Visions of punishment: The Romanticism of individual autonomy and the reality of social control in G

1
Visions of punishment The Romanticism of
individual autonomy and the reality of social
control in Great Expectations

• Lecture 4
• Romance and Realism
• ACL2007
• Semester 2 - 2008

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Summary

• Introducing Dickens and Great Expectations
• The Social Background
• The Literary Background
• Dickens Romance and Realism debates
• The failures of romance
• The society as prison
• The individual success story
• Subverting the Romantic subplot
• Moving toward modernism

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The Social Background 1

• GE was published in 1860 when Dickens was a
  highly popular and famous author.
• Victorian England was a society of
• high industrialisation and colonial expansion
• unregulated urban development and massive
  migration from countryside to city
• social experimentation in
• Education
• Factory regulations
• Prison system
• Policing
• Management of poverty
• Sanitation reform

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The Social Background 2

• The idea of society as an interconnecting system
  emerged the beginnings of sociology
• Similarly, the idea of money and its organisation
  as a system developed economics.
• Systems for understanding, managing and possibly
  improving society began to develop.

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Utilitarianism

• In the first half of the 19th century a combined
  economic and social philosophy derived new
  systems for social regulation.
• A central precept of Utilitarianism was the
  greatest good for the greatest number this
  often translated, for critics, into a disregard
  of individual human needs in the interest of the
  social good a problem was who decided the
  public good?
• The panopticon (all-seeing) a prison design
  feature for watching prisoners, became, for the
  20th century social theorist Foucault, a metaphor
  for the societys increasing desire for
  surveillance ( See Discipline and Punish)

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The Social Background Social Mobility?

• Increased transport/communication systems and the
  development of new industries and occupations
  opened up more opportunities for some men to
  acquire wealth and/or social mobility. To a far
  lesser extent, this also applied to some women.
• New jobs for men (for example, journalism)
  developed that relied more on intelligence and
  personality than traditional education and
  inherited privileges.
• Part of the discourse of the mid to late-19th
  century was that of the self-made man and
  self-help the promise that the pauper could
  become an industrialist through the virtue of
  hard work.
• Its common feminine-gendered version was that of
  the new Cinderella factory girl marries
  mill-owner. The poor girl can find security
  through sexual virtue and a good man.
• A different story about capitalism was being
  written by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx.

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Dickens and Social Reform

• Dickens was, in some ways, the living example of
  the individual success story.
• He had little formal education, was a child
  labourer, experienced poverty first-hand and used
  his street knowledge and individual talents to
  become a court-reporter and then a popular
  novelist, publisher, editor and public speaker.
• From the first, his writing includes portraits
  and descriptions of the underclass of society and
  the urban lower and middle classes.
• Many of these descriptions are framed by a
  clearly indignant narrative voice and the plots
  of many of his stories and novels are centrally
  concerned with issues of social reform.
• As an editor he also favoured socially-conscious
  contributors and promoted various social reform
  agendas.
• Among his favourite causes were education and
  childrens issues generally legal and prison
  reform.

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The Literary Background 1 childhood

• GE, like a number of Dickens fictions, begins in
  an earlier period the narrators and authors
  childhood.
• Dickens wrote extensively about the importance of
  his childhood, for the development of his
  imagination.
• His nurses fairy stories, often featuring
  monsters and horror, had lasting impact.
• Lacking a sustained formal education, he read
  widely and without much guidance in a range of
  earlier authors including Shakespeare, rather
  than in contemporary writers.
• He also sustained a lasting fascination with the
  theatre.

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The Literary Background 2 The Romantic Movement

• Dickens interest in childhood links him closely
  to Romanticism
• Romanticism valued the supposed innocence of
  childhood as close to Nature and in opposition to
  the damaging effects of constraining education
  and social norms.
• Poets and social reformers, strongly influenced
  by Romanticism, used the image of the child as
  the central victim of urbanised industrial
  society.

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Blake and childhood

• William Blakes Songs of Innocence and Experience
  contrast the unlimited potential of the newborn
  baby with the social chains imposed .
• In London Blake epitomises urban corruption and
  degradation as an endemic child abuse child
  labourers such as chimney sweepers and child
  prostitutes at the extreme end of a society that
  is routinely cruel and callous to all children.

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Dickens literary models picaresque

• Dickens read extensively in the 18th century
  adventure, picaresque novels following a young
  male hero on his travels.
• Many of Dickens novels, particularly his early
  ones, also use this structure.
• This also fitted the customary publication mode
  episodes of a serial in monthly or weekly
  editions.
• It also suited Dickens interest in the theatre
  the use of highly dramatic and colourful scenes
  with a lot of dialogue.

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Dickens literary models bildungsroman

• Bildungsroman developed in the 18th century as
  part of the rise of Romanticism.
• In its purest form, it tracks the character
  formation of the central (and only important)
  character who usually tells his story in his own
  words.
• There is usually a strong moral emphasis whereby
  the protagonist gains insight into his own nature
  and the nature of society.
• A sub-category of this form tracks the
  development of the artist/writer (kunstroman)
• Its central difference from the hero-quest or
  picaresque story is its focus on the inner life
  rather than the actions of the protagonist.
• On the whole, the protagonist does not have to be
  exceptional or great.
• There is clearly a connection between the
  development of this form and that of
  autobiography the sense that the individual life
  and its development can have interest for others.

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GE and the literary background 1

• GE is often described as a bildungsroman because
• The plot structure follows the moral education
  of the protagonist, Pip
• The protagonist tells the story in his own words
  first-person narration
• It takes the story of an ordinary mans
  development as interesting without excusing or
  exaggerating his failings (or virtues)

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GE and the literary background 2

• However, some critics argue that GE does not fit
  neatly into the genre of bildungsroman because
• The social context and its inhabitants are at
  least as important/interesting as the narrator
• There is no clear conclusive development in Pips
  moral understanding
• Although there are moments when Pip reflects on
  himself, they are not the continuing focus of the
  narrative

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GE and the Romance/Realism debates 1.

• Critical reception of Dickens has tended to
  emphasise either the Realist or the Romantic
  aspects.
• This largely depends on the political interests
  of the critic and how she or he is positioned
  regarding the contemporary reception of Dickens.
• For example, Tambling (this weeks reading)
  comments This Romantic criticism became a way
  of attacking commentators who emphasised the
  reformist Dickens (p.18). Tambling himself is
  quite dismissive of the earlier critic Collins,
  while acknowledging that Collins did some
  important historical research on Dickens society.

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GE as Romantic?

• The underlying structure of GE draws on Romantic
  themes of individuality including the idea that
  an ordinary individuals thoughts and concerns
  can be interesting and of value.
• The pursuit of Estella (the star) echoes
  romance quest narratives the woman as elusive
  object of the heros desire.
• There are examples of Pips psyche having a life
  of its own, particularly in the use of dreams
  everything is not presented as it seems on the
  surface.
• A further development of this is in the use of
  imaginative descriptions and extended metaphors
  to heighten or explore different dimensions of
  the characters and their settings
• Extended use of the grotesque (see next week)
• The interest in the childs perspective, the
  value of imagination, and the perception that
  children are different from mini adults are a
  direct legacy of the Romantic Movement.

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GE as Realist?

• While there are numerous fairytale and grotesque
  allusions, and much use of figurative language,
  the events and characters have a basis in the
  everyday although an everyday that is already
  historical for Dickens own readers.
• They have, in Pam Morriss terms (Reading, Week
  1), an historical particularity that allows us to
  place the the novel in a time earlier than 1860
  (roughly between 1814 and 1840).
• Transportation to Australia and the use of the
  hulks was phased out by the 1850s as a British
  prison system was developed.
• The characters are clearly positioned within a
  social system in terms of class they are
  individually portrayed, but they also are
  sociological types produced by a particular
  society.
• Occupations are central to characterisation.

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Or something else?

• GE is a later novel of Dickens in which he is
  blending a range of different literary genres and
  styles as well as experimenting.
• Tambling (this weeks reading) suggests that GE
  can be seen as foreshadowing some modernist
  concerns with the possibilities of language and
  form.
• Some ways in which GE offers some new ways of
  writing
• The less than happy ending originally, the
  ending more clearly prevented any reconciliation
  between Pip and Estella, but was rewritten.
• The absence of any clear-cut moral or social
  solutions
• The absence of a completely sympathetic
  protagonist (or any totally sympathetic idealised
  characters)
• The movement towards an uneasy lack of clear
  distinction between the real observed world and
  the imagination.
• The questioning of the possibilities of romance
  of any kind in the modern society.

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The failures of romance The prison

• Great Expectations in common with much of
  Dickens fiction is interested in the idea of
  prison.
• In the classic romance, and in much Romantic
  literature, prison is a specific enclosed place
  from which the hero must escape or rescue another
  prisoner. It is a distinct situation apart from
  society.
• The Romantic prisoner is the victim of mistake or
  evil intent to limit his freedom and capacity to
  act. He uses his ingenuity, courage, strength to
  break out.
• In the 18th century, this heroic notion of the
  wrongly imprisoned was also transferred to
  revolutionary movements against oppressive
  regimes.

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19th century prison real and imagined

• The mid 19th century saw a completely new social
  approach to the penal system as an organised
  punishment for the convicted rather than a
  holding device for those on trial. For some
  reformers it also included the idea of
  rehabilitation as well as deterrence.
• Rather than being a metaphor for an heroic and
  wrongful solitary confinement with the
  possibility of escape, it became synonymous with
  the oppressiveness of an organised and alienating
  society.
• A modern perception, which Dickens sometimes
  seems to anticipate, suggests that people within
  such a society collude by creating their own
  psychological prisons and act as their own
  jailers they internalise oppression.
• Such a prison is particularly antagonistic to
  Romantic individualism because it is predicated
  on an idea of normality and conformity and it
  cannot be overcome by individual heroic effort.

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GE characters and prison

• Most, if not all, of the GE characters inhabit
  some form of prison
• Miss Havisham tries futilely to stop time by
  refusing to live beyond the space and moment of
  her abandonment as a bride and in turn imprisons
  Estella in her image of heart-breaker
• Mrs Joe becomes a prisoner to her former victim,
  Orlick, totally at his mercy
• Matthew Pocket is a prisoner to the social
  snobbery and other failings of his wife
• Herbert Pocket and his fiancee are prisoners to
  her fathers selfishness
• Wemmicks answer to the imprisonment of the
  drudgery of his employment is to create an
  alternative prison his domestic sanctuary.
• Even characters who appear to have a more
  positive representation are still limited in
  their possibilities the apparently idyllic life
  of Joe and Biddy is only idyllic as seen through
  Pips regretful vision there is an implied
  reading that reminds the reader of the limits and
  deprivation of their life and, also, reminds us
  that their rural life is one on the verge of
  disappearing as the city advances.

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Discipline and violence

• A key term for Foucault in describing the
  development of 19th century modern society was
  discipline a form of control usually through
  the threat of punishment that creates the docile
  body
• GE characters are very concerned with issues of
  control and creating of docility in others
  through the use of actual or implied violence.
• Pip himself is an extremely docile character he
  is invented by others and rarely makes decisions.
• Pip is controlled through his sense of
  omnipresent observation, by uncanny figures whose
  reality is often in doubt and who only
  reluctantly become present to him. From
  Magwitchs threat to the young Pip of his
  imagined co-convict who tears out the hearts of
  boys, through to the uncertainty over the
  identity of the unknown benefactor who intervenes
  unseen in his life, and the ghostly Compeyson who
  follows Pip around London.
• The undisciplined side of Pip is represented by
  other characters who act out violence for him
  notably, Orlick one of the least realistic
  characters.

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Punishment

• The punishment for not being docile is literal
  imprisonment the child Pip is threatened with
  growing up as a convict if he doesnt behave
• Jaggers literally and metaphorically represents
  the punishing side of the law, viewing everyone
  as a potential criminal and life in general as
  something that needs to be carefully washed off
  in case it contaminates him.
• Underlying the theme of real imprisonment is
  the theme that there is no escape from the larger
  imprisonment of society there is nowhere to go.
• This has relevance to the time sequence in the
  early chapters, prisoners are seen as distinct
  from everyone else (but as humans by the more
  sympathetic characters) by the end, the division
  between them and us is narrowing as it
  approaches the more modern society of Dickens
  contemporary readers.
• The reader, like Pip himself, is taken on a
  journey to reassess how far (s)he is/is not
  different from Magwitch.

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Individual success

• The title of the novel echoes the rags-to-riches
  stories that were popular in the period often
  based, allegedly, on real life.
• It is, of course, ironic in that all the things
  that the protagonist, Pip, and the reader expect
  prove to be illusory like the rags-to-riches
  story itself?
• At key moments in the novel, Pip learns (usually
  after the reader has already guessed) that his
  fairy godmother is not Miss Havisham, and that
  the convict is not a monstrous ogre.
• One romance element then is the hero quest for
  success but rather than battling dragons or
  being recognised for his unique wonderful
  talents, Pip gets his questionable reward for a
  small act of kindness that was performed out of
  fear.

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The real story

• For a boy like Pip, in reality, the best he
  could hope for was apprenticeship to Joe and,
  possibly, marriage to Biddy.
• His aspirations are based on mistaken values that
  see social status based on wealth as creating a
  gentleman.
• However, the novels development indicates that
  once he has started on the quest to achieve his
  illusory goal he cannot, however much he wants,
  go back Biddy is not available he hasnt the
  talents, the temperament or the training to be a
  blacksmith having once seen Joes social
  inadequacies he cant magically not see them he
  has seen the potential as well as the horrors of
  the city and cant go back to the country.
• This ambivalence, which is echoed in the novels
  ending, is another link of GE to modernist
  writing there is no return to the easy happy
  endings of conventional romance either for Pip or
  the reader.
• The minor subplot of Mr Wopsles attempts to
  become an actor offer a comic version of the
  futility of Romantic escape he tries to change
  his life and enter the larger world through the
  fantasy of the theatre but lacks star quality

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The romantic (sub)plot

• Conventional novels feature a love interest which
  provides the momentum for events and the
  development towards a happy ending.
• Estella is presented as almost a parody or
  logical extreme of the romantic heroine in that
  she is totally programmed towards marriage not
  however for romantic fulfilment but as a weapon
  of revenge.
• Breaking from the conventions of romance, Dickens
  does not attempt to make readers share Pips
  desire Estella is, as she herself acknowledges,
  cruel and (self)destructive.
• Interestingly, from a feminist perspective, this
  break with the convention could be read as
  indicating the essential masochistic qualities of
  romance fiction Estella marries Drummle in the
  full knowledge that he will violently abuse her.
• However, this can be offset by a certain degree
  of misogyny in the portrayal of the major female
  characters and the clear focus throughout on the
  male perspectives.

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Self-conscious narrative

• The idea of the self-conscious narrative
  achieves its fullest development from the 20th
  century. It is is associated with the rise of
  modernism. It suggests a move away from the
  illusion of mimesis (the mimicry of reality
  through a transparent text) towards a focus on
  the literary/textual .
• There are ways in which Great Expectations, as
  Tambling suggests, anticipates this
  self-consciousness. Amongst them is the
  undercutting of conventional romance and, with
  it, a degree of alienation of the reader.