Mommie Dearest

The Domesticity of Death in "The Others"

I am going to completely ruin the twist ending of the film “The Others.”  If you wish to be surprised by the movie, I encourage you to visit surfthechannel.com or your favorite video provider to view it for yourself before continuing to read this post.  It’s not very long and it’s a purely psychological thriller, no blood or guts at all, just creaking doors.  It fits incredibly well with some of the feminist theory we have been exploring, and I cannot pass up the opportunity to talk about it.

As Gilbert and Gubar began to rattle off examples of the angel-woman, monster-woman dichotomy they identified in “The Madwoman in the Attic”, I attempted to do so on my own.  When they introduced the idea of the domesticity of death, “The Others” came crashing into my mind.  I find that the movie serves as an interesting illustration of Gilbert and Gubar’s theory, especially as the physical home comes to signify the body of the mistress of the house.

            The scene is set in Jersey, in the Channel Islands, in 1945.  The movie begins with the strict and religious mother, Grace, showing several new servants around her home, where she raises her two children while their father is away at war.  It is a very large mansion, and Grace demands that, while moving about the house, the inhabitants close and lock each door behind them before opening another door.  The reason for this becomes known when Grace introduces the servants to her children, Anne and Nicholas.  They are photosensitive, and must be kept away from all light stronger than that of a candle or two lest they have an extremely dangerous allergic reaction.  In Grace’s own words, the house is like a ship, and the light must be kept out like water.  Due to the children’s condition, the house is usually very dark, and Grace insists on taking the servants on a tour of every inch of it, because, as she says, most of the time you cannot find your way.

            Over the course of the following week or so, Anne claims to see people moving about in the house.  When talking to their new nanny, Anne and Nicholas obliquely refer to how Grace “went mad.”  The family begins to experience a significant amount of supernatural phenomena, and Grace attempts to find the village priest, but gets lost in the thick fog surrounding the house, ultimately winding up where she began.  The paranormal activity culminates in one terrifying night, when the children discover the ghosts, whom they call “the others,” in their nursery.  These “ghosts” are holding a séance, and Anne tells them about how Grace “went mad.”  One of “the others,” an old woman who appears to be a psychic, then informs Grace and the children that they are dead, that Grace smothered the children and then shot herself.  Huddled together with her children, Grace talks about the incident and wonders “where they are”, if they are not in Heaven or Hell.  She then instructs the children to chant, “This house is ours” with her, and vows never to leave.

            

Grace, played by a fair, blond, and delicate Nicole Kidman, certainly resembles the angel of the house on the surface.  She is slightly weak physically, often complaining about her migraines, but she is wholly devoted to the upbringing of her children and possesses a rigid moral and religious certainty.  Her very name evokes a sense of ethereal divinity.  She is clearly trying very hard to be a perfect mother and to raise exemplary children, despite their sickness; this makes the reality of her murders and suicide all the more horrifying.  I find that the development of Grace’s character exemplifies Gilbert and Gubar’s point that “the monster may not only be concealed behind the angel, she may actually turn out to reside within (or in the lower half of) the angel” (820).  To take this statement a bit further, it seems that, in the case of Grace, the angel and the monster alternately “took over,” and when the angelic Grace realized that she had allowed the monster within to take over in the act of killing her children, she killed herself in an act of angelic martyrdom.

The script of the film and Ms. Kidman’s performance allude to the frustration and anger that Grace hides behind her façade of angelic certainty.  At some points, Grace even attempts to explain how the darkness of the house drives her crazy, and how she feels abandoned by her husband who is no longer around to help her take care of their sick children.  Indeed, her house is so large that she is powerless to maintain it on her own, and for this reason must keep a staff of servants.  The stress of keeping up the house, the servants, and the children by herself while maintaining the image of the “slim, pale, passive” angel-woman contributes to the escalation of Grace’s mental instability that eventually leads her to kill her children and herself (817).  Hence Grace illustrates how “it is just because women are defined as wholly passive, completely void of generative power…that they become numinous to male artists.  For in the metaphysical emptiness their ‘purity’ signifies they are, of course, self-less, with all the moral and psychological implications that word suggests” (815).  The angel, then, denied the support of a male caretaker to please and to keep her passive, withers and is consumed by the monster.  Interestingly enough, it is this is shift, prompted by her growing sense of her “metaphysical emptiness” and “self-less”-ness after her husband’s departure, that initiates Grace’s suicidal transformation into the “numinous,” ghostly state of being.  Following this train of thought, Grace’s consciousness of her angelic passivity is what allows the monster within to take over, thus transforming her into the in-between, indefinable, ethereal state in which she exists.

Once she becomes the essentially “numinous” ghost, Grace’s identity maintains the domination/repression relationship of the dual angelic and monstrous identities. The angel seems to be usually “in control,” as evidenced by her meticulous schedule and generally gentle demeanor, and the monster, ever lurking beneath the surface, still takes over every once in a while, as when she attacks Anne during a supernatural hallucination.  It is very important to note that while we can apply the angel/monster dichotomy to Grace’s actions and say, as I have, that one identity at times “takes over,” this is not a case of multiple personality disorder.  Though her dual consciousness of herself is neatly played out in dramatic form, Grace exists as wholly angelic and wholly monstrous at the same time.  It is in this way that the artistic portrayal of Grace’s fragmented sense of self relates to the effect of a masculinist culture on all women, as Gilbert and Gubar describe in their essay: “The sexual nausea associated with all these monster-women helps explain why so many real women have for so long expressed loathing of (or at least anxiety about) their own inexorably female bodies.  The ‘killing’ of oneself into an art object…testifies to the efforts women have expended not just trying to be angels but trying not to become female monsters” (823).  Grace, fully understanding after the deaths of her children that she, like Spenser’s Errour and Duessa, is part pure, part corrupt, quite literally “kills herself into [the] art object” of the angel of the house in order to restore or recreate herself as the angel, not the monster.

However, as the continuation of her dual identities indicates, she fails at existing as only angel even in the numinous state.  Grace’s inability to explore her own consciousness emerges as a recurring theme throughout the film.  The darkness, locked doors, and compartmentalized rooms of the mansion mirror this lack of self-exploration and understanding.  Like the rooms of the house, Grace has locked off the separate parts of herself, choosing to exist only as she appears to be, but not as she may define herself.  When “the others” appear to have infiltrated the house, Grace, in an emotional outburst, exclaims that she never allowed the Nazis to enter her house during the occupation of the islands, and that she will not allow others to sneak in now.  This fear of discovery and penetration relates to Gilbert and Gubar’s discussion of the numinous female, existing outside of normal modes of being.  The idea is importantly complicated by the fact that, at the end of the film, Grace discovers that she herself is “other,” that she is the deviant element in the physical space.  If the house is her body and she must be defined by it, then it is clear why she cannot leave it, even after death.  As her struggles with the angel and the monster within continue, so does her residence in her house.  The house is forever in darkness on the inside and surrounded by a thick fog on the outside.  Grace claims she often cannot find her way in the darkness, and she cannot travel to the village because of the fog.  Society alienates Grace from itself because she is a woman and hence, “the other.”  However, it renders her incapable of knowing herself, as well: she is a stranger in her own house.

THANK YOU Joss Whedon

Now, bear with me...

Buffy is fighting Angelus in an old, abandoned, castle-esque mansion. Angelus is a vampire who was cursed with a soul and has become good, fighting alongside Buffy and her friends. However, he lost his soul and has only a small recollection of what it was like to be good. He has discovered Acathla, a giant statue that is in fact a portal to other worlds. Once Acathla is opened, all the demons and beings from other worlds will wreak havoc on our world. Buffy is trying to stall Angelus while her friends are elsewhere trying to cast a spell that will keep Acathla locked.

Angelus is able to momentarily get the better of Buffy and he disarms her of her sword. (Which now, thanks to Freud, I completely see as a phallic symbol. Literary theory has completed changed Buffy for me. Ugh.) Buffy is cornered against a stonewall, practically sitting, and at a complete loss. With his sword inches from Buffy’s face, he says:

“Now that’s everything, huh? No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away and what’s left?”

Buffy closes her eyes. Angelus lunges forward but Buffy catches the blade between her hands centimeters from her face, looks him square in the eye, and says:

“Me.”

She pushes the handle of the sword into his face, grabs her own off the cobblestone, and demonstrates her superior skills.

When reading the first chapter of Judith Halberstam’s “Female Masculinity,” all that I could think about was this scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Although Halberstam’s examples are mostly queer and female, she says that they all demonstrate that “...female masculinity has been blatantly ignored both in the culture at large and within academic studies of masculinity” (935). Although Halberstam speaks mostly to queer females, I feel that it’s wrong to state, generally, that female masculinity is culturally ignored.

Enter Joss Whedon! The first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired one year prior to Halberstam’s book. I believe that, since then, Whedon has made a huge dent in educating our culture by means of female masculinity. Following Buffy, Whedon created three more shows, “Angel,” “Firefly,” and the currently airing show, “Dollhouse,” all of which have primary, strong female characters. Whedon, who minored in gender studies, even asked the women’s advocacy group, Equality Now, for an okay on the character of the heroine, played by Eliza Dushku in his latest television show.

As Halberstam says, “...many of these ‘heroic masculinities’ depend absolutely on the subordination of alternative masculinities” (935). I found her example of James Bond incredibly funny. To be honest, I’d never thought of M in the way that she does. I don’t feel that M is “noticeably butch”. Yes, she has a short haircut. Yes, she is his boss. But how does that qualify her as “butch”? She’s a strong woman who, may I add, is married. Anyways, I understand that masculinity depends on its comparison with alternate masculinities. This can be seen in Buffy.

Enter Xander. Xander is the adorable dorky kid and definitely not the definition of a “manly man.” For starters, his two best friends are girls: Buffy and Willow. Also, the first time we are introduced to Xander, he skateboards into a pole. That definitely doesn’t give off the ideal sense of masculinity. According to Halberstam, “In Goldeneye it is M who most convincingly performs masculinity, and she does so partly by exposing the shame of Bond’s own performance” (937). In Buffy, she time and time again saves Xander who, more often than not, is running from demons or vampires, rather than facing them.

Halberstam says that, “When you take [Bond’s] toys away, Bond has very little propping up his performance of masculinity” (937). It was this line that reminded me of the fight scene between Buffy and Angelus. Whedon shows that Buffy’s masculinity is just as strong when it’s just her without the sword, without the stakes, and without her backup.

Basically, I believe that Joss Whedon’s creation of strong female characters shows that female masculinity is being recognized more and more. Buffy was and still is an icon for many, as are all of Whedon’s other masculine females: Willow Rosenblum (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Zoe (Firefly), River (Firefly), Kaylee (Firefly), Cordelia Chase (Angel), and Echo (Eliza Dushku).

Thanks Joss!

Spivak's view on Frankenstein

I found Spivak's portion on Frankenstein within Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism to be particularly interesting. I believe I was drawn to this because since we have been reading essays on Frankenstein I felt capable of understanding both the theoretical aspects, and plot references of Spivak's argument. The concept of Frankenstein attempting to create an "artifical womb" (Spivak, 847) with his laboratory, and the assertion that "his real competitor is...woman as the maker of the child" (Spivak, 847) is something that I had not thought of or read before, but I do like as an interpretation. Also having been exposed to some of the controversy around which Shelley had the most authorial impact on Frankenstein, this makes me wonder further if there was specific competition within the Shelley's marriage. Spivak's notion of a woman's dual role is compared well to Said's duality within women as well revolving around sexual reproduction and moral guidance. Overall, Spivak sums up what I find to be most interesting by stating that "In Shelley's view, man's hubris as soul maker both usurps the place of God and attempts-vainly-to sublate woman's physiological prerogative" (Spivak, 848). Within this all, I think I should contemplate more about where this desire stems from within Frankenstein. Maybe since his mother died young he feels that it is a part of his life that is gone and therefore must be recreated, but I feel this needs further examination of the text and investigation of Spivak's theory in more detail.

I would like to comment on the essay of Edward Said--since I took a Jane Austen class last semester, I feel like I have a decent grasp on the material. However, I must first make a brief disclaimer: I hate Fanny Price. I detest her on a deeply personal level, for much the same reason I hated Bella, of Twilight fame*--she is boring and shallow**. Any interpretations of Mansfield Park I make may be colored by this fact.

That said, I have some sympathy for Said's reading. It is odd that the Antigua estate, a major crux of the plot, is only mentioned obliquely--there are longer descriptions of carriages. Their silence on the matter is notable, and he is right to be suspicious of it. This may well constitute a tacit acceptance of the entire system. On the other hand, it may just be a lack of interest. Jane Austen's novels rarely have much to say about national politics. 

That said, that same silence makes it difficult for his argument to stand well. He says, at one point, "there is nothing in Mansfield Park that would contradict us, however if we were to assume..." (1117), and then goes on to lay out a great deal of assumptions. He is right to say there is no evidence against them, but there is precious little for them either. It seems to me that it would be just as valid to say that by ignoring the local parliamentary elections, Austen was subconsciously commenting on the fact that democracy works best with minimal voter participation, of that by talking endlessly of carriages, but not the horses that pulled them, she was condoning animal cruelty, because it was essential to the burgeoning middle classes.

In other words, I must echo Jessica's concerns that Said is reading too much into Austen, or rather that he is projecting modern concerns about imperialism onto an unsuspecting 19th century author.

*Yes, I read it. Yes, I am terribly ashamed

**Not in a materialist way, in a no-hidden-depths or fascinating flaws way.

Trying to Say vs. Saying

I, like many posters here, was interested by Said’s analysis of space and domestic culture in Mansfield Park as reflective of a larger imperial discourse… he made some very interesting observations, and took a road somewhat less traveled when it comes to interpreting Austen (I may be limited in my Austen knowledge, but I have never come across a critical writing that discussed her novels as reflective imperialism).

In reaction to Jessica’s question of whether he was “reading too far into” what the author is “saying”… What I thought was interesting about Said’s piece was that he suggested the possibility that Austen could have unconsciously left these vestiges of imperialist culture in her work. This means it's not what the author was trying to say, but rather she unknowingly said through her words. That argument carries at least some validity within the terms Said set up, since he argues that these clues weren't necessarily intentionally included, but rather the product of an all-encompassing colonial ideology Austen might never have registered as directly influencing the domestic topics she was addressing.

Reading outside the Novel

Despite academically rejecting the notion of high literature, I find it useful to question my initial sentimental response to English literature especially when it carries early feminist underpinnings. Why do such novels seem to appeal to our human sensibility or feminist ‘subjectivity’ over others? Although I am not an English major (and therefore many of Spivak’s references were lost on me), I think that both authors seek to contextualize explicitly constructed humanistic ideas within a larger imperialist subtext. For Said, notions of space, domestic pleasures, and morality are intricately linked to the economic and imperialistic subjugation of an Other. The novel is questioned as the vehicle for imperialistic validation, and notion of the author critiqued for stylistically depoliticizing a strictly political/nationalist/imperialist project. Taking cues from Raymond William’s deconstruction of geographic space in British literature as the fabric of a larger colonial landscape, Said uses spatial demarcations within Mansfield Park to explore how language is used to centralize morality as characteristic of class, and implicitly, race. He writes, “The question is thus not only how to understand and with what to connect Austen’s morality and its social basis, but also what to read of it” (1122). This brings up several questions about how we read history and biography within the novel form. Said attempts to take Austen’s imperialistic framework for what it is, while at the same time questioning how moral themes in her text have been universalized and politically neutralized. I think here Said is looking for the middle ground between literary relativism and conflating a text to project contemporary ideas onto the past. Its all a matter of how you go about finding the connections—especially if those connections are rendered transparent as the material basis of literary meaning. After all, these examples of British Literature cannot be separated from the politics of the publishing house—the PR institution of the higher classes.

Spivak, the Other, and the Frame

Before getting to the texts, here's a thought that's just occurred to me and that I find encouraging. Picking up on the comment that the essays (or at least Said's) were clearer and easier to access than some of the other theory we've read , I'd like to suggest a different possible for this accessibility. Rather than the accessibility being merely a matter of the author's style, maybe it is a result of all the texts that we've worked (and/or struggled) through up to this point. I think it's very rewarding to look down at the footnotes and back to the endnotes and realize a lot of the references are to essays we've read excerpts of, and that a lot of what we've been working on really has built upon itself. So maybe that's part of why Said is more accessible. It could also just be that he isn't Derrida.

Anyway, reading the Spivak, it seems one point to which she often returns is that "the absolutely Other cannot be selfed" (850), with selfing being an important process in her conception of both feminist individualism and imperialism. In discussing the monster of Frankenstein, I think she finds very interesting structural support for her argument: namely in the role of Margaret Saville, "who is neither tangential, nor encircled, nor yet encircling" (851). Spivak seems to suggest it is because Mrs. Saville does not respond to Walton's letters (and therefore does not encircle the text?) that "the monster can step 'beyond the text' and 'be lost in darkness'" (851). What I'm interested in is the necessity of this open frame in enabling the monster to escape the text. In Spivak's discussion of Christophene from Wide Sargasso Sea, this frame doesn't seem to be a necessity. Spivak notes that "immediately after the exchange between her and the Man, well before the conclusion, she is simply driven out of the story, with neither narrative nor characterological explanation or justice" (846). This expulsion is attributed to the same impossibility as the expulsion of the monster: "No perspective critical of imperialism can turn the Other into a self..." (846, her emphasis), and through this connection Spivak ties the character of Christophene to the character of the monster, in much the same way that it seems Christophene is tied to the character of Bertha in Jane Eyre. So what I'm wondering, is if the frame, or lack of frame, is necessary for Christophen to leave the text in the same way it can be seen to be necessary for the monster. Maybe it's not an important point at all and maybe that's why Spivak doesn't address the notion of the frame in relation to the other characters and novels. Maybe the open frame of Frankenstein is the allowance of "justice" that Spivak claims Christophene was denied, in which case maybe the question is, why does the monster receive that sort of justice when Christophene does not; is it because he is seen as more "absolutely Other" or would it be that Christophene is? I'm probably making too much of Spivak's mention of the frame. I would think that the monster would escape the story, even if Mrs. Saville had responded and so, perhaps, Spivak's claim that this lack or response allows him to escape is simply not true. So, after all that rambling, maybe my question actually is, what do Spivak's comments on Mrs. Saville's role in the monster's stepping beyond the text actually do, and can they be applied to her analysis of the failed selfing of other Others?