discussions and ideas developed in the course of many meetings during two semesters. We would like to thank Elisabeth Maubach for assisting with the formatting and adapting of articles to the style sheet. Our thanks also go to Nadine Aldag, Philip Griffiths, Maurus Roller, and Barbara Magin for their help in various stages of the project. Last but not least, we would like to extend our thanks to Kathrin Heyng and Narr for their support of the Mannheimer Beiträge series. Bibliography Basseler, Michael, Daniel Hartley, and Ansgar Nünning, eds. Emergent Forms of Life in Anglophone Literature: Conceptual Frameworks and Critical Analyses. Trier: WVT, 2015. Print. Butter, Stella. Kontingenz und Literatur im Prozess der Modernisierung. Diagnosen und Umgangsstrategien im britischen Roman des 19.-21. Jahrhunderts. Tübingen: Narr, 2013. Print. Felski, Rita. Uses of Literature. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Print. Gagnier, Regenia. Subjectivities: A History of Self-Representation in Britain, 1832-1920. Oxford et al.: OUP, 1991. Print. Hall, Donald E. Subjectivity. New York and London: Routledge, 2004. Print. Jaeggi, Rahel. Kritik von Lebensformen. Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp, 2014. Print. <?page no="15"?> Introduction 7 Reckwitz, Andreas. “Creativity as Dispositif.” Culture, Communication and Creativity. Eds. Hubert Knoblauch, Mark Jacobs, and René Tuma. Frankfurt/ Main: Peter Lang, 2014. 23-34. Print. ---. Die Erfindung der Kreativität: zum Prozess gesellschaftlicher Ästhetisierung. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012. Print. ---. “Creative Subject and Modernity: Towards an Archeology of the Cultural Construction of Creativity.” Konstanzer Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolloquium: Diskussionsbeiträge Neue Folge 2 (2007): 1-15. PDF file. ---. Das hybride Subjekt. Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne bis zur Postmoderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2006. Print. Tyler, Imogen. Revolting Subjects: Social Abejction and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain. London: Zed, 2013. Print. Welshman, John. Underclass: A History of the Excluded since 1880. 2 nd edition. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. Print. Wolfreys, Julian. Literature, In Theory: Tropes, Subjectivities, Responses and Responsibilities. London and New York: Continuum, 2010. Print. Zink, Michel. The Invention of Literary Subjectivity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999. Print. <?page no="17"?> I. Reckwitz’ Theory of Subject Cultures: Concepts and Debates <?page no="19"?> Maurus Roller Reckwitz’ Theory of Subject Cultures: Fundamental Concepts and the Issue of Individuality According to Peter V. Zima (30), a large part of the history of European thought can be decoded in terms of a history of diverse notions of the subject. As numerous (post-)modern scholars have shown, the subject cannot be construed independently of the concept of culture (cf. Reckwitz, Subjekt 12f., 24), which has turned into a key concept of numerous academic disciplines over the course of the 20 th century (cf. Reckwitz, “Kontingenzperspektive” 1f.; Sommer 417f.). Andreas Reckwitz’ theory of subject cultures, which will be outlined in this essay and which is developed in his seminal text Das hybride Subjekt (HS), ties in with this philosophical tradition. Similar to Michel Foucault, for example, Reckwitz proceeds from the assumption that culture plays a fundamental role in the subject’s formation. In keeping with Foucault, he thereby conceives culture not as a set of pre-existing institutional arrangements but as a set of codes, discourses, practices, and forms of the subject. This, in turn, means that culture becomes intelligible and tangible through historically contingent subject forms that are dependent on specific codes, discourses, and practices and that therefore represent focal points of culture (cf. HS 23f., 42f.; Reckwitz, Subjekt 23-39). As a consequence, Das hybride Subjekt on the one hand takes a postmodernist stance and delineates the subject’s process of socialization or subjectification in terms of a subjugation to or formation by cultural norms. In doing so, it seemingly restricts the subject’s agency to the limits of the cultural universe and its norms and expectations. Yet, as I will argue, Reckwitz’ theory of subject cultures on the other hand implies the potential for individual deviance and difference (cf. HS 48-50; Roller 80-82). It thereby tentatively transcends postmodernist doctrines by suggesting a position in between the subject’s autonomy and heteronomy, a position that is nevertheless insufficiently elaborated when it comes to the concept of individuality. In order to be able to fully grasp the specific nexus and interrelationship between the subject, culture, and the individual as envisioned by Reckwitz, the following section will first of all provide a concise and critical analysis of the essential concepts of Reckwitz’ theory. This theory on the one hand draws on various strands of established philosophical thinking, most prominently <?page no="20"?> Maurus Roller 12 Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Pierre Bourdieu. On the other hand, however, and as shall be shown, it opens up new perspectives both on the makeup and mechanisms of cultural orders and on the formation of the subject. 1 The Composition of Subject Cultures At its most fundamental, Reckwitz’ theory of subject cultures offers a comprehensive model, highlighting a set of interrelated concepts that, taken together, provide us with the means of dissecting the structures and processes inherent in specific cultural orders. It thereby draws on two interconnected assumptions: 1. It builds on the prevalent tradition of postmodern thinking which highlights the dependency of the subject’s constitution on culture (cf. HS 10). 1 2. Furthermore, and most importantly, it accentuates the corresponding (yet frequently overlooked) thesis that the analysis of culture relies on the analysis of the specific form that the subject takes within this culture (cf. HS 24, 26). 2 The latter manifests itself most notably in the concept of practices, which are of salient significance in the model delineated in Das hybride Subjekt. Practices are specific forms of behaviour that are induced and regulated by the respective cultural order. They are historically contingent as well as normative in character and incorporated by the individual subject, which is thus predisposed to habitually act in a particular manner (cf. HS 35-39). 3 The careful examination of the practices of writing, sexuality, working, or introspection (to name but a few) allows for the identification of the distinctive form the subject assumes in a particular culture (cf. HS 35, 37): “The body is understood to be an active process of embodying certain cultural and historical possibilities” (Butler 521). Conversely, the cultural world discloses itself and becomes tangible precisely within “performative acts” which represent “both that which constitutes meaning and that through which meaning is performed or enacted” (Butler 521). 4 1 Cf. most explicitly HS 35: “Die Richtung der Analyse verläuft … von der Kultur zu den Subjekten.” 2 Cf. in particular Reckwitz’ claim according to which “die Form des Subjekts innerhalb dieser Kultur der Moderne nicht als ein peripheres, sondern als ein zentrales Problem des modernen Sinnhaushalts [erscheint]” (HS 24). 3 Cf. HS 36: “Eine (soziale) Praktik … ist eine sozial geregelte, typisierte, routinisierte Form des körperlichen Verhaltens.” Also cf. 60f.: “Generell sind Praktiken als Verhaltensroutinen zu begreifen.” 4 For an elaborate discussion of Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, also cf. Reckwitz, Subjekt 81-95. <?page no="21"?> Subject Cultures: Fundamental Concepts and the Issue of Individuality 13 On the level of subject cultures, practices represent visible and palpable indicators of cultural norms inasmuch as they are deeply informed by codes (cf. HS 36). As conceptualized by Reckwitz, codes generate a contingent yet conventionalized system of symbolic differences, thereby attributing meaning to the initially random composition of the world. Since they commonly assume a binary form, codes allow for the production of a meaningful cultural order and identity via the construction of otherness. As a consequence, and on the individual level, codes enable subjects to decode and classify the world via (unconscious) reference to pre-existing and internalized concepts of right and wrong, lawfulness and transgression, inside and outside (cf. HS 36). 5 This process becomes possible only because codes do not remain abstractions but substantiate themselves in particular discourses. The term discourse itself (which takes central stage in postmodernist thinking about culture and its mechanisms) is commonly used to refer to pre-existing “figures of speech and structures of thought” (Döring 23) which “create not only knowledge but also the very reality they appear to describe” (Said 94). 6 Since this knowledge as well as the symbolic universe of a culture fundamentally (if implicitly) rely on binaries, the pivotal notion of codes is indissolubly linked not only to the performative, but also to a conceptual dimension (cf. HS 44). We only have to consider the colonially produced “irreconcilable difference between ‘black’ and ‘white’” (Loomba 53) which (as an antinomy on the level of codes) serves to consolidate colonial discourse that will (in turn) supply a vindication for colonial structures and practices (also cf. Döring 23). As a result, and since codes accordingly inform both the cultural production of symbolic patterns of meaning (discourse) and the habitual behaviour of subjects (practices), they ultimately constitute the very foundation of subject cultures as Andreas Reckwitz envisions them. They thereby also serve to establish and consolidate cultural structures of power, and this due to processes of internalization (discourse) and incorporation (practices) that generate a “normal and desirable subjectivity” (CSM 12). In this formation of subjectivities, practices and discourses are not dissociated entities. Instead, related symbolic and performative structures coalesce 5 Cf. HS 36: Codes represent “ein System zentraler Unterscheidungen und Klassifikationen”. Codes “kategorisieren die tatsächlichen und vorgestellten Gegenstände der Welt in kontingenter, konventionalisierter, historisch-lokal spezifischer Weise: sie stellen sinnhafte Differenzen zur Verfügung und ermöglichen vor diesem Hintergrund die Identifizierung von Gegenständen qua routinisierter Sinnzuschreibung. Die Sinnmuster produzieren eine Ordnung dessen, was innerhalb ihres Systems von Unterscheidungen denkbar und sagbar ist …, eine kulturelle ‘Ordnung der Dinge’, die gleichzeitig auf ein symbolisches Außen des zu Verwerfenden und Undenkbaren angewiesen ist.” 6 Elaborating on this process and referring to Foucault, Reckwitz describes discourses in terms of “historisch spezifische ‘Ordnungen des Denkbaren und Sagbaren’, sie sind geregelte Aussagesysteme, Ordnungen des Wissens, welche ‘systematisch die Gegenstände bilden, von denen sie sprechen’” (Subjekt 26). <?page no="22"?> Maurus Roller 14 in what Reckwitz terms social fields. Social fields constitute agglomerations or formations of interconnected discourses and practices 7 - like for example the field of family relations that is informed by discursive and performative patterns of education, sexuality, economy, or consumption (to name but a few). Of particular significance to the subject’s fashioning, however, are three social fields that focus on different dimensions of the process of subjectification and that tend to produce specific manifestations of the subject (cf. HS 55-60): 1. The field of occupational activities that consists of work-related and remunerated practices in a non-private setting in which the subject is formed as a professional entity. 2. The field of affective relationships based on interpersonal and communicative practices in which the subject itself and its physical and psychic make-up becomes topical. These practices promote the formation of the subject of intimacy. 3. The field of technologies of the self in which the subject is trained in practices of self-referentiality and self-formation. In this field, the subject unfolds in relation to itself. 8 Thus, social fields constitute spaces in which the subject is moulded (cf. HS 54f.). This process occurs on both a symbolic and a performative level. On the symbolic level, different agglomerations of discourses and practices provide specific (if abstract) forms of the subject. These are “discursively and partly also practically produced as … generalizable … form[s]” (CSM 4f.; also cf. HS 44) that the subject is supposed to assume. By way of illustration, one only has to point to the moral subject that epitomizes the bourgeois ideal of subjectivity, or to the subject of creativity and consumption that serves as the paragon of the postmodern cultural order (cf. HS 104f., 441f.). These idealized forms of the subject represent “a set of cultural criteria of the adequate and the legitimate” (CSM 3), transforming them into normative and desirable models of the subject. 9 Yet, in order to be effective, these highly stylized models of the subject have to be the object of what Reckwitz (drawing on Judith Butler) refers to as “passionate attachment”; they have to be of “considerable psychic, affective investment” (CSM 3; also cf. HS 46). 7 “Das heterogene und dynamische Geflecht von Praktiken und Diskursen, das moderne Gesellschaftlichkeit ausmacht, bildet Strukturen der Verdichtung, Ballungen von ‘doings and sayings’, damit ganze Praxis-/ Diskursformationen” (HS 51). These represent social fields that are also described as “spezialisierte[] Komplexe[] typisierter Verhaltens- und Wissensformen” (HS 52). 8 HS uses the terms “Praktiken der Arbeit” and “Arbeitssubjekt” (55), “persönliche Beziehungen” and “Intimitätssubjekt” (57) as well as “Technologien des Selbst” and “Fähigkeit zur Selbstreferentialität” (58). 9 “Die Subjektform … fungiert dabei in der Praktik zugleich als kulturelles ‘Subjektmodell’, als normativ-ideales Muster gelungener Subjekthaftigkeit” (HS 43). <?page no="23"?> Subject Cultures: Fundamental Concepts and the Issue of Individuality 15 In addition to the symbolic dimension, the members of a cultural order are moulded on a performative level. They develop as separate and tangible subjects by embodying precisely these entities that represent the culture’s desirable models of subjectivity (also cf. HS 104f.). 10 In the course of this process, subject codes are of particular importance. These are codes that specifically refer to the characteristic form the subject is supposed to assume. 11 Subject codes - such as for example the middle-class dichotomy moral vs. immoral - are inscribed into discourses and practices, and they are subsequently internalized and incorporated by the emerging subject (cf. HS 42). This process of the subject’s formation according to specific cultural norms and expectations is what Reckwitz refers to as subjectification. Hence, the process of subjectification represents the mechanism whereby the human being is transformed into an acknowledged and exemplary member (“subject”) of the respective cultural order (cf. HS 54). It thereby acquires historically contingent yet culturally distinctive abilities, forms of knowledge, and dispositions. The subject develops a set of dispositions - a set of internalized and incorporated competencies, attitudes, and habits. 12 The process of subjectification, in particular, might serve to illustrate my initial claim that Reckwitz’ model is based on two interconnected theses. By focusing on the subject’s formation in line with pre-existing cultural structures of meaning and models of the subject, it foregrounds the undeniable significance of the cultural order to the development and composition of its individual members. At the same time, it proceeds from the assumption that the analysis of the specific form that the subject assumes allows us to decipher the culture’s fundamental narrative. Since the subject is seen to unfold in accordance with symbolic and performative patterns that lie at the core of a particular cultural regime, it appears to be the very expression and tangible manifestation of this regime. 13 And this is exactly what Das hybride Subjekt refers to when it maintains that the question of the subject has to occupy centre stage within cultural studies (cf. HS 26). 10 They are trained to implement “certain cultural complexes which define and produce legitimate forms of subjectivity” (CSM 3). Reckwitz refers to this process also in terms of a training programme (cf. HS 97). 11 “Innerhalb dieser allgemeinen kulturellen Codes sind jene Unterscheidungen von besonderer Bedeutung, in denen das, was das Subjekt ist und sein soll, unmittelbar codiert und klassifiziert wird: die Subjektcodes” (HS 42). 12 The subject presents itself as “ein Bündel von Dispositionen”, “eine Agglomeration von Kompetenzen”, “ein Set inkorporierter und interiorisierter Kriterien und Schemata” (HS 40; in HS partly emphasized). 13 For a critical examination of this proposition that appears to be slightly reductive and one-dimensional, see my ensuing elaborations on the issue of individuality as well as Stefan Glomb’s essay on Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach in this volume. <?page no="24"?> Maurus Roller 16 The subject’s role as indicator and manifestation of a particular cultural order and its fundamental narratives is (not least in literary texts that frequently offer insights into the inner lives of their protagonists) furthermore corroborated by the subject’s (or the protagonist’s) self-evaluation - what Reckwitz refers to as identity. In line with postmodern theory, the concept of identity is not meant to designate any notion of a fixed and stable essence. It instead denotes the specific form that the subject’s self-perception and selfinterpretation assumes. The subject’s self-evaluation, in turn, appears to be closely linked to cultural norms that manifest themselves in discourses, practices, and models of the subject (cf. HS 45f.; Roller 45-56). 14 In other words: The subject tends to assess itself against the background of internalized and incorporated expectations of how to behave and how to act; it anticipates external censure by adjusting its conduct accordingly. This mechanism of self-evaluation and censure-avoidance crucially rests upon the construction of negative images of subjectivity which come to incorporate all those undesirable characteristics that fall outside of the culture’s boundaries. It thus relies on a process of othering in which the affective rejection of the “anti-subject” (CSM 1) 15 represents the negative equivalent to what has above been referred to as passionate attachment. And it thereby also serves to implement binary oppositions on the level of subject forms that are part of the culture’s stock of dichotomies on the level of codes (cf. HS 45-47). To illustrate, we may turn to the moral subject that epitomizes bourgeois notions of desirable subjectivity. The bourgeois model of the subject has to be deciphered against the backdrop of its counterpart, the aristocratic anti-subject, which is construed as the immoral other. This dichotomy, in turn, depends upon several binary structures that constitute the very foundation of the middle-class cultural order: utility vs. uselessness, authenticity/ transparency vs. artificiality, and moderation vs. excess (cf. HS 104f., 178-83). 16 As has been shown, we cannot envision the subject independently of culture. Instead, culture is always and inevitably operative within the subject, and the subject comes into being only within culture. This, however, yields two significant consequences: 1. The contingent character of a particular subject culture remains largely concealed from the view of its members. It instead appears to be both the 14 “Identität ist - jenseits aller Konnotation einer inneren Konstanz des Subjekts - als die spezifische Form des Selbstverstehens, der Selbstinterpretation zu begreifen, welche im Rahmen einer Subjektkultur in die Subjektform eingelassen ist” (HS 45). 15 “Das Außen der abgelehnten Eigenschaften eines Anti-Subjekts stellt sich als Bedingung der Konstitution des Innen einer kulturell etablierten Subjektform dar” (HS 45). 16 For a comprehensive analysis of the bourgeois cultural order, see my essay on Samuel Richardson’s Pamela as well as Nora Kuster’s essay on the temporal succession of different subject cultures since the end of the 17 th century in this volume. <?page no="25"?> Subject Cultures: Fundamental Concepts and the Issue of Individuality 17 natural order of things and universally valid, supposedly transcending any historical references and spatial boundaries. 17 2. The traditional (sociological) approach, which is based upon the dichotomy of society vs. the individual and according to which the individual is able to (and has to) choose from a range of social roles that it is confronted with, 18 does not hold true. The focus of cultural studies lies instead on the process of subjectification whereby the individual human being develops into an inherently cultural entity, namely into a subject (cf. Reckwitz, Subjekt 14-16). 19 We should clarify, however, that deconstructing the traditional dichotomy of society vs. the individual is not equivalent to rejecting the notion of individuality. The next section will therefore have to enquire after the specific role assigned to individuality in Das hybride Subjekt. And I will proceed on the assumption that Reckwitz does not sufficiently develop the concept of individuality in his cultural theory. 2 The Issue of Individuality In order to substantiate this thesis, I will first of all have to locate and delineate the concept of individuality as it is advanced by Reckwitz’ model - for it is important to note that notwithstanding its subordinate treatment of the individual which has to be attributed to its specific cultural (and predominantly postmodern) approach (cf. HS 35, 48), 20 individuality is inherently part of this model. According to Reckwitz, the process of subjectification represents a mechanism whereby the human being is (ideally) converted into a member of the respective culture by being subjected to its symbolic order (cf. HS 34). On closer inspection, however, this process does not only have to be read in terms of a subjection or subjugation to cultural norms. As the subject acquires crucial competencies that enable him or her to act in a culturally meaningful manner, subjectification can also be deciphered as empowerment (cf. Roller 81). 21 17 This is what HS refers to as “Kontingenzinvisibilisierung” (80; in HS emphasized) and “Selbstuniversalisierung” (631). 18 “Hier das Individuum mit seiner ‘agency‘, seiner Handlungsfähigkeit, das von sich heraus zwischen unterschiedlichen Handlungsoptionen wählen kann, dort die Gesellschaft, die es mit ihren normativen Erwartungen … konfrontiert” (Reckwitz, Subjekt 15). 19 “Es geht nicht um die Konfrontation des Individuums mit sozialen Erwartungen, sondern darum, wie sich dieses ‘Individuum’ in seinen scheinbar gegebenen, gewissermaßen vorkulturellen körperlichen oder psychischen Eigenschaften, die ihm vermeintlich Autonome sichern, aus hochspezifischen kulturellen Schemata zusammensetzt” (Reckwitz, Subjekt 15). 20 Again cf. Stefan Glomb’s essay in this volume. 21 Cf. HS which makes reference to “Kompetenzen” and which claims that “dadurch, dass dieses körperliche Wesen sich in Praktiken trainiert, wird es zum Subjekt im Sinne eines <?page no="26"?> Maurus Roller 18 To focus on the subject and its empowerment via the incorporation of practices alone, however, only means that the subject is enabled to act and interact comprehensibly within the limits of the respective cultural order. It is not sufficient to assume that the subject is able to act individually. Yet this, and along with it individuality, is likewise and systematically (if subordinately) implanted into Reckwitz’ model. Most notably, it resides in what Das hybride Subjekt (with a peculiarly negative overtone) depicts as a failure of the process of subjectification - thereby inherently implying (potential) deviance and difference. 22 More precisely and elaborately, the opportunity for individuality and difference is implicitly inscribed into the combination of three crucial and decisive factors outlined by Reckwitz (also cf. Roller 81f.): 1. It rests on the idea of a scope for diverging and deviant action offered to the subject. 2. This scope originates from the interplay of different and potentially heterogeneous and contradictory discourses, practices and models of the subject - an interplay that invokes Alan Sinfield’s concept of “faultlines” (59). 3. This, in turn, allows for specific and unforeseeable combinations of diverse cultural concepts in performative acts accomplished by the subject - which finally results in the formation of an unrepeatable and hence unique and individual biography. 23 Accordingly, Das hybride Subjekt can be read in line with critical demystifications of an all too radical deconstruction of the subject - demystifications that (as is the case with Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth) refer to the potential inherent in symbolic orders as well as to identity as palimpsest (of different symbolic structures) and as sequence (cf. Ermarth 411) in order to allow for individuality and individual agency (also cf. Roller 82-84). In keeping with this critical tradition, Bündels von Dispositionen, die sich auch als ein praktisches Schemawissen begreifen lassen” (40). 22 “[So] enthält selbst die scheinbare Reproduktion kultureller Subjektformen in den leiblich-mentalen Akten des Einzelnen das beständige Potential des unintendierten Misslingens und jener Neuinterpretationen, Neukombinationen und unintendierten Nuancierungen, welche bereits als Abweichungen von der Form interpretiert werden können” (HS 49; my emphasis). 23 The following lengthy quote from HS serves to illustrate the significance that these factors assume within Reckwitz’ cultural theory: “Subjektkulturen [lassen] Spielräume möglichen Verhaltens. … [Es] gilt, dass einerseits soziale Praktiken mit spezifischen Subjektformen verknüpft sind, dass andererseits das einzelne Subjekt sich jedoch als ein Träger einer Vielzahl von Praktiken mit einer potentiellen Vielzahl von Subjektformen begreifen lässt … [und] dass sich die Idiosynkrasien (sic) des Einzelnen durch die spezifische Kombination von Praktiken mit ihren Codes und Subjektformen in ihm ergeben. … Diese Idiosynkrasien qua Kreuzung können unberechenbare Konsequenzen der Amalgamierung verschiedener kultureller Elemente mit sich bringen. … Jedes Subjekt hat seine eigene Subjektgeschichte. … [So] können potentiell in jedem Moment - und in der Sequenz akkumuliert - relative Verfehlungen (sic) und formabweichende Interpretationen produziert werden” (48f.; my emphasis). <?page no="27"?> Subject Cultures: Fundamental Concepts and the Issue of Individuality 19 Reckwitz tentatively proposes a position in between the early modern apotheosis of the individual subject and its postmodern deconstruction (cf. Zima xi). 24 In doing so, he does not conceive of individuality as some kind of nondiscursive realm, but rather as being constituted and as constituting itself within cultural structures. 25 And by defining individuality as dissidence or difference, Das hybride Subjekt eventually also provides a mechanism for the transformation of subject cultures (cf. HS 49f.). More precisely, if subject cultures are considered to revolve around specific forms of the subject (cf. HS 10f.), then only individual difference, deviance, or variation can bring about transformation. Against this background, it is all the more surprising that Das hybride Subjekt casts an overwhelmingly negative light on individuality. 26 This is mainly due to its theoretical approach, which is (amongst others) rooted in the tradition of Michel Foucault’s analysis of processes of subjectification within cultural structures of power (also cf. HS 27). As a consequence, it neglects both the significance and the potential of individuality and of individual resistance, something that a philosophy centering on the individual and the art of living reminds us of. From this viewpoint, individuality (defined as deviance and difference) appears to be an integral and at times imperative part of the individual subject’s pursuit of happiness. The art of living (as elaborated by Wilhelm Schmid) emphasizes the unavoidable necessity to actively fashion our lives in accordance with our needs, wishes, and desires (cf. 165- 72, 348-55; Roller 56-64) 27 - or as Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) most famously expresses it: “The highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self” (20). At the same time, the act of self-fashioning invariably takes place in the context of specific and pre-existing structures (cf. Schmid 146f.). And it is exactly these structures that might occasionally ask for individual resistance and difference. This becomes particularly evident under repressive cultural conditions that subject the individual’s need for “self-development” (Wilde 20) to the strict demand for “self-denial” (Wilde 21). We only have to think of acts of resistance in novels such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice 24 Cf. explicitly HS and its reference to the dual meaning of subiectum: “[die] Struktur des unterworfenen Unterwerfers” (97). For the concept of the individual subject that combines both the subjection to cultural structures and the notion of individual difference, cf. Heinz 98-111. 25 “Die Idiosynkrasien [bilden sich] im Innern der subjektiven Aneignung und Reproduktion dieser Formen selbst” (HS 48). 26 Cf. the negative overtones of those terms that are meant to denote individuality: idiosyncrasies (“Idiosynkrasien” [HS 48]) and failure (“Misslingen[]” [HS 49]). 27 Even if Stefan Glomb is more sceptical when it comes to locating individuality within Reckwitz’ model (cf. his analysis of On Chesil Beach in this volume), my reference to individual needs and desires intersects with Glomb’s emphasis on the body and his claim that Reckwitz’ cultural approach has to be supplemented by what he refers to as “the triad individual-body-freedom”. <?page no="28"?> Maurus Roller 20 (1813) or Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) that appear to be the prerequisite of the final happiness of their female protagonists. Accordingly, austere cultural norms and values (as for example in the field of sexuality) might at times be at odds with individual needs and desires. 28 If we conceive of subject cultures as structures of power that are inherent in each culture’s codes, discourses, practices, or models of the subject (also cf. Döring 21f.), and if we furthermore envision power as potentially repressive, deviance might at times appear to be the necessary condition to individual happiness and to a successful process of self-fashioning. Das hybride Subjekt, however, locates individuality within its model only in terms of negativity. It seems to be blind to the potential inherent in the notion of individuality; a potential that becomes saliently significant not least in the bourgeois cultural order which is reflected in novels such as Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre, but also in Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740) and Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield (1850), whose analyses are part of this volume. *** Maurus Roller is Assistant Professor at the University of Mannheim, where he is teaching English literature, culture and cultural studies and where he has also completed his PhD in British Literature. He has published a comprehensive study on British drama in the 20 th century and is particularly interested in the complex interrelation between the issues of cultural power and individual self-development in literature. He is doing research on British drama from Shakespeare to the present and on English literature and culture in the 18 th and 19 th centuries. Bibliography Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988): 519-31. Print. Döring, Tobias. Postcolonial Literatures in English. Stuttgart: Klett, 2008. Print. Ermarth, Elizabeth Deeds. “Beyond ‘The Subject’: Individuality in the Discursive Condition.” New Literary History 31.3 (2000): 405-19. Print. Heinz, Sarah. Die Einheit in der Differenz: Metapher, Romance und Identität in A.S. Byatts Romanen. Tübingen: Narr, 2007. Print. Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/ Postcolonialism. 2 nd ed. London, New York: Routledge, 2005. Print. Reckwitz, Andreas. Subjekt. 2 nd ed. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010. Print. 28 This does also imply that individual happiness is not necessarily synonymous to a successful process of subjectification, an assumption that, however, underlies the idea that the subject is assumed to be passionately attached to specific models of the subject (also cf. HS 46). <?page no="29"?> Subject Cultures: Fundamental Concepts and the Issue of Individuality 21 ---. “Creative Subject and Modernity: Towards an Archeology of the Cultural Construction of Creativity.” Konstanzer Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolloquium: Diskussionsbeiträge Neue Folge 2 (2007): 1-15. PDF file. ---. Das hybride Subjekt: Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2006. Print. ---. “Die Kontingenzperspektive der ‘Kultur’: Kulturbegriffe, Kulturtheorien und das kulturwissenschaftliche Forschungsprogramm.” Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften: Themen und Tendenzen. Eds. Friedrich Jaeger and Jörn Rüsen. Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler, 2004. 1-20. Print. Roller, Maurus. Krise und Wandel: Das britische Drama im 20. Jahrhundert. Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von Identität, Autonomie und Form-Inhalt-Relation. Tübingen: Narr, 2014. Print. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. London et al.: Penguin, 2003. Print. Schmid, Wilhelm. Philosophie der Lebenskunst: Eine Grundlegung. Frankfurt/ M.: Suhrkamp, 1998. Print. Sinfield, Alan. “Cultural Materialism, Othello and the Politics of Plausibility.” William Shakespeare: Othello. Ed. Lena Cowen Orlin. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 49-77. Print. Sommer, Roy. “Kulturbegriff.” Metzler Lexikon Literatur- und Kulturtheorie: Ansätze - Personen - Grundbegriffe. Ed. Ansgar Nünning. 5 th ed. Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler, 2013. 417-18. Print. Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Ed. Robert Mighall. London et al: Penguin, 2003. Print. Zima, Peter V. Theorie des Subjekts: Subjektivität und Identität zwischen Moderne und Postmoderne. Tübingen, Basel: Franke, 2000. Print. <?page no="31"?> Nora Kuster Reckwitz’ Theory of Subject Cultures: Chronology and Sequence Reckwitz’ study focuses on the time period from the 18 th century to the present day and identifies three dominant subject cultures and corresponding time periods, namely bourgeois modernity, organised modernity, and postmodernity (HS 73f.). As he stresses, “this historical sequence of cultural formations, which follow one another, are not to be understood as fixed, closed ‘blocks’”; instead, they “contain hybrid and polysemic markers of differentiation rendering the subject forms from the beginning both heterogeneous and instable” (HS 73). Each dominant subject culture is hence in a constant state of flux, both differentiating itself from the preceding cultural formation and at the same time incorporating aspects of it. Reckwitz explains that there is no neat sequence and transition from one dominant subject culture to another. Indeed, he emphasises the fact that the discourses and practices which constitute a social field are perpetually changing. They never entail a repetition of identical social practices and cultural codes, which means that within and over the course of a subject culture a noticeable shift in regard to the subject codes takes place (cf. HS 74). One result is the articulation of alternative models of subjectivity that play an important role in the “discontinuous transformation of subject cultures” (HS 76). As Reckwitz explains, this process of transformation can be read as a conflictladen, alternating sequence of allowing and suppressing contingency (cf. HS 76). Each subject culture strives to universalise and naturalise its privileged subject model, hence warding off contingency or the awareness that things could be different. 1 An important aspect of the transition from bourgeois to organised modernity to post-modernity are the strategies for addressing contingency. Reckwitz claims that modern culture is actually the postulation of a problem, “the problem into which direction the subject and its related practices should be developed if they reveal themselves to be contingent” (HS 77). In other words, within a subject culture a constant struggle wages over the appropriate form of the subject (cf. HS 77). The dialectic of opening and closing contingency thus structures the history of modernity. This is important in view of the dominant subject cultures and their respective countercultures; each dominant 1 For a discussion of how literature engages with contingency and subject cultures in the process of modernization, cf. Butter. <?page no="32"?> Nora Kuster 24 culture emerges out of a clash and conflict over regulation of the subject (cf. HS 78), and the countercultural subjects represent alternative subject forms that give expression to this contingency. The first dominant subject culture of modernity, which emerges at the end of the 17 th century in Great Britain and over the course of the 18 th century in Germany, France, and other Western cultures, is the bourgeois subject culture. It is marked (and propagated) by a number of discourses and practices specifically relating to the areas of work, intimate relationships, and technologies of the self, which focus on writing and literacy. This bourgeois subject culture, with its corresponding bourgeois subject, emerges as the first modern subject culture and articulates itself in opposition to the early-modern aristocratic subject culture (cf. HS 74). At the beginning of the 20 th century, transformations in the practices of work, intimate relationships, as well a transition towards audio-visual technologies of the self then herald a second subject order that contradicts the fundamental elements of the bourgeois form of the subject. The subject form of organised modernity is epitomized by the whitecollar worker; it originates in the United States and becomes the dominant form of the subject until the middle of the 20 th century (cf. HS 74). In the late 1960s another transition then takes places, and the postmodern subject, most notably propagated by the new creative classes, emerges. In this sequence of overlapping subject cultures, bourgeois modernity plays a unique role. It becomes the benchmark in relation to which the subject cultures of both organised modernity and postmodernity articulate themselves: “After an erosion of the hegemonic bourgeois subjectivity at the beginning of the 20 th century, the subject culture of the organisation man and subsequently that of postmodernity position themselves in a double negativepositive relation to the bourgeois [subject culture]”(HS 108). As such, it neither presents a “self-contained [...], pre-history of modernity” (and 20 th century modernism) nor a universal foundation for all of modern culture (HS 108). Instead it provides a set of discourses and practices that subsequent subject cultures utilize in the articulation of their respective ideal subject forms, either through a transfer of meaning or differentiation. Since bourgeois subject culture thus provides a blueprint for the social fields and practices constitutive in the formulation of a subject culture, the following section on bourgeois subject culture is more detailed than the subsequent ones. 1 Bourgeois Modernity and Romanticism According to Reckwitz, the first truly modern subject to emerge is that of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois subject develops in opposition to the two main constituents of pre-industrial society: the socially and culturally dominant <?page no="33"?> Subject Cultures: Chronology and Sequence 25 agrarian-religious practices of a folk culture and the minor, but still hegemonic form of an aristocratic subject (cf. HS 97). Bourgeois subject culture articulates the first “new human” through the emergence of new cultural practices of work and economy; family and friend relationships; as well as an autodidactic literacy (HS 97). It is in these three areas that new practices bring about and then in turn depend on a “genuinely bourgeois subject” (HS 103). The subject order of the bourgeoisie primarily draws upon two codes, morality and self-regulation, which are juxtaposed with the aristocratic subject’s characterization as amoral and prone to excesses (cf. HS 109). However, there are a number of other codes, such as authenticity and utility (vis-à-vis artificiality and uselessness), that also play an important role in constructing the bourgeois ego-ideal. Reckwitz juxtaposes the idealised bourgeois subject codes with those corresponding to the anti-subject, and further splits bourgeois subject culture into two phases: the first encompasses the 18 th century, the second the 19 th . He thus presents the following schemata: - The 18 th -century anti-subjects are the aristocratic subject (characterized as amoral, excessive, artificial, and parasitical) and the folk subject (whose main defining characteristic is its dependent status). - The 19 th -century anti-subjects are the proletarian and colonial subjects (characterized as primitive) as well as the countercultural subject model of a radically aesthetic subject culture. Hence, the idealized self of the bourgeois subject culture exhibits these subject codes: morality, moderation, a ‘natural’ authenticity, utility, self-governance, respectability, and culturedness (cf. HS 203, 273). These codes inform the various social fields and their respective practices, which will be explained in the following. Reckwitz stipulates that the bourgeois subject is primarily an “occupational subject” (HS 109). Its physical and mental dispositions are born out of work practices and its self-hermeneutics are shaped by the pervasive discourse on a ‘natural’ human need for industry and the importance of having a useful profession (cf. HS 109). The bourgeois subject draws upon its occupational identity to reassure itself of its sovereignty, self-reliance, moral discipline, and a complete subjectivity. Bourgeois subjectivity thus means conformity of body and mind, to model one’s affective emotions and values so that one can ‘professionally’ participate in and contribute to particular occupational activities (cf. HS 109). The bourgeois occupational field is, at least initially, not uniform and includes the discourses and practices of three distinct areas: 1. Economic activities of the business and merchant bourgeoisie; 2. The routines of the professional occupations (for example in the fields of medicine and law); and 3. The occupations of the academic, civil servant, middle-class intellectuals (especially in continental Europe) (cf. HS 109). The transformation of the previously <?page no="34"?> Nora Kuster 26 marginalized cultural practices of work 2 into a dominant aspect of bourgeois subject culture is concurrent with socio-historical processes that includes the emergent social dominance of a market economy; the process of nationalization; the development of an absolutist-cameralistic state; and the extensive discourse of the enlightenment that presents work as the signum of knowledge and utility (cf. HS 110). The second complex of social practices that inform bourgeois subject culture hinge on the concept of intimacy as a space for personal and private relationships (cf. HS 134). The bourgeois subject conceives of itself as an “intimacy subject, which means that it develops specific abilities, horizons of meaning, as well as structures of affect and desire that allow it to participate (and also be subject to) specific practices of intimacy” (HS 134). Furthermore, the bourgeois subject’s self-hermeneutics only allow it to experience a fullyfledged, legitimate and ‘natural’ existence through the participation in these specifically coded affective relationships (cf. HS 134). Once again, these emergent discourses and practices are positioned in opposition to those of the aristocratic Other. In this context, one specific aspect through which the bourgeois subject articulates its difference to the aristocratic subject culture is the concept of private and public spheres, particular in relation to family structures. Relationships between marital partners as well as between parents and children are now coded as ‘private’ (cf. HS 135); moreover, marriage is no longer considered a partnership of economic convenience (and/ or political interests) but rather reconfigured as one of companionship (cf. HS 136). This transformation is influenced by Protestant ideas that, in opposition to Catholicism’s celebration of celibacy, envision marriage as a moral institution, as a sphere of “mutual society, help and comfort, that the one ought to have for the other” (Archbishop Cramer qtd. in HS 136). As such companionship, or friendship, becomes the key code for the practices of bourgeois relationships, whether they are between friends, marital partners, or parents and children (cf. HS 136). The bourgeois subject applies a number of dispositions in its formation as an ‘intimacy subject’. In addition to the ability to converse about general topics in an argumentative-entertaining manner (what today might be called ‘small talk’), the bourgeois subject also develops its self-analytic, psychological-empathic abilities (cf. HS 138). Key to this development is the emergent psychologization of the subject. This new discourse of psychology conceptualizes the subject as an “entity with an ‘inner world’, with a ‘character’, a ‘personality’, [as well as] with ‘motives’, ‘opinions’, [and] ‘feelings’” (HS 139). Correspondingly, the subject develops and cultivates introspective processes 2 Cf. HS 110: “In early modern society, which is dominated by the aristocracy, it is not the ‘not-working’, but work that prevents the development of the contemporary ideal subject form.” <?page no="35"?> Subject Cultures: Chronology and Sequence 27 through which it seeks to discover and decode its inner characteristics with the aim to share these with its friends and family (cf. HS 139). A ‘technology’ central to this process of communication is the writing of letters. In the medium of an intimate, private scribality intersubjective self-psychologization finds a home; a necessary tool for “not just the iteration of but also the initiation of friendships” (HS 139). This ‘literary’ technology of the self (cf. HS 155) lies at the heart of the complex of specific technologies of the self that form and inform the modern, bourgeois subject. They play a key role in the subject’s emerging inward orientation. 3 The practice of reading does not only include the content and structure of a text. Rather “the way the bourgeois subject reads, [that is] the type of activities it performs physically, cognitively, and affectively when it reads, constitutes its subject-forming shape” (HS 158). Additionally, the self engages in a dual subject position as both reader and writer. The subject is “never just receptive reader, but principally always also ‘author’, at least of letters and personal diaries” (HS 167). Through writing and reading the subject engages with the difficulty of leading a moral and a purpose-filled life-style; particularly the practice of diary, or self-reflective, writing is a “proto-typical bourgeois practice of the self” that focuses on the moral, cognitive, and emotional facets of the subject’s inner world (HS 167). However, the writing also records the outer ‘profane’ world in all its minutiae, hence chronicling both the temporal sequences of actions and events as well as the experience of physical and ‘inner’ stirrings (cf. HS 168). Furthermore, it instils a sense of sequentially and linearity of one’s lifetime, which links to the (illusory) notion that actions and reflection follow a linear (and hence predictable) pattern. This cumulative “Book of the Self” prompts the subject to reflect upon its history and longterm development, “implanting in the subject an autobiographic self-consciousness” (HS 169). Ultimately, the process of keeping a diary calls upon the subject to routinely compare the standard for an accepted moral subjectivity with its actual, current state. Ideally, s/ he will be able to “compose an individual narrative of progress in which the actual self and the idealized self gradually converge” (HS 170). 3 Cf. HS 156: “In der körperlichen Motorik und der Aufmerksamkeit des Geistes moderiert und fokussiert, bilden sich Elemente einer kognitiven und emotionalen, zum Teil auch imaginativen ‘Innenwelt’ heraus: über den Weg der Reflexion - etwa über biografische Möglichkeiten und moralische Dilemmata -, der Selbstbeobachtung und des emotional sensibilisierten inneren Erlebens. Als zentral für den subjektbildenden Effekt bürgerlicher Lektüre stellen sich solche Texte dar, die lebenspraktische Exemplarität beanspruchen und einen Sinn für biografische Temporalität und die subjektive Zurechenbarkeit von Entscheidungen heranziehen: Autobiografien, Biografien und bürgerliche Romane.“ <?page no="36"?> Nora Kuster 28 Even though bourgeois subject culture claims to consist of a homogenous cluster of dispositions and codes, it is beset by frictions and tensions that result from to the codes’ multi-varied origins. This inherent contradictory structure provides a vital impetus for the culture’s constant drive for self-improvement (cf. HS 196). The fissures become visible in regard to the practices within the individual social fields. Particularly in the contradiction between a methodical-rational and an empathic-sensibilitised subjectification; the tension between the presupposition of a closed, balanced, controlled, and restrained world and the uncontrollable, risky ‘Other’ which the bourgeois practice/ discourse formation itself produces; and [finally] the friction between the systemized practice of introspection and the inhibition of a sense of individuality, which [ironically] is a result of said introspection. (HS 196f.) These contradictions are the result of “the superposition of a subjectification based upon moral integrity and a subjectification based upon sovereign self-government” (HS 197). What ensues is a conflict produced by the latent contradiction between the focus on utility and temperateness promoted by bourgeois morality, and a focus on subjective self-dynamization promoted by bourgeois self-government (cf. HS 197). While the former contributes to a stabilization of boundaries, the latter promotes their transgression (cf. HS 197). This inherent tension provides the basis for specific antagonisms that primarily manifest themselves in these three fields: economic speculation (and consumption), the investment of friendship/ love with emotion, and a cognitive-aesthetic reflexivity (cf. HS 197). All three aspects find expression in the model of subjectivity that the first countercultural movement produces: the Romantic subject. Reckwitz situates Romanticism as a cultural movement that seeks to counter the bourgeois subject’s attempt to install itself as the prototypical modern subject by promoting an alternative type of subjectivity (cf. HS 105). The Romantic subject, which focuses on aesthetic individuality, arises out of the previously outlined frictions and fissures of bourgeois subjectivity, and develops in the time period from the 1790s to the 1830s (cf. HS 205). Reckwitz stresses that the Romantic subject is, like the bourgeois subject, a modern subject form. In fact, for him the two forms lay the foundation for the two competing models of subjectivity - a moral, order-oriented one versus an aesthetic-expressive one - that continue to inform the development of subject cultures leading up to the present day. 4 4 Cf. HS 106: “Stattdessen stellt sich [...] heraus, dass die Romantik den Diskursraum für eine andere Form moderner Subjektivität bietet, die das Subjekt als eine im weitesten Sinne ästhetische, emphatisch individualitätsorientierte und expressive Instanz modelliert - ein Modell, das seinerseits sich zu naturalisieren versucht. Das bürgerliche und das romantische Subjekt stellen sich als zwei opponierende Modelle eines emphatisch ‘modernen’ Subjekts dar (wobei die Romantik selbst an die ‘riskanten’ Elemente des Bürgerlichen anschließt und sie in sich verarbeitet), die beide für die agonale Entwicklung von <?page no="37"?> Subject Cultures: Chronology and Sequence 29 The key characteristics of the Romantic subject can best be outlined by juxtaposing it with those of the bourgeois subject: While the bourgeois subject is shaped by a moral code, the Romantic subject is formed by an aesthetic one: The aim is a sensitization and multiplication of its perceptive and experiential abilities; the romantic subject counters morality and rationality of action with the aesthetics of experience as a genuinely modern subject structure. This ‘different’ version of a radically modern subject culture brings about specific practice formations: romantic love instead of the bourgeois marriage of intellectual equals, artistic originality instead of bourgeois work, and finally practices of the self that aim towards increasing inner sensibility such as the experience of nature or the reception of music. (HS 107) Even though Romanticism challenges the hegemony of bourgeois subject culture, it is unsuccessful in the long-term. It does not bring about a complete and lasting subject transformation, but only influences the subject form in specific ways: in the areas of intimate relationships, gender relations, and the reception of music. Additionally, a number of shifts take place in the practice/ discourse formations of bourgeois subject culture, which are particularly noticeable in the re-formulation of the anti-subject. The inward differentiation between the moral and the excessive subject is transmuted into an outward differentiation between the respectable/ civilized white self and the non-white primitive subject. Consequently, the cultural ‘Other’ switches from the aristocratic subject to the proletarian and colonial (cf. HS 107). 5 Finally, a bifurcation of the fields of work and intimate relationships takes place, which establishes a moral, rational-empathic subject that is determined by a separation of spheres based upon a gender-differentiation (cf. HS 107, 273). On the one hand, masculinity is linked with the public sphere, the emerging market economy, and practices of work which are now divorced from the regulating bourgeois code of morality. On the other hand, femininity is bound to the private sphere, the only place now deemed appropriate for intimate relationships. 6 More importantly, what develops is a bourgeois ‘double-life’ as the economic, public sphere increasingly divorces itself from the moral subject code, and the private, interpersonal sphere becomes increasingly romanticized Subjektkulturen bis zur Gegenwart konkurrierende Sinngrundlagen bereitstellen: eine moralische, ordnungsorientierte und eine ästhetisch-expressive Subjektcodierung.” 5 For a discussion of how the construction of (non-)whiteness and class intersects, cf. Dyer and also Sarah Heinz’ article on late Victorian subjectivities in this volume. 6 Cf. HS 107: “Die Entmoralisierung und Ökonomisierung der Praktiken der Arbeit steht im Gegensatz zu einer Romantisierung und Verhäuslichung der Intimbeziehungen. Diese Sphärendifferenzierung ist gekoppelt an eine dezidierte Vergeschlechtigung der Subjekte: Die Instituierung eines Geschlechterdualismus zwischen männlich-aktiven und weiblich-passiven Subjekten transponiert die Felddifferenz zwischen Arbeit und Privatsphäre in die Dispositionsstruktur der Subjekte.“ <?page no="38"?> Nora Kuster 30 while also developing practices for controlling and regulating its sexual elements. Thus, on the one side a delimitation takes place, allowing the masculine, public bourgeois subject to transgress previously established boundaries, while on the other side the female, private bourgeois subject becomes the locus of maintaining order and morality in the home, and on a grander scale society (cf. HS 267, 268). Temporarily 7 , Reckwitz explains, the dualism of public/ private spheres paired with the establishment of gendered characteristics and a focus on the subject code of “morality as respectability” (HS 268) achieves a precarious balance for the post-enlightenment bourgeois subject of the 19 th century (cf. HS 268f.). Nonetheless, instable frictions hide behind the [naturalized and seemingly stable] division of labour, [which includes] different bourgeois practice spheres and the corresponding differing subject positions that the bourgeois - male and female - subject is exposed to, resulting at the end of the 19 th century in a new and final crisis of bourgeois subject culture. The aesthetic and life-reforming avantgarde movements supply answers to this cultural crisis; while the socialist movement provides a political answer. (HS 269) Aesthetic modernism formulates a critique of the gender bifurcation and the resulting bourgeois artificiality through the articulation of an alternative, antibourgeois subject model (cf. HS 274). The transformation of the bourgeois subject culture into that of organised modernity, as well as the countercultural, avant-garde subject will be discussed in the next section. 2 Organised Modernity and Aesthetic Modernism The destabilization and delegitimisation of the bourgeois subject at the beginning of the 20 th century is advanced by three developments: 1. structural changes to the material-technological culture; 2. new humanistic discourses that propagate codes of the ‘technological’ and the ‘social’; and 3. a conglomeration of radical, socio-cultural, aesthetic countermovements that emerge in the context of the modernist avant-garde (cf. HS 275). The main effect of the new material culture is a reconfiguration and re-structuring of space and time (cf. HS 277). Linked to this reconfiguration are changes in social practices that pertain to forms of collectivity and of visual culture (cf. HS 278). As Reckwitz explains, “the established bourgeois culture of scribality” (and its inherent scepticism towards visuality) is “confronted with an offensive, urban medial culture of technologically-reproduced visualization” (HS 279). Hence, the 7 Cf. HS 269. Reckwitz references British and American Victorianism, the French ‘juste milieu’, and the German ’Gründerzeit’, which provides a time frame of the 1830s-1870s (1900 in the Anglo-American context) for this temporary balance. <?page no="39"?> Subject Cultures: Chronology and Sequence 31 bourgeois subject accustomed to establishing its sovereignty in “non-anonymous, face-to-face communication with peers or through the medium of the written word, is confronted with the need for a new subject form that knows how to deal with semiand anonymous social collectives” (HS 279). The avant-garde movements are the first to articulate an alternative subject form; however, similar to the Romantic subject, the modern or ‘transgressive subject’ (1890-1930) only ever constitutes a minor, countercultural subject. Its defining characteristics are the practice of perpetual transgression of boundaries and its understanding of modernity as a process of constant change (cf. HS 280). This aesthetic subject model is later partially appropriated by the dominant subject form of organised modernity, and then more extensively by postmodern society (cf. HS 281). For the dominant subject form of organised modernity, Reckwitz borrows the term “das Angestelltensubjekt” from Siegfried Kracauer, translating it as “organisation man” (HS 282): Organisation man […] presents himself as the hegemonic social character of Western culture, whose prototype can be found in the United States between the 1920s and 1960s: the culture of organised modernity is a culture of ‘Americanism’. (HS 283) 8 The dominant subject form of organised modernity assimilates and transmutes, but also differentiates itself against subject codes from both bourgeois and avant-garde subjects. The idealized organisation man subject subscribes to the prevailing standard of normality and is hence guided by peer-orientation. Social adjustment and impression management are key attributes of this subject form, whose extroverted sociability is articulated in opposition to the bourgeois subject code of introverted morality (which is now read as rigidity) and self-governance (which is typecast as individual irregularity). The importance of being ‘normal’ or the drive to conform to standards of normality is also in direct differentiation to the transgressive tendencies of the avantgarde subject (now characterized as eccentrically narcissistic) (cf. HS 440). Reckwitz postulates that the subject order of organised modernity originates in the USA in the 1920s and expands synchronically in the three practice or discourse complexes (cf. HS 286). In the occupational field, practices are reconfigured according to a socio-technical code: Work becomes the object of efficient inter-subjective as well as inter-objective coordination and its ideal subject form is the ‘manager-engineer’, who coordinates both people and objects. The post-bourgeois occupational subject in its 8 Reckwitz uses the term “Amerikanismus“ as a historio-cultural concept that encompasses the configuration of what he calls a “new objectivity“ (HS 283) and the culture of the organisation man. <?page no="40"?> Nora Kuster 32 incarnation as ‘organization man’ trains itself via social adjustment to [conform] to the social collective, while also engaging in a ‘personality salesmanship’ that adheres to the [enforced] hierarchies. (HS 286f.) The socio-technical code arises out of the technical code that develops in the late 19 th century initially in regard to the US railroad, as well as the fields of general, electric, and chemical engineering, until at the beginning of the 20 th century automobile production becomes the most innovative area (cf. HS 358). The technical code utilizes a systemic vocabulary to describe machines as systems assembled out of exchangeable parts (cf. HS 339). Initially, it is neither a social nor a subject code. This changes once it is applied to the field of organisational management: The code of technology is […] grafted from the object world of machines onto the subject-subject and subject-object relationships, [specifically those that are instrumental to the development of] work practices that relate to mass production and mass-distribution of goods. (HS 340) The efficiency of the ‘normalized’ work subject takes centre stage (cf. HS 342). By linking the technical code to a model of sociability, the efficiency of an individual subject’s work processes (and performance) are now conceptualized as depending upon successful inter-subjective cooperation (cf. HS 342). The interpersonal relationships of the new upper social classes transform into a post-bourgeois ‘peer society’ which Reckwitz defines as “informal, casual relationships amongst equals, which are also recreational relationships” (HS 287). He names extroversion as the defining characteristic of the intimate subject: the creation of an extroverted, socially adept personality is a key requirement for the successful engagement with and incorporation into the structure of personal relationships (cf. HS 360). The concept of marriage also changes to accommodate peer society. In contrast to the late-bourgeois separation of social spheres, a “partnership of equals” becomes the ideal model also mirrored by the coeducational form leisure activities take in this peer society (cf. HS 365). Another break with the intimate subject codes of bourgeois subject culture is the normalization of sexuality, especially in regard to the female subject. The corresponding sexualization of the subject takes place in two areas: 1. The intimate subject becomes an object of study for the psychosocial discourses that seek to counsel and advise, which results in sexuality advancing to an essential and legitimate aspect of marriage; and 2. visual culture, especially since the 1950s, propagates images of physically idealized female (but also male) subjects that are invested with an aesthetic eroticism (cf. HS 369). The third complex, the ‘practices of the self’, also experiences a fundamental shift. Reckwitz highlights the way that two new complexes of self-referential activities emerge, which foster a different habitus: the routinized consumption of audio-visual materials (especially film and television) and the <?page no="41"?> Subject Cultures: Chronology and Sequence 33 practices of consumption, which means the activities linked to the selection and utilization of goods for the purpose of identity creation (cf. HS 381). The practices of audio-visual culture train the subject in establishing an (idealized) subjectivity through outwardly oriented “performances” (HS 382). As Reckwitz points out, the technologies of the self now centre on diversion (advanced and propagated by the emergent audio-visual media) and replace the hegemony of introverted scribality that informed bourgeois subjectivity (cf. HS 382). Indeed, he postulates that the use of and participation in the electronic reproducible visual culture is perceived to be the hallmark of “modernity”; furthermore, through its use of audio-visual media the post-bourgeois subject practices the art of “extroversion, diversion, flexible informality and social interaction”, while the bourgeois subject is understood negatively as “introverted, formal [...], inflexible, and antisocial” (HS 384). The technologies of the self hence are a key area in which the subject of organised modernity differentiates itself from the bourgeois subject. Organisation man is a consumer subject; consuming becomes a means of self-gratification and is conceptualized as a way of constructing one’s identity (cf. HS 398): “The aesthetic enjoyment of consumer goods constitutes the enjoyment of the self, which is formed by creating emotional ties to the object of consumption. Thus, the post-bourgeois practices of consumption develop into technologies of the self” (HS 399). Consumerism becomes a lifestyle adopted by the newly emerged peer society (cf. HS 405). This peer society plays a vital role in an individual’s choice of consumer goods. An individual subject’s aesthetic enjoyment of an object alone is not enough for it to be deemed worthy - it must also foster the subject’s social acceptability as well as attractivity by demonstrating the subject’s successful conformity to the subject ideal (cf. HS 405-07). The subject achieves this through a process of “self-stylisation”: “The consumer culture of organised modernity trains its subject to utilize consumer goods in order to achieve a socially recognized, personal perfection that primarily ensures social attractivity, and on a secondary level allows the subject to relish the aesthetics of its perfect performance” (HS 407). Reckwitz uses Jackson Lears’ term “perfectionist ideal of personal efficiency” (HS 407) to describe the main, guiding principle of this post-bourgeois consumer culture. He explains that this principle entails the presentation of one’s self as the “ideal surface, which conforms to standards of social normality and thus secures social success” (HS 407). As Reckwitz emphasizes, there are two codes that inform this consumer culture and hence the technologies of the self. On the one hand, consumption is coded as normalizing: by purchasing objects for the home or individual use, the subject can work towards achieving the social standard of perfection and the ideal subject form. On the other hand, consumption is also coded as aestheticizing: the perfect form becomes the aesthetic ideal. Reckwitz states that in organised modernity there is only one, <?page no="42"?> Nora Kuster 34 normalised, and aestheticized style; the subject is called upon to exemplify this style, to be both perfectly and aesthetically normalized (cf. HS 408). However, this double-code is instable, since there is a conflict between the individual subject’s desire for unbridled, hedonistic consumption and the requirement of its peer group to tailor its consumption to the standards of social normality (cf. HS 408). Reckwitz explicates that the culture’s imperative for a subject to desire consumer goods as well as formulate an aesthetically-stylized self clashes with the demand that consumption be reigned in according to the social norms of the peer group. It is this intrinsic contradiction that leads to the articulation of the postmodern countercultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s (cf. HS 409). The ‘counterculture’ develops a subject model that allows for the semiotic investment of visual surfaces and a subjective self-stylization while rejecting the anti-excessive standards of social normativity prevalent in the subject culture of organised modernity (cf. HS 409). Furthermore, the countercultural subject utilizes the Romantic code of self-expression and the avant-garde code of transgression to articulate an idealized subject form that is engaged in a creative expansion of the pleasure principle. This process takes the form of a search for authenticity and “expansion of the self through gratifying experiences”(HS 443), which are distanced from social expectations of normalcy (cf. HS 441f.). The countercultural subject rejects the rigid structure and social surveillance of post-bourgeois subject culture, which is seen as supressing the subject’s attempts of authentic self-expression and self-discovery (cf. HS 443). It envisions itself as a ‘post-modern’ subject that “transcends the rationalism of modernity, [and] experiments with the sensitization of its sensual and corporeal perception as well as its emotions; with creative activities; with effervescent group experiences; and with the stylization of the self”(HS 443). The counterculture subject does not limit itself to intellectual and artistic codes; instead, it creates corresponding practices that include the “effervescent experience” of rock and pop music, the consumption of mind-enhancing drugs, the resort to far eastern meditation techniques, the delimitation of sexual practices, as well as the creation of “creative communities” (HS 443). The countercultural movement is vital to the formulation of a postmodern subject culture, since it transcends (contrary to the previous, Romantic and avant-garde countercultural movements) the societal fringe of the artistic circle, advocating the aestheticisation of the subject by means of politicisation (cf. HS 442). In conjunction with the transformation of material culture as well as the humanistic discourses, it facilitates the emergence of the postmodern subject culture. Reckwitz emphasises that the ‘post-modernist’ counterculture subject and the ‘postmodern’ hegemonic subject are two separate subject forms (cf. HS 444). He utilises the distinction of ‘modernist’ versus ‘modern’ as an analogy for the distinction between the post-modernist counterculture (1960s/ 70s) and the emergence of a hegemonic postmodern subject culture in the 1980s (cf. HS 444). As Elisabeth Maubach discusses postmodern subject <?page no="43"?> Subject Cultures: Chronology and Sequence 35 culture in greater detail in the next chapter “On Postmodern Subjectivity in its Double Form of the Creative Consumer”, I will only briefly outline key components of the transformation from the post-bourgeois to the post-bureaucratic subject culture in the following section. 3 Post-Modernity In the last third of the 20 th century, a new, hegemonic subject culture arises, the “creative-consumptory subject”, which “crosses the work sphere, the intimate sphere, and the technologies of the self, to formulate specific aestheticexpressive and economic-market oriented dispositions”(HS 442). Reckwitz relates this transformation to a number of social and cultural developments, most notably the emergence of a neo-liberal management discourse; the new articulation (and stipulation) that work is to function as a creative outlet; the new material culture of the digital revolution; as well as a modification of consumer culture that now emphasises individualised aesthetics versus aesthetic normalism (cf. HS 501). These shifts in social practices prompt a reformulation of the hegemonic subject form’s dispositions and codes, which then leads to the delegitimization of the organisation man subject, whose focus on the socio-technical code and aesthetics of the perfect form is rejected (cf. HS 442). Reckwitz presents his theory of postmodern subject culture as distinct from those of known theorists such as Anthony Giddens, Peter Gross, and Ulrich Beck. Indeed, he takes great care to outline the key points of his analytic model of the transition to postmodern subject culture. For one, he distances his approach from that of one of mere causality where the material transformations of the late 20 th century lead to a transformation of society and hence models of subjectivity. As he explains, the transition from organised modernity to post-modernity can neither be simply reduced to material factors, such as the digital revolution and a “post-Fordist accumulation regime”, nor can it be explained as a process of liberation, which releases individuals from the shackles of socio-cultural norms (HS 448). Instead, “a shift of the cultural criteria for subjectivity itself occurs” (HS 448). 9 Reckwitz also rejects theories that highlight the increasing pluralisation and radical individualisation of life styles and subject forms. According to him, “postmodern culture is based on one culturally hegemonic subject model”, whose central disposition demands that it can (and will) develop a unique individuality that is composed of multifarious, style registers (HS 448). This postmodern subject form is tied to a very specific socio-economic class, that of the urban, upper-middle class, which he calls the “creative class” (HS 449). 9 Reckwitz defines this shift as historical and stresses that the process serves to erase the historicity and contingency of the criteria themselves. <?page no="44"?> Nora Kuster 36 The postmodern subject does not constitute a break with modernity, nor is it just a continuation or heightening of modern potentialities: “Instead, a new subject form crystalizes that incorporates specific elements from modern codes reservoirs - especially from the sequence of aesthetic countercultures, but also from bourgeois culture - and hybridly rearranges them” (HS 449). It incorporates and adapts a. the expressivity and transgressive nature of the aesthetic countercultures. b. the code of self-reliance and self-government of bourgeois subjectivity. c. the aesthetics of attractiveness from organisation man subject culture. It differentiates itself from a. social normalism and conformity, instead focusing on creativity, expressivity, and the satisfaction and multiplication of desire. b. the inertia of a passive subject, instead privileging an entrepreneurial subject who successfully navigates in a multi-optional society and constantly reinvents itself to fit the demands of the labour market (cf. HS 629, 500). The idealized subject takes the form of a both complementary and competing constellation. It is governed by aesthetic and economic codes - in the broadest sense - requiring the subject to incorporate both the ideal of the artist and the ideal of a flexible market economy (cf. HS 450). The former is enshrined in the codes of creativity and expressivity, the latter in the codes of optionality and eligibility. How these codes find expression in the three main social fields is outlined below. One of the most important structural changes of the occupational field is the reformulation of work from a division of labour into a project-based and team-oriented format. Occupational subjects are grouped together in modularised teams, to fulfil intersubjective tasks in a timely matter, which as a whole constitute the final product (cf. HS 509). The processes of routinized mass production are replaced with a model of “flexible specialisation”(HS 510). This also exemplifies the way an occupational subject has to re-model and re-shape itself to fit the demands of the market economy. The individual subject needs to be specialised, however this specialisation can also change when demands dictate it (cf. HS 511). The codes of optionality and eligibility play an important role here. The subject needs to tailor its individualised selfstylisation to maximise the options it can choose from and its eligibility for them. Accordingly, the post-bureaucratic subject is guided by “a semiotic of innovative fluidity” (HS 508) and is flexible in regard to the location of its home and/ or work place. The differential schemata of flexibility versus rigidity instructs and permeates all work practices, leading to a rejection of the <?page no="45"?> Subject Cultures: Chronology and Sequence 37 ‘rigid’ work culture in organised modernity as “militaristic” and as perpetuating “a closed logic of hierarchical, anti-innovation control”(HS 507, 508). The creative-entrepreneurial subject hence differentiates itself from the postbourgeois subject form of the organisation man, which becomes the anti-subject (cf. HS 500). The creative subject also distinguishes itself from the organisation man through its striving for “inner growth” (HS 500). Creative labour is seen as conducive for such self-growth. Intimate relationships are also reconceptualised in terms of expressivity and optionality. Both “partnerships as well as […] friendships are expected to provide reciprocal quasi-aesthetic experiences that foster self-growth”, while being subject to the dogma of choice that envisions “partnerships as temporary, at any moment cancellable, projects”(HS 450). Interpersonal relationships are reconfigured as the means, as well as condition and supportive backdrop for the expressive experientiality of the subject (cf. HS 527). Their function is redefined: relationships must be satisfying for the individual subject, fulfilling its needs and maximising the potential for individualised experiences that further its development. Thus, one of the codes of postmodern intimacy is the continuous search for new experiences and authentic, unique moments of intimacy. The focus is on achieving self-growth, while avoiding co-dependency in relationships. The third main social field, the technologies of the self, is informed by digital practices related to the use of computer technology, individualised aesthetic consumerism, and body-oriented practices that aim to create somatic experiences and aesthetically stylise the body. The relationship to the postbourgeois technologies of the self is ambiguous (cf. HS 555). On the one hand, audio-visual media as well as the routinized consumption thereof are a vital precursor for postmodern subject culture. Post-bourgeois subject culture articulates, in opposition to bourgeois subject culture, the consumption of attractive surfaces, replacing the bourgeois culture of scribality (cf. HS 555). On the other hand, postmodern subject culture rejects the normalism of the postbourgeois subject culture, which leads to privileging of the aesthetic experience (cf. HS 556). What this means is that the postmodern subject deals with diverse representations and perceptions in an open-ended and flexible manner. Reckwitz calls it a “flow-subject”, whose sole purpose it is to immerse itself in the physio-mental state of an “optimal experience” (HS 556). This idealized subject form is juxtaposed with the anti-subject that is “conventional”, (HS 556) and adheres to social, moral, and technological rules, which furthermore lacks the affinity for pleasure as well as the ability to stylise and express itself (cf. HS 556f.). Reckwitz remarks that even though the dispositions discussed above are acquired in the field of the technologies of the self, they are postmodern subject characteristics that find application across all social fields (cf. HS 557). <?page no="46"?> Nora Kuster 38 It is this hybridity and intersectionality that renders Reckwitz’ theory of post/ modern subject cultures a compelling and useful tool for literary analysis that nonetheless leaves room for additional theoretical expansion. Reckwitz points out that already there are breaks and fissures visible in the hegemonic postmodern subject culture, possibly heralding the advent of the next countercultural movement and/ or subject culture. These fissures are discussed in the ensuing chapter on the creative consumer. *** Nora Kuster teaches British literature at Washington State University Tri-Cities in Richland, WA. She received her PhD in English Literature from Washington State University in 2009 and specializes in 20 th -century British literature. She is particularly interested in representations of the city in literature as well as discourses on nature and the environment in literature. Her past research has focused on gender and modernist literature, specifically the way that women writers represent urban green spaces as heterotopic sites in their writing. Presently she is working on a book-length study focused on discourses of survival in British literature from the 19 th to the late 20 th century. Bibliography Butter, Stella. “Contingency, Forms of Life, and Fiction: The Role(s) of Literature in the Process of Modernization.” Emergent Forms of Life in Anglophone Literature: Conceptual Frameworks and Critical Analyses. Eds. Michael Basseler, Daniel Hartley and Ansgar Nünning. Trier: WVT, 2015, 119-39. Print. Dyer, Richard. White. London/ New York: Routledge, 1997. Print. Reckwitz, Andreas. Das hybride Subjekt: Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. 2 nd ed. Weilerswist: Velbrück, 2012. Print. <?page no="47"?> Elisabeth S. Maubach “Smiling Girls and Rosy Boys, Come and Buy my Little Toys”: On Postmodern Subjectivity in its Double Form of the Creative Consumer The quote from David Bowie’s 1967 song “Come and Buy my Toys” in this article’s title already hints at a number of topics related to the dominant subject culture in post-modernity: an orientation towards happiness and fun, the tie between expression and consumption in the idea of lifestyle as well as the concept of a ludic approach towards subjectivity. While much ink has been spilt on postmodern subjectivity and its focus on creativity, the question still remains, the sociologist Andreas Reckwitz insists, why creativity has become the privileged paradigm in “European-North American culture” (HS 30), given that leading theorists of modernity, such as Adorno, Elias, or Foucault, stress processes of rationalisation and the disciplination of the subject as key developments in modernity (cf. CSM 1). Reckwitz addresses this pressing question through his “[a]rcheology of the [c]ultural [c]onstruction of [c]reativity” (CSM) and his precise analysis of attributes and practices of what he calls creative consumer subjectivity. The aim of this chapter is to provide a short and compact summary of Reckwitz’ main ideas. Adopting Reckwitz’ line of argument, I will first look at counterculture’s influence on the formation and rise of the creative consumer subject. This will be followed by an assessment of the entanglement of aesthetic and economic codes, of how this has shaped today’s ideas of work, lifestyle, and collectivity, and of the resulting leitmotifs of postmodern subjectivity. Furthermore, there will be an examination of how these developments are linked to a changing focus in the discipline of psychology, how they are enforced by the mass media with its star system, and how these developments affect the perception and planning of cities. I will then survey how the factors mentioned above form a postmodern culture of intimacy and personal relationships before finally taking a look at the imminent fissures of creative consumer subjectivity. The adaptation of this sociological theory for literary studies offers a valuable impetus for analysing fictional characters and the way in which literature gauges the relationship between individuality and subjectivity. 1 Such an approach stumps our noses back into the nitty gritty of the characters we are 1 For a discussion of the relationship between ‘the subject’ and ‘the individual’ in Reckwitz’ theory, see the articles by Maurus Roller and Stefan Glomb in the theoretical part of this volume. Roller and Glomb differ in their readings of Reckwitz. <?page no="48"?> Elisabeth S. Maubach 40 aiming to understand, offering a way out of the dilemma of the famous postmodern absence of any kind of determinable meaning. Like all cultures of subjectivity, the culture of the creative consumer subject is hybrid. Yet, this one is a hybrid in multiple ways: not only is it based - as the term suggests - on an entanglement of a comprehensive social process of aestheticisation with a no less comprehensive economisation (cf. CSM); it is also the palimpsestic product of a complex web of dissociation from, resignification and inclusion of elements from preceding cultures of subjectivity. “Postmodernism, then, is not a mere process of socio-cultural liberation or fragmentation, but must be understood as a change of the leading cultural codes and their social practices” (HS 588). 2 In other words: our culture is not getting either better or worse according to Reckwitz, it is simply changing. The break between the ‘organisation man’ and the creative consumer subject is rooted in the counterculture of the 1960s and 70s. This is also the time when art starts to explode its boundaries: the ‘artist’ as a social figure is demystified, no longer either elated genius or pathological anti-subject (cf. EK 81-95); furthermore the differentiation between art and craftsmanship as well as art and industrial technology becomes blurred (cf. EK 104); and - possibly most importantly - the recipient of art is re-conceptualised as an active part in the process of creation and creativity (cf. EK 107-09). Subjectivity in counterculture is constructed according to a code founded on the leitmotifs of a basic yet open and undefined desire, on the pleasure principle (naturally) active within the subject and the idea of play and a ludic relation between subject and world (cf. HS 459). 3 The renegotiation of values in the wake of changing cultures of subjectivity is tied to strategies of denaturalising and naturalising. Those aspects excluded from creative consumer subjectivity are denaturalised while what is valued as constitutive of the self, such as the wish to express oneself or the faculty for creativity, is coded as ‘natural’. Within counterculture there is a strong preference for experiences that break with routine, explore the liminal, and expand the subject’s perception. This lays the grounds for the paradigm of sensual emotionality, which becomes one of the leading ideals of creative consumer subjectivity. Such a paradigm makes it imperative for the subject to train its faculties of perceiving and seeking out aesthetic impressions and experiences and of processing the emotional effects and affects these experiences produce. 2 “Die ‘Postmoderne’ ist nicht als bloßer Prozess der sozial-kulturellen Freisetzung oder Fragmentierung, sondern als Wechsel der kulturellen Leitcodes und ihrer sozialen Praktiken zu verstehen.” 3 “Das gegenkulturelle Subjekt konstruiert sich vor dem Hintergrund eines Codes, der sich um die Leitvorstellungen eines grundlegenden, aber inhaltlich offenen Begehrens, eines Lustprinzip im Innern des Subjekts und der Struktur eines ‘Spiels’ im Verhältnis des Subjekts zur Welt gruppiert.” (HS 459f.) <?page no="49"?> Postmodern Subjectivity in its Double Form of the Creative Consumer 41 The expansion of the aesthetic beyond the artistic field is also driven through a shift in economic practices and discourses or what Reckwitz dubs the ‘aestheticisation of the economic’. The economic aim is now no longer mere technical invention but an ongoing and permanent innovation that includes not only objects or products, but also forms of organisations and practices of work. Moreover, these innovations increasingly concentrate on “the aesthetically new, meaning a production of new signs/ signifiers, sensory impressions, and affects” (EK 140). 4 Consumption, therefore, changes from the “socially copied consumption of standard items into individual-aesthetic consumption” (HS 502). 5 This is best exemplified by looking at advertising and the fashion industry (cf. HS 502), where products are represented as expressing an individual lifestyle choice rather than conforming to a collective norm. This general, even though not all-encompassing shift gives rise to the socalled ‘creative industries’, mainly “the media and consulting, research and development, entertainment and architecture, advertisement and music, design and internet services, PR and exhibitions, fashion and tourism“ (EK 141). 6 It is especially (though not exclusively) in these economic branches that one can observe how this shift facilitates and demands different practices of work: the creative subject employed in the creative industries is at the same time an enterprising self, one that constantly models itself according to the demands of the job market, shapes its work biography with calculating acts of choice, seeks challenges in its work in order to facilitate ‘inner growth’, and considers creative work to be an essential element of its lifestyle (cf. HS 500). Borrowing from the “post-romantic code, ‘creative and authentic’ work should now be a ‘holistic’, individually challenging activity that produces something new and additionally makes use of the creativity and motivation of a like-minded collective” (HS 504). 7 Speaking in psychological terms, the subject perceives these individual challenges as an opportunity for personal growth and becomes “a not only rational but also emotional and sense-seeking subject” (HS 506). 8 At the same 4 “Zum einen setzt [die ästhetische Wirtschaft] über technische Erfindungen hinaus auf permanente Innovationen, auch auf der ‘kulturellen’ Ebene der Organisationsstruktur und der Kompetenzen der Individuen. Zum anderen bezieht sie diese Innovationen jenseits des bloß Technischen zunehmend auf das ästhetisch Neue, das heißt, auf die Produktion neuartiger Zeichen, Sinneseindrücke und Affekte.” 5 “eine Umstellung der konsumtorischen Praktiken vom sozial kopierten Konsum der Standardgüter zu einem ‘individualästhetischen’ Konsum” 6 “Medien und Beratung, Forschung und Entwicklung, Unterhaltung und Architektur, Werbung und Musik, Design und Internetdienste, Öffentlichkeitsarbeit und Ausstellungswesen, Mode und Tourismus” 7 “Post-romantisch soll die Arbeit zu einer Neues schaffenden, ‘ganzheitlichen’, die Routine in der individuellen Herausforderung brechenden Aktivität werden, die zudem die Kreativität und Motivation durch das Kollektiv von Gleichgesinnten nutzt.” 8 “nicht nur rationales, sondern auch emotionales und sinnsuchendes Subjekt” <?page no="50"?> Elisabeth S. Maubach 42 time, the idea of the ‘enterprising self’ originally stems from bourgeois culture and is opposed to the idea of the bohemian artist in the later stages of bourgeois culture. In creative consumer subjectivity, both concepts are redefined and imposed onto each other. In the past, the artist as well as the entrepreneur were considered to be rather anti-social figures, posing a subversive threat to the social order by means of their self-interest and ‘egotism’, their amorality and, especially in the case of the artist, unpredictability. With the intertwined processes of aestheticisation and economisation comes a radical and positive reinterpretation of these attributes. Now that both roles, artist and entrepreneur, are no longer perceived as being anti-social, their combination within the creative consumer subject can emphatically affirm collectivity, even despite the subject culture’s strong emphasis on individuality. The new hybrid double is highly dependent on its social network. It needs an aesthetic-expressive collective to facilitate three major practices of its subjectivity: an effervescent collective for making joint ecstatic experiences, a stylizing collective for sharing subcultural signifying practices, and a community that provides space for the communication and authentic expression of one’s subjective inner world. (HS 466) 9 On the basis of these combined codes of the aesthetic and the enterprising self, high value is placed on the ability to let oneself be affected by anything that promises to bring aesthetically charged pleasure and potential input for selfgrowth and that can be used to produce (an image of) a lifestyle that makes the subject more attractive to itself as well as other subjects. “The ideal is a quasi-artistic subject of self-creation that, at the same time …, models itself in an economic, market-like fashion of choosing and being chosen, therefore in a generalised form of consumption” (HS 589). 10 The resulting leitmotifs for postmodern creative consumer subjectivity are the creative expressivity of an authentic self, individuality, a focus on performance and marketability, self-growth, an orientation towards the aesthetically new, emotionality, choice, and a positive attitude towards dealing with contingency. They are by far not limited to the areas of work and consumption. The import-export-relation between creativity and art on the one hand and economic, market-oriented thinking on the other hand produces a code that permeates the discourses of practically all aspects of human life, which 9 “Das Kollektiv im gegenkulturellen Kontext ist ein ästhetisch-expressives Kollektiv im dreifachen Sinne: als efferveszentes Kollektiv rauschhaften gemeinsamen Erlebens, als Stilisierungskollektiv subkultureller Zeichen, als Kommunikationsgemeinschaft, die eine authentische Expression der Innenwelt ermöglicht.” 10 “Das Ideal-Ich ist ein quasi-künstlerisches Subjekt der Selbstkreation. Gleichzeitig und sich damit hybride überlagernd, modelliert sich dieses Subjekt in der ökonomischen, marktförmigen Konstellation des Wählens und Gewähltwerdens, damit in einer generalisierten Konsumtion.” <?page no="51"?> Postmodern Subjectivity in its Double Form of the Creative Consumer 43 then again feed back into this cultural code and strengthen the reign of the creative consumer subject. This altered understanding of creativity and economisation is linked to a new discourse in psychology: creativity is no longer the mark of an extraordinary genius, but becomes a psychological resource which is present in every individual. Joseph Beuys’ idea of everyone being an artist immediately comes to mind. It is now up to the subject to tap into this resource and make use of it. This has a two-sided effect: on the one hand, this is a development towards inclusion - of creative practices into everyday life and of personalities who have so far been regarded as “dubious outsiders” (EK 223) of society and are now thought of as a functional elite with special qualities (cf. EK 223). On the other hand, it creates an imperative and thus pressure for the individual: a subject that is for some reason unable to perform creative practices in a way noticeable for others, to develop a creative and reflexive approach towards their own personality, and to implement a form of self-government that facilitates growth now seems deficient in its subjectivity (cf. EK 235). However, it is not only practices that are responsible for the forming and spreading of creative consumer culture. Mass media and their “representation of a creative subject as exemplary and attractive” (EK 239) 11 undeniably play a major role. The currently dominant concept of creativity is tightly linked to the regime of the new I mentioned before. At the same time, this concept also makes subjects highly dependent on an audience which validates their creativity through their attention. The construction of ‘stars’, no matter whether film stars, singers or It-girls, offers an especially apt example of this. The success of a ‘star’ depends on how much attention they can attract. We can differentiate between three forms of stars and their particular modes of creativity: the star as producer of a piece or oeuvre (the work star); the star whose creative work is mainly focused on themselves (the personality star); [and] the star whose work consists of their bodily performance (performance star). (EK 240) 12 Due to the importance placed on the audience, the star is no longer “inward oriented” (EK 240), but makes itself an “outward oriented” (EK 240), highly expressive subject and object at the same time - ready to be certified by the audience as the successful creator of something aesthetically new (cf. EK 240). It is important to note, though, that creative consumer subjectivity in general 11 “Repräsentationen, in denen ein kreatives Subjekt als vorbildlich und attraktiv dargestellt wird.” 12 “Drei unterschiedliche Zuschreibungsmuster von Kreativität lassen sich in Bezug auf den Star unterscheiden: der Star als Produzent seines Werks (der Werk-Star); der Star, dessen Gestaltungsleistung sich im Wesentlichen auf sich selbst bezieht (der Persönlichkeits-Star); der Star, dessen Werk in seiner körperlichen Performance besteht (der Performance-Star).” <?page no="52"?> Elisabeth S. Maubach 44 places high value on a performance of the self and generally requires others to validate this performance, the self expressed in this very performance as well as the lifestyle that is created by the subject as a performative expression of itself. In a way, one could argue that the star is an exalted version of the creative consumer subject (cf. EK 240f.). Coterminous with the change in subject culture one can observe a change in the perception of cities, i.e. the major spaces in which creative consumer culture and its production and reception of creative products and processes are located. Through a process of culturalisation, cities become centres for the new creative class (of creative consumer subjects), “places of constant production of new signs and atmospheres: they are now creative cities” (EK 270). 13 This process of culturalisation has three dimensions: initially, it entails a semiotisation, meaning an increase and condensing of the symbolic qualities of city space, which is understood as a sign generating space. … secondly, … [it] incorporates a reflexive historicisation: an appreciation and new appropriation of the historical heritage of a city combined with a simultaneous, flexible combination with the contemporary. Thirdly - and as a focal point of the whole process - there is aestheticisation in a narrower sense, meaning a strategic increase and condensing of sensually and emotionally charged urban atmospheres, which create sensual and emotional satisfaction independent from the practical use of the city space. (EK 279) 14 This new perception and constructive change of cities is often reflected in contemporary literary texts, especially in the way characters perceive and cultivate the space they inhabit (see, for example, Geoff Nicholson’s Bleeding London [1997]). At the same time, literary texts shape the experience and perception of urban spaces. A case in point is the contribution of Dickens’ fiction to the creation of London as a spatial imaginary. Many contemporary works of literature and the arts represent and transform the city into a site of creativity, such as Penelope Lively’s City of the Mind (1988) or Gob Squad’s Super Night Shot (first performed in 2003). The leitmotifs mentioned above also permeate the current concept of intimacy and the forms of personal relationships the creative consumer subject 13 “Orten der beständigen Produktion neuer Zeichen und Atmosphären: Sie sind nun creative cities.” 14 “Die Kulturalisierung des Urbanen umfasst zunächst eine Semiotisierung, das heißt die Steigerung und Verdichtung der symbolischen Qualitäten des Stadtraums, der als ein Ort der Generierung von Zeichen verstanden wird. … Die Kulturalisierung der Stadt enthält zweitens eine reflexive Historisierung: eine Wertschätzung und Neuaneignung des historischen Erbes der Stadt und zugleich dessen flexible Kombination mit dem Zeitgenössischen. Sie umfasst drittens - und letztlich als Fluchtpunkt des gesamten Prozesses - eine Ästhetisierung im engeren Sinne, das heißt, eine gezielte Steigerung und Verdichtung von sinnlich-affektiven urbanen Atmosphären, die unabhängig von der praktischen Nutzung des Stadtraums sinnliche und emotionale Befriedigung verschaffen.” <?page no="53"?> Postmodern Subjectivity in its Double Form of the Creative Consumer 45 maintains. This field, I think, warrants special attention. Precisely because personal or intimate relations make for a considerable part of life worlds, this topic is frequently explored in literary texts. Again, we are dealing with a highly hybrid construct when looking at postmodern intimacy. It contains elements of the organisation man’s culture, namely changed gender roles, 15 the sexualisation of the subject, and a quasi-professional attitude of choice in dating practices (cf. HS 530). Furthermore, it borrows elements of romantic love from romantic culture and incorporates elements of the bourgeois model of friendship and companionate marriage (cf. HS 530). Postmodern partnerships, friendships, and even parent-child-relationships are formed and conducted with an attitude of market-like choice, again with strong emphasis on individual self-growth. These personal relationships are no longer bound by the dictates of social, economic, and moral demands (cf. HS 528). 16 In order for relationships to fulfill the needs of the creative consumer parties involved, practices have been developed that are not unlike those in the fields of work and psychology: making use of an attitude of experimentalism, relationships become a joint ‘project’ (including sexuality), in which everyday life needs to be interrupted by the creation of extraordinary romantic moments, and importance is placed on the management of negotiation and trust as well as on ongoing psychological communication about individual emotions and needs. (HS 528) 17 As an effect of this experimentalism and the emphasis on alterable choices, there is a higher degree of contingency in postmodern relationships compared to those of the organisation man. The element of choice is “no longer limited 15 For an in-depth discussion of how gender relations change in the subject culture of the ‘organisation man’, cf. chapter 3.2.2 in HS. 16 “Diese Selbstformung des Subjekts der Zweier-Partnerschaft, der entkollektivierten Freundschaftsbeziehungen, schließlich auch der Eltern-Kind-Beziehungen als ein Subjekt des ‘self growth’ ist hybride an eine elektive Haltung der marktanalogen ‘Wahl’ gegenüber potentiellen Partnern gekoppelt: Nicht nur, dass alle persönlichen Beziehungen - entbunden von sozialen, ökonomischen oder moralischen Ansprüchen - zum Gegenstand nahezu vollständiger Beziehungswahl statt Beziehungsvorgabe werden, auch die Fortsetzung dieser Beziehungen - insbesondere der Partnerschaft - wird zum Gegenstand einer ständig neu zur Entscheidung gestellten, wechselseitigen rational choice und fordert vom Subjekt das Training in einem komparativ-elektiven Blick.” 17 “Dispositionen eines Experimentalismus gegenüber dem Beziehungsalltag, der als gemeinsames ‘Projekt’ erscheint (was auch das Feld der Sexualität einschließt), der gemeinsamen Kreation von Momenten romantischer Außeralltäglichkeit, des Verhandlungs- und Vertrauensmanagements und der emotionalen, selbst- und fremdpsychologisierenden Ich-Kommunikation” <?page no="54"?> Elisabeth S. Maubach 46 to a short period of time at the beginning of post-adolescence” (HS 545) but is “extended across the entire biography” (HS 545). 18 These transformations of partnership ideals in the postmodern culture of intimacy are largely owed to the “effects of counterculture and the feminist movement” (HS 529). It is by no means surprising, then, that gender and its re-interpretation play a significant role in creative consumer subjectivity. While this subject culture furthers the above mentioned changes in gender roles, it does not stop there but rather adds a playful element. Gendered subject positions are “used as tools of identity creation” (HS 551) 19 equal to other aesthetic pieces in this bricolage of identity. Gender becomes a matter of “outward stylisation of the subject and inward search for experiences” (HS 551). 20 To put it more simply: different ideas of masculinity and femininity may be mixed, matched, and played with by the subject in order to push forward the project of self-growth and to produce a possibly new and aesthetically interesting form of self-expression. When looking at this whole set of values and leitmotifs, it becomes easily apparent that there are imminent contradictions and fissures in this culture of subjectivity (like in all cultures of subjectivity). In the field of intimate relationships, there are frictions between some of the constituent parts (companionate marriage vs. post-romantic aestheticisation) as well as between the “imperative for radical psychological openness” (HS 552) on the one hand and a “calculatory choice towards the other” (HS 552) 21 on the other hand. In the field of work, there are frictions between the ideals of authentic non-conformity and team-oriented marketability (cf. HS 520). The regime of the aesthetically new can easily turn into a terror regime because the neccessity for a validating audience bears the risk of failure for the subject who must compete with many others for the audience’s attention (cf. EK 350). 22 For the recipient and the creative consumer of the aesthetically new, there is the risk of dispersing their attention to such a degree that it can lead to attention deficit disorders or addiction to constant stimulation (cf. EK 353). Taking these frictions, paradigm shifts, and practices together, ‘creativity’ in the context of the creative consumer subject (which is a phenomenon largely of the Western world) is perceived and understood in a very specific 18 “die Konstellation der Wahl eines Lebenspartners nicht auf einen kurzen Moment zu Beginn seiner Post-Adoleszenz limitiert, … vielmehr die Kontingenzsituation während des gesamten Lebenslaufs auf Dauer gestellt.” 19 “gender-Subjektpositionen. Diese werden als Werkzeuge der Identitätskreation verwendet” 20 “als Gegenstand der Stilisierung des Subjekts nach außen und der Erlebnissuche nach innen” 21 “es tun sich Spannungen zwischen companionate marriage und post-romantischer Ästhetisierung sowie zwischen einem Imperativ schrankenloser psychischer Öffnung und einem kalkulatorischen Blick der Wahl gegenüber dem Anderen auf.” 22 A prevailing example of this can be seen in the numerous talent shows on television. <?page no="55"?> Postmodern Subjectivity in its Double Form of the Creative Consumer 47 way. As mentioned before, it is overwritten by the regime of the aesthetically new, which means that only such subjects, objects, economic enterprises, creative industries, cities, and institutions will be perceived (and perceive themselves) as successful creative subjects if they constantly offer new and different aesthetically charged output. In other words, this code of subjectivity puts enormous pressure on the subject to be successful at its subjectivity. Reckwitz’ approach is a culturalist and constructivist one; he himself calls it a “Foucauldian, poststrucuralist analysis” (CSM 2). The idea of Human Nature is therefore largely avoided or described as a construct brought forth by naturalising discourses. “The codes of the hybrid double of aesthetic-expressive and elective-consumer subjectivity create a semantics of three leitmotifs, i.e. ‘individuality’, ‘contingency’ and undirected ‘movement’” (HS 604). 23 For Reckwitz, all three are “empty signifiers” (HS 604) of postmodern subjectivity. 24 Thus, individuality is only the product of cultural differences and their specific, hybrid combination (cf. HS 606). Literature may offer a valuabe corrective to such a perspective insofar as it tends to concentrate on individuals and their singular stories. Thus, literature is not only an area where Reckwitz’ theory of subjectivity can be applied for analyis. It is also a valuable source for critically reflecting back on Reckwitz’ collectivist understanding of subjectivity. Literature with its unique perspectives balances out and adds to the theory with its understanding of individuality. 25 *** Elisabeth S. Maubach is currently a member of staff and PhD student at the University of Mannheim, where she teaches English literature and culture. Her PhD dissertation focuses on creative consumer subjectivity in British novels from the 1980s to the present. Other fields of academic interest and research are perception and conceptualisations of time, contemporary drama, ecocriticism, and posthumanism. 23 “befördern die Codes der ästhetisch-expressiven und der elektiv-konsumtorischen Subjektivität gemeinsam drei Leitsemantiken, …: ‘Individualität’, ‘Kontingenz’ und ungerichtete ‘Bewegung’.” 24 “leeren Signifikanten” 25 For a full discussion of how literary readings may offer a critique of Reckwitz’ theory, see Stefan Glomb’s article in this volume. <?page no="56"?> Elisabeth S. Maubach 48 Bibliography Bowie, David. ”Come and Buy my Toys.” David Bowie. Deram Records, 1967. CD. Reckwitz, Andreas. “Creative Subject and Modernity: Towards an Archeology of the Cultural Construction of Creativity.” Konstanzer Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolloquium: Diskussionsbeiträge Neue Folge 2 (2007): 1-15. PDF file. ---. Das hybride Subjekt: Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2006. Print. ---. Die Erfindung der Kreativität. Zum Prozess gesellschaftlicher Ästhetisierung. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012. Print. <?page no="57"?> Stefan Glomb The Hybrid Individual: Reading Literature as a Critical Commentary on Reckwitz’ Theory of Subject Cultures The two texts chosen for this article - Ian McEwan’s 2007 short novel On Chesil Beach (OCB) and Andreas Reckwitz’ sociological study Das hybride Subjekt (HS), 1 published a year previously - seem ideally suited for a complementary reading, i.e. one in which both texts bring something to the table rather than one being ‘applied’ to the other. Yet, the dialogue will not be entirely balanced since the discussion of points of intersection between the two texts will be followed by a critical close reading of HS along the lines of a hermeneutics of suspicion accompanied by an interpretation of OCB to back up this reading. My aim is to show how a work of literature like OCB can serve as a corrective to a scholarly study and thus prove itself to be a medium of knowledge and insight in its own right, true to Peter V. Zima’s thesis “that the subject as a problematic issue can only be grasped in an interdisciplinary context in which philosophy, sociology, semiotics, psychology and literary studies work together” (3). 2 What I will set out to criticise is the culturalist one-sidedness of Reckwitz’ concept of the subject, which fails to do justice to the fact that - despite the undeniable impact of culture and society - we are not exclusively social and cultural beings. Hence, Reckwitz’ focus on the subject (as that which is social and cultural) will be shown to be part of the individual as a more comprehensive and fundamental entity. Concentrating on the individual creates space for the inclusion of aspects systematically excluded from Reckwitz’ approach: the body and freedom. Of course, one might claim there are limits to the range of topics a sociologist can be expected to cover in a given study and that some of them have to be dealt with by other disciplines. This, in other words, is a necessary methodological exclusion, and what is excluded can be filled in elsewhere and thus add to and expand the model under discussion without changing its basic logic. My claim, however, is that what is missing from HS is disregarded due to what I would call a conceptual exclusion, and the inclusion of the triad individual-body-freedom will lead to a different concept which includes but also goes beyond what Reckwitz addresses. 1 Page numbers without letters refer to OCB. 2 “daß das Subjektproblem nur im interdisziplinären Kontext, in dem Philosophie, Soziologie, Semiotik, Psychologie und Literaturwissenschaft zusammenwirken, konkret zu erfassen ist”; where the original is quoted in German in a footnote, translations are mine. <?page no="58"?> Stefan Glomb 50 While I treat the individual as the overarching concept, my contention is that it is impossible to make sense of any term in this triad without also considering the other two. Hence, the individual, too, is a hybrid or liminal entity, albeit one whose hybridity is not located in the realm of culture alone (as is the case with Reckwitz’ subject) but comprises a number of factors which will be discussed in later sections: the unique and the general, nature and culture, as well as freedom and limitation. The individual is thus located beyond the extremes of dichotomous views which are still widely held (as the example of HS shows). In the final part of this article, I will reflect on how literature differs from sociological studies in pursuing what might be called its ‘methodological individualism’. 1 “But for now, the times held them” (18) - The Historical Moment “[W]hy were these lovers in a modern age so timid and innocent? ” (37) - the answer to this crucial question seems straightforward enough: because they were living at the wrong time. This should, however, not be taken to imply that McEwan’s short novel subscribes to the repression hypothesis famously questioned by Michel Foucault: Indeed, the ‘contradiction’ of bourgeois sexuality - as Michel Foucault was first to argue - does not consist in a mere repression of natural needs, but in the fact that the subject is urged to keep something in check which has before and simultaneously been focused and unambiguously produced by socio-cultural codes: the seemingly natural reality of the sexual subject. (HS 270) 3 Rather than simply positing a rift between the individuals’ desire for sexual freedom and social dictates curbing that desire, OCB also demonstrates the enabling effect of changing cultural concepts of subjectivity, their at times productive rather than restrictive function. What makes OCB special is that it does so by employing a communication structure based on dramatic irony. By setting the action in 1962, i.e. the early phase of a decade that has summarily come to signify the countercultural movement, and yet showing how youth culture and sexual freedom still lay dormant, the novel introduces a discrepancy between the characters’ perception of their life-world and the readers’ doubly coded pre-understanding, which comprises both the 1960s’ countercultural subject and the postmodern creative consumer subject. This allows readers to view the action from a superior vantage point based on a 3 “Tatsächlich besteht der ‘Widerspruch’ des bürgerlichen Sexes - wie Michel Foucault als erster argumentiert hat - nicht in einer einfachen Repression natürlicher Bedürfnisse, sondern darin, dass das Subjekt dazu angehalten wird, etwas in Schach zu halten, was zuvor und gleichzeitig durch sozial-kulturelle Codes erst fokussiert und in dieser Eindeutigkeit produziert worden ist: die scheinbar natürliche Realität eines sexuellen Subjekts.” <?page no="59"?> The Hybrid Individual 51 ‘not yet’-structure that makes for much of the enjoyment of reading a text in which the narrator seems to be in secret league with the recipients and communicates with them behind the characters’ backs. OCB makes a point of highlighting the differences between Edward and Florence’s world and our own, especially when it comes to the crucial problem of dealing with sexuality at a time when information was sparse at best and when a subject model that would in all likelihood have helped to prevent a catastrophic wedding night was not yet in existence. Even though Florence considers Edward to be much more knowing about sex than herself, he too is rather ‘innocent’ - a term that is central to all of McEwan’s writing and here refers to a lack of knowledge and proficiency: “He felt trapped between the pressure of his excitement and the burden of his ignorance. Beyond the films, the dirty jokes and the wild anecdotes, most of what he knew about women was derived from Florence herself” (89). And it is not only Edward who suffers from this scarcity of information: “Pop music was bland, still coy on the matter, films were a little more explicit, but in Edward’s circle the men had to be content with telling dirty jokes, uneasy sexual boasting and boisterous camaraderie driven by furious drinking, which reduced further their chances of meeting a girl” (39f.). Sexual experimentation, too, was out of the question: “There was no ambiguity - to have sex with any one of these girls, you would have to marry her” (39). The readership contemporary with the publication of McEwan’s novel may find it hard to grasp the degree of bewilderment that marks Edward’s thoughts about what lies ahead of him: For over a year, Edward had been mesmerised by the prospect that on the evening of a given date in July the most sensitive portion of himself would reside, however briefly, within a naturally formed cavity inside this cheerful, pretty, formidably intelligent woman. How this was to be achieved without absurdity, or disappointment, troubled him. (6f.) It comes as no surprise, then, that their behaviour as newly-weds is still marked by insecurity and inhibitions: It was, in theory, open to them to abandon their plates, seize the wine bottle by the neck and run down to the shore and kick their shoes off and exult in their liberty. There was no one in the hotel who would have wanted to stop them. They were adults at last, on holiday, free to do as they chose. In just a few years’ time, that would be the kind of thing quite ordinary young people would do. But for now, the times held them. Even when Edward and Florence were alone, a thousand unacknowledged rules still applied. (18) While all of this might still be read as a sign of repression and its devious workings when it comes to colonizing the subject’s conscious and unconscious motivations, the novel as a whole makes it clear that this would be an oversimplification. It is not the case that en route to the ‘real’ sixties subjects free themselves from the shackles of a restrictive sexual code and gain access <?page no="60"?> Stefan Glomb 52 to some kind of authentic core of their being; it is rather that what enables less inhibited ways of having and thinking about sex are in their turn characteristics of a (by this time changed) subject culture. However, since Foucault’s critique of the repression hypothesis has by now itself attained the status of the kind of cultural orthodoxy that it set out to dispute, it is important to note that, as far as the presentation of sexuality in OCB is concerned, it is neither located in some purely natural realm untouched by discourse, nor is it a mere effect of the mysterious workings of ‘power’. Just as there are different degrees of freedom in general (see below), there are also different degrees of sexual freedom. With respect to the change of subject cultures in the sixties, OCB frequently refers to language. Immediately after the disastrously failed attempt to consummate their marriage, Florence tries to come to terms with the situation: “As she understood it, there were no words to name what had happened, there existed no shared language in which two sane adults could describe such events to each other” (139); “what could have been the opening words? They did not exist. Such a language had yet to be invented” (141); “they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible” (3). To the readers, the existence of such a code of communication can be taken for granted, which makes the problems of the two lovers appear all the more outlandish in retrospect. The same lack of a frame of reference that might have forestalled the later catastrophe of their botched wedding night also marks the early phase of their relationship: Their courtship had been a pavane, a stately unfolding bound by protocols never agreed or voiced, but generally observed. Nothing was ever discussed - nor did they feel the lack of intimate talk. These were matters beyond words, beyond definition. The language and practice of therapy, the currency of feelings diligently shared, mutually analysed, were not yet in general circulation. While one heard of wealthier people going in for psychoanalysis, it was not yet customary to regard oneself in everyday terms as an enigma, an exercise in narrative history, or as a problem waiting to be solved. (21) This again testifies to the couple’s ‘innocence’, but here, too, the potentially restrictive side of culture is linked to one that opens new perspectives - even though psychoanalysis should not be mistaken for a key that mercifully frees the instinctual drives from their cultural imprisonment but rather as another facet of a more recent subject culture which includes different ways of dealing with (inter)personal problems. 4 4 Cf. HS 326: “By modelling sexuality as ‘polymorphously perverse’ energy that lends itself to various cultural uses …, psychoanalysis offers an innovative code inspiring the <?page no="61"?> The Hybrid Individual 53 In order to make the discrepancy between the early and the later sixties appear more drastic than it may actually have been, McEwan goes to some lengths to “Victorianize the early 1960s through many references and allusions” (de Waard 236); Mathews even goes so far as to state that the novel’s “focus rests primarily on an ongoing analysis of the transition from the Victorian to the modern era” (84). Some examples may suffice: When [Florence] practises the violin, she wears a Victorian Alice band … In certain ways she recalls the figure of the “angel in the house” … Even her name is a Victorian signifier: it seems a composite of Florence Nightingale and the late-Victorian explorer and pioneer of polar photography Herbert Ponting. Likewise, the last name of Florence’s husband, Edward Mayhew, recalls the Victorian journalist and urban explorer Henry Mayhew. (de Waard 236f.) Also, Edward’s predilection for the “‘great man’ theory of history” (13) - discussed below - bears distinctively Carlylean traces (cf. de Waard 239). Along with Edwards’ reproach to Florence: “You carry on as if it’s eighteen sixty-two” (144), all this creates the impression of a well-nigh unbridgeable chasm between past and future. Part of the change that occurred during the sixties was the transvaluation of youth: “This was still the era - it would end later in that famous decade - when to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition for which marriage was the beginning of a cure” (6). The countercultures emerging in the 1960s, Reckwitz notes, are subcultures lived by young people and mainly post-adolescents, and the difference between young/ old, youthful/ belonging to the establishment is, as part of a first, simplifying approach, the leading distinction behind which lurks the attempt to completely invert the form the subject takes, the positing of an inner-oriented, desire-oriented subject against the outer-oriented, socially controlled subject of the ‘establishment’. … According to this code of youthfulness, the establishment and its subject structures appear unnaturally ‘ossified’ while the youthful subject is allegedly marked by vitality, playful openness, a not-yet-suppressed desire and the uninhibited search for fulfilling moments and marginal experiences, which constitute an ‘authentic’ subjectivity. Thus conceived, youthfulness is able to see the unreality of the establishment’s reality for what it is: the ridiculous (un)commonness of common sense. (HS 452) 5 avant-garde, a code which represents sexuality less as natural than as an artefact which results from subjective significations.“ “Indem Freud das Sexuelle als eine ‘polymorph perverse’ Energie modelliert, die kulturell vielgestaltig einsetzbar … ist …, bietet die Psychoanalyse hier eine die Avantgarde inspirierende Codeinnovation, die das Sexuelle weniger als Natur denn als Artefakt subjektiver Signifikationen repräsentiert.” 5 “sind Subkulturen von Jugendlichen und vor allem Post-Adoleszenten, und die Differenz jung/ alt, jugendlich/ etabliert ist im ersten, simplifizierenden Zugriff jene Leitunterscheidung, hinter der sich der Versuch einer kompletten Inversion der Subjektform, <?page no="62"?> Stefan Glomb 54 While one of the most famous battle cries of the sixties, “Hope I die before I get old” (The Who, “My Generation”), would as yet have sounded rather alien to Edward and Florence’s ears, they do sense that there is something in the air: Edward and Florence’s shared sense that one day soon the country would be transformed for the better, that youthful energies were pushing to escape, like steam under pressure, merged with the excitement of their own adventure together. The sixties was their first decade of adult life, and it surely belonged to them … The pipe smokers downstairs … - they could have no claim on the future. Time, gentlemen, please! (25) This vague feeling, still accompanied by an emphasis on their adult life, has not yet solidified into an ingredient of a new subject culture, which testifies to the fact that “[s]ocial change never proceeds at an even pace” (40). Reckwitz calls this the ‘hybridity’ of subject cultures: subject cultures prove to be a combined arrangement of different patterns of meaning, and traces of historically past subject forms are to be found within subject cultures which developed later, just as sub-cultural subject cultures are to be found in dominant ones, with the result that peculiar mixtures emerge. (HS 15) 6 As is the case with the lack of a conceptual framework that might have provided a solution to their sexual problems, the nonexistence of the collectively consolidated notion that being young is an enviable state not only affects their interpersonal communication but also what, for lack of a better term, might be called intrapersonal communication, i.e. the subject’s reflexivity: “The term ‘teenager’ had not long been invented, and it never occurred to him [Edward] that the separateness he felt, which was both painful and delicious, could be shared with anyone else” (74). This goes to show that the existence or lack of a particular ‘vocabulary’ has repercussions not only for intimate relationships but also for the seemingly most private and closed-off acts of a person’s selfcommunion. As the wedding draws nearer, Florence becomes increasingly die Positionierung eines innenorientierten, begehrensorientierten Subjekts gegen das außenorientierte, sozial-kontrollierte Subjekt des ‘Establishments’ verbirgt. … Diesem Jugendlichkeits-Code zufolge erscheint das Establishment in seinen Subjektstrukturen unnatürlich ‘erstarrt’, während sich im jugendlichen Subjekt jene Lebendigkeit, spielerische Offenheit, das noch nicht unterdrückte Begehren und die unbefangene Suche nach erfüllten Momenten und Grenzerfahrungen manifestiere, welche die ‘eigentliche’ Subjekthaftigkeit ausmachen soll. Jugendlichkeit in diesem Sinne vermag die Irrealität der etablierten Realität zu erkennen, die ridicule (Un-)Gewöhnlichkeit des Common Sense.” 6 “Subjektkulturen erweisen sich als kombinatorisches Arrangement verschiedener Sinnmuster, und Spuren historisch vergangener Subjektformen finden sich in den später entstandenen, subkulturelle in den dominanten Subjektkulturen, sodass sich eigentümliche Mischungsverhältnisse ergeben.” <?page no="63"?> The Hybrid Individual 55 aware of the necessity to communicate her distress in the face of what she anticipates as a frightful ordeal: “But what could she have said, what possible terms could she have used when she could not have named the matter to herself? ” (9); “What troubled her was unutterable, and she could barely frame it for herself” (7). Hence, historically specific cultural codes, terms that would allow Florence to frame more clearly what troubles her, are shown to be constituent parts of subjectivity rather than alien elements grafted onto a pre-discursively authentic state of being. In establishing a communication structure based on discrepant awareness, OCB does not exclusively rely on its audience’s knowledge but explicitly includes elements of more recent subject cultures by giving us a glimpse of the future in a final passage that deviates from the narrative style employed previously in two ways: the leisurely time signature gives way to high-speed summary, and the double focus turns into to an exclusive presentation of Edward’s story. The key passage is not entirely free of cliché: He became involved in the administration of various rock festivals, helped start a health-food canteen in Hampstead, worked in a record shop not far from the canal in Camden Town, wrote rock reviews for small magazines, lived through a chaotic, overlapping sequence of lovers, travelled through France with a woman who became his wife for three and a half years and lived with her in Paris. He eventually became a part-owner of the record shop. His life was too busy for newspapers, for a while his attitude was that no one could honestly trust the ‘straight’ press because everyone knew it was controlled by state, military or financial interests - a view that Edward later disowned. (161f.) In a condensed manner this includes some of the main elements of both the countercultural subject and the creative consumer subject, relating to the three major spheres which Reckwitz identifies: work, intimate relationships and ‘technologies of the self’ (cf. HS 16 and 500-630). Work in the entertainment sector can be seen as part of the post-bureaucratic avant-garde of a working culture whose ‘other’ is the ‘organization man’ of organized modernity and hence the “predictability of bureaucratic organisation, the technical coordination of the manager-engineer and the routine work of the employee” (HS 508). 7 Furthermore, concerning technologies of the self, Edward’s connection with rock festivals is significant insofar as “countercultural subjectivation in the 1960s and 70s - and in the youth-cultural models which were to follow during the 1980s and 90s - was crucially shaped by the experience of music” 7 “die Berechenbarkeit der bürokratischen Organisation, die technische Koordinierung des Man ger-Ingenieurs und die Routinetätigkeit des Angestellten” <?page no="64"?> Stefan Glomb 56 (HS 475). 8 Equally, the “health-food canteen in Hampstead” stands in for a whole range of “[p]ractices of a [b]odily [a]esthetic” (HS 567), 9 for the “instituting of a bodily care which aims at a ‘holistic’ and ‘body-conscious’ extension of physical experience as well as a confident stabilisation of bodily ‘fitness’ and a stylised presentation of the body” (HS 568). 10 Finally, the “overlapping sequence of lovers” and Edward’s brief marriage is in line with the “codification of the subject as naturally striving for an ‘unfolding’ of a whole range of experiences” (HS 527) 11 and stands in stark contrast to the domesticated sexuality of organized modernity. Edward’s critical attitude towards the state, the military and finance also mirrors a collective outlook: The counter-revolutionary discourse is in its entirety based on the leading assumption that the ‘rationality’ of the dominant social structures of modernity has a repressive effect: the rationalist, techno-social regime of normality requires the splitting off of a considerable portion of human existence and their relegation to a rejected ‘outward sphere’ comprised of irrational elements. (HS 458) 12 However, as the brevity of the summary of Edward’s later years implies, this new cultural phase does not serve as the basis of a fulfilled life but at best provides a kind of tepid contentment: His modest achievements were mostly material. He owned a tiny flat in Camden Town, a share of a two-bedroom cottage in the Auverne, and two specialist record stores, jazz and rock and roll, precarious ventures slowly being undermined by Internet shopping. (163) There are, thus, a number of elements in OCB which lend themselves almost ideally to a comparison with HS and contribute to a double focus that makes the texts’ shared view of the sixties all the more plausible. Yet, as far as the overall approach is concerned, there is a marked difference between Reckwitz’ concern with the subject and McEwan’s focus on individuals. 8 “Die gegenkulturelle Subjektivation in den 1960er und 70er Jahren - und darüber hinaus der jugendkulturellen Nachfolgemodelle der 1980er und 90er Jahre … findet in grundlegender Weise in der Praxis des Musikerlebens statt.” 9 “Praktiken ästhetisierter Körperlichkeit”. For a detailed discussion of these practices, see HS 567-74. 10 “die Instituierung einer körperlichen Sorge, die sowohl auf eine ‘ganzheitliche’, ‘körperbewusste’ Erfahrungserweiterung des Leibes als auch auf eine souveräne Stabilisierung der körperlichen ‘Fitness’ und Stilisierung des Körpers nach außen abzielt” 11 “Codierung des Subjekts als natürlicherweise nach ‘Entfaltung’ der Fülle seiner Erlebensmöglichkeiten strebende Instanz” 12 “Der gesamte kulturrevolutionäre Diskurs beruht auf der Leitannahme, dass die ‘Rationalität’ der dominanten gesellschaftlichen Strukturen der Moderne repressiv wirkt: Das rationalistische, technisch-soziale Normalitätsregime setzt die Abspaltung erheblicher Teile menschlicher Existenz in ein verworfenes ‘Außen’ irrationaler Elemente voraus.” <?page no="65"?> The Hybrid Individual 57 2 “the peculiar unshared flavour of her own existence” (86) - The Individual One of the most striking features of Reckwitz’ conception of the subject is that it is thoroughly cultural: “The single person [der Einzelne] - as a body-mindentity - becomes a subject and exists in the temporal sequence of his existence only within the framework of collective symbolic orders which define subject positions in a specific manner and shape subject cultures” (HS 34). 13 Here, “the single person” (as distinct from “the single person as a ‘subject’” [HS 10] and “the single subject” [HS 48]) seems to point to a prediscursive entity: “Before a human being is a subject, he is nothing but an organic substrate, a bodily mechanism (including neurophysiological structures)” (HS 40). 14 The terms employed here make it clear that “the single person as a pre-cultural body which can only be imagined by means of a thought experiment” (HS 42) 15 is not to be mistaken for a locus of spontaneity and bearer of individual traits: “substratum” refers to an object that has yet to be moulded into a cultural shape, “mechanism” and “structure” denote an infra-subjective physical realm which functions according to the laws of nature. The passages that carry the strongest emphasis - “only within the framework of collective symbolic orders”, “nothing but an organic substratum” (my italics) - establish a clear opposition between nature and culture. When it comes to the individual, Reckwitz distinguishes “the cultural code of ‘individuality’” from the “idiosyncrasy of the single subject” (HS 48). The former “produces specific practices of individuality and is produced by them” 16 and thus “paradoxically produces distinctive features of the single person as a collective pattern” (HS 48). 17 This is to be distinguished from the kind of ‘individual’ that can be described in terms of the idiosyncrasies of the single subject. According to cultural theory, the single body, which is definable through the boundaries of its organism, can only be conceived of as a subject, i.e. an entity shaped by society and culture. But this entity shaped by society and culture contains idiosyncrasies. These should not be mistaken as signs of a kind of ‘freedom’ which separates 13 “Der Einzelne - als körperlich-mentale Entität - wird zum Subjekt und existiert in der zeitlichen Sequenz seiner Existenz allein im Rahmen kollektiver symbolischer Ordnungen, die in spezifischer Weise Subjektpositionen definieren und Subjektkulturen bilden.” 14 “Bevor der Mensch Subjekt ist, ist er nichts anderes als ein organisches Substrat, ein körperlicher Mechanismus (einschließlich neurophysiologischer Strukturen); ” 15 “der Einzelne als ein - lediglich gedankenexperimentell vorstellbarer - vorkultureller Körper” 16 “bringt spezifische Praktiken der Individualität hervor und wird von ihnen hervorgebracht” 17 “produziert paradoxerweise Besonderheiten des Einzelnen als kollektives Muster” <?page no="66"?> Stefan Glomb 58 itself from and positions itself against society - like an existential act of choosing. On the contrary, idiosyncrasies emerge as part of the subjective appropriation and reproduction of these very forms, resulting from a threefold mechanism. (HS 48) 18 The three “mechanisms” (the term seems inappropriate since it is used here to denote the very opposite of uniformity and predictability) are: (1) the existence of a “scope for potential behaviour” (HS 48): 19 since subject cultures do not rigidly determine the acts that can be performed, there is always a certain degree of contingency; (2) the fact that “the single subject … is to be conceived of as being linked to a multiplicity of practices with a potential multiplicity of subject forms”, 20 which leads to an unpredictable “amalgamation of different cultural elements” (HS 49). 21 Third, even the seeming reproduction of cultural subject forms in the bodily and mental acts of the single person is constantly accompanied by a potential of unintentional failure and by those reinterpretations, recombinations and unintentional introduction of nuances which can already be interpreted as deviations from the form in question. Subject forms have to be produced anew through the acts of the single subject at every moment of its temporal existence, which contains an element of unpredictability. Every subject has his/ her own body-mind-history whose impact on the reproduction of practices is incalculable. (HS 49) 22 While (1) and (2) are sufficiently clear, the difficulty with the third “mechanism” lies in the precise meaning of the “bodily and mental acts of the single 18 “Davon zu unterscheiden ist jenes ‘Individuum’, das sich als die Idiosynkrasien des einzelnen Subjekts beschreiben lässt. Im kulturtheoretischen Verständnis ist der einzelne, durch die Grenze seines Organismus identifizierbare Körper niemals anders denn als Subjekt, das heißt als eine sozial-kulturell modellierte Instanz denkbar. Aber diese einzelne sozial-kulturell geformte Instanz enthält Idiosynkrasien. Diese dürfen nicht als Kennzeichen einer ‘Freiheit’ missverstanden werden, die sich - nach Art eines existenzialistischen Aktes der Wahl - separiert und gegen die sozial-kulturellen Formen positioniert; vielmehr bilden sich die Idiosynkrasien im Innern der subjektiven Aneignung und Reproduktion dieser Formen selbst, vor allem in dreierlei Mechanismen.” 19 “Spielräume möglichen Verhaltens” 20 “dass … das einzelne Subjekt sich … als ein Träger einer Vielzahl von Praktiken mit einer potentiellen Vielzahl von Subjektformen begreifen lässt” 21 “Amalgamierung verschiedener kultureller Elemente” 22 “Drittens enthält selbst die scheinbare Reproduktion kultureller Subjektformen in den leiblich-mentalen Akten des Einzelnen das beständige Potential des unintendierten Misslingens und jener Neuinterpretationen, Neukombinationen und unintendierten Nuancierungen, welche bereits als Abweichungen von der Form interpretiert werden können: Subjektformen müssen vom einzelnen Subjekt in jedem Moment seiner temporalen Existenz in seinen Akten erneut hervorgebracht werden, was ein Moment der Unberechenbarkeit einschließt. Jedes Subjekt hat seine eigene Subjektgeschichte, das heißt seine eigene Körper-/ Geist-Geschichte, deren Konsequenzen für die Reproduktion von Praktiken unabsehbar sind.” <?page no="67"?> The Hybrid Individual 59 person”, which are for the most part (note the double emphasis) “unintentional”. In contrast to the passage quoted above, “the single person” (der Einzelne), “the single subject” and “subject” are used interchangeably here, and immediately after this quote, the subject is defined as a “sequence of acts”, which means that this time the single subject is not relegated to a prediscursive physical realm. It would seem, therefore, that the “bodily and mental acts” are those of the subject, which, along with its body, exists “only within the framework of collective symbolic orders” (my emphasis). Again, there is no room for spontaneity located in a body that would have to be conceptualized in terms other than substrate, mechanism and structure. This, however, makes it difficult to imagine where the “element of unpredictability” should come from. Hence, and contrary to what might be expected, even the individual-as-idiosyncrasy is not located at the intersection of nature and culture but is in its turn a thoroughly cultural manifestation of the subject rather than being situated, at least partly, beyond it - a manifestation that emerges whenever the subject’s acts appear to be contingent and unpredictable. But since these acts are largely unintentional, do not result from freedom of choice and exist exclusively as part of the symbolic order, it is hard to see whose acts they really are and where they originate. My contention is that the subject as defined by Reckwitz cannot possibly perform them. To be real life-world acts, they would require a situated individual whose feelings, motives, and decisions are not thoroughly shaped by the cultural order and whose body is more than a substrate to be moulded by culture. While the individual-as-idiosyncrasy at first sight seems to be such an agent, on close inspection it turns out to be located on the same logical plane as the subject when it is not idiosyncratic. A similar problem appears in the distinction between the “the single subject” and the “subject form”: “The single subject has his/ her own temporality, is a specific body and mind as culturally formed and forming; the subject form has no attributable body and mind but is the correlative of the socially monitored complex of practices” (HS 43). 23 When even what is named here as specific (and the same applies to the “body-mind-history” in the quote above) can be envisioned only in terms of culture, there is no room left for anything outside this realm apart from an organic substrate which has no recognizable bearing on the subject. There are further instances in Reckwitz’ study in which the avoidance of the individual leads to conceptual difficulties. Consider the following passage (concerning the first of the three mechanisms that constitute the individualas-idiosyncrasy): 23 “Das einzelne Subjekt hat seine eigene Zeitlichkeit, ist ein spezifischer Körper und Geist als kulturell geformter und sich formender; die Subjektform hat keinen zurechenbaren Körper und Geist, sondern ist das Korrelat des sozial geregelten Praktikenkomplexes”. <?page no="68"?> Stefan Glomb 60 Using the scope for potential behaviour does not immediately change the subject form but only reproduces it (just as the limitless ways of uttering a correct sentence … and thus individuating oneself does not immediately deactivate the syntactic rules of the language but only confirms them). (HS 48f.) 24 While Reckwitz is right in pointing out - as his double “not immediately” implies - that a single individual act cannot change a system, it is striking that the emphasis lies clearly on what the individual cannot do (“only reproduces it”, “only confirms them”) rather than on its constitutive function within the dialectic of the individual and the general (quite apart from the fact that there is more to language than syntactic rules). Similarly, in the “routinized hermeneutic of the self” (routinisierte Selbsthermeneutik) (HS 46) “routinized” implies habit as the opposite of spontaneity and does not allow for individual, only cultural specificity: “every subject culture contains one specific hermeneutic of the self” (HS 46, my italics). 25 As with agency, the plausibility of Reckwitz’ view of language and hermeneutics is seriously impaired by the fact that he does not take the following insight into account: Individuals are aware of themselves insofar as they make their world accessible in the light of interpretations, and interpretations can be grasped as meanings (of words and sentences). This does not sever the individual’s connection to language. On the contrary, speaking to one another aims at interpreting the world, and only individuals are capable of interpretation. No word contains the meaning, on the basis of which it is made accessible, in itself. It owes this meaning to an interpretive initiative whose author will - in the final analysis - always be a single subject. … The single subject, who projects his/ her meaning on the basis of a world which has already been interpreted by other individuals, is never the subject as such, but this self-aware single being in this particular (also semantically particular) situation. (Frank 122) 26 Conceiving of individuality in this way is by no means tantamount to establishing a rift between the individual and culture or society. But Reckwitz’ 24 “Die Ausnutzung dieser Spielräume verändert jedoch die Subjektform zunächst nicht, sondern reproduziert sie letztlich (so wie die unendlichen Möglichkeiten, einen korrekten Satz … zu äußern und sich darin zu individuieren, die syntaktischen Regeln der Sprache zunächst nicht außer Kraft setzen, sondern nur bestätigen).” 25 “Jede Subjektkultur enthält eine spezifische Selbsthermeneutik.” 26 “Individuen sind selbstbewußt in dem Sinne, daß sie ihre Welt im Lichte von Deutungen erschließen, und Deutungen werden als Bedeutungen (von Wörtern und Sätzen) faßbar. Damit ist Individualität nicht aus dem Sprachbezug herausgenommen. Im Gegenteil ist Miteinander-Sprechen auf Weltdeutung angelegt, und deutungsmächtig sind nur Individuen. Kein Wort besitzt den Sinn, unter dem es erschlossen ist, aus sich selbst; es verdankt ihn einer Deutungsinitiative, deren Autor - in letzter Instanz - immer ein Einzelsubjekt sein wird. … [D]as sich auf der Basis einer von anderen Individuen bereits gedeuteten Welt auf seinen Sinn entwerfende Einzelsubjekt ist nie das Subjekt überhaupt, sondern dieses selbstbewußte Einzelwesen in dieser singulären (auch semantisch singulären) Situation.” <?page no="69"?> The Hybrid Individual 61 somewhat strained and finally implausible banning of the individual seems (at least partly) due to the fear of ending up with just this kind of opposition. The statement that the “cultural forms are not external to supposedly pre-cultural individuals” (HS 10) 27 suggests that to allow for individuality in a theory of the subject would be detrimental to pointing out the importance of cultural factors. As Frank emphasises, however, this importance can be convincingly shown only in terms of a dialectical interplay between the individual and the collective, or, to be more precise, between different dimensions of the individual. Since Reckwitz conceives of his own approach as “praxeological”, the fact that he does not endow the subject with the prerequisites of agency becomes all the more relevant. Indeed, he claims in a key passage that this approach requires a “thin theory of the subject”: The praxeological view … makes a point of using a ‘thin’ theory of the subject, which largely tries to do without the assumption of pre-cultural, pre-practical qualities - no transcendental capacity for reflexion, no capacity for choice and decision, no desire with a direction of its own. All of these structures, which classic subject philosophies locate ‘inside’ the subject, now become visible as dispositions produced and reproduced through highly specific cultural practices. (HS 40) 28 Again, the question is: who does the reproducing? Since reflexivity, freedom of choice, and even desire are conceptualised as culturally shaped “structures” and all that is left outside the domain of culture are organic processes, the necessary conclusion would be that it is the symbolic order itself which ‘acts’. The impression we have of being endowed with the aforementioned “pre-cultural” attributes is itself culturally prefabricated and hence no more than an illusion (a thought tiresomely familiar from postmodern theory). Criticising this view as seriously skewed does not imply the converse claim that said attributes indeed are thoroughly pre-cultural since this position would fall prey to the same organism-versus-culture dichotomy that curtails the plausibility of Reckwitz’ conception of the subject. His culturalism is reductionist in that it fails to take into account the complex entanglement of nature and culture. This reading is backed up by his conceptualisation of practices: 27 “Diese kulturellen Formen sind nicht vermeintlich vorkulturellen Individuen äußerlich”. 28 “Die praxeologische Sicht enthält … eine bewusst ‘dünne’ Theorie des Subjekts; sie setzt so wenig wie möglich als vorkulturelle, vorpraktische Eigenschaften voraus - keine transzendentale Reflexionsfähigkeit, keine Fähigkeit zur Wahl und Entscheidung, kein gerichtetes Begehren. Alle diese Strukturen, die klassische Subjektphilosophien im ‘Innern’ des Subjekts präjudizieren, stellen sich nun als Dispositionen dar, die im Vollzug hochspezifischer kultureller Praktiken produziert und reproduziert werden.” <?page no="70"?> Stefan Glomb 62 A practice is … neither identical with an action nor with mere behaviour. Practices contain acts which are repeatedly produced, but whereas the concept of ‘action’ refers to an isolated, single act which is seen as the intentional product of an agent, a practice is from the outset social and cultural, a regulated, typified activity directed by criteria, and is sustained by different subjects. (HS 38) 29 What remains unclear is how and where acts originate before they turn into practices since, if an act is to be more than a biologically conditioned reflex, there is simply no room for that kind of agency in this approach. If we take the term ‘language’ used in the following quote to refer to systems of signification in general, the following questions, referring to postmodernism, are also pertinent here: ‘The subject’ appears to be no longer the originator of language, but its creature. What independent moral life can be expected of a subjectivity controlled by systems into which it is born and over which it has little control? What uniqueness is possible for a subjectivity thus positioned? If discourses pre-ordain subject positions, do they also pre-ordain what we once called individual history? What becomes of concepts like social justice and even “human rights” when their epistemological grounds are discredited and their founding subject distributed throughout the functions of systems? (Ermarth 45f.) At this point, a fundamental dilemma in Reckwitz’ theory becomes visible: on the one hand, he cannot entirely do away with life-world agency without running the risk of divorcing his theory from the reality he sets out to describe; on the other hand, the allocation of agency to fully fledged individuals who are only partly constituted by culture diminishes the scope of the symbolic order (and hence the specificity of Reckwitz’ approach) and thus threatens a reversion to the more traditional theories of the subject he is eager to avoid. It is this unreflected dilemma that seems responsible for the flaws in his argument discussed above, the most serious of which is the assignment of agency to cultural systems and processes rather than to flesh-and-blood human beings. This can be demonstrated in the following passage: In order to locate culturally produced and self-producing subjects, we have to reconstruct the practices which in their application continue to produce a new form of the subject and which are simultaneously ‘sustained’ by the subjects 29 “Eine Praktik ist … weder identisch mit einer Handlung noch mit bloßem Verhalten: Praktiken enthalten in sich Handlungsakte, die wiederholt hervorgebracht werden, aber während das Konzept der ‘Handlung’ sich punktuell auf einen einzigen Akt bezieht, der als intentionales Produkt eines Handelnden gedacht wird, ist eine Praktik von vorneherein sozial und kulturell, eine geregelte, typisierte, von Kriterien angeleitete Aktivität, die von verschiedenen Subjekten getragen wird.” <?page no="71"?> The Hybrid Individual 63 … trained within them. … What are the specific practices through which modern culture constantly produces subjects …? And what are the specific … dispositions of the subject which emerge from these practices that sustain and produce them? (HS 35) 30 Practices, culture, and dispositions act on and produce subjects who are at best allowed to sustain (tragen) shaping agents. These “abstract subject actants” (abstrakte Subjekt-Aktanten) (Zima 325) are imbued with a mythical quality: The problem … is that abstract actants, which are unavoidable in any theoretical discourse, become mythical actants because they do not interact with individual and collective subjects but replace them and thus obscure their function. (Zima 325) 31 Thus, the “subjected subjector” (unterworfener Unterwerfer) (HS 9) appears in a considerably reduced role: from a praxeological perspective, the subject is “nothing … but a carrier of routinized practices, … an agglomeration of competences…, a set of incorporated and interiorized criteria and schemata” (HS 40). 32 Since this view comes dangerously close to determinism, Reckwitz repeatedly displaces agency from the individual onto the subject, i.e. from the only conceivable possessors of the kind of agency that is relevant here - situated flesh-and-blood human beings - onto cultural structures and processes. That this is not immediately noticeable may be due to the fact that, semantically, the word ‘subject’ comprises elements that Reckwitz’ concept of the subject excludes. Since Das hybride Subjekt, therefore, still follows the logic of the main strands of postmodern theorizing, it also has to face the kind of criticism directed against that line of thought: “It is important to see, as postmodernism largely does not, that we are not ‘cultural’ rather than ‘natural’ creatures, but cultural beings by virtue of our nature, which is to say by virtue of the sort of bodies we have and the kind of world to which they belong” (Eagleton, Illusions of Postmodernism 72f.). Of course one might counter that a sociologist may 30 “Um die kulturell produzierten und sich produzierenden Subjekte aufzufinden, sind die Praktiken zu rekonstruieren, welche in ihrem Vollzug immer wieder neu eine Form des Subjekts hervorbringen und welche zugleich von den in ihnen trainierten Subjekten … ‘getragen werden’. … Was sind die spezifischen Praktiken, in denen die moderne Kultur Subjekte … beständig hervorbringt? Und was sind die spezifischen … Dispositionen des Subjekts, die sich in diesen Praktiken ausbilden, sie tragen und reproduzieren? ” 31 “Das Problem besteht … darin, daß abstrakte Aktanten, die in keinem theoretischen Diskurs zu vermeiden sind, zu mythischen Aktanten werden, weil sie nicht mit individuellen und kollektiven Subjekten interagieren, sondern diese ersetzen und dadurch deren Funktion verdecken.” 32 “nichts anderes … als ein Träger routinisierter Praktiken, … eine Agglomeration von Kompetenzen …[,] ein Set inkorporierter und interiorisierter Kriterien und Schemata” <?page no="72"?> Stefan Glomb 64 be forgiven for not considering the body. As I hope to have indicated, however, what seems like a methodological exclusion is in fact a highly problematic conceptual exclusion. In order to clarify this further, I will now focus on the significance of the body in OCB. 3 “It is shaming sometimes, how the body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions.” (86) - Nature and Culture The claim that “[w]ith her mixture of guilt and conventional reserve, Florence embodies the values of the repressed Victorian woman” (Mathews 84) ignores the specificity of her biography. Even though OCB ‘Victorianizes’ the early sixties, the real source of the problems she has with sex is the fact that, to all appearances, she was abused by her father during the boating trips they went on without the rest of the family: “They had never talked about those trips. He had never asked her again, and she was glad” (50). This is what resurfaces during the doomed wedding night when it is not just her maidenly clumsiness that keeps her from enjoying the event: “there was another element, far worse in its way and quite beyond her control, summoning memories she had long ago decided were not really hers” (105). This is why, after Edward’s ejaculation, she feels “primal disgust”, “visceral horror” (105) faced with the “intimate starchy odour, which dragged with it the stench of a shameful secret, locked in musty confinement” (106). This overpowering physical disgust, however, is overlaid with a painful awareness of what she feels to be her deficiency as a wife: “She was two selves - the one who flung the pillow down in exasperation, the other who looked on and hated herself for it” (106). In other words: her feelings are at odds with the socially shaped expectations she has internalized. Florence’s self-hatred is connected to her persistent sense of guilt, another disastrous legacy from her father’s transgression, which also accounts for her willingness to accept Edward’s damning designation of her as “frigid”: “Frigid, that terrible word - she understood how it applied to her. She was exactly what the word meant” (157). Even though her disgust of sex is fundamentally a physical fact that cannot be conceived of as being in itself culturally induced, the way she perceives herself and tries to come to terms with her traumatic experience again testifies to the impact of cultural categories and precepts. Yet, in spite of her initial revulsion and before the fateful incident of Edward’s premature orgasm, she does get an inkling of what it might be like to have sex free from the burden of her past. McEwan describes this in meticulous phenomenological detail: the tip of his thumb pushed against the lone hair that curled out free from under her panties, rocking it back and forth, stirring in the root, along the nerve of the follicle, a mere shadow of a sensation, an almost abstract beginning, as infinitely small as a geometric point that grew to a minuscule smooth-edged <?page no="73"?> The Hybrid Individual 65 speck, and continued to swell. She doubted it, denied it, even as she felt herself sink and inwardly fold in its direction. How could the root of a solitary hair drag her whole body in? … For the first time, her love for Edward was associated with a definable physical sensation, as irrefutable as vertigo. (87) During the scene leading up to this, Florence tries in vain to fight a “treacherous band of muscle” (85) whose activity is in fact due to her nervousness, but mistakenly read by Edward as a sign of sexual fervour. The narrator wryly comments: “It is shaming sometimes, how the body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions. Who, for decorum’s sake, has ever slowed his heart, or muted a blush” (86). The whole scene is based on a temporal disjunction: while for Florence everything is happening much too fast, Edward can hardly restrain himself, and in both cases their bodies seem to set the pace. Considered in isolation, this might indeed be taken to suggest that they are subjected to biological mechanisms which refute the notion of freedom - as some of the recent ‘findings’ of neuroscience suggest. But the overall context of OCB (and life as we live it) makes it clear that this kind of naturalism, as well as the culturalism discussed above, are unconvincing in their shared reductionism. In order to avoid being unduly abstract, the claim that the body does not “lie about emotions” has to take into account that both the body and the emotions are nature/ culture-hybrids: Bodily behaviour has a meaning, I can understand it, at the same time natural causality takes part in the realization of the sense. The body is a point of transition, i.e. it cannot unambiguously be located either in the realm of the mind and culture or the realm of nature, since both aspects are entwined within it. (Waldenfels 247, paraphrasing Husserl) 33 ‘Emotions’ are the complex conjunction of physiological arousal, perceptual mechanisms, and interpretive processes; they are thus situated at the threshold where the noncultural is encoded in culture, where body, cognition, and culture converge and merge. (Illouz 3) As was discussed in section 1, OCB shows how even in situations as intimate as sexual intercourse the absence of certain culturally prefigured means of reflexion and expression has a vast impact on the way people experience such a situation; but it shows equally clearly that the body has a momentum of its own rather than being a mere tabula rasa waiting to be culturally inscribed. The body as a force to be reckoned with also appears, in line with the parallel presentation of the two protagonists’ biographies, on Edward’s side of 33 “Das leibliche Verhalten hat eine Bedeutung, ich kann es verstehen, gleichzeitig greift aber die Naturkausalität bei der Realisierung des Sinnes mit ein. Der Leib ist Umschlagstelle, d.h. er läßt sich weder eindeutig dem Bereich des Geistes und der Kultur noch dem Bereich der Natur zuordnen, sondern beide Momente sind in ihm verschränkt.” <?page no="74"?> Stefan Glomb 66 the story. Edward has a history of trying to control his bodily impulses, especially those pertaining to violence. Even as a child, he was known to throw “spectacular tantrums” (91), and later he develops an appetite for fist fights which provide a glimpse of a part of himself that usually remains hidden: “Edward found in fighting a thrilling unpredictability, and discovered a spontaneous, decisive self that eluded him in the rest of his tranquil existence” (91). This is accompanied by an almost sexual intensity of feeling: He never sought out these situations, but when they arose, certain aspects - the taunting, the restraining friends, the squaring up, the sheer outrageousness of his opponent - were irresistible. Something like tunnel vision and deafness descended on him, and then suddenly he was back there again, stepping into a forgotten pleasure, as though emerging into a recurring dream. (91f.) He was back in that dream. He would have found it difficult to describe his state: his anger had lifted itself and spiralled into a kind of ecstasy. (93f.) Problems arise less from the counter-violence he has to face, since he is strong and usually victorious, but from his realisation that his craving is at odds with certain (sub)cultural norms. After re-entering “that dream” by brutally retaliating for a condescending smack his friend Harold Mather receives from a rocker, Edward is surprised to find that Mather is anything but grateful: “his friend not only disapproved, but worse - he was embarrassed” (94). In fact, Edward loses a friend because he has not sufficiently realised the logic of a particular subject model: Later on, Edward realised that what he had done was simply not cool, and his shame was all the greater. Street fighting did not go with poetry and irony, bebop or history. He was guilty of a lapse of taste. He was not the person he had thought. … Since then, Edward had stayed out of fights. (95) Again, we seem to be faced with the nature-culture-dichotomy, in which the unruliness of the former is subjected to the civilizing influence of the latter, but on close inspection a more complex view of the relation of violence and culture emerges (a topic McEwan probed more extensively in Black Dogs). Violence, and by implication the physical side of human existence, is shown to be both a natural force at times barely controllable and culturally shaped. The rocker does not pick his victim completely at random but goes for the kind of person that, in the context of his subject culture, is defined as the enemy, or the “anti-subject” (cf. HS 16): “It was an act of casual contempt for Mather’s height and studious appearance, or for the fact that he looked, and was, Jewish. Perhaps it was intended to impress or amuse the girl” (93). Edward “who thought a bare-knuckle swipe could impress a friend” (95), shares this motivation but then comes to realise that he is moving in a (sub)cultural context where violence is unacceptable, whereas the very opposite is true of the sphere the rocker moves in (consider the fights between mods and rockers in <?page no="75"?> The Hybrid Individual 67 the early sixties, memorialized in The Who’s Quadrophenia). All of this goes to show that, like sexuality, violence cannot be neatly located on either side of a nature/ culture-divide but has to be seen as a liminal, a hybrid phenomenon. Emotional intensity and barely controllable moods also mark the final exchange between the newly married couple. After the fateful event, Edward tries in vain to hold on to a positive image of Florence: He conjured these memories of last year, the cottage postcards, the walk under the limes, the Oxford summer, not from a sentimental desire to compound or indulge his sorrow but to dispel it and feel himself in love, and to hold back the advance of an element that initially he did not care to admit, the beginnings of a darkening of mood, a darker reckoning, a trace of poison that even now was branching through his being. Anger. The demon he had kept down earlier when he thought his patience was about to break. How tempting to give in to it, now that he was alone and could let it burn. (132f.) Again, what seems like a purely physical upsurge of bodily energy is closely linked to Edward’s view of himself as filtered through culturally shared notions of masculinity. He feels insulted and humiliated: “Other men would have demanded more, or walked away” (134). Rather than allowing for the possibility that Florence in her turn is suffering from causes unknown to him, he interprets her behaviour with recourse to the handy formula of deception. In this situation, it is impossible to tell what came first: Edward’s propensity for violence or the force of shared ideas. Florence, too, views herself through the lens of prefabricated notions, even though she is aware of their deficiency: “She had behaved abominably. Abominably. She let the clumsy, sociable word repeat itself in her thoughts several times. … Florence knew that it masked rather than described her behaviour” (140). And finally even peaceful Florence feels aggression rise within her: “She surprised herself with the hardness in her voice. … God, how irritable she suddenly felt, when minutes ago she was so ashamed of herself” (143). The scene develops into a fight which, even though fought by means of language, is described in physical terms: “She imagined she heard him grunt, as though punched in the chest. … But Edward came out swinging” (144). The conflict between the two lovers is paralleled by a conflict within Florence, who, again, finds herself faced with two opposing sides of herself: “She wanted to be in love and be herself. But to be herself, she had to say no all the time. And then she was no longer herself” (146). Again she cannot reconcile what she feels with what she thinks she ought to feel, and saying no as a way of protecting her individual integrity does not feel right either because she does not wish to see herself as a nay-sayer and spoilsport. This predicament leads her to make a suggestion that is relevant for the topic of freedom which will be discussed in the next section. <?page no="76"?> Stefan Glomb 68 4 “She felt as though she were trying to re-invent existence itself.” (152) - Freedom Reckwitz is conspicuously silent on the topic of freedom: the term is missing from the otherwise considerably comprehensive and differentiated index of HS, and when he uses the word he tends to do so in scare quotes, as in the following passage, cited above: “[Idiosyncrasies] should not be mistaken as signs of a kind of ‘freedom’ which separates itself from and positions itself against society - like an existential act of choosing” (HS 48). In the light of the complexity of the philosophical explorations of freedom, Reckwitz argues on the basis of a strikingly diminished concept: why single out existentialism and why should the assumption of freedom go along with an opposition to society? While he is right in stressing that a position that locates the individual in opposition to society is inappropriate, he throws out the baby with the bathwater by disregarding freedom altogether. OCB frequently refers to freedom, as in the following passages: “… gleeful that their new status promised to promote them out of their endless youth … free at last! ” (6); “They were adults at last … free to do as they chose” (18); “here was a boundless sensual freedom, theirs for the taking … a dirty, joyous bare-limbed freedom” (96); “their lives seemed hilarious and free, and the whole weekend lay before them” (130). As part of the text’s use of dramatic irony, Edward and Florence’s self-perception as free agents clashes with the fact that they are shown to be (at least partly) at the mercy of a cultural a priori which keeps them from reaching the kind of fulfilment which freedom seems to promise: “They were alone then, and theoretically free to do whatever they wanted, but they went on eating the dinner they had no appetite for” (23). These quotes stress the negative aspect of freedom as freedom from: they are no longer restricted by what they regard as the misfortune of not yet being adults; there is no one there to keep them from having fun together; indeed, they are now officially licensed to do all the things they (thought they) could not do before. The irony arises from the fact that they do not know how to use this opportunity. Considering the positive aspect of freedom as freedom towards, they lack the ability to shape that open space according to their wishes. It is here that individual freedom and culture can be shown to be inextricably linked. As was indicated above, the representation in OCB of the change that occurred between the early and the later sixties - the movement from a more restrictive towards a more relaxed attitude towards sex - is not to be mistaken as support for the repression hypothesis, according to which potentially free individuals are imprisoned by the dictates of culture and subsequently set free, but rather shows that the forces which facilitate this change are to a large extent cultural as well (as is the whole idea of sexual freedom). But while freedom cannot be convincingly shown to exist outside of and independent from <?page no="77"?> The Hybrid Individual 69 particular cultural formations, 34 neither does this mean that freedom is an exclusively cultural phenomenon. This becomes clear in Part Five of OCB when the couple’s sense of freedom seems to have vanished: “How unfree she was … And how extraordinary it now seemed to her, that she had chosen this situation, this entanglement, for herself” (150); Edward complains: “’We could be so free with each other, we could be in paradise. Instead we’re in this mess’” (150). Florence sees a way out: “she was about to make a suggestion that from one point of view was entirely sensible, and from another, quite probably - she could not be sure - entirely outrageous. She felt as though she were trying to re-invent existence itself” (152). Again, Florence perceives herself as being split into two selves: one encompassing her individual desires and fears and the other internalized cultural norms (since the latter are just as much part of her as the former, this does not necessarily constitute an opposition between the individual and society). Her suggestion is living together without having sex while Edward would be free to satisfy his desire with other women. She prefaces this proposal as follows: We’re free now to make our own choices, our own lives. Really no one can tell us how to live. Free agents! And people live in all kinds of ways now, they can live by their own rules and standards without having to ask anyone else for permission. … And we can make our own rules too. (154) She backs up this claim with reference to two homosexuals who (at the time still illegally) live together like husband and wife (cf. 154), thus intensifying Edward’s growing anger which is a composite of his tendency towards violence and righteous indignation in the face of Florence’s transgression of the dictates of propriety: In his fury, he bent down to pick up a large smooth stone, which he smacked into his right palm and back into his left. He was close to shouting now. ‘With my body I thee worship! That’s what you promised today. In front of everybody. Don’t you realise how disgusting and ridiculous your idea is? An insult to me! I mean, I mean’ - he struggled for words - ‘how dare you! ’ (156) However, in the course of the brief summary of the rest of Edward’s life we are given at the end of OCB, we learn that with the changing times his interpretation of this situation changes too: Towards the end of that celebrated decade, when his life came under pressure from all the new excitements and freedoms and fashions, as well as from the chaos of numerous love affairs - he became at last reasonably competent - he often thought of her strange proposal, and it no longer seemed quite so ridiculous, and certainly not disgusting or insulting. In the new circumstances of 34 On the connection between freedom and culture cf. Recki 87-94. <?page no="78"?> Stefan Glomb 70 the day, it appeared liberated, and far ahead of its time, innocently generous, an act of self-sacrifice that he had quite failed to understand. (160f.) The reference to “freedoms” in the plural points to the cultural side of freedom: “Who would have predicted such transformations - the sudden guiltless elevation of pleasure, the uncomplicated willingness of so many beautiful women? ” (161) But there is much more to freedom than changing circumstances. Indeed, I would argue that Florence’s view of herself as a free agent is located outside of the scope of the text’s pervasive dramatic irony and should be taken seriously. This is the point in the plot where freedom - in its positive aspect of freedom towards - is most clearly marked and where Florence is shown to be a free agent in the sense of having a free will and thus being autonomous. In order to explain this, it is again necessary to avoid extremes, in this case the position that freedom of the will is unconditional (unbedingt) on the one hand versus determinism on the other. As Peter Bieri has convincingly shown, freedom of the will is conceivable only as being conditional (bedingt): “A will is always a particular will, and it is always somebody’s will. A will that could not be distinguished from another by having a particular content and belonging to a particular person could not be a will” (Bieri 239). 35 Freedom of the will without determining factors (Bestimmung) is inconceivable: Let as assume you had an unconditional free will. This would be a will which would not depend on anything. A completely detached will, free from any causal connections. Such a will would be a crazy, abstruse will. For its detachment would imply that it would be independent of your body, your character, your thoughts, your fantasies and memories. It would, in other words, be a will without any connection to what makes you a particular person. Thus, in a substantial sense of the word, it would not be your will at all. Rather than expressing what you - this particular individual - want as a result from the logic of your life story, such a will, coming from a causal vacuum, would simply overwhelm you, and you would have to experience it as a completely alienated will. (Bieri 230) 36 35 “Ein Wille ist stets ein bestimmter Wille, und er ist stets jemandes Wille. Ein Wille, der von einem anderen nicht durch einen bestimmten Gehalt und durch die Zugehörigkeit zu einer bestimmten Person unterschieden wäre, könnte kein Wille sein.” 36 “Nehmen wir an, Sie hätten einen unbedingt freien Willen. Es wäre ein Wille, der von nichts abhinge. Ein vollständig losgelöster, von allen ursächlichen Zusammenhängen freier Wille. Ein solcher Wille wäre ein aberwitziger, abstruser Wille. Seine Losgelöstheit würde nämlich bedeuten, daß er unabhängig wäre von Ihrem Körper, Ihrem Charakter, Ihren Gedanken, Ihren Phantasien und Erinnerungen. Es wäre, mit anderen Worten, ein Wille ohne Zusammenhang mit all dem, was Sie zu einer bestimmten Person macht. In einem substantiellen Sinne des Wortes wäre er deshalb gar nicht Ihr Wille. Statt zum Ausdruck zu bringen, was Sie - dieses bestimmte Individuum - aus der Logik Ihrer Lebensgeschichte heraus wollen, bräche ein solcher Wille, aus einem kausalen Vakuum <?page no="79"?> The Hybrid Individual 71 But free will is not merely a static given: the way that Florence thinks and acts in the particular situation analysed here shows that it requires an activity on the part of the individual: “an act is the expression of a will, and we prepare it by deliberately giving it a particular direction. In this way we exert power over it and become its authors” (Bieri 54). 37 In order to achieve this, Florence has to transform a mere wish or desire (which may or may not lead to action) into a will (which turns into action): “the notion of the will … is the notion of an effective desire - one that moves (or will or would move) a person all the way to action” (Frankfurt 14). As was shown above, Florence is literally ‘in two minds’ when it comes to reflecting on her relationship with Edward. On the one hand, she wants the difficulties she has with sex to be respected, on the other hand, she wants to live in accordance with shared notions of what a marriage should be like. In Frankfurt’s terms, these are “first-order desires” (Frankfurt 16-19), which, in order to be turned into a will, have to be subject to a “second-order volition” (16-19), which privileges one of several desires and turns it into a will. One option would be to deny her disgust of sex and give in to the collective demands - a position she comes close to earlier: “Florence realised she had stumbled across an empty truth, self-evident enough in retrospect, as primal and ancient as danegeld or droit de seigneur, and almost too elemental to define: in deciding to be married, she had agreed to exactly this” (30). By favouring the opposite option and thus consciously deciding on a particular course of action through deliberation and an imaginative configuration of an as yet counterfactual way of living, Florence also expresses her individuality: “to be free is to be self-willed. It means being able to distinguish between a will that has been imposed on you by others and a will which expresses your own individuality and singularity” (Bieri 429). 38 Again, it must be stressed that this is not some kind of free-floating, literally ‘absolute’ individual freedom but one which is part and parcel of a particular life-world with its opportunities and restrictions: “The restrictions that the world places on the will are not an obstacle to freedom but its prerequisite” (Bieri 51). 39 In his comparison of OCB and John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman, de Waard draws attention to a parallel between the novels, which is in line with the view expounded here: kommend, einfach über Sie herein, und Sie müßten ihn als einen vollständig entfremdeten Willen erleben.” 37 “[Eine] Handlung ist Ausdruck eines Willens, und wir bereiten sie vor, indem wir den Willen durch Überlegung in eine bestimmte Richtung lenken. Dadurch üben wir Macht auf den Willen aus und werden seine Urheber.” 38 “Frei zu sein heißt, eigenwillig zu sein. Es heißt, zwischen einem Willen unterscheiden zu können, der sich einem von den anderen her aufgeprägt hat, und einem Willen, in dem die eigene Individualität und Einzigartigkeit zum Ausdruck kommt.” 39 “Die Grenzen, die dem Willen durch die Welt gezogen werden, sind kein Hindernis für die Freiheit, sondern deren Voraussetzung.” <?page no="80"?> Stefan Glomb 72 What is being built up in the process of both narratives is a strong sense, on the part of the reader, that to the extent that the pace and logic of things could be changed for Ernestina and Charles, Florence and Edward, the push for change would need to come from within, on the level of the individual’s inner experience and willingness to resist being subject to - or defined by - the historical moment. (238) The analysis of OCB’s pivotal scene shows that Edward’s reinterpretation of Florence’s proposition as “an act of self-sacrifice” (161) and “self-effacing” (166) is still inaccurate. While he is right in seeing it as “liberated, and far ahead of its time” (160), he fails to recognize that it is also an act of self-determination: “By forming a will through deliberation and the play of the imagination, we work on ourselves. We endow the will with a profile that did not exist before. In that sense you are a different person after taking a decision than you were before” (Bieri 382). 40 With the proviso in mind that “determinacy requires conditionality” (Bieri 273) 41 and that this endeavour is not necessarily successful and moreover unstable at the best of times, it makes sense to consider Florence’s act as that of an autonomous individual: A self which develops out of the internal distance to ourselves is a temporary entity resting on an unstable foundation, and recognizing this simple and rather obvious fact is one of the prerequisites for freedom of the will - just as there are times when we are neither autonomous nor the opposite. Denying this experience would mean reducing the important concept of autonomy to a chimera. (Bieri 423) 42 With Edward, matters stand differently: compared to Florence he appears unfree to the degree of his inability to direct his will. In the crucial scene discussed here, his freedom is curtailed by his violent physical reaction and his adherence to received notions. If he had shared Florence’s degree of freedom, their story might have taken a more positive turn, as, again, he later realizes: “Now, of course, he saw that her self-effacing proposal was quite irrelevant. All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them” (166). Looking back on his life, he sees someone who is carried along by different currents rather than 40 “Indem wir durch Überlegen und das Spiel der Phantasie einen Willen ausbilden, arbeiten wir an uns selbst. Wir geben dem Willen ein Profil, das vorher nicht da war. In diesem Sinn ist man nach der Entscheidung ein anderer als vorher.” 41 “Bestimmtheit verlangt Bedingtheit” 42 “Ein Selbst, wie es sich aus dem inneren Abstand zu uns selbst entwickelt, ist ein vorübergehendes Gebilde auf schwankendem Grund, und es gehört zu den Voraussetzungen für Willensfreiheit, diese einfache und eigentlich offensichtliche Tatsache anzuerkennen. Genauso wie es Zeiten gibt, in denen wir weder autonom sind noch das Gegenteil. Diese Erfahrung zu leugnen hieße, die wichtige Idee der Autonomie zu einer Chimäre zu machen.” <?page no="81"?> The Hybrid Individual 73 reflexively and imaginatively trying to give his life direction: “it seemed to him that an explanation of his existence would take up less than a minute, less than half a page. What had he done with himself? He had drifted through, half asleep, inattentive, unambitious, unserious, childless, comfortable” (163). He even senses that staying with Florence might have had a beneficial influence on him: “he had never found anyone, man or woman, who matched her seriousness. Perhaps if he had stayed with her, he would have been more focused and ambitious about his own life, he might have written those history books” (165). This is also the reason why, after the symmetrical presentation of the two protagonists’ lives, the final part of McEwan’s anatomy of failure is dominated by Edward: his comfortable but meaningless life stands in stark contrast to the fact that Florence, at least in her musical career, has achieved what she aspired to achieve. Seeing this in terms of right and wrong would reduce OCB to a simplistic moral tale. The point is, rather, to highlight crucial dimensions of freedom of the will: while it is never absolute, the possibility of persons acting as free and autonomous individuals does exist; it cannot simply be taken for granted but requires reflexive and imaginative deliberation; there are different degrees of freedom; freedom and culture are inextricably entwined. Concerning HS, it is important to note that while Reckwitz’ study is extremely helpful when it comes to describing in detail cultural and historical processes like the ones charted in OCB, neither the difference between the ways Edward and Florence think and act nor the facets of freedom listed above can convincingly be accounted for within the framework of his approach. Since, however, these aspects have a crucial bearing on the ways we think about agency and historical change, they cannot simply be left out of the picture. The latter problem is dealt with in OCB during Edward’s time as a history student: In his final year he had made a special study of the ‘great man’ theory of history - was it really outmoded to believe that forceful individuals could shape national destiny? Certainly his tutor thought so: in his view, History, properly capitalised, was driven forwards by ineluctable forces towards inevitable, necessary ends, and soon the subject would be understood as a science. (13) The point being made here (and in the novel as a whole) is that historical and cultural change cannot be explained by exclusive reference to the misleading extremes of either “great men” or “ineluctable forces”, of either individual agency or trans-individual systems and processes. It is the concept of the individual underlying McEwan’s text, which points the way out of this kind of dichotomous deadlock. <?page no="82"?> Stefan Glomb 74 5 Methodological Individualism The present article cannot possibly claim to come up with a definition of the individual that can match the rigour of a sociological or philosophical study. My aim has been, rather, to use the close reading of a sufficiently complex literary text to delineate a set of parameters that should be taken into account when we try to address the problem of how best to do justice to an everyday phenomenon in the medium of a generalizing discourse. This procedure follows Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth’s claim “that highly achieved literary writing opens new powers in our collective discursive potentials, in our power to revise social codes rather than merely to repeat the same old exclusions and emphases” (48f.). In my interpretation of OCB, it is the individual, rather than the subject as described by Reckwitz, which emerges as the more fundamental entity, even though the subject cultures he analyses have an undeniable impact on the individual as discussed here. As has been shown, the individual can be adequately grasped only by taking the body and freedom into consideration: it bears repeating that each of the terms in the triad individual-bodyfreedom requires consideration of the other two to make sense. Since these concepts are prone to being thought of in terms of simplifying extremes, it is all the more important to stress that the individual is never entirely unique, the body never purely natural and freedom never absolute; but neither are individuality and freedom merely collectively induced illusions, nor is the body a tabula rasa to be inscribed by culture. It is this location beyond the extremes of the unique and the collective, nature and culture, absolute freedom and determinism that makes the individual a hybrid and liminal entity that eludes either/ or-distinctions. The claim that the individual as possessing a body and being potentially capable of attaining freedom is more fundamental than the subject is therefore compatible with a recognition of the relevance of subject cultures but reduces their status to that of a facet, albeit an important one, in a more complex picture. HS differs not just in its culturalist reductionism from the approach adopted here but also in what might be called its positivism, its indifference to questions of value, or ethics. While it seems possible to chart the changing landscape of cultural formations without giving much thought to this, the individual, the body and freedom notoriously conjure up rights and obligations and thus require an ethical or, to put it differently, a critical awareness. It would certainly count as a misreading to pass off OCB as a predominantly critical text; and yet the above analysis has demonstrated that there are aspects which show how the novel takes sides rather than neutrally juxtaposing different ways of life. First, the difference between Florence’s realization of her dream (at least in the realm of music) on the one hand, and the tepid passivity of Edward’s life on the other establishes a clearly marked difference between success and failure - a difference of which Edward himself is all too <?page no="83"?> The Hybrid Individual 75 gratingly aware. His awareness also extends to the second point, namely the strong implication that both their lives would have taken a different and more self-fulfilling course, had Edward acted differently. The impact the novel is likely to have is to a large extent informed by this employment of an alternative plot shaped by the readers’ imaginative elaboration of what is hinted at in the text. Yet it is not a matter of Edward simply having the wrong attitude or making the wrong choice: the degree of freedom attainable by one person may be beyond the grasp of another. What keeps OCB from deteriorating into a simplistic moral fable is that the depiction of the contrast between success and failure is accompanied by a meticulous unravelling of the (cultural and non-cultural) factors that shape the characters’ lives. Where cultural factors are concerned, OCB (pace Foucault) does indeed imply that five or six years into the future Edward and Florence’s wedding night would not have ended in disaster. This should not be misread for a wholesale and uncritical glorification of ‘the sixties’ - McEwan takes pains also to include the more questionable features of the latter part of that decade. It seems, however, plausible that the more restrictive sexual mores of the fifties and early sixties were less conducive to a relaxed attitude towards sex than were the later sixties. It is thus due to the novel’s concern with values that, rather than neutrally charting a sequence of subject cultures, it also provokes questions as to how beneficial or detrimental cultural factors are to certain aspects of individual self-fulfilment. Concerning these two related aspects, the focus on the individual and a critical concern with questions of value, literary texts like OCB differ from and can serve as a corrective to sociological studies. What I would like to stress by way of a conclusion is that this is the result not just of their respective lines of argument but also of a difference regarding their underlying generic logic. Comparing literature and sociology may seem like lumping together totally different things, which is why sociology and other fields tend to relegate literary texts (if they, as rarely happens, refer to them at all) to the status of illustrative examples that merely confirm the findings of a dominant discourse. This is where Reckwitz stands out as a shining example since he not only includes a wide range of literary references but also considers the avant-garde movements between 1890 and 1930 as being instrumental in the process of bringing about new subject cultures. Reckwitz thus goes some way to regard literature as an equal partner in the shared enterprise of making sense of the world. It is the task of literary studies, however, to elucidate in how far literature’s contribution to this process is based on a ‘methodology’ in its own right. As his book Die Transformation der Kulturtheorien shows, Reckwitz locates his own approach at the point where two dominant strands converge: holism (focussed on structure) and individualism/ subjectivism (focussed on agency) (cf. TK 175). When it comes to naming the second strand, he significantly shifts <?page no="84"?> Stefan Glomb 76 between using the terms “methodological individualism” and “methodological subjectivism” but implies that they are interchangeable (cf. TK 175). By contrast, I would claim that this is an important distinction and that the former term should be considered to be the prerogative of (much of) literature. Whereas sociological approaches commonly do not move beyond being methodologically subjective (i.e. referring to that which is social, collective, cultural), an emphatically individual methodology requires a focus on flesh-andblood, situated human beings with specific characteristics and individual names: “literary mimesis selects the single case from society’s totality; in this it is distinct from the great models of sociological, political and economic theory. Its approach is methodological individualism” (Gebauer and Wulf 304f.). 43 As with the aspects of individuality discussed above, this ‘methodology’ can never be entirely individual. Indeed, what appears to be a specific quality of literary discourse is the way it joins the individual and the general. We are not interested in Hamlet merely because he is a particularly complex individual but because Shakespeare’s play provokes us into linking his individuality to all manner of general reflexions. This may well be a feature that literature shares with other art forms: Art … represents an alternative mode of cognition to Enlightenment rationality, clinging as it does to the specific without thereby relinquishing the whole. It is not a question of dismissing the general as a violation of the particular, but of grasping a different relation between the two. (Eagleton, The Event of Literature 66) Of course, the claim that literature has its own ‘methodology’ and should be regarded as a serious player when it comes to providing knowledge, sees itself confronted with the argument that works of literature are, after all, only fictional. Considering, however, that on the one hand fictional texts like OCB present us with a scenario that relates recognizably and persuasively to the life-world we inhabit, while on the other hand factual texts like sociological studies employ concepts, models, and systems which are as such unobservable in reality, what seems like a knockout argument loses some of its clout. Of course it would be naïve to deny the differences between factual and fictional texts or, for that matter, fact and fiction, but then again (cf. the dichotomies criticised above), it seems equally naïve to believe that they are invariably subject to a clear-cut either/ or distinction. It is here that another aspect of literature’s methodological individualism, namely its epistemological relevance, comes into the equation. This can be il- 43 “Die literarische Mimesis greift aus der Totalität der Gesellschaft den Einzelfall heraus; darin unterscheidet sie sich von den großen Modellen der soziologischen, politischen und ökonomischen Theorie. Ihr Ansatzpunkt ist ein methodologischer Individualismus.” <?page no="85"?> The Hybrid Individual 77 lustrated by a final comparison between OCB and HS. While Reckwitz presents his study as a neutral account in which he does not give much thought to the historicity of his own standpoint (in a book that historicises virtually everything else), readers of McEwan’s novel are constantly aware of the relativity of both his characters’ and his narrator’s points of view. Even though he employs an authorial narrator (though clearly one who is more on the figural than the omniscient side of the spectrum), the latter’s occasionally surfacing gleeful smugness and delight in historical hindsight is qualified by the novel’s emphasis on ever-changing patterns of thought which may make today’s selfassured superiority tomorrow’s butt of ridicule. This lack of a standpoint from which to access some kind of ultimate reality is another aspect of the individualism discussed here since it can be argued that it applies not just to the characters but to the act of narrative enunciation as such. Even the most godlike of authorial narrators are, after all, part of individual designs (and more often than not what they tell us is characterised by specific predilections, ideologies etc., and some of them, as in George Eliot, are well aware of the impossibility to access an unmediated reality). Yet literature’s individualism is not restricted to characters and (in the case of some genres) narrators, as well as to the other constituents like time, place etc., but extends to the overall make-up of a particular text, to its singularity as a work of art. This, in turn, requires a particular receptive attitude with which readers encounter the work (along the lines of Coleridge’s willing suspension of disbelief). The interplay between the literary text and its reception can be seen as ‘individual’ in the sense that the singular make-up of the text is met by an equally singular act of reading, and this reciprocation works in a manner different from a scholarly discourse standardised by received features and procedures and thus makes for specific cognitive processes and emotional engagements. Hence, what can be called the methodological individualism of literature is to be found on a number of levels: that of characters and narrators as part of the overall configuration of a text as well as its reception, all of which makes literature not just an aesthetic but also an ethical and epistemological medium in its own right. *** Stefan Glomb is Lecturer in English Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Mannheim. His publications cover 19 th and 20 th century English literature in addition to which he teaches seminars on cultural theory and on film. He is particularly interested in how literary texts and films shape ‘transdiscursive’ themes (identity, memory, nature and culture etc.), critically interrogate dichotomies, and provide an insight into processes of modernization. His approach to all this is indebted to (Frankfurt School) Critical Theory. <?page no="86"?> Stefan Glomb 78 Bibliography Bieri, Peter. Das Handwerk der Freiheit. München: Beck, 2001. Print. De Waard, Marco. “Redemptive Realism? History and Intertextuality in On Chesil Beach.” Rethinking Mimesis. Ed. Saija Isomaa, et al. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. 229-50. Print. Eagleton, Terry. The Event of Literature. New Haven: Yale UP, 2012. Print. ---. The Illusions of Postmodernism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. Print. Ermarth, Elizabeth Deeds. “Agency in the Discursive condition.” History and Theory 40.4 (2001): 34-58. Print. Frank, Manfred. Die Unhintergehbarkeit von Individualität. Frankfurt/ M.: Suhrkamp, 1986. Print. Frankfurt, Harry G. The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print. Gebauer, Gunter, and Christoph Wulf. Mimesis. Kultur - Kunst - Gesellschaft. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1992. Print. Illouz, Eva. Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. Berkeley: U of California P, 1997. Print. Mathews, Peter. “After the Victorians: The Historical Turning Point in McEwan’s On Chesil Beach.” Critique 53 (2012): 82-91. Print. McEwan, Ian. On Chesil Beach. London: Jonathan Cape, 2007. Print. Recki, Birgit. Freiheit. Wien: Facultas, 2009. Print. Reckwitz, Andreas. Das Hybride Subjekt. Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück, 2006. Print. ---. Die Transformation der Kulturtheorien. Zur Entwicklung eines Theorieprogramms. Weilerswist: Velbrück, 2000. Print. Waldenfels, Bernhard. Das leibliche Selbst. Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des Leibes. Frankfurt/ M.: Suhrkamp, 2000. Print. Zima, Peter V. Theorie des Subjekts. Subjektivität und Identität zwischen Moderne und Postmoderne. Tübingen: Francke, 2000. Print. <?page no="87"?> II. Literary Case Studies: Subject Cultures in the English Novel <?page no="89"?> Maurus Roller Samuel Richardson’s Pamela: The Aristocratic Subject and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture Samuel Richardson’s prototypical epistolary novel Pamela (1740), written not only in the wake of what has become known as the culture of sensibility (cf. Meier, “Verschriftlichung des Gefühls” 273, 279), but also at the dawn of fundamental cultural transformations that led to the ascendancy of the middle classes and to the corresponding decline of the English aristocracy in the course of the following two centuries (cf. Carré 4f.), tends to provoke diverging responses. Most conspicuous to the modern reader is possibly its longwinded, repetitive, and occasionally immature style 1 combined with its reliance on patriarchal concepts of gender. In the 18 th century, by contrast, the issue of the novel’s (im-)morality was at the centre of an intense controversy following its publication: criticized by some contemporary moralists for its seemingly pornographic propensity (cf. Keymer, Introduction [2001] xxiixxvi), the novel was highly acclaimed by others for its supposedly sensitive portrayal of the struggles and feelings of its female protagonist, who was by some readers even described as the epitome of bourgeois femininity and morality (cf. P 5-10). The salient significance attributed to the issue of (im-)morality is stimulated above all by the incipient contest for cultural supremacy between two opposing cultural programmes (aristocratic, middle-class) which serves as an inevitable context for the novel’s plot and which is acted out in the two opposing characters of Pamela and Esquire B. (also cf. Armstrong 108-15). As I will argue, this contest results in the final reformation of the aristocratic subject and the burgeoning ascendancy of bourgeois culture, in which Pamela appears to be firmly rooted. This said, a careful reading of key passages will highlight self-deconstructive tendencies in the novel’s narration that subvert the seemingly undeniable validity of the middle-class narrative that dominates Pamela’s authorized message. In view of the fact that the ensuing analysis will focus on the pivotal tension between aristocratic and middle-class culture and in order to elucidate the novel’s uncertain stance towards these different cultural traditions that 1 Notorious cases in point are Pamela’s lengthy idealizations of middle-class values as well as some clumsy passages in which the novel presents synopses of events previously narrated (cf. P 226f., 236f., 279f.). <?page no="90"?> Maurus Roller 82 existed simultaneously and that developed side by side in 18 th -century England, it is of particular importance to outline some of their most remarkable characteristics. 2 These characteristics are conceptualized and elaborated on in Andreas Reckwitz’ exploration into various cultural traditions from the 17 th to the 20 th century, his seminal study Das hybride Subjekt (HS), which will consequently represent the point of departure and the key point of reference of my essay. And I propose to show that Reckwitz’ theoretically informed approach might open up new perspectives on and insights into one of the most influential novels of the 18 th century, Richardson’s Pamela (P). 1 Competing Cultures: The Aristocracy and the Middle Classes The antagonism between the two subject cultures that strove for supremacy in the 18 th century, that is to say the established aristocratic hegemony and the emergent middle-class order (cf. HS 175f.), 3 is played out along the lines of a limited number of funisedamental code dichotomies that form the basis of bourgeois self-perception and its construction of the courtly other (cf. HS 176). To begin with, the bourgeois cultural programme rests on a notion of the socioeconomic utility of its members, their contribution to the prosperity and welfare of the community and nation, which is positioned in opposition to the alleged uselessness and parasitic existence of the aristocratic subject that was perceived as being idle and indolent (cf. HS 181f.). This notion is expressed paradigmatically (albeit with an ironic undertone) in Richard Steele’s play The Conscious Lovers (1722): We merchants are a species of gentry that have grown into the world this last century, and are as honorable, and almost as useful, as you landed folks that have always thought yourselves so much above us. … You are pleasant people, 2 My essay will concentrate on essential characteristics of these two cultures and elaborate on the internal fissures of bourgeois culture only insofar as they are relevant to the novel Pamela. They will be analysed in more detail in Meinhard Winkgens’ essay on David Copperfield that is part of this volume. 3 In the face of my thesis that Pamela can be read as literary manifestation of a growing bourgeois self-confidence, it has to be pointed out that the English aristocracy remained a considerable political, economic, and cultural force well into the 19 th century, especially when compared with the French situation. The reasons for this relative stability are manifold; they range from the aristocracy’s strong economic position to its ability to adapt to new socioeconomic constellations and, possibly most importantly, to its willingness to implement reforms early enough, thereby avoiding violent revolutions that hampered France at the end of the 18 th century (cf. Schröder 44-63, 101-04; Bush 74, 129-49). It could therefore be argued that Pamela, to a certain extent, anticipates the extensive success of the bourgeois subject culture that was to take place in the course of the ensuing two centuries. <?page no="91"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 83 indeed, because you are generally bred up to be lazy; therefore, I warrant you, industry is dishonorable. (75) 4 What is more, the equation made between landed folks and pleasant people suggests another essential feature by which the middle classes attempted to distinguish themselves from the nobility. This feature can best be described as the culturally produced binary opposition of bourgeois authenticity and transparency and of aristocratic artificiality and pretence (cf. HS 179-82; Revel 195- 97): The art of dissimulation, in particular, which had been a fundamental feature of the courtier …, now seemed distasteful, if not positively immoral. Conversation was now seen as the art of being ‘natural’. … They [middle-class authors] advocate, among other things, a more natural and sincere kind of behaviour, in direct contrast with the affected or hypocritical manners often associated … with the world of fashion. (Carré 4) A third pillar of the bourgeoisie’s morally charged stance rests on the supposition of the nobility’s habitual indulgence and excess that represents the backdrop to a middle-class self-perception in terms of moderation and modesty (cf. HS 180-82). It does not come as a surprise that this antagonism manifests itself in the initial passages of yet another of these numerous literary representations of bourgeois self-presentation and emergent self-confidence at the beginning of the 18 th century, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), particularly in the father’s admonitions to the son that mine was the middle State, or what might be called the upper Station of Low Life, which he had found by long Experience was the best State in the World, the most suited to human Happiness, … not embarrass’d with the Pride, Luxury, Ambition and Envy of the upper Part of Mankind …; that Temperance, Moderation, Quietness … were the Blessings attending the middle Station of Life. (6) 4 A similar claim is made in what is considered to be the first bourgeois tragedy, George Lillo’s The London Merchant, a few years later (1731): “Honest merchants, as such, may sometimes contribute to the safety of their country as they do at all times to its happiness …. As the name of merchant never degrades the gentleman, so by no means does it exclude him” (11). What becomes obvious in both passages is not only the attempt to redefine sociocultural concepts such as the gentry or the gentleman in bourgeois terms (something that we will have to come back to), but also the precariousness of middleclass self-confidence (almost as useful, may sometimes contribute to) that is only nascent at the beginning of the 18 th century. For a short discussion of The London Merchant, also cf. Nünning and Nünning 98-102. The growing self-confidence of the middle classes and its relevancy to 18 th -century English literature is also discussed in Nünning, “Kulturwissenschaftliche Sicht” 82f. <?page no="92"?> Maurus Roller 84 The nexus of the three antagonisms utility vs. uselessness, authenticity / transparency vs. artificiality, and moderation vs. excess ultimately constitutes the cultural foundation of 18 th -century bourgeoisie and its moral universe, 5 and particularly of the paramount dichotomy morality (which is associated with the middle class) vs. immorality (which represents the generalized view on the aristocratic other). 6 And most importantly, this final dichotomy functions as the touchstone against which the clash of different cultural programmes as well as the practices and dispositions of their respective representatives are evaluated in the novel Pamela: In fact, Richardson’s Pamela is in part a conduct manual - as a tale of an upperclass rake’s reformation, it is a middle-class endeavour to display patterns of moral behaviour from which all classes might learn. (Goring, Literature 29) Binary structures or code dichotomies (which, by themselves, are abstract categories) form the foundation of subject cultures. Their potential and power unfolds itself through elaboration in specific discourses and tangible practices (cf. HS 36, 44). The latter, in turn, become manifest in “models of the subject”, figurative representations of “the normal and desirable subjectivity” within a culture, as well as in the corresponding construction of an “anti-subject” (CSM 10, 12, 1), the negative foil against which the cultural process of subjectification takes place. And they additionally mould the individual members (subjects) of the respective culture via processes of internalization and incorporation (cf. HS 39-43). In the case of the middle classes and their aristocratic counterpart in the 18 th century, distinctive practices and discourses emerged in the fields of work, of intimacy, and of technologies of the self 7 that were 5 What has to be pointed out is the fact that these dichotomies are not only part of the bourgeoisie’s perception of itself and the aristocratic other (also cf. Richardson’s edition of Aesop’s Fables in 1739 [P 520-24]), but also (and interestingly) of the nobility’s selfimage which reinterprets their implications and which itself relies heavily on its dissociation from the middle classes: “Because thrift and moderation were traditionally associated with the bourgeoisie, the aristocracy was inclined to practice waste and ostentation. … In contrast to the bourgeois emphasis upon work, the aristocracy shamelessly presented itself as a leisured class” (Bush 75). The mechanism of othering therefore seems to be of fundamental importance to any process of collective identity formation (cf. Döring 31f.). For interesting insights into specifically the English aristocracy and for processes of its adaptation in the course of the 18 th century, cf. Brewer 3-55. 6 “Die Repräsentation des adeligen Subjekts, als dessen emphatisches Gegenbild sich der Bürgerliche zu formen sucht, bewegt sich auf drei Elementen der Differenzmarkierung: der Differenz zur Artifizialität, zur Exzessivität und zum Parasitären. In der Kombination aller drei Sinnelemente ergibt sich aus bürgerlicher Perspektive die Amoralität eines Anti-Subjekts und damit jenes kulturelle Andere, gegen das die Bürgerlichkeit ihre rationale Moralität positionieren kann“ (HS 179; also cf. 178-83). 7 In what follows, my analysis of Pamela will focus on the fields of intimacy and of technologies of the self. The economic field, if at all, is only marginally relevant to a novel wholly devoted to the portrayal of the evolving relationship and personalities of its two protagonists, Pamela and Esquire B. <?page no="93"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 85 characteristic of bourgeois culture, all of them contributing to the formation of a moral subject as opposed to the immoral subject projected onto the nobility (cf. HS 103-05). Of particular importance to the process of bourgeois subjectification (and to the epistolary novel Pamela) was writing, primarily of texts such as diaries and letters that relate to the inner life of the writing subject and to its experience with itself and with others in social interaction (also cf. Ariès 11). The mode of writing enables the subject to habitually reflect upon its conduct and to compare it with existing cultural standards and expectations. In doing so, the subject not only trains itself to become a culturally articulate being with a well-developed inner life, but also in the related ability to feel empathically for others, to understand their psychological makeup and their motivations, feelings, and intentions (cf. HS 167-71) - paramount dispositions within 18 th -century middle-class culture and its reliance on a discourse of sensibility. 8 Similarly, the performative habits of reading and of intimate conversation contributed to the formation of an emotive and sympathetic bourgeois subject that was thus cultivating sensibilities and close relationships (cf. HS 139, 143, 165), ultimately tending towards the ideal of “companionate marriage” (Day and Keegan 177; HS 141). Both the middle-class subject as well as its friendly and marital relations with others were, however, conceived of in strictly non-erotic and overwhelmingly asexual terms (cf. Roggendorf 132f.), and this against the backdrop of the aristocratic subject and its depiction as a reportedly passionate and sexually licentious character (cf. HS 135) - ungoverned and (as Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance concisely puts it) “the slave of alternate passions” (184). Conceptual dissociations such as these finally serve to implement a strict discourse on a sexual morality that aims at a containment of sexuality and at its transformation into the culturally accepted ideals of virtuous empathy and spiritualized marriage (cf. HS 136- 43; Day and Keegan 175-77). 8 The culture of sensibility (as it has commonly become known) with its emphasis on the cultivation of an intense affective disposition came into being at about the same time that Pamela was published (1740), and it was in vogue throughout the second half of the English 18 th century (cf. Nünning, “Empfindsamkeit” 107-12). It rewarded “sympathetic actions and the exercise of feeling” (Goring, Literature 45; also cf. Nünning, “Empfindsamkeit” 108-12), and it not only represented a meaningful foil to the bourgeoisie’s moral self-perception, but it also found expression in manifold literary texts of the period (cf. HS 136, 143; Goring, Literature 44-46). Among the most prominent examples are undoubtedly Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield and Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey, both of which present a view on the ideal of an overly refined sensibility that, unlike in Pamela, is occasionally ironically tinted (cf. Goring, Introduction xxiii-xxviii). We only have to consider Yorick’s excessive celebration of “so joyous a riot of the affections” (Sterne 111), which clearly contradicts middle-class notions of moderation and which would certainly not meet with approval by Pamela and its official message of temperance and self-restraint. <?page no="94"?> Maurus Roller 86 Written into this bourgeois construct of a comprehensively developed affective inner life, including the capacity to sympathize intensely with others, are internal tensions that tend to deconstruct the seemingly homogeneous narrative of morality and empathy. This self-deconstructionist tendency of middle-class culture in the 18 th century can be described in terms of a potentially precarious awakening of affections and desires, resulting in a surplus of feelings and in an erotically charged perspective on the respective counterpart in intimate conversation. Put another way, bourgeois culture, against its own wishes, threatens to implant transgressive dispositions into its own subjects (cf. HS 146-48, 172f., 200f.), an inconsistency that Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield alerts us to even as early as 1766: Physicians tell us of a disorder in which the whole body is so exquisitely sensible, that the slightest touch gives pain: what some have thus suffered in their persons, this gentleman felt in his mind. The slightest distress, whether real or fictitious, touched him to the quick, and his soul laboured under a sickly sensibility of the miseries of others. (19; my emphasis; also cf. Robert L. Mack’s similar explanation 176) And it is this inconsistency, resulting from an excess of emotions, that is delineated by Reckwitz in Das hybride Subjekt 9 and that, as I will argue, subverts the seemingly sedate middle-class trajectory of Pamela and its purpose of successfully “negotiating contemporary issues and events” (Goring, Literature 4). Yet, in order to be able to trace these fissures and contradictions that manifest themselves in the novel’s unconscious subtext, we will first of all have to look for textual evidence of an emergent bourgeois self-confidence that defines itself in contrast to the aristocratic other. 2 Pamela’s Cultural Context: Indications of the Aristocratic and the Supremacy of Middle-Class Culture The reader is offered a first glimpse of Pamela’s middle-class programme in the novel’s title, and especially in the extended front page of its first editions (P 1), as well as in its Preface (P 3f.). What becomes manifest in these initial passages are several of the most conspicuous features of bourgeois subject culture and its literary representations in the 18 th century, features that per- 9 Cf. for example HS 200f.: “Die emotionale Sensibilisierung des Subjekts versetzt dieses potentiell in eine Konstellation der Riskanz: Bürgerliche Freundschafts-/ Liebesbeziehungen enthalten einen Überschuss an Begehren, welcher den bürgerlichen Moderatheitsanspruch sprengt.“ <?page no="95"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 87 vade Richardson’s narration and that, taken together, already evoke the tradition of contemporary conduct books 10 which were written with the objective in mind of “teaching rules to realize an acknowledged cultural ideal” (Berger 81). From the outset, Pamela presents itself as a highly didactic text (cf. Goring, Literature 109), promoting specific models of the subject and ideals of morality: “… to cultivate the Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the Youth of Both Sexes” (P 1). 11 Yet, by way of realizing “that the moral purpose of the conduct-book might be more pleasantly and extensively served by the novel” (McLoughlin 93) and its capacity to “Divert and Entertain, and at the same time to Instruct, and Improve” (P 3), Pamela equally draws on the ancient notion of prodesse et delectare (cf. Zapf 45) as a means both of submitting its moral and of justifying its literary endeavour to a middle-class audience that firmly believed in diligence, self-improvement and utility 12 and that was, at the same time and due to its economic prosperity, increasingly at leisure to entertain itself with the practice of reading (cf. Nünning and Nünning 13, 132). The anxiety to present itself as a useful diversion to the reading public also explains the novel’s insistence on the ostensible “Truth” (P 1) of what is unveiled in its pages, which is further emphasized by the recourse to the literary pretence of a fictional “Editor” (P 3; also cf. Andersen 166) and which implicitly responds to the accusation, voiced mainly by the clergy, that to occupy oneself with fictional texts constitutes an idle waste of time (cf. Nünning, Einführung 85). What all this finally amounts to is an image of the bourgeois subject’s useful self-organization and moral self-formation, notions that Pamela, in its initial passages, introduces at the intersection of the novel’s still precarious reputation and of the fundamental relevancy of the middle-class practice of reading. What is more, Pamela’s title (page) and preface set forth code dichotomies and specific discursive structures, practices, and models of the subject that are all situated at the centre of bourgeois culture and that can be conceptualized as such when read against the background of Reckwitz’ Das hybride Subjekt. Most notably, this novel proceeds from the assumption that human life and society can be explained in terms of the binary opposition of (aristocratic) “Vice” and (bourgeois) “Virtue” (P 3). This, again, manifests itself in a discourse on “Religion and Morality” that the preface explicitly refers to and that, 10 For the tradition of the English conduct book, cf. i.a. the texts by Carré, by Berger, by McLoughlin, and by Nünning and Nünning 29-31. The relevancy of this tradition to Pamela is suggested by Armstrong 108-34; Rivero 30; Gwilliam 22; and Folkenflik 267. 11 Capitalization and italics have been partly adjusted in the following quotes from the novel’s initial sections. 12 Interestingly enough, a similar attempt to justify its literary project is made in The Preface to the novel Robinson Crusoe (3). These efforts are a clear indication of the status of the new literary genre of the novel that was still uncertain in the early decades of the 18 th century (cf. Nünning, Einführung 85). <?page no="96"?> Maurus Roller 88 in turn, is supposed to foster adequate modes of behaviour, namely “to teach the Man of Fortune how to use it; the Man of Passion how to subdue it; and the Man of Intrigue, how … to reclaim” (P 3). Thus, the preface also depicts an exemplary (and anti-aristocratic) male model of the subject whose most significant properties are its economic usefulness, its affective moderation and its interpersonal authenticity. The female counterpart is, on the one hand, defined in terms of middle-class morality, too: “the modest Virgin, the chaste Bride, and the obliging Wife” (P 3). On the other hand, however, it is phrased in terms of a patriarchal discourse that defines women as sexually abstinent and habitually obedient beings. The relevancy of the patriarchal to the bourgeois as it manifests itself both in the novel Pamela and in English 18 th -century literature and culture as a whole cannot possibly be overestimated (cf. Moglen 2-7; Gwilliam 1-49; Goring, Literature 29f.). And it also accounts for the novel’s peculiar subtitle which implicitly sketches the patriarchal ideal of a woman willingly corresponding to moral expectations that are condensed into the concept of “Virtue”, a form of behaviour that is finally and duly “Rewarded” (P 1). The novel’s didactic purpose has, however, not come to an end with the delineation of specific bourgeois models of the subject and ideals of proper behaviour. In compliance with the general tendency, inherent in cultures, both to universalize themselves and to conceal their contingent nature, 13 Pamela implicitly proclaims the universal validity of its middle-class project which is suggested to have its “Foundation in Truth and Nature” (P 1) - truth thereby implying universality, while nature connotes non-contingency. As a consequence, the reader is confronted with a fully-fledged middle-class programme right from the beginning. This programme is drafted in terms that indicate a dissociation from the aristocratic subject culture, and it is fleshed out in the course of the following letters 14 that are overwhelmingly written from the perspective of the female representative of the bourgeoisie, Pamela. 13 The exact terms used in HS are “Selbstuniversalisierung” (631) and “Kontingenzinvisibilisierung” (80; in HS in italics). Also cf. Gwilliam: “Fiction … tends both to embody and to naturalize particular ideologies” (1). 14 The fact that “her Letter-writing“ (P 72) is continued “Journal-wise“ (P 98) in the second part of the novel does not have any impact on either my following line of argument or on Pamela’s generic identity as epistolary novel. Her diary is written in the knowledge that it will, similar to a letter, be read by the recipient Mr B. (also cf. Flint 509 and Andersen 171f.), and it fulfils the same self-technological functions as the letter, such as for example careful introspection, moral self-observation, or affective self-formation. These characteristics of letter and diary are elaborated on in HS (167-71). Also cf. Andersen: “Through their ties to the intimate sphere and private life, the letter and the epistolary novel become the specific medium of communication for European sensibility and the language of emotions” (162). What has to be seen critically, however, is Andersen’s naïve claim that the letter is supposedly “a true, immediate expression of the letter-writer’s <?page no="97"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 89 This perspective, and the conflict between two seemingly irreconcilable cultures, becomes particularly obvious in Pamela’s encounters not only with Esquire B., but also with Lady Davers. The latter’s self-presentation is exploited by the novel in order to convey a negative image of the nobility and its aspirations - and this, in turn, serves as a backdrop against which bourgeois practices and dispositions can shine all the more. Her irritation at Esquire B.’s marriage to Pamela culminates in a series of psychic derailments and verbal abuses that are an indication not only of her claim to sociocultural superiority based on birthright (cf. P 395), but also of negative character traits attributed to the aristocracy by the bourgeois culture that the novel Pamela is rooted in. Particular emphasis is repeatedly laid on Lady Davers’ lack of selfcontrol, her “passionate Extravagance” (P 398) that makes her appear objectionable even in the eyes of her brother Mr B.: “Oh! how Passion deforms the noblest Minds! ” (P 429). This is clear evidence of the aristocracy’s ostensible excessiveness, and it is, furthermore, interpreted by the novel as a temporary loss of personal identity (“She was like a Person beside herself.” [P 395]) that thus seems to be inextricably linked to middle-class concepts of self-control and moderation. Moreover, Lady Davers, along with her brother, is implicitly criticized for her idle mode of living that seems to depend exclusively on a vast inheritance (cf. P 261) and that, in contrast to Pamela’s “honest, industrious Parents” (P 395), does not contribute to the well-being and prosperity of the English nation. All in all, what this ultimately points to is a gloomy image of a self-indulgent and immoderate nobility (also cf. Armstrong 126) that has lost its right to a leading role within this nation, a right that Lady Davers nevertheless does not tire of emphasizing: “Consider, Brother, that ours is no upstart Family; but is as ancient as the best in the Kingdom” (P 257). 15 These pretensions are, however, thoroughly delegitimized by the behaviour of this female representative of the aristocratic anti-subject, 16 not least when compared to Pamela, whose dispositions such as “Virtue, Prudence, and Generosity” (P 423) turn her into a female paragon of the bourgeois subject culture. subjectivity and a portrait of the soul” (165). This totally neglects the inevitable split between signifier and signified, a split that Meier’s critical investigation into Pamela as epistolary novel elaborates on (“Verschriftlichung des Gefühls”). 15 The reader receives a similar diagnosis in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) more than 150 years later (cf. Lenz 328) - a period of time in which the decline of the nobility became clearly manifest (cf. Schröder 64) and in which the portrayal and (self-)defence of aristocratic life could consequently only take the form of satire: “You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter - a girl brought up with the utmost care - to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel” (370). Also cf. Roller 326-31. 16 Comparable to Mr B., Lady Davers is eventually reformed in terms of bourgeois subject culture. What remains open for dispute is whether this is achieved due to Pamela’s exemplary middle-class influence or whether it has not rather to be attributed to Mr B.’s patriarchal authority that leaves her thoroughly intimidated in the end: “Her Ladyship <?page no="98"?> Maurus Roller 90 A similar process of self-deconstruction is acted out in the character of Esquire B., who, at the novel’s outset, displays all the symptoms of the bourgeoisie’s binary construction of its aristocratic other. The impression of licentious immorality that this character conveys to the middle-class reader rests above all on his unrestrained and excessive sexuality, which threatens to seduce or even force his respectable bourgeois victim into a life of sin: 17 You shall be Mistress of my Person and Fortune, as much as if the foolish Ceremony had passed. … and if your Conduct be such, that I have Reason to be satisfied with it, I know not (but will not engage for this) that I may, after a Twelve-month’s Cohabitation, marry you. (P 191) He kissed me with frightful Vehemence; and then his Voice broke upon me like a Clap of Thunder. Now, Pamela, said he, is the dreadful Time of Reckoning come, that I have threaten’d. - I scream’d out in such a manner, as never any body heard the like. But there was nobody to help me. (P 203) The ungoverned vehemence of these passages as well as the uninhibited openness of Esquire B.’s proposal of illegitimate cohabitation doubtlessly correspond to bourgeois nightmares of the subversive dangers of unrestrained (aristocratic) sexuality, thereby confirming notions of middle-class supremacy that are based on binary preconceptions: “But this wicked Love is not like the true virtuous Love, to be sure” (P 53). The stereotypical image of the “lecherous nobleman” (Powell 60) seems to constitute a recurring character in 18 th and 19 th -century English literature (we only have to think of Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance), and it will presumably not have failed to have its deterring effect on the middle-class recipient. This concept of aristocratic immorality is developed further by means of the idea of the nobility’s artificiality, “Falsehood, [and] Treachery” (P 521) in social interaction. In one of the novel’s cardinal scenes, Esquire B.’s betrayal and abduction of Pamela is commented on by the fictional editor: sat down, and leaned her Head against my Bosom, and made my Neck wet with her Tears … Well, said she, I have indeed gone too far. I was bewitched! And now, said she, malicious as he calls me, will he not forgive me for a Twelvemonth” (P 433). Bearing in mind the close interrelationship between the bourgeois and the patriarchal and the corresponding positive evaluation of the patriarchal order in this novel, this question is not posed by Pamela (even though, as we shall see, aristocratic excesses of the patriarchal are heavily scrutinized). Instead, the novel contents itself with the portrayal of a process of middle-class reformation of the female aristocratic subject, a process that makes use of patriarchal power structures and that is overall presented in positive terms, and this on behalf of the patriarchal interests of bourgeois culture. The novel’s affirmation of the patriarchal order is also suggested by Rivero 34f. and by Meier, “Gender Identity” 52f. Lady Davers’ transformation is also examined in Armstrong 130f. 17 Also cf. Meier who refers us to “contemporary notions of delicate, naïve, but virtuous middle-class femininity …, which is opposed to male aristocratic worldliness, debauchery, and vice” (“Gender Identity” 49). <?page no="99"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 91 The Whole will shew the base Arts of designing Men to gain their wicked Ends; and how much it behoves the Fair Sex to stand upon their Guard against their artful Contrivances, especially when Riches and Power conspire against Innocence and a low Estate. (P 92) What we obtain in this passage are bourgeois notions of the aristocrat (riches and power) and of his habitual opaqueness (the base arts of designing men, their artful contrivances) when pursuing dubious purposes (wicked ends). And this construction of an external threat again serves as a means of demarcation for the middle classes (low estate) and their preservation of a particular model of the female subject that is founded in impeccable behaviour (innocence). The latter is further endangered by Esquire B.’s patriarchal instructions to his wife (“Rules for my future Conduct” [P 448]) that are in part meant to delude her into the habit of pretence and dissimulation and that intensify the impression of a nobility that is deceptive by custom and necessity: “That she must be chearful and easy in her Behaviour, to whomsoever he brings home with him” (P 451). And, as if all that was not enough, the aristocrat (as he is depicted by Pamela) finally appears to be a useless member of society, a burden to himself and his fellow beings - and, by implication, to the English nation as a whole: But see the Lordliness of a high Condition! … Much good may do them with their Pride of Birth, and Pride of Fortune, say I! - All that it serves for, as far as I can see, is to multiply their Disquiets, and every body’s else that has to do with them. (P 242) What eventually emerges from the above is the bourgeois image of a thoroughly immoral anti-subject that seems to be deficient in all of the three dimensions opened up by Reckwitz’ Das hybride Subjekt, namely moderation, authenticity (or transparency) and usefulness - an anti-subject that, however, appears to be accessible and responsive to reform. And this is precisely what happens in Pamela: this novel submits Esquire B. to an exemplary process of reformation (or, in the words of Reckwitz, to a training programme 18 ), thereby attempting to implement its bourgeois “moral programme” (Goring, Literature 106) and, at the same time, to demonstrate the latter’s superiority to the aristocratic narrative. Mr B.’s process of reformation is first of all initiated by the unassailable example that the middle-class model of the subject, Pamela, sets: Your Virtue was Proof against all Temptation, and was not to be aw’d by Terrors: Wherefore, as I could not conquer my Passion for you, I corrected myself, and resolved, since you would not be mine upon my Terms, you should upon your own. (P 299; also cf. Armstrong 117f. and Keymer, Introduction [2001] xx) 18 “Die bürgerliche Kultur ist ein Trainingsprogramm zur Heranziehung eines moralischsouveränen Allgemeinsubjekts” (HS 97). Also cf. Goring, Literature 29. <?page no="100"?> Maurus Roller 92 It furthermore manifests itself in an entirely reversed perspective on pleasure that is reinterpreted in non-sensual and bourgeois terms: Said he, I hope my present Temper will hold; for I tell you frankly, that I have known in this agreeable Hour more sincere Pleasure, than I have experienc’d in all the guilty Tumults that my desiring Soul put me into, in the Hopes of possessing you on my own Terms. (P 218; also cf. Armstrong 118) And it can finally also be deciphered by way of recourse to the traditional concept of the gentleman that was, in the course of the 18 th and 19 th centuries, subject to considerable change (also cf. Nünning, “Empfindsamkeit” 110-12). Literary documents as diverse as Lillo’s The London Merchant (1731), Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), or Dickens’ Great Expectations (1861) that, taken together, span a larger part of these two centuries, all testify to the growing need to renegotiate a formerly aristocratic concept which threatened to become an empty signifier due to the decreasing status of the nobility. And what they all hold in common is the project of a redefinition of the concept of the gentleman in bourgeois terms: 19 The name of merchant never degrades the gentleman. (Lillo 11) He [Mr Darcy] is a gentleman; I [Elizabeth] am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal. (Austen 337) No man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. (Dickens 181) In these passages, emphasis is particularly laid on the comparability of the social status of nobility and bourgeoisie (equal). What is rejected, however, is the stereotypical courtly ideal, the “Gentleman of Pleasure and Intrigue” (P 92) that survives in part in Dickens’ gentleman in manner. And it is instead replaced with a notion of the gentleman who pays “attention to the morality of conduct” (McLoughlin 96), who practises authenticity and transparency (true) and who is economically useful (merchant) and morally impeccable (gentleman at heart). Most importantly for us, a similar process can be perceived in Richardson’s Pamela, which (as early as 1740) intervenes into the nascent debate on the tenability and meaning of the ideal of the gentleman. This bears on our argument insofar as Esquire B.’s process of transformation as well as Pamela’s bourgeois reflections on it are repeatedly phrased in terms of this debate. She thus comments on his initial inappropriate behaviour by drawing not only on a discourse upon morality, but also on a discourse upon social status: “O the 19 What has to be pointed out is that the transformation of the concept of the gentleman is slightly more complex than these texts would like to have it. For these issues and for the concept of the gentleman, also cf. HS 183; Bush 71-73 and Gilmour. A similar process of renegotiation is carried out by Pamela with regard to the concept of the lady, albeit in attenuated form; cf. for example 329, 423, 474. <?page no="101"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 93 unparallel’d Wickedness, and Stratagems, and Devices of those who call themselves Gentlemen, and pervert the Design of Providence …” (P 99). Her consequential diagnosis, namely that “you are no Gentleman” (P 70), implicitly relies on the bourgeois notions of suitable conduct delineated above. The same applies to her subsequent eulogy of Mr B.’s reformation in the course of the novel’s events: His Words are so pure, his Ideas so chaste, and his whole Behaviour so sweetly decent, that never, surely, was so happy a Creature as your Pamela! I never could have hoped … that a Gentleman, who had allow’d himself in Attempts, that now I will endeavour to forget for ever, should have behav’d with so very delicate and unexceptionable a Demeanour. (P 353) Put another way, Mr B.‘s process of reformation is closely intertwined with a latent questioning of our understanding of what the signifier gentleman is supposed to denote. As a result, the portrayal of his eventual transformation simultaneously opens up the formerly aristocratic notion of the gentleman to bourgeois dispositions and practices - an ingenious strategy on the part of Pamela that represents an attempt to generalize its message and that thus contributes to promote its didactic middle-class programme: In the Character of the GENTLEMAN, may be seen that of a fashionable Libertine, who allow’d himself in the free Indulgence of his Passions …; yet as he betimes sees his Errors, and reforms in the Bloom of Youth, an edifying Lesson may be drawn from it, for the Use of such as are born to large Fortunes. (P 500) After all that has been said, it should not come as a surprise that Esquire B.’s reformation is achieved by means of bourgeois practices. The novel’s policy of middle-class identity formation inevitably relies on the act of reading on the part of the aristocrat, particularly of Pamela’s diary and letters: He put the Papers in his Pocket, when he had read my Reflections …; and he said, … you have touch’d me sensibly with your mournful Relation, and your sweet Reflections upon it. (P 241; my emphasis; also cf. Andersen 173; Flint 501f. and Rivero 32) Of similar significance is the practice of intimate conversation that is carried on between Pamela and Mr B. and that contributes to his ultimate conversion to the middle-class doctrine of “Piety, Virtue, and all the Social Duties of a Man and a Christian” (P 499): “You say well, Pamela, and I shall, by degrees, be more habituated to this way of thinking, as I more and more converse with you” (P 331). Yet, it is not only Mr B. who thus passes through a process of middle-class (trans-)formation. Pamela likewise accentuates her familiar interaction with the novel’s male protagonist and its impact on her self-improvement in accordance with bourgeois and, more particularly, patriarchal role expectations and moral dispositions (cf. P 447-51). What is more, she has (throughout the <?page no="102"?> Maurus Roller 94 novel) made a habit of writing her diary and letters, thereby training herself in processes of self-inspection (also cf. Armstrong 124) whilst adjusting her actual behaviour to precisely these expectations and dispositions 20 that ultimately require a domestication of emotions (also cf. Meier, “Verschriftlichung des Gefühls” 274f.): I have got such a Knack of writing, that, when I am by myself, I cannot sit without a Pen in my Hand. … Now, Courage, Pamela; Remember thou art upon thy good Behaviour: - Fie upon it! my Heart begins to flutter again! - Foolish Heart! lie still! (P 342) Yet, in these processes, she proves herself to be both morally driven and intensely sentimental, and it is exactly the tense interplay between these two dimensions of strict morality and powerful feeling (also cf. Keymer, Introduction [2001] xv and Doody 104) that finally creates internal fissures within the female protagonist: I’ll take thee, O lumpish, contradictory, ungovernable Heart, to severe Task for this thy strange Impulse …; and if I find any thing in thee that should not be, depend upon it, thou shalt be humbled, if strict Abstinence, Prayer and Mortification will do it! (P 245; my emphasis) It is this tension (as I will argue), the fact that - as Frances Burney’s Evelina (1778) straightforwardly puts it - “my feelings are all at war with my duties” (336), 21 combined with Pamela’s uncertain stance towards patriarchy, which ultimately contributes to tarnish the novel’s polished middle-class façade that it attempts to present to the casual reader. 3 Pamela’s Subversive Subtext: Self-Deconstructive Tendencies of Middle-Class Culture My argument so far has been that Pamela might, prima facie, appear to be unequivocally consistent with 18 th -century notions of bourgeois femininity. Her pronounced morality, her willing submission to Mr B.’s male authority the moment he renounces genteel practices and turns “into an incorruptible paragon of civic virtue” (Keymer, Introduction [2001] xx), her disposition to sympathize intensely with others - all this is calculated to convey an image of the chaste and submissive female of contemporary discourses on gender (also cf. Armstrong 130). Yet, for all its evident effort to present a virtuous female model of the subject and to control everything that smacks of sexual licence, 20 And this in accordance with Reckwitz’ general diagnosis: “Die Tagebuchschreiberin betreibt in ihren Eintragungen einen routinisierten Vergleich zwischen den Standards gelungener moralischer Subjektivität und den tatsächlichen Leistungen” (HS 170). 21 Which means that a similar tension haunts the protagonist of Burney’s epistolary novel, which, altogether, bears several resemblances to Richardson’s Pamela. <?page no="103"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 95 the novel is unable to control fissures and faultlines of middle-class culture that are closely woven into precisely this attitude of sentimentality and empathy. Pamela’s tearful language that occasionally becomes unbearable to the modern reader is a clear indication of an excess of feeling (also cf. Meier, “Verschriftlichung des Gefühls” 283f.), aroused by a subject culture that awakens in the individual subject what it (afterwards) unsuccessfully attempts to contain. We only have to consider Pamela’s behaviour after her rapprochement with and her marriage to Mr B., in which her sexuality appears to be eliminated but in which - conversely and by way of compensation - her emotions repeatedly overflow: Not considering any thing, I run out of the Closet, and threw myself at my dear Master’s Feet …; and I said, Dearest Sir, let me beg, that no Act of Unkindness, for my sake, pass between so worthy and so near Relations. Dear, dear Madam, said I, and clasp’d her Knees, pardon and excuse the unhappy Cause of all this Evil; on my Knees I beg your Ladyship to receive me to your Grace and Favour. (P 420) Moreover, a close reading of key passages discloses underlying patterns of desire that are only thinly disguised by a novel that desperately attempts to keep female sexuality at bay and that eventually has to surrender on several occasions: I struggled, and trembled, and was so benumb’d with Terror, that I sunk down, not in a Fit, and yet not myself; and I found myself in his Arms, quite void of Strength, and he kissed me two or three times, as if he would have eaten me. - At last I burst from him. (P 23; my emphasis) I found his Hand in my Bosom, and when my Fright let me know it, I was ready to die; and I sighed, and scream’d, and fainted away. … I knew nothing more of the Matter, one Fit following another … But I was so overjoy’d, that I hardly could believe myself; … Hush, my Dear …, you have been in Fit after Fit. (P 63f.; my emphasis) What should become obvious to the attentive reader is the suggestive pornographic character (cf. Keymer, Introduction [2001] xxii) of these sexually charged scenes. Pamela’s struggle that is depicted in these passages is supposedly one against Mr B.’s carnal advances. A careful reading, however, cannot but draw our attention to the fact that the female protagonist has to oppose her own desires that temporarily threaten to prevail and to endanger her bourgeois consciousness and identity (yet not myself). They are only precariously controlled in the first of these two scenes, and this after a considerable lapse of time (at last) - a clear indication of tense internal conflicts between “sexual desire and sexual anxiety” (Doody 104), conflicts that she herself (in another instance) describes in terms of a struggle “between Shame and Delight” (P 276). The internalized authority of middle-class codes and discourses that manifest themselves in a “bourgeois scepticism towards the body” (CSM <?page no="104"?> Maurus Roller 96 9) continues to be challenged by Pamela’s repressed sexuality that again becomes rampant in the second scene (I sighed, and scream’d, and fainted away). The novel, and thereby its female narrator, admittedly undertake a last effort to conceal the pornographic undertones of these scenes, and this by way of the euphemism fit that is even meant to obscure any notions of female responsibility (I knew nothing more of the matter, one fit following another). 22 A close reading, however, suggests strong erotic connotations of this term, and this in the light of what appears to be a sexual gratification and fulfilment (I was so overjoy’d) of Pamela’s seemingly overwhelming energy and desire (you have been in fit after fit). The fundamental problem that undercuts Pamela’s attempts at bourgeois self-control and that subverts middle-class notions of the (female) subject’s morality can also be deciphered as an inconsistency which - as Reckwitz points out and as delineated above - appears to be at the very heart of 18 th century bourgeois culture, namely its emphasis on intense feeling that might result in an erotically tinted perspective on the respective other (cf. HS 146- 48): “My Heart was too partial in his Favour” (P 248; also cf. Folkenflik 260). 23 Consequently, what is at stake is no less than a central pillar of bourgeois selfperception. And Richardson’s novel can certainly not leave it at that. Its ensuing strategy therefore replaces the initial relationship between the two protagonists that my preceding reading of significant passages has tentatively interpreted in terms of an illegitimate and licentious love affair (fit after fit) - an affair which is relegated to the subtext and which the novel nevertheless cannot entirely obscure - by the culturally accepted ideal of marriage that is conceived as predominantly spiritualized and asexual companionship (cf. HS 22 Cf. her similar claim later on: “Your poor Pamela cannot answer for the Liberties taken with her in her deplorable State of Death” (P 204). Against the background of my reading of these scenes, the female letter-writer whose voice we predominantly hear in the course of the novel has to be treated cautiously and as an at times highly unreliable narrator (cf. Keymer, Introduction [2001] xvi). And whereas Pamela’s unreliability is made plausible by her awareness of potential readers (above all her parents and Mr B.), the novel itself relies heavily on precisely this unreliability and its veiling capacity in the face of a reading public with strong moral feelings. Pamela’s unreliability and the novel’s pornographic tendencies become focal points in Henry Fielding’s Shamela (1741), a contemporary “subversive yet plausible reinterpretation” (Keymer, Introduction [1999] xiv) of Richardson’s novel that is repeatedly very explicit in what might be considered as remaining mainly implicit in Pamela: “I am resolved now to aim at it. I thought once of making a little Fortune by my Person. I now intend to make a great one by my Vartue” (Fielding 329f.). For a discussion of some of these issues, also cf. Keymer, Introduction (1999) x-xviii. 23 As a matter of fact, Pamela’s feelings for Mr B. become apparent from the very beginning of the novel. A significant case in point is her seeming inability to leave his estate at Bedfordshire, which, in the light of insignificant and implausible excuses advanced by the female letter-writer (cf. P 26, 37, 44), increasingly turns out to be an unwillingness to part with Mr B. (also cf. Keymer, Introduction [2001] xv and Folkenflik 258). <?page no="105"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 97 136-43). 24 It thereby aims at a containment of Pamela’s uncontrolled sexuality and to reformulate it in terms of empathy. Yet, as has already been pointed out, as a result Pamela requires another outlet for her internal needs - and she finds it in the excessive articulation of feelings, which, however, contradicts bourgeois notions of self-mastery and moderation, too (also cf. HS 191-93). In the face of this conflict between pornographic proclivities and moral inclinations, what has to be accounted for is why Pamela (contrary to its middle-class agenda) cannot sidestep the issue of sexuality - and furthermore, how (given Pamela’s distress and Esquire B.’s initial focus on Pamela’s female body) the novel renders the emergence of a highly improbable alliance between these two characters possible. The answer to the first question is the novel’s claim to realism. More than just a conduct book, Pamela maintains to be a fictional and, at the same time, truthful presentation of human life and experience in 18 th -century England (“Foundation in Truth and Nature” [P 3]; also cf. Meier, “Verschriftlichung des Gefühls” 278-90). Such an attempt to evoke the impression of truthfulness and verisimilitude, however, always entails the risk of incorporating into the text tendencies that are an integral part of everyday human life and that nevertheless tend to run counter to one’s own official message. And this is exactly what happens in Richardson’s novel, whose female narrator does everything in her power to obscure her sexuality and whose overwhelming desires nonetheless repeatedly break through the thin moral surface of the narrative presented to her parents. The ensuing companionate marriage that unfolds over the course of the novel has therefore to be read both in terms of a surveillance and sublimation of Pamela’s (and Esquire B.’s) sexual desires and of an attempted implementation of the middleclass programme propagated by Pamela - which is made possible by means of the bourgeois practices of reading, of intimate conversation, and of empathetically experiencing the psychological constitution of the respective other. Accordingly, the solution to the second question is the novel’s middle-class agenda and its reliance on practices that are at the heart of 18 th -century bourgeois culture. These practices enable the two protagonists to perceive each 24 A similar process is carried out in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), which might serve as further illustration of the ongoing tension between sexual desires that result in a pornographic subtext and the novel’s moral programme that renders spiritualized matrimony absolutely necessary. We only have to think of Lucy’s and Mina’s desires that are supposed to be confined within their respective marriages, that were initially awakened by what represents the other to bourgeois culture (Dracula) and that manifest themselves in an allusive and erotically tinted subtext which the novel cannot completely obscure and which is occasionally reminiscent of those passages from Pamela quoted above: “Then I [Lucy] have a vague memory of something long and dark with red eyes …, and something very sweet and very bitter all around me at once; and then I seemed sinking into deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears” (Stoker 98). Also cf. passages such as 90, 161 (Lucy), and 281f. (Mina). Some of these issues are also discussed by Byron 2-13. <?page no="106"?> Maurus Roller 98 other not solely as images of the desirable body or the lascivious aristocrat but instead as affectionate individuals with well-developed inner lives (also cf. Armstrong 117-20). 25 This, in turn, represents a means by which to transform and justify Pamela’s apparently inextinguishable affections (“What is the Matter, with all his ill Usage of me, that I cannot hate him? ” [P 179]) for a character that at some point in the novel appears to her as the personified other, “Lucifer himself” (P 209). Moreover, it can be read as an ingenious narrative device that makes the bourgeois ideal of a marriage finally possible, an ideal that is based on mutual devotion and asexual companionship and that takes as its model the moderate and self-controlled subject of middle-class culture. Yet, despite these efforts on the part of the novel to both redefine and confine Pamela’s desires, her intensely emotional disposition is not to be stifled easily, and it adamantly persists in its subversion of the self-restrained female subject. In addition to what has been said above, her emotional intensity unveils itself in Pamela’s reported subplot that revolves around the mysterious and allegedly unprincipled character of Sally Godfrey. Initially introduced by the novel in order to serve as a negative foil for Pamela’s ostensible respectability (cf. Rivero 31-35), this character turns out to be self-defeating yet again. The protagonist’s recurring reference to and “narrative obsession” (Rivero 30) with Sally and the latter’s past love affair with Mr B. discloses hidden needs and insecurities that she can barely suppress and that by no means correspond to bourgeois notions of the diffident wife: And, foolish thing that I am, this poor Miss Sally Godfrey runs in my Head! - How soon the Name and Quality of a Wife gives one Principles, in one’s own Account! - Yet, methinks, I want to know more about her; for, is it not strange, that I, who lived Years in the Family, should have heard nothing of this? (P 437) … poor Miss Sally Godfrey. I wish my Lady had not spoken of it. For it has given me a Curiosity that is not quite so pretty in me. (P 451) Insecurities such as these surface on several occasions in the latter part of the novel, and they point to concealed passions that even amount to sexual jealousy when being confronted with Sally’s daughter: “I am strangely affected with this dear Child” (P 480). Yet, the bourgeois female protagonist senses only too well that her needs have to be transformed into benevolence and selfeffacement when presented outwardly: “To be sure it would be very ingrateful to think with Uneasiness, or any thing but Compassion, of poor Miss Sally Godfrey” (P 468f.). This, however, does not contribute to a resolution of the internal struggle that takes place in Pamela and that is waged between her 25 “Die bürgerliche Ehe beruht … auf beständiger Fremd- und Selbstpsychologisierung und einer ‘Empfindsamkeit‘ für den Anderen” (HS 143). <?page no="107"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 99 powerful emotions (“And Tears stood in my Eyes.” [P 478]) and the middleclass disposition of self-restraint (“Not that I am very uneasy neither.” [P 441]). Pamela can consequently be read as an attempt to implement an exemplary training programme and process of bourgeois subjectification not only of the aristocrat Esquire B., but also of its female protagonist, a process that is supposed to “make her Character worthy of the Imitation of her Sex” (P 503). Contrary to this final claim of the novel’s fictional editor, however, it remains highly dubious whether Pamela’s middle-class subjectification can be entirely successful - and this due to sexual desires and psychoemotional needs that are inextinguishably part of human existence and (ideally) also of a fully developed human being. 26 This, and the ensuing conflict between “individual liberty and social constraint” (Keymer, Introduction [2001] ix), between fundamental human needs that crave for expression and opposing cultural restrictions that aim at a repression of these needs, represents not only a recurring topic of 18 th and 19 th -century English literature, but also yet another faultline of middle-class culture. We only have to turn to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), whose protagonist embodies this conflict paradigmatically and whose attempt to suppress his drives in the interests of a bourgeois reputation eventually causes them to surface more violently than ever: “My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring” (80). This diagnosis might be taken as a comprehensive description of the condition that 18 th and 19 th -century characters such as (to name but a few) the first-generation Catherine (Wuthering Heights), Lucy (Dracula), or, not least, Richardson’s Pamela find themselves in. And it can finally and implicitly be read as an indication of the basic human need that these characters feel, namely the need to create and experience their lives fully and as independently as possible of patterns of repression imposed upon them by moral discourses that ultimately only tend to smother them - a proposition that runs counter to Pamela’s official message and that this novel is nevertheless unable to avoid. The subversive issue of female self-formation resurfaces once we turn our attention to the concept of marriage in the novel. A careful examination of Pamela’s responses to her engagement to Mr B., articulated in the short period that remains before her wedding, again highlights inconsistencies which tend to subvert middle-class idealizations of matrimony, idealizations that suggest reciprocity, companionship, and empathy (cf. HS 140-45) and that promote the institution as the ultimate fulfilment of female existence. Yet, by contrast, 26 The ideal of the fully developed human being is elaborated on by Roller 62f. and (implicitly) by Schmid 245, 250-58. The subsequent discussion of some facets of the issue of self-formation similarly draws on Wilhelm Schmid’s Philosophie der Lebenskunst. Pamela’s position in-between “competing duties and desires” (xv) is also highlighted by Keymer, Introduction (2001). The ensuing problem is succinctly outlined by Carré: “The ambitious moral demands of the Evangelicals, however, were very hard to satisfy” (7). Similarly cf. Revel 190 and Roggendorf 126. <?page no="108"?> Maurus Roller 100 and contrary to what might have been expected, the reader is not confronted with an image of anticipation and happiness on the part of Pamela, but rather with forebodings of anxiety and oppression: … but the Day itself - Indeed, Ladies, I think it is too solemn a Business, for the Parties of our Sex, to be very gay upon! It is a quite serious and awful Affair. (P 323) But there is something greatly awful upon my Mind, in the solemn Circumstance, and a Change of Condition never to be recall’d, tho’ all the Prospects are so desirable. And I can but wonder, at the thoughtless Precipitancy with which most young Folks run into this important Change of Life! (P 327) What initially might have borne resemblance to the conduct book and its didactic purpose of implanting a disposition of submission into the female reader, involuntarily turns into an admonition that counteracts bourgeois notions of domestic happiness. One crucial reason appears to be a fundamental feeling of uncertainty that haunts Pamela’s diary (“a more doubtful Happiness” [P 341]) and that Richardson’s protagonist - again and most revealingly - shares with her fellow letter-writer in Frances Burney’s Evelina: All is over, my dearest Sir, and the fate of your Evelina is decided! This morning, with fearful joy, and trembling gratitude, she united herself for ever with the object of her dearest, her eternal affection! (406; my emphasis) 27 This tension between, on the one hand, an internalized compliance with the bourgeois ideal of marriage and the corresponding female fate and, on the other hand, female anxieties in the face of what ultimately turns out to be a patriarchal institution, eventually seems to represent a recurring pattern in contemporary novels. And the powerful patriarchal undercurrent of bourgeois culture, which discloses itself most distinctly in Mr B.’s “awful Lecture” (P 448) to his wife, proves to be the threat to female expectations of happiness. In particular, it does not allow for any notions of “a marriage of equality”, and Pamela’s and Evelina’s perturbations clearly resemble the struggles of their famous 19 th -century counterpart in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), who equally opposes and “resists a marriage of inequality” (Gilbert and Gubar 362, 358). 28 Yet, in accordance with the workings and mechanisms of a male-dominated culture, Pamela is finally restricted to the marginal role of a wife, and 27 For the topic of marriage in Evelina, also cf. i.a. (albeit more ambivalently) Straub 53-77. 28 Contrary to appearances, marriages such as those between Jane and Rochester (Jane Eyre) or, to name another well-known example, between Elizabeth and Mr Darcy (Pride and Prejudice) can only superficially be described in terms of equality. Most decisively, cultural (and not least legal) structures of power remain intact, and they ultimately cement the husband’s supremacy. This is made plain by novels such as Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (1860) or also Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders (1722) whose female protagonist labours under a marital constellation in which “it was quite out of my Power to stir <?page no="109"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 101 this puts an end to any female aspirations of self-formation, as Mr B. himself implicitly concedes when he refers to “her free Agency, in Points that ought to be allow’d her” (P 450; my emphasis). And the patriarchal restrictions that are imposed upon Pamela eventually extend as far as her desires that are (as has already been pointed out) contained within the bourgeois discourse on and practice of marriage which could serve as a means of surveilling and suppressing female sexuality (also cf. Weeks 19-33). Taken together, these restrictions are only hesitantly and involuntarily acknowledged by the novel when read against the grain, and they amount to a severe subtextual criticism of 18 th -century bourgeois subject culture (also cf. Gwilliam 161-63) - and this, in turn, challenges Pamela’s proclaimed message of the bourgeoisie’s superiority, and it thereby threatens to call into question the middle-class programme it officially promulgates. 4 (Un-)Resolved Tensions: Affirmations of Middle-Class Patriarchy and the Reformation of the Aristocratic Subject As a consequence, two questions that are closely related remain to be examined: How does Pamela attempt to resolve the internal tensions that became apparent in the course of the preceding subversive reading of the novel? How can we conceive of its overall stance towards bourgeoisie, patriarchy, and aristocracy? And it seems as if much of our concluding evaluation of the novel and its ambivalences indeed hinges on the issue of patriarchy - an issue that is, however, only inconclusively negotiated in Richardson’s work. As should have become evident, Pamela most certainly introduces a note of criticism which relies specifically on images of confinement: “Why is it necessary to imprison me …? ” (P 139). This, in turn, results in a perspective on patriarchal notions of femininity that appears to be distinctly darker when compared to the fellow epistolary novel Evelina and that is at times far more reminiscent of 18 th -century gothic fiction. We only have to consider Ann Radcliffe’s gothic romances such as The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), and The Italian (1797) that, recurringly and similar to Pamela, draw on the literary motif of the desolate young woman in distress (“She saw herself without friends, without relations, destitute, forlorn, and abandoned to the worst of evils.” [Forest 150]) and that are essentially structured along the lines of female anxiety and male violence: without his Consent, as any one that knows the Constitution of the Country I was in, knows very well” (77). Also cf. Purchase 73-76 and Roggendorf 135f. <?page no="110"?> Maurus Roller 102 She threw a trembling glance upon the prospect around her. On one side was her father, whose cruelty had already been too plainly manifested; and on the other, the Marquis pursuing her with insult and vicious passion. (Forest 123) 29 This latter passage is not only notable for its vivid portrayal of the predicament that patriarchal power relations and concepts of gender might lead to; it can also and additionally serve as the key to our understanding of Pamela’s double-edged answer to the questions mentioned above. For in a way similar to Radcliffe’s romances, and more radically than Evelina, what Pamela ultimately criticizes is not patriarchy itself, but rather its aristocratic excesses (cruelty, vicious passion) - and this becomes discernible only when we read these novels through the lens of Reckwitz’ discrimination of those code dichotomies that form the basis of the bourgeoisie’s mindset in the 18 th century. Both Radcliffe’s gothic romances and Richardson’s epistolary novel therefore have to be read in the context of contesting subject cultures. And they clearly delegitimize everything that is associated with the aristocratic and that tastes of an abusive use of male power (cf. Armstrong 115). At the same time, they appear to approve of bourgeois models of the female subject that can be defined in terms of morality, moderation, and obedience: “Her Maiden and Bridal Purity …; Her thankful Spirit; Her grateful Heart …; Her Parental, Conjugal and Maternal Duty” (P 503). This becomes most obvious in their final celebrations of middle-class domesticity which comprise the reformed aristocrat Mr B. (Pamela) as well as the respectable male members of the bourgeoisie (The Romance of the Forest) and which lead the female protagonists, Pamela and Adeline, back into the folds of the morally founded and therefore seemingly legitimate patriarchal order of 18 th -century bourgeoisie: The way in which the text circles back to endorsing subtle repressive authoritarianism within the family marks the silencing of the female voice and its assimilation into the economy of the patriarchal family. (Flint 510) 30 29 Also cf. Moglen: “Excluded from the protective family by her parents’ death, the female protagonist was subject to a predatory patriarchy” (8). For some further elaborations on the gothic novel in 18 th -century England and its relationship to the realist novel as well as to the female gender, cf. Moglen 7-15. Similar to this text, my analysis attempts to point to some striking interconnections between the gothic and the realistic mode, whose fundamental differences shall, however, not be denied. The interrelationship between genre, patriarchy, and different subject cultures that my concluding remarks draw upon is also pointed out by Ellis: “Thus the middle-class idealization of the home, though it theoretically protected a woman in it from arbitrary male control, gave her little real protection against male anger. Rather, it was her endangered position …, beset on all sides by aristocratic licence … [that] [t]he Gothic novel of the eighteenth century foregrounded” (xi). However, “by acting like Pamela, they [the female characters] can purify the fallen aristocratic castle and make it into a home worthy of the name” (8). 30 This diagnosis, made with reference to Pamela, is equally valid when applied to The Romance of the Forest. In the face of these considerations, Margaret Anne Doody’s thesis which refers to “Pamela’s revolutionary resistance” (102) does not appear to hold true <?page no="111"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 103 And it is furthermore underlined by Pamela’s explicit deference to her husband’s marital authority which - due to her internal anxieties - indeed remains incomplete and which is nevertheless made possible by what ultimately represents the aristocrat’s middle-class reformation: “A generous Man, and a Man of Sense, cannot be too much obliged. And, as I have this Happiness, I shall be very unworthy, if I do not always so think, and so act” (P 451; also cf. Armstrong 130-31). Matrimony itself is, moreover, conceived not only in terms of male domination, but also in terms of companionship (“the pure and rational delights of a love refined into the most tender friendship” [Radcliffe, Forest 362]), and this eventually results in an inextricable conflation of patriarchy and bourgeoisie that thus appears to represent the precondition of human happiness and that becomes objectionable only when we turn our attention to fissures inherent in 18 th -century culture. The comparison of Richardson’s Pamela with Radcliffe’s romances therefore tends to highlight surprising similarities between the seemingly distinct genres of the epistolary and the gothic. From this point of view, both genres not only represent substantial interventions into the 18 th -century debate of two competing cultural programmes; they can also and most notably be deciphered as profoundly middle-class in tone. This diagnosis, in turn, essentially draws upon Reckwitz’ comprehensive survey of different cultural traditions whose traces are written deeply into literary documents of the time - documents such as The Romance of the Forest, Evelina or, most importantly for my purposes, Pamela. Against this background, what all of these novels seem to have in common is their unreserved celebration of the bourgeoisie’s ascendancy and their equally rigorous rejection or reformation of patriarchal aristocracy and its (male) representatives - who (as is the case with Richardson’s Mr B. or Austen’s Mr Darcy) most revealingly become eligible and marriageable only after having passed through a belated process of middle-class subjectification. Yet, in addition to such constructions of cultural patterns of identity and alterity, Reckwitz’ Das hybride Subjekt furthermore helps us to lay bare subversive tendencies of self-deconstruction that are inherent to bourgeois culture in the 18 th century as well as to novels of the like of Pamela. for Richardson’s novel. Also cf. Keymer (“This is a rebel, after all, whose resistance is passive at best” [Introduction (2001) vii]); Folkenflik (“Rather than representing the rise of female authority, … it ends with Pamela empowered as a mouthpiece for a reinscribed male authority” [268]) and the careful evaluation by Meier, who refers to “a sort of female empowerment” that is, however, “ultimately contained in an overall attempt to stabilize patriarchal power structures” (“Gender Identity” 53). Jessica L. Leiman argues in a similar vein by referring to the process of writing and to Mr B.’s “narrative authority” (240) that (as can be argued) progressively manifests itself in Pamela’s letters and diaries. <?page no="112"?> Maurus Roller 104 *** Maurus Roller is Assistant Professor at the University of Mannheim, where he is teaching English literature, culture and cultural studies and where he has also completed his PhD in British Literature. He has published a comprehensive study on British drama in the 20 th century and is particularly interested in the complex interrelation between the issues of cultural power and individual self-development in literature. He is doing research on British drama from Shakespeare to the present and on English literature and culture in the 18 th and 19 th centuries. 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Roggendorf, Simone. “Ehe und Familie in der Kultur der Empfindsamkeit.” Kulturgeschichte der englischen Literatur: Von der Renaissance bis zur Gegenwart. Ed. Vera Nünning. Tübingen, Basel: Franke, 2005. 125-36. Print. Roller, Maurus. Krise und Wandel: Das britische Drama im 20. Jahrhundert. Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von Identität, Autonomie und Form-Inhalt-Relation. Tübingen: Narr, 2014. Print. Schmid, Wilhelm. Philosophie der Lebenskunst: Eine Grundlegung. Frankfurt/ M.: Suhrkamp, 1998. Print. Schröder, Hans-Christoph. Englische Geschichte. 3 rd ed. München: Beck, 2000. Print. Steele, Richard. The Conscious Lovers. Ed. Shirley Strum Kenny. London: Edward Arnold, 1967. Print. Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by Mr. Yorick. Ed. Paul Goring. London et al.: Penguin, 2005. Print. <?page no="115"?> Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and the Ascendancy of Middle-Class Culture 107 Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. 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Print. <?page no="117"?> Meinhard Winkgens Re-Reading David Copperfield as a Polysemic Imaginative Exploration of Bourgeois Subject Culture and its Supplementary Romantic Other Roughly two decades ago I published an essay on Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield (DC), this classical masterpiece of a Victorian Bildungsroman and the author’s “favourite child …, of all my books … I like this the best”, entitled “Nature as Palimpsest: The Inscribed Subtext of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield” (cf. Winkgens), drawing on the theoretical premises of a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ (Paul Ricoeur). To decipher the manifold frictions, gaps, fissures, and contradictions, which, as generations of critical readers have emphasized, are characteristic for this representative example of 19 th -century fictional autobiography, and to assess their thematic implications, I methodologically employed the three theoretically based concepts of the palimpsest metaphor, the distinction between ‘manifest meaning’ and ‘latent sense’ in the tradition of Sigmund Freud’s dream-analysis, and the closely interrelated tensions between the ‘surface text’, the explicitly articulated meaning of a text, its ‘affirmed message’ so to speak, and its hidden, subversive ‘subtext’. In the process, I deconstructed the novel’s surface meaning as a means of identifying the novel’s constitutive aesthetic structure (cf. Winkgens 36-40). I defined this as a conflict-ridden, often even contradictory oscillation between manifest meaning and latent sense generating highly complex, ambivalent, and polysemic semantic effects. In the words of Philip Weinstein: David Copperfield’s authenticity … has less to do with the successful ‘discipline’ of a wayward heart than with the compelling imagination of feelings not only undisciplined, but unrecognized. … Together they make something richer than mere coherence: they make a palimpsest that expresses both the mid-Victorian ideal and the gathering forces that idea was meant to keep at bay. (44) 1 Preliminary Considerations Obviously, in narratological terms, the inherent split within the narrator-protagonist of autobiographical discourse is of crucial importance for the workings of this underlying aesthetic structure of oscillation between the manifest meaning articulating David’s process of maturation and a supplementary latent subtext, palimpsestuously overwritten and revealed at the same time. <?page no="118"?> Meinhard Winkgens 110 This split between a narrating self and the narrated self separating a present day writing self of narration from the narrated and remembered self of past experience through acts of memory, as research into memory-processes has amply shown, precludes an immediate and self-transparent identification with past experience through memories. These re-presentations always follow the rule that recollections of the past are re-shaped by the interest and self-concept of the present writing self (cf. Glomb 13-28). Thus the differential split within the narrating self triggers a never-ending and complex process of mutual readjustment and a reinterpretation of the past and the present. Only under favourable conditions and usually with much self-delusion it may be individually reconstructed as a continuous and coherent process of development culminating in the aspirational goal of an affirmable life-sequence of achieved self-identity. This seems to be exactly the predicament of the narrator-protagonist in Dickens’ novel of development, for he retells his life story from the point of view of achieved maturity and what seems to him a well-deserved and harmonious integration into Victorian society and culture as a renowned and successful professional author, a hard-working and well-disciplined autonomous bourgeois subject, and a happily married husband and father. In his second marriage with the highly idealized ‘woman on the pedestal’ Agnes Wickfield, his angelic, sister-like, and ‘intimate’ close friend for many years always “pointing upward” (DC 950), he eventually achieves a state of private contentment in this variation of a “happy domestics of the hearth”, the “philistine, bourgeois, complacent” descriptive tone of which most modern readers oppose, and which Angus Wilson criticized “as an epitome of Victorian bourgeois morality” (215). In sharp contrast to the complacently affirmative tenor of David’s explicitly articulated process of individual self-growth which grants him the achievement of ‘normalized’ maturity, the memory-staged recollections of his autobiographical account strike a completely different tone. For in his attempt to answer his initial question, “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show” (DC 49), his narration at the same time subtextually evokes and betrays a pervasive sense of loss and mournful nostalgia for a different, rather vague, and unspecified memory of personal bliss associated with his early childhood as a wholly pleasurable state of emotional intensity and affective immediacy. It manifests itself in his dream-like fantasies of the Edenic quality of his early childhood experience as a “posthumous child” under the double loving care of the two Claras, who complementarily gratify his individual needs for sexual nature and motherly nurture. As many critical readers have noticed, this mournful nostalgia for a lost paradise of original innocence and plenitude, clearly modelled upon the Ro- <?page no="119"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 111 mantic myth of childhood innocence and intertextually emulating the Wordsworthian pattern, leading to an existential lack as well as a characteristic preshaping of David’s individualized ‘play’ of desire, a state of being morally disqualified by George Eliot in Middlemarch through her omniscient narrator’s famous remark on “moral stupidity” (“We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves”, 243), can, if at all, only be recovered in his pre-adolescent love-entanglements with Little Emily and his passionate love-infatuation with his first wife, Dora Spenlow, the child-woman and an obvious replica of his mother, Clara Copperfield in the later stages of his life-trajectory. 1 Strikingly, however, signs of a strong passionate attachment reminiscent of the paradise-like quality of his childhood affections are completely missing in his love attachment to Agnes, indicating that David has utterly failed to reconcile his original fantasy of bliss with his normalized mature state of happiness in the intimate friendship of his ‘companionate marriage’ with his second wife. As Gilmour puts it: “The characteristic narrative movement of David Copperfield is a return from a secure present … to a less secure but more vital and complex past” (31). No matter whether we deconstruct David’s dream-like memories of an original state of bliss as self-delusive fantasies along the lines of Lacanian post-structuralist psychology or acknowledge that their existential reality decisively pre-shapes his individual structure of self-affection, the internal friction between his pervasive sense of mournful loss repeatedly informing the latent subtext of his memories and, in contrast, his optimistic affirmation of an achieved process of self-maturation resulting in private happiness and socio-cultural conformity on the level of manifest meaning clearly indicates that the novel as a whole is permeated by the staging of a dialectics of gains and losses (cf. Lougy 409ff.). It is, therefore, more than reasonable, as I will henceforth argue, to start with the basic premise that the deep-structural principle of aesthetic oscillation between manifest and latent levels of meaning becomes thematically expressive of and corresponds to David`s underlying existential need to narratively make sense of and rebalance his bewilderingly contradictory interior experience of ‘gains and losses’, wavering between regressive yearnings and actively chosen life-practices of progressive individual selfgrowth. In this way we can reasonably account for the need David, the narrator, feels on various occasions to ironically distance himself from the internal emotional states of his post-adolescent self, for example, from his helpless loveinfatuation with the alluring child-woman Dora, which he later rationalizes as “the first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart” (DC 710). Thus, he 1 For a detailed discussion of the Wordsworthian myth of childhood innocence and the influence of the Wordsworthian pattern on the novel cf. Barr 63-69. <?page no="120"?> Meinhard Winkgens 112 clearly testifies to the need for decisive and somewhat painful self-transformations of his internal, ‘natural’ dispositional structure at certain stages of his process of development, self-transformations which can with equally good reasons be interpreted both as incorporated adjustments to the normative moral expectations of normalized behaviour in his middle-class socio-cultural surroundings and as self-inflicted, ‘autonomously’ chosen disciplinary acts of habitualized self-regulation and self-coercion. Taken together, they paradoxically produce unconscious forms of self-suppression and the self-monitoring repression of ‘unruly desires’ as well as enabling and liberating forms of individual self-command and successful manifestations of his individual agency. A brief and admittedly simplified comparison with Charlotte Brontë’s famous ‘feminist’ novel of development Jane Eyre, published only two years before David Copperfield and structurally as well as thematically quite similar in many respects, may illustrate this point. Brontë’s narrator-protagonist, who, although called upon to modify her rebellious individual character through the exertion of self-discipline based upon moral principles, fully embraces and affirms the heterogeneous multiplicity of the conflicting internal needs and desires inherent in her ‘natural’ dispositional structure as an unadjusted, angry, deviant, and resistant female individual, a tenacity for which she is eventually rewarded against all odds by a marriage between equals based on passionate love as well as on intimate mutual understanding. In his individual life-path, David however, seems to have felt compelled to sacrifice, cut off or level down essential parts of his personal identity through the successful disciplining of his heart, which, in stark contrast to Jane Eyre, cannot be constructively integrated into and reconciled with his final state of achieved happiness and socially acclaimed maturity. They are, therefore, excluded and suppressed into the realm of David’s unconscious, multifariously expressed and re-emerging in the novel’s latent subtext according to the deep-structural logic of a ‘return of the repressed’, preferably through the haunting moods of melancholic loss but also through David’s strong emotional investment into projective identifications with other characters, following the threefold psychological mechanism of repression, displacement, and projection. The most prominent unconscious features illustrating David’s projective identifications and substantially contributing to a proliferation of highly complex, ambiguous, and polysemic meaning effects, which are once again aesthetically generated through the contradictory interplay of manifest and latent levels of meaning, are obviously the critically well-established readings of his interrelationships with his step-father, Mr. Murdstone, his much adored school friend James Steerforth, and the over-humble upstart Uriah Heep as his ‘doubles’ and ‘alter egos’. Independent characters and at the same time surrogate alter ego-figures, they live out David’s repressed erotic desires, split off into his unconscious, toward his mother Clara, his lower-class pre-adoles- <?page no="121"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 113 cent childhood love, Little Emily, and his second wife Agnes. This is encapsulated by Murdstone who through his “imposing masculinity” (Crawford 44) sexually subdues David’s playfully attractive young mother, thus fulfilling David’s most secret oedipal longings, and Steerforth, who, through his elopement, seduction, and abandonment of Emily enacts another secret desire, the acknowledgment of which David shies away from, although he clearly states at one point: “I love little Em’ly, and I don’t love Agnes - no, not at all in that way” (DC 289), as well as by Uriah and his illicit erotic desires, his sexualizing gaze at Agnes, and his threatening, yet failed attempts to bring her into his power. This eroticization of the angelic woman is something David, her loving husband, completely fails to acknowledge (cf. Dowling 49-59). Since the performances of these three male characters as David’s alter egos strongly affect the innermost repressed structures of his unconscious desirous self, encounters with them in the plot of his narrative reconstruction inevitably trigger highly emotionalized and strongly biased affective responses in him that are deeply ambivalent and contradictory at the same time (cf. Winkgens 51- 57). In addition to David’s highly ambiguous ways of projective identification with these three male alter egos in a more general sense the novel as an aesthetic whole is also permeated by an intricately interwoven network of symbolic analogies and contrasts implicitly relating and comparing David with the life-paths of many other major and minor characters and establishing among other things a form of fictional argument that Dowling has defined as “hegemonic deviance …, an effect of difference creating conformity” (Dowling 48), - this holds true whether we attribute this narratologically to D.C. and his achieved artistic mastery as a successful writer or to C.D., the real or ‘implied’ author of the novel. Although this complex system of meaningful correspondences and contrasts between David and other characters primarily functions to stabilize a sense of closure and to round off the manifest meaning of David’s successful process of maturation, these conspicuous narrative strategies, too, paradoxically gain an alternative subtextual dynamic of their own. Thus they often seem to imaginatively deconstruct exactly the essentials of the ideological message they were intended to make coherently plausible; this is mirrored by the ambivalent meaning-effects produced by David’s interrelations with his doubles, which evoke contradictory unconscious meanings not consciously acknowledged and addressed by the narrator-protagonist. In the light of these preliminary reflections, I will pursue a different approach than my first critical reading of the novel twenty years ago, which was primarily concerned with explaining the interior, psychological tensions of David’s personal predicament. Now my much more expansive re-reading of David Copperfield, embracing both the psychological and the socio-cultural di- <?page no="122"?> Meinhard Winkgens 114 mension of David’s autobiographical reconstruction, will in the following attempt to decipher the novel as an intricately structured polysemic imaginative space for the exploration of a bourgeois subject culture oscillating between manifest meaning and latent subtext. I will show that Dickens’ favourite novel not only (unconsciously) pays a remarkable tribute to the fascinating power of bourgeois subject culture which had, by the middle of the 19 th century, already achieved a hegemonic status but also amply testifies to its strong discursive impact through the detailed ways the novel outlines and re-stages the core elements of the bourgeois subject model. In this way, the novel correlates with the findings of Andreas Reckwitz in his theoretically advanced seminal study The Hybrid Subject: A Theory of Subject Cultures from Bourgeois Modernity to Postmodernity. In addition, as I will demonstrate, the novel imaginatively explores not only the enabling conditions the bourgeois subject culture offers for the progressive self-empowerment of the narrator-protagonist through apparently reasonable and meaningful practices of individual ‘bourgeois’ agency but also delineates their interaction with the alternative subject-models of Romanticism as well as those of the aristocracy and pre-enlightened popular culture, through a complex symbolic interplay of overlaps and boundary-markings. By reconstructing these complex symbolic interactions of alternative formations of becoming a modern subject with the help of Reckwitz’ theoretical model, it will be possible - as I shall argue - to analytically re-formulate and to re-analyse the novel’s significant textual strategies with respect to its character-constellations, plot-configuration, and clearly marked gaps in the sense of Wolfgang Iser, which have irritated its critical readers for decades. As the title of my essay already indicates, I will focus my attention on the conflictual tensions between bourgeois and Romantic subject cultures as the two most prominent alternative and even antagonistic subject models David’s process of subjectivation is shaped by. For, while the novel reveals an affirmative identification with and affectively laden passionate attachment to bourgeois subject culture on the level of the text’s manifest meaning, mimicking the preconditions of a successful bourgeois self-fashioning through David’s process of self-maturation, it at the same time specifies the price David dialectically has to pay for his ‘bourgeoisification’ on the level of its latent subtext. Because of the strong ‘Romantic impact’ of David’s ‘original’ interior dispositional structure of affective attachments and libidinous desires, which in many ways correspond to the core-features of Reckwitz’ characterization of the Romantic subject model, his successful maturation into a sovereign, self-governed, normalized, and well-adjusted bourgeois subject necessarily entails painful volitional acts of self-correction and the self-inflicted transformation of his unique individual Romantic disposition. This is registered in the novel’s subtext by a <?page no="123"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 115 pervasive sense of nostalgic loss and unconscious forms of projective identification, resulting in a personal alienation from the supplementarized Romantic Other. By polysemically and dialectically thematizing the deep-structural antagonism between bourgeois and Romantic subject cultures, the codes of which David seemingly cannot reconcile, the novel also problematizes the representative frictions and conflicts of bourgeois subject formation as an inherently contingent hybrid arrangement of practices, discourses, and codes whose claim on universal validity as the only reasonable and natural formation of the modern subject is deceptive and delusive not only from the privileged point of view of a theoretical observer but also from that of an imaginative participant like David Copperfield, the narrator-protagonist of his own life-story. 2 David’s Original Dispositional Structure as a Representation of the Romantic Subject My following argumentation is based upon the central premise that, as an individual subject, David Copperfield, the narrator-protagonist of this novel of development, through various interlocking narrative devices is definitely marked as a Romantic subject embodying and practicing all the essential core elements of Romantic subject culture as defined by Reckwitz. In this connection, it is tantamount to emphasize the intensity and frequency with which the novel evokes a wide array of Romantic denotations with respect to the individual dispositional structure and the life-trajectory of the narrator-protagonist. Taken together, they by far surpass and provide a much more specific picture than the two explicit references to David’s Romantic nature alone could achieve. Both are employed in the reconstruction of David’s youthful self; first when relating his highly successful nightly attempts at fictional story-telling, based upon his avid reading of the classic novels from his father’s library, to his fellow pupils in Salem House: “Whatever I had within me that was romantic and dreamy, was encouraged by so much story-telling in the dark; and in that respect the pursuit may not have been very profitable to me” (DC 146), which clearly foreshadows his later profession as a creative writer; and secondly when he re-lives once again the painful recollections of his degrading experience as a ten year old working-boy in Murdstone’s warehouse: “When I tread the old ground, I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity, going on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange experiences and sordid things! ” (DC 225). Apart from that, the Romantic denotations embrace the norm-deviating uniqueness of his individualizing early forms of subjectivation, the erotic sen- <?page no="124"?> Meinhard Winkgens 116 sibility, and the highly sensualized and receptive affective structure of an imaginative-creative aesthetic subject resulting from it, as well as recurrently emphasized manifestations of a “momentaneous consciousness”, at least twice they include the intimate practices of a passionate romantic love attachment, experienced and intensively enjoyed with Little Emily and Dora, and the final vocational choice of becoming a creative expressive artist, the modellike incarnation of a Romantically encoded modern subject, continuously prepared for by his years-long predominantly internal practice of creatively coming to terms with the world. This also surfaces during his consciously chosen retreat into nature and his subsequent solitary contemplation of the sublime and beautiful in the Swiss Alps, keeping him away from home for three years in a moment of deep personal crisis after the early death of his first wife, and preparing him for a radical form of self-transformation. Despite the general affinity and some partial correspondences between bourgeois and Romantic subject cultures, the Romantic subject model should, in accordance with Reckwitz’ theoretical reflections, by no means be misunderstood as only a slight variation or modification of bourgeois subject formation which had achieved a hegemonic status by the middle of the 19 th century. In his view, it should instead be reconstructed as a basically alternative, even antagonistic, albeit marginal model of a modern subjectivity at that time. It represents a serious challenge to bourgeois subject culture since, from the Romantic point of view, bourgeois subjectivity is primarily experienced as a ‘moralized’ limitation, instead of an enabling liberation of individual autonomy and agency; thus the universalizing claim of bourgeois subject formation - namely that it is inherently natural and reasonable at the same time, a typical strategy to hide its contingency - is seriously problematized and invalidated (cf. HS 204-17). On the generalized level of theoretical abstraction the bourgeois subject model as a “training programme employed to produce a morally sovereign universal subject” (HS 97), 2 albeit with an uneasy and even contradictory attitude towards the dynamic spontaneity of an embodied, sensitively living individual subject, with its manifold forms of internal self-affection, oscillating between the methodological rationality of self-discipline and the fostering of emotional sensibility as well as between detailed forms of intrapsychic selfobservation and a principled devaluation of the supplementary individual in favour of an “essential universal”, is profoundly challenged by Romantic discourses imagining a different form of modern subjectivity, “which in the broadest possible sense, conceives of the subject as an entity focused on aesthetic, emphatically individual and expressive principles”. As two opposing models of subjectivity, they offer two distinct and competing foundational 2 “Die bürgerliche Kultur ist ein Trainingsprogramm zur Heranziehung eines moralischsouveränen Allgemeinsubjekts.” <?page no="125"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 117 codes of subjectivation, “one focusing on moral ordering principles, the other encoding subjectivity as an aesthetic form of individual self-expression” (HS 106), 3 which becomes manifest in conflicting discourses and practices, such as, for example, the two antagonistic and irreconcilable models of true and genuine love: on the one hand, the bourgeois concept based upon a genderneutral model of intimate friendship, sympathetic and empathetic sensibilities and communicative mutuality and trust leading to a companionate marriage and, on the other hand, the Romantic concept based upon a strongly gendered matrix of naturalized heterosexual difference and irresistible erotic attraction manifesting itself in a momentaneous mutual passionate love infatuation, the irresistibility of which testifies to its authenticity and the creation of a love attachment beyond the bounds of reason and ordinary rationality. The Romantic subject reacts to “the perceived deficiency of bourgeois subjectivity” (HS 206) by targeting the fissures of bourgeois subject culture, those characteristic frictions that deep-structurally determine the inherent hybridity of bourgeois subject formation, “situated between the core requirements of methodically disciplined rationality and the competencies of emotional sensitivities, … between the morality and sovereignty of the self, and finally between self-monitoring and a sceptical stance towards the subjective form itself” (HS 206). 4 It radicalizes these frictions and re-interprets them by means of an innovative alternative encoding. In this encoding, the three elements “of the moralization, instrumental rationalization, and routinization of subjectivity” in particular become the target of a fundamental and subversive critique. Romanticism opposes the moralizing encoding of the subject “as an entity designed to adhere to universally valid normative rules” (HS 207) 5 by a strong emphasis on the creative-constructivist impulses generated by the perceptive and experiential faculties expressed through the mental-affective acts of an aesthetic subject. The predominant instrumental reason leading to an “instrumental rationalization of subjectivity, which becomes manifest in the disci- 3 “Die Romantik [bietet] den Diskursraum für eine andere Form moderner Subjektivität, die das Subjekt als eine im weitesten Sinne ästhetische, emphatisch individualitätsorientierte und expressive Instanz modelliert …, die beide für die agonale Entwicklung von Subjektkulturen bis zur Gegenwart konkurrierende Sinngrundlagen bereitstellen: eine moralische, ordnungsorientierte und eine ästhetisch-expressive Subjektkodierung.” 4 “Das romantische Subjekt setzt an den Bruchstellen der bürgerlichen Subjektkulturen an; es ist eine sinninnovative Reaktion auf die perzipierte ‘Mangelhaftigkeit‘ der bürgerlichen Form, Subjekt zu sein. Die Friktionen … zwischen den Anforderungen methodisch-disziplinierter Rationalität und den Kompetenzen emotionaler Empfindsamkeit … zwischen Moralität und Souveränität des Ich, schließlich zwischen Selbstbeobachtung und Skepsis gegenüber dem Subjektiven.” 5 “Gegenstand der romantischen Distinktion sind die drei Elemente der Moralisierung, der Zweckrationalisierung und der Routinisierung von Subjektivität” and “Kodierung des Subjekts als eine Instanz zur Befolgung allgemeingültiger, normativer Regeln”. <?page no="126"?> Meinhard Winkgens 118 plining of time, the body, and the handling of objects”, is constructively answered by the self-referential internal experience of the self, which finds the meaning of its performative acts in the self-gratification of the interior moment of experience in the aesthetic self-referentiality of a “relishing of pleasure”. Finally, the long-term orientation, sequential linearity, and routine-like habitualized repetitive structure of a typical normalized bourgeois process of progressive self-education is contrasted with a momentaneous temporal consciousness that strives for exceptional moments “relating to strong, passionate feeling” of intensive and authentic self-experience (HS 208). 6 Or in the words of Reckwitz: The Romantic model of subjectivity is focused on the key features of individuality - inner depth and inner nature - as well as on creative expression, i.e. the expressive nature of the self and the artist´s ideal connected to it, and finally on the subjective configuration of the world, the potential of the imagination and feeling. … Individuals are not conceived as a deduction of common features but are defined by their uniqueness (HS 210f.). 7 As I said before, my following re-reading of Dickens’ novel starts from the premise that the narrator-protagonist David Copperfield, in all the relevant aspects of his original disposition and in the early parts of his process of selfgrowth, is clearly marked as a figural representation and embodiment of Romantic subject culture in the strict and precise sense elaborated by Reckwitz’ seminal study. Nevertheless, David successively transforms into a representative of bourgeois subject culture under highly specified individual motivational conditions from a certain time onwards, exchanging his unique individuality for that of a normalized, well-adapted bourgeois subject, or in the much quoted words of Edward Young’s “Conjectures on Original Composition”: “Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies” (qtd. in Luhmann, Soziale Systeme 366). Against the background of the basic antagonism and the deep structural code differences between these subject models such 6 “An die Stelle der Moralisierung des Subjekts im Handeln soll seine Ästhetisierung im Erleben mental-affektiv-perzeptiver Akte treten: ... Neben der Moralisierung platziert sich die romantische Subjektivitätskritik in Differenz zur Zweckrationalisierung des Subjekts, die sich in der Disziplinierung von Zeit, Körper und im Umgang mit Objekten konkretisiert. ... In der romantischen Repräsentation erscheint der lückenlose Anspruch der Nützlichkeit jedes Aktes ‘für andere’ oder zum Erreichen eines höheren - wiederum nützlichen - Ziels als ein absurdes Spiel des Aufschubs von Befriedigungen, der systematischen Verhinderung jener Akte, die - als ‘Zweck an sich selbst’ - der inneren Dynamik und dem Erleben des Individuums gemäß sind.” 7 “Das romantische Modell der Subjektivität ist um die Elemente der Individualität, der inneren Tiefe und inneren Natur, des schöpferischen Ausdrucks, d.h. der Expressivität des Ichs, und des damit verknüpften Ideals des Künstlers, schließlich der Konstitution der Welt durch das subjektive Innen, der dort angesiedelten Erlebensformen der Imagination und des Gefühls zentriert. ... Der Einzelne stellt sich nicht als Deduktion des Allgemeinen dar, sondern findet seine Einheit als ein Einzigartiges.” <?page no="127"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 119 an individual self-transformation almost by necessity entails highly complex, far-reaching, and potentially very painful forms of interior re-organization deeply affecting David’s intrapsychic self-experience, producing among other things a strongly emotionalized dialectic of gains and losses, registered ambiguously through the novel´s oscillation between manifest meaning and latent subtext. In order to analytically reconstruct David’s developmental and transformational process I will now draw on the terminology and conception of Niklas Luhmann’s notion of the autopoiesis of a modern individual subject not included by the social system but positioned on its outside. In the interpenetrative interplay of the organic system reproducing life and the psychic system reproducing consciousness individual self-evolution is to be conceived of as both operatively closed and open towards its social surroundings at the same time. Therefore, in contrast to the behaviourist input-output model, with its clear analogy to the workings of a machine, the external natural and cultural surroundings of the individual system have no direct determining influence on the self-referential daily reproduction and development of the individual system, which, although it continuously registers and observes external stimuli, also constructively mediates and responds to them internally with the help of the highly specific conditions of his interior individual structures of the ‘jemeinige’ organic and psychic system, of embodied individuals with a unique organic and mental history of their own. This, of course, implies that there will always be a non-determinate and unforeseeable co-evolutionary process of change as well as the transformation of internal structural conditions informing individual autopoiesis and indicating the non-machine like ‘freedom’ of the individual subject (cf. Luhmann, Soziale Systeme 286-376). Against this background David’s original memory of his paradise-like early childhood as a state of bliss and plenitude under the complementary double loving care of the two Claras gains particular importance for various reasons. For not only are we as readers right from the beginning clearly informed about the highly specific conditions of David’s earliest stages of subjectivation as a “posthumous child”, definitely deviating from the common expectations concerning normalized ways of a bourgeois upbringing in a well-to-do middle-class milieu, not the least because of the absence of a patriarchal authority with its typical functions for the establishment of an internalized moral conscience. He is thus introduced as an irreducibly unique individual subject in the emphatic sense of this word. As readers we are also provided with detailed insights into the emerging foundational structures of his internal emotional and mental disposition forming the basic channels of his self-evolving individual autopoiesis, thereby absolving us from methodologically highly problematic speculations about a pre-cultural, biologically inherited set of innate faculties in the sense of his ‘inborn’ nature. <?page no="128"?> Meinhard Winkgens 120 So when the narrator in chapter 11 recalls his youthful self “at ten years old” as “a child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally” (DC 208), the foundational structures of his highly individualized Romantic disposition originating in the paradise-like innocence of his earliest childhood have already been in place for some years and have been stable so that they help him to withstand the coercive pressures both of the Murdstone regime at home and that of Mr. Creakle at Salem House with remarkable resilience. What David relishes most in his earliest childhood memories before the intrusion of the Murdstones, precisely captured in the twice-repeated formula “my mother and I and Peggotty” (DC 62), is, of course, the intimate and complementary loving care of the two Claras. Through their physical proximity and psychological attachment they gratify all of his affective needs, sensual wishes, and libidinous desires in a period significantly recalled as a long, continuous, timeless moment of an Edenic state of bliss and plenitude narrated in the present tense. 8 David intuitively knows that this indulgingly pleasurable state of intensive self-affection providing the foundational dispositions of an aesthetic subject in the Romantic sense of a self-referential dynamics of highly affectionate interior self enjoyment is dependent on the absence of a paternal authority and hence on the early death of his father, as the two references to the biblical Lazarus story and the resurrection of the dead clearly indicate; first when he responds with deep fear and anxiety to his mother’s reading of the story so that his two mothers are obliged to take him out of bed and show him “the quiet churchyard … with the dead all lying in their graves at rest” (DC 62) to allay his fears, and later, to corroborate the strong impact this incident has had on David’s psyche, he “trembled, and turned white” because “something … connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising of the dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind”, when Peggotty informs him that he has “got a Pa” (DC 92). If we remind ourselves that David retells his process of development from the point of view of his achieved maturity as a well-adjusted bourgeois subject, it is striking that he betrays no inclination to devaluate his early childhood years of affective self-indulgence and aesthetic self-gratification retrospectively as essentially a state of deficiency or “moral stupidity” (G. Eliot) caused by the absence of the father as a moral guide, patriarchal authority, and originator of the ‘reality principle’. His self-presentation, therefore, stands in sharp contrast to the ways David 8 This is, by the way, a first manifestation of David’s typically Romantic predilection for a momentaneous consciousness of intensive experience, thus anticipating a characteristic leitmotiv of the novel repeatedly employed both in the plot development and the ways of narrative presentation like, for example, the ‘retrospect’ chapters. For the reality (or fantasy) status of this memory cf. Lougy 407-20. <?page no="129"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 121 tries to account for the immoral behaviour and irresponsible evil actions of James Steerforth, Uriah Heep, and Jack Maldon. They, like David, had to grow up without the authority of a father, and their deficient moral self-formation as ‘spoilt’ young men was triggered by the misguided ‘doting’ love of their respective mothers. But while in their case their immoral actions, their egocentric concerns geared to the ‘pleasure-principle’, and their lack of a restraining conscience built upon the internalized functions of a ‘super-ego’ in the Freudian sense are causally linked to the absence of their fathers and diagnosed, therefore, as a state of essential deficiency, David’s similar conditions as a “posthumous child” are not presented primarily as detrimental but rather as conducive to his individualizing process of Romantic self-growth. Instead, his loving intimacy with the two Claras stimulates his sensibility, sensuality, as well as his emotional self-affection and together with his aesthetic disposition fosters a highly sensitive perception of his surroundings, which he basically experiences as benevolent, as well as an eager, strongly affectionate internal responsiveness. This allows David to recall the different physical shapes of their female bodies with sensual precision, to respond pleasurably to and acknowledge the different attractions of their respective beauty and to claim for himself a particular “faculty of memory”, “enabling” a “power of observation” quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy that will “retain a certain freshness and gentleness, and a capacity of being pleased” (DC 61) even in adult life. With respect to his own mother, additionally, it allows him not only to expand on his imaginative, psychologizing insights into the vanity of her individual nature: “I watch her winding her bright curls round her fingers, and straitening her waist, and nobody knows better than I do that she likes to look so well, and is proud of being so pretty” (DC 65) but also to develop a deeply eroticized oedipal attraction to the kind of femininity she embodies, preordaining the structures of his libidinous desires in his later life. Since David experiences his two mothers as an imaginary unity of the complementary functions of sexual nature and motherly nurture in the original memories of his early boyhood, he does not yet suffer from the effects of a ‘split image of womanhood’ that in the later stages of his life becomes so obvious. It results in an irreconcilable ‘either-or constellation’ of oscillation between passionate erotic desire exemplified by his romantic love for his first wife Dora, a replica of Clara Copperfield, and a desexualized intimate friendship love exemplified by the mutual intimate trust informing his bourgeois love attachment to his second wife Agnes, who is cast as his selfless sister and the personification of a motherly nurture reminiscent of Clara Peggotty throughout the novel. In particular because of the conspicuous emotional investment of the narrator-protagonist to cover up the inherent fissures between desire and love produced by this unconsciously internalized split image of womanhood, I fo- <?page no="130"?> Meinhard Winkgens 122 cused on the significant parallels between this intricate psychological constellation never consciously and explicitly addressed in the novel and Freud’s psychoanalytic diagnosis of a neurotic split of the male libido in my first reading of the novel. David not only emphasizes that his friend Agnes explicitly assents to his choice of Dora as a wife (“when I loved her [Dora] - even then my love would have been incomplete without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when I lost her, Agnes, what should I have been without you, still! ” (DC 936) and that the two women establish a close female friendship, but he also stresses that Dora “made a last request” to Agnes, “that only I would occupy this vacant place” (DC 939) immediately before her premature death. This split results from an unsuccessful separation of the attachment to his mother, i.e. a fixation on the primary ‘incestuous object’, which, in my rereading, must of course be supplemented by accounting for the impact of the frictions between the Romantic and bourgeois models of true love (cf. Winkgens 51-53). David’s brief childhood idyll, however, comes to an abrupt close when Edward Murdstone gains Clara Copperfield’s submissive love, totally subjugates her in a marriage based on the bourgeois moral principles of firmness and self-control, and introduces his sister Jane, “the metallic lady”, as a housekeeper, and with her help successfully installs his repressive and “gloomy” regime of bourgeois self-exertion, replacing the Romantic state of pleasurable self-indulgence David had grown up in so far. Under these conditions David is exposed as the primary target for the tyrannical Murdstones’ educational endeavours, who in accordance with their Puritanical belief-system see the natural innocence of a romantic child only as a sign of its innate depravity, for the “gloomy theology of the Murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers” to be broken and “crushed” (DC 105). He is, therefore, not only separated and alienated from his mother’s love, totally neglected in his childish needs, victimized and terrorized by the threatening practice of being caned but also subjected to mechanisms of rote-learning, physical punishment, and tyrannical forms of external corrective coercion both at home and at Salem House, the boarding school he is sent to. What is remarkable and in many ways quite surprising, though, is that David is never broken, especially in contrast to Clara’s submission to her new husband’s ‘firmness’: “He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. I knew as well, when I saw my mother’s head lean down upon his shoulder and her arms touch his neck - I knew as well that he could mould her pliant nature into any form he chose” (DC 95). For instead of adjusting to the new behavioural input of a self-regulating bourgeois subject, the foundational structures of his Romantic disposition prove to be strong enough for active resistance (e.g. biting in his stepfather’s hand when he is caning him, behaviour reminiscent of Jane Eyre) and the impregnation of his interior autopoiesis <?page no="131"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 123 through the operative closure of his internal self against all direct exterior influences and coercive pressures. Somehow, therefore, his step-father, who at least at first sight seems to embody all the central features of bourgeois subject culture as defined by Reckwitz, fails to impose his will and his educational regime on the young boy. Murdstone thus undergoes a similar experience with David as the narrator-protagonist much later in his life painfully undergoes himself, when he, in vain, resolves “to form Dora’s mind” by gentle and persuasive means of reasonable education, only to resignedly discover that he “had effected nothing” because it dawns upon him “that perhaps Dora’s mind was already formed” (DC 762f.). From the Murdstones’ point of view, hence, the reasons given to David at the age of ten, before he is about to be sent to London to work in Murdstone’s warehouse, are plausible and justified and should not be regarded as cynical: David …, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it. (DC 206) Although David suffers intensely from his total isolation and neglect at home and at Salem House in this early stage of his life - apart from the continuous forms of motherly nurture he can rely on receiving from Clara Peggotty - we can discern the development of four typical embodied practices which strengthen his interior self and help him to resist and immunize himself against the coercive impact of the bourgeois morality of the Murdstonian regime. They also underline his Romantic individuality and testify to his authentic process of individual self-growth based upon the foundational dispositional structure generated by his ‘original’ earliest childhood experience. 1. As already mentioned, by deeply immersing himself in the reading of the fictional classics on his father’s bookshelf and imaginatively identifying with their heroes’ lot, in particular with Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones and Tobias Smollett’s Roderick Random, he makes friends with other people in his mind and finds nourishment for his psychologizing sensibility. As his successful and lively performance of retelling these stories to the audience of his fellow pupils during the evenings at Salem House clearly illustrates, this also betrays his imaginative and narrative faculties foreshadowing his later vocational choice, for which he gains the respect as well as the adoration of others, especially Tommy Traddles and James Steerforth (cf. DC 105f., 145ff.). 2. Instead of exposing himself to the full reality of his mother’s personal weakness and desertion of him and in order to avoid the arousal of <?page no="132"?> Meinhard Winkgens 124 negative feelings of disappointment and aggressive anger, David exempts her from all implications of a guilty complicity in his own suffering. Instead he prefers to arrest and enshrine her through a creative imaginative response in the fixated image of the eroticizing and attractive child-woman of his earliest memories. David recalls her only “as the young mother of my earliest impressions” by drawing on his memory of one intensively cherished moment, of which he quite sentimentally writes: “I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my heart”. In this scene, he comes home in the absence of the Murdstones and is lovingly re-united with his mother: “But seeing me, she called me her dear Davy, her own boy! … Kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, and put its hand to my lips” (DC 162). In response to Peggotty’s narration of his own father’s remark that “a loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom, and that he was a happy man in hers”, David informs us just after his mother’s death: In her death she winged her way back to her calm, untroubled youth and cancelled all the rest. The mother, who lay in the grave, was the mother of my infancy; the little creature in her arms, was myself, as I had once been, hushed for ever on her bosom. (DC 186f.) The striking correspondence between David’s imaginatively evoked dream fantasy of an eternalized moment of libidinous pleasure and eroticized self-gratification at his mother’s ‘breast’ and George Eliot’s negation of a state of moral stupidity, “taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves”, clearly indicates that his regressive emotional yearnings are likely to unconsciously produce contradictory psychological effects in the future through the frictional tensions between the ‘pleasure’ and ‘reality-principle’ or between Romantic and bourgeois forms of identification and subjectivation. On the one hand, therefore, his Romantic dispositions are strengthened and impregnated against the impact of a bourgeois subject model in its negative Murdstonian version, while on the other hand he is preordained to become infatuated with a replica of his mother through the disavowal of the full reality of the alluring child-woman and the eclipse of her characteristic deficiencies. 3. In correspondence with his mother’s absolution, I want to argue that the Murdstones are consistently demonized and cast as representatives of ‘black’ and ‘gloomy’ evil through a wide array of stylistic and literary techniques. By means of these narrative strategies of imaginative devaluation and negation David not only emotionally vents his feelings of oedipal jealousy but also constructively preserves the <?page no="133"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 125 inviolable integrity of his Romantic individuality by denouncing them as “anti-subjects” whose bourgeois discourses and practices he must resist and immunize himself against (cf. HS 44-47); for example through statements like the following, which explicitly negate keywords of the bourgeois behavioural code that David, in his later process of self-transformation and bourgeoisification, will positively affirm and incorporate: Firmness, I may observe was the grand quality on which both Mr and Miss Murdstone took their stand. However I might have expressed my comprehension of it at that time, if I had been called upon, I nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it was another name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil’s humour, that was in them both. The creed, as I should state it now, was this. Mr Murdstone was firm: nobody else in his world was to be firm at all, for everybody was to be bent to his firmness. (DC 99) I do not doubt that she had a choice pleasure in exhibiting what she called her self-command, and her firmness, and her strength of mind and her common sense, and the whole diabolical catalogue of her unamiable qualities on such an occasion. (DC 182) 4. Because of David’s aesthetic disposition, his highly emotionalized sensitive perceptiveness and his eager responsiveness to sensual stimuli he already in the early stages of his life, but also later on, is easily affectively aroused by ‘fascinating’ others, whose ‘auratic’ and/ or erotic attractions irresistibly fascinate him and make him respond enthusiastically. In heterosexual terms this applies to his preadolescent love-yearnings for Little Emily on his three journeys to the Yarmouth boat people around Peggotty, his adolescent and post-adolescent love attachments to Ms. Shepherd and Ms. Larkins (cf. ch. 18, 322-29), and above all his helpless passionate love-infatuation with Dora, his first wife, the beginnings of which he remembers in chapter 26, which is aptly entitled “I fall into Captivity”. But they also include the homoerotic bonds to the already mentioned James Steerforth and Uriah Heep as his doubles or alter egos, the first idolized and adored, the second detested and abhorred, and both unconsciously functionalized as personifications of powerful emotional projections with an additional ‘social subtext’ of positive and negative identification. 9 All of these fascinating encounters share the feature that they produce ambivalent effects in the narrator-protagonist. 9 For a general discussion of the social subtext and the symbolic treatment of aristocratic and lower-class ‘anti-subjects’ not particularly dealt with in my analysis cf. Jordan 61- 92; Sell 19-30. <?page no="134"?> Meinhard Winkgens 126 On the one hand, they, no doubt, strengthen his Romantic individuality and are welcomed as extraordinary and intensively experienced moments he self-indulgently relishes in. On the other hand, however, David recurrently finds himself in a state of helpless passivity in these moments of fascination, his powers for reasonable judgement and the moral freedom of choice are suspended, and the evaluation of the personal quality of each fascinating character turns out to be at least doubtful in the long run. Yet, it should not be overlooked that David, although he consistently refuses to emulate any influence of the Murdstonian practices of sovereign bourgeois self-government but sullenly sticks to his indulgent Romantic individualism, is able to undertake courageous self-determinate action by breaking with the Murdstones and escaping to his aunt in Dover. This happens when he is despondingly suffering from the hard manual work in Murdstone’s warehouse, fears his “hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man” crushed, is afraid of being contaminated by the low and raw daily contact with the urban proletariat, and especially feels existentially threatened by the impending loss of his interior faculties and individual abilities: The deep remembrance of the sense I had … of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more, cannot be written. (DC 210) With his arrival at Dover, adopted and re-named by Aunt Betsey and then sent to Canterbury to live with the Wickfields and to attend Dr. Strong’s school, David’s life takes a decisively new direction fully embedded in a bourgeois middle-class milieu, recollected and fitfully introduced by the narrator in chapter 15 entitled “I make another Beginning”. 3 David’s Ambivalent Transformational Process of Bourgeoisification and the Concomitant Supplementarity of his Romantic Disposition As I have demonstrated so far, the narrator-protagonist casts himself as a fully-fledged Romantic individual, whose highly individualized process of self-growth and self-referential internal autopoiesis is characterized by all the core-elements of the Romantic subject formation at least till the later stages in his life after the death of his first wife and his three years of retreat into the wild nature of the Swiss Alps. In other words, he is definitely adhering to a subject culture that according to Reckwitz antagonistically challenges the dominant bourgeois subject model because of its inherent limitations and al- <?page no="135"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 127 leged inhibiting constraints. But, nevertheless, and at first sight quite surprisingly, he gradually transforms into a successfully adjusted bourgeois subject, finally representing and embodying all its discursive practices and codes. This is even the more surprising if we take into consideration that as a young boy he vehemently resists the coercive impact of the Murdstonian version of the bourgeois creed of moral firmness and reasonable self-command, and later in his life becomes a successful professional author and thus turns into an imaginative-creative artist, a professional role the auratic qualities of which for good reasons seem to epitomize the true Romantic individual and his capacity for creative and authentic self-expression. These ambivalent and even contradictory analytical observations inevitably lead to a central and most crucial critical question, a question many critical readings from widely differing points of view so far have tackled and tried to answer: why, for what reasons, and under which particular conditions would David feel compelled to or deliberately choose to fundamentally re-organize his internal emotional and mental structures and refashion himself as a bourgeois subject, thus transforming his individualized process of self-growth into a normalized bourgeois educational process of maturation? Since the narrator-protagonist as well as the novel as a whole, instead of constructively embracing and hybridizing elements of both subject cultures, eventually arrives at a conclusion that hierarchically subordinates the Romantic to the bourgeois subject model, which on the psychological level of David’s individual practices of self-care leads to an almost total inversion and revocation of his original Romantic dispositions and convictions, these are necessarily supplemented in his yet inherently ambivalent and contradictory process of bourgeoisification. The novel as a whole aesthetically expresses this conflict-ridden ambivalence and thus perceptively registers and articulates its concomitant dialectics of gains and losses through the palimpsestuous oscillation between manifest meaning and latent subtext. On the one hand, therefore, we find an explicit affirmation of bourgeois discourse practices as enabling conditions for David’s new forms of rational individual agency and a sovereign and disciplined control of his irrational forms of emotional bonding. On the other hand, we notice a pervasive sense of nostalgic mourning for the loss of intensively experienced and relished moments of Romantic bliss and enchantment. This loss corresponds with the seemingly inevitable levelling-down of his full interior potential as a uniquely embodied individual who sensitively, aesthetically, and self-indulgently responds to his surroundings from the interior depths of his dynamic inner self, so that in a way important parts of his Romantic individuality have to be sacrificed for the successful normalized and moralized adjustment to bourgeois self-practices. <?page no="136"?> Meinhard Winkgens 128 Although acknowledging and analytically taking into account some of the manifold relevant aspects contributing to this complex, conflict-ridden constellation, in various ways widely prepared for by established critical readings of the novel, I will argue that the best and most promising way to convincingly answer the central critical question concerning David’s ambivalent and contradictory bourgeois self-transformation is to start with the following assumption: In his favourite novel, Dickens unconsciously testifies and pays tribute to the discursive impact of bourgeois subject formation as the most convincing and attractive subject model of his time. He meaningfully arranges and hybridizes the principle of moral orientation and its generalized moral markers of difference from the aristocratic anti-subject, namely moderation, utility, and sincere transparency as opposed to those of excess, parasitism, and artificiality, with rationalized forms of sovereign self-command and disciplined self-government as well as a psychologizing sensibility for the mutual affective interiority of the self and the other, sympathetically expressed through a sensitive and emotionalized form of intimate communication (cf. HS 178-96). Taken together, bourgeois discourse practices and their underlying codes, as David’s process of maturation and self-transformation is representatively meant to illustrate, provide the individual subject with sovereign forms of self-empowerment and responsible, rational agency, which on the whole are beneficial for the self as well as his social surroundings and are consequently rewarded by the happy ending of the novel. Balanced against the challenge and alternative of David’s original Romantic individualism, the benefits and rewards, both psychologically and socio-culturally, of his achieved bourgeoisification by far outweigh the unavoidable losses entailed in his process of self-transformation through the self-inflicted curtailment of his individual complexity and the disciplined correction and supplementarity of his desiring Romantic self. The first important aspect to be mentioned in this context occurs right at the beginning of David’s Canterbury years living with the Wickfields and attending Dr. Strong’s school, and serves as an essential precondition for David’s successful bourgeois process of self-education. In this context, we have to explain why, in sharp contrast to his almost total resistance to the coercive influence of the educational regime of the Murdstones and Salem House School, he responds positively to his new bourgeois surroundings, both at home with the Wickfields or Aunt Betsey and at Dr. Strong’s private school. Indeed, attending this school necessarily entails a submission to rules, order, and discipline, and a striking similarity is created between Murdstone’s educational philosophy of ‘firmness’ and his aunt’s vision of what should become of David in the future in terms of character-building and personality formation. <?page no="137"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 129 In his memory-based observations of this time David is quite explicit about the positive influence of his new surroundings, emphasizing how easy is was for him to fit in: “in less than a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy, among my new companions” so that he is accordingly motivated “to work very hard, both in play and in earnest, and gained great commendation”. In turn, David also praises the school as “an excellent school, as different from Mr. Creakle’s as good is from evil” because, although “it was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system” it appealed “in everything, to the honour and good faith of the boys, and [with] an avowed intention to rely on their possession of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders” (DC 293f.). Sometime later, when he successfully finishes his “happy school days”, feels somehow “sorry to go” yet leaves school “without natural regret” because of some “visionary considerations” in his boyish mind concerning “misty ideas of being a young man at my own disposal, of the importance attaching to a young man at his own disposal, of the wonderful things to be seen and done by that magnificent animal, and the wonderful effects he could not fail to make upon society” (DC 330), two things become clear: on the one hand, because of the positive and inviting appeal of his new surroundings and the radically different ‘interpellation’ of himself as an individual subject from that of the Murdstonian times, the foundational structures of his interior Romantic self-affection begin to reorganize themselves; on the other hand, his craving for momentaneous selfgratification is supplemented by the dreamy vision of long-term future pleasures vaguely associated with personal independence, freedom, autonomy, and meaningful action but also, as David will have to learn, dependent on the instrumental bourgeois logics of a ‘means to end’ rationality. It is significant that David does not shy away from or resist but affectively complies with his aunt’s detailed exhortation concerning his future male identity, which drawn in precise contours envisions the outlines of a fully-fledged bourgeois subject and anticipates the achieved maturity David will eventually arrive at through a complex, polysemic, and conflict-ridden process of subjectivation and selftransformation. But what I want you to be, Trot, … I don’t mean physically, but morally … is a firm fellow. A fine, firm fellow, with a will of your own. With resolution …, with determination. With character, Trot - with strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody or by anything. … To have reliance upon yourself, and act for yourself. (DC 332) Even though this positive interpellation by the bourgeois subject model serves as a necessary enabling condition for David later on in his life to attune his internal self-affection to the expectations of his bourgeois surroundings, it by no means implies that he will already begin to change his internal self-relationship in his adolescence. In fact, just the opposite is the case since for many <?page no="138"?> Meinhard Winkgens 130 years to come moral concerns and the wish to become “a man at his own disposal” in the bourgeois understanding of sovereign self-command remain strictly subordinate to his passionate craving for aesthetically fulfilled moments of enchantment through the intoxicated response to fascinating others in accordance with his Romantic individualism and his inherent dispositional structure. This is recurrently lived out and excessively practiced in his attachment to Little Emily, Dora Spenlow, James Steerforth, and even Uriah Heep. On all these occasions, to apply the descriptive oppositional terms used by Jane Austen in her novels, ‘sensibility’ as a form of aesthetic self-indulgence dominates over ‘sense’ as morally orientated self-exertion and self-reflexive rational judgment in the motivation of David’s actions and behavioural patterns, 10 most blatantly exemplified, of course, in his highly ambivalent and morally deficient reactions to Steerforth’s elopement with Little Emily and the fatal consequences for many characters involved. For, as the much quoted and commented upon passage at the beginning of chapter 32 (cf. DC 516) clearly reveals, because of his projective identification with Steerforth as his alter ego and the power of fascination the latter has had over David, the narrator-protagonist - even from the privileged point of view of retrospection - fails to achieve moral deliverance through an unequivocal confession of his and Steerforth’s sin, and as a testament to his inner turmoil prefers to register his highly ambiguous response. Although he acknowledges “the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness”, admits to “my own unconscious part in his pollution of an honest home”, states that “he fascinated me no longer”, and knows “that we could never be re-united”, he for the first time in the novel thus far resorts to his similarity with other men, “what is natural in me, is natural in many other men”, in order to somehow absolve himself from his guilt and responsibility and to justify the expression of his irresistible emotion, “that I never had loved Steerforth better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken” and that “I thought more of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him … than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to him”. And on top of it all David admits: “I should have loved him so well still … I should have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that I should have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child.” Apart from exemplifying David’s undiscerning devotion and projective identification with Steerforth as his double and fascinating other including his erotic/ auratic qualities as well as his performative abilities that on closer inspection become clearly reminiscent 10 Although the bourgeois moral pattern of self-exertion versus self-indulgence informs almost all of Austen’s novels, it gains particular prominence in Sense and Sensibility with its negotiation of right conduct through the opposition between Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. <?page no="139"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 131 of an aristocratic subject culture, 11 what this highly emotionalized presentation of a moment of personal crisis in spite of the great temporal distance which separates the moment of lived experience from that of memory-based writing poignantly illustrates is David’s difficulty to establish a reasonable and responsible balance between general moral concerns and his individual ‘aesthetic’ predilection in his judgment and behaviour; particularly, if, as is the case here, considerations based on moral principles stand in conflict with the affective needs and self-indulgent desires of his Romantic individuality, not the least those associated with the aesthetic disposition of his craving for self-referentially experienced pleasurable moments of internal self-gratification, here evoked by his characteristic phrase “I should have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him”. In addition, this scene of personal crisis with its underlying ambiguities and tensions clearly foreshadows the conflict-ridden outlines of the self-transformational process of bourgeoisification awaiting the narrator protagonist, with the crucial focus upon habitualised forms of disciplinarization and in accordance with Norbert Elias’ insight into the process of civilization and modernization depending on the transformation of outer coercion into interior practices of individual self-discipline and surveillance by self-inflicted habits of internalization and incorporation. To the individual subject these appear to be reasonable, moral, as well as natural choices of free agency in order to domesticate one’s unruly inner self and gain control over its irrational ‘play’ of desire and unconscious yearnings. The essential turning-point in David’s life-trajectory, initiated under highly specific circumstances, and then gradually, step by step, leading to a complete transformative reconfiguration of his internal mental and emotional autopoiesis through self-inflicted volitional acts of self-surveillance and a reasonably disciplined regularization of his incorporated habits of temporal, affective, and bodily practices is narratively thematised in chapter 36, entitled “Enthusiasm”. It is introduced in a slightly self-ironical fashion with a brief explicit reference “to the painful discipline of my younger days” (DC 582). Because of the financial difficulties of his aunt, who seemingly lost most of her money used to fund David’s London education as a ‘proctor’ through risky investments on the international capitalist market and, as it turns out later, through Uriah’s criminal fraud, and following her and in particular Agnes’ exhortations and practical advice, David, seemingly trying to transfer his “misty ideas of becoming a man at his own disposal” into reality, decides to work hard, to discipline his moods and affections, and to gain independence by earning money himself: 11 Throughout the novel Steerforth’s easy, winning manners, his self-assured charm, and his performative competencies, which so much fascinate David, are associated with the typically excessive, parasitic, and artificial features of an aristocrat’s behavioural code. <?page no="140"?> Meinhard Winkgens 132 What I had to do, was, to show my aunt that her past goodness to me had not been thrown away on an insensible, ungrateful object. What I had to do, was, to turn the painful discipline of my younger days to account, by going to work with a resolute and steady heart. What I had to do, was, to take my woodman’s axe in my hand, and clear my own way through the forest of difficulty, by cutting down the trees until I came to Dora. … With the new life, came new purpose, new intention. Great was the labor; priceless the reward. Dora was the reward, and Dora must be won. (DC 582) It should, however, be noted that David’s resolution to re-direct his emotional energies and reorganize his interior self-affection at that time does not result from a growing dissatisfaction with his Romantic individual disposition or morally principled considerations and generalized reflections on his personal responsibility for his own vocational future. Instead, it clearly emerges from and is motivationally embedded in a means-to-end rationality that focuses on the passionate fulfilment of his Romantic love infatuation with Dora, whom he got engaged to briefly before, and on marriage as his supreme goal. Under these conditions and in accordance with his Romantic individuality he responds to the new challenge with much “enthusiasm”, and, with great emotional investment, commits himself to the daily tasks of his well-regulated working practices (cf. DC 588). Remembering the characteristic overlap of self-coercion in the fulfilment of his new duties and an excessive emotional gratification of aesthetic self-indulgence, David, the matured narrator, feels a significant need to self-ironically detach himself from his earlier stage of development, making “a perfect victim of myself”: My new life had lasted for more than a week, and I was stronger than ever in those tremendous practical resolutions that I felt the crisis required. I continued to walk extremely fast, and to have a general idea that I was getting on. I made it a rule to take as much out of myself as I possibly could, in my way of doing everything to which I applied my energies. I made a perfect victim of myself. I even entertained some idea of putting myself on a vegetable diet, vaguely conceiving that, in becoming a carnivorous animal, I should sacrifice to Dora. (DC 600) With respect to the critical self-distancing effects produced by the employment of self-ironical narrative devices, a striking similarity to the ambiguous ways the matured narrator pleasurably relives and depreciatingly detaches himself from his passionate love-infatuation with Dora can be observed, especially in the chapters entitled “I fall into Captivity” and “Blissful”, a loveinfatuation that in all respects and details epitomizes the model of romantic love outlined, for example, by Reckwitz, Luhmann, or Illouz (cf. HS 217-23; Illouz 26-39, 140-87; Luhmann, Liebe als Passion 119-82). Thus, David remembers himself as the “moon-struck slave of Dora” (DC 535), testifies to the irresistible erotic allure “of the captivating, girlish, bright-eyed, lovely Dora. <?page no="141"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 133 What a form she had, what a face she had, what a graceful, variable, enchanting manner! ” (DC 451), and constructs the moment he hears her voice and sees her for the first time as an irrevocably fascinating moment of destiny: “All was over in a moment … I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction” (DC 450). He repeatedly employs ambiguous water metaphors to express his blissful as well as helpless interior states of mind (“I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence”, DC 535). Quite paradoxically, on one occasion he even turns the idealized dignity of his passionate unique love-experience with Dora into a general romanticized critique of the law professions: “I despised them, to a man. Frozen-out old gardeners in the flower-beds of the heart, I took a personal offence against them all. The Bench was nothing to me, but an insensible blunderer. The Bar had no more tenderness or poetry in it, than the bar of a public-house” (DC 536). In other words, the narrator’s need for ironical self-detachment from his former Romantic dispositions in both cases, as different as they by themselves may be, can be read as a clear indication of the extent to which David in his achieved maturity of a bourgeois subject feels alienated from the highly emotionalized and enthusiastic responses of his earlier Romantic self. They are somehow cut off as alien relics of his palimpsestuous interior self, happily overcome and left behind by means of a successful process of self-surveillance. In sharp contrast to Jane Eyre, who even retrospectively fully embraces and affirms the heterogeneous multiplicity of her internal autopoeisis, David no longer evaluates these alien Romantic relics of his personality as manifestations of his unique embodied individuality he can still identify with. Once David’s resolution to “become a man at his own disposal”, to establish himself as a hard-working professional subject and earn money by himself, is fully formed, a resolution always motivated by the supreme goal of marrying Dora Spenlow, it becomes a continuous and successful process of professional self-advancement. At the end of this process he has begun to establish himself as a much-acclaimed and well-paid creative author of narrative fictions with an ever growing audience and public fame, so that at the age of 21, as he informs the reader with considerable pride, he has created the necessary financial conditions to marry Dora (cf. DC 692f.). Throughout this complex and conflict-ridden internal process of disciplined self-revision and the interior reorganization of his structures of selfaffection, David time and again is supported by his aunt and Agnes Wickfield. Together with his friend from Salem House times, Tommy Traddles, on various occasions throughout the novel aesthetically functionalized as a contrastive foil as well as a positive role model for David and meaningfully opposed <?page no="142"?> Meinhard Winkgens 134 to his misguided fascination for Steerforth, they, as positive bourgeois role models and through their moral advice, based on internalized bourgeois moral principles, help him not to go astray, make the right decisions, and support him in his resolution to refashion himself as a well-adjusted bourgeois working subject in the full and precise sense delineated by Reckwitz. Quite significantly, in this period it is only Dora who fails to comply with his “new born ardour” for the virtues of “perseverance and strength of character”, and she disappoints him in her refusal to share his new sense of practicality: “It damped my new-born ardour to find that ardour so difficult to communicate to her” (DC 604), a clear foreshadowing of what David later will diagnose as their “unsuitability of mind and purpose”, the implications of which he, however, because of his ‘love-blindness’ does not properly consider. Since David has somehow “made a perfect victim” of himself in his successful process of professional self-regulation, volitionally transforming and domesticating his Romantic individuality with its unique dispositional structures of desires and cravings into the well-accommodated bourgeois structures of “sovereign self-command”, it is, psychologically speaking, not surprising that he should retrospectively “find the source of … success” in the “patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within” him, succinctly summed up and articulated in his “golden rules” at the beginning of chapter 42. For a long time these rules have deeply irritated and angered most critical readers of the novel because of the complacency of narrative tone in which they are presented and their total de-individualized conformity with the Victorian ideology of a bourgeois work ethics. By consistently playing down the importance of his creative imaginative faculties and the Romantic legacy of his ‘individual talent’, David not only emphasizes “the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, … the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time … which I then formed” (DC 671) but also claims “that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely. … I have always been thoroughly in earnest” and that there is “no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness” (DC 672). One interesting way of taking exception to the novel’s affirmative message and highly problematic ideological effusions such as David’s “golden rules”, for good reasons rather unpalatable to postmodern sensibilities, are critical Foucauldian readings ‘against the grain’ like those of D.A. Miller and Gareth Cordery. They explicitly draw upon Foucault’s deconstruction of liberal-humanist narratives of the Western process of modernization as a progressive process of individual liberation and emancipation and a general humanizing civilization, and follow his alternative premise of a history of disciplinarization in their deciphering of the novel’s contradictory levels of meaning. Thus, in their view, the hidden agenda and covert unconscious codes of disciplinarization deep-structurally infect and determine the surface meaning and overt purpose of what phenomenologically appears to be a progressive humanizing <?page no="143"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 135 process of individualization and liberation. Seen in this light, D.A. Miller, for instance, argues: “The story of David’s liberation runs parallel to the story of his submission: The chastening of what, with an ambiguous wistfulness he calls an ‘undisciplined heart’. The discipline from which he has escaped to become the ‘subject of the novel’ re-appears as his own self-discipline” (34), and Cordery adds: “David simply exchanges one form of social discipline that is openly repressive and corporeal for another that is covert and internal”, identifying Agnes, “David’s invisible spiritual icon, the stained glass window that is his guiding moral principle” as “the supreme embodiment of surveillance” and a representative of “the most effective disciplinary technologies … which are invisible” (71-79). Partly in compliance with such deconstructive readings but also in opposition to their ‘pseudo-radical knowingness’, an interpretation like mine, based upon the impact of conflicting and alternative subject cultures, must focus its attention on the almost complete disavowal of the Romantic legacy both in terms of David’s personal history and in terms of Romantic literary theory claiming, in the tradition of Blake, Shelley, and Carlyle, particular faculties of “prophetic vision” for the individual creative “genius”, who in David’s “golden rules”, is totally subordinated to the celebration of bourgeois work ethics and the typical moral values underpinning the bourgeois vocational and professional practices. As a successfully established bourgeois working subject who combines “sovereign self-government with moral disciplinarization”, is “transparently-integer”, and self-responsibly commits himself to meaningful and useful activities, David seems to have incorporated the “affectively laden ideal self of bourgeois subject culture”, which he subsequently uses as the source of his “subjective hermeneutics of the self” (cf. HS 124-27), and the attractiveness of which he enthusiastically expresses by his “golden rules”. In the words of Reckwitz: It [the ideal self] gains attractiveness through the demonstration of autonomous sovereignty, which he has trained himself in through a consequent selfcommand over his body, mind, and emotions. They become manifest in his cognitive competencies, his professional knowledge, and his apparently effortless command of attention, the time budget, and the body and the production of individually attributable achievements. (HS 127) 12 12 “Das Berufssubjekt wird in der bürgerlichen Kultur als affektiv aufgeladenes Ideal-Ich modelliert und zur Quelle der subjektiven Selbsthermeneutik. … Attraktivität bezieht es aus der Demonstration autonomer Souveränität, die es sich durch eine konsequente Selbstregierung des Körpers, des Geistes und der Emotionen antrainiert hat. Diese manifestiert sich in seinen kognitiven Kompetenzen, seinem professionellen ‘Weltwissen’, der scheinbar mühelosen Beherrschung von Aufmerksamkeit, Zeitbudget und Körper und dem Hervorbringen individuell zurechenbarer Leistungen.” <?page no="144"?> Meinhard Winkgens 136 At the same time, David seems to have totally lost sight of the alternative Romantic model of work as an artistically creative practice in the productivist and constructivist sense: In the Romantic self-understanding artistic activities present themselves as work in a productivist sense: they are production, poiesis, especially creative production, expression of individual interiority, and the creation of something new in a work. … Romantic self-hermeneutics as an emphatically individual form is based upon the expressiveness of this interior individuality in exterior works. The internal subject externalizes himself in his works, his works are an expression of individuality, the concrete objective form in which fluid interior individuality can find its objective correlative. (HS 229-31) 13 Additionally, David’s successful incorporation of the bourgeois work-ethics gains crucial importance in the light of ongoing contemporary debates about the professionalism of literary authorship, “the dignity of literature”, and the problematic relationship between forms of manual and mental labour and their ‘alienation’ in a capitalist market system, to which the novel as a whole makes important contributions if we conceive of it, as Richard Salmon and Jennifer Ruth have convincingly demonstrated, as an intricate symbolic argument. They argue that Dickens’ novel is a critical response to Thackeray’s The History of Pendennis with its tendency to see in the “prosaic form of the bourgeois professions only the disenchantment of the poet’s ‘halo’” whose “Pegasus in Harness”, “just like any other daily toiler” has to say “farewell [to] poetry and aërial flights” in order to make money on the capitalist market (cf. Salmon 39-42; Ruth 320-22). In this way David Copperfield expresses the desire “to endow authors with the collective autonomy and solidarity characteristic of more established middle-class identities” (Salmon 35) and exemplifies this through David’s achieved process of maturation and his eventual “domestic professionalism as a model of non-alienated literary labour” (Salmon 45). This state of vocational achievement, however, “far from espousing the personal, spontaneous writing privileged by the Romantics, proceeds, we might say, like clockwork” (Ruth 303), and almost by necessity entails the sacrifice of Romantic attributes, even going so far as to make the critical reader wonder how the disciplined regularity of his later writing-practices may be reconciled with his original imaginative faculties and the creative idiosyncrasies of his affective and sensitive disposition. This holds true even if the text symbolically 13 “Die künstlerischen Aktivitäten präsentieren sich im romantischen Selbstverständnis als Arbeit in einem produktivistischen Sinne. Sie sind Produktion, Poiesis, und zwar Produktion, Ausdruck des individuellen Innern und Schöpfung von Neuem in einem ‘Werk’. … Dessen Selbstverstehen (das des romantischen Ideal-Ichs) als emphatisch individuell basiert auf der Ausdrucksfähigkeit dieser inneren Individualität in den äußeren Werken. Das innere Subjekt externalisiert sich in seinen Werken, die Werke sind eine Expression der Individualität, die konkrete gegenständliche Gestalt, in der die fluide innere Individualität ihre fassbare Bestätigung finden kann.” <?page no="145"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 137 makes sure that David through his success as a creative writer can leave behind the more prosaic practices of lawyers and the ‘mechanical’, merely ‘copying’ activities as a parliamentary reporter, in order to concentrate on “the higher imaginative powers” and being at liberty “to soar to any exalted form for expression”. 14 In a way, David’s almost total suppression of his personal Romantic legacy is the necessary price he has to pay for his bourgeois professional advancement as a creative imaginative writer, since in the novel “romantic inspiration is re-written as the self-aggrandizing rationalizations of those who detest labour, those who expect rewards without having to work for them” (Ruth 320) like Mr. Micawber, Steerforth, or Dora Spenlow. In other words, as Ruth puts it: By stressing the time-disciplined labour of writing, writers could offset the public association of writing with idleness. The goal, then, was to create an impression of themselves as prone not to the idleness enjoyed by the romantic genius with his hint of aristocratic leisure or by an undisciplined pre-industrial workforce but the fatigue suffered by workers after prolonged and repetitive labour. (321) As indicated above, we should, however, not forget that David’s successful vocational establishment as a bourgeois author based upon a substantial, selfinflicted reorganization of the internal affective and mental structures of his individual autopoiesis motivationally originated and drew its energies from his supreme and irresistible desire to marry Dora. It is thus motivated by his romantic craving for erotic fulfilment, momentaneous ‘aesthetic’ self-gratification, and fascinating enchantment as well as embedded in a ‘means-to-anend’ constellation which David experiences as rationally meaningful and which instigates him to “make a perfect victim of himself” in his “sacrifices to Dora”. David’s dreamy anticipation of his marital love-relationship with “Little Blossom” as a state of bliss and fulfilment somehow restoring his early childhood paradise with the two Claras (“the airy dreams of youth”), however, as the novel makes abundantly clear, fails to materialize in the mundane reality of their married life after their brief honeymoon, in which, we may suppose, he fully gratified his craving for moments of erotic intimacy with Dora’s fascinating ‘otherness’. This leads to an ever-growing process of disappointment and disillusionment, plunging the narrator-protagonist into a serious existential crisis, at one crucial point culminating in his contradictory generalized reflections on adult man’s life as an “unavoidable” state of loss and want, expressing both his personal disillusionment and a nostalgic melancholia that, according to Reckwitz, like irony, can be regarded as a typical Romantic strategy of identity for coping with the “antagonisms of subjectivity” and the “frictions of Romantic individuality” (cf. HS 235-42): 14 In this context it is significant to note that the last two quotations are, of course, expressions made by Mr. Micawber in the novel, cf. Ruth 320. <?page no="146"?> Meinhard Winkgens 138 The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. It was deepened, … but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed me like a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I loved my wife dearly, and I was happy; but the happiness I had vaguely anticipated once, was not the happiness I enjoyed, and there was always something wanting. … What I missed, I still regarded … as something that had been a dream of my youthful fancy; that was incapable of realization; that I was now discovering to be so, with some natural pain, as all men did. But that it would have been better for me if my wife could have helped me more, and shared the many thoughts in which I had no partner; and that this might have been; I knew. (DC 765) From David’s point of view one essential reason for this fatal failure of his romantic love-dreams, as the final sentence of the quotation already indicates, is his child-wife’s total inability and refusal to mature and develop, to transcend the limitations of her playful, coquettish un-seriousness, which originally attracted him so irresistibly, and to grow complementarily into a mature woman, responsibly and rationally fulfilling her household functions, as well as through loving sympathy and empathy serving as an intimate friend and intramarital partner in the bourgeois sense, trustfully participating in her husband’s daily concerns, problems, and sensibilities, not unlike Agnes Wickfield, her binary female other: I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that I could have wished my wife had been my councellor; had had more character and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me; but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have been. (DC 713) Since Dora intuitively resists any loving appeal to educate her in his various attempts “to make any change in Dora” (DC 765), he has to resign to his fate of a ‘married man’s burden’ unable to reconcile this state “with her former appeal to me as my child-wife” (DC 765), and the future ahead of them, without any alternative option for their development, looks very bleak, indeed. Precisely this is expressed by Dora immediately before her premature death: “But, as years went on, my dear boy would have wearied of his child-wife. She would have been less and less a companion for him. He would have been more and more sensible of what was wanting in his home. She wouldn’t have improved”. As she perceptively sums up: “I am afraid it would have been better, if we had only loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. I have begun to think I was not fit to be a wife” (DC 837). David himself, however, desperately trying to make sense of his love-dilemma after the shattering experience of the failure of his first marriage and torn between his Romantic legacy and his growing internal bourgeoisification, and hence as a kind of ‘in-between’ oscillation between the conflicting love discourses of passionate Romantic love-attachment and the bourgeois <?page no="147"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 139 ‘companionate marriage’ based on intimate friendship and mutual trust and understanding, which for obvious reasons he cannot reconcile and hybridize in his marriage with Dora, at that time heavily draws upon the insights and love premises voiced by Annie Strong, a close female friend of Agnes Wickfield. For he repeatedly resorts to the three key phrases she articulates in a highly dramatic scene of confessional self-revelation, namely “the first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart”, “there can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose”, and “my love was founded on a rock” (DC 733), in order to come to terms with his own conflict-ridden lovepredicament shortly before the death of his beloved child-wife. Although it is never explicitly stated, her death reopens new opportunities for him and allows for a re-orientation of his internal self and an escape from the imprisonment in an unhappy marriage. Annie’s key phrases, with the help of which she successfully refutes all open and tacit suspicions concerning her moral integrity and marital fidelity, represent the ideological backbone and outline of the bourgeois discourse practices of a companionate marriage based on intimate friendship and the soothing similarity of husband and wife in their shared pursuit of domestic happiness according to a “suitability of mind and purpose”. As David affirmatively applies these phrases to better understand his own plight, the novel at least on the level of manifest meaning evokes the impression that he has morally matured. It therefore testifies to his ever-growing process of interior bourgeoisification by implicitly arriving at the conclusion that he had made a wrong choice when courting and marrying Dora because his romantic love-infatuation is now disclaimed as “the first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart”. Once again, however, in a characteristic oscillation between manifest meaning and latent subtext, we as readers must not forget that it was the narrator-protagonist himself who once seemed to have known better. For in his autobiographical account he time and again nourishes the suspicion that, in opposition to Agnes’ unwavering belief in her friend’s faithfulness, there is something erotically illicit in Annie’s ongoing relationship with her post-adolescent male friend from childhood days, the dashing Jack Maldon. But he also repeatedly expresses his serious intuitive doubts, very reasonably motivated by his own Romantic dispositions and his passionate love experiences, whether a strange marital love relationship like that of the Strongs, which totally lacks any trace of erotic attraction, may turn out to be a happy and lasting one; a strange love-relationship indeed, emblematized by the characteristic choreography of spatial role positions, with the beautiful young woman predominantly sitting at her husband’s feet, adoringly looking up at her benign and erudite father-husband, who, forty years older than herself and the best friend of her own father, in all respects seems to be much more of a father than a loving husband. <?page no="148"?> Meinhard Winkgens 140 Having been an eye-witness to that fatal evening some time in the past when Jack had departed in a hurry to take up an officer’s post in the army on the promotion of Dr. Strong, but not without having provoked a passionate erotic encounter with Annie, the traces of which are discovered and can be inferred from the missing cherry-coloured ribbon covering her bosom, her swooning, blushes, and signs of emotional disorientation, David ever since seemed to have known better and invited the reader to share his doubts and suspicions. In other words, the text as a whole through the complex interplay of manifest meaning and latent subtext evokes a polysemic and conflict-ridden impression of this triangular relationship that we as readers are called upon to share; even though Annie now sentimentally declares that it was her unconditional trustful ‘daughterly’ love for her fatherly husband, a love, that “was founded on a rock” that saved her from Jack’s ‘sinful’ erotic advances, and David, forgetfully repressing his former doubts and suspicions, without any reservation and in accordance with his ongoing process of self-transformation agrees with her bourgeois self-hermeneutics and transfers it conformingly to his own self-interpretation (cf. DC 294ff., 725ff.). Shortly after his child-wife’s premature death, Steerforth’s ship-wreck, and the noble Ham’s tragic death and having said farewell to the group of ‘misfits’ emigrating to Australia, including basically ‘good characters’ like Emily and her devoted uncle Peggotty, the Micawbers, and the victimized ‘whore’ Martha Endell, who for various reasons do not properly fit into British society dominated by bourgeois subject culture but are ready to make a new beginning and to prosper ‘Down Under’ in accordance with the moral message of the novel in its manifest meaning (cf. DC 873ff., 939ff.), David falls into a serious personal crisis. This state of deep emotional depression, which lasts for more than three years, is narratively reconstructed in chapter 58, entitled “Absence” and introduced with the following words: “It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and regrets” (DC 885). Although David acknowledges his great difficulties to “penetrate the mystery of my own heart” (DC 889) and admits to an all-pervasive “heavy sense of loss and sorrow” that “when I was left alone with my undisciplined heart [I] had no conception of the wound with which I had to strive”, becoming “a hopeless consciousness of all that I had lost - love, friendship, interest, of all that had been shattered - my first trust, my first affection, the whole airy castle of my life, of all that remained - a ruined blank and waste lying wide around me” (DC 885f.), it is striking to which extent ‘blindness and insight’, to borrow a famous phrase by Paul de Man, are deeply intertwined in his desperate attempts to make sense of and to account introspectively for this enduring state of “accumulated sadness into which I fell”, even from the privileged narrative point of view of hindsight and achieved maturity more than a decade later. It <?page no="149"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 141 is also significant that David, after having roamed aimlessly through various European cities and regions for months in a depressive mood - “listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was the night that fell on my undisciplined heart” (DC 886) - eventually finds solace in a secluded alpine valley where “I had found sublimity and wonder in the dread heights and precipices, in the roaring currents, and the waste of ice and snow”, and where he experiences “some long-unwonted sense of beauty and tranquillity, some softening influence awakened by its peace, [which] moved faintly in my breast”, so that when one day “great Nature spoke to me and soothed me to lay down my weary head upon the grass, and weep as I had not wept yet, since Dora died” (DC 887), he begins to regain his interior balance and stays there for more than two years. In other words, David finds refuge in an intensively experienced ‘retreat into nature’, a characteristic practice of Romantic subject culture (cf. HS 223- 26), which the remains of his original Romantic individuality can latch on to. Consequently, together with an affirmative letter by Agnes, who puts her trust in him, knowing “that in me, sorrow could not be weakness, but must be strength” (DC 888) it is therefore the Romantic practice of intimate and isolated communication with nature (“I sought out Nature, never sought in vain, and I admitted to my breast the human interest I had lately shrunk from”) that helps him to overcome his gloomy state of depression and desolation by stirring him to “resume my pen” and to go back to his creative imaginative work (DC 889). Feeling no inclination to hurry home and rejoin Agnes and his aunt, he decides to settle for a considerable time in Switzerland: “I worked early and late, patiently and hard, I wrote a Story”, which does so well on the literary market that “the tidings of my growing reputation began to reach me from travellers”, and “after some rest and change, I fell to work, in my old ardent way, on a new fancy, … This was my third work of fiction” (DC 889). Starting from the premise that David’s serious and long-enduring state of depression is deep-structurally expressive of a symbolic surplus value and keeping in mind that its implications by far exceed David’s limited explanations, which are always characterized by the intricate interplay of ‘blindness and insight’, and in the light of my textual observations as well as the antagonism of the conflicting Romantic and bourgeois subject cultures David as a hybrid in-between is shaped by, I want to argue that David’s state of depression can best be understood as a powerful manifestation of a ‘return of the repressed’. In this case, the repressed is identical with those parts of his palimpsestuous self that originally constituted his aesthetic Romantic individuality, which, however, he progressively distances himself from and which is overwritten by the ongoing moralizing process of bourgeoisification (cf. Lougy 411-14). Perhaps because of an intuitively felt similarity in his experience of the overwhelming power of strong emotions, reducing him to helpless passivity <?page no="150"?> Meinhard Winkgens 142 in the face of contingency that he experiences both in his love-infatuation for Dora and in this “heavy sense of loss and sorrow”, David in his self-hermeneutics erroneously tends to associate “the long and gloomy night that gathered on” him with the fateful workings of his “undisciplined heart” as that ‘othered’ part of himself whose ongoing process of domestication and regulation, through self-inflicted acts of surveillance and disciplinarization, have obviously led to a growing alienation of his conscious mind from the underlying matrix of his psychic resources which he can no longer spontaneously rely on and intuitively live by and thus embrace as a core part of his individual identity. As a typical manifestation of self-opacity resulting from a complex and polysemic interplay of psychic forces, David’s conscious mind completely fails to acknowledge that in all probability it might just be the other way around. Thus, not his ‘undisciplined heart’ is the originator and reason for his painful state of depression but rather the long-term internal effects of his disciplinary self-coercion, progressively transforming his individual aesthetic disposition of affections and desires embodied in the unique temporal sequence of his personal history into the well-regulated, rationalized practices of a normalized subject following de-individualized, generalized moral principles and subordinating his ‘irrational’ Romantic legacy, with his enthusiastic craving for fascinating others and pleasurable moments of intensive selfgratification to the rationally enlightened demands of bourgeois sovereignty and self-command. Both the fact that it is the Romantic practice of retreat into nature and his silent communion with nature’s sublimity and beauty which help him to regain his interior balance, and the fact that on various occasions before he was haunted by inexplicable feelings of mournful loss and nostalgic melancholia, as we have already seen, so that his present state of depression represents only a climax in a development that structurally seems to be an immanent feature in his process of self-transformation, corroborate our reading and bear further evidence that David significantly misinterprets his own plight. David is certainly right when he tries to explain his state of deep depression retrospectively by referring to the long-term shattering effects of the accumulated recent experiences of death and loss of people formerly very close to him, like Dora, James Steerforth, and Ham on his sensitive psyche, calling for sincere and intensive forms of mourning, in conjunction with “the wandering remnants of the simple home”, including Emily, explicitly referred to at the beginning of the chapter (DC 886). His intimate affections for and relationships with Little Emily, Steerforth, and his child-wife in the past, whose loss he feels a deep need to mourn and whose passing he believes more or less triggered his state of gloomy depression, however, obtain an even more ambiguous and contradictory meaning - and this is something the narrator-protagonist glosses over and at best only implicitly hints at - if we consider another aspect. All three for whom David at certain stages of his life felt an <?page no="151"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 143 irresistible fascination and was deeply infatuated with and who thus answered his romantic craving for moments of emotional enchantment and aesthetic self-gratification, in their different ways are revealed to be seriously blemished, at least according to the bourgeois moral standards David has increasingly internalized - Dora because of her inability to mature, Steerforth because of his seduction of Emily, and Emily herself because she is easily seduced and a ‘fallen woman’. In other words, David’s passion-induced choice to treat them as objects of fascination in the past in the long-term perspective of his process of maturation turns out to have been a wrong, misguided, and irrational choice, and it becomes at least questionable whether they really deserved and where worthy of his former adoration. In this context, David’s successful but complex and polysemic process of self-transformation from a representative of the Romantic to that of a bourgeois subject culture, that must by no means be misunderstood as a unilateral progressive process of maturation but that entails a significant dialectics of gains and losses and structurally produces its own painful internal repercussions, can with good reasons be interpreted as an exemplary illustration of what Adorno and Horkheimer have critically diagnosed as the ‘dialectic of Enlightenment’ and thus identified as a structural dialectic in the Western process of modernization along the lines of the interlocked processes of rationalization, domestication, differentiation, and individualization (cf. Rosa 15-28; Adorno and Horkheimer). For, similar to the growing alienation from internal and external nature and the loss of qualities Adorno and Horkheimer call ‘mimesis’, characteristic of enlightened forms of liberation from the power of nature in modern societies at large systematically implemented by sciencebased, rationalized processes of controlling, exploiting, and domesticating nature according to the logics of instrumental reason, David’s gaining of ‘rational’ control over and liberating himself from his passionate interior disposition by disciplining and curtailing his emotional flows and his craving dependence on fascinating others and moments of enchantment at the same time dialectically estranges himself from his embodied individual structure of self-affection. He loses intuitive and spontaneous ‘mimetic’ contact with his psychic resources, the repression of which results in the painfully real experience of his gloomy state of depression. Since the narrator-protagonist in the ensuing parts of the novel’s plot until the very end hardly ever mentions again any re-occurrence of a sense of mournful loss or a state of depression, we as readers may safely assume that David somehow managed to find a viable solution for his internal dilemma during his long absence from home. This, however, is never explicitly foregrounded and at best only obliquely hinted at, a solution that both prevents another painfully depressive recoil of his psyche and rounds off his process of bourgeoisification. For obvious reasons, this personal solution is closely connected with the growing acknowledgement of his more than brotherly <?page no="152"?> Meinhard Winkgens 144 love for Agnes, his angelic moral icon, trustful adviser and intimately affectionate friend, whom his long ruminations in Switzerland are focused on and whom he eventually marries, earning the applause of all those close to them, to live “happily ever after” in an idyllic representation of well-adjusted bourgeois contentment and happiness. Yet David’s solution as well as his belatedly discovered love for Agnes do not point in the direction postmodern readers of the novel might reasonably expect. For, instead of responding imaginatively to his future second wife as a desirable embodied woman and creatively hybridizing forms of a passionate romantic love desire with those of a bourgeois intimacy of friendship, blending forms of sacred and profane love in his own individualized love practice, something that, for example, Jane Eyre accomplishes, David approaches Agnes as his newly discovered wife-to-be in a contrite mood of selfreproach and guilty feelings. He reproaches himself for having neglected her in the past and reducing her to the role of his angelic sister “always pointing upward”, when he in his “wayward boyhood” “had thrown away the treasure of her love” and cast her “as one who was far removed from my wild fancies”, and he had bestowed his “passionate tenderness upon another object, and what I might have done, I had not done” (DC 800). Bearing testimony to the strong positive impact her moral role model of self-renunciation and selfless motherly love has had upon his character-formation, David even seriously considers to atone for his former ‘guilt’, the blindness of his ‘undisciplined heart’ to have neglected her, by consciously sacrificing his newly acquired love and devotion to her through an act of self-denial and selfrenunciation on moral grounds. For he experiences “a sustaining sense that it was required of me, in right and honour, to keep away from myself, with shame, the thought of turning to the dear girl in the withering of my hopes, from whom I had frivolously turned when they were bright and fresh” (DC 801). In total opposition to and in complete reversal of his former aesthetic practices of self-care as a Romantic individual now disqualified as immoral and “selfish”, David at the end of his self-transformative process of bourgeoisification and under the pervasive influence of incorporated bourgeois discourse practices of reasonable moral self-improvement, decides “unselfishly” not to declare his love for Agnes on returning home but endeavours “to convert what might have been between myself and Agnes, into a means of making me more self-denying, more resolved, more conscious of myself and my defects and errors. Thus, through the reflection of what might have been, I arrived at the conviction that it could never be” (DC 801). He sticks to his decision when returning home, successfully manages “to discipline my heart and do my duty to her” (DC 913), and even when the contingent pressure of a particular moment of personal intimacy eventually makes them both simultaneously declare their mutual love and embrace each other, David does not hesitate to address his future wife with the strange <?page no="153"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 145 words: “I have not suffered quite in vain. You have not taught me quite in vain. There is no alloy of self in what I feel for you” (DC 935). Purified of any passionate erotic desire, David’s marital life with Agnes may certainly epitomize the core elements of bourgeois practices of intimacy and thus suitably substantiate and round off David’s successful process of maturation and bourgeoisification, but how, we may reasonably ask, will it contribute to a sustainable solution to David’s internal dilemma of preventing another threatening depressive recoil of the Romantic matrix of his psyche, another painfully suffered ‘return of the repressed’ he had somehow escaped from recently in Switzerland? A closer inspection of the novel suggests, as I want to argue, that David seems to have found a viable solution to his existential crisis by resorting to a vertically structured compromise between the Romantic and bourgeois traits of his character, based upon the radical and consistent bifurcation of his real life and his imaginative life, of his real life practices as a fully embodied, finite male human being autonomously choosing a life-style in complete accordance with the bourgeois subject-model. As such he is affirmatively integrated into his social surroundings as a husband, father, and professional author of fictions, who sovereignly and rationally practices disciplined self-command over his bodily desires and his formerly ‘undisciplined heart’. In his imaginative-creative life of vocational achievement, the fancies, dreams, and fantasies he constructs allow him projectively to give vent to his pent-up emotions, irrational desires, and cherished memories, while on the whole predominantly abiding by the discourse practices and codes of bourgeois subject culture. Through this bifurcated structure of his internal self-apprehension fulfilling complementary as well as compensatory functions, always endangered by potential spill-over effects and therefore calling for continuous self-surveillance, David creatively develops in the moment of crisis when, under the double influence of Agnes’ bourgeois exhortation for self-improvement and his Romantic responsiveness to the call of Nature, he resumes his creative work, labours “early and late, passionately and hard” and writes the mentioned Story, “with a purpose growing, not remotely, out of my experience” and after some rest and change falls to work again on his “third work of fiction” in his “old ardent way, on a new fancy which took strong possession of me” and in the advanced execution of which “I felt it more and more, and roused my energy to do it well” (DC 889). By ardently devoting himself to and immersing himself in creative imaginative labour constructively combining his incorporated bourgeois work ethics with his Romantic disposition for emotionalized sensibility and enchanted flights of fancy he finds pleasurably gratifying moments of aesthetic self-expression as well as creates meaningful and ‘useful’ works of fiction. He thus generates a sustaining solution for his personal plight, even if his Romantic legacy is supplementarily contained within the bourgeois subject order as the latent subtextual meaning is subordinate to the <?page no="154"?> Meinhard Winkgens 146 level of manifest meaning. In terms of real life experience it is at best an imaginative expression of a vicarious surrogate life, which especially for postmodern readers is highly disappointing and unpalatable. Under these conditions the lacking erotic passion in his love relationship with Agnes is of less importance than the intensively shared intimacy and the mutual sensitive and psychologizing responsiveness of their private communication based upon the tender symmetrical love between two matured individuals ‘suitable in mind and purpose’, who in their trustful intimate partnership between ‘equals’ sympathetically mirror each other. Thus, David with the help of Agnes can intensely share and imaginatively relive crucial stages of his personal history as well as seriously discuss with her aspects of his absorption into the imaginative world of his ‘work in progress’, and at the same time demonstrate the pleasures and benefits of unalienated perseverant labour of the creative writer working hard at home. With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation; led me back to the time of our parting, spoke to me of Emily, whom she had visited, in secret, many times; spoke to me tenderly of Dora’s grave. With the unerring instinct of her noble heart she touched the chords of my memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one jarred within me; I could listen to the sorrowful, distant music, and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke. (DC 912) And when at one time during his work on his third piece of fiction “the old unhappy sense was always hovering about me” but which he now experiences only as “the echoes of those thoughts”, he can “put them at a distance, and accept my inevitable fate”, he tells us: When I read to Agnes, what I wrote; when I saw her listening face; moved her to smiles or tears; and heard her cordial voice so earnest on the shadowy events of that imaginative world in which I lived, I thought what a fate mine might have been - but only thought so, as I had thought after I was married to Dora, what I could have wished my wife to be. (DC 931) Although David, throughout his real-life trajectory, remains a victim of the split image of womanhood, suffers from the fatal psychological effects of the projective split between love and desire, between the sacred love for motherly nurture and the profane love of sexual desire for seductive women so typical for patriarchal Western societies, and is for various reasons unable to reconcile and hybridize Romantic forms of fascinating erotic love practices with the alternative bourgeois love model of intimate friendship, recreating a unity similar in quality to his early childhood paradise with the two Claras, he at least imaginatively and subtextually expresses this insight, when immediately after the declaration of his love for Agnes he tells us: “And O, Agnes, even out of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my child-wife looked upon <?page no="155"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 147 me, saying it was well; and winning me, through thee, to tenderest recollections of Blossom that had withered in its bloom! ” (DC 936). 15 Apart from once again illustrating the consistent bifurcation between his real and his imaginative life as a specific solution to his personal in-between predicament he seems to have arrived at, this passage also suggests the underlying basically nostalgic pattern that intertextually emulates the Wordsworthian formula of “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” turned into “emotions recollected in tranquillity” (Wordsworth 266). This can explain the pleasurable self-gratification he experiences when he imaginatively recreates and evokes memories of his Romantic past, once transgressively as well as aesthetically indulged in and experienced with great emotional intensity “tenderest recollections of Blossom” or, as already mentioned above, illustrated by the following confession with respect to Steerforth: “I should have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him.” In a way, then, I want to argue that at least with respect to his devotion to his creative writing practices and on the basis of the achieved bifurcation of his self-affection the narrator-protagonist has somehow managed to integrate the morally induced well-disciplined perseverance of his bourgeois work-ethics with the Romantic legacy of his aesthetic disposition, the ardour of which he can motivationally draw upon, so that professional obligations and emotional selfgratification somehow coalesce in his creative labour. In this context, we must slightly modify a suggestion made before, namely that the strong affirmation of bourgeois work ethics complacently expressed through his ‘golden rules of success’ has concomitantly led to a self-forgetful suppression of the alternative Romantic model of work as an artistic creative practice in the constructivist sense. This is certainly a misleading impression if we properly take the organizing aesthetic principle of this novel, the oscillation between manifest meaning and latent subtext deep-structurally informing the ambiguous and polysemic production of meaning, into account. If, as Reckwitz has stated, in the Romantic model of work as constructivist creative poiesis “the individual subject externalizes himself in his work, his works are an expression of individuality, the concrete objective form in which fluid interior individuality can find its objective correlative” (HS 231), then, as I want to argue, it is exactly this ambiguous oscillating interplay between manifest meaning and latent subtext, so characteristic of the aesthetic structure of the 15 From a gender-critical point of view not discussed in this essay, it should, however, be added that not only the narratorprotagonist remains a victim of the split image of womanhood, but that this even more so applies to Dora and Agnes and other female characters, who are imprisoned in the projected alternative images of either seductress or selfless mother, the most conspicuous omission in the novel being of course the total absence of a mentally and morally matured female character that embodies ‘selfish’ activities of passionate desire at the same time. <?page no="156"?> Meinhard Winkgens 148 novel as a whole, that becomes the expressive creative equivalent of the existential predicament the narrator protagonist finds himself in as a Romantic individual who has voluntarily transformed himself into a bourgeois subject, painfully registering at times the dialectics of gains and losses inherent in his seemingly progressive process of maturation and trying to make sense of and practically respond to his hybrid in-between position between two antagonistic and alternative subject cultures. Similar to the vertical subordination of his Romantic legacy, which is supplementarily contained within the bourgeois subject order as a result of David’s real-life affirmation of its values, codes, and practices, the latent subtextual meaning closely associated with his original Romantic individuality is consciously subordinated to the level of manifest meaning. But yet, as the novel time and again illustrates, it may unconsciously produce transgressive semantic spill-over effects, which in various ways subvert and contradict dominant manifest meaning. Thus, they become the creative expression of “the compelling imagination of feelings not only undisciplined, but unrecognized, [which] make a palimpsest that expresses both the mid-Victorian ideal and the gathering forces, that idea was meant to keep at bay” (Weinstein 44). In this light we can reasonably explain, for example, why so many critical readers have emphasized the vital authenticity of David’s memory-based reconstruction of the early stages of his Romantic individuality, such as Gilmour, who not only states that “memory works subversively in the interest of complexity and emotional vitality” but also argues that “in David Copperfield the past exists in dynamic and subversive relationship to the present: It is both something David outgrows … and also an inner landscape to which he returns compulsively” (40, 31). At the same time, we may reasonably account for another strikingly contradictory, even paradoxical observation, namely that a text which ideologically affirms the benefits and advantages of the bourgeois subject model and celebrates the de-eroticized intimate friendship-love between David and Agnes as the true goal of his process of maturation should at the same time subtextually emphasize the transgressive power of an irresistible fascination with eroticized others, of sexualized variations of romantic love-infatuation and of the irrational play of illicit desires; and this not only expressed through the narrator-protagonist´s projective identification with his alter egos Murdstone, Steerforth, and Heep but also through the almost obsessive preference for the recurrent structural pattern of a triangular character-constellation of a father, a daughter, and a young lover identified by Weinstein: The pattern resonates: The first David Copperfield, Wickfield, Dr. Strong, Mr. Peggotty all are older men uneasily doubling as fathers and husbands. Unable to abandon or endorse his fantasy-desire, Dickens insistently shadows these father/ husbands with their potential betrayers, Murdstone, Heep, Maldon and Steerforth. (38f.) <?page no="157"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 149 In the same way “a covert semantics of desire” creatively and transgressively “disturbs the authorized script of sublime motives” in the four relationships between Annie and Strong, David and Agnes, David and Dora, Pegotty and Little Emily which “bristle with unintended meanings”. For beneath their selfrenunciatory resolutions as Weinstein argues, “one repeatedly detects not the earnest whole self, but … the play of disallowed desires moving along the ubiquitous ‘nervous ganglia’ of this novel” (43f.). In the last resort, all these instances of illicit desires and passions point back to the narrator-protagonist and his unconscious projective identifications. Indeed, David, in sharp contrast to the ideological message of his achieved bourgeois maturity, at least subtextually seems to know better and creatively gives expression to his repressed Romantic legacy and its aesthetic predisposition through this joyful transgressive indulgence in self-gratifying fancies. 4 Concluding Remarks But even apart from David’s conflict-ridden personal predicament and the complex constructive solution he seems to have achieved, the strikingly recurrent manifestation of a craving for passionate romantic love-experience and eroticized moments of fascination, enchantment, and fulfilled desire in all its variations not only in the narrator-protagonist but also in a wide array of major and minor characters can be identified as the most general socio-cultural problematic the novel as a whole imaginatively explores and tries meaningfully to cope with. Yet it significantly fails to find satisfying answers to the basic challenge this problematic represents for the ideological frame of bourgeois subject culture, which the novel as a whole at least on the manifest level of meaning comes to affirm. Since dominant bourgeois subject culture, in sharp contrast to its supplementary minoritarian other, the alternative Romantic subject model, does not provide an adequate and viable answer to this challenge of romantic love desire manifesting itself in a great number of male and female subjects transgressively deviating from their internalized moral norms of reasonable moderation and sober self-control, and strongly favours the bourgeois paradigm of a companionate marriage between intimate friends, it can only respond negatively to this challenge through acts of repression and exhortation, forms of stigmatization, and the exclusion of abject others, and through the incessant appeal to individual responsibility based upon disciplined control and selfsurveillance. Accordingly, David, the author of his autobiographical novel, because of his ideological conscious or unconscious identification with the outlines and premises of the bourgeois subject formation takes great pains to contain and constrain the erosive and transgressive effects of these manifold individual <?page no="158"?> Meinhard Winkgens 150 manifestations of passionate romantic love through the consistent application of a great variety of conventional narrative devices designed to achieve narrative closure and heavily moralized forms of poetic justice. Although narratively rendering these phenomena in detailed and psychologically sensitive ways and authentically foregrounding their attractions as well their high frequency, the text at the same time makes sure that not one of the love relationships originating from passionate erotic love attraction ends happily, thus postulating that in the long run they cannot serve as a reasonable foundation for successful intimate interpersonal relationships. This is exemplified by Aunt Betsey, who, following an irresistible passion for a handsome but ‘unworthy’ man, marries young, only to separate shortly after, pay off her husband, and suffer the emotional and financial consequences of her youthful love infatuation, so that the novel emphasizes grievous disappointments, manifold disasters, fatalities, and calamities, leaving behind many ‘victims’ who literally as well as figuratively pay a substantial price for their ‘undisciplined heart’. The fact that other major characters like Agnes, or most prominently, Tommy Traddles, who enters into a happy marriage with Sophy, in opposition to those susceptible to romantic passion and in total self-renunciatory compliance with the bourgeois subject model are exempt from any passionate desire and are therefore functionalized as male and female bourgeois role models does not contribute to a satisfying answer either. Although they are subsequently rewarded for their virtues and even symbolically employed like Traddles and Sophy, who, to round off David’s achieved state of maturity, are the only guests at David’s quiet second wedding together with the Strongs, they are of minor importance in this context, which is also subtextually corroborated by the fact that David in contrast to Steerforth is never fascinated by his best male friend and until the end tends to look down on his internally unproblematic yet externally quite remarkable bourgeois success story. Since the novel imaginatively fails to hybridize and constructively reconcile the discourse practices of the two conflicting subject cultures in everyday reality and since David’s own solution as a creative writer based upon the bifurcation between mundane reality and a life of imagination is too particular to be generalized, the novel as a whole at least on the level of its manifest meaning cannot provide an answer to the serious challenge of romantic loveinfatuation it amply registers and articulates at the same time. Through the suggestive oscillating interplay between manifest meaning and latent subtext we as perceptive readers, however, are implicitly invited to arrive at a different conclusion with respect to this general cultural problematic and somehow to fill out imaginatively this “textual gap” in the sense of Wolfgang Iser. This is achieved, for example, by deciphering this significant gap and its underlying cultural problematic with the help of Reckwitz’ theory of the transformation of subject cultures as exemplifying a representative if usually <?page no="159"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 151 invisible friction within dominant bourgeois subject culture itself, which, because of its structurally inherent hybridity inevitably tends to produce fissures. Frictions, for instance between emotional sensibility and the logics of rationalized practices, between the promotion of individualized needs and desires aesthetically and self-referentially experienced in one’s own interiority and their simultaneous obligatory containment within the confines of general, transindividual rational morality but also a friction between the liberation of the individual subject as a sovereign agent responsible for its own lifepath and the limitation of a normalized bourgeois subject that is expected to follow generalized moral rules. 16 In close correspondence with this final fissure characteristic for the bourgeois subject formation, the novel however exposes another serious problem that both on the level of manifest meaning and that of latent subtext remains unsolved and thus seems to haunt the text to its very end. It is personified by Mr. Murdstone and his sister and their seemingly well-accommodated bourgeois discourse practices, earlier on in the novel thoroughly discredited and consistently demonized by the narrator-protagonist for what he did to his mother and himself. Towards the end of the novel, in chapter 59, and embedded in various other chapters whose primary function it is to meaningfully round off the various facets of the plot and its underlying ideological message and to ascertain an affirmative sense of closure - such as, for example in chapter 61, in which David meets Uriah Heep, Mr. Creakle, and Littimer again, three agents of ‘evil’ in the story, as penitents socially punished and looked after in a “house of correction” - David learns that Mr. Murdstone meanwhile has married once again. For, repeating the same pattern as in the case of his own mother, he has successfully courted another young, pretty, and wealthy child-woman in order to subject, break, and financially dispossess her with the result “that her spirit has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is all but melancholy mad” (DC 906). In other words, without any social repercussions and without any kind of punishment he together with his sister can continue his fatal personal agenda of erotic and financial exploitation, hunting down, breaking, and bending innocent young women to his ‘firmness’ for his own benefit and pleasure. As a kind of wolf in sheep’s clothing he seems to be in total accordance with all the core elements of the bourgeois subject order as a devout puritan 16 According to Reckwitz and other theorists of the process of modernization, it took more than a century till within the frame of the postmodern subject of creativity and consumerism with its emphasis on emotional self-expression and individual creativity from the early seventies the objective cultural conditions of possibility for a truly liberated individual had crystallized, not the least by the strong influence of the alternative meaningresources of Romantic subject culture and other at their times minoritarian aesthetic movements that under postmodern conditions get integrated into the hegemonic mainstream cultural formation (cf. HS 527-66, 588-97). <?page no="160"?> Meinhard Winkgens 152 believer, successful business man, and self-controlled male performer on the social stage, who appears to play by the accepted social rules and is therefore not ostracized. Yet, as the novel suggests, he is artificially intransparent and insincere, and his interior self-relationship seems to be characterized by the separation of a frontstage and a backstage self, allowing him in the disguise of professed moral values and of conformity with bourgeois behavioural codes to performatively stage his actions in such a way that he can ruthlessly live out his desires, namely greed for power, erotic subjugation, and financial exploitation, thus pursuing his egoistic self-interests without any negative consequences. As a representative social type illustrating the significant separation and emancipation of sovereign individual self-command in the unbridled pursuit of egoistic self-interest from the normalized constraints of moral orientation and internalized moral values - according to Reckwitz a typical potential friction structurally inherent in the hybrid bourgeois subject order - he poses a serious threat to the established socio-cultural order and its claim to be the most reasonable, ‘natural’, and socially beneficial subject culture for this historical stage of the ongoing Western process of modernization, a conviction the novel affirmatively shares. Significantly, Dickens’ text, although perceptively identifying this threat, fails to meaningfully contain and resolve it through the usual devices designed to achieve narrative closure. In other words, in the theoretical light of conflicting subject cultures the Murdstonian ‘victories’ and the threat of a spreading unbridled pursuit of egoistic self-interest can be identified as another crucial point of critique in the polysemic exploration of bourgeois subject culture and its supplementary Romantic other, imaginatively performed in David Copperfield. *** Meinhard Winkgens is Emeritus Professor of English Literature and Culture at the University of Mannheim. He studied English, German, and Philosophy at the University of Cologne and London University and went on to complete his dissertation (1974) and postdoctoral degree (Habilitation, 1984) at the University of Freiburg, where he also worked as a researcher for the Collaborative Research Centre “Orality and Literality”. From 1988 to 2015, he was Chair of English Literature and Culture at the University of Mannheim. His research interests encompass modern literary criticism, D.H. Lawrence, cultural anthropology, postcolonial theory, imagology, modern English drama, and cultural critique in the English novel since the 19 th century. He is author of Das Zeitproblem in Samuel Becketts Dramen (1975), Die kulturkritische Verankerung der Literaturkritik bei F. R. Leavis (1988), and Die kulturelle Symbolik von Rede und Schrift in den Romanen von George Eliot (1997). His most recent publications <?page no="161"?> Re-Reading David Copperfield 153 include articles on hybridity in Hanif Kureishi’s fiction as well as on ethics and subjectivity in the contemporary English novel. Bibliography Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. Dialektik der Aufklärung: Philosophische Fragmente. Amsterdam: Querida, 1955. Print. Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. Ed. Ros Ballaster. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995. Print. Barr, Alan P. “Mourning Becomes David: Loss and the Victorian Restoration of Young Copperfield.” Dickens Quarterly 24 (2007): 63-77. Print. Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. London: Everyman, 1980. Print. Cordery, Gareth. “Foucault, Dickens and David Copperfield.” Victorian Literature and Culture 26.1 (1998): 71-85. Print. Crawford, Iain. “Sex and Seriousness in David Copperfield.” Journal of Narrative Technique 16 (1986): 41-54. Print. Dickens, Charles. The Personal History of David Copperfield. Ed. Trevor Blount. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983. Print. Dowling, Andrew. Manliness and the Male Novelist in Victorian Literature. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001. Print. Eliot, George. Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. Ed. J.W. Harvey. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976. Print. Gilmour, Robin. “Memory in David Copperfield.” The Dickensian 71 (1975): 30-42. Print. Glomb, Stefan. Erinnerung und Identität im britischen Gegenwartsdrama. Tübingen: Narr, 1997. Print. Illouz, Eva. Der Konsum der Romantik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2007. Print. Jordan, John O. “The Social Sub-Text of David Copperfield.” Dickens Studies Annual 14 (1985): 61-92. Print. Lougy, Robert E. “Dickens and the Wolf Man: Childhood Memory and Fantasy in David Copperfield.” PMLA 124 (2009): 406-20. Print. Luhmann, Niklas. Soziale Systeme: Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002. Print. ---. Liebe als Passion: Zur Codierung von Intimität. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1984. Print. Miller, D.A. “Secret Subjects, Open Secrets.” Dickens Studies Annual 14 (1985): 17-38. Print. Reckwitz, Andreas. Das hybride Subjekt: Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2006. Print. Rosa, Hartmut, David Strecker, and Andrea Kottmann. Soziologische Theorien. Konstanz: UTB, 2007. Print. Ruth, Jennifer. “Mental Capital, Industrial Time, and the Professional in David Copperfield.” Novel 32 (1999): 303-30. Print. Salmon, Richard. “Professions of Labour: David Copperfield and the ‘Dignity of Literature’.” Nineteenth-Century Contexts 29 (2007): 35-52. Print. Sell, Roger, D. “Projection Characters in David Copperfield.” Studia Neophilologica 55 (1983): 19-30. Print. Weinstein, Philip. The Semantics of Desire: Changing Models of Identity from Dickens to Joyce. Princeton: UP, 1984. Print. <?page no="162"?> Meinhard Winkgens 154 Wilson, Angus. The World of Charles Dickens. London: Viking, 1970. Print. Winkgens, Meinhard. “Natur als Palimpsest. Der eingeschriebene Subtext in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield.” Das Natur/ Kultur-Paradigma in der englischen Erzählliteratur des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Eds. K. Groß, K. Müller, and M. Winkgens. Tübingen: Narr, 1994. 35-61. Print. Wordsworth, William. “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads.” Lyrical Ballads. By William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Ed. R. L. Brett and A. R. Jones. London: Methuen, 1981. 241-72. Print. <?page no="163"?> Sarah Heinz The Ambivalent Bourgeois: Sherlock Holmes and late Victorian Subjectivities in Detective Fiction In “The Cardboard Box”, a story about the disastrous consequences of love and jealousy, Sherlock Holmes asks his companion Dr Watson: “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 448). The late Victorian era and with it one of its most successful genres, detective fiction, has to deal with these fears of violence and chance, and it constantly looks for ways out of the ‘circle of misery and violence and fear’ that Holmes evokes. Conan Doyle’s four short novels and 56 short stories about the ‘consulting detective’ Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr Watson testify to this struggle against violence and chance. Especially the early narratives in the canon are a paradigmatic example for late Victorian fears and hopes, and for contemporary readers they functioned as a model for dealing with this experience of complexity and contingency. I want to connect these late Victorian fears and hopes and their literary expression in detective fiction with Andreas Reckwitz’ discussion of late bourgeois subject culture and the crisis that this form of subjectivity underwent around 1900. As Reckwitz points out in his sociological study Das hybride Subjekt (HS), the 18 th -century bourgeois ideal of an autonomous subject seemed to have firmly established itself as the hegemonic form of subjectivity since the beginning of the 19 th century. This hegemony fostered a belief in the universality and moral necessity of the bourgeois model as ‘the’ modern subject (cf. HS 243). Throughout the 19 th century, however, changing codes and practices as well as shifting social and material relations aggravated the frictions within this subject culture and led to its crisis and to a critique of the bourgeoisie’s double standards. As I argue, Sherlock Holmes (and to an extent also his biographer and friend Dr Watson) embody the ambivalences of late 19 th -century bourgeois subject culture. On the one hand, they display central features of the bourgeois subject in paradigmatic ways and conform to codes and practices of all three social fields (of work, intimate relations, and ‘technologies of the self’). On the other hand, they incorporate codes, practices, and identity models of bourgeois anti-subjects, and their personalities and relationships often hark back to earlier forms of 18 th -century bourgeois culture. <?page no="164"?> Sarah Heinz 156 I will analyse this ambivalent position of the canon’s two central protagonists in the context of the genre they made famous as well as popular. It is no coincidence that this genre enjoyed its extreme success during the crisis of late bourgeois subject culture: it celebrates the triumph of empiricism, materialism, and rationality and is thus connected with the self-reliant, sovereign, and ‘professional’ bourgeois subject ideal (cf. HS 242). At the same time, however, the genre gives room to the negative outcomes of change, progress, and an increasingly formalized and inconsistent moral code, and it depicts irrational, uncontrolled, and violent behaviour as the often unacknowledged but equally fascinating underbelly of bourgeois society. As a consequence of this duality, a detective story promises to the reader that the detective can bring order to chaos, but already in its form, content, and structure of reception it necessarily concerns itself with crime, violence, and the recipient’s delight in reading about them. The detective might bring order to chaos by solving each single case, but the genre itself (as well as its serial consumption) depends upon chaos and crime to continue, potentially endlessly. And in a way, we as recipients want and need chaos and crime to continue in order to prolong our reading pleasure. In my paper, I will proceed in four steps. I will first connect Reckwitz’ analysis of the crisis of bourgeois subject culture with a brief discussion of late Victorian mindsets, historical shifts, and the era as an ‘age of transition’. I will then show in how far the representation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson questions and complicates bourgeois subject culture: for the social field of work I will analyse Holmes’ and Watson’s ambivalent occupational identities; for the role of anti-subjects I will discuss the detective’s relation to the figure of the aristocrat and the ‘primitive’; and for late bourgeois notions of gender and practices of intimacy I will contrast the homosocial relationship between Holmes and Watson with the depiction and function of Watson’s marriage. In all four parts I will work with an array of Holmes stories, but the focus will be on the first two short novels, A Study in Scarlet (first published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887) and The Sign of Four (which first appeared in the February 1890 edition of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine), as well as on short stories from the first collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (originally published as single stories in The Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892 and first published as a collection in 1892). 1 The ‘Age of Transition’ and the Crisis of Late Bourgeois Subject Culture The late Victorian era in Britain is fundamentally shaped by ambivalences and paradoxes. The often euphoric enthusiasm for progress, technology, and the natural sciences (cf. Altick 107) met with a nostalgic longing for stable values <?page no="165"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 157 and consensus, specifically in the realm of social relations and family life, and was sometimes even paired with a longing for the spiritual and a belief in the supernatural (cf. Noakes). The Victorian era has thus been assessed as excessively conservative and overly-formalized (especially when it came to dealing with the body and its urges) but also as preoccupied with the future, change, and the new (cf. Heinz 161-63). This sometimes strange relation between stability and change, the natural and the supernatural, between reform and reactionary impulses can be found in nearly every part of Victorian life, from literature over economics to politics (cf. I. Armstrong). These ambivalent attitudes of the age became palpable in concrete material contexts and social, cultural, and political unrest that made reforms and changes in social and legal structures both necessary and discomforting for the now-hegemonic middle classes. As Reckwitz points out, the transitions and shifts from 18 th -century to 19 th -century bourgeois subject culture were triggered by four socio-cultural developments: firstly, the changing configurations and relations of classes and milieus (first and foremost in the development of a growing and visible working class that turned into the new antisubject of bourgeois culture, the ‘primitive’, that also took the shape of colonial peoples abroad); secondly, the transformation of material culture in the course of industrialization (with a shift from a commercial society of merchants towards industrial capitalism); thirdly, the rise of discourses from the natural sciences like biology (and their outgrowths like the racial ‘sciences’ or eugenics) that replaced 18 th -century Enlightenment discourses about ‘human nature’ with the consequence of a fundamental change in discourses of gender and gender relations; and, finally, the grafting of notions from Romanticism onto bourgeois subjectivity, first and foremost romantic love and the value of the arts as a purpose-free space and pursuit (cf. HS 244-46). A number of developments make these shifts obvious, and they intensified towards the end of the 19 th century, when Doyle’s narratives about Holmes and Watson were first published and widely read. With respect to gender and gender relations, women were fighting for suffrage and more rights inside and outside of marriage (cf. Kestner 6). Around the same time, male-male relations came under intense scrutiny. As Brod stresses, the end of the 19 th century and specifically the 1890s “were widely perceived as embodying an acute ‘crisis of masculinity’”, and signs of “the male malaise” were diagnosed on all levels of society (qtd. in Kestner 12). In terms of class relations and relations between nations and races, a similar sense of change and crisis could be felt. In the 1880s, socialist, anarchist, and Irish nationalist groups bombed public institutions, and increasing unrest and strikes also occurred in working-class areas of London and other large British cities (cf. Kestner 11f.). On the international stage, Germany and the USA rose as global powers, and the British army had to accept defeat in several colonial wars and events like the Indian Mutiny of the years 1857-58 <?page no="166"?> Sarah Heinz 158 (which features as the central event in Doyle’s The Sign of Four) or the battle of Maiwand in 1880 (where Dr Watson is wounded before he returns to London). Finally, social mores and the bourgeois code of respectability, the central value of 19 th -century bourgeois culture (cf. HS 250), were shaken by corruption scandals and the Ripper murders in London’s East End in 1888, directly following Queen Victoria’s much-celebrated Golden Crown Jubilee in the year before (cf. Kestner 11f.). The Oscar Wilde trial, which captivated public interest in 1895, probably is the best-known indication of this late Victorian obsession with sexuality and propriety, and it shows how an intense scrutiny of and interest in sexual practices were paradoxically paired with an urge to control and formalize sexuality in general and to criminalize and scandalize specific forms of sexual relations (cf. Maynard 544). In this phase of late bourgeois culture, in the year of the Crown Jubilee and one year before the Ripper murders, Doyle publishes his first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, and presents a protagonist who incorporates the frictions of his age but is also exceedingly well-suited to comfort the contemporary reader’s longing for order with his extraordinary faculties of selfcontrol, reason, rationality, as well as with his scientific methods, knowledge, and rigour, his physical fitness, and his moral code of conduct that champions truth and justice (if not the law). In order to place Sherlock Holmes and detective fiction in this historical context and specific subject culture, I shortly want to outline how Reckwitz describes the continuities between early and late bourgeois culture as well as the frictions and the final crisis of the late bourgeois subject around 1900. 1 Early bourgeois culture in the 18 th century was organized around the codes of morality, sovereignty, and autonomy. In its ideal form, the actions, thoughts, and relations of the bourgeois subject were transparent (i.e. frontand backstage self were the same), purposeful (i.e. aimed towards a specific and rational end in an occupational identity derived from work), and moderate (i.e. oriented towards control and necessity). 2 In the 19 th -century version of bourgeois subject culture, major continuities with the 18 th century can be found. The codes and practices of the middle classes, which initially were cultural niches, are transformed into a hegemonic subject culture with its own, dominant institutions (cf. HS 242). The bourgeois model of the moral, sovereign subject turns into a universal horizon for ‘modern’ man, and formerly specific practices of work, intimate relations, as well as technologies like reading and writing are established as seemingly natural 1 In the following overview of Reckwitz, I will specifically focus on the aspects of late bourgeois subject culture that are relevant for my interpretation of the Holmes canon below. For a general outline of bourgeois subject culture and its fundamental codes and practices see the theoretical chapter by Kuster in this volume. 2 Cf. HS 97-105, 203; cf. also the extended discussion of early bourgeois subject culture and the aristocratic anti-subject in the essay on Richardson’s Pamela by Roller in this volume. <?page no="167"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 159 and general to the human condition. However, Reckwitz also outlines changes and shifts within this continuity that separate early and later forms of the bourgeois subject and that finally result in a crisis that initiates a new subject culture (cf. HS 275-88, 299-308). The central difference between early and hegemonic forms of bourgeois subject culture is the code shift from morality to respectability. This shift results in changing practices, first and foremost an increasing formalization of behaviour in communication and the use and control of the body. Instead of an open exchange between moral subjects who communicated with each other from the transparency of their inner ‘human nature’, people now deal with each other and themselves along the lines of a socially established decorum that is oriented towards the rules of “comme il faut” (HS 253). At the same time, the subject and the way it manages its body and practices as respectable must still be openly accessible to others: ideal bourgeois subjectivity must be readable in the body’s look, poise, and general behaviour because the goal of the code of respectability is its social and interpersonal recognition, the evasion of potentially embarrassing social situations, and the keeping of etiquette (cf. HS 253). In sum, the 19 th -century version of the bourgeois subject is defined via its propriety, and this propriety is increasingly a question of form that replaces the free expression of an inner quality or character (cf. HS 243). This creates a first ambivalence in late bourgeois subject culture: the older ideal of transparency and moderation that rejected the artificiality and ‘toomuchness’ of the aristocratic anti-subject is put into danger because an increasingly formalized respectability and its codified practices can turn into a dangerously artificial performance. However, this performative character must not become visible because bourgeois subjectivity is still presented as a universal and at the same time idealized form of ‘the’ human subject. Late bourgeois subject culture therefore has to deny and cover up the emerging gap between formalized respectability and older, still relevant ideals of transparency, and it unintendedly develops double standards and unstable borders between seeming and being that have to be constantly kept in a precarious balance (cf. HS 272). It is this double standard that will be criticized by new subject cultures and countercultures towards the beginning of the 20 th century, and it is interesting that Victorian ‘hypocrisy’ is one of the lasting associations with late bourgeois culture in Britain even today (cf. Joyce 148). 3 The consequential change from the code of morality towards the code of respectability is accompanied by two additional and connected shifts that occur in late bourgeois culture, and both of these shifts add to the frictions and ambivalences within late bourgeois subject culture. Firstly, there is a re-interpretation of human nature by the natural sciences, above all biology (cf. HS 3 For this notion of Victorian hypocrisy cf. also Trilling and Bloom 3; Gordon and Nair 1. <?page no="168"?> Sarah Heinz 160 245). Earlier Enlightenment ideas of naturalness are replaced by an interpretation of human nature in terms of its biological make-up and evolutionary development (cf. also Frank 54f.). It is now based on cells, species, and their history, and the interest is less focused on the human mind and its capacity for freedom and sovereignty as in the 18 th century. 4 Instead, there is a focus on reproduction and sexuality (first and foremost in its heterosexual form) as well as on the structure and instincts of the body (cf. HS 263f.). This leads to a bifurcation of gender into a male, public sphere with a male ‘nature’ of active leadership, systematic planning, and formal intelligence on the one side, and a female, private, and domestic sphere with a subject that is emotional, caring for others, and profoundly passive on the other side (cf. HS 264). The 18 th century notion of the fundamental similarity of men and women is now reassessed as a natural difference that shapes the bodies and minds of two separate groups of people whose dispositions and characters also differ accordingly. This new biologistical sense of the human being creates problems for the conceptualization and evaluation of the new anti-subject, the ‘primitive’. Against this new anti-subject the bourgeois ideal of the 19 th century is increasingly defined via concepts like civilization and cultivation, from which the dominant code of respectability then derives its importance (cf. Pickering 51- 61). In order to visibly show how civilized the subject is, it has to come up to practices of cultured behaviour, education, taste, and refinement. These practices coincide with the formalized frontstages described above. Yet at the same time, human nature has been increasingly sexualized and re-phrased as cells, bodies, instincts, and reproduction. This creates yet another split in the late bourgeois subject whose ‘nature’ comes dangerously close to its new anti-subject, which is said to be a mere body with uncontrolled urges and a lack of civilization (cf. HS 248-50). The primitive anti-subject, which had been carefully externalized in the two forms of the colonial and the working-class ‘other’, consequently lurks within the bourgeois subject itself and endangers its respectable sovereignty (cf. HS 253). 5 In his classical study of late Victorian writing, Rule of Darkness, Patrick Brantlinger has assessed this fear of “going primitive” as one of “three principal themes of imperial Gothic” and connects 4 Cf. Otis for the image of the cell as one of the reigning metaphors of the 19 th century. 5 This conflict between a notion of white respectability and civilization and an increasing sexualization of the subject becomes specifically visible in the context of interracial relations and their regulation. As research on colonial intimacies has shown, 19 th and 20 th century colonial regimes intensely monitored and policed the contacts and domestic arrangements of their officials abroad, e.g. in rules on co-habiting with ‘native’ wives or housekeepers, with intricate laws on the rights of children from such unions, or, later on, with the import of women from the home countries to ‘improve’ mores and reproduction. For a discussion of this connection between empire, sexuality, and the role of respectability cf. especially Stoler; cf. also Young; McClintock. <?page no="169"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 161 this fear with the second principal theme, “an invasion of civilization by the forces of barbarism or demonism” (230). This friction created by the biologistical re-interpretation of human nature thus has to do with the role and assessment of sexuality, and it is deeply gendered as well: the human subject is seen as naturally sexualized, and there is an intense interest in sexuality, reproduction, and the human sex drive (Reckwitz here points to Foucault’s debunking of the repression-hypothesis, cf. HS 270). Yet, to come up to the ideal of an increasingly formalized respectability that depends upon social recognition and visibility, men have to intensely monitor and control their sexuality, and women as allegedly passive carers and keepers of an idealized domesticity are supposed to have none of these urges in the first place (cf. HS 270; cf. also Dyer 27-30). At the same time, however, women are seen as closer to nature, which turns them into a potentially dangerous and less civilized ‘other’ within bourgeois subject culture (cf. HS 265). For both men and women, then, sexuality is double-edged: it is interpreted as an irreversibly natural, fundamental part of their subjectivity, while that same sexual nature endangers the code of respectability and needs to be kept in check if the bourgeois subject does not want to turn into its anti-subject, the primitive (cf. HS 266). In addition to the issue of the primitive anti-subject, the bifurcation of human nature in such a gendered biological model creates a second friction. Women and men are now both defined by lack: women as “specialists of the heart” (HS 271) are confined to the merely secondary sphere of the private, which seems to be less relevant (and less productive) than the public sphere of work and politics where men can prove their sovereign self and train abilities like decision-making, leadership, or economic achievement (which women are said to lack). Yet, at the same time, the private sphere with its focus on emotional ties and naturalized empathy is privileged as the realm of morality, stability, and balance. These qualities connect to the bourgeois ideals of moderation and respectability (which men then are said to lack if they are connected to the potentially dangerous although more productive public realm, cf. HS 271-73). In consequence, male and female subjects are both asked to be a ‘natural’ part of bourgeois subject culture, but this naturalization creates an unstable conceptualization of ideal bourgeois subjectivity as either emotional or rational, productive in public or moral in private, masculine or feminine. For both men and women, a desirable but unreachable identity seems to be found in the respective ‘other’, but a transgression into the sphere of this ‘other’ would result in an ‘unnatural’ and non-respectable position (e.g. that of the emotional, effeminate man). In final consequence, the split of the subject leads to a constant volatility and vulnerability at the heart of bourgeois subject culture. The bourgeois self of the 19 th century thus can never be complete (cf. HS 272f.). <?page no="170"?> Sarah Heinz 162 The second shift that is relevant for the transformation as well as crisis of late bourgeois subject culture concerns the social field of work. For both the 18 th and 19 th century, the subject derives a major part of its identity from the dignity of self-reliant and useful work. In contrast to the logics of inheritance ascribed to the ‘parasitic’ aristocracy, the bourgeois subject defined itself via a ‘natural’ need as well as capacity for industry (cf. HS 109-24). The practices of such an occupational subject are a constitutive part of bourgeois self-conceptions and formed the central codes of this subject culture: “work was the core of the moral life” (Rodgers 14; qtd. in HS 125). The 18 th -century model for this occupational identity is the independent merchant whose practices were embedded in a commercial society where all bourgeois subjects derived their identity from shared practices of work, which gave equal dignity to all of them (cf. HS 256). In the 19 th century this systemic frame changes from a commercial to a market society where equality and the shared dignity of work is less important than the overarching idea of competition. With this change, bourgeois occupational identities change as well. The merchant turns into the manager, entrepreneur, and self-made man, whose disposition as well as economic practices and institutions are increasingly disconnected from the code of moral integrity and ideals like moderation. If your occupational self relies on competition, then your relations with other subjects and the goals of your work will always be shaped by a comparative instead of a cooperative stance. This shift goes hand in hand with developments like longer working hours and the spatial separation of home and workplace (cf. HS 256). The older model of the merchant-bourgeois becomes outmoded and lacks in efficiency and power; on the other hand, the new model of the entrepreneur and self-made man is deficient in terms of the codes of morality and respectability because ideals like transparency and moderation are irrelevant in a capitalist market society that merely compares success and shares (cf. HS 257). Thus, the transformation towards a competitive market society again creates a lack at the heart of late bourgeois subjectivity, and this lack is one of the triggers for a late Victorian nostalgia for a more stable past. As Eric Hobsbawm has emphasized, economic change was therefore tightly connected with the sense of loss that was typical for the end of the 19 th century: “It was an era of profound identity crisis and transformation for a bourgeoisie whose traditional moral foundation crumbled under the very pressure of its own accumulation of wealth and comfort. Its very existence as a class of masters was undermined by the transformation of its own economic system” (9f.). In sum, the hegemonic order of 19 th -century bourgeois subject culture develops unintendedly systematic double structures and unstable borders between ‘being’ and ‘seeming’, frontstage and backstage - a strategy of striving for status ‘behind’ the façade of respectability, an interested sexualisation behind sexual control, a constant seesawing of a bourgeois identity proper between the male <?page no="171"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 163 and female subject, as well as an ambiguity of the natural as desirable and primitive. (HS 272f.) 6 In multiple and interesting ways, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are part of these double structures and unstable borders that are so typical for the late 19 th century, and their identities indeed seesaw between positions that seem to be mutually exclusive. At the same time, their detective work shows the reader that borders could be stabilized, ambiguities might be solved, and that bourgeois identity might still be a feasible subject model. Holmes and Watson do bring order to chaos, but they equally acknowledge and even need ambiguities and complexity. In the following interpretations of the canon, I will outline how Holmes recurrently contains protagonists defined as anti-subjects or others, but how he also incorporates some of their characteristics in his own self and his complex relationship with Watson. In my discussion, I will also include the role of the reader and the specific reading process engendered by detective fiction as an ambivalent training programme for the bourgeois subject. 2 A New Occupational Identity: The Consulting Detective The first of Doyle’s novels, A Study in Scarlet, is an ideal starting point for analysing Holmes’ and Watson’s occupational identities. Right on the first page and with his first two sentences, we meet our narrator, Dr Watson, who introduces himself as a thoroughly occupational self: “In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon” (7). Instead of telling us about his childhood, his family background, his personal interests, or even the year of his birth, Watson comes into being as ‘the doctor’. It therefore makes sense that in the rest of the canon, Watson is mostly addressed by his professional title rather than by his first name which is only mentioned four times. In fact, there is considerable confusion about Watson’s name because on three occasions Watson is presented as ‘John H. Watson’, while his wife Mary also calls him ‘James’ (cf. Sayers). In that sense, Watson seems to take up the bourgeois ideal 6 “Als hegemoniale Ordnung des 19. Jahrhunderts entwickelt die bürgerliche Lebensform selbst unintendiert systematisch doppeldeutige Strukturen und instabile Sinngrenzen von ‘Schein’ und ‘Sein’, von Vordergrund und Hinterwelt - eine Strategie des Statusstrebens ‘hinter’ der Respektabilitätsfassade, eine interessierte Sexualisierung hinter der sexuellen Kontrolle, ein Hin- und Herschieben der eigentlichen bürgerlichen Identität zwischen männlichem und weiblichem Subjekt, auch eine Doppeldeutigkeit des Natürlichen als erstrebenswert und als primitiv.” <?page no="172"?> Sarah Heinz 164 of the occupational self who gains his dignity and morality through disciplined, self-reliant work in a professional position and who at the same time expresses this morality and sovereignty through the practices of gainful and useful activity, calculated rational effort, and the control of body and mind in all these practices (cf. HS 126f.). Yet, the canon only very sparsely gives us good if any descriptions of Dr Watson actually at work as a surgeon or family doctor, one of the most prominent exceptions being his dressing the wound of Victor Hatherley in “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb”. Still, even this rare description of Watson practicing his profession takes up only one sentence in this short story of 27 pages, and Hatherley’s injury provides the next case for Sherlock Holmes, in which Watson then participates (cf. Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 267). What adds to this irritating absence of industrious occupational activity is Watson’s self-proclaimed idleness and aimlessness in A Study in Scarlet. Right after describing his professional biography as a medical student and army surgeon, the reader is informed that Watson was severely injured in the Afghan war only shortly after his arrival in the colonies, brought back to England, and then “naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained” (Doyle, Scarlet 8). Rather than being the centre of dignified, gainful activity and the beating heart of a country full of merchants and professionals, London is here connected with waste and dirt, and it is presented as a place where people seem to live like the anti-subject of 18 th -century bourgeois culture, the parasitic, idle aristocrat. When Watson later describes his habits and lifestyle to Holmes, he even confesses: “I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy” (Doyle, Scarlet 13). In the short story “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Watson corroborates this impression as more than a mere passing phase when he says that he is not “in the least conventional … . The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medical man” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 528). He might present himself to the reader as ‘the doctor’ but his disposition seems to deviate strongly from the notions of what “befits a medical man”. The strange duality of a strong occupational identity that seems to bring the protagonist into being but that at the same time clashes with decidedly non-bourgeois practices and character traits can also be found in Sherlock Holmes. Probably in an even more pronounced way than Watson, Holmes becomes who he is only after he has created his occupation as a ‘consulting detective’. In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes explains to Watson: “Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world” (21). In “The Musgrave Ritual”, Holmes says: “I have taken to living by my wits” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 534). And in The Sign of Four, he elaborates: “I <?page no="173"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 165 cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? ” (12). Thus, Holmes seems to paradigmatically embody the bourgeois ideal of the occupational subject whose work is more than ‘just’ a job or source of income. His activities as a consulting detective are an “affectively charged ideal ego and turn into a source of a subjective hermeneutics of the self” (HS 127). 7 This ideal bourgeois self is rational, purposeful, and uses information and signs to reach the goals of its individual profession. Holmes practices his occupation with exactly such a focus on rationality, clear methods, and precise use of information, and on numerous occasions it is stressed that Holmes is a “calculating machine” (Doyle, Sign of Four 17). Before they actually meet, Holmes is described to Watson as “a little too scientific for my tastes - it approaches to cold-bloodedness” or as having “a passion for definite and exact knowledge” (Doyle, Scarlet 10). Holmes thus creates an occupational self that proves and trains its sovereignty and independence in all its acts and practices; these actions always focus on a specific purpose in a concrete case and context. In a double sense, he is “his own provider” and a self-made man: he is economically independent through his work and a “resourceful independent power”, but he also provides himself with an identity through the making and practicing of his occupation (Knight, Form and Ideology 79, qtd. in Kestner 13). This existing for and through his work is expressed in one of the most famous monologues in the canon in which Holmes explains to Watson why his occupation is his life: “My mind,” he said, “rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.” (Doyle, Sign of Four 6) This famous quote and the context of its utterance already indicates the complexity of Holmes’ occupational identity. While he indeed is disciplined, rational, and industrious when he has a case that interests him, he otherwise seems to lack the important bourgeois value of moderation and irrationally resorts to means of stimulation that question his control of body and mind. This becomes more than obvious at the beginning of The Sign of Four when Watson tells the reader about Holmes’ long-standing drug abuse: Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. … Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction. Three times a day for many months 7 “Das Berufssubjekt wird in der bürgerlichen Kultur als affektiv aufgeladenes Ideal-Ich modelliert und zur Quelle der subjektiven Selbsthermeneutik.” <?page no="174"?> Sarah Heinz 166 I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. (5) Watson’s lecture on the detrimental effects of substance abuse on Holmes’ “great powers” and his reference to “increased tissue-change” which might leave “a permanent weakness” indicate that from a medical point of view, Holmes’ behaviour is irrational, damaging, and less than profitable (Doyle, Sign of Four 6). Additionally, the use of cocaine and morphine, the first primarily produced in South America, the other in Afghanistan and South East Asia (cf. Frank 58), and the vocabulary that is used to describe the use of the drugs in the passage already hint at Holmes’ connection with the anti-subject of the colonial primitive: In the above scene, the language reveals that the personal frontiers of Holmes’ body have become charged with the same anxieties and pleasures as the frontiers of Britain’s political body. Watson’s admonishment of Holmes, couched in language about ‘mere passing pleasures,’ ‘permanent weakness,’ and a crisis of the ‘constitution,’ simultaneously invokes popular arguments against the sins of masturbation and in favor of political and commercial isolation. (McLaughlin 54f.) The felt crisis of late Victorian society with respect to the male body and its urges and self-control as well as the concomitant fear of unstable borders between the colonies and the mother country are played out on the frontiers of the detective’s body. The injection (and therefore incorporation) of ‘foreign’ and damaging substances into the white man’s body by repeatedly puncturing its permeable borders is a telling metaphor for these fears of invasion. As Keep and Randall have argued, this turns The Sign of Four itself into a “punctured text” about “what it means to break the skin of culture that protects the addict from alterity”. The novel thus reveals “the connections … between addiction, empire, and narrative” (208), and, I would add, the connection between Holmes’ occupation and his addiction. The fears of invasion expressed in the novel question the stability of Holmes’ occupational identity by comparing his profession as a ‘consulting detective’ to the use of drugs. As Holmes says himself: “Give me problems, give me work … . I can dispense then with artificial stimulants” (Doyle, Sign of Four 6). Work is not a dignified source of a sovereign identity that uses its natural drive towards industry. Instead, it is an addiction and a vice that is comparable to and used like a drug. It thus makes sense that Holmes often does not take money for solving a case but is rather thankful that a client provides him with a new dose of stimulation. He openly admits to Watson: “The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward” (Doyle, Sign of Four 6f.). Watson himself says in a later case that Holmes works “rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth” and that he therefore <?page no="175"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 167 “refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 227). This last comment also stresses that his job is not only less than profitable in many cases, but that Holmes equally thinks of his activities as a form of art and not as a professional occupation that is the source of a sovereign, disciplined subjectivity. Holmes’ rather erratic and unconventional education adds to this status of his occupation as stimulant and art instead of serious profession. While Watson has at least finished an official course of study and has trained as a military surgeon, Holmes has only been to university for two years (as is indicated in the case of “The ‘Gloria Scott’”, cf. Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 502), and it is never stated what he actually studied there. Holmes is described by colleagues as “a little queer in his ideas”, as an “eccentric” with “out-ofthe-way knowledge”, and as “an enthusiast” full of “fancy” (Doyle, Scarlet 9). Instead of inhabiting an identifiable profession, Holmes ambivalently stands between the typically bourgeois fields of work of the merchant, law and medicine, and academic occupations (cf. HS 119-24). The first meeting between Holmes and Watson in the mysterious-looking basement of St Bartholomew’s hospital reinforces this impression. Holmes presents a new chemical test for tracing haemoglobin to Watson as if it was a magic trick instead of a precise science, “His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination”, and he is “delighted as a child with a new toy”, clapping his hands and jumping up and down (Doyle, Scarlet 12). Later on when visiting the crime scene of the case, Holmes presents an important clue he has found (and that the police have overlooked) “with an air of a showman exhibiting his show” (Doyle, Scarlet 33). Far from being a serious science and a strict and neutral method, Holmes’ occupation is equally pleasure, game, and stimulation to him. Saler accordingly talks about the detective’s method as “animistic reason”, which “reconciled the rational and secular tenets of modernity with enchantment” (599). This ambivalent combination is aptly expressed in the title of Doyle’s first novel, A Study in Scarlet, because it unites scientific study with a colour that is connected to passion and sexuality, blood, heat, and social prestige (cf. Gage 110-12). Holmes is passionate about his profession, but it equally is his profession to study the passions. His profession is “self-invented” and “at once both escapist and transformative” (Thomas 1). In sum, Holmes and Watson are introduced as ambivalent occupational subjects, and they are both problematic and less than respectable role models for a bourgeois subject culture. <?page no="176"?> Sarah Heinz 168 3 Bourgeois Anti-Subjects: The Aristocrat and the Primitive This friction in the field of work leads me to the role of anti-subjects in the canon. As indicated above, Holmes’ body is used to play out the fears of invasion and permeability that were typical of late Victorian Britain and its relation with its colonies, and in several of Holmes and Watson’s cases this fear forms the centre of the investigation (cf. Siddiqi 63-85; McLaughlin 53-78; Rehberger). I want to focus on two specific adventures in which the unstable borders between bourgeois self and ‘primitive’ other are thematized, namely the investigation around the Agra treasure in The Sign of Four and the “Adventure of the Speckled Band”, in which India again features as a source of danger and contamination. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”, published in The Strand Magazine in February 1892, combines Gothic elements and melodrama with a murder plot centred on “one of the oldest Saxon Families in England, the Roylotts of Stoke Moran” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 232). It is one among the many stories from the first two short story collections that features an aristocratic protagonist as either the client or the villain of the case, and it is conspicuous that in either role these characters are mostly evaluated negatively. They are often excessive in taste or behaviour while at the same time less than intelligent and frequently condescending, as for example the King of Bohemia in “A Scandal in Bohemia”, whose dress is described by Watson as “rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad taste”, or Lord Robert St. Simon in “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor”, who has “Plantagenet blood by direct descent, and Tudor on the distaff side” but who is also described as “a man whose pleasant lot it had ever been to command and to be obeyed” and whose dress is “careful to the verge of foppishness” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 14, 297, 298). Many of the aristocrats turned villains commit their crimes either out of boredom like John Clay, whose “grandfather was a Royal Duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford” and who plans a spectacular bank robbery in “The Red-Headed League” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 65), or they have turned to crime due to a ruinous lifestyle, as for example in “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet”, in which Sir George Burnwell attempts to steal jewellery to pay off financial obligations that threaten to destroy his honour and respectability. Yet, Burnwell’s respectability is only superficial because Holmes knows that he is “one of the most dangerous men in England - a ruined gambler, an absolutely desperate villain; a man without heart or conscience”, although solid middle-class people like the Holder family are not aware of this: “Neither you nor your son knew the true character of this man when you admitted him into your family circle” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 343). Most of these aristocratic criminals are dazzling personalities who abuse other people’s trust and money and are often sexual predators on naïve young women. <?page no="177"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 169 As both clients and villains, these protagonists therefore fulfil all stereotypes of the 18 th -century anti-subject, the excessive, artificial, parasitic, and intransparent aristocrat whose brilliant frontstage does not correspond to their real characters. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” offers interesting insights for a closer look at the representation of such aristocratic anti-subjects. The client of this case, Ms Helen Stoner, is the stepdaughter of the last descendent of the ancient Roylott family, Dr Grimesby Roylott, and she flees her stepfather’s crumbling estate in horror and suspicion after hearing a low whistle and a metallic clang during the night. These incidents had already preceded the mysterious and unexplained death of her twin sister Julia two years earlier. Both women were about to be married soon after. Holmes’ investigation brings to light that Dr Roylott has killed (or is trying to kill) his stepdaughters in order to prevent their mother’s money being passed onto them in event of their marriage, leaving him as an “aristocratic pauper” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 232). The “incestuous/ economic transgression” of Dr Roylott (Kestner 18) and his murderous attempt to affirm patriarchal control over both women and property (and women as property) has been noted by secondary literature (cf. Hennessy and Mohan; Denenholz Morse 189f.). What I want to focus on, though, is the connection between the residual anti-subject of the excessive aristocrat and the new anti-subject of the ‘primitive’ that are combined in Dr Grimesby Roylott’s personality and body. Helen Stoner describes Dr Roylott’s family in terms of former glory and present demise and ruin, and it is stressed that in the last century, “four successive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler, in the days of the Regency” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 232). Even the family estate and the house where Helen and her stepfather live are “crushed under a heavy mortgage” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 232). The parasitic and excessive Roylotts of Stoke Moran therefore seem to be typical 18 th -century anti-subjects. Dr Grimesby Roylott, however, wants to escape this ruinous life by taking up a professional occupation, and he trains as a doctor and establishes a large practice in Calcutta (a biography very similar to Dr Watson’s story as a doctor and army surgeon in the colonies). He thus seems to adopt middleclass values of industry and an occupational identity that distance him from the negative model of his family. The short story makes clear, though, that Dr Roylott’s aristocratic legacy will always catch up with him. In a fit of anger, Dr Roylott beats his native butler to death and is imprisoned, only narrowly escaping a capital sentence. He has to leave his formerly prosperous life in British India and returns to the family estate in England to live off his wife’s <?page no="178"?> Sarah Heinz 170 money, having “abandoned his plans to establish himself in practice in London” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 234). 8 Helen Stoner explains this behaviour with Dr Roylott’s “violence of temper approaching to mania” which has been “hereditary in the men of the family” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 234), and Deborah Denenholz Morse accordingly argues that “[t]he brutish violence and animal strength that expresses itself when Dr Roylott pitches the village blacksmith into the river is an Old English violence” (190). The “logics of inheritance” that Reckwitz identifies as typical for the aristocracy (cf. HS 269) are here re-interpreted not in terms of titles, money, or land but in terms of the biologistical re-interpretation of human nature that is so typical for 19 th -century bourgeois discourse. Dr Roylott’s aristocratic legacy is a eugenic one (cf. Paul and Moore). With the help of Holmes and Watson, bourgeois Helen Stoner, who is only Roylott’s stepdaughter, does not only escape a horrible death but also the deficient and degenerate genetic inheritance of this ancient family. It is here that the new anti-subject of the ‘primitive’ comes into play. In her narrative of Dr Roylott’s return to and residence at Stoke Moran, Helen Stoner explicitly connects the hereditary issues of the aristocratic Roylott family with her stepfather’s “long residence in the tropics”, which has “intensified” his negative tendencies. His “passion … for Indian animals” (at the time of Helen’s visit at Baker Street, Dr Roylott keeps a baboon and a cheetah on the premises) and his intimate connection with a band of “wandering gypsies”, whom he allows on the estate and with whom he also travels for long stretches of time, strengthen this image of a man who is both an aristocratic as well as exotic other in a society of bourgeois Englishness (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 234). The way that Watson describes Dr Roylott’s appearance ties in with this connection between landed gentry and exotic other. Dr Roylott is a “huge man” whose clothes are “a peculiar mixture of the professional and of the agricultural”, and his large face is “seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow with the sun, and marked with every evil passion”. His “deep-set, bileshot eyes and his high thin fleshless nose gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of prey”. After the case is solved, this description is again taken up when Dr Roylott’s method of killing his stepdaughters is exposed (he has trained an Indian snake to enter his daughters’ bedroom), and Holmes says that such a method would only occur to “a clever and ruthless man who 8 His wife acquired this money as an inheritance herself, because it is her widow’s annuity from her deceased husband who was a Major-General in the Bengal Artillery, a respectable and prestigious position (cf. Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 232). While the short story thus assesses Helen Stoner’s claim to her mother’s money as rightful in a bourgeois system of passing down property, Dr Roylott’s claim to the money is assessed as parasitic and transgressive as his idleness after his return to England and his murder and attempted murder of his stepdaughters show. <?page no="179"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 171 had had an Eastern training” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 241, 258). In these descriptions, animal metaphors and Roylott’s dark, strangelycoloured skin are connected with evil passions, sickness, and an unbalanced nature prone to violence. In a complex interweaving, race is mapped onto class, and both are then connected with a visible biological alterity that Watson and Holmes can read off Roylott’s body. I would therefore qualify Stephen Knight’s remark that “the doctor in ‘The Speckled Band’ and many other villains of the imperial period has come back from overseas somehow tainted with foreignness” (Detection, Death, Diversity 61) because Roylott has not simply been tainted with foreignness, but his “Eastern training” has intensified genetic tendencies already present in his aristocratic legacy of violence, excess, and lack of control. In following the steps of the detective in the process of reception, the bourgeois reader is trained in recognizing such signs of dangerous otherness in a protagonist who both harks back to an older antisubject and embodies the new anti-subject at the same time. Just as Holmes’ punctured body, the anatomies and identities of individual protagonists like Dr Roylott “come to represent the general condition of the body politic itself”, and the detective and his devices are able to “convert the body into a text to be read” (Thomas 4). This biological approach to bourgeois anti-subjects and the naturalization of their exclusion through allegedly transparent acts of reading becomes even more obvious in the case of Tonga, the native from the Andaman Islands who is brought to England in The Sign of Four. Although his ‘master’ Jonathan Small, yet another Englishman whose negative character is intensified by his ‘Eastern’ adventures, is the main villain of the second Holmes novel, the main puzzle of the case is his “mysterious ally” whose strange footprints both pose a problem and offer the solution of how to track the perpetrators (Doyle, Sign of Four 42). As in the case of the speckled band, the murder is again committed by an exotic poison, this time applied via a thorn blown from a blow-pipe, and Holmes explains the unplanned poisoning by “the savage instincts” of Small’s companion (Doyle, Sign of Four 58). In terms of Reckwitz’ analysis of the primitive anti-subject, the short story uses Tonga to externalize everything that is feared to still linger within the bourgeois subject: the lack of control and civilization, a brutishness in behaviour, and a dangerous closeness to nature and animalistic instincts, all of which lead to the death of Bartholomew Sholto (cf. HS 250). This externalization then makes it possible to exorcize this anti-subject from bourgeois society although, as I will show, this exorcism does not fully work. In the whole novel, Tonga never gets to speak or communicate himself, and the reader only catches a glimpse of him shortly before he is shot by Holmes and Watson. In a typically colonialist move, the novel thus refuses to give Tonga a voice (cf. O’Dell 984). However, we get accounts of Small’s accomplice from other sources, and all of these sources are shaped by negative <?page no="180"?> Sarah Heinz 172 images of the primitive anti-subject, e.g. an article from a gazetteer that Holmes consults on the aborigines of the Andaman Islands: They are naturally hideous, having large, misshapen heads, small fierce eyes, and distorted features. … They have always been a terror to shipwrecked crews, braining the survivors with their stone-headed clubs or shooting them with their poisoned arrows. These massacres are invariably concluded by a cannibal feast. (Doyle, Sign of Four 69) In this account, Tonga does not exist as an individual. He is just one representative specimen of his species. The typical tropes of savagery, encapsulated in cannibalism, primitive tools, a violent temper, and visible bodily difference, are again used by Watson when Tonga finally appears in person during the “mad, flying man-hunt down the Thames”, which forms the final showdown of the novel (Doyle, Sign of Four 86). Having first mistaken Tonga for an incomprehensible mass and then a large Newfoundland dog, Watson describes the Andaman islander with the following words: At the sound of his [Jonathan Small’s] strident, angry cries, there was movement in the huddled bundle upon the deck. It straightened itself into a little black man - the smallest I have ever seen - with a great, misshapen head and a shock of tangled, dishevelled hair. Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I whipped out mine at the sight of this savage, distorted creature. … Never have I seen features so deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty. His small eyes glowed and burned with sombre fire, and his thick lips were writhed back from his teeth, which grinned and chattered at us with half animal fury. (Doyle, Sign of Four 86) The change from the pronoun ‘it’ to ‘he’ does not alleviate the fact that Tonga is described in both sources as “misshapen” and “distorted”, both adjectives which hint at a norm and shape that defines the human being and that Tonga fails to meet. He is also much smaller than a white man and insufficiently groomed, i.e. he is not fully a man and he lacks a sense of ‘civilized’ hygiene and propriety. Similar to the description of Dr Roylott, Tonga is compared with animals, if, in this case, rather with dogs and chattering monkeys than with birds of prey. And again, similar to Grimesby Roylott, Watson and Holmes can read Tonga’s “bestiality and cruelty” off his glowing eyes and distorted face. As in the body and behaviour of the degenerate aristocrat with an ‘Eastern’ training, Tonga’s body and behaviour become transparent signs of his status as the primitive anti-subject of bourgeois culture. However, the reading of these signs becomes more complicated due to a process of multiple transformations that Tonga goes through. In the above quoted passage, he has in an instant changed from a thing to a dog to a man (and earlier on was taken to be a child), a description McBratney interprets as a “parody of Darwinian evolution” which “shows a creature who barely escapes his bestial origins” (159). This dangerously shapeshifting anti-subject must be contained by the <?page no="181"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 173 bourgeois men and their superior weapons: “In a game of evolutionary and cultural King-of-the-Hill, he must be metaphorically put back in his place” (McLaughlin 69). 9 By eradicating Tonga, Holmes and Watson thus seem to bring order to chaos. It is not as easy as that, though. The place Tonga is banished to is “the dark ooze at the bottom of the Thames” where, untraceable for Watson and Holmes to this day, “lie the bones of that strange visitor to our shores” (Doyle, Sign of Four 87). Tonga returns to the “undifferentiated primal muck and evolutionary ooze” that again corroborate his status as a pre-civilized genetic ‘throwback’ of nature (McLaughlin 69). Nevertheless, it is the ooze of the Thames, “that most symbolically English of rivers” (McLaughlin 69), that he vanishes in, and Doyle’s syntax closely connects “that strange visitor” and “our shores”. This is a move very similar to the beginning of Heart of Darkness, published nine years after The Sign of Four, in which the Thames at Gravesend is intimately connected with the colonies, thus finding darkness both at home and abroad: “The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint … . The air was dark above Gravesend” (Conrad 31). The borders between self and other, between the savage from the periphery and the colonial centre, become as permeable as Holmes’ skin at the very beginning of the novel, and London and India are both described as deserts, labyrinths, or wastelands in the novel (cf. Keep and Randall 207f.). It is therefore more than fitting that neither Holmes nor Watson can trace Tonga after he vanishes in the river: “the intractable cannibal’s last act of resistance is to sink out of sight before the Englishmen can satisfy their hungry eyes” (McLaughlin 69). In that sense, the failed exorcism of Tonga through one of the very few deaths at the hand of the detective in the canon represents what McLaughlin calls a “New Mutiny” and a “return of colonialism’s repressed” (72). Tonga’s final resistance complicates 19 th -century theories of the “vanishing” or “doomed races” and challenges Darwin’s theory, proposed in The Descent of Man, that “when the civilized and the primitive meet, ‘the struggle is short.’” (Levine 49). At the end of The Sign of Four, order might have been reestablished but there seems to be an uneasiness about the possible return of chaos that is symbolized by Tonga’s bones in the river (cf. Keep and Randall 217f.). And as if to amplify this uneasiness, Holmes’ drug use that started the novel also forms its final two sentences: “‘For me,’ said Sherlock Holmes, ‘there still remains the cocaine-bottle.’ And he stretched his long white hand up for it” (118). Simmons explains the popularity of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in imperial Britain with exactly this simultaneous presentation of re- 9 For the racialized connection of colonized peoples with animals and children cf. also McClintock 51; Pickering 144. <?page no="182"?> Sarah Heinz 174 sistance and images of British superiority: “These stories … were so phenomenally popular in part because they addressed a need to manage the ongoing struggle between two parts of the English psyche, a grandiose image of British powers on one hand; on the other, the sense of a growing vulnerability” (67). What makes this struggle between subject and anti-subjects and the uneasy balance between order and chaos even more ambivalent is that Holmes shares many of the features ascribed to characters like Tonga or Dr Roylott. He may contain the dangers posed by these antagonists by solving both cases and more or less directly killing them. Nevertheless, his bodily characteristics and the metaphors used to describe him, his behaviour and attitude to social conventions, and his use of costumes and masks come very close to the characterization of the bourgeois anti-subjects of the aristocrat and the primitive and put him in an in-between position. Animal metaphors are a good way to start the analysis of this ambivalence. In nearly all the short stories and novels from the canon, such metaphors are used to describe Holmes, his abilities, and his behaviour. Dogs, birds of prey, and even insects dominate these descriptions (cf. Coleman). Sometimes a single passage even combines two animals to stress the energy and speed of the detective’s movements as in the following quote from The Sign of Four where Holmes is described “with his long thin nose only a few inches from the planks and his beady eyes gleaming and deep-set like those of a bird. So swift, silent, and furtive were his movements, like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law instead of exerting them in its defence” (44). Earlier in the novel, Watson stresses his “clear-cut, hawk-like features” (14), and the detective’s investigation even leads him onto the roof of Pondicherry Lodge, the manor of the Sholto family, where Watson can “see him like an enormous glow-worm crawling very slowly along the ridge” (54). In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes’ behaviour at the crime scene is described with very similar terms: “he trotted noiselessly about the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once lying flat on his face. … he chattered away to himself under his breath the whole time … . As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded, well-trained foxhound as it dashes backwards and forwards through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent” (33f.). Comparing these passages with those describing Dr Roylott and Tonga reveals surprising similarities. Holmes’ long thin nose matches Grimesby Roylott’s high thin fleshless nose, the detective’s beady and deep-set eyes are identical to Roylott’s deep-set eyes, and both men are called ‘clever’. They are also both described as birds of prey: Roylott looks like a fierce old bird of prey while Holmes is either a bird or a hawk. Tonga’s eyes glow and burn while Holmes’ eyes gleam. While studying the crime scene, Holmes chatters away to himself similar to Tonga, who is described as grinning and chattering. Both <?page no="183"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 175 Tonga and Holmes are likened to dogs, the one a Newfoundland dog, the other a foxhound or bloodhound. All these breeds are working dogs who are said to be strong, intelligent, loyal, and of a gentle disposition (although the foxhound is bred for hunting while the Newfoundland is primarily used for water rescue and lifesaving, which gives Tonga’s death in the water of the Thames a sarcastic twist). In the light of these striking similarities, I would qualify McBratney’s claim that Holmes’ transformation into a bloodhound is different from the “atavistic lapses” of the criminals: “Unlike the criminals who have no control over their atavistic lapses, Holmes chooses his transformation into a ‘bloodhound’ - the hunting or tracking hound being the animal into which he is usually seen to change. He is a ‘trained bloodhound,’ one who, through the long and arduous discipline of his art, can assume the form of the bestial hunter at will” (160). I would argue that Holmes’ depiction as a dog or bird equally stresses how instinctual and driven the detective’s behaviour really is, an impression that is corroborated by his drug habits that kick in as soon as he has no case. Finally, what Holmes conspicuously shares with many criminals and specifically with Dr Roylott, is his bodily strength, which Watson is surprised by at their first meeting when Holmes grips his hand “with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit” (Doyle, Scarlet 11). When Dr Roylott, having followed his stepdaughter to Baker Street, threatens Holmes by bending a poker with his bare hands, Holmes is able to straighten it out again without much effort, stating: “I am not quite so bulky, but if he had remained I might have shown him that my grip was not much more feeble than his own” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 243). Holmes is equally able to follow Tonga’s route over the roof and down the side of the Sholto mansion. The ‘primitive’ and ape-like dexterity of Tonga is easily matched by the English detective, as Holmes himself emphasizes: “Confound the fellow! It’s a most breakneck place. I ought to be able to come down where he could climb up. … It was easy to follow him” (Doyle, Sign of Four 54). The hunter and the hunted are therefore dangerously close to each other, and Watson’s comment that Holmes would have made a terrible criminal already shows that the boundary between detective and villain, subject and anti-subject seems to be quite permeable. This duality has become especially pronounced in Holmes’ prime antagonist and alter ego Professor Moriarty, and the detective’s “social position as fundamentally paradoxical, residing somewhere between the poles of official and unofficial law” has been noted by several commentators (O’Dell 981; cf. also Jann, “Sherlock Holmes Codes the Social Body” 703; Mandel). This permeability between criminal and detective does not only show in Holmes’ physicality but also in his investigative method and the reading process that this method entails. One of the prime secrets of his success is the fact that he has the ability to act and think like the perpetrator he is following and <?page no="184"?> Sarah Heinz 176 to put himself in their place, motivation, and psyche. Because Holmes could be the best of criminals, he is the ideal detective. The short story where this becomes most obvious is “The Musgrave Ritual”. Holmes literally follows in every single footstep of the criminal to finally find both his dead body and the hidden treasure of the Musgrave family. Recounting this early case to Dr Watson, Holmes explains: “You know my methods in such cases, Watson: I put myself in the man’s place, and having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 549). As readers of detective fiction, we often rely on this exact duplication of the crime for suspense, and it is this (at least mental) duplication that also forms the core of the detective’s method, his “science of deduction” (Doyle, Scarlet 15). 10 Tzvetan Todorov has accordingly used detective fiction and its recreation of the crime as a prime example for the relation between story and plot: Such works in effect contain two narratives, that of the crime and that of its investigation. Todorov considered these narratives roughly equivalent to fabula and sjužet, respectively, noting that the purpose of the investigation, or sjužet, is to re-create the crime, the original story that, while it must remain absent from the narrative until the very end, has actually brought the detective tale into being. (Jann, Detecting Social Order 26) Haycraft has also formulated this as follows: “The crime in a detective story is only the means to an end which is - deduction” (qtd. in Symons 10). The logical method of the detective, this ‘science of deduction’, accordingly forms the centre of the narrative. However, the goal seems to be less the apprehension of the criminal or the recovery of a treasure or stolen goods. Instead, for both reader and detective, the ‘hunt’ itself, the mental or real version of the committed crime that is experimentally tested, and the thrill that this hunt brings is the main purpose of the investigation. It is thus more than fitting that Watson anticipates the reader’s thrill when remembering the chase on the Thames in The Sign of Four: “I have coursed many creatures in many countries 10 Critics have noted that Holmes’ reasoning is not deductive (i.e. based on universal laws) but rather is what C.S. Peirce has called abductive reasoning, an informed and structured way of guessing and excluding the impossible (cf. Eco; Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok; Ginzburg). This is important because the neutrality and universality of the detective’s method has to be questioned in the light of this distinction. The fact that Holmes calls his culturally specific guesses deduction can be read as part of a power politics that presents English culture and society as a universal norm. In this system, traces and clues become “interpretable precisely because they can always be referred to quite deterministic codes of class, gender, and ethnicity”. In a twist that hides their contingency, these codes then “create the distinctions that they purport to observe, in effect constructing categories of the normative while appearing merely to interpret them” (Jann, “Sherlock Holmes Codes the Social Body” 686). <?page no="185"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 177 during my checkered career, but never did sport give me such a wild thrill as this mad, flying man-hunt down the Thames” (86). The detective and his method of following or rather being like the criminal in order to solve the case or puzzle is therefore a model for the reader in two contradictory senses. On the one hand, we learn to ‘read’ the crime and the body of the criminal and are trained in the science of deduction. This training integrates the reader in a discursive system of “social control and knowledge” that makes us accept structures of discipline and surveillance: “Through these detectives and their devices, the mysteries of individual anatomy and personal identity come to represent the general condition of the body politic itself” (Thomas 4). Foucauldian readings of detective fiction like D.A. Miller’s The Novel and the Police or Rosemary Jann’s Detecting Social Order have stressed such a construction and training of an ideal subject that accepts external control in institutions like the police or the nation state and internalizes the demand for control and observation of self and other. Summarizing Miller’s argument, Thomas accordingly talks about a “pervasive culture of social discipline” at the heart of detective fiction (14; cf. also McBratney 149). In this sense, reading detective fiction is part of the technologies of the self that Reckwitz identifies as central for bourgeois subject culture as a training programme for a specific form of subjectivity which observes and controls its interiority while accepting a model of a stable exterior world with a specific comprehensible order (cf. HS 160f.). On the other hand, the series of investigations for Holmes and the serial reading of the short stories by the individual reader show that both recipients and detective share a desire for crime to continue and for social control to be at least temporary. Like Holmes’ cocaine bottle or his need for the next case (and the next crime) as soon as order has been re-established, the reading of detective fiction is a “guilty pleasure” that depends upon chaos and crime to continue (Priestman 1). W.H. Auden accordingly called the reading of crime fiction “an addiction like tobacco or alcohol” (qtd. in Priestman 1, cf. also Thomas 2). Like every addict, we need to repeat our consumption and thus turn into serial perpetrators. It is no coincidence that the success story of Sherlock Holmes is tightly connected with its publication history in The Strand Magazine. While the first two novel-length adventures of the detective were only moderate successes, the first short story published in The Strand, “A Scandal in Bohemia”, catapulted Holmes and Watson to immediate immortality: In contrast to the serial publication of long novels, here each tale is self-contained, the detective’s solution providing full narrative satisfaction, but so managed as to stimulate an appetite for another, similar story - so much so that, notoriously, popular demand and apparently irresistible commercial pressures made it impossible for Doyle to kill Holmes off as he wished in 1893. (Priestman 43) <?page no="186"?> Sarah Heinz 178 The pleasure that reading serialized detective fiction gives to the recipient thus again underlines the permeability between detective and criminal, subject and anti-subject, and the unstable border between order and chaos: while we get the feeling that order can be (and has been) re-established within the single story, the series’ open-ended structure provides us with the necessary ‘fix’ for our addiction and opens the way for more chaos, crime, and ever more investigations. 11 The three activities that Holmes indulges in at the beginning of The Sign of Four are a mirror of our readerly pleasure: “taking a drug, being a detective, reading a book” (Thomas 2). Like Tonga’s bones in the ooze of the Thames, the reader’s and Holmes’ desire for thrill and crime and our simultaneous need for its soothing containment form the inescapable structural ambivalence at the heart of the genre and mirror the frictions of late bourgeois subject culture. 4 The ‘Other Within’: Images of Women, Men, and the Bifurcation of Gender In this final part of my paper, I want to address the roles and images of women and men, the structures of intimate relations, and the way that the problematic consequences of the late bourgeois bifurcation of gender are made a topic in the canon. Again, it is striking how strongly Doyle’s protagonists correspond with gendered models of bourgeois subject culture and modes of intimate relations, but how they also deviate from these models. For this interpretation of gender and intimacy I will again focus on The Sign of Four, specifically its depiction of the marriage-plot between Watson and Mary Morstan, and I will complement this reading with a short discussion of Holmes as a paradigmatically male ‘thinking machine’ and his complex and contradictory relationship to Watson. For this last aspect, I will concentrate on close readings of passages from A Study in Scarlet and “A Scandal in Bohemia”. As outlined above in my discussion of Reckwitz, late bourgeois subject culture externalizes the early-bourgeois internal opposition between rationality and emotion in the new conceptualization of two fundamentally and biologically different genders and gender characters. At the same time, the reinterpretation of human nature with its new focus on reproduction and sexuality as ‘natural’ drives complicated this image of men and women. These re- 11 The fact that both Doyle himself as well as whole generations of fans and other writers have been able to continue writing stories about Holmes and have endlessly enlarged the fictional universe of the canon testifies to this openness of the genre, the material as well as to its addictiveness. In this vein, Dr Watson repeatedly stresses how many cases he has never presented to the public as for example in “The Adventure of the Second Stain”: “I have notes of many hundreds of cases to which I have never alluded” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 2: 1189). Cf. also Jamison’s discussion of the Sherlock Holmes material as the “first fanwriting fandom”, 40-70. <?page no="187"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 179 interpretations create a sense of deficiency in both genders and install an instability at the centre of late bourgeois relations that are a direct consequence of its bifurcation. This bifurcation and naturalization of gender and the problematic issue of sexuality in Victorian society and literature have been widely discussed (cf. for example Basch; Gordon and Nair; N. Armstrong). Doyle’s texts are part of this discourse on gender and gender relations, and they offer a complex panorama of changing notions of intimacy. Again, the canon makes more than clear that late bourgeois subject culture is in crisis, and it painstakingly attempts to establish a balance while at the same time acknowledging the frictions and fissures that characterize gender relations. The representation of Mary Morstan, Dr Watson’s romantic love interest in The Sign of Four, can provide important insights for the bifurcation of gender as well as for the ambivalence at the heart of bourgeois intimacies. At first glance, she directly corresponds to the notion of the moral guardian of domesticity and an emotional angelic presence who offers a space of respite from the dangers of the public sphere. Nowhere in the canon does this become more obvious than in the scene in which Dr Watson escorts Mary Morstan back to her home after they have found out about Bartholomew Sholto’s murder at Pondicherry Lodge. In the cab, Mary bursts into a “passion of weeping” although beforehand she had been “bright and placid” while consoling the Sholto’s frightened housekeeper. Watson explains this with the “angelic fashion of women”, who bear “trouble with a calm face as long as there was someone weaker than herself to support” (Doyle, Sign of Four 50). This puts him into a position of strength and creates a sense of dominant masculinity that Watson explicitly voices when thinking about his attraction towards Mary that he, as a gentleman, may not express in this situation: “She was weak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take her at a disadvantage to obtrude love upon her at such a time” (Doyle, Sign of Four 50). When Watson drops her off at her house and looks back, his description of the sight offered to him neatly encapsulates stereotypes of feminized domesticity: “I still seem to see that little group on the step - the two graceful, clinging figures, the half-opened door, the hall-light shining through stained glass, the barometer, and the bright stair-rods. It was soothing to catch even that passing glimpse of a tranquil English home in the midst of the wild, dark business which had absorbed us” (Doyle, Sign of Four 51). In this description, the bifurcation of late bourgeois spheres is blatantly obvious in the narrative use of binary oppositions: the shining hall-light that frames the women like a halo vs. the dark business of the men; the little group of two clinging women vs. the lone Watson; the domestic tranquillity of the English home vs. the wilderness that Watson has to venture into; and, finally, the signs of civilization and Englishness (the stained glass, the barometer, the stair-rods) vs. the wild bleakness of the silent streets of London which are described as a labyrinth later on. In addition, the description of the house is connected not only with <?page no="188"?> Sarah Heinz 180 an idealization of domesticity as the natural sphere of women, but with an intensely middle-class, bourgeois space that is different from both the dark and sprawling mansion of the Sholtos and the run-down “row of shabby, twostoreyed brick houses in the lower quarter of Lambeth”, which Watson visits next (Doyle, Sign of Four 51). In such descriptions femininity is combined with a sense of middle-class Englishness and the code of respectability. The notion of the bourgeois self as ‘the’ human subject thus intersectionally combines ethnicity, class, and gender into a normalized position and its ‘natural’ dispositions. This is typical for 19 th -century discourses of intimacy and domesticity, which became a key point in colonial systems of knowledge and power: “as domestic space became racialized, colonial space became domesticated” (McClintock 36). Race, gender, sexuality, and ideas of home and domesticity control and define each other and keep at bay what needs to be subjected by the white man’s spirit and enterprise, both in the shape of the externalized ‘primitive’ and of the ‘other within’, women. 12 This intersectionality of identity categories and normalization is already hinted at when Mary first comes to Baker Street and Watson uses a carefully chosen vocabulary of moderation and balance to describe her looks and demeanour (and thus implicitly also her Englishness): Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward composure of manner. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, however, a plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a suggestion of limited means. … Her face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic. In an experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents, I have never looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature. (Doyle, Sign of Four 13) Mary is neither too beautiful nor too fancily dressed, but she is also not too unattractive, too shy, too small, or too plainly dressed either. She is firm and composed (not hysterical or passionate), but she is also spiritual and sympathetic (not cold or dismissive). She therefore combines feminine attractiveness and middle-class moderation in an ideal measure. Watson’s assertion that his “experience of women … extends over many nations and three separate continents” reinforces this idealization because it adds a statistical sense of normality to his comparison (cf. Link’s discussion of the role of statistics and the bell curve in modernity’s ‘flexible normalism’, 51-59). Had Watson stated that he only had limited experience and knew only the women of one nation or even region, or had he stated that Mary’s face was the most beautiful of all 12 Cf. Catherine Hall’s discussion of this normalization of the white, male, middle-class position in the 19 th century. <?page no="189"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 181 women he had ever seen, then his elevation of her as a stand-in for a balanced femininity with a “refined and sensitive nature” would lack the weight of the kind of data-based rationality that is so central for detective fiction and the late bourgeois belief in science and rational method. In Mary’s ‘sensitive nature’ and Watson’s statistically influenced assessment of her the bifurcation between a rational male sphere and an emotional female sphere therefore again becomes obvious. But it also becomes obvious that the novel is more than careful to stress that both Mary’s femininity as well as Watson’s masculinity are in themselves well-balanced and able to integrate important features of the other gender into their own personalities (if in moderation). Mary might be an attractive ‘specialist of the heart’ but she is neither excessively sexual nor overly emotional (as many ‘exotic’, non-English women who are presented in the canon). Watson therefore emphasizes that even in stressful situations “her self-control was perfect” and “her sensitive face was composed but pale” (Doyle, Sign of Four 20). The same holds true for Watson. He might venture out into the wild, public spaces of the dark desert of London, has travelled far, and has experienced the “rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 528); still, he is also able to look back and feel consoled by images of half-opened doors and the golden light of domesticity. In contrast to Holmes, he therefore is ‘marriage material’. In this manner, the text establishes that the marriage between Mary and Watson is a “companionate marriage” (HS 141) between equals who might be attracted to each other but who are not sexually obsessed or overly passionate. 13 In its sometimes laboured endeavour for balance and inclusion, The Sign of Four thus impressively discloses the deep-seated feeling of deficiency in both genders as one central consequence of the bifurcation of late bourgeois subjectivity. Sherlock Holmes’ personality and his attitude towards women are interesting here, not so much for his sometimes open misogyny, which has been repeatedly noted (cf. for example Redmond 82-97), but again more for his excessiveness that counters the carefully manufactured balance of the relationship between Mary and Watson. Watson is very explicit about Holmes’ lack of balance in the introductory passages to “A Scandal in Bohemia”, where he 13 One indication for this is the scene in The Sign of Four in which Watson and Mary hold hands for the first time and Watson states that they “stood hand in hand like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us” (36). As the focus of my article is the late bourgeois subjectivity of Holmes and Watson, I cannot elaborate on Mary Morstan as a far more complex character than a simple image of idealized English domesticity and feminine moderation. Cf. for example Lawrence Frank who points out that Miss Morstan’s presentation and exotic clothing in The Sign of Four (she is wearing a turban with a feather) already hint at her connection with the colonial plot of the novel. He interprets her as a vision of Victorian orientalism identified with (and replacing) the Indian treasure as a projection of Western fantasies about women and the female body (62-64). <?page no="190"?> Sarah Heinz 182 contrast his “own complete happiness” and “home-centred interests” since having married to Holmes’ lifestyle, which is still divided between “cocaine and ambition” and “the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 6). Holmes’ rude reaction to Watson’s engagement to Mary Morstan at the end of The Sign of Four expresses this lack of interest in a late bourgeois intimacy which is based on a Romantic sense of attraction to and completion through the fundamentally different and oppositionally gendered counterpart (cf. HS 258): “‘I feared as much,’ said he. ‘I really cannot congratulate you.’” (Doyle, Sign of Four 117). Holmes also states in a later case: “Now, Watson, the fair sex is your department” (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 2: 1203). However, Holmes’ reasons for rejecting marriage and bourgeois ideals of intimate relations also fulfil or maybe even epitomize bourgeois norms of the male subject. As outlined above, the late 19 th century constructs masculinity around the public sphere of work, from which the male subject derives its identity and dignity. In this sphere, men can prove their sovereign self and train important abilities like decision-making, intelligence, or leadership. As a consequence, masculinity turns into the carrier of culture and civilization (cf. HS 264f.). With his prime interest in his work, which is so fundamentally based on rationality and science, Holmes seems to embody these masculine traits and constantly tries to acquire ever more skills and knowledge that he might need in the future. Emotions are to him, as Watson formulates, “abhorrent” and he therefore rejects intimacy with women who are ‘naturally’ connected to the realm of feelings: He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning machine that the world has seen; but, as a lover, he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. … Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 5) Here, Holmes’ mind is, as in many other passages from the canon, likened to a machine and devoid of emotions. This is why he sneers at women as ‘specialists of the heart’. He is also dismissive of their preoccupation with outward appearance and their intransparent motivations that can make his science of deduction difficult. In “The Adventure of the Second Stain” Holmes complains: And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected [because she turned her face away] … . No powder on her nose - that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling-tongs. (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 2: 1203f.) <?page no="191"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 183 In his excessive embracing of an idealized form of late bourgeois masculinity Holmes thus pinpoints the frictions of this subject culture and underlines its internal crisis. If he wants to fulfil the requirements of a bifurcated masculinity, he needs to reject femininity and its ‘natural’ occupation with emotion and turn himself into a ‘thinking machine’. The canon is peopled with numerous negative examples of ‘effeminate’ men like Thaddeus Sholto in The Sign of Four, ‘hysterical’ men like Percy Phelps in “The Naval Treaty”, or ‘castrated’ or deformed men like Henry Wood in “The Crooked Man”. With his supreme powers of observation, his superior intelligence, and an immense and sometimes superhuman control over his body and mind, Sherlock Holmes turns into a role model against which all these men, who often ask for the detective’s help, are measured. In reading about these deficient men and how the detective deals with them, Holmes then also served as a role model for the mostly male readers of The Strand: “Holmes could be paradigmatic” (Kestner 30). Yet, exactly because of its excessiveness in fulfilling norms and ideals, this paradigmatic enactment of masculinity threatens to uncover the deficiency of late bourgeois male subjects, and it rejects new ideals of marriage and sexual attraction that are at the heart of the biologistical re-interpretation of human nature based on reproduction and the naturalized complementarity of two fundamentally different genders. As could be expected, however, the canon complicates our view of Holmes even further. In spite of their repeated presentation of Holmes as a thinking machine, the novels and short stories also imply that there is a second side to the detective, as becomes specifically evident in his complex relationship to Dr Watson. This relationship, which started because both men are looking for someone to share the rent, quickly evolves into an intimate connection that gives often contradictory positions to each partner. Watson admits in A Study in Scarlet that “this man stimulated my curiosity” and that he “eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around my companion” (16). Like a love-sick girl, he creates a long and detailed list of Holmes’ knowledge and skills (cf. Doyle, Scarlet 18) and openly admires his friend’s intelligence, quickness, and exact deductions throughout their first case (an admiration that is even shared by the apprehended criminal, Jefferson Hope, who gazes at Holmes with “undisguised admiration” after his arrest, cf. Doyle, Scarlet 111). This admiration is presented in highly emotional terms that stress that Watson’s fascination provides him with mental stimulation. This fascination even goes so far as to make him publish and document his companion’s adventures, thus in effect giving him both a friend and an implicitly fetishized object of admiration in a life that Watson describes as otherwise “objectless”: “‘It is wonderful! ’ I cried. ‘Your merits should be publicly recognized. You should publish an account of the case. If you won’t, I will for you.’” (Doyle, Scarlet 16, 126). Coming back to Watson’s occupational identity, Watson here is less ‘the doctor’ than the faithful companion and chronicler of someone else’s life. In a later case, he <?page no="192"?> Sarah Heinz 184 even talks about his “humble but single-minded service” in his relation to Holmes (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 2: 1598). He turns into a feminized ‘relative creature’ that only exists for and in the relation with the great detective (cf. Basch). This feminization of Watson seems to reinforce Holmes’ excessive masculinity. However, it becomes abundantly clear that the positions in this relationship are as ambivalent as the protagonists’ subjectivities in general. While A Study in Scarlet introduces Watson’s admiration for his friend and companion’s abilities and his need for an object to admire, the novel equally points to Holmes’ need for such a relationship. For Holmes, Watson quickly turns into an “intimate friend and associate” and he often tells his clients that they “can speak as freely as before myself” when Watson is present (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 229). His reactions to Watson’s comments and deferential ejaculations in A Study in Scarlet disclose that he is “pleased at my evident surprise and admiration” (26), and twice in the novel Holmes uses the expression “I flatter myself” (37, 58) to talk about the results of his investigation. Watson puts this need for attention and admiration in a nutshell when he says: “My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty” (Doyle, Scarlet 38). In spite of its focus on intellectual activity and achievements of the mind, it seems that Holmes’ need for Watson as an admiring audience is not that different from the motivation of the woman who turns her face away because she does not have powder on her nose. The novel therefore partly affirms the late bourgeois bifurcation of gender by using notions of femininity and masculinity to make sense of the two men’s friendship and connection. But in the ambiguous attribution of masculine and feminine characteristics to both Holmes and Watson (often at the same time) it also questions their naturalization and thus their status as unchangeable building blocks of bourgeois subjectivity. The men’s ambiguous intimate connection remains central to both their lives even after Watson’s marriage to Mary Morstan, and it continues to be a central motif throughout the rest of the canon. At the beginning of “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Watson describes how he passes his formerly shared lodgings at Baker Street and glances up at Holmes’ windows. Watson’s description veers between stressing his married bliss and disclosing his longing for the shared intimacy with Holmes, and it again makes clear that it is difficult to tell who is the feminine and who is the masculine party in this relation: As I passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again … . His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. … To me who knew his every mood and <?page no="193"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 185 habit, his attitude and manner told their own story. … I rang the bell, and was shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own. (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 6) Watson starts the passage with his wooing of Mary Morstan (in The Sign of Four) and his first case with Holmes (in A Study in Scarlet). He thus combines two intensely remembered moments of initiation that started two lasting intimate relations and connects them with the simple copula ‘and’. However, his choice of words in the following sentences completely seems to blank out his wife and his “complete happiness” in marriage (Doyle, New Annotated Sherlock Holmes 1: 6), fully turning his attention onto his former companion. Watson is “seized with a keen desire” to see Holmes, he knows “his every mood and habit”, and his longing gaze up at the windows feels very much like that of someone stalking an object of love, following their moves, looking at their silhouette, and admiring their body behind the windows. His possessive claim to the “chamber which had formerly been in part my own” strengthens this impression of a nostalgia for a time in which his friendship with Holmes was intimate in terms of a mental, temporal, and spatial closeness that is now gone. This description seems to give Watson a masculine subject position as his gaze at the detective’s body and his location on a public street, from where he glances into Holmes’ domestic space, underline. Nevertheless, his urgent desire to see his friend and his awareness of the other man’s habits and moves point to a certain passive dependence and emotionality that would be more typical of late bourgeois images of femininity. In the end, it is impossible to decide in most if not all stories and novels of the canon how Watson and Holmes are coded in terms of gender within their complex relationship. What remains is the mutual affection of two protagonists who complement each other and whose relationship complicates binary notions of masculinity and femininity as well as narrow definitions of respectable intimacy. In their painstaking and sometimes failed attempts at keeping a balance between a discourse of intellectual admiration, English moderation, and the precarious vocabulary of love, the texts show how conflicted late bourgeois models of intimacy and the bifurcation of gender are. In terms of their masculinity, Watson and Holmes cannot be compromised by a relationship that is modelled on the kind of heterosexual union that is idealized and naturalized by the late Victorian era. Nevertheless, the texts use both the language of love and of companionship for the relationship between the two men as well as for the marriage-plot of Mary and Watson, thus reinforcing and criticizing the bifurcation of late bourgeois gender relations at the same time. <?page no="194"?> Sarah Heinz 186 5 Conclusion: Good Men and Rogues “Different periods can be identified by the range of possibilities available to writers, and the kinds of political, generic, and formal moves that come to be privileged as seemingly particularly useful or urgent”, writes Raphael Dalleo, pointing to literature and literary genres as crucial parts of their times and mentalities but also to literature as a means to deal with historical challenges and change (x). Detective fiction is no exemption from this: at a time in which late bourgeois subject culture was in crisis the genre came to be privileged because it could address anxieties and contain fears of the contemporary reader. In the character of the detective hopes and fears seem to find their ultimate outlet and solution: “In truth, such a detective - such an intellect - ought to exist, if only to bring order to apparent chaos and to introduce meaning into the otherwise inchoate and meaningless” (Ackroyd vii). The genre indeed promises to create order out of chaos, but in its story and plot, in the serialized reading process it enables, and in the subject model that it offers in protagonists like Watson and Holmes it also acknowledges contingency and complexity. In that sense, it is a genre for an era between Newton and Einstein (cf. Sinclair xiii), and it is an antidote against as well as symptom of the ambivalences at the heart of the ‘age of transition’: “[We can read] the Sherlock Holmes stories as a reflection of the mind of the times, which believed in, but needed reassurance about, the powers of scientific rationality to solve mysteries and maintain order” (Jann, Detecting Social Order 17). I therefore agree with Thomas that “nineteenth-century detective literature both reinforces and resists the disciplinary regime it represents, preserving the capacity to criticize the system in which it also functions as an integral part” (14). Instead of seeing the genre as either part of a culture of social discipline as D.A. Miller or claiming that it “necessarily opposes rather than collaborates” with such social discourses as Martin Kayman has put forward (Thomas 14, cf. Kayman), detective fiction does both: it offers the reader a soothing vision of maintained order in each case that is solved, but it also manages to reflect on the problematic frictions and contradictions within that order and within the social relations and subject models that the detective has to negotiate. As readers of detective fiction, we are trained in the navigation of such frictions and in accepting or even cherishing the contingencies these frictions make palpable. Although the genre offers consoling moments of order and containment and a model for the reader’s subjectivity, we, just like Holmes, often look for exactly those moments that disrupt a subject culture’s normative order. Holmes’ and Watson’s ambiguous occupational identities, their often close connection and similarity to their anti-subjects, and their shifting gendered ascriptions in intimate relations full of discrepancies and contradictions uncover the internal frictions of a subject culture that had become hegemonic <?page no="195"?> Sherlock Holmes and Late Victorian Subjectivities 187 and had posed as a universal model for ‘the’ human subject. As the canon illustrates, the sense of a sovereign, moderate, and self-reliant self normalized by bourgeois subject culture is an illusion, specifically for a character like Sherlock Holmes, who is highly rational and irrational, masculine and feminine, needy but also extremely self-reliant, a sovereign subject and a dependent object at the same time. In his introduction to A Study in Scarlet, Ian Sinclair accordingly formulates: “Holmes is the classically divided man that the age required: alchemist and rigorous scientific experimenter, furious walker and definitive slacker, athlete and dope fiend. … Holmes is forever lurching between incompatible polarities” (xi). In a strikingly self-aware comment at the end of The Sign of Four, Doyle has Holmes quote Goethe to express these tensions within his character: “there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer, and also a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of those lines of old Goethe: Schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf, Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff [“Nature, alas, made only one being out of you although there was material for a good man and a rogue”]” (117). Maybe it is one of the lasting attractions of Sherlock Holmes and his adventures that he is a good man and a rogue, and up to the present day and in an increasing diversity of media readers still delight in Holmes as an ambivalent bourgeois. Acknowledgements I want to thank the participants of my two seminars on Sherlock Holmes and detective fiction at the University of Mannheim and Humboldt-University of Berlin for their productive discussions, their enthusiasm about the material, and their impressive powers of deduction. A big thank you also goes out to my friend, companion, and fellow Sherlockian Lars Kaczmirek, who has persevered through many conversations, long audiobooks, and hours of filmic versions of the great detective without complaint: ‘Brilliant, Holmes! ’ - ‘Elementary, my dear Watson.’ *** Sarah Heinz is currently Visiting Professor at the Department of English and American Studies at Humboldt-University, Berlin. She taught English Literary and Cultural Studies at the Universities of Passau and Mannheim, where she was a Junior Professor from 2008 to 2014. From January to April 2015, she spent three months as a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She received her PhD for a study on postmodern identities in A.S. Byatt’s novels, which was published in 2007. In 2014 she finished her postdoctoral degree (Habilitation) on Critical Whiteness Studies and intersectionality <?page no="196"?> Sarah Heinz 188 in Irish literature and film. Her research interests include postcolonial theory, contemporary Irish, English, and Anglophone literature and film, identity theory, and contemporary drama. She was the principal investigator on three funded projects, and her publications include articles on Irish and British drama, film and the novel, Victorian poetry, contemporary adaptions of Shakespeare, and on teaching English literature in the university classroom. Bibliography Ackroyd, Peter. Introduction. The Sign of Four. By Arthur Conan Doyle. London: Penguin, 2001. vii-xvii. Print. Altick, Richard. Victorian People and Ideas. London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1974. Print. Armstrong, Isobel. Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics and Politics. London: Routledge, 1993. Print. Armstrong, Nancy. “When gender meets sexuality in the Victorian novel.” The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel. 2 nd edition. Ed. Deirdre David. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge UP, 2012. 170-92. Print. Basch, Françoise. 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Print. Young, Robert. Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. London: Routledge, 2002. Print. <?page no="201"?> Nora Kuster Bringing Down the House: De/ constructing 20 th -Century Middle-Class Subjectivity in J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise J.G. Ballard’s novel, published in 1975, portrays the middle class as facing a crisis in the wake of technological, social, and political change in the second half of the 20 th century. It locates the conflict within a middle-class housing community in London: High-Rise (HR) takes place in a state-of-the-art apartment building, “a huge machine designed to serve, not the collective body of tenants, but the individual resident in isolation”, which is located in the Docklands two miles from the City of London (HR 10). On the surface, the inhabitants are affluent, well-educated, and cultured professionals who are employed as doctors, lawyers, and teachers (to name just a few). They constitute the moral pillars of society. However, soon violence erupts and threatens to destroy the social fabric of the community. High-Rise envisions a middle class at war with itself and challenges the idea of a homogenous middle-class identity and subjectivity. In the novel, the domestic sphere, which has often been portrayed as a safe haven and rejuvenating power for middle-class subjectivity, becomes the source and locus of extreme conflict. What makes the text especially compelling, is that it highlights the way in which material culture interweaves with behavioural practices to in/ form an individual’s identity and subjectivity. The novel does so by depicting the high-rise building both as an epitome of the idealized subject codes of organised modernity and as a site for the articulation of alternative subject forms. The characters in High- Rise grapple with the transition from modern to postmodern society, a process that pushes them to their intellectual (and physical) limits. Precisely because Ballard’s novel offers a dystopian portrait of the friction and tension that arise as one subject form replaces another, Andreas Reckwitz’ work on subject culture is a useful lens through which the novel can be examined. His work on the transformation of subject culture from a bourgeois to a postmodern subjectivity is especially pertinent as it provides a new interpretive frame for Ballard’s text. Many scholars have commented upon Ballard’s preoccupation with aberrant or violent subjectivities, and what I show is that the ‘everyday pathology’ exhibited by the characters in the novels can be placed within a discussion of the transformation of subject culture in the 20 th century. High-Rise can be read as an illustration of the transition from the post- <?page no="202"?> Nora Kuster 194 bourgeois subject culture of the organisation man to that of the post-bureaucratic culture of post-modernity. Specifically, it can be placed within the framework of Reckwitz’ writing on the countercultural movements, which are a manifestation of the inherent fissures of each dominant subject culture. In High-Rise, the emergence of a countercultural response takes place right at the centre of society within a group that is traditionally seen as the foundation of ‘civilized’ society. Furthermore, the space of the high-rise plays an important role in providing a milieu that is conducive for this process. The novel draws our attention to how space, in the sense of both a physical location and the socio-cultural meanings attached to it, is instrumental in the articulation of a subject culture. As Reckwitz explains “transformations of material culture, especially in the areas of transportation-, information-, organisation-, production-, and urban construction technologies, initiate new social practices, which in turn facilitate the emergence of new subject codes especially through the restructuring of space and time” (HS 275). The high-rise is the perfect environment for the social practices of post-bourgeois subject culture, just like a miniature city it allows for social collectivity. In Ballard’s novel, the high-rise functions as a sort of pressure-cooker that amplifies the tensions of organised modernity up to the point of social break-down while also providing an arena in which new forms of subjectivity can develop. The threat to and break-down of civilized society is a recurring trope in Ballard’s work, and critics have extensively focused on the extent to which Ballard’s portrayal of technology and its potential sinister influence can serve as a caution to the reader. Two prominent voices are Jeanette Baxter and Andrzej Gasiorek, who in their book-length studies have in detail discussed the function of violence in Ballard’s various works. Similarly to Gasiorek, J. Carter Wood also reads High-Rise as a study of humans reverting to anti-social behaviour, essentially entering upon a de-civilizing process brought on by the enclosure of the high-rise building. As Wood points out, this appears to be a persistent theme in Ballard’s writing, where “[his] interest in the darker side of human psychology combines with an awareness of the fragility of civilized social relationships. … [and as such the] inherently unstable nature of civilized life is a consistent theme across Ballard’s oeuvre” (202). Wood draws upon Norbert Elias’ theory of the ‘civilizing process’ to argue that the novel highlights the dangers of destabilized social ties and isolated living conditions propagated by the tower block, where violence re-enters “formerly pacified public spaces”, signalling the building’s descent into a “decivilizing spiral” (205). He closes by saying that “Ballard depicts a wilful - and oddly fulfilling - dismantling of civilizing mechanisms”, further suggesting “intensely controlled societies might generate new forms of ‘psychopathology’” (206). The inhabitants of the high-rise most certainly cast aside any semblance of what might be called ‘civilized’ behaviour, but instead of placing this within <?page no="203"?> Middle-Class Subjectivity in J.G. Ballard’s High Rise 195 a discourse of degeneration and regression, I propose to read the novel as an example of the transformation of subject culture and place it within the context of what has been called in German sociological discourse the “Angestelltensubjekt”. The term is often translated with “white-collar worker” in English, even though Reckwitz uses the term “organisation man” in his essay “Creative Subject and Modernity: Towards an Archeology of the Cultural Construction of Creativity” and in reference to William Whyte’s seminal text of the same name. High-Rise takes place at the point of transformation from a modern subject culture to a postmodern one and this is where Reckwitz’ work provides a different interpretative framework. The characters in High-Rise do not merely adapt to changing social conditions brought on by technological, social, and cultural changes. Instead, they attempt (some more successful than others) to articulate new subjectivities and formulate new subject codes. The three male protagonists align with three subject forms: Dr. Laing can be characterized as the professional bourgeois subject, Royal is the manager-engineer of organised modernity, and Wilder inhabits the in-between space of the avant-garde transgressive subject but also exhibits aspects of the countercultural subject of the 1960s and 70s. Their struggle with each other, as well as the other inhabitants of the high-rise, can be interpreted as a transitory phase between two dominant subject cultures where “an elementary and often violent struggle ensues over the cultural formation of the ‘new human’” (HS 284). Reckwitz explores this notion in the context of the erosion of bourgeois subject culture and the eventual institution of organisation man as the dominant subject form, and locates this within the historical timeframe of the 1920s and 30s. The technological and cultural realities of High-Rise place it at a later chronological time, which in turn supports Reckwitz’ theory. He repeatedly stresses that the subject cultures are not monolithic blocks, but overlapping structures. The presence of the different subject forms within the mid-20 th century setting serves to illustrate how even though one subject form might be dominant and idealized, other forms will still co-exist. Furthermore, the resolution of the novel demonstrates how the successful survivors will incorporate aspects of the various subject cultures to articulate what can be described as postmodern subjectivities. On the following pages, I will discuss how High-Rise takes organised modernity’s missive of social normativity to its logical conclusion; what has been interpreted as extreme behaviour does in fact conform to the rules and normative behaviour codes propagated by the dominant subject culture of the high-rise. I will at first explore the high-rise as a manifestation of the idealized subject codes of organised modernity, then I will analyse the three male protagonists and their prototypical function in the novel, before finally explicating the wider implications of the surviving characters. <?page no="204"?> Nora Kuster 196 1 The High-Rise The structure of the high-rise embodies the social practices and idealized subject codes of organised modernity. It bundles the three social fields of occupational identities, intimate relationships, and technologies of the self in one space. In the beginning, there is a clear distinction between the professional and the private life of the tenants, as most leave the building for their respective places work every day. However, as events unfold many stay in the building and the private life of the tenancy becomes their occupation. This is further underscored by the fact that the tenants are also the owners of the building: “The tenants corporately owned the building, which they administered themselves through a resident manager and his staff” (HR 9). In addition, the building offers not just private apartments but also opportunities for leisure time activities. It contains “an impressive range of services”: a supermarket, a bank, a hairdressing salon, two swimming pools, a sauna, a gymnasium, a liquor store, a junior school, and a small restaurant (HR 9). Hence, the space of the building merges the public and the private sphere. Reckwitz explains that one of the defining structural characteristics of organised modernity is the “organisation of the social”, not just in regard to the occupational field but also of the private sphere and leisure time activities (HS 283). Furthermore, the hierarchical structure of the building represents the social organisation of the subject culture of the organisation man. Reckwitz uses the term “peer society” to describe the new organisation of social relations both on the professional and private level (HS 287). At first glance, the inhabitants are a homogenous peer group, with similar interests and life style: “The two thousand tenants formed a virtually homogenous collection of well-to-do professional people - lawyers, doctors, tax consultants, senior academics, and advertising executives, along with a smaller group of airline pilots, film-industry technicians, and trios of air-hostesses sharing apartments”(HR 10). They form a group with “the same tastes and attitudes, fads and styles - clearly reflected in the choice of automobiles in the parking lot that surrounded the high-rise, in the elegant but somewhat standardized way they furnished their apartments, in the selection of sophisticated foods in the supermarket delicatessen, in the tones of their self-confident voices” (HR 10). Nonetheless, there are already professional distinctions; the “trios of air-hostesses” who share apartments do not enjoy the same social status as the lawyers, doctors, and tax consultants. As soon as the last tenant has moved into the building, these differences become more apparent as the location of an apartment within the building also corresponds to the social position of the inhabitant within the peer group. The airhostesses are within a distinct social circle from the people inhabiting the penthouses, such as the jeweller and his <?page no="205"?> Middle-Class Subjectivity in J.G. Ballard’s High Rise 197 wife, or the architect Anthony Royal. 1 Robert Laing is one of the few who transcends his peer group; even though he resides on the 25 th floor, he regularly plays squash with Royal. This social stratification becomes more apparent still, through other lifestyle details such as the distribution of children and dogs. The first act of violence to occur after the building has reached “critical mass” (i.e. is fully occupied) is the drowning of an Afghan hound in the communal pool. Laing investigates the event and suspects that this act of violence is meant to provoke the inhabitants of the upper floors: Surprised by his own suspicions, Laing made a second circuit of the pool. Something convinced him that the dog’s drowning had been a provocative act, intended to invite further retaliation in its turn. The presence of the fifty or so dogs in the high-rise had long been a source of irritation. Almost all of them were owned by residents on the top ten floors - just as, conversely, most of the children lived in the lower ten. Together the dogs formed a set of over-pampered pedigree pets whose owners were not noticeably concerned for their fellow tenants’ comfort and privacy. The dogs barked around the car-parks when they were walked in the evening, fouling the pathways between cars. On more than one occasion elevator doors were sprayed with urine. Laing had heard Helen Wilder complain that, rather than use their five high-speed elevators which carried them from a separate entrance lobby directly to the top-floors, the dog-owners habitually transferred to the lower-level elevators, encouraging their pets to use them as lavatories. This rivalry between the dog-owners and the parents of small children had in a sense already polarized the building. Between the upper and lower floors the central mass of apartments - roughly from the 10th floor to the 30th - formed a buffer state. (HR 23) The distribution of children and dogs along opposite ends of the high-rise disrupts the notion of a peer society that is composed of social equals. The tensions between the parents and the dog owners highlight how the idealized subject form of the organisation man is under pressure. Even though there is a large middle group acting as a buffer between the two poles, the lifestyle differences will contribute to a fissure within the peer group. This is demonstrated by one of Laing’s neighbours, Dr. Steele who is a dental surgeon, and his reaction to a power outage on the 9 th floor: Steele watched them unsympathetically. […] ‘They are always complaining about something,’ Steele confided to Laing as they stepped into an elevator. ‘If it isn’t this, it’s that. They seem to be unwilling to accept that the services in a 1 It is important to note here that Royal is “a former member of the consortium which had designed the development project [of the high-rise]” and only played a minor role in its design (HR 15). Nonetheless, in the eyes of the other inhabitants he assumes the role of sole architect and is seen as responsible for its shortcomings (especially by Wilder). <?page no="206"?> Nora Kuster 198 new building take time to settle down. […] Steele shook his head. ‘They persistently overload the master-fuses with their elaborate stereo-systems and unnecessary appliances. Electronic baby-minders because the mothers are too lazy to get out of their easy chairs, special mashers for their children’s food …’ […] The punitive tone in Steele’s voice, as if he were describing a traditionally feckless band of migrant workers rather than his well-to-do neighbours, came as a surprise to Laing. He knew casually a few of the 9th floor residents - a sociologist who was a friend of Charlotte Melville’s, and an air-traffic controller who played string trios with friends on the 25 th floor, an amusing and refined man to whom Laing often talked as he carried his cello into the elevator. But distance lent disenchantment. (HR 24f.) Steele’s reaction exemplifies the ambivalences of the subject culture of the organisation man. According to Reckwitz, the subject culture of organised modernity requires the subject to adhere to an egalitarian social normalism, conforming to the standards of peer society. At the same time however, the subject culture propagates within the subject the need to constantly compare itself to other subjects, thus honing a sense for individual differences and articulating categories of individuality (cf. HS 434). Indeed, Reckwitz argues that “by establishing a standard of ‘social ethics’ the subject culture does not minimize a sense of individualism in the subject, but rather cultivates it” (HS 434). One of the mechanisms that ensures the “empathic social orientation” of the subjects is the constant inter-subjective surveillance in which the subjects judge their observations by the prevailing standards of normativity (HS 435). This process leads to the subject developing a sensorium for inter-individual differences, particularly with regard to those aspects that the subjects disagree on (cf. HS 435). Steele’s description of the parents as a “traditionally feckless band of migrant workers” exemplifies this discord. From a distance, the inhabitants of the high-rise appear to be part of the same peer society; however, closer inspection reveals dissonances that will ultimately lead to the delegitimation of the dominant form of subject culture within the high-rise. The building itself has a transformative effect on the characters. Laing reflects upon his interaction with Steele, and observes that the high-rise appears to be bringing about “[a] new social type, […], a cool, unemotional personality impervious to the psychological pressures of high-rise life, with minimal needs for privacy, who thrived like an advanced species of machine in the neutral atmosphere”(HR 35). The building, as physical manifestation of organised modernity, supports the dominant subject culture’s code of social normativity: By its very efficiency, the high-rise took over the task of maintaining the social structure that supported them all. For the first time it removed the need to repress every kind of anti-social behaviour, and left them free to explore any deviant or wayward impulses. It was precisely in these areas that the most interesting aspects of their lives would take place. Secure within the shell of <?page no="207"?> Middle-Class Subjectivity in J.G. Ballard’s High Rise 199 the high-rise like passengers on board an automatically piloted airliner, they were free to behave in any way they wished, explore the darkest corners they could find. In many ways, the high-rise was a model for all that technology had done to make possible the expression of a truly ‘free’ psychopathology. (HR 35f.) The building does not just allow for anti-social behaviour to happen; the subjects within define the ‘new normal’: “In opposition to the norms of bourgeois subject culture, the standards of normality […] constitute a standard mean and as such are constantly in flux and malleable”(HS 363). Peer society decides what is and what is not appropriate behaviour. High-Rise then is not about abnormal subjectivity, but instead the process of negotiating new standards of normality. 2 2 The Male Triad of Organised Modernity: Wilder/ Laing/ Royal A closer examination of the three male protagonists reveals the inherent tensions of organised modernity, and serves to illustrate the way different subject cultures overlap and assimilate aspects of the proceeding subject culture(s). Initially, the character constellation of the male protagonists represents the social and professional order of organised modernity. Within the context of the high-rise, the three characters Wilder/ Laing/ Royal align with the three levels of an organisation: Wilder, a television journalist, represents the lowerlevel worker; Laing, the physician and medical lecturer, as the mid-level management; and finally Royal, one of the architects of the building, who can be aligned with what Reckwitz refers to as the “manager-engineer”: Work becomes the object of efficient inter-subjective as well as inter-objective coordination and its ideal subject form is the ‘manager-engineer’, who coordinates both people and objects. The post-bourgeois occupational subject in its incarnation as ‘organization man’ trains itself via social adjustment to [conform] to the social collective, while also engaging in a ‘personality salesmanship’ that adheres to the [enforced] hierarchies. (HS 287) Royal (as his name implies) belongs to the upper social tier of the high-rise. He is married to a woman of means, who is not entirely happy in the highrise. One key aspect seems to be the technological nature of the building: “[Anne] had been brought up in the isolated world of a large country house, 2 Jürgen Link’s work on normality and normativity provides a useful framework for this process. He advances the thesis that “normality” and “normativity” represent two distinct discursive complexes that have evolved over the past couple of hundred years. He further asserts that “the transitions between normality and abnormality are quantitatively fluid; there is no difference and distinction of being” (Link in Hall 27). This ‘flexible normalism’ evolved during the 20 th century, a concept that Link further explores in his book Versuch über den Normalismus. <?page no="208"?> Nora Kuster 200 a finicky copy of a Loire chateau maintained by a staff of servants in the fullblown nineteenth-century manner”(HR 71). Her dislike of the high-rise can be read as clash between the idealized subject codes of bourgeois and organised modernity, with her belonging to the former and Royal to the latter: In the apartment building, by contrast, the servants who waited on her were an invisible army of thermostats and humidity sensors, computerized elevator route-switches and over-riders, playing their parts in a far more sophisticated and abstract version of the master-servant relationship. However, in Anne’s world it was not only necessary for work to be done, but to be seen to be done. (HR 72) Her father was a wealthy industrialist, and one could assume that her need for work to “be seen to be done” is a remnant of the bourgeois subject code of utility, where people ought to be engaged in useful occupations. Royal’s contribution to the design of the building can be read as the technical coordination of both objects and the subjects that reside in the building. Quite tellingly, he designed the many social spaces of the building that now have become the most contested and vandalized: For all his professional identification with the high-rise as one of its architects, Royal’s contribution had been minor, but sadly for him had concerned those very sections which had borne the brunt of the residents’ hostility - the 10 th floor concourse, the junior school, the observation roof with its children’s sculpture-garden, and the furnishing and design of the elevator lobbies. Royal had gone to immense care in the choice of wall surfaces, now covered by thousands of aerosolled obscenities. (HR 69) He is forced to admit that the high-rise is failing in its function, both on the structural level (with falling water-pressure and recurring electrical outages), but also as a social construct - just like peer society the building is “moribund” (HR 68). Indeed, once it becomes apparent that things are going awry, Royal wonders why an organisational system that works for a corporation has been unsuccessful for the high-rise. Royal was certain that a rigid hierarchy of some kind was the key to the elusive success of these huge building. As he often pointed out to Anne, office blocks containing as many as thirty thousand workers functioned smoothly for decades thanks to a social hierarchy as rigid and formalized as an anthill’s, with an incidence of crime, social unrest, and petty misdemeanours that was virtually nil. The confused but unmistakable emergence of this new social order - apparently based upon small tribal enclaves - fascinated Royal. [...] Without realizing it, he had given these people a means of escaping into a new life, and a pattern of social organization that would become the paradigm of all future high-rise blocks. (HR 70) Royal functions as the prototypical organisation man; his response to the challenge to the dominant subject order is to try to revert to a more stringent social <?page no="209"?> Middle-Class Subjectivity in J.G. Ballard’s High Rise 201 organisation, a “rigid hierarchy”. He takes charge of the upper floors and organizes the inhabitants, in an effort to stop the lower floors’ inhabitants from encroaching upon his kingdom. Royal, in his white suit, canine companion, and privileged vantage point from the top of the high-rise, represents a modern subjectivity that incorporates aspects of the 19 th -century bourgeois subject culture. His marriage to a wife with money and higher social status than himself (but still ‘bourgeois’ and not aristocratic) further supports this reading. This interpretation aligns with Reckwitz’ explanation that even though the subject culture of organised modernity breaks with that of bourgeois modernity on some levels, it also incorporates specific codes and habituses of the preceding subject culture (cf. HS 432). However, he is quite literally ‘a dying breed’. The Alsatian dog that Laing is roasting over a fire of telephone directories in the opening scene of the novel belonged to Royal. The dog’s demise (and consumption by Laing) symbolizes the end of the vision that Royal had for the building as well as the end of organised modernity as the dominant subject culture. As Royal quite correctly observes, the high-rise gives its occupants “a means of escaping into a new life, […] a [new] pattern of social organization”, as demonstrated by the two other male protagonists, Wilder and Laing. In the novel, Wilder seeks to challenge what he perceives to be Royal’s privileged position, and critics have read this as the representation of a classic, Marxian class struggle. However, even though the two can be placed within the framework of the subject culture of the organisation man, they at the same time also represent different types of subjectivities. Wilder is quite literally groping his way towards a postmodern subjectivity. His determination to capture the events on film with his camera, his many sexual conquests, as well as his transgression of the hierarchical organisation of the high-rise can be read as an attempt of articulating a new type of subjectivity that combines aspects of the avant-garde transgressive subject with that of the counterculture subject. He stands out from his peers, and Laing describes him as “a thick-set, pugnacious man who had once been a professional rugby-league player” (HR 14), who lives with his wife and two kids on the second floor. “The noisy parties he held with his friends on the lower levels - airline pilots and airline hostesses sharing apartments - had already put him at the centre of various disputes. […] However, [Laing] liked Wilder with his loud voice and rugbyscrum manners. He let a needed dimension of the unfamiliar into the apartment block” (HR 14). While Royal exemplifies the professional subject of organised modernity, Wilder can be interpreted as an aesthetic and expressionistic countercultural subject. He exemplifies the emerging audio-visual technologies of the self as well as an ideal of flexibility that will later be adopted by postmodern subject culture. Flexibility refers here to “vitality free from social control” (HS 302); the expressionistic subject focuses on both phys- <?page no="210"?> Nora Kuster 202 ical and sexual expressivity, aiming to set free the whole psychophysical human being through acts of erratic, emotional, and explicit taboo-breaking (cf. HS 303). Wilder, it is revealed, drowned the Afghan hound, and repeatedly engages in illicit affairs with various female occupants of the building. As the story progresses, he becomes more and more obsessed with his own body - constantly touching or smelling himself: “Wilder sat forward, cradling his heavy head in his fists. […] he was continually touching himself, for ever inspecting the hair on his massive calves, smelling the backs of his scarred hands, as if he had just discovered his own body”(HR 15). On the one hand, his extra-marital sexual exploits could be read as conforming to the prevailing standards of the high-rise’s peer society. On the other hand, they could also, in conjunction with his escalating violence, be positioned within the transgressive countercultural subject’s focus on “subversive experience expansion” through an engagement with the “amoral Other of bourgeois subject culture” that consists of the “primitive, the sexually perverse, as well as the criminal and uncontrollably violent” (cf. HS 296f.). Wilder’s character, even though he appears to be a simplistic brute, gains depth when examined through the lens of Reckwitz’ theory. His narrative often provides a cinematic perspective of the building and the events that unfold. He initially plans to make a documentary about the high-rise with his lightweight cine-camera, an intention that reflects the multi-medial technologies of the self that are so characteristic for organised modernity and its subject culture (cf. HR 43, 51f.). Envisioning the way he would film the building allows him to express his sentiments and feelings. Wilder has a very negative view of the high-rise: […] Wilder was convinced that the high-rise apartment was an insufficiently flexible shell to provide the kind of home which encouraged activities, as distinct from somewhere to eat and sleep. Living in high-rises required a special type of behaviour, one that was acquiescent, restrained, even perhaps slightly mad. A psychotic would have a ball here, Wilder reflected. (HR 52) The last sentence - “A psychotic would have a ball here” - seems to contradict the one preceding it; however, it actually summarises the social code of normativity of organised modernity. The successful subject must acquiesce to the prevailing standards of normality; it must retrain itself within the confines of its peer society’s standards, and to accomplish this it must be “slightly mad” casting aside the bourgeois code of an inner morality. Interestingly, in High-Rise, televisions and cameras, with their attendant audio-visual culture are omnipresent. One of the recurring, and foreshadowing, images is the news footage of a prison unrest (HR 30, 42, 44, 45) that is streamed into the living rooms of the high-rise’s inhabitants. <?page no="211"?> Middle-Class Subjectivity in J.G. Ballard’s High Rise 203 Behind Charlotte, as she spoke, her television set was showing the newsreel of an attempted prison break-out. The sound had been turned down, and the silent images of crouching warders and police, and the tiers of barricaded cells, flickered between her legs. Everyone in the high-rise, Laing reflected, watched television with the sound down. The same images glowed through his neighbours’ doorways when he returned to his apartment. (HR 30) As events turn violent in the building, the residents start to film each other as well as the various acts of aggression. “Wishing that he had brought his camera with him, he noticed two 18 th floor residents, a chemical engineer and a personnel manager, standing by the door. Each had a cine-camera and was carefully filming the scene below, following Wilder as he climbed towards them.” (HR 62) The audio-visual culture also invades the social field of intimacy, not just capturing images of violence but also sex: “The theatre was now screening a private programme of blue movies, including one apparently made on the premises with locally recruited performers” (HR 31). Finally, as the novel progresses and electricity becomes scarce, the cameras morph into weapons, being used as clubs and sticks. In the end, both Royal and Wilder die - after Wilder shoots Royal, he is killed on the rooftop by a group of women, which includes his wife. Laing is the only male protagonist to survive, and I would argue that is because he is the most successful at articulating a new subjectivity. Dr. Robert Laing is a senior lecturer in physiology at the new medical school. Newly divorced, he was seeking “peace, quiet, and anonymity” (HR 7) at the high-rise, a wish that seems to be fulfilled as the defining qualities of his new life are “space, light, and the pleasure of a subtle kind of anonymity” (HR 9). Initially his life there is markedly different from his previous experience in the city that consisted of “crowded streets, traffic hold-ups, rush-hour journeys on the Underground […] and a shared office in the old teaching hospital” (HR 9). Laing does not conform to the subject codes of the dominant subject culture (as embodied by his neighbours). He is “[fond of] pre-lunch cocktails, … [and] nude sunbathing on the balcony” (HR 11), which together with his “generally raffish air” appears to unnerve his “pushy fashion-consultant” neighbour who feels that “at the age of thirty Laing should have been working twelve hours a day in a fashionable consultancy, and be in every way as self-aggrandizing as her husband” (HR 12). He is uneasy with the required sociability of his immediate neighbours, and prefers to socialize in one-on-one settings. His professional identity as both a physician and an academic, as well as his initial reluctance to participate in the laissez-faire sexuality culture of the high-rise mark him as a bourgeois subject, or at least a little out of step with the peer society of the high-rise. Sex was one thing, […], that the high-rise potentially provided in abundance. Bored wives, dressed up as if for a lavish midnight gala on the observation roof, hung around the swimming-pools and restaurants in the slack hours of <?page no="212"?> Nora Kuster 204 the early afternoon, or strolled arm-in-arm along the 10th-floor concourse. Laing watched them with a fascinated but cautious eye. For all his feigned cynicism, he knew that he was in a vulnerable zone in this period soon after his divorce - one happy affair, with Charlotte Melville or somebody else, and he would slip straight into another marriage. He had come to the high-rise to get away from all relationships. Even his sister’s presence, and the reminders of their high-strung mother, a doctors’ widow slowly sliding into alcoholism, at one time seemed too close to comfort. (HR 13) Nonetheless, once events start to unfold, Laing is just as caught up in them as everyone else. He does sleep with Charlotte; however, his perspective on the sexual encounter has markedly changed from his previous assessment: “Laing knew that, almost as an illustration of the paradoxical logic of the highrise, their relationship would end rather than begin with first sexual act. In a real sense it would separate them from each other rather than bring them together.” (HR 38) This change in his attitude towards intimate relationships marks the beginning of his transformation towards a postmodern subject. Sex is no longer about forging a connection with one special partner, but rather becomes a tool for self-discovery and -expression. The violence and vandalism occurring in the high-rise have a similar effect on him. When Adrian Talbot, another of Laing’s neighbours, is beaten up and his apartment is ransacked, the violence excites rather than scares him: Laing and his neighbours assembled in Adrian Talbot’s apartment. Here they sat on the living room floor among the broken tables and the easy chair with their slashed cushions. The torches at their feet formed a circle of light, shining on the bottles of whiskey and vodka they shared together. Arm in a sling, the psychiatrist moved around his vandalized apartment [...] Talbot seemed more numbed by the personal hostility in these anti-homosexual obscenities [aerosolled across his walls] than by the whole-sale destruction of his apartment, but in spite of himself Laing found them stimulating. (HR 108) High-Rise deconstructs the idea of a monolithic 20 th -century middle-class subjectivity through its portrayal and treatment of the male protagonists. Andreas Reckwitz’ work on subject cultures provides a useful vocabulary to describe the different characters and their development in the novel. Anthony Royal embodies the ideals of the organisation man subject. It is quite poignant that he is a “broken man” due to the accident he had on the building-site of the high-rise. Richard Wilder has the potential to articulate a new, post-modern subjectivity through his utilisation of the transgressive subject model and by channelling his creative powers (the documentary), while also fully engaging with his pleasure-directed behavior, but he fails. Dr. Robert Laing is the only successful male (subject), who (quite literally) survives. He embraces a new way of ordering his intimate relationships, he rejects the peer group mentality of organised modernity, and he starts to reconfigure the technologies of the self for his personal use. <?page no="213"?> Middle-Class Subjectivity in J.G. Ballard’s High Rise 205 3 “A new social type”: The Emerging Postmodern Subject Culture In the beginning, the occupants are portrayed as a monolithic, uniform group with similar interests and values, a group of subjects fully engaged and invested in the subject culture of organised modernity. The inhabitants are all ‘cogs in a machine’, whose intimate and close relationships follow the standards of the peer group, and who utilise multi-medial technologies of the self. However, it is exactly in these aspects that the high-rise literally and figuratively speaking develops cracks and then disintegrates. It is here that a gendered reading actually provides a more nuanced interpretation of the novel. Initially the female characters are mainly confined to the roles of frigid neurotic homemakers or cold, calculating nymphomaniacs. Laing’s sister reminds him of their “high-strung mother”(HR 13); Wilder’s wife has lost all her panache and is described as “withdrawn” (HR 45), “exhausted”, “numbed”, and “stoop-shouldered”(HR 133); Anna (Royal’s wife) appears to be a flirtatious, spoilt, upper-class snob unsuited to a life outside of the confines of the country house; the unnamed house-wives “roam the shopping concourse looking for illicit affairs” (HR 13). The important thing to remember here is that the third person narration is mostly focalized through one of the male protagonists, i.e. Laing, Wilder, or Royal. Hence, the view the reader gets of the events in the high-rise is decidedly skewed and provides a reflection of the values of the organisation man subject, not woman. As the social fabric of the high-rise begins to break down, the female characters emerge as the victorious survivors. The first indication of this turn is the woman Wilder meets in the service elevator, who has devised a system of travel for herself and is able to move (more or less freely) through the highrise. With her help, Wilder encounters several sets of female-only groups who have transcended the floor-centric peer groups and banded together. The women have broken out of their prescribed peer groups that were kept in place by the spatial divisions of the high-rise. Furthermore, they have rejected the leisure activities and codes of sociability previously enforced by the subject culture of organisation man. They no longer aimlessly prowl the shopping concourse dressed in expensive evening gowns, nor spend their time shopping. Instead, they have claimed the roof-top garden as their own, rejecting the rigid spatial divisions of the high-rise, including the spaces designed for ‘sociable’ consumption, such as the shops and the movie theatre. The surviving characters are transforming themselves from post-bourgeois to post-modern subjects. The parameters for subjectivity have been redefined. The role sexuality plays is one example. Within the context of organised modernity, visual culture became more sexualised, and some of the strict norms governing sexuality disappeared. On the one hand, this resulted in a more liberated sexuality for women, but on the other, women’s bodies were also represented as more sexualised in popular culture. The relationship that <?page no="214"?> Nora Kuster 206 Alice and Eleanor have developed (even though there are definitely incestuous undertones between Alice and her brother) can be seen as an extension of the liberation movement. The living arrangement the three have come to also represents a postmodern reconfiguration of intimate relationships. They break the confines of the traditional, heteronormative nuclear family. Another example for the postmodern reconfiguration of the intimate sphere and correspondingly female subjectivity is the matriarchal tribe that Helen Wilder and Anne Royal have joined. The women have taken over the rooftop garden, forming a cooperative where they collectively raise their children. They dress in ankle-length dresses and gingham aprons, thus rejecting a sexualised dress code. Their rejection of the patriarchal system of organised modernity is complete when the women kill Wilder. By now he was aware that he knew all the women around him. Dimly he recognized Charlotte Melville, a scarf around her bruised throat, watching him with hostility. Standing next to Jane Sheridan was Royal’s young wife, now a governess supervising the smallest children. […] he could see the figure of the children’s-story writer (sic) seated in the open window of the penthouse like a queen in her pavilion. […] The circle of women drew closer. (HR 168) In what can be read as a reverse of the male gaze, the women are all wearing sunglasses and “looking intently at Wilder” from behind them (HR 168). Wilder himself seems to have lost his mind - he regresses to infanthood: after having stripped naked he “totter[s] across the roof to meet his new mothers” (HR 168). The women have started to clean up the upper floors, have organised themselves into an alternative society, and are articulating new subjectivities in accordance with the transition from organised to post-modernity. The high-rise with its unique spatial organisation plays a vital role in this process. Similarly, Laing ends up in a subservient relationship with his sister Alice and Eleanor Powell, a television critic, cooking for them, scavenging for batteries for Alice’s portable television set, and generally looking after them. He experiences an intense need to “be alone with Alice and Eleanor, to be as aggressive and self-reliant, as passive and submissive as he wished” (HR 154). He utilises his aggression when out and about in the high-rise, but when he is with the women he often plays the submissive role. Laing’s development thus exemplifies a reconfiguration of the intimate sphere. His cohabitation with the two women, one of whom is his sister, breaks the norms instituted by peer society. The living arrangement allows Laing to focus on “the satisfaction and multiplication of desire” as explained by Reckwitz in his outline of the postmodern subject codes (HS 629): “Laing was free to live in this intimate family circle, […]. The situation allowed him ample freedom to explore himself […]. His affection for the two women was real, like his pride in keeping them alive, but this in no way interfered with his new-found freedom” (HR 172f.). The <?page no="215"?> Middle-Class Subjectivity in J.G. Ballard’s High Rise 207 space of his apartment (and the high-rise) has a symbolic function in this reconfiguration. At the end of the novel, Laing notices two female neighbours cleaning up the hallway and resolves to try to repair an elevator. He also considers dismantling the barricades on the floor he lives on and perhaps expanding his living quarters. This constructive impulse mirrors his articulation of a new subjectivity free from the previous constraints of organised modernity. Initially, the high rise is a manifestation of the codes of the subject culture of organised modernity. It supports the habitus of the organisation man on both an individual and collective level. Individual units fit seamlessly into a larger whole, which represents the underlying utopian ideal of social collectivity both in the occupational and private sphere. However, the dwellers resist these subject codes and literally disassemble the building, hastening its dissolution and further accentuating the breakdown of the subject codes. Once the process is complete and the order of the organisation man subject culture has been destroyed, the surviving inhabitants set about creating new subject codes within the space. The group of women take charge of the upper parts of the building, turning the previous stratification of children and dogs upside down. Furthermore, they utilise the sculpture garden on the roof-top as a slaughterplace for the animals (i.e. cats and dogs) they have hunted. They create a matriarchal society that stands in direct opposition to the male dominance of the organisation man subject. Laing, Alice, and Eleanor engage in a pleasure-directed intimate relationship that redefines the code of intimacy. As Laing puts it, it provides him with the freedom to explore himself first, especially through physical experiences that push the boundaries of what was previously acceptable. As I mentioned at the beginning, Ballard’s work provides a rich assortment of interesting characters. Hence, Reckwitz’ theory of subject cultures can also be applied to other novels by Ballard. Indeed, there is the opportunity for a multi-layer application. On the one hand, novels such as Concrete Island, Kingdom Come, or Millennium People illustrate the effects of specific spatial arrangements on the articulation of a subject culture, often highlighting the quite violent processes that take place. On the other hand, they can also be read as meta-commentary of the humanistic discourses that have emerged in the late 20 th century and seek to define and explain the ‘subject’. Quite cleverly the novels do not only present one possible way a subject culture might be expressed, they also give insight into how society narrates and explains the struggle over the dominant subject form. <?page no="216"?> Nora Kuster 208 *** Nora Kuster teaches British literature at Washington State University Tri-Cities in Richland, WA. She received her PhD in English Literature from Washington State University in 2009 and specializes in 20 th -century British literature. She is particularly interested in representations of the city in literature as well as discourses on nature and the environment in literature. Her past research has focused on gender and modernist literature, specifically the way that women writers represent urban green spaces as heterotopic sites in their writing. Presently she is working on a book-length study focused on discourses of survival in British literature from the 19 th to the late 20 th century. Bibliography Ballard, J.G. High-Rise. London: Fourth Estate, 2011. Print. Baxter, Jeannette, and Rowland Wymer, eds. J.G. Ballard: Visions and Revisions. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Print. Duff, Kim. Contemporary British Literature and Urban Space: After Thatcher. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Print. Gasiorek, Andrzej. J.G. Ballard. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2005. Print. Hall, Mirko M., and Jürgen Link. “From the ‘power of the Norm’ to ‘flexible Normalism’: Considerations After Foucault”. Cultural Critique 57 (2004): 14-32. Web. 7 Jan. 2016. Huntley, Jake. “The Madness of Crowds: Ballard’s Experimental Communities.” J.G. Ballard: Visions and Revisions. Ed. Jeannette Baxter and Rowland Wymer. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 215-29. Print. Luckhurst, Roger. “The Angle Between Two Walls”: the Fiction of J.G. Ballard. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. Print. Marroni, Francesco. “High-Rise: Interior Adventure and Fictional Space as Metalanguage in J.G. Ballard’s Fiction.” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses X (April 1985): 81-93. Print. Matthews, Graham. “Consumerism’s Endgame: Violence and Community in J.G. Ballard’s Late Fiction.” Journal of Modern Literature 36.2 (2013): 122-39. Web. 6 Jan. 2016. Reckwitz, Andreas. Das hybride Subjekt: Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. 2 nd ed. Weilerswist: Velbrück, 2012. Print. Taylor, Jonathan S. “The Subjectivity of the Near Future: Geographical Imaginings in the Work of J. G. Ballard.” ‘Lost in Space’: Geographies of Science Fiction. Eds. Rob Kitchin and James Kneale. London: Athlone Press, 2002. 90-103. Print. Wood, Carter. “‘Going mad is their only way of staying sane’: Norbert Elias and the Civilized Violence of J.G. Ballard.” J.G. Ballard: Visions and Revisions. Eds. Jeannette Baxter and Rowland Wymer. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 198-214. Print. <?page no="217"?> Marie-Theres Wieme The Quest for the “the true exercise of freedom”: A.S. Byatt’s Possession and The Children’s Book as Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity In her study of the writings of A.S. Byatt, Jane Campbell focuses in particular on what Byatt herself has called her “heliotropic” (Byatt, qtd. in Campbell 2) imagination and proceeds to identify the sun around which Byatt’s writing turns as “[that] of creativity” (Campbell 2). This statement metaphorically echoes the findings of Andreas Reckwitz, particularly his two most recent book-length studies where he explicitly identifies the culture of subjectivity of the late-modern period as one that also turns around creativity. Reckwitz terms this state of affairs “the creative dispositif” (EK 49-59), emphasizing its psychological complexity since ‘creativity’ comprises both the individual’s desire to be creative and society’s imperative demand that its members be creative: “You both want and have to be creative“(EK 10). 1 At first glance, Byatt’s novels and short stories thus merely seem to mirror the dominant culture of subjectivity circulating at the time these writings were created. As I will show, however, Byatt’s novels Possession (P) and The Children’s Book (TCB) contest the hegemony of the creative subject by offering critical origin stories. According to the functionalist school of myth analysis in anthropology, origin or creation stories function as a ‘social charter’, which legitimises the current social order (Malinowsky 100-26). 2 Critical origin stories may therefore constitute a strong counter-hegemonic move against the dominant culture of subjectivity. While the novels analysed below remain within the framework of the ‘creative consumer subject’ (HS 588), both texts also criticise a singular focus on the creative impulse and point out its (self)-destructive tendencies. 3 Both Possession and The Children’s Book indicate that this tendency becomes especially virulent when the need to express individual creative urges leads characters to ignore (or even abuse) their relationships to other people, particularly those 1 “Man will kreativ sein und soll es sein” [italics in original, MTW]. 2 I have chosen to use the term “story” rather than “myth” because Byatt’s narratives do not claim to provide a universal and timeless explanation of a societal custom as myths tend to do (cf. Barthes 83). Rather, this article argues, these origin stories oscillate between affirming the basic assumption of the discursive premises of a hegemonic subject culture and critiquing their concrete actualisations. 3 On the characteristics of ‘creative consumer subjectivity’, see HS 500-630, especially 591- 97, EK, and Elisabeth Maubach’s article in this volume. <?page no="218"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 210 closest to them (such as children, friends or romantic partners). Conversely, they also imply that a character’s life is at its happiest when he or she manages to (creatively) hold his or her own interests, those of other individual subjects, and society at large in some degree of balance. An attempt to find rules that help to achieve such a balance of “self-regarding and other-regarding practical concerns” (Shoemaker) has been described as the main purpose of ethics or moral philosophy. The novels thus foreground that creativity is necessary for an ethical life. Where a misunderstanding of creativity damages the life of oneself or others, it becomes the source of potentially grave ethical failure. Hence both texts advocate the key claim propagated by the current hegemonic subject culture: an individual subject is most successful if and only when it manages to creatively combine various discourse-practices in unique ways. At the same time, the novels’ engagement with ethics allows the narratives to develop a critique of the creative subject and the creative imperative ‘from within’. This critical aspect is further augmented by the generic conventions both texts follow (and I would argue that the same holds true for most of Byatt’s fiction since The Virgin in the Garden [1978]): they are both historical fiction. Byatt’s historical novels feature characters from previous times who exhibit traits cherished by the 21 st -century reader’s hegemonic culture of subjectivity. On the one hand, this combination of historical setting and characterisation according to contemporary ideals strengthens said subject-culture’s representation of itself as “universally applicable […] [and at the same time] attractive” (HS 69). 4 On the other hand, the literary staging of a distinct historical period may confront readers with historical alternatives to the hegemonic discoursepractices of their own time. Thus, historical fiction may undermine the hegemony of both contemporary and past forms of subjectivity and reveal that they are fundamentally contingent “hybrid, syncretic arrangement[s] of various codes” (HS 82) that have gained dominance for specific, but likewise contingent, reasons. 5 Historical novels may not only destabilise the hegemony of a given subject culture, but also offer an alternative to the audience by placing a positive emphasis on aspects of a past culture of subjectivity from which a newly-emergent culture of subjectivity might take inspiration (cf. HS 73-81). In the case of Possession and The Children’s Book, the texts indicate areas where the contemporary hegemonic subject culture could (and perhaps also ought to be) improved upon, but the texts as a whole still concur with the model of the creative subject by implying that creativity is a necessary feature of a successful subjectivity. In order to substantiate this thesis, my article provides close readings of three key scenes from both books: select passages from 4 “als ein allgemeingültiges, universales, scheinbar alternativenloses und dabei attraktives” 5 “als hybride, synkretische Arrangements mehrerer Codes [italics in original]“ <?page no="219"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 211 the correspondence between Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte in Possession, and Olive Wellwood’s treatment of her son Tom after he has escaped from an abusive boarding school and Dorothy Wellwood’s first encounter with her biological father in The Children’s Book. I have chosen these scenes because they all focus on various forms of intimate relations and thus allow me to explore the intersubjective and ethical component of the ‘new and improved’ creative dispositif the narratives advocate for. The representation of the Victorian period in Possession centres primarily on texts which have to be encoded and written, respectively read and interpreted, by persons on both the two intratextual levels (the Victorian and the postmodern) and the extratextual level. Since reading also involves the closing of certain gaps on the reader’s part, rather than just a mechanical decoding of something that is already fully present in the text, the “textual universe” (HS 167) is also fundamentally represented as a creative one. 6 Furthermore, this focus on texts corresponds exactly to Reckwitz’ assertion that reading and writing constitutes the fundamental “technolog[y] of the self” (HS 58) of the bourgeois culture of subjectivity (HS 155-75, particularly 155-58). The novel emphasises this point even more strongly through the combination of textual genres it uses to present most of the events of the nineteenth century: diaries, letters, and poetry. At the centre of this textual universe the readers encounter a series of letters between the poets Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel La Motte. I use the term ‘centre’ because all the other Victorian writings in the narrative more or less comment on either one of the two characters or on events that can be related to their relationship. One could equally well describe them as the heart of the narrative, given their subject matter: they document the developing romance between Ash and Christabel (from its beginning up to their eventual separation). The fact that this is a romance of letters also indicates the conception of intimacy articulated and championed by the narrative: for the text as a whole intimacy is a dialogic process that develops over time and remains aware and respectful of both partners’ individual subjectivity throughout. Thus, although the romantic relationship seeks to build on the initial sense of similarity between the persons involved, this closeness is not forced onto the other to the detriment of their individual autonomy. In order to understand the above considerations better, it may be helpful to briefly examine the characteristic features of the letter in the context of the bourgeois understanding of subjectivity. Firstly, as Roland notes, letters are always addressed to “a reader [emphasis in original, MTW] “(P 131). The emphasis placed on the article indicates that the writing of a letter requires the writer as well as the reader to think of 6 “das Universum der Schriftlichkeit” <?page no="220"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 212 each other as individual subjects. The recognition of individual qualities in its turn pre-supposes that letter writers have learnt to think of themselves and others as possessing “an ‘inner life’, a ‘character’ [and] a ‘personality, as persons who have unique ‘opinions’ and ‘emotions’” (HS 139). 7 Additionally, letters are always written in the hope that the person addressed will respond in some fashion. To do so requires that the reader recognise the opinions of the writer as worthy of a response. This recognition is in its turn based on a feeling of similarity between the two corresponding subjects, and be it only on the most basic of levels (the acknowledgement that both reader and writer are individual subjects, albeit with radically different opinions). Thus, letters are fundamentally a dialogic textual genre. Lastly, in cases where there is more than one letter exchanged (and the letters between the two poets explicitly fulfil this criterion), the letters form a series of events over a longer stretch of time. Both postmodern conceptions of subjectivity as a sequence (cf. the discussion in Heinz 114-16) and the bourgeois culture’s need to develop “an autobiographical self-awareness” (HS 169) draw attention to how subjectivity is shaped by change over time. 8 Following this logic, it seems likely that both parties in the correspondence will be changed through their continued mutual interaction. While the above may seem trivial to a contemporary reader, it is anything but trivial in the context of the late-bourgeois gender matrix in which Ash’s and Christabel’s correspondence could act as a seed for a wholesale transformation of their practices of intimacy. As Reckwitz analyses in depth, in late bourgeois subject culture all discourse practices are fundamentally bifurcated along gender lines (cf. HS 267-72). Furthermore, this bifurcation is explained as natural and backed up through recourse to biology (cf. HS 263). An attempt to change this order by trying to bring the two spheres into dialogue with each other or pointing out that the other gender can have the same qualities as one’s own is coded as bearing the risk of violating the fundamental order of the universe and not just a transient social arrangement (cf. HS 272). 9 Ash’s praise for “your [= Christabel’s] intelligence, your marvellous quick wit” (P 131) is transformed from a simple compliment into a statement that “[eine Interpretation des] Anderen und der eigenen Person als Wesen mit einer ‘Innenwelt’, mit einem ‘Charakter‘, einer ‘Persönlichkeit‘, mit ‘Motiven’, ‘Ansichten’, ‘Gefühlen’” 8 “ein autobiographisches Selbstbewusstsein” 9 The function of the poets’ letters as an alternative space of dialogue is emphasised by the title of the chapter in which most of them are printed. The word “correspondence” (P 157) is a composite of the Latin word respondere (to answer) and the prefix con- (“with each other”) (see the entries for “correspondence”, “con-“, and “respondere”, respectively in the Online Etymology Dictionary). Additionally, “correspondence” used to be synonymous with “harmony” (Online Etymology Dictionary); the choice of title thus indicates a potential ideal outcome of their interaction as well. <?page no="221"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 213 acknowledges the specificity of Christabel’s individual subjectivity (as indicated by the use of the personal pronoun). Intelligence, as opposed to emotion, was considered a male prerogative in the late-bourgeois subject culture (cf. HS 264). Notably, Ash even implies that her wit exceeds his, stating that he eagerly awaits being surprised by it again (cf. P 131). The form of intimacy that Ash privileges is hence attuned to the characteristics that the intimate other displays as an individual and does not reduce Christabel to the characteristics assigned to her gender by society. By embracing such a stance, the existing models of intimacy with their entrenched gender roles may be questioned and transformed. However, Ash’s praise of Christabel and her influence on him is not without its element of caution. For example, he describes her effect on him as making him “feel unheimlich [German and italics in original]” (P 131). To Christabel, this choice of words again indicates Ash’s approval of her refusal to be defined by the female sphere of domesticity. Instead, Christabel becomes identified in his mind with the untamed and potentially dangerous nature of “heaths and ranging hounds” (P 131). Although Ash’s imagery thus still casts her as a “representative of nature” (HS 265), the nature Christabel represents is mobile rather than static and potentially threatens the stability of human society (that is, the Victorian hegemonic subject culture). This potentially revolutionary aspect of their relationship connects Christabel’s and Ash’s love to Romantic discourse-practices of intimacy. The Romantics saw the love between two (heterosexual) people as the privileged site where a new reality was created by attributing new meanings to old familiar objects (cf. HS 220). Strikingly, it is precisely this potential de-familiarisation of the familiar that Freud captures with his definition of the uncanny or, to use the German term, “das Unheimliche” (Freud 421). The term ‘unheimlich‘ hence emphasizes the transformative potential the narrative assigns to the two poets and their love. In light of their mutual recognition of each other’s creative subjectivity, the inability on both Ash’s and Christabel’s part to integrate their love and the insights gained from their writing into their daily lives initially puzzles readers, especially because this inability obviously pains both poets and causes a rift with people they care deeply about (cf. P 189f.). The narrative provides an answer by showing just how deeply Christabel’s sense of her creativity is entwined with the bifurcated (and heterosexist) gender matrix of the late-bourgeois subject culture. In an initial attempt to dissuade Ash from any kind of interest in her, Christabel compares herself to “a perfect O, a living stone, doorless and windowless” (P 137). Neither stones nor circles change over time; thus they represent the ultimate expression of a “passivity of character” (HS 264). 10 Initially, readers may think that Christabel has embraced the dom- 10 “Passivität des Charakters” <?page no="222"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 214 inant ideology of passive femininity completely despite her living an autonomous life - it is hard to think of a more “self-contained natural entity” (HS 265) than a stone. 11 Although Christabel’s choice of imagery initially seems to corroborate the above interpretation, her comparison of her subjectivity with “a crystalline casket” (P 137) and a “funerary Urn [sic]” (P 137) also allows for a different reading, which returns agency to Christabel. Caskets and urns are both used in funeral rites and thus serve as metonymical representations of death. Although still an Other to the implicitly male and masculine Self, here Christabel identifies the most radical Other known to human culture as the source of her identity and creativity. Notably, death is not passive; instead, it renders other things passive. All the characteristics the late-bourgeois subject assigns to masculinity must declare themselves defeated when confronted with death. Neither “systematic planning” nor “analytical intelligence” (HS 264) can neutralise the fundamental fact of human mortality; even civilizations pass away. 12 Hence, the identification of Christabel’s subjectivity with death allows her to articulate an autonomous voice that is immune to all kinds of masculine influence. She seems to find her freedom by using the position of the Other assigned to her gender by the dominant culture of subjectivity to destabilise the very discourse-practices that created it. The price Christabel pays for this freedom is the ability to imagine change as gradual or to enter into a creative dialogue with the patriarchal Other. There is no talking with the radical transformer. 13 But even as she affirms her own autonomy in relation to Ash, Christabel’s initial choice of metaphor indicates her awareness of a more dialogical alternative to her radical Otherness: “an Egg [sic]” (P 137) is her first chosen image. Although eggs can also represent a form of living death, they are not inert (like stones), but rather carry the potential to transform into a living and mobile creature that interacts with the outside world. In addition their hatching is also predicated on an interaction between autonomous and heteronomous forces, an individual inside the egg and another creature from the outside world: the chick (which has to break the shell of its own accord) and an outsider who provides the warmth necessary for the chick to grow. Thus, Christabel’s chosen metaphor for her subjectivity implies that a viable subject position needs to be interactive and that too strict a concept of one’s own autonomy can only end in “Congealing [sic] and Mortality [sic]” (P 137). The poet is aware of this to a degree and expresses this awareness when describing two possible ways the sleeper in her egg (an obvious metaphor for 11 “ein [...] in sich ruhendes Naturwesen” 12 “systematische Planung, formale Intelligenz” 13 For an analysis of the ethical consequences of Christabel’s thinking of her creativity as radically Other, see my analysis of her treatment of Blanche at the end of their relationship below. <?page no="223"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 215 Christabel’s own subjectivity which is explicitly identified as female) might wake and consequently leave the isolation of her egg: Either the inhabitant of the egg sleeps on “till she be Waked [sic] - or [she] finds that she has Wings [sic] to spread” (P 137). Notably, the above sentence does not imply that the outside force waking the sleeper is harming her in doing so. Since the force is not gendered, it could also be exerted by a male. Hence, the imagery shows that Christabel is capable of imagining a man (implicitly identified with Ash) as a positive force in her life, helping rather than hindering the development of her autonomy. Despite these traces of a more dialogic conceptualisation of her subjectivity, Christabel cannot escape the dualistic logic on which both the bifurcated gender matrix of the late-bourgeois culture of subjectivity and her own identification of her status as an Other as the source of her creativity are founded: As described above, a chick can break the egg surrounding it because it has been warmed by an outsider. Heteronomous and autonomous forces thus interact to change the status quo. By contrast, Christabel’s sleeper is either “Waked [sic]” (P 131) by another, remaining passive herself, or actively “finds that she has Wings [sic] to spread” (P 131). Note that the latter option does not mention any outside force, just like the first scenario makes no mention of the sleeper’s actions. To Christabel’s mind, the breaking of the egg is clearly an “either/ or” situation. The sleeper is either completely passive or the only active agent involved in her hatching. Although her choice of metaphor implies a dialogic process, Christabel does not actualise this implication. The text as a whole emphasises that this non-actualisation is a consequence of the constraints her cultural environment has put on Christabel’s creativity, rather than a universal limit no act of imagination could cross; it juxtaposes the two elements in such a way that readers are invited to link the two events themselves, creating scenarios in which sleeper and outside force interact. Although Christabel’s image of the hatching egg hints at a dialogic process, her conception of her developing sense of self is still primarily shaped by a thinking in binary oppositions that also dominates the very gender matrix the poet wishes to free herself from. 14 Due to the implicit correlation of creativity and ethical behaviour in the postmodern culture of subjectivity, one may be worried by these dualistic modes of thinking that underlie Christabel’s imagination. If Christabel can only think of her autonomy as absolute, it is after all possible (perhaps even likely) that she will damage those around her when exercising it. Once the damage has been caused, Christabel’s inability to imagine the world as anything other than a series of discrete entities organised in binary oppositions 14 On the binary oppositions that constitute the late-bourgeois gender matrix, see HS 265- 68. He discusses binary oppositions such as ‘active/ passive’, ‘public/ private’, and ‘rationality/ emotions’ among others. <?page no="224"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 216 would render her unable to mitigate any potential fallout. This is because for her changing one’s state of being inevitable entails the concomitant Othering of the state a person previously lived in. Hence, any damage caused during the transformation must seem inevitable and irreversible as Othering is the necessary precondition of autonomy to Christabel’s mind. The egg as the chosen symbol of Christabel’s subjectivity corroborates these fears. Once the chick has chosen to hatch, it cannot return to its former state (or even its former home) as the eggshell has been shattered and cannot be reassembled. The ethical implications of Christabel’s logic of the Othering logic prominently come to the fore when Christabel separates from Blanche Glover, driving Blanche to suicide shortly after. Although the narrative never makes this explicit, the description of the relationship between the two females strongly implies it was a love affair, making lesbian sexuality an intrinsic part of their attempts to live a life separate from the demands of patriarchal society. Her relationship with Blanche is based on their shared belief that the influence of men on their lives always results in female subjugation, that it can never be an aid that helps them sustain their autonomy. Consequently, Christabel’s interactions with Ash and her growing love for the poet endanger her life with Blanche. 15 Christabel’s implicit tendency to see the stages of her life as discrete units makes it very likely that an acknowledgement of her attraction to Ash is only possible for Christabel once she has categorically abandoned Blanche and their (former) intimate relationship. Christabel’s last letter to Ash before their journey to Yorkshire shows that this assumption is accurate. She tells Ash that “It [= telling Blanche that she will go to Yorkshire, MTW] is done. By FIAT [sic]” (P 201). Christabel’s abrupt and short syntax (which contrasts sharply with her usual style) formally reflects the categorical nature of her statements. In fact, Christabel explicitly forecloses any possibility that her authority might be problematized by questions, of which, she claims, “there will be no more” (P 201). Questions as a form of communication presuppose that the addressee answers them (and hence recognises the person posing them as an individual subject with a valid viewpoint of their own it is worth engaging with). More importantly, they evoke a moment of doubt (and with it, the potential of creative transformation through dialogical engagement) in the explanations provided by either society as a whole or specific individual subjects. Christabel’s categorical denial of even their possibility thus indicates that she has stopped thinking of herself and Blanche as two equal individual subjects engaged in dialogically creating a relationship together. 15 Indeed, Blanche metaphorically describes a man who interacts with Christabel (the narrative strongly implies this to be Ash) as a “Wolf [sic]” (P 47) in one of her diary entries. This image implies that he would devour (and kill) her life with Christabel if he ever were permitted entry into their home and that they thus must defend themselves against his influence. <?page no="225"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 217 Furthermore, the text as a whole also implies that in her radical effort to justify her relationship with Ash to both Blanche and herself, Christabel cannot engage dialogically with Blanche. Instead, in keeping with her thinking in binary oppositions, she uses the hegemonic discourse position of the heterosexist patriarchy in order to cast Blanche as a passive Other whom she can then simply dictate her terms to. This allows Christabel to categorically distance herself from her former companion without having to question the accuracy of her opinions and actions. Her choice of words and metaphors throughout the last letter to Ash highlights Christabel’s identification of her autonomy with violent patriarchal forms of power in her last conversation with her housemate: For example, her use of the Latin phrase “Fiat” [sic] (P 201) at first glance simply emphasises Christabel’s preceding claim that “[i]t is done” by repeating it in another language, as the Latin phrase literally translates to a command that creates a fact, “let it be done” (“Fiat”, Online Etymology Dictionary). Indeed, she repeats this claim in English for a third time later in the same line: “so it shall be” (P 201). Upon closer inspection, the Latin phrase also evokes patriarchal power in judicial discourses. The phrase “by Fiat “[sic] (P 201) was frequently used to end royal proclamations, signalling their binding nature by directly invoking the powers of the monarchy as an institution. These powers stabilise society and the current patriarchal hegemony even when the current occupant of the throne is female (cf. Homans and Munich 4). Additionally, Christabel also compares herself to a “tyrant” (P 201). Originally, the term (first coined in Ancient Greece) signified “a ruler who seized power unconstitutionally” (“Tyrant”, Encyclopaedia Britannica Online). The use of the verb “seize” already associates this form of government with violence performed against the will of the governed (as expressed in the constitution). Over the centuries, a tyrant became a synonym for “a cruel and oppressive ruler” (“Tyrant”, Encyclopaedia Britannica Online), a rephrasing that highlights the violence at the heart of this form of government and its suppression of dissident opinions. Blanche can only respond to this naked show of discursive force with “meek acquiescence” (P 201). Simultaneously, however, Christabel’s description of Blanche’s reaction (as well as her self-designation as a “tyrant” [P 201]) indicate that Christabel is well aware that Blanche’s acquiescence is the result of fear rather than acceptance of Christabel’s decision. Furthermore, her repeated assertion that the issue has been decided through her actions implicitly destabilises the very state of affairs her actions seem to assert. Thus, the text as a whole subtly indicates that, contrary to Christabel’s actions and beliefs, she ought to engage with Blanche rather than isolate herself. Most importantly, readers are already aware that, contrary to Christabel’s reassuring statement that “No more Harm [sic] can come from this than has already been done” (P 201), her behaviour ultimately results in Blanche’s suicide. As Christabel is likely to be familiar <?page no="226"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 218 with Blanche’s character, due to their long-standing intimate relationship, the text as a whole strongly implies that she could have prevented Blanche’s suicide if she had not persisted in her wilful isolation and instead had attempted to reconcile with Blanche. Indeed, the very fact that she writes a note like this to Ash, which is essentially an attempt to justify her actions and to have their ethical rightness confirmed by another person, shows that Christabel is aware of the problematic and damaging nature of her conduct. The text as a whole thus presents Christabel as a person who, although very constrained by the discourse-practices and discursive logic of the hegemonic subject culture, is not completely defined by them and could find an alternative way of living if she so wished. Hence, the poet appears as an independent agent in her own right and not just as the hapless victim of an all-defining discursive system. Even so, the analyses above illustrate how the bifurcated gender matrix of the late-bourgeois culture of subjectivity conditions the ways in which Christabel can conceive of creativity and forms of intimacy. To her, female creativity can only flourish if women isolate themselves, and change can only be brought about through radical and wholesale acts of violent transformation. Thus, her creative subjectivity remains indebted to the late-bourgeois image of women as the Other. This severely limits Christabel’s ability to actualise the dialogic and transformative potential of her creativity. One is tempted to assume that the same holds true to an even greater degree for Randolph Henry Ash’s views on his creative subjectivity, the forms of subjectivity of intimacy he can engage in and the interaction between the two. As a man and a successful author, Ash after all occupies a comfortable and privileged position in the late-bourgeois gender matrix. Therefore, he might be even less capable of thinking ‘outside the box’ of the current social hegemony than Christabel, who stands on the margins. Although it is true that Ash also fails to actualise the potential transformation imagined in his letters to Christabel, the text as a whole does not blame this on his blindness to his own privilege. Rather, Ash is as much constrained by the discourse-practices of his time as Christabel is. This may surprise readers because, to some extent, Ash’s sense of himself seems closer to a contemporary understanding of subjectivity than Christabel’s. Most importantly, his description of his imagination as “something restless and myriad-minded and partial and observing and analytic and curious” (P 132) echoes contemporary approaches to subjectivity, which stress the role of change and fluidity and define the subject as a process (for a more detailed discussion of these theories cf. Heinz 111-17 and Zima). Thus, the text as a whole presents Ash as anticipating the currently hegemonic subject culture. At the same time, Ash’s assertion also resurrects the central category of the Romantic subject culture (cf. HS 210-17, especially 216). As this particular emphasis is sidelined in the late-bourgeois subject culture (cf. HS 246f.), this al- <?page no="227"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 219 ready indicates Ash’s ability and willingness to creatively actualise past discourse-practices for his present needs. Throughout his correspondence with Christabel, he creatively combines and alternates between the various subjectivities of intimacy circulating in British culture at the time. During the initial stages of their correspondence, Ash addresses Christabel respectfully as “Ms. LaMotte” (P 157-81), a form of address which reflects the bifurcated gender matrix of the late-bourgeois culture of subjectivity. Furthermore, his usage of “Ms.” (as opposed to “Mrs.”) functions as a reminder that Christabel has not yet entered into “married life and the family life surrounding it“ (HS 257), on which late-bourgeois conceptions of romantic intimacy almost exclusively focus (cf. HS 257). 16 Simultaneously, it also serves as a cultural marker that this correspondence does not violate late-bourgeois ideals of respectability. Ash seems acutely aware of how negatively his contemporaries might interpret the letters, and his careful address of Christabel seeks to forestall such a reading. This behaviour also exhibits the degree to which the poet tries to act ethically towards both Christabel and his wife, Ellen, both of whose reputations would be damaged beyond repair if people thought them, respectively, a loose woman or a cuckolded wife. Both of these roles would violate the latebourgeois association of sexual intimacy with marriage (cf. HS 257). Christabel would be cast in the role of the person who sets out to destroy the domesticity of others (instead of creating and protecting her own family and domestic sphere), while Ellen, in her turn, would be remiss in her duties, since her (then strife-riddled) home no longer mirrors the late-bourgeois ideal of the home as a “calming place of [emotional and physical] retreat” (HS 259). 17 Hence, Ash’s behaviour shows him capable of creatively imagining other people’s perspectives and their investment in social status. His wish for his correspondence with Christabel to be “a true dialogue” (P 177) shows that Ash wants to transpose the guiding principle of his artistic work to the other spheres of social life he moves in, thus achieving a fully-developed creative subjectivity. At the same time, his constant use of questions in the correspondence, which Ash uses to gauge Christabel’s mood (cf. P 157-201), and his own deference to her wishes indicate that for Ash (and I would argue for the text as a whole) “a true dialogue” (P 177) ensures ethical interactions between subjects. In light of the preceding considerations, Ash’s desire to call Christabel his “dear friend” (P 181) indicates not just an increase in intimacy between the two writers, but signals Ash’s desire to find a type of relationship that manages to navigate between the twin dangers of artificially maintaining a polite distance between himself and Christabel and just giving in to his physical attraction, no matter the cost. In keeping with his creative nature and interest in 16 “die Paarbeziehung und die sie umgebende Familie” 17 “kalmierenden Rückzug” <?page no="228"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 220 history, the poet adapts a formerly hegemonic-discourse practice for his present purpose, similarly to his borrowing from Romantic discourse-practices to articulate his sense of self discussed above. Reckwitz convincingly argues that the subjectivity of intimacy in the early variant of the bourgeois subject culture centred on the ideal of friendship, rather than forms of intimacy with a sexual component (cf. HS 142-44). According to his analysis, early bourgeois subjects were trained in discourse-practices of friendship that permitted them to “observe themselves and others using a ‘psychological’ vocabulary” (HS 138). 18 Thus, as her friend, Ash would be actively encouraged to explore and engage with Christabel’s individual character, beyond her gender identity (to which the contemporary bifurcated gender matrix confines her). Furthermore, early bourgeois ideals of friendship explicitly imagine these as spaces where people engage in “lively, but also entertaining conversations about topics of general interest” (HS 138), among them literature and art. 19 Since the correspondence between the two poets has up to this point focused precisely on these topics, calling themselves friends would provide societal sanction to their interaction, and also signal their mutual respect for each other’s intellectual abilities. Ash also emphasises that his friendship with Christabel is free of desires that might threaten their other relationships or social standing, which aligns with this code of friendship that is (at least initially) “for the most part indifferent to gender differences” and due to an “implied asexuality,” does not presuppose codified structures of desire (HS 140). 20 Although the early bourgeois code of friendship may seem the ideal kind of relationship to adopt for Ash and Christabel, they cannot deny the physical attraction between them for long. In Ash’s case, his choice of the early bourgeois model of intimacy itself highlights ‘the chink in his armour’ that leads to their romantic and sexual relationship: Reckwitz argues that the early bourgeois subjectivity of intimacy presents marriage as “a supplement to friendship” (HS 141); thus friends could by implication be potentially more important than a given subject’s marriage partner. And indeed, Ash immediately refers to Christabel as his “dear friend” (P 181), rather than just calling her his friend. She is immediately set apart from all the other friends he might have and placed in a unique position. In light of the supplementary role marriage occupies in relation to friendship in this early bourgeois code, the text 18 “[Das Subjekt wird dazu angeleitet], sich selbst und den Anderen mit Hilfe eines ‘psychologischen‘ Vokabulars zu beobachten“. 19 “die des argumentativen, auch ‘unterhaltsamen’ Gesprächs über Themen allgemeinen Interesses” 20 “Der intime Freundschaftscode ist zunächst weitgehend geschlechtsindifferent, er findet im Verhältnis zwischen Männern wie zwischen Frauen Anwendung, setzt damit (...) weder auf der Ebene von sex noch von gender (und aufgrund einer impliziten Asexualität auch nicht auf der Ebene von Begehrensstrukturen) etwas voraus.“ <?page no="229"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 221 as a whole here implies that Christabel is currently more important to Ash’s sense of self than even his wife Ellen. The poet confesses in the same letter that “[his] true thoughts have spent more time in your company, […] and where my thoughts are, there I am in truth” (P 181). According to the early bourgeois culture of subjectivity, one of the most important features of a successful subject is a person’s awareness of their own inner dispositions and their truthful exploration of them in writing (cf. HS 167-71). In keeping with this logic, Christabel becomes the guardian of Ash’s sense of self. She comes to occupy a position of uniqueness for Ash, whose conception of love is predicated on the uniqueness of its objects; for him, love is not universal, but rather “this or that […] must be loved in its particularity, not its generality” (P 131). His conception of love thus echoes the Romantic subjectivity of intimacy, which builds its notion of love on an “exclusive relationship between one man and one woman as individuals” (HS 218). 21 In addition to creatively oscillating between different subjectivities of intimacy that are already circulating in his culture, Ash also manages to briefly imagine a new form of intimacy that transcends the boundaries of current practice-discourses. Ash’s conception of love quoted above serves as the kernel of this new idea. For if love is tied to the particular character of a person, it logically follows that if the objects of our love change (as they must, being mortal and human), then the concrete expression of the emotion we call love will respond accordingly, shifting rather than ceasing outright. This conception of love concurs with current findings in the philosophy of emotion, which argue that emotions are defined and shaped by their relationship to an outside object. 22 Love (like all emotions) is always dialogic and adaptive. Initially, the poet seems to deny these conclusions when he claims that the satisfaction of love “may surfeit it [i.e. love], and so it may die” (P 132). However, the metaphor used is instructive in this case, hinting at the very things Ash seeks to overtly refute. According to the OED, “surfeit” is synonymous with verbs like “satiate”, “gorge” and “glut” (“surfeit v.,” Oxford English Dictionaries Online). All of these are most commonly used in the context of consuming food and drink. Now, while it is true that the hunger for a specific kind of food or drink may disappear after one has indulged in what one craved, the feeling of hunger itself will always resurface, albeit perhaps in a different, less radical, form. By analogy, Ash’s choice of metaphor thus already acknowledges that his love for Christabel may not disappear when they separate after consummating it at the end of their stay in Yorkshire. Once the moment of separation has passed, and Christabel writes to have her letters sent back (presumably to destroy them), Ash’s response exhibits all 21 “zwischen einem Mann und einer Frau als ‘Individuen’” 22 For a discussion of the characteristic features of emotions see Döring 12-65, particularly the heuristic definition of emotions (as opposed to feelings) on page 14. <?page no="230"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 222 the features of his character analysed above: an ethical respect for the feelings of others, a pronounced interest in dialogical and creative engagements with the world and a conception of love as a process rather than a state. As was his wont throughout their correspondence, Ash respects and follows Christabel’s wishes regarding how their relationship should be conducted: “Here are your letters, as you request” (P 88). However, in sharp contrast to Blanche’s “meek acquiescence” (P 201), he also asserts his own investment in their relationship. Ash does so by pointing out that he shall “retain every least [sic] word […] in the hard wax of [his] stubborn memory” (P 89) and “they [i.e. the letters] shall have an afterlife in [his] memory” (P 89). Although the former metaphor implies that these memories will be statically integrated into Ash’s mind, it also carries a trace of a creative process. After all, what is retained and how depends on the person remembering it, and thus Ash will create his own image of their relationship that Christabel cannot access. More importantly, the second metaphor emphasises that, for Ash, their relationship is not ‘ancient history’, not a passive thing merely stored somewhere, never to be looked at again, but rather an active and important process (as life is), which will continue to influence his sense of self. Furthermore, Ash also retains an interest in Christabel’s continued welfare and offers her “anything [he] can do for [her], in the way of friendship [my emphasis]” (P 88). In addition to keeping open the possibility of a future dialogue, this offer is also striking for another reason. As discussed above, both the late-bourgeois and the Romantic practices of intimacy hinge on the assumption that the intimate and erotic relationship between a man and a woman is a unique state of life, set apart from all other relationship in terms of its importance. According to both these models of intimacy, you either love a single person romantically or you do not. This implies that neither discourse has a way of capturing the way Ash now thinks of Christabel: his former lover who is still a “dear friend” (P 89). The early bourgeois code of friendship, conversely, primarily associates the sexual aspects of intimacy with marriage (cf. HS 147), and thus offers no solution to their dilemma either. Ash’s creative transformation of love recalls C.S. Lewis’ modern definition of agape: “not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the other person’s good, as far as it can be obtained” (Lewis 48). At the same time, the poet has no wish to forget or deny that the love they shared was once sexual. His desire to live a form of love that is at once both agape and eros echoes a postmodern understanding of intimacy, which allows for former lovers staying friends once their physical intimacy has ended. In light of the preceding paragraph, one might assume that the ethical failure of their relationship is wholly due to Christabel’s internalisation of the dichotomous logic of the late-bourgeois gender matrix. Such a reading would position Ash as the active innovator, the zealous reformer who sees the inadequacy of the society he lives in. However, the novel shows that the poet is as <?page no="231"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 223 constrained by the Victorian hegemonic subject culture as Christabel is, thus deconstructing such a simplistic (and frankly sexist) reading. For if he really lived according to his own model of intimacy, Ash would have no need to refrain from mentioning his wife in his correspondence with Christabel. The absence of complaints about his wife or long discussions can be explained by Ash’s acute sense of empathy and concern for others, since those are likely to embarrass both women unnecessarily. However, the absence of any mention at all (even the most neutral reference to, for example, the books he reads to his wife) shows that Ash stills remains beholden to the Romantic and late-bourgeois idea that his love for Christabel is separate from the rest of his life. Conversely, Ash retains an ingrained sense of late-bourgeois notions of respectability in his letters from Yorkshire. Both Roland and Maud note that they “read exactly like the letters of a solitary husband” (P 215). Roland correctly conjectures that Ash’s subject culture makes the poet think that he must deceive his wife “for [Ellen’s] sake” (P 216). Ash cannot think of his wife as someone he could engage in a dialogue with, as capable of understanding him like Christabel does. Rather than helping him to individualise and de-Other women generally, Ash’s new model of intimacy remains indebted to the bifurcated gender matrix; Christabel is only the exception that still proves the hegemonic rule. Although numerous passages in the novel make it clear that Ash’s actions towards his wife result from no malicious intent, they still harm their relationship and prevent his reconciliation with Christabel shortly before his death. When Christabel sends letters to both him and Ellen and tries to re-open her dialogue with Ash (as well as to explain herself to Ellen), his wife cannot bring herself to read Ash the letter addressed to him. She fears that this would “disturb his peace of mind” (P 451). Furthermore, although she knows that they are both “old women” (P 451) and that Christabel is thus no longer a rival, Ellen lacks the words to reach out to the other woman. This is particularly unfortunate because Ellen sympathises with the isolated Christabel, but has no words to express her ethical concerns and open a dialogue with the person whom she shares a trait with that is central to her life: her love for Randolph Ash. The narrative strongly implies that this could have been prevented if Ash had talked to his wife earlier. At the same time, the fact that he confesses his relationship to Ellen at all is presented as a mitigating factor. Ash’s and Christabel’s life choices in the name of their individual creativity thus indirectly lead to a state of isolation and mistrust between the lovers and cause Blanche’s suicide. This hints at the darker side of the creative imperative. Even so, Ash’s and Christabel’s creativity shows its transformative potential, even though it remains strictly circumscribed by the hegemonic subject culture. As the analyses above have shown, both artists use the creative space of their correspondence to imagine ways in which both their relationship (albeit in a creatively transformed form) and their individual artistic <?page no="232"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 224 autonomy might be maintained alongside their other relationships. Ultimately, these alternative ways of living are stifled because the hegemonic discourse-practices remain too strong an influence on both their subjectivities. Hence, the narrative implies, changes in the dominant subject culture might transform the creative utopias of two mid-Victorian artists into a workable alternative. However, this reading also suggests that a failure to use one’s creativity without keeping in mind the individuality and interests of those around one constitutes an inexcusable ethical failure once these societal changes have taken place. The Children’s Book makes these latent implications of the Victorian plot explicit. It takes place in the avant-garde subcultures of the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries - the very social context in which the forces that would end the hegemony of the bourgeois culture of subjectivity originate (cf. HS 280-83). Additionally, the idea that all life should be an area of creative application gained social traction in this subculture (cf. EK 54-56). The analysis below focuses on three characters from the novel: Olive Wellwood and two of her children, Dorothy and Tom. Olivia’s abusive use of her eldest son Tom for her creative work (she is a successful writer of children’s books) severely traumatizes him and eventually induces him to kill himself. Her eldest daughter Dorothy chooses to become a surgeon and (initially) distances herself from all artistic and creative pursuits in her life because she associates them with a stifling form of femininity and the psychological abuses of her mother. Only when she meets her biological father, who accepts and affirms her life choices although he is also an artist like her mother, does Dorothy learn to accept the creative aspects of her own life. The narrative implies that this acceptance ultimately leads to her volunteering for medical duty in the First World War, where Dorothy’s knowledge and skills save lives, rather than killing as Olive’s did. When the reader first meets Olive Wellwood, she is presented as the direct opposite of Christabel La Motte: a successful writer of fairy tales for children, who has a large and happy family and whom we first encounter as the hostess of a large social gathering at her estate house in Todefright (cf. TCB 55). Since her children are portrayed as happy and independent, it seems at first as if Olive has managed to successfully combine domesticity with her creativity. After all, her chosen genre, fairy-tales for children, would most likely be used by female readers to educate their young charges in socially-appropriate practice-discourse while they are at home in the private sphere of the nursery. Thus, rather than rebelling against the role of women as “the representatives and teachers of bourgeois morality” (HS 268) the way Christabel and Blanche do, Olive embraces that role, but, at the same time, she does not seem to experience herself as a “creature defined by a lack” (HS 271). 23 23 “Vermittlerin der bürgerlichen Moralität”; “Mängelwesen” <?page no="233"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 225 The novel starts with a uniformly positive presentation of family matters in the Wellwood household, only to deeply shatter this image of intimacy, creativity and family as the narrative unfolds. The seeming happy family life is slowly deconstructed, revealing various instances of psychological (child) abuse. A closer look at Olive’s understanding of her creative process indicates how deeply it is implicated in the abuses taking place at Todefright. At the centre of Olive’s writing projects are a series of books she writes for the children of the Todefright household (cf. TCB 80). The most important of these is the story Olive writes for her eldest child, Tom - only its success makes her begin the books for the other children (cf. TCB 80). The fact that these stories are “by their nature endless” (TCB 81), combined with the later revelation that Olive has kept on writing Tom’s story from his birth up to the time he commits suicide strongly hints at these stories being as much a narrative of the children as a narrative for them - a creative space in which Olive can create (and thus maintain control over) the trajectory of the children’s lives to a degree she could not in the real world. 24 As such an absolute control requires one to ignore the wishes of the other as an individual subject (rather than to balance them with one’s own), this indicates that Olive ethically fails the children by objectifying them. Indeed, the objectification of Tom (and his concomitant idealisation as “boy eternal”, TCB 52) is also evident when Olive describes and praises his role in her creative process. She says of Tom that he is “neither audience nor muse exactly, but the life of the story” (TCB 197). Thus, Tom becomes an inalterable part of the stories Olive writes. Whereas both a muse and the audience, for all their influence on a text, retain their status as entities that are ontologically separate from it, the text’s “life” is bound up in and intertwined with the text to a degree that a change in one must result in a corresponding change in the other. Thus, for Olive, Tom’s life is dependent on a form of discursive imprisonment, and any attempt to destroy that “web” (the literal meaning of the Latin root textus [cf. Thiele 706]) to free himself would inevitably result in (self-)annihilation. This ultimately means that if Tom were to lose the story, he would also lose his life. Additionally, the above quote also indicates that Olive perceives her son as a person with feminine qualities. Since the muses have been seen as the female forces of inspiration for the (usually male) poet, Olive thus associates her son with the female sphere of passivity (while giving herself the active ‘male’ part). Tom becomes a boy with feminine qualities. At the same time, Tom’s being called “boy eternal” (TCB 52) emphasises his latent masculinity. 24 A closer look at the ending Olive writes for Dorothy’s story (the only one to have an ending at all) gives further evidence that these stories are about control for Olive and thus ethically problematic (cf. Wieme 81f.). <?page no="234"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 226 Hence, Tom oscillates between feminine and latently masculine qualities and occupies a literally androgynous subject position in relation to this mother. Such an ambiguously gendered subject position may be relatively unproblematic and only implicitly damaging for the boy as long as he remains at Todefright and more or less under Olive’s direct influence. However, when Tom is exposed to late-bourgeois ideals of masculinity at Marlowe, a prestigious boarding school he is sent to some years later, this ambivalence has traumatic consequences for him. In keeping with traditional ideals of masculinity, the boarding school trains boys “in active leadership, systematic planning, [and] analytical intelligence” (HS 264). 25 Since Tom has always behaved rather passively around others, he immediately becomes the object of physical and even sexual abuse by the older students (cf. TCB 196). In order to retain his own status at the school, even an old friend of Tom’s from Todefright participates in the systematic abuse (cf. TCB 196). In response, Olive’s story (which she still sends to him in regular instalments) takes on even greater significance for the boy’s sense of self: Tom writes to Olive that “[i]t makes all the difference” (TCB 197). Hence, it is only logical that it is the burning of the story which causes Tom’s running away from Marlowe. At this point in his life, the story, penned by his mother and tellingly entitled Tom Underground, has become the representative of an ideal subjectivity for the boy. Not only does Tom follow his alter ego in literally “go[ing] underground” (TCB 198) to escape his abusers, the narrator also likens the burning pages of the story to a burning person: “the story writhed and shrivelled on its bed of fire [my emphasis]” (TCB 200). In response, Tom attacks the boy who burnt the story and then runs away from school. Although she is clearly worried about her son’s fate, Olive again couches her grief in selfish and objectifying terms: “Tom was part of her and she was part of Tom” (TCB 202). Olive goes so far as to unconsciously wish Tom back into her womb, as is implied by her walking as “a woman in labour walks” during the six weeks Tom remains lost (TCB 203). This absolute form of mothering would deny Tom all forms of individuality, even the most basic of all - the possession of a body separate from that of his mother. Additionally, it indicates that Olive is incapable of creatively engaging with Tom as an individual subject who has experienced things she has not and never will. Rather than listening to his story, Olive ignores his mental and physical needs in favour of her own once he has returned. In response, Tom for the first time in his life argues with his mother before beginning the process of isolation that will eventually result in his suicide by “shut[ting] himself in his bedroom” (TCB 203). Notably, the cause of their argument is Olive’s response to Tom’s plea for help after his trauma, which he again relates to Tom Underground. 25 “aktive Führung, systematische Planung, formale Intelligenz” <?page no="235"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 227 In their argument, Tom says simply that he has not “got the story” (TCB 203). In light of the preceding pages, the narrative encourages readers to interpret this statement as an admission on Tom’s part that his sense of self and his own understanding of his individuality and his life’s trajectory have been disrupted. Consequently, he turns to the person who provided him with a model of subjectivity in the first place, looking for a reassuring alternative. Considering that Olive is aware of this at least to some degree (Tom’s admission regarding the importance of the story quoted above was made at the end of a letter between the characters), her refusal to address Tom’s concern in favour of her self-interests appears callous and selfish (cf. Shoemaker): “Never mind. I have a copy. Don’t worry. I know all about it. It doesn’t matter [my emphasis]” (TCB 203). Rather than enabling her to engage ethically with the concerns of those closest to her, Olive’s creative subjectivity focuses solely on her own needs and materialistic benefits. In the above quote, for example, she responds only to the literal and material meaning of ‘story’. In light of Olive’s ambiguous and ultimately abusive treatment of Tom, her daughter Dorothy’s choice of a non-artistic career appears as a positive alternative from the start. This is further augmented by her chosen profession: medical doctors (cf. TCB 52) are usually imagined to be people to whom alleviating the illnesses of others is important. Additionally, being in a medical profession also allows Dorothy to eschew the association of femininity with domesticity (cf. HS 268) and thus the bifurcation of the late bourgeois culture of subjectivity along gender lines (cf. HS 264, 267-71). After all, a female doctor has to move in the public sphere (that is, outside her own home) just like her male colleagues. Additionally, in order to successfully treat her patients, Dorothy has to expose and gaze at the body in a state of illness, a sight which Western cultures have tended to keep away from public scrutiny as much as possible. As she is not a family member, Dorothy represents the public sphere to her patients despite her female gender. Furthermore, the gaze she examines her patients with has to be informed by both the analytical intelligence of her medical knowledge and a certain amount of care for the concerns of others. As a good doctor, Dorothy creatively combines practice-discourses from the ‘male and ‘female’ spheres of life. Hence, rather than validating the discourse-practices of the dominant culture of subjectivity (as her mother does), Dorothy exposes them as contingent and transcends them in favour of a more ethical creativity. The novel depicts Dorothy as an early example of the successful way of life the postmodern “creative consumer subject” (HS 15) will make hegemonic and legitimise as universal. 26 Dorothy herself, however, would object to being called creative for much of the time covered by The Children’s Book. The extent to which she does not want to share any traits at all with Olive becomes clear 26 “kreativ-konsumptorischen Subjekt” <?page no="236"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 228 when the children discover a big family secret: the fact that Humphrey Wellwood has also slept with Olive’s sister Violet (cf. TCB 313), and that she has given birth to some of the children. Since at this point neither the children themselves nor the readers know who is whose child, all their relationships are rendered contingent. Dorothy deals with this information by constructing a family tree for herself in which Olive does not feature: she imagines herself as the daughter of Humphrey and “domestic” (TCB 315) Violet (who acts as Todefright’s housekeeper). However, the narrative immediately problematizes the plausibility of this alternative because it is based on and seeks to explain Dorothy’s emotionally charged observation “that she irritated Olive” (TCB 315). The very fact that Dorothy feels the need to distance herself from Olive by both othering her own creative qualities (cf. TCB 314) and imagining herself to be the daughter of the writer of non-fictional prose and the practical housekeeper strongly implies that she is more invested in her relationship with Olive than Dorothy is willing to admit at this stage of her life. In any case, her unquestioning assumption that Humphrey is her father turns out to be false. When Dorothy confronts him with her knowledge of the complex relationship dynamics at the foundation of her home during a moment of extreme emotional tension (she has just prevented the man she thinks of as her father from raping her [cf. TCB 344]), he tells her that she is “Olive’s daughter [,] but not [his]” (TCB 346). Her biological father is Anselm Stern, a puppet master from Munich. Reality thus turns out to be the opposite of Dorothy’s imagination. Instead of having no artistic parents, Dorothy must now deal with having two: Olive, whom she dislikes, and Anselm, who does not even know of his parentage and whose reaction to this piece of information she cannot predict. Initially Dorothy tries to reduce the shock of Humphrey’s revelation by othering Anselm. Among other things, she describes him as “a demon” (TCB 347) - a creature of superstition to which modern science has always been opposed and which even the church sees as a malignant influence that has to be exorcised. Ultimately, she recognises that this response is irrational and childish (cf. TCB 347). Dorothy therefore decides that “she [must] act” (TCB 347) and that Anselm “must be made to know [emphasis in original]” (TCB 347). By choosing to confront her biological father with his parentage, Dorothy reclaims her agency from this moment of crisis. Although she cannot change the fact that he conceived her, Dorothy can decide for herself what sort of relationship (if any) she wants to have with him, based on his response. His role in her life thus becomes the result of active agency and creative adaptation rather than mere chance. Dorothy’s confidence in her own agency is rewarded when she meets Anselm Stern. The puppet master does not judge Dorothy’s need to know about her parentage; instead, his “searching” (TCB 270) eyes mirror her own searching question: she tells him that “[she] want[s] to know who [she is]” (TCB 370). <?page no="237"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 229 Notably, although Dorothy’s need to have her own sense of self validated by a (potential) parental figure is exactly the same as Tom’s in the conversation with Olive analysed above, Anselm’s reaction is the exact opposite of Olive’s. Where she ignores her son’s fears, he is accepting of the young woman’s concern and admits that he would have responded to Humphrey’s information the same way she did (cf. TCB 370). He even tells her that he “believe[s] [her]” (TCB 371) and admits that he “always wanted a daughter” (TCB 371) in addition to the two sons he has by his wife. However, Stern at the same time refuses to dispense authoritative answers and to claim absolute knowledge. Instead, the relationship between him and Dorothy becomes a dialogical process, in which the perspective of all the people with an interest in its development (including Humphrey and Olive as well as the other members of the Stern family) is imagined and considered (cf. TCB 370f.). Each new piece of information is seen as a puzzle piece rather than a final answer “that [maybe] tells [both of them] a little of who [they] both are” (TCB 270). Identities are here perceived as constant processes of changing (self-)interpretations. It thus echoes contemporary attempts to redefine individual subjectivity as the processual and ever shifting individual actualisation of a possibility offered in a given discursive condition (Ermarth 410f.). Most importantly, Stern accepts not just Dorothy’s independent personality in general, but her choice of profession in particular. Rather than ignoring this aspect of Dorothy’s life (as Olive has done ever since her daughter first voiced it at the age of eleven [cf. TCB 52]), he asks her to “let [him] see [her] hands” (TCB 372). Stern then proceeds to pronounce them “strong […], capable […] [and] delicate”. As Dorothy wants to become a surgeon, for whom their hands are the most important tools of their trade, and all three qualities Stern finds in her hands are essential for a good surgeon, her father’s praise of her hands metonymically affirms the choice she has made regarding her profession and her approach to life more generally. 27 Thus, her encounter with her biological father finally provides Dorothy with a family who validates, rather than deprecates, her choices in life (cf. TCB 388). The fact that these valuable new family connections only came about through Dorothy’s conscious choice and agency, also strengthens her confidence in her ability to make her own choices even when they lead her outside 27 Notably, the attributes the puppet master associates with her hands also problematise the bifurcated gender matrix of the late bourgeois culture of subjectivity (cf. HS 264f.). Dorothy possesses physical and mental strength, seen by this culture as a male attribute. Furthermore, her delicacy, although assigned to females, is not synonymous with passivity, but instead combines the ‘male’ discourse practice of careful planning with the ‘female’ care for the needs of others. Lastly, capability is an attribute that crosses the gender bifurcation of the late bourgeois culture of subjectivity from the start: to organise a functioning household requires as much capability as holding a public office. <?page no="238"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 230 the hegemonic culture of subjectivity. Lastly, the contrast between the accepting artistic subjectivity of Anselm Stern and the egocentric interpretation of creativity espoused by her mother encourages Dorothy to embrace her own creative qualities and to use them to enhance her practice of a non-artistic profession. Her success with this approach to life is illustrated some years later when Dorothy has volunteers for medical service in the First World War. One night, she is asked to remove the shrapnel from a soldier’s wounds. The soldier fell into a clay pit while on the battlefield and is thus initially anonymous as his whole face is covered with clay (cf. TCB 608). 28 As she begins to work, the soldier comments: “I always said you had good hands” (TCB 608), thus identifying himself as Philip Warren, a friend of Dorothy’s from a pottery near Todefright. She used to come to him when she felt upset because, other than the Sterns, Dorothy feels that he is one of the few people to understand her need to work (cf. TCB 446). Initially, they discover a commonality between her anatomy drawings and his sketches for pots (and thus between science and art). Later, this abstract insight is translated into concrete practice: Philip asks Dorothy if she wants to “throw a pot” (TCB 446) and then comments on her handling of the potter’s wheel: “You have good, strong and solid hands” (TCB 447). Since capable hands are needed equally by both potters and surgeons, their discovery again emphasises the similarities between artistic and non-artistic practice discourses. The fact that Dorothy’s hands save Philip’s life attests to two things: firstly, that Dorothy has now learnt to acknowledge all aspects of herself and to use all her abilities (rather than othering those she acquired in an artistic context like she used to do). Even more importantly, this indicates that the narrative sees creativity as a viable force that helps concrete individuals to survive even the collapse of a whole subject culture. After all, the First World War was widely regarded by its contemporaries as the moment the bourgeois culture of subjectivity and all the ways of making sense of the world it provided collapsed (cf. HS 275f.). Notably, the narrative emphasises the life-saving aspect of a creative subjectivity by placing Dorothy (but not Olive) at a ‘survivors’ dinner’ in 1918 (cf. TCB 614f.). In summary, Possession and The Children’s Book both function as critical origin stories for the creative subjectivity of postmodernity. On the one hand, the narrative encourages readers to see Christabel and Ash’s romance as expressed in their letters as successful because it explicitly acknowledges and builds on an equal admiration and respect for their creative subjectivities. In Christabel’s case, it is her creativity that permits her to live an active female 28 On the association of art with death evoked by this scene, see Stetz. Clay is the material used for pottery, which is the second art form frequently evoked in the novel, and this clay most likely contains blood and body pieces (cf. TCB 608). <?page no="239"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 231 subjectivity that transcends and problematizes the existing gender matrix - a reading that also applies to Dorothy Wellwood. Dorothy begins to show the expansion of creativity from its artistic origins to other discourse-practices - a process that will ultimately result in the contemporary postmodern hegemony; Byatt’s novel even specifically weds her acceptance of and by her artistically creative father to a renewed confidence in her medical abilities. They in turn allow Dorothy not only to survive the First World War, but also to save other lives. Thus, both novels champion a creative subject that uses its creativity to simultaneously foster self-expression and an ethical awareness of the needs of other individual subjects. Conversely, both narratives implicitly criticise those characters who fail to apply creative thinking to their relationships with others. Christabel and Ash both fail to consider that their feelings for each other might overstep the discrete boundaries of their romantic attachment and might perhaps be creatively translated into a form of love that is less hurtful to their respective other partners. Even more harmful is their tendency to ignore Ellen’s and Blanche’s developing awareness of their changed feelings and not to enter into dialogue with them. In Christabel’s case, this behaviour results in lifelong guilt and self-isolation whereas Ash goes to his grave without being aware of Christabel’s attempt to re-establish a dialogue. Olive Wellwood takes the destructive tendency of a narrow understanding of creativity to its logical extreme. Because her creativity fundamentally depends on Tom remaining an ‘eternal child’, she ignores his traumatic abuse at boarding school and thus directly encourages his increased isolation and eventual suicide. Unlike Christabel, who at least feels guilt over Blanche’s death, Olive fails to ever recognise (much less voice or work through) her own part in Tom’s death. Hence, both narratives encourage readers to critically examine their own creative subjectivities and to augment them with an ethical eye towards those around them - because, these novels imply, a failure to do so ignores the full potential inherent in a creative subjectivity and almost inevitably results in guilt, isolation, suffering and perhaps even death. *** Marie-Theres Wieme received her master’s degree in English literature and cultural studies from the University of Mannheim in 2013. She is currently working on her PhD thesis, which examines the relationship between representations of disabled subjectivities, gender identities, and cultural modes of dealing with contingency in select works of English literature and film from the sixteenth century to the present. Her other research interests include analysing the discursive representation of nature in television documentaries and the intersection of philosophical (in particular the philosophy of emotions) <?page no="240"?> Marie-Theres Wieme 232 and scientific discourses with literature and film. In 2013, she published an article on the discursive construction of nature in the BBC documentary Planet Earth in Ecozon@. Bibliography Barthes, Roland. “Mythologies.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2 nd ed. Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. 81-89. Print. Byatt, A.S. The Children’s Book. London: Chatto & Windus, 2009. Print. ---. Possession: A Romance. 1990. London: Vintage, 1991. Print. “Correspond.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Web. 7 June 2015. “Correspondence.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Web. 7 June 2015. Campbell, Jane. A.S. Byatt and the Heliotropic Imagination. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfred Laurier UP, 2004. Print. Döring, Sabine A. “Allgemeine Einleitung: Philosophie der Gefühle heute.” Philosophie der Gefühle. Ed. Sabine A. Döring. Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp, 2009. 12-65. Print. Ermarth, Elizabeth Deeds. “Beyond ‘the Subject’: Individuality in the Discursive Condition.” New Literary History 31.3 (2000): 405-19. Print. “Fiat.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Web. 7 June 2015. Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. 418-30. Print. Heinz, Sarah. Die Einheit in der Differenz: Metapher, Romance und Identität in A.S. Byatts Romanen. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2007. Print. Homans, Margaret, and Adrienne Munich. Introduction. Remaking Queen Victoria. Eds. Margaret Homans and Adrienne Munich. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. 1-10. Print. Lewis, C.S. God in the Dock. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans [sic] Publishing, 1970. Print. Malinowsky, Bronislav. “Myth in Primitive Psychology.” Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. 1926. By Malinowsky. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954. 100-26. Print. Reckwitz, Andreas. Das Hybride Subjekt: Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. 2 nd ed. Weilerwist: Velbrück Verlag, 2010. Print. ---. Die Erfindung der Kreativität: Zum Prozess Gesellschaftlicher Ästhetisierung. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012. Print. Shoemaker, David. “Personal Identity and Ethics.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 13 Feb 2012. Web. 26 April 2015. Stetz, Margaret D. “Enrobed and Encased: Dying for Art in A. S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book.” Journal of Victorian Culture 17.1 (2012): 89-95. Print. “Surfeit (v.)” Oxford English Dictionary Online. Web. 7 June 2015. Thiele, Wolfgang. “Text.” Metzler Lexikon Literatur- und Kulturtheorie. Ansätze - Personen - Grundbegriffe. Ed. Ansgar Nünning. 4 th revised and expanded ed. Stuttgart and Weimar: J.B. Metzler, 2008. 706. Print. “Tyrant.”Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 7 June 2015. <?page no="241"?> Critical Origin Stories of Creative Subjectivity 233 Wieme, Marie-Theres. “‘Concrete - Not Abstract’: On the Creative Subject and Gender Relations in A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book.” Unpublished MA thesis. University of Mannheim, 2013. Print. Zima, Peter V. Theorie des Subjekts: Subjektivität und Identität zwischen Moderne und Postmoderne. 3 rd ed. Tübingen: Francke, 2010. Print. <?page no="243"?> Tatjana Himmel Julian Barnes’ England, England: The Postmodern Subject between Authenticity and Performance There were many different opinions about Sir Jack Pitman, few of them compatible. Was he villain and bully, or born leader and force of nature? Inevitable and gross consequence of the free-market system, or a driven individual who nevertheless kept in touch with his essential humanity? (EE 56) This introductory quote from Barnes’ England, England (EE) already hints at the ambivalent status of entrepreneur Sir Jack Pitman, the novel’s second protagonist besides Martha Cochrane, with whom the reader however is less eager to identify at first glance. Whereas Martha right from the beginning captures the reader’s sympathy, Pitman is portrayed as a caricature of a modern, capitalist business man, which is also emphasized by the novel’s aesthetic form. Whereas the novel’s first part (England) and third part (Anglia) deal in a serious way with the different stages in Martha’s self-growth and her looking for sense and meaning in life, the novel’s middle part (England, England) focuses in a satirical way on Pitman and his island project. Right from the beginning, there is a tension between the two characters. Martha appears as a dynamic character, whose different stages in life the reader follows from 1) her early childhood years in the countryside and the experience of loss she is confronted with when her father leaves the family (England) to 2) the middle years of her life during which she works for Pitman’s island project (England, England) and up to 3) her final years in the meanwhile decayed England from her childhood (Anglia). Pitman, by contrast, appears as a satirical construction, a one-dimensional stock character (cf. Henke 271), whose personal background and whose inner thoughts are only fragmentarily revealed to the reader. It is striking that already at the beginning of the novel’s second part England, England, the first impression the reader gets of Pitman is rather dubious when being confronted with the famous Pitman tribute: “JACK PITMAN is a big man in every sense of the word. Big in ambition, big in appetite, big in generosity […]. For all his fame and wealth, he is yet intensely private, a family man at heart” (EE 29). By amending the description of himself and setting it in stone, Pitman wants to actively participate in creating his own memory for posterity: These words, or most of them, had been written a few years previously by a Times profiler to whom Sir Jack had subsequently given brief employment. He <?page no="244"?> Tatjana Himmel 236 had deleted references to his age, appearance and estimated wealth, had the whole thing pulled together by a rewrite man, and ordered the final text to be carved on a swathe of Cornish slate. He was content that the quote was no longer sourced: a few years ago the acknowledgment ‘The Times of London’ had been chiselled out and a filler rectangle of slate inserted. This made the tribute so authoritative, and more timeless, he felt. (EE 30) In this tribute, the reader is informed about the way Pitman, the self-declared “family man“, likes to see himself and likes to be seen by others. “A rebel at heart, he liked to think. A bit of a maverick. A man who bends the knee to noone. Yet a patriot at heart” (EE 30). Pitman’s self-fashioning techniques become apparent when he talks to Paul Harrison, his Idea Catcher. In a self-stylized way he portrays himself as the self-made business man: Most people would say that I have done everything a man is capable of in my life. Many, indeed, do. I have built business from the dust up. I have made money, few would deny that. Honours have come my way. I am the trusted confidant of heads of state. I have been the lover, if I may say so, of beautiful women. I am a respected but, I must emphasize, not too respected member of society. I have a title. My wife sits at the right hands of presidents. What is there left? (EE 31) I will draw upon Reckwitz’ conceptualization of the hybrid subject in order to show that not only Martha but also Pitman grapple with the typical frictions postmodern subjects have to negotiate when constructing their identity or “building (their) character“ (EE 14), to use Barnes’ words. Although it is difficult to compare Pitman to the novel’s other protagonist Martha Cochrane, a contrastive analysis of Martha and Pitman with regard to intimate relationships serves to illustrate that the two suffer in a similar way from tensions within postmodern subject culture. Our perception of Pitman gains in complexity, as I will argue, when concentrating on how his construction of the self is shot through with fissures. According to Reckwitz (HS 81), the frictions inherent in postmodern culture result from its hybrid and palimpsest-like structure as it comprises selected elements from previous formations of subjectivity. Reckwitz (HS 609f.) emphasizes that the postmodern subject draws on two conflicting traditions, namely a semantics of authenticity associated with Romantic culture on the one hand, and a semantics of contingency and experimentation linked to avant-garde culture on the other hand. In this context, the terms “authenticity” and “contingency” are in need of further explanation. Whereas the concept of “authenticity” is based on the idea that the self can only achieve self growth by connecting with its one core self, the concept of “contingency” posits that such a core self does not exist; instead the self growth of a subject is <?page no="245"?> The Postmodern Subject in Julian Barnes’ England, England 237 fostered by an experimental attitude that engages with multiple facets and contingencies of the self: On the one hand we find the concept of an inner core of an individual centre which - against all possible resistance from the environment - is to be expressed in the outward doings and works; on the other hand, we come across an idea of contingencies within the self, of plural voices and incalculable forces which in their ambiguity permanently produce new and also unintelligible elements. (CSM 6) The frictions of postmodern subject culture are increased by different versions of the ‘creative imperative’. 1 Postmodern subjects encounter difficulties when trying to harmonize the social expectation of a) a creativity based on a Romantic inwardness and b) a creativity conceptualized in terms of outward performances stemming from the bourgeois ideal of the entrepreneurial self: Concerning the creative subject of the present, there are diverse instabilities which come to the fore as a result of overdetermination: […] the ambivalence between a model of creativity which finds its confirmation in itself and a creativity conceptualized in a model of the market. (CSM 12) Reckwitz (HS 449f.) stresses that in previous subject cultures - especially the bourgeois one - this authentic inwardness and creativity and the economic outwardness and performance of an entrepreneurial self were considered as mutually exclusive. The peculiarity of postmodern subject culture and its egoideal consists in dissolving the previous dichotomy and replacing it by the model of the successful artist, who combines economic success with individual authenticity (cf. HS 603). The ensuing analysis will show whether Pitman exemplifies a) Reckwitz’ postmodern ideal subject who succeeds in harmonizing these tensions or whether he exemplifies b) Reckwitz’ postmodern antisubject who fails in resolving these frictions. This approach opens up a new reading of Barnes’ novel, which differs from the current state of research’s dealing with Pitman. My thesis is that Reckwitz’ theory enables a nuanced reading of Pitman that deepens existing scholarly work by showing that he is more than a caricature of the businessworld; instead, the dilemmas that he faces in constructing his identity are paradigmatic for a postmodern subject culture, particularly its contradictions and frictions. Reckwitz’s approach makes one aware of complexities in Pitman’s self-fashioning by drawing attention to the frictions that shape a subject’s identity construction. In order to substantiate this claim, I will use a brief outline of what current research literature has to say about Pitman as a point of departure for my own analysis. 1 For a full discussion of creativity as an imperative in postmodern culture, see Elisabeth Maubach’s article in this volume. <?page no="246"?> Tatjana Himmel 238 Scholarly discussions of Pitman tend to characterize him in varying terms of excess. Whereas Semino (2) calls Pitman an “eccentric billionaire”, Nünning (7), Guignery (104) and Henke (271) refer to him in darker colours as a megalomaniacal media mogul. What is especially relevant for my argument is the debate regarding Pitman’s perception of authenticity. Zietemann (97-98) insists that Pitman rejects any kind of authenticity as can be seen by the mythmaking of his origin and his name. In fact, Pitman talks in a very enigmatic way about his name’s provenance: “Is my name real? ” (EE 32). In order to further bolster his claim, Zietemann (98) stresses Pitman’s unwillingness to accept his employees’ authenticity: ‘What is real? This is sometimes how I put the question to myself. Are you real, for instance - you and you? ’ … ‘You are real to yourselves, of course, but that is not how these things are judged at the highest level. My answer would be No. Regrettably. And you will forgive me for my candour, but I could have you replaced with substitutes, with […] simulacra, more quickly than I could sell my beloved Brancusi […]’. (EE 31) It becomes clear that Pitman emphasizes his employees’ replaceability while at the same striving to make himself timeless. In comparison to Zietemann (97f.), Henke (276) does not think that Pitman rejects all forms of authenticity in general, but he stresses Pitman’s rather ambivalent understanding of reality according to which he sees himself as “real“ and “authentic“ whereas his employees are “simulacra“ for him. Zietemann (97f.) and Henke (276) thus seem to have different opinions on Pitman’s understanding of authenticity. Whereas Zietemann (97f.) argues that Pitman applies the same authenticity standards to himself and to his employees, Henke (276) claims that Pitman has a rather hierarchical understanding of identity according to which only he himself as the Pitco boss is entitled to an “authentic identity”. Pateman, however, argues that Pitman is doubtlessly being parodied when he asks ‘What is real? ’, “but the parody itself runs the risk of being as dull and irritating as poor fifthform philosophy it intends to criticize” (Pateman 79). Pitman’s shifting conception of identity also comes to the fore in his behaviour towards his PAs, who are all replaceable “Susies” for him without individual personality: ‘Tell Woodie it’s time’, he said to his PA, whose name he could never remember. In one sense, of course, he could: it was Susie. This was because he called all his PAs Susie. They seemed to come and go at some speed. So it was not really her name he was unsure of, but her identity. Just as he’d been saying a moment ago - to what extent was she real? (EE 34) Zietemann (97) refers to Pitman’s behaviour towards his PAs as inhuman and disrespectful. Pitman, as Zieteman argues, reduces his employees merely to the function they fulfill in the team and completely ignores their self images (cf. Zietemann 97-98). But does Pitman really have such a functional relationship to his employees? Can Pitman really be referred to as the typical business <?page no="247"?> The Postmodern Subject in Julian Barnes’ England, England 239 man who is vain, ruthless and just aiming to maximize his profit (cf. Henke 271)? Kellaway underlines that the stereotypically negative representation of the tycoon Pitman is not in line with contemporary times anymore: Sir Jack Pitman, the anti-hero of Julian Barnes’s latest novel, is a media magnate, a fraud, a bully. He is a man who likes to take calls while sitting on his porphyry toilet; outside his office is a eulogy to him carved in stone. In short, he is a cigar-chewing clich? [sic! ], a grotesque caricature of the late Robert Maxwell. England, England is set in the future. But Barnes’s attitude to business is rooted in the past. Instead of summarily dismissing Pitman as a stock character or an out-dated cliché, I am interested in exploring how Barnes’s depiction of this homo economicus highlights key tensions in contemporary hegemonic subject formations. One of these frictions has already started to emerge: on the one hand, Pitman strives to memorialize himself via his Pitman tribute (cf. EE 29f.), whereas on the other hand, he stresses his employees’ replaceability (cf. EE 31, 34, 112). Reckwitz (HS 446, 592, 600) points out that exactly this habit of choosing is a key trait of the postmodern subject who increasingly perceives the world around it, including objects and people, in terms of consumerist options. In this regard, Pitman acts as a postmodern subject par excellence (cf. HS 574-84) with his behaviour towards his PAs and his replica-based island project (cf. EE 31, 52-56). Pitman’s fascination with Martha’s capacity of playfully taking on different roles during the job interview (cf. EE 44-48) can be equally considered as a postmodern feature, given the postmodern subject’s enthusiasm about fluidity and multiplicity as a means of showing one’s inner expressiveness (cf. HS 596f.). Martha’s capacity of transforming herself can in fact be considered as one of the main reasons why he decides for the “Appointed Cynic” (EE 64). In order to explain the friction between Pitman’s enthusiasm about a) Martha’s fluid, contingent identity and b) his personal striving to memorialize himself, it is important to differentiate between Pitman’s role in the Pitman team and Pitman’s behaviour when alone (see below). As the subject’s self-formation is influenced through 1) professional relationships, 2) personal, intimate relationships and 3) technologies of the self (cf. HS 55f., 58), I will now concentrate on these fields in order to gain deeper insights into Pitman’s character. I will start with a closer look at Pitman’s professional relationships. In comparison to current research literature, which offers a negative evaluation of Pitman’s relationship to his employees (cf. Zietmann 97f.; Henke 276), Reckwitz’ approach allows one to see Pitman’s team as a community of expression par excellence according to postmodern standards. In such a community, each person has a special function, an individual role and style through which he or she contributes to the creativity of the heterogeneous group, and enriches the democratic team meeting (cf. EE 72-76). <?page no="248"?> Tatjana Himmel 240 Pitman’s role in the Pitman team, in his community of expression, is marked by Pitman trying to appear as individualistic and extravagant as possible. His individual style manifests itself in his outward appearance, in the many exquisite accessories he wears, which act as a technique of self-branding: “He was wearing his Académie Francaise braces that afternoon, which in retrospect he judged fully appropriate: the meeting had been studded with Pitmanesque bon mots and apercus“ (EE 112). Also the interior design of his office illustrates his highly individualistic style: “Even something as seemingly unambiguous as the twenty-four storey, steel-and-glass, beech-and-ash, architectural fact of Pitman house yielded to variant readings” (EE 57). Reckwitz underlines that the ideal subject of consumerist and creative postmodern culture is characterized by performing her/ his individuality with the help of consumerist objects (cf. HS 602-04). Communities of expression at the work place, Reckwitz points out, play a central role in the postmodern subject’s selfcreation as an artist who is at the same time creative and economically successful (cf. HS 450). The postmodern ideal subject of the “successful artist“, as described by Reckwitz, at first sight seems to ideally fit to Pitman and his eagerness to harmonize his inward orientation of the artist (cf. EE 44) with his outward orientation of the businessman (cf. EE 112). Pitman’s effective self-branding also corresponds with the attributes of the postmodern ego-ideal: an “enterprising self” (HS 603) that knows how to market itself. In this context, it is highly significant that Pitman is a central topic of conversation, not only at the Pitco working place but also in the private life of the Pitco employees. One example is the relationship of Martha and Paul. They talk about Pitman and the(ir) deviating opinions about the Pitco boss. Pitman apparently succeeds in spreading his influence. At least Paul constantly talks about Pitman, also when in bed with Martha, and he even refers to Pitman by his title “Sir Jack Pitman“, which is seen rather critically by Martha: “As she fell asleep, she wondered about two things. Why, even in bed, they still referred to Sir Jack by his title” (EE 96). Paul even believes that Pitman is a family man at heart (cf. EE 64). Pitman’s self-branding hence shows effect. On the professional level, Pitman places high importance on his outward appearance and hones his practices of performance, self-fashioning, selfbranding and entrepreneurialism. With his exquisite appearance, he aims at being successful in the economic market (cf. EE 112). However, Pitman should not only be analysed on the professional level, but one should also have a look at the private level. It is striking that although Pitman is one of the novel’s main characters, Pitman’s family background and his private surroundings - in comparison to Martha’s - are nearly completely unknown. This provides much space for speculations and projections, not only for the other characters (cf. EE 56, 146) but also for the novel’s readers. <?page no="249"?> The Postmodern Subject in Julian Barnes’ England, England 241 Henke (281) presents Pitman as a fraud in this regard arguing that he draws upon apparently prestigious roots which are not his own to “build (his) character” (EE 14). This is underlined, Henke continues, by the braces he wears to illustrate his noble heritage: He pulled on his after-lunch cigar and snapped his MCC braces: red and yellow, ketchup and egg-yolk. He was not a member of the MCC, and his bracemaker knew better than to ask. For that matter, he had not been to Eton, served in the Guards, or been accepted by the Garrick club; yet he owned the braces which implied as much. (EE 30) Henke (281) argues that his inauthenticity, his dubious origins, is furthermore emphasized by his method of constantly re-inventing his history when rewriting the protocols of the staff meetings: ‘[…] Of course, I have had great ideas in my time, but somehow - do not record this, Paul, I am not certain it is for the archive - somehow, sometimes I wonder how real they were. These may be the ramblings of a senile fool - I do not hear your cries of contradiction so I presume you agree - but perhaps there is life in the old dog yet. Perhaps what I need is one last great idea. One for the road, eh, Paul? That you may record.’ Paul tapped in, ‘Perhaps what I need is one last great idea’, looked at it on the screen, remembered that he was responsible for rewrites as well, that he was, as Sir Jack had once put it, ‘my personal Hansard’, and deleted the wimpish ‘Perhaps’. In its more assertive form the statement would enter the archive, timed and dated. (EE 33) It is, however, questionable if Pitman can really be referred to as a fraud for “building (his) character” (EE 14) by not drawing upon his own roots and by constantly re-inventing himself. After all, the peculiarity of postmodern subject culture consists exactly in the idea of being “authentic” by not being authentic. According to postmodern standards, this process of constantly re-inventing oneself can be considered as a way of the postmodern subject to express her/ his fluidity and multiplicity (cf. HS 597). So far, I have mainly dealt with Pitman’s outward orientation. In order to gain deeper insights into Pitman’s inward orientation, it is indispensable to have a closer look at the scenes that show Pitman alone. These scenes feature Pitman’s technologies of the self and hence the techniques and practices the (postmodern) subject draws upon when alone in order to build up a connection to itself (cf. HS 58). The first scene of that kind is the one in which Pitman is shown walking in the fields and observing nature (cf. EE 40-44). In the light of Reckwitz’ theory, one could say that this scene vividly illustrates how postmodern culture “in many respects appropriate(s) and reinterpret(s) Romantic discourses and practices of creativity” (CSM 7). Reckwitz points out that observing nature in solitude is a common meditative technology originally stemming from the <?page no="250"?> Tatjana Himmel 242 Romantic era (cf. HS 225). Observing nature and listening to music are techniques which produce a sensitized interiority of the subject (cf. CSM 5). Withdrawn from the Pitco working place, alone in nature, Pitman reflects about time, timelessness and temporality in the light of Jerry Batson’s statement that “you’re as old, and exactly as old, as you are” (EE 37). The reader all of a sudden is confronted with Pitman as a human being wrestling with existential questions every human being has to deal with in life. Pitman is becoming aware of his limited time and he is striving to use the time he has and making the most out of it: “No, he must keep moving, he must act, he must not wait for time, he must seize time by the throat” (EE 43). After his thoughtful walk, Pitman decides to listen to Beethoven’s 9th symphony. Pitman’s practice of listening to music is a technology of the self that has its origin in Romantic culture and is associated with the ability to connect with one’s inner voice, to feel eternity in the moment (cf. HS 228). Such an inner connection to his core self, this feeling of timelessness, is exactly the feeling that listening to Beethoven’s 9th symphony gives Pitman. From that scene onwards, Beethoven’s 9th symphony acts as a leitmotif for Pitman’s striving to eternalize himself and find his “authentic self” (EE 44, 159). Similarly to Nünning (16), Pateman (77) also emphasizes that Pitman is strongly characterized by his musical tastes, as can be seen by Pitman’s frequent references to Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Wagner. At first sight, Pitman in this scene thus seems to ideally fit to the concept of the meditative artist. However, a closer examination reveals a small but mighty difference: “Sir Jack enjoyed marching out across land belonging to others […] . But he never made the mistake of imagining that any of it was simple, or natural” (EE 42). Postmodern Pitman here displays a decisive rupture with the originally Romantic concept of the genius who perceives nature through the eyes of an innocent child. This point is also highlighted by Pateman: Sir Jack engages in some cultural theory while walking and discovers that no one just ‘walked’ anymore, if they ever did, for the sheer pleasure. It was and always had been a business venture. By the same token, nature was not ‘nature’ but man-made. (79f.) Pitman differs from the meditative artist who finds his calling and vocation alone in nature. His replicaand market-oriented attitude stands in contrast to his personal striving for his eternal, authentic self (cf. EE 29f., 40-44). One could say that this scene shows in an exemplary way that postmodern creativity “is not a copy of romantic creativity but rather it draws upon and reinterprets certain elements of this romantic identity and embeds and combines them in a different context” (CSM 4). <?page no="251"?> The Postmodern Subject in Julian Barnes’ England, England 243 The famous leitmotif of the “50 quintessences of Englishness” that form the basis of Pitman’s island project can be considered as a counterpart to “Beethoven’s 9 th ” (cf. Pateman 77; Henke 271). These quintessences are not an object of pure fascination for Pitman. After Pitman is informed about Dr. Max’s questionnaire, Pitman is shown alone reflecting about the quintessences and an increasing disappointment arises in him: “Alone, Sir Jack considered the printout again. It frankly deteriorated towards the end” (EE 85f.). Henke (273), who in other respects underlines Pitman’s manipulative and market-oriented behaviour, asserts that this scene illustrates Pitman’s annoyance with the fifty quintessences. In a similar vein, Nünning (14) points out Pitman’s hidden nostalgia emerging in this scene. It becomes apparent that Sir Jack, who considers himself as a patriot in his private moments (cf. EE 30), is actually frustrated by the tourists’ lack of a collective, national awareness of Britain’s history: “This wasn’t a poll, it was bare-faced character assassination. Who the fuck did they think they were, going around saying things like that about England? His England. What did they know? Bloody tourists, thought Sir Jack” (EE 86). Deep inside, Pitman is angry and bitterly disappointed by “them”. The scene of Pitman reflecting alone about the “50 quintessences” creates the impression that the manipulative island project is more an act of revenge for Pitman, an act which illustrates his cynicism towards postmodern quality leisure and mass tourism. Holmes (94), with reference to Korte (290), underlines that postmodern tourists increasingly lose interest in the original, authentic object: “In a time that is postmodern, tourists may no longer even desire to find the authentic; mock authenticity, surface authenticity[,] seems to be satisfactory“. Pitman’s hidden disappointment about the tourists’ superficiality and his nostalgia for Britain’s past is discussed by Guignery (108) as well. Zietemann (29) argues that Sir Jack’s project consists of the idea of transferring the past into the present while at the same time pointing out that the project’s problem is the lack of a critical dealing with Britain’s past due to Pitman’s strategic and economic thinking. This is also foregrounded by Nünning (14), who argues that Pitman and his team completely neglect modern features of England. Henke (265) refers to Pitman’s way of replicating England’s national past as a highly calculated method of (cultural) identity construction which is merely based upon marketing aspects. In line with Reckwitz (HS 449f.), it can be said that Pitman is making himself a name in the global market, which is also emphasized by Nünning (7) and Childs (111). Therefore, Pitman seems to have much in common with the postmodern ideal of the economically successful genius (cf. HS 598-609). One may tease out further nuances of how Pitman embraces this ego-ideal with the help of Reckwitz. When they are planning the Betsy breakfast experience, Pitman clarifies what he wants the island experience to be like: ‘What we want’, said Sir Jack, ignoring her and banging the table in emphasis, ‘is magic. We want here, we want now, we want the Island, but we also want <?page no="252"?> Tatjana Himmel 244 magic. We want our Visitors to feel that they have passed through a mirror, that they have left their own worlds and entered a new one, different yet strangely familiar, where things are not done as in other parts of the inhabited planet, but as if in a rare dream.’ (EE 120) Reckwitz highlights that the focus on the here and now of the present moment is characteristic for the postmodern subject and its eagerness to have as many stimuli as possible in this one moment (cf. HS 594). The increasing short term thinking of a world with an extremely fast pace of life, in which “time is money“, becomes obvious. In a conversation between Jeff and Dr. Max, two employees of Pitman’s working team, Jeff explains to Dr. Max, the project’s official historian, the postmodern role of history that Pitman has envisaged for the island project: “Well, the point of our history […] will be to make our guests, those buying what is for the moment referred to as Quality Leisure, feel better” (EE 70). But is this also what Pitman is aiming for in personal life? What is the difference between private and professional Pitman? To which extent is Pitman able to take off his professional performance mask? Although I have analysed Pitman’s character with regard to the three different fields suggested by Reckwitz (HS 55-62) - 1. professional relationships, 2. personal relationships, 3. technologies of the self - the increasing difficulty to separate these different fields in the postmodern context becomes apparent in the novel when Pitco staff members increasingly start to completely identify themselves with the roles they have to play (cf. EE 231, 248). This absolute identification with one’s professional role, this blurring of boundaries between the different fields, can be considered as a common postmodern phenomenon, which is also referred to by Bradford (94f.), Henke (279), Guignery (111) and Nünning (18), who even considers it as a key leitmotif of Barnes’ novels. And not only the Pitco staff members but also Pitman himself illustrates the side effects of fully merging with his professional role as Mark, one of his employees, realizes: “Mark had a moment of silent satisfaction. At the same time, he felt that there was something ritualistic and inauthentic about Sir Jack’s cry. It was Sir Jack being ‘Sir Jack’. Not, in one sense, that he wasn’t always ‘Sir Jack’” (EE 75). Even Pitman, who at first sight appears as the master of performance, increasingly shows cracks in his professional mask. The frictions he has to deal with increasingly become apparent to the outside world as well. The codes that govern Pitman’s postmodern identity construction explain why Pitman behaves in such a strange way towards Paul and Martha as soon as he realizes that the two have started seeing each other. All of a sudden, Pitman’s envy and jealousy emerge and these feelings undermine his professional leadership in the hitherto well-functioning community of expression. Paul and Martha speculate about Pitman’s sudden aversion against them: “‘Do you think Sir Jack’s on to us? ’ […] Martha: ‘It didn’t feel like fishing. […] I told you, it’s always the family men who are the worst.’ Paul: ‘He’s fond of <?page no="253"?> The Postmodern Subject in Julian Barnes’ England, England 245 you, can’t you see? ’” (EE 94f.). During one of Pitman’s so-called “Auntie May“ trips, for which Paul has to cancel a date with his beloved Martha, Pitman keeps provoking Paul on the taxi ride: “Good. And I’m sure Martha will be waiting up for you later, and will give you an even bigger kiss” (EE 113). When alone, Paul wonders whether Pitman’s sudden aversion against him is connected to his affair with Martha: “Was Sir Jack jealous of Martha? Of him and Martha? Was that it? ” (EE 116). It seems as if Sir Jack feels increasingly menaced by Paul and Martha: Sir Jack did not even glance at his Ideas Catcher. The young man had become decidedly pert in recent weeks. Didn’t he understand that his job was to catch ideas not proffer his own piddling semi-notions? Sir Jack attributed these sudden moments of assertiveness to Paul’s stupendous good fortune in clambering into Martha Cochrane’s bed. Had Pitco been reduced to this, a mere dating agency for employees? There would be pay-off time, in due course; but not today. (EE 145) Pitman here illustrates a sudden eagerness to separate between private and professional life. Sir Jack Pitman, the master of performance who identifies with his professional mask (cf. EE 191), who in many ways appears as the ideal consumerist and creative subject of postmodern culture (cf. HS 450), suddenly merely reduces his employees to the function they fulfil, which contradicts Pitman’s above described attitude towards the Pitco team as a community of expression where each member - apart from his “lower” staff members like his PAs (cf. EE 35, 112) - contributes with his own individual role to the creativity of the group (cf. EE 72-76). Pitman’s behaviour towards Paul and Martha invites speculation as to its reasons. One may wonder, for example, if there is a connection between Pitman’s sudden aversion against the two and his above alluded to fear of temporality (cf. EE 42-44). It is also possible that he is envious of their youth: ‘You’re a lucky man, Paul. I envy you. Youth. The love of a good woman. Life before you.’ He reached for the door-handle. ‘My blessings on you. On you both.’ Paul was sure of one thing: that Sir Jack didn’t mean it. But what did he mean? (EE 146) Passages such as these point to the complexity and opacity of Pitman’s self. Pitman’s sudden jealousy towards the two arouses suspicion that there is a certain inner emptiness that characterizes his own intimate relationships. But until now, readers do not know yet why the successful businessman and “family man” should be envious of Martha and Paul. In order to better understand Pitman’s behaviour towards the two, it is important to have a closer look at his “Auntie May“ visits as they reveal an up to this point unknown side of Pitman. At first sight, these “Auntie May” visits seem to confirm Pitman’s self-created image of the “family man at heart” (EE 29): “’He’s a family man at heart’, repeated Paul. ‘You know, he’s <?page no="254"?> Tatjana Himmel 246 got an old auntie out in the sticks somewhere. Visits her as regular as clockwork’” (EE 64). Nevertheless, Martha seems to doubt this self-declaration as her allusion to his “invisible Lady Pitman” (EE 95) shows. Shortly afterwards, Paul unexpectedly becomes aware of Pitman’s little secret: “‘Look,’ he said, ‘the house isn’t on the manifest of properties and you can be sure if she was his Auntie it would be […]’” (EE 117). It is well worthwhile to take a closer look at what exactly is happening behind the doors of ‘Ardoch’: “‘Victor’, said Auntie May. ‘What a pleasant surprise’. She opened the front door of ‘Ardoch’ wider to let him pass. Some nephews wanted a maid - usually a very specific maid - to greet them. But nephew Victor liked doing things properly: this was Auntie May’s house so Auntie May answered the door” (EE 153). All of a sudden, “Sir Jack Pitman”, entrepreneur and “family man”, turns into “nephew Victor”, into “baby Victor”, who is looking forward to be breastfed by an “elegant, tweed-suited woman with a silver-blue rinse” (EE 153). The sexual preference Pitman hides behind his image of the “family man” emerges. All of a sudden, “Sir Jack Pitman”, successful business man, wishes to be treated as authentic “baby Victor” by authentic nurses, claiming “complete Babying. Cloth nappies, naturalistic vocalization, and … all the rest” (EE 155). Zietemann (97), with reference to Korte (92), points out that these scenes, in which Pitman is shown in the brothel, are actually the only occasions where Pitman - at least on the level of simulation - subordinates himself voluntarily to other people. With regard to intimacy, Reckwitz explains that postmodern sexual culture dissolves the distinction “normal”/ ”pathological” and replaces it by “pleasure increasing”/ “pleasure decreasing”. The anti-subject of postmodern culture thus is a subject that is incapable of feeling pleasure and of finding its sexual expression (cf. HS 542). Reckwitz (HS 541) emphasizes that the postmodern ideal subject draws upon various sexual practices which allow it to live out sexual desire in multiple ways. Reckwitz (HS 541) furthermore discusses the playful character of sexuality and eroticism, which are increasingly considered as areas of experimentation. Pitman’s sexual behaviour at first sight seems to fit these practices of intimacy and can therefore be seen as pointing to his multiple expressiveness, his openness for experiments and new experiences in comparison to the anti-subject, a subject that adapts to society’s standards and thus limits itself in its personal striving for self-growth (cf. HS 551). Nevertheless, there is one decisive detail that does not fit here: Pitman does not reveal his sexual fetish to the outside, but he hides it behind the self-proclaimed image of a family man. It becomes increasingly clear that Pitman’s “Auntie May” mask cannot really be considered as a proof of a successful synthesis between his different identity elements. Instead this mask shows Pitman struggling with frictions, his difficulty in harmonizing his outward and inward orientation. Pitman’s “Auntie May” visits at second sight <?page no="255"?> The Postmodern Subject in Julian Barnes’ England, England 247 turn out to be his technique of hiding his inner emptiness in the field of intimacy; an emptiness, which has already been indicated by his extreme jealousy towards Martha and Paul (cf. EE 145). As the preceding analysis shows, Reckwitz’ theoretical perspective allows one to identify these complexities in Pitman’s character. A comparative look at Martha Cochrane, the novel’s other protagonist, reveals that this character is also struggling with the frictions in postmodern subject culture. In Martha’s case, it is easier to learn something about her intimate relationships as her inner thoughts - in comparison to Pitman’s - are depicted in more detail. Martha suffers in a similar way to Pitman from an inner emptiness as her internal discussions illustrate: She listened to an echo of her own voice. I’ll settle for good, she had said. Settling already, Martha, isn’t it a bit early for that? Oh, I don’t know, after all, everyone settles. Not you, Martha, you’ve always lived your life not settling […]. (EE 97) Martha’s internal musings showcase the conflicts and tensions she has to deal with. She has difficulties in harmonizing her inner longing for authenticity with her striving for contingency and fluidity (see above), which Reckwitz identifies as a typical condition of the hybrid postmodern subject (cf. HS 601- 11). Furthermore, she starts to realize that her professional, outward image of the “Appointed Cynic” (EE 64) does not guarantee her the same success on the level of her personal relationships: Why was everything back to front? She could make the Project work, even though she didn’t believe in it; then, at the end of the day, she returned home with Paul to something she believed in, or wanted and tried to believe in, yet didn’t seem able to make it work at all. She was there, alone, without defences, without distancing, irony, cynicism, she was there, alone, in simple contact, yearning, anxious, seeking happiness as best as she could. Why did it not come? (EE 193) Similarly to Martha, Pitman seems to suffer from a resembling conflict as vividly illustrated by the scene of his 65 th birthday (cf. EE 168-75), which acts as a decisive turning point in his life. It is one of those few scenes where Pitman is shown alone, where readers are confronted with Pitman in his private moments: Soon, he could pin-cushion himself with medals, if he so desired, could create any number of titles for himself. What, for instance, had happened to the Fortuibus lineage? That could surely be revived. First Baron Fortuibus of Bembridge? And yet Sir Jack felt that, deep within him, there was always a fundamental simplicity, even an austerity. Of course you had to keep up appearances […] - but you should never lose touch with your essential humanity. No perhaps it was better, more appropriate, for him to remain simple Sir Jack. (EE 169) <?page no="256"?> Tatjana Himmel 248 It becomes increasingly clear that even Pitman, who at first sight acts as the postmodern master of performance and impression management (cf. EE 112), is also weary of this eternal masquerade. Both Martha and Pitman exemplify how the postmodern subject is torn between a striving for authenticity and an eagerness to live out one’s fluid, multiple identities. 2 All of a sudden, Pitman seems to be looking for authenticity, for humanity, for his core self: “And yet Sir Jack felt that deep within him there was always a fundamental simplicity, even an austerity” (EE 169). At the same time, Pitman is aware of the necessity of “keep(ing) up appearances” (EE 169). He realizes that he has reached the climax of his life, he has reached everything he has ever dreamt of. The last big project he referred to at the beginning (cf. EE 34-40) has proven to be successful. But now that he has fulfilled his big dream, now that he has so much power that he could “pin-cushion himself“ (EE 169) with as many medals as he wants, now that he is what he had always been striving to become (cf. EE 130), is he really happy? It seems as if Pitman is starting to realize what he has lost, what he has given up for this dream. All of a sudden there is a yearning in him, a yearning for the simple, the human, the authentic, which he has neglected for so long. This yearning for something more serious, for the core self, suddenly seems more important to him than the eternal “masquerade” (cf. EE 169). But does this core self really exist? The reader does not really know if Pitman is really striving for “authenticity” in a Romantic sense (“authenticity” = living in harmony with his core self; see above) or if his striving for “authenticity” and “fundamental simplicity” can rather be read as a confirmation of his distorted perception of reality according to which “authenticity” is equated with a simplistic life style. More and more the reader starts to realize that Pitman and Martha apparently both have lost the connection to themselves. In an epiphanic conversation with Dr. Max, the project’s official historian, Martha realizes that her inner emptiness results from her fear of human contact. Dr. Max unmasks her role of the “Appointed Cynic” (EE 64) as a way of protecting herself from emotional vulnerability: My observation, and this is in the context, Miss Cochrane, of being fond of you, is that either you participate actively, but in a stylized way, portraying yourself as a woman without illusions, which is a way of not participating, or you are provokingly silent, encouraging others to make fools of themselves. Not that I’m against fools exhibiting their foolishness. But either way, you make yourself unavailable for scrutiny and, I would guess, contact. (EE 134) In comparison to the successful “creative consumer subject” (HS 592), who manages to combine economic prosperity with individual authenticity, not only Pitman but also Martha seems to be unable to find such a synthesis. Mar- 2 For a discussion of this tension in postmodern subject culture, cf. HS 611. <?page no="257"?> The Postmodern Subject in Julian Barnes’ England, England 249 tha’s anxious thoughts and her church visits illustrate the postmodern subject’s longing for authenticity, spirituality and sense in a world of ironic superficialities where “anything goes”, as underlined by Henke (284). Martha asks herself: “What am I after? […] Perhaps a recognition that life, despite everything, has a capacity for seriousness. Which has eluded me” (EE 236). Henke (284) emphasizes that the discussion between the converted Martha and her cynic Alter Ego (“the Appointed Cynic“) encapsulates the inner conflict she has to deal with. According to Henke (284), Martha is torn between an existential-essentialist position on the one hand (“Life is more serious, and therefore better, and therefore bearable, if there is some larger context“, EE 237) and a position of irony and cynicism on the other hand: “Oh, come on, Martha […]. Brittle cynicism is a truer response to the modern world than this … sentimental yearning” (EE 237). The postmodern subject’s conflict between the search for meaning and seriousness and the ironic playful dealing with existentialist questions (cf. HS 610f.) once again emerges. Throughout the article, it has become clear that Martha and Pitman in the end have more in common than one might think at first sight. Although at the beginning, it might seem as if Pitman is rather striving for “magic moments” (EE 120) of “rejuvenation” (EE 158) instead of looking for a larger meaning or pondering about existential questions like Martha does (EE 236-38), the analysis has shown that Pitman’s character is more nuanced than his easy categorization as a cliché suggests. Especially the analysis of the scenes where Pitman is shown alone (cf. EE 40-44, 169) reveals that Pitman is reflecting about life’s existential questions in a similar way to Martha. Both of the novel’s protagonists hence suffer in a comparable way from frictions as is illustrated by the emptiness on the level of their personal relationships. Both appear to the outside world as economically successful subjects but their personal striving for self-growth and authenticity cannot really be fulfilled. Martha’s archaic, rural life in Anglia (cf. EE 241-66) does not act as an alternative to the postmodern island project in the end. All in all, the analysis of England, England unfolded in this article connects to the existing scholarly discussion of how Barnes’s novel stages a scathing critique of postmodern culture. However, it also enriches the discussion by raising our awareness of Pitman’s inner complexities and his inability to ultimately reconcile the different imperatives of postmodern subject culture. *** Tatjana Himmel studied English, French, and Spanish at the University of Mannheim, where she graduated in 2014 (Staatsexamen). During her studies, she mainly focused on modernist and postmodernist literature. She is especially interested in representations of interand transcultural encounters in <?page no="258"?> Tatjana Himmel 250 literature as well as the way in which time, memory, and identity are dealt with in literature. After having gained teaching experience in England and Spain, she now teaches in Germany. Bibliography Barnes, Julian. England, England. London: Vintage, 2012. Print. Bradford, Richard. “Julian Barnes’s England, England and Englishness.” Julian Barnes: Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Eds. Sebastian Groes and Peter Childs. London et al.: Continuum, 2011. 92-102. Print. Childs, Peter. Julian Barnes. Manchester et al.: Manchester UP, 2011. Print. Freud, Sigmund. Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie. Fischer Klassik, 2009. Print. Guignery, Vanessa. The Fiction of Julian Barnes. Basingstoke et al.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Print. Henke, Christoph. Vergangenheitsobsessionen: Geschichte und Gedächtnis im Erzählwerk von Julian Barnes. Trier: WVT, 2001. Print. Holmes, Frederick Michael. Julian Barnes. Basingstoke et al.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Print. Kellaway, Lucy. “We can’t do business.” Prospect Magazine 34 (1998): n. pag. Web. 11 Oct. 2014. Korte, Barbara. “Julian Barnes’ England, England: Tourism as a Critique of Postmodernism.” The Making of Modern Tourism: The Cultural History of the British Experience, 1600-2000. Eds. Hartmut Berghoff, et al. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 285-303. Print. Nünning, Vera. “The Invention of Cultural Traditions: The Construction and Deconstruction of Englishness and Authenticity in Julian Barnes’ England, England.” Anglia. Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 119 (2001): 58-76. Print. Pateman, Matthew. Julian Barnes. Tavistock: Northcote House, 2002. Print. Reckwitz, Andreas. Das hybride Subjekt. Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Göttingen: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2010. Print. ---. “Creative Subject and Modernity: Towards an Archaeology of the Cultural Construction of Creativity.” Diskussionsbeiträge Konstanzer Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolloquium 2 (2007): 1-15. PDF file. Semino, Elena. “Representing Character’s Speech and Thoughts in Narrative Fiction: A Study of England, England by Julian Barnes.” Style 38.4 (2004): 428-51. Print. Zietemann, Daniela. Julian Barnes‘ “England, England“ als Auseinandersetzung mit Theorien der Gegenwart. Kiel: Ludwig, 2011. Print. <?page no="259"?> Stella Butter Representations of Ideal Homes in English Culture: Gracious Living and the Creative Self in Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home The understanding and experience of home is bound up with hegemonic cultures of subjectivity. The current ideal of what Andreas Reckwitz (HS 591-98) calls ‘the creative self’ 1 is sutured to aesthetic practices within home spaces, as the current craze for homemakeover shows in Britain but also, for example, the United States indicates. “The home has become”, Orvar Löfgren (51) observes, “an arena for creativity and artistic ambitions”. A brief perusal of popular British decorating magazines illustrates how home ideals are rooted in the paradigm of creativity. The May 2014 edition of Ideal Home is, to quote the editorial introduction, devoted to “celebrating your creativity and the personal touches that make for a true ideal home” (4). The extensive descriptions of the featured family homes are all about how “decorating projects […] reflect who you are” (27). It is not only the feature articles that depict home spaces as the site of creative self-expressivity but also the advertisements in the magazine. A case in point is Crown Paints’ marketing slogan “Add a splash of you to your walls. Express yourself through colour” (36). A house is perceived as an ideal home once it is transformed into a realm of aesthetic experience for its inhabitants and visitors. Home is not only a site forged by the creative self but it is also constitutive of the creative self. Practices of homemaking or ‘doing home’ are equally practices of the self. Forms of life emerge from the way individuals do home. Precisely because cultures of subjectivity are generated by interlocking practices in different social fields, such as the realm of work or personal relationships, they comprise a whole form of life (cf. Jaeggi 104-19; HS 62-72). How these social practices interconnect to produce forms of life can be easily shown in the case of home. The organization and experience of home life is linked to changing patterns of family, labour, and leisure, gender roles as well as issues of class, ethnicity, race, and nationhood. The phenomenon of the home office, for example, results from a restructuring of office organization to allow employees greater flexibility in balancing their work and private life. The manifold connections between home and different identity parameters can equally be illustrated 1 For a detailed discussion of the creative self and creativity as a key paradigm in contemporary Western culture, see Reckwitz’ Das hybride Subjekt and Die Erfindung der Kreativität or Elisabeth Maubach’s article in this volume. <?page no="260"?> Stella Butter 252 with the help of popular interior decorating magazines such as the one cited above. When leafing through the May edition of Ideal Home, issues of nationhood prominently come to the fore. One cannot help but gain the impression that Britain exclusively consists of white middle or upper class heterosexual families. Ideal homes are coded in terms of ethnicity, class, and gender that have wider implications as to who belongs to the nation (cf. Morley). Literature not only includes contemporary discourses on ideals of home in in its ‘repertoire’, to use Wolfgang Iser’s term, but novels such as Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home (DHH) also critically assess the form of life generated by these practices of the self and homemaking. 2 The vocabulary that enables us to criticize forms of life, the philosopher Rahel Jaeggi emphasizes, consists of what Bernard Williams calls ‘thick ethical concepts’ (cf. Jaeggi 29). In contrast to general or ‘thin’ ethical concepts such as ‘good’ or ‘right’, which are almost entirely evaluative in meaning, thick ethical concepts “seem to express a union of fact and value” (Williams 129) and hence have a higher degree of descriptive content than thin ones (cf. also Elliott 92). 3 Literature encourages such a thick and differentiated vocabulary when gauging forms of (home) life due to its fondness for imaginatively exploring the experientiality of individuals. From the perspective of the individual imbricated in the quotidienne, forms of life are not just ‘right or wrong; ’ instead, they “can be successful or fail […]; they are sterile, dead, kitschy, dreary, regressive - or vice versa: cool, original, infectious, fascinating, progressive” (Jaeggi 29). 4 Moreover, literary texts often introduce strategies that serve to denaturalize the values and norms a specific form of (home) life posits as a given. Such a move may cause readers to rethink their own value judgements such as ‘right or wrong’ with regard to the depicted forms of home life. Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home, first published in 2009, makes for an especially intriguing case study on how literature critically engages with the nexus between ideals of home, the creative self, and forms of life. This novel explores the potential of interior design for developing gracious living or the art of living well on the level of home. It does so by featuring an internationally successful interior designer, Alizia Tamé, as both first person narrator and the fictive author of Designs for a Happy Home. For most 2 On representations of forms of life in Anglophone literature, cf. Basseler, Hartley, and Nünning. 3 The philosopher Carl Elliott illustrates this fusion of fact and value by drawing on the following examples: “Thick ethical concepts like coward, bully, cruel […] map onto things in the world, like purely factual concepts, but they also represent ethical evaluations of those things onto which they are mapped. In other words, to call a person a coward or cruel is to pick out and describe something about him, in the same way as calling him a father or a Canadian, but it is also to communicate a particular type of ethical evaluation. And the ethical evaluation is not something that follows from the description, nor is it a kind of add-on, or attachment. It is built right into the meaning of the word” (92). 4 All translations from Reckwitz and Jaeggi into English are mine. <?page no="261"?> The Creative Self in Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home 253 of her book, Alizia enthuses over the ways in which good design promotes happiness in one’s life. Her choice of genre foregrounds creativity as a paradigm for the form of life or subjectivity she embraces. Designs for a Happy Home is a mixture of autobiography and ‘How to do interior design book’. In the words of Alizia, these two genres go together because “the roots of my Designs go deep into my life and their branches (i.e., their effects) stretch out in all directions” (DHH 1f.). Her comments on good design assume a metafictional quality because the reading of Designs for a Happy Home is likened to a journey through a house. Each of the chapters is devoted to designing a different room, the first of which is aptly “The Hallway” understood as a threshold to the home or aesthetic/ literary world one is entering. However, Alizia’s notion that good design constitutes the art of living well is challenged in the course of the novel. For one thing, her otherwise unfailing optimism crumbles when her marriage breaks up despite all her attempts to design a perfect home environment for her family. Moreover, the novel clearly flaunts satirical elements and textual signals that indicate Alizia’s unreliability as a narrator. The inclusion of letters written by people close to Alizia, for example, offers a different perspective on events or relationships. These textual elements prompt the reader to interrogate Alizia’s design philosophy and to decide for himor herself whether interior design may contribute to living a good life. My thesis is that the discrepancy between telling and showing in Reynolds’ novel correlates with two different perspectives on the contemporary aestheticization of home with its fetishization of the creative subject. While on the level of telling, the aestheticization of home is championed as the art of living well, on the level of showing the novel depicts interior design as a will to power and the aesthetic home as a disciplinary site for containing messy bodily processes. In order to substantiate this claim, I will first concentrate on Alizia’s vision of realizing gracious living through interior design before addressing the novel’s critique of aestheticized (home) lives. The positioning of Designs for a Happy Home within broader Western discourses on home is thereby taken into account. My discussion of Reynolds’ novel is structured by four key areas of interest that intersect and feed into each other: the connection between paradigms of creativity and bodily experientiality; the ways in which interior design philosophies are predicated on specific subject models and forms of embodiment (e.g. the novel’s distinction between modernist design philosophy and Alizia’s philosophy); the social power hierarchies traversing and shaping home spaces, especially those forged by class, ethnicity, gender and nationhood; the regulation of messy bodies in the home as part of what Norbert Elias calls ‘the civilizing process’. I will begin my analysis with the first area by concentrating on the novel’s depiction of creative practices and their import for bodily experientiality. <?page no="262"?> Stella Butter 254 1 Creativity and Bodily Experientiality Designs for a Happy Home stages the pervasiveness of the creative ethos in Western society by exclusively depicting characters that are associated with the arts. A brief run through the character list offers the following professions: Alizia’s husband Jem is a potter, Simon Sanders and Fisher Paul are Alizia’s designer colleagues at the company she works for, and even Alizia’s nanny Carla is aspiring to become an artist or creative designer. The arts also feature in the lives of Marion and Stan, a couple who is befriended with Alizia and Jem. Stan works as a lecturer in cultural studies but originally aimed at being a conceptual artist. His wife Marion makes “‘arty’ hand-knits” (DHH 18), which she sells at Camden Market. The depiction of characters in Reynolds’ novel implies that creative practices in work and everyday life are the norm and not the exception. The character constellation foregrounds that the forms of subjectivity forged by creative practices strongly vary. Jem and Alizia, for example, have a markedly different relationship to the body, which in turn influences their experience and philosophy of creativity. Jem’s description of his work in the pottery studio suggests that the creative process flows from archaic bodily or even mythic forces: Then I started to make great heavy pots […] [l]ike huge artefacts that had been underground for centuries. Each morning I left our house like anybody going to work, but where I was going was my studio, my burrow, where I could […] open myself up in the gloom. I breathed the damp, thick air, and my Art happened. Pots that some earth god might make. (DHH 29) The recurring characterisation of Jem as “a very physical man” (DHH 43), who sees value in mess and not carefully planned order, strengthens the impression that the paradigm of creativity embodied by Jem is associated with what Reckwitz (HS 303, 322) calls a ‘naturalistic’ code: the transgression of cultural order through art requires granting free reign to one’s spontaneous bodily life. In contrast, Alizia is portrayed as tense and, in the words of Stan, as “unbodily” in the sense that she is not prone to “giving herself over to a messy natural process” (DHH 84). Her practices of creativity come closer to the code of artificiality insofar as she emphasizes the creation of new designs through a recombination of the given, e.g. furniture, colours or fabrics (cf. HS 322). While these two paradigms of creativity mainly appear as binary oppositions in the novel, there are also passages that point to their blurring. When Jem unexpectedly sweeps Alizia into his arms to carry her over the threshold of their first joint home, it is this spontaneous bodily experientiality that inspires Alizia to an innovative design idea. Due to the satirical elements in the novel, readers are constantly forced to judge how persuasive they find the articulated ethos of creativity. Jem’s archaic visions and his talk of an earth <?page no="263"?> The Creative Self in Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home 255 god, for example, seem somewhat over the top. After Jem runs off with Marion, with whom he had been having an on-and-off affair for years, Alizia denounces “this talk of Nature and its power. The Darkness! The Ooze! ” (DHH 238) and the concomitant idea that things just happen due to Nature as an excuse for selfish behaviour. Her scathing critique draws attention to how conceptualizations of creativity may cater to specific agendas. This in turn begs the question what interests Alizia’s own interior design philosophy may serve. I will return to this issue and the question of how Alizia develops in the course of the novel at a later point of my argument. 2 Subject Models and the Role of Embodiment in Interior Design Philosophies Alizia’s interior design philosophy is based on a specific subject model. Instead of seeing interiority as contained within a self-enclosed monad, Alizia emphasises the dispersed nature of the self, which blurs the divide between inside and outside: “your Interior - your thoughts and feelings and fears - and the Interiors that surround you, with their wallpapers and stripped-pine flooring and leather chairs (or whatever), all somehow go together. If a lick of paint can lift your mood […] - imagine what a full-scale re-design can do” (DHH 2). Different interiors contain each other so that subjectivity is dispersed within and shaped by the atmospheres of surrounding interiors. Being-in-theworld means, the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk maintains, “being-in-spheres” (46). Such a notion also underpins Alizia’s comments on the role interior design plays for a sense of self. The idea that the self is “encompassed, disclosed, breathed-upon” (Sloterdijk 541) and hence also constituted by surrounding interiors implies elements that elude the subject’s control. Being affected by the atmospheres of interior spaces can be conceived of as something that ‘happens to’ a subject. Alizia’s focus on design, however, places the emphasis on agency because design introduces an intentional order as a means of determining the atmospheres within the domestic and psychological interior: “A beautiful Interior can make you calmer, more generous - and, in a really startling way, more you” (DHH 2). The “more you” assertion is not indicative of essentialist notions of the self, but instead links with Alizia’s observations on how subjectivity is performed in home spaces and how the interior design of these homes should reflect a subject’s habits. The interior design philosophy Alizia embraces is indebted to the contemporary move away from modernist architecture. IntArchitec, the company she works for, stands for “[s]tark lines, empty spaces, floors of polished granite […], lots of chrome and leather” (DHH 71). In its offices, the “classics by Jacobsen, Le Corbusier and the Eameses [are] always on display. […] The principles of impersonality, and of a very literal idea of function, were never up <?page no="264"?> Stella Butter 256 for debate”. Such “rigidity” means that each Design “shout[s] out ‘IntArchitec! ’, and only secondarily express[es] the wishes of the client” (DHH 71). This form of interior is reminiscent of the “hyperorganized environment” (Melchionne 192) encapsulated by modernist architecture such as Philip Johnson’s famous Glass House in Connecticut. The inhabitant of this particular house is required to follow the dictates of the design, carefully placing all used objects back into their pre-allocated places (cf. Melchionne 192). “[T]he correct manner of inhabiting the Glass House must […] be a form of protection of the original composition” (Melchionne 193) so that the inhabitant becomes a “curator of sorts” (Melchionne 192). The denigration of such an aesthetic environment as ‘unliveable’, the scholar Kevin Melchionne points out, says more about our contemporary subject forms than it does about the alleged “failure of the modernist designer to use ‘common sense’ about the priority of comfort over fashion” (194). Alizia’s critical rejection of these modernist interiors as uncomfortable and impersonal hence points to changing cultures of subjectivity and fashions regarding interior design. With her own brand “Home-is-Harmony” Alizia aims to “put People First” (DHH 24). Her design philosophy corresponds with what Melchionne describes as “an environmental aesthetic of domestic space” (191) or “gracious living” (197). Environmental aesthetics means the creation of “an environment that facilitates domestic practice while at the same time making the environment worthy of aesthetic attention and admiration” (191). Domestic practices are only facilitated through “organizing the space around pre-existing habits” (Melchionne 193). This is precisely what Alizia strives to ensure: “A home is not a stage set. Interiors are to be used: a Hallway is to be walked through” (DHH 6). She translates this into her so-called Magic Motto: “Design - For Life! ” (DHH 6). While Alizia rejects subordinating habits to aesthetic composition, she does insist on the necessity of maintaining the design of home spaces on a daily basis: “Many hallways I have seen have been ruined - not by any Design error - but by a personal failing on the part of the inhabitants: Mess” (DHH 6). Given that mess obliterates the composition of an interior, the mundane act of tidying up is endowed with “a creative side” (Melchionne 195) because it establishes an aesthetic order. “The tidy home”, Melchionne notes, “invites visitors and occupants alike to view it as a work of art” (195). This daily “art of domesticity” (Melchionne 192) explains why Alizia immediately expands her guideline “Design - For Life! ’” with the motto “And Live - For Design! ” (DHH 6). The chore of tidying, however, raises the nasty spectre of home as a dreary place of work and not the pleasurable realm of aesthetic experience Alizia makes it out to be. Alizia tries to ward off this ugly spectre by portraying interior design as a means for enabling nonalienated labour: “Imagine a kitchen where everything you need is miraculously within reach, where your everyday dull chores become a happy dance” (DHH 2). The aesthetic arrangement <?page no="265"?> The Creative Self in Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home 257 of space to support one’s habits, in this case the daily rhythm of cooking, increases efficiency (“everything you need is within reach”) so that domestic chores can be done with style (“a happy dance”) and pleasure in the environment. Alizia’s vision of the art of living well echoes Melchionne’s concept of ‘gracious living’. Domestic grace, Melchionne explains, “is not just the appearance of one’s lodging, but also the faculty of living well in them. Domestic grace is taste at the level of how life is lived; it is style raised exponentially from formal delight to the rhythms of daily life” (198). Given the feminist critique of unpaid female labour in the home, Melchionne is careful to distinguish “homemaking as servitude” (196) from his notion of graceful living based on unalienated labour: “The art of domesticity locates where pleasure surges out of labor in a beautiful room, a savory meal, a pleasant moment alone, with family, or with guests” (197). Melchionne’s statement on how labour and pleasure conjoin in homemaking reads as a gloss of Alizia’s description of how good design enables the happy dance in the kitchen while cooking a meal. On a critical note, however, one may point out that Designs for a Happy Home is completely lacking in concrete descriptions of the everyday chores required to maintain a clean and tidy home. There are no passages featuring Alizia or somebody else scrubbing toilets and floors within her home. In fact, it is left unclear who does what kind of household work in Alizia’s home. While home is also Alizia’s workplace, it is not household work that plays a role but once again her activities as interior designer: she starts doing home office after she has a child. Moreover, it is surely no coincidence that cooking is presented both in Designs for a Happy Home and in the Melchionne text as an example of nonalienated labour in the home. Pleasure surging out of sensuous cooking in a beautiful kitchen is, at least for me and probably many others, easier to imagine than pleasure surging from scrubbing beautifully tiled floors. Despite the reservations one may have regarding the feasibility of gracious living, it is important to note that a re-evaluation of domestic work is part and parcel of a larger Western discourse that seeks to move beyond a wholesale rejection of women’s housekeeping as oppressive. In her influential essay “House and Home” (2001), the feminist scholar Iris Marion Young, for example, advocates distinguishing positive from oppressive dimensions of domestic work. When cleaning and dusting a room, the homemaker is not just, Young argues, eliminating bacteria but preserving objects that anchor memories and family stories, hence engaging in a “fundamentally world-making and meaning-giving” (277) activity. “Equality for women, then, requires revaluation of the private and public work of the preservation of meaningful things, and degendering these activities” (Young 277). The importance of objects for bolstering identity is also emphasized in Designs for a Happy Home when Alizia characterizes these as “life tools” (DHH 49). <?page no="266"?> Stella Butter 258 The term ‘grace’ captures Alizia’s vision of homemaking not only in its suggestion of style, ease, and effortlessness, but also due to its religious overtones. 5 In keeping with the theological sense of grace, she conceives of interior design as contributing to the spiritual well-being of its recipients. After all, her readers are embarking on what she calls a “design pilgrimage” (DHH 1) that promises the key to “Happiness” (DHH 4). While Alizia undergoes the painful experience that “[t]his so-called ‘Design for Life’ had done absolutely zip to stop my life being ripped up” (DHH 222), she does hold on to the regulatory ideal that interiors are there To make Life better. To make it Beautiful. […] But vitally, Interior Design is also about other people. […] People come into it, and they can open up. […] Interior Design is all about thinking the best of people - and trying to make that best come true. Of course it doesn’t always work. Perhaps it even never works completely. But, that’s not a reason [to] not […] Keep Trying! (DHH 238f.) Alizia’s brand name ‘Home-is-Harmony’ encapsulates the Edenic quality she associates with home and the redemptive quality she attributes to interior design. The carefully designed home hence not only appears as the arena for the aesthetic staging of self but also as a site of enchantment that may motivate individuals to ethical behaviour (cf. Bennett xi). While the level of telling champions the ethical potentials of a creative form of life, the level of showing complicates this image of gracious living by depicting the power dynamics that inform Alizia’s practices of creativity. Her homemaking is shown to be driven by a will to power and control: she uses the interior design of the home she shares with Jem as a means for laying down the parameters of their relationship. Interspersed in the novel are letters or “testimonial[s]” (DHH 27) Alizia has asked her husband, friends, and colleagues to write in order to provide the reader with further insight into her private life and to develop “an understanding of the delicate negotiations that sometimes have to happen between the Designer and other people who […] may not have Design as their no 1 focus” (DHH 27). These letters offer contrasting viewpoints to Alizia’s version of events. In his letter, Jem bluntly states that when it came to designing their joint home “it never really mattered what I thought, you had your Project for the two of us” (DHH 29). Alizia’s particular brand of ‘gracious living’ or ‘home is harmony’ does not allow for productively engaging with difference within home spaces. Indicative of her controlling stance is the petty argument she has with Jem over aesthetic taste. When visiting Marion and Stan, Jem had expressed his appreciation of their pottery ibis from Egypt because he liked how “the imprint of the maker’s hands” (DHH 20) conveys a feeling of authenticity. For Alizia, the ibis is noth- 5 Cf. Melchionne (197f.) for a discussion of the different meanings of grace and their interplay. <?page no="267"?> The Creative Self in Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home 259 ing but terrible because it is mass-produced for the tourist market. Alizia rationalizes her extreme upset over this seemingly trivial difference in opinion by emphasizing that “taste connects to every aspect of your life” (DHH 21). The implication of her rationalization is that she desires for Jem to bow to her aesthetic judgments and hence to fit into the form of life she chooses for the both of them. Significantly, their lovers’ tiff is healed when she tells Jem about her design idea for the hallway and he endorses it. The control Alizia strives to exert over her environment drastically comes to the fore when she transforms her home into a panopticum by installing webcams in every room. Her explanations for this move, such as security reasons and wanting to feel close to her daughter while working in her home office, cannot gloss over that she establishes visual control over all inhabitants in her home. Alizia may claim that “Interior Design is also about other people” and that a “well-designed Interior is a gift” (DHH 239), but she herself is wrapped up in her own aesthetic world oblivious to the needs and desires of people close to her. Her unreliability as a narrator largely results from her failure to recognize this. Her egocentrism becomes manifest in numerous instances, such as when she talks about what kind of chairs are suitable for what kind of people. She claims a big armchair designed by Kuramata for herself because she considers herself to be naturally at “the centre of attention” (DHH 33) in social interaction. In light of Alizia’s self-absorption, her decision to blend a ‘how to do interior design’ with her autobiography appears as an excuse to write a book concentrating first and foremost on herself. In fact, the writing of her autobiographic Designs for a Happy Home contributes to her relationship problems with Jem because it means that she has even less time for family life due to focussing on herself (cf. DHH 160). Giving her design philosophy a narrative form contributes to undermining the design of the harmonious home Alizia seeks with Jem. The novel thus invites a critical reflection of how Alizia’s writing process may be part of the narcissism and power play that also inform her home designs. Her teaching the reader how to do good design, including the exercises she sets for readers, may be understood as once again an attempt to impose her design philosophy onto others. While Alizia is a workaholic, it is less her long working hours that play a key role in the failure of her marriage and more her self-absorption and application of interior design practices to intimate relations. Alizia’s response to relationship problems is the move to a new house or ‘home; ’ a move that does not address Jem’s dissatisfaction with Alizia’s lack of reciprocity: “You’re never really here. You’re not here now. You’re like behind a wall. A glass wall” (DHH 143). Alizia’s application of interior design principles to life means treating her family but also other people like ‘projects’ or elements she has to integrate into her designs (cf. DHH 131). Such a focus on the home and people <?page no="268"?> Stella Butter 260 as ‘projects’ is, as Reckwitz (HS 607) argues, typical of the temporality associated with the creative self. In this contemporary hegemonic culture of subjectivity, life is structured and perceived as a series of projects one manages. A satirical element is introduced in Reynolds’ novel when Alizia takes this stance to ridiculous extremes: “It is important to see that, in ‘Designing for Life’ (see Magic Motto no. 2), the people that you surround yourself with are just as important as the colours, patterns and objets; probably more so. But people are obviously a lot more tricky to work with than wallpaper or fabric” (DHH 105). Alizia’s perception of people as purely aesthetic material she ‘works’ with dramatically highlights the ethical dangers of an aestheticized form of life. The way in which Alizia articulates her ideal of gracious living draws attention to the ethical ambivalence of creativity as a paradigm for subjectivity and forms of life. 3 Social Power Hierarchies Traversing Home Spaces The ethical ambivalence of Alizia’s creative ideal is increased when taking a closer look at how the propagated taste in Designs for a Happy Home connects with social hierarchies and capitalist processes. Alizia aspires to initiate her readers into the world of good design and taste. Educating readers “in matters of taste [, however,] is no small matter given that taste has itself become an important terrain for working out social difference” (McElroy 47f. with reference to Bourdieu). The interiors Alizia describes are part and parcel of performing middle class or upper middle class lifestyles. The aesthetic world we enter through the domestic threshold of the first chapter is homogeneous in terms of class. What is more, this (upper) middle class taste “can be translated into economic value” (McElroy 48), as decorating magazines are fond of emphasizing. Ideal Home, for example, features a “60-Second Tour” at the beginning of each portrayed redecorating project. This ‘tour’ presents the reader with a list of three categories for the redecorated house, as the following example from the May 2014 edition shows: “bought for 380,000”, “spent 80,000”, “now worth 775,000” (29). It is this economic discourse on interior design that Reynolds’ novel quotes in its specification that Alizia’s redecoration of Stan’s home office will approximately cost “30K” (DHH 78), but “that it would add considerably to the value of […] [Stan and Marion’s] house to have a Tamé space that had featured in the pages of Wallpaper or Elle Deco” (DHH 82). The depiction of Alizia’s aesthetic practices of homemaking also foregrounds how ‘banal nationalism’ (Billig) is integrated into home spaces. Alizia repeatedly associates her interior decoration and furniture with Englishness, such as the “landscape sofa” (DHH 38) or what she calls the “Spiritual Landscape” (DHH 37), which she designs for her home with Jem. The <?page no="269"?> The Creative Self in Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home 261 shape of this sofa is based on the following stream of ideas she has: “A car flowing up and down over the rolling English hills: an old-fashioned car, with a lady and an up-right gentleman inside, doing the careful, dignified thing that used to be called ‘touring’. […] [A] train of camels, laden with boxes and rugs and silver bottles” (DHH 36). The clichés sported in this landscape description are an embarrassingly blatant example of Orientalism. The Englishness that Alizia invokes is tied to the upper and middle classes and to whiteness as an unmarked norm (cf. Dyer). The home spaces Alizia portrays are not only homogeneous in terms of ethnicity and class, but these aestheticized homes also appear as curiously self-enclosed despite the model of dispersed subjectivity Alizia subscribes to. Alizia’s first home with Jem, for example, is situated in the neighbourhood of Brick Lane, an area well-known for ethnic diversity. We get no sense of this ethnic diversity, however, because the neighbourhood of a home is as a rule not granted much attention by Alizia. At first glance, this neglect of the home’s environment seems understandable as Alizia aims at initiating the reader into the interior design of homes and not, for example, into urban ethnography. Nevertheless, it is striking to note that the atmosphere within the depicted homes is never influenced by sounds entering from outside or by modern media communication such as television or radio. Equally, Alizia’s use of the internet seems to be restricted to her work-related emails; the webcams she installs are only used for the surveillance of the rooms within her house and not for communication with the outside world. The self-enclosed character of the white heterosexual middle-class home spaces in Designs for a Happy Home can be either decoded as mirroring the self-absorption of the first-person narrator or as a problematic blind spot of the novel. I find it difficult to clearly privilege one of these readings because the novel invites both critique of and sympathy for its self-absorbed protagonist (see below), hence creating ambiguity as to how far its critical rejection of Alizia’s practices of homemaking goes. No matter how one understands the depicted self-enclosed quality of the home, what is important is that these home spaces are indicative of the interplay between forms of life and processes of exclusion. As Zygmunt Bauman emphasizes, “Where is design, there is waste. No house is really finished before the building site has been swept clean of unwanted leftovers” (30). The design of home/ land generates what Bauman calls ‘wasted lives’: subjects that are outcasts because they do not fit into the order of modernity. We can see these outcasts emerging in the way the depicted material, social, and imaginary practices of homemaking are bound up with ideas of the nation. In the light of these processes of exclusion, different readings of the metafictional elements in Reynolds’ novel open up. Designs for a Happy Home establishes an analogy between the novel and a house or rather the aesthetic <?page no="270"?> Stella Butter 262 home. At first glance, the analogy simply suggests that literary texts also follow a design and that Reynolds’ novel hones creative capabilities by requiring its readers to imagine the depicted interiors, thereby contributing to the forging of imaginative or creative selves. Given that home is associated with intimacy, the analogy may also be understood as gesturing towards the “disclosing intimacy” (Jamieson 158) 6 that Alizia shares with her readers, whom she invites into her home space. On further reflection, the notion that Reynolds’ novel can be seen as a house or aesthetic home suggests a revised ideal of home that avoids the suppression of difference. If the literary text as a whole is to be understood as a kind of ‘home’, then the events and relationships depicted in Reynolds’ novel imply that home is not harmony, but needs to be spacious enough to allow for dissent. In the course of the novel, Alizia comes to realize some of the shortcomings of her “terribly one-sided” (DHH 139) focus on harmony, but, as I will show in the next section, she never fully embraces an ideal of home that allows for the messiness of life or the inclusion of alterity. The result is a discrepancy between her perspective and the value system implied by the novel as a whole. The analogy between Designs for a Happy Home and a house or a home also invites further thought in terms of literary theory: what does the literary mapping of home spaces entail? Fredric Jameson’s conceptualization of cognitive mapping is helpful for addressing this question. A cognitive map, Jameson explains, is not mimetic, instead it “enable[s] a situational representation on the part of the individual subject to that vaster and properly unrepresentable totality which is the ensemble of society’s structures as a whole” (51). Reynolds’ literary cartography of the different rooms within the home offers such a cognitive map. The smaller scale of home allows the reader to develop an intimate sense of place while at the same time becoming attuned to how homemaking practices feed into the dynamic reproduction of hierarchical social structures on larger scales such as the nation. 4 Home Life as Part of the Civilizing Process: Regulating ‘Leaky Bodies’ The aesthetic practices of doing home Alizia espouses are not only embroiled in power hierarchies, but they also constitute a technology of self that produces a specific form of embodiment. Designs for a Happy Home raises critical awareness of how practices of homemaking are part of what Norbert Elias calls ‘the civilizing process’ with its disciplining of the body (cf. Gurney). Alizia’s “internalization of body management norms” (Gurney 61) is ex- 6 Disclosing intimacy refers to the feeling of closeness created through the disclosure of innermost thoughts and feelings. <?page no="271"?> The Creative Self in Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home 263 pressed through her design of a purified home environment, thus highlighting how home is the “place where the regulation of leaky bodies routinely and most frequently takes place” (Gurney 65). An illustrative example of Alizia’s attitude to polluting activities in the home is the chapter she devotes to “The Downstairs Convenience” or, to use a less posh term, the toilet. While the “purr of the extractor” in this space serves to remove olfactory pollution, the “ultramarine blue” of the toilet walls suggests the cleansing waters of the ocean (DHH 152). Alizia presents this room as the place where bodies are “both vulnerable and safe” (Gurney 57): And so: you can allow yourself to be vulnerable. In primitive times, at moments of excretion, a sabre-toothed tiger might have got you if you didn’t go somewhere hidden and safe. I think we still have the same feeling now. Nobody can see you. Your knickers are down. All of you is showing. So all your feelings can show as well. (DHH 153) Alizia’s shift to the highest possible register in this passage the very moment she mentions bodily pollution (“excretion”) indicates a distancing from dirty corporeality. This linguistic distancing may also have to do with the narrative situation, namely that she is addressing her readers. According to Alizia, the Downstairs Convenience is the most private room because it is usually not shared with someone else when occupied. In Erving Goffman’s terms, it is ‘off-stage’ and hence there is no need for impression management (cf. Gurney 59f.). On the one hand, the ‘off-stage’ quality of this room means that Alizia heightens the intimacy with her readers by granting them (imaginative) access to this room as well as to the vulnerability she experiences there. On the other hand, it is precisely the act of sharing this private room with her readers which transforms the toilet at that very (narrative) moment into an ‘on-stage’ place so that impression management becomes important after all. Alizia’s shift in register to distance processes of bodily pollution is indicative of such an impression management targeted at the reader. There is hence an overlap between the role of the reader and that of the professionals whom Alizia invites to her house so that they may appreciate how she has decorated her home: in both cases, Alizia’s home is transformed into an on-stage place. This transformation goes hand in hand with masking messy bodily processes. Perhaps the clearest example of how Alizia is bent on excluding messy bodily processes is the primary function she allocates to the toilet: whereas the Ensuite of the Master Bedroom “is a specially spiritual location[,] […] the Downstairs Convenience creates an opportunity for meditation in the midst of your everyday commitments” (DHH 178). This function firmly shifts the focus away from the leaky body. <?page no="272"?> Stella Butter 264 “The fear of corporeal odour inside and outside the home”, the sociologist Craig Gurney notes, “became an important part of the civilizing process during the latter half of the twentieth century” (71). In this context he points to the impressive growth in demand for products that “deodorize, fragrance and freshen the home” (Gurney 71) in the United Kingdom. The representation of Alizia’s form of ‘doing home’ can therefore be linked to a broader cultural pattern of subjectivity that is all about “masking […] evidence of corporeal dirt” (Gurney 68). Alizia conforms to this civilizing process when she starts working “with scents (the air is an often-neglected part of any Interior)” (DHH 226) in her attempt to develop a more “changeable style of Design” (DHH 224) after her painful break up with Jem. While Alizia explains her new interest in “easily adjustable” (DHH 224) interior designs with her changed attitude towards contingency, her continued regulation of the leaky body within the home suggests that this change is only skin-deep. Alizia wants to foster greater flexibility in environments she artistically creates because she has learnt, as she emphasizes herself, that you cannot control life’s contingencies or induce people to fit into your designs: “the fact is that any Interior is - at some stage - going to be used differently than the designer intended” (DHH 224). She introduces a greater versatility of her designs by working with “fewer fixtures and more moveable items” (DHH 224) such as moveable walls whose colours can be changed through lighting. Given that design and self are thoroughly intertwined in the case of Alizia, her altered design approach indicates character development, namely that she no longer seeks to exclude contingency but instead loosens her controlling grip and acknowledges the irreducible particularity of individuals: “Interior Design may be the Makeover of Minds - but only to a point. Minds still have the power to go their own way: and what a mess they sometimes make of it! ” (DHH 224). However, her modified Magic Motto “Design for Life: Design for the Unexpected” (DHH 224) features interior design as a means for containing the unexpected and hence combatting the ‘messiness’ of life both in a literal and in a metaphorical sense. This enduring focus on containment helps explain why the bodily regime I have outlined is also still firmly in place, all the more so with “‘Air-Shape’ fragrances continually altering the atmosphere” (DHH 227) within her interiors, thereby potentially masking olfactory pollution. By concentrating on the atmosphere her designs create, Alizia is attuned to sensuous geographies. The body is far from being a blind spot in her designs, but it is only the regulated body that features in her design philosophy. A striking example of how an excess of emotion, which defies careful control, cannot be contained in both Alizia’s civilizing interior design and her narrative design is when Simon persuades Alizia to let her feelings out by screaming. At this point, Alizia is desperate because Jem took their daughter Poppy <?page no="273"?> The Creative Self in Matthew Reynolds’ Designs for a Happy Home 265 with him when leaving her for Marion. He did so without forewarning or telling her where he and Poppy can be found so that Alizia is without contact to her child for days, not knowing if she will see her again. When Alizia starts screaming, a transition from realism to magical realism suddenly takes place: I gulped some air and tried to calm down but the scream came vomiting back out of me, scratching and scraping, […] it was a hurricane, and I screamed again, and the heavy kitchen table wobbled for a moment and then - bang! - it was rocketed upwards by the scream and hit the ceiling […]. (DHH 204) Alizia describes how her screaming completely wrecks the interior of her home. It is telling that this moment of excessive emotion is framed in terms of uncontrollable bodily pollution (“vomiting”) bursting into Alizia’s aesthetic world, thereby disrupting both her interior design and her previous realist mode of narrating. It is her own unruly body that Alizia literally cannot contain within her civilizing designs. Although Alizia is careful to immediately re-establish realism by stating that “[n]othing actually happened to any of those bits of furniture, of course” (DHH 205) and that she was only describing what this moment felt like, the first-time reading experience means perceiving a shift in narrative modes that is only retrospectively rationalized. 5 Conclusion The discussion of Alizia’s ideal of gracious living and her form of doing home has drawn attention to how the discrepancies between telling and showing in Reynolds’ novel throw a critical light on its first-person narrator. Alizia is depicted as a career woman who displays a number of negative traits. Not only is she egocentric and controlling but she also appears as a bad mother because she neglects Poppy in the pursuit of her career. This characterisation of a highly successful professional woman begs the question of whether Designs for a Happy Home smacks of anti-feminism. There are, however, a number of textual signals that defuse the danger of misogynism. After the break-up with Jem, Alizia is, at least to all appearances, able to reconcile motherhood and her professional life so that bonding with her daughter takes place. Moreover, the shortcomings of other characters are also depicted. Neither Jem nor Marion, who is a doting mother but not a career woman, are held up for the admiration of the reader. Most notably Alizia is treated with that kind of sympathetic humour one finds in much of Chick or Hen Literature, which also comically flaunts slightly neurotic women struggling with relationship problems and, in cases of first-person narration, who also have a tendency towards an enthusing narrative voice. A case in point is optimistic Becky Bloomwood from Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic series. For all her faults, Alizia has redeeming features such as an at least partial readiness to admit failings and her passion for the art of living well. <?page no="274"?> Stella Butter 266 The ambivalence a reader may feel towards Alizia will extend to the form of life she embodies. The strength of Designs for a Happy Home rests in its narrative strategy to complicate the evaluation of interior design as a paradigm for subjectivity and homemaking. While Alizia is an unreliable narrator and the novel veers towards the satirical, this does not automatically denigrate the ideal of gracious living or her reflections on how space is produced through aesthetic practices. Instead, the readers have to decide for themselves what ethical value rests in “activat[ing] the Design potential” (DHH 2) in their lives. As my analysis has shown, this issue connects with questions of individual agency, community, and power hierarchies. By exploring aestheticized forms of life from the experiential perspective of the individual and gesturing towards power dynamics, Designs for a Happy Home invites the reader to engage with hegemonic cultures of subjectivity without recourse to easy judgments. The literary staging of the creative subject highlights that the vocabulary for assessing aestheticized forms of life must consist, to quote Rahel Jaeggi again, of more than “‘right or wrong’ and ‘good or bad’” (29). Acknowledgements I would like to extend my warm thanks to the participants of my seminars on home in contemporary literature and culture at the University of Mannheim (spring term 2014) and Kiel University (winter term 2014), whose willingness to engage in lively discussions of Designs for a Happy Home provided me with the valuable opportunity to exchange ideas. My thanks also go to Marcus Menzel and Stefan Glomb for their helpful feedback on an earlier version of this article. *** Stella Butter is Teaching Centre Coordinator at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (Gießen University, Germany). She received her PhD from Gießen University and completed her postdoctoral degree (Habilitation) in British literature and cultural studies at the University of Mannheim in 2013. Her research areas include reception aesthetics, cultural functions of literature (Funktionsgeschichte), contingency and the British novel (19 th -21 st c.), and gender studies. She is author of Literatur als Medium kultureller Selbstreflexion (2007) and Kontingenz und Literatur im Prozess der Modernisierung (2013). 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