This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. "This Journey Through the House" Re-Centring the Domestic Space in the Storytelling of J.M. Barrie Rosaleen A. Nolan PhD Literature The University of Edinburgh 2018 Nolan 2 Abstract This thesis discusses the representation of domesticity in the fiction of J.M. Barrie. It concentrates on the ways in which the home space in novels and plays produced by Barrie between 1896 and 1920, is designed to facilitate a transgressive storytelling which works within – and against – the central narrative of each text. In fiction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the domestic sphere is overwhelmingly cast as the domain of women. It is commonly associated with ideas of knowability, security, comfort, and a heteronormative family structure comprised of benevolent patriarch, gentle mother and beloved children. These associations have been deeply ingrained in critical readings of Barrie's fiction, in which the spaces of home are superficially aligned with a set of conventional values in opposition to the seductive chaos of fantasy lands. Existing Barrie scholarship has concentrated its attention on the composition of these fantasy worlds in general, restricting its focus to Peter Pan and Never Land (1904) in particular; this approach has resulted in flawed and reductive conclusions about Barrie's professional treatment of subjects such as women, childhood and the development of identity. As a consequence, this thesis will address multiple texts and genres in its analyses. Furthermore, by prioritising discussion of the inherently feminine spaces of 'home' in his novels and plays, it will reveal the existence of a proto-feminist dimension to Barrie's writing. In each of these texts – Sentimental Tommy (1896), Tommy and Grizel (1900), Peter Pan (1904), Dear Brutus (1917) and Mary Rose (1920) – the realistic spaces of domestic life are juxtaposed with fantasy worlds. This thesis will examine such fantasy realms as its secondary focus, purely insofar as Nolan 3 they illuminate and refract the concerns of home; that place from which characters seek to escape, and to which they must, in some form, return. My research will interrogate each text's relationship to their respective home-spaces, using Gaston Bachelard's treatise on the intersection of selfhood and domestic landscapes, The Poetics of Space (1958) as an approximate theoretical framework. Chapter One will offer a brief biographical and social context for Barrie's creative interest in the spaces of home, with a particular focus upon the relationship between women and domesticity. Chapters Two and Three are dedicated to the exposition of identity within the urban and rural home spaces of Sentimental Tommy and Tommy and Grizel which, for the purposes of thematic fluidity, will be discussed together. Chapter Four will trace the maturation of transgressive femininity in Barrie's work, by critiquing the figure of the mother- storyteller against the domestic environment of the night nursery in Peter Pan. Chapter Five argues that the plot, imagery and set architecture of the Dear Brutus drawing room supports an intertextual reading of the play which places it in a dialogue with Peter Pan. Under this interpretation, Dear Brutus exonerates the figure of the non-maternal woman by absolving Alice Dearth of unjust blame in the disintegration of her marriage. Additionally, it challenges romanticised literary presentations of the eternal child by tracing an affinity between the identities of the mysterious Lob, and Peter Pan. Chapter Six will position Mary Rose as apotheotic in Barrie's portrayal of the relationship between the domestic world and individual autonomy. Furthermore, in the play's climactic scene between Mary Rose and her son Harry, this thesis will assert that – contrary to critical consensus - Barrie effects Nolan 4 a triumphant liberation of woman from the home-space within which she is routinely silenced and oppressed. Finally, the concluding section of this thesis will question the legacy of 'home' in Barrie's novels and plays, as well as summarising its relationship to concepts of identity, autonomy, and communication. As protagonists return from their respective fantasy realms, Barrie appears to align their restoration to the domestic world with the re-establishing of a social status quo. Yet this thesis will contend that within the parallel narratives conveyed symbolically through each text's depictions of cottage, farmhouse, nursery, or drawing room, Barrie enables a subversive storytelling which affords agency to characters marginalised, or altogether disempowered, by texts' 'official' plots. Nolan 5 Lay Summary This research discusses representations of home in the fiction of J.M. Barrie between 1896 and 1920 (Sentimental Tommy [1896], Tommy and Grizel [1900], Peter Pan [1904], Dear Brutus [1917] and Mary Rose [1920]). Previous criticism in the field of Barrie studies has prioritised isolated scrutiny of Never Land over meaningful analyses of magical realms in his other works, or indeed any analysis whatsoever of the domestic spaces from which characters seeking fantasy-land adventures depart, and to which they must return. By deconstructing close-readings of the spaces of home in each of these primary texts, it is possible to interpret a parallel, symbolic – often subversive - storytelling at work beneath their 'main' plots. This parallel storytelling is suggestive of important and hitherto untapped dynamics of gender, identity and family in Barrie's fiction, and is not only at odds with the more obvious themes in his works, but with dominant socio-political discourses in Britain at the time of their publication. As its secondary focus, this thesis explores how these spaces' correspondent fantasy worlds enable and amplify parallel narratives originating in the domestic sphere. Finally, this thesis will evaluate the overall implications of the presentation of domestic worlds in Barrie's fiction. Taken together, these novels and plays spanning nearly a quarter of a century demonstrate Barrie's evolving preoccupation with disrupting or re- energising notions of home as a safe and knowable space. Nolan 6 Declaration of Own Work I declare that this thesis has been composed solely by myself and that it has not been submitted, in whole or in part, in any previous application for a degree. Except where stated otherwise by reference or acknowledgment, the work presented is entirely my own. Date: Tuesday 9th April 2019 Signed: Rosaleen Angela Nolan Nolan 7 For Tony and Carmella, who have developed my own powers of demonic motherhood. And for Mum and Dad, who would always read me one more story; and in whose home I have always felt heard Nolan 8 Contents Page Abstract 2 Lay Summary 5 Declaration of Own Work 6 Dedication 7 Acknowledgements 9 List of Abbreviations 10 Prefatory Note 11 Introduction 12 Literature Review 18 Chapter One: Home: A Social Context 34 1.1 Selfhood and the Domestic Space: Barrie and Bachelard 59 Chapter Two: Tommy 72 2.1 Instability of Identity and the Urban Milieu 78 2.2 Symbols of Storytelling and The Tommy Myth 101 Chapter Three: Grizel 119 3.1. Framing Grizel as Domestic Creative 134 3.2 "A Perfect Lover After All:" Grizel's Reclaimed Selfhood and Narrative Subversion 157 Chapter Four: Beautiful Mothers? Angels as Mermaids in Peter Pan 164 Chapter Five: Keeping the Window Open: Intertextuality and the Second Chance in Dear Brutus 209 Chapter Six: Beyond the Veil: Liminality and Defiance in the House of Mary Rose 241 Conclusion 291 Works Cited 297 Nolan 9 Acknowledgements The completion of this thesis over too-long a period has caused me to marvel, on countless occasions, at the tenacity and faith of those who have supported me emotionally, practically, and academically throughout the process. I have no doubt that there were times when you worried, just as I did, that this day would never arrive, but thank you for not once betraying that unease to me. To Dr. Jonathan Wild - I struggle to express the gratitude I feel for your continued, unshakeable belief in my capabilities. Your unfailing kindness, humour and encouragement have so often given fresh buoyancy to what I once felt was the most doomed of sinking ships. To Dr. Sarah Dunnigan - thank you for instilling in me the realisation, at an early and very precarious stage of this doctorate, that it is possible to be at once formidably accomplished and wonderfully kind. Taking your classes as an undergraduate was my first step in the exploration of feminism in literature, and your nurturance of that interest is largely responsible for the direction my research has followed ever since. Nolan 10 List of Abbreviations ST – Sentimental Tommy TG – Tommy and Grizel LWB – Little White Bird PP – Peter Pan PPKG – Peter Pan In Kensington Gardens PW – Peter and Wendy DB – Dear Brutus MR – Mary Rose WEWK – What Every Woman Knows Nolan 11 Prefatory Note 1. Use of italics, except where indicated, are as in original text. 2. In older editions of Barrie's works (such as his collection of plays or the Tommy novels) I have used page numbers as well as the numbers of Acts or Chapters so as to provide for the reader a more accurate sense of placement in text.