Aspects of Stuckness in Mervyn Peake's Fiction

Aspects of stuckness in Mervyn Peake's Fiction Alice Mills, B. A. Hons. (Adelaide), M. Litt. (Cambridge) This thesis is submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Ph. D. School of Behavioural and Social Sciences and Humanities University Of Ballarat PO Box 663 University Drive, Mount Helen Ballarat, Victoria 3353 Australia resubmitted in June 2002 Thesis Abstract This thesis argues that stuckness is a central trope in all of Mervyn Peake's extended works of fiction and that most of Peake's male characters become stuck at critical points in their lives. My exploration of stuckness is multidisciplinary, and I include analyses of Peake's two picture story books as well as his novels and novella. A major aspect of the trope of stuckness in Peake's fiction is the recurrent figure of the stuck man. I argue that this stuck man is confronted with either a physical or symbolic mother, a confrontation usually signalled by vertical intrusion and imagery of deep water and shipwreck, piracy and impalement. To interpret this recurrent motif I use Freudian, Jungian, post-Jungian, Lacanian and Kristevan versions of psychoanalytic theory. I justify this set of approaches in my second chapter, where I argue for the virtues of eclectic psychoanalytic literary criticism. While I focus on the stuck man motif, my thesis ranges more widely than this. Mr. Pye, Letters from a Lost Uncle, Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor and (to a lesser extent) Titus Alone have been critically neglected in comparison with Titus Groan and Gormenghast. I therefore give extended psychoanalytic readings of the picture story books and Mr. Pye in separate chapters, and give three chapters of the thesis to aspects of the much longer Titus Alone. With Titus Groan and Gormenghast, I feel less need to extend my argument beyond the trope of stuckness. In discussing the Gormenghast novels, I distinguish between "stuckness" and "adherence" as in adherence to the castle's rituals and differentiate the unchanging depiction of Peake's caricatured characters from the crises of stuckness experienced psychologically and physically by the stuck men with whom my thesis is centrally concerned. I further discuss "adherence" in terms of literary genre, and mount an argument that Peake's fiction can be regarded as generically stuck when most formulaic and cliched. I also consider moral stuckness in Peake's later fiction, Boy in Darkness, Mr. Pye and Titus Alone. Moral stuckness, I argue, is the form that stuckness takes in Peake's fiction when male characters act, as opposed to psychological and physical stuckness which are characterised by inaction or retreat from action. I demonstrate the pervasiveness of the trope of stuckness throughout Peake's fiction, as well as exploring the variety, wit and comic inventiveness of its manifestations. Statement of Authorship Except where explicit reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person's work has been relied upon or used without due acknowledgement in the main text and bibliography of the thesis. Acknowledgements I wish to thank the three people who have, at different times, supervised this thesis: Dr. Peter Hughes, Dr. Peter Murphy and, most recently, Dr. Meg Tasker. Their questions have helped me to clarify my ideas; their feedback has helped me to communicate my ideas; and their patience and encouragement have sustained me over the years. I would also like to thank colleagues who have read drafts of the thesis and given clear and helpful feedback: Dr. Janeen Webb, Dr. Andrew Enstice, Ms. Kate Simons, Dr. Jeremy Smith, Ms. Marcia Pope, Dr. Andrew Lewis, Dr. Tim Groves and Mr. Ron Handford. Professor Ray Over and Professor Stephen Kemmis, Professor Kerry Cox and Dr. Barney Glover have all provided the motivation that I needed to sustain my studies. Dr. Gay Sweely has answered tricky questions about the Chicago style of referencing. Ms. Catherine Pilbeam has set up the template for the final formatting of my pages. I wish to acknowledge also the financial support of the School of Behavioural and Social Sciences and Humanities, in funding my trip to England to consult rare Peake books at the British Library, and the support of librarians at both the British Library and the Ballarat University Library. Members of the Mervyn Peake society were generous with their time and knowledge of Peake's life. Mr. G. Peter Winnington has encouraged me over the years, and been generous with his expert knowledge of all things Peakian. Earlier versions of my chapters on Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor, Letters from a Lost Uncle, Mr. Pye and Titus Alone have been published in Peake Studies and Peake Papers 1 and 2 in the course of my candidature. I would like to acknowledge the contribution of my students over the years of my candidature, in vigorously debating all matters psychoanalytic with me. Finally, and first, I thank my father for introducing me to Peake's works as a child. Contents Introduction 1 Psychoanalytic Perspectives 10 Aspects of Stuckness in "Mr. Slaughterboard" and Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor 24 Stuckness, adherence and slippage in the Gormenghast novels 39 Nonsense, stuckness and the abject in Titus Groan 55 Surviving Stuckness in Titus Groan and Gormenghast 72 Compulsive Repetition as a Form of Stuckness in Letters from a Lost Uncle 82 Stuckness, inflation and literalised metaphor in Mr. Pye 101 Topographies of love and stuckness in Titus Alone 114 The Coherence of Titus Alone 125 Stuck Boy in Darkness 138 Titus Alone and the Production of Moral Sludge 155 Conclusion 168 Bibliography 172 Introduction I first came across Mervyn Peake's books as a child of eight or nine, given free access to my father's library. I remember reading Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor and the three Titus books at that time, and experiencing a series of small shocks as I read. I made my way through many other books from my father's library, and at the time my reading experience of them felt complete even though, in hindsight, I realize how little I understood of them. It was only in the case of Peake and Homer that my reading pleasure was repeatedly thwarted by exasperating, unsolvable problems. Who, or what, were these characters? What were they up to, and why? If I had known the term then, I would have said that I lacked some crucial context, and knew that I lacked it, whereas all the missing contexts for the other writers I encountered as a child, such as Dostoevsky, Colette and Compton-Burnett, did not disturb my enjoyment of their texts. Nothing occurred to me to do about my problems with Peake and Homer but to press on and hope that the pages I was yet to read would help; but my determination did not solve my difficulties. In the case of Homer, I went on to study classical Greek language and literature and read the poems in the original Greek so that I could understand more fully. Peake I avoided for years, not knowing what pathway might bring me to better understanding. I trained to become a psychotherapist and began to explore Jungian ideas with my clients. I started to apply Freudian and Kristevan theory to the literature I taught at university, and still I avoided Peake. It was not until I was approached by the editors of the Dictionary of Literary Biography's volume on children's books 1945-60 with an invitation to write a chapter on Mervyn Peake, that I found myself reading his books once more. The oddities that had exasperated me, now began to make psychological sense, and I challenged myself to come to terms with Peake, using all the psychoanalytic skills I had acquired: this thesis is the outcome. I write it in order to gain a professional qualification; I have published much of it during my candidature to engage in debate with other Peake critics; but I write it also for my eight or nine year old self, to honour my promise to myself that one day I would find a way to understand this amazing, daunting, mystifying, attractive, exasperating, unforgettable author and illustrator, Mervyn Peake. The most fully explored area of Peake criticism has been not psychoanalytic but biographical, including my own study of Peake as a writer for children in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Critics such as Laurence Bristow-Smith have traced connections between Peake's childhood in China and his writings.1 Tanya Gardiner-Scott has written extensively about Peake's war-time experiences and their influence on his work, on Titus Introduction 2 Alone in particular. Her Mervyn Peake: The Evolution of a Dark Romantic, a study of the Titus books, is the only full-length literary study of Peake so far published. A case has been convincingly established by Gardiner-Scott and other critics for Peake as a writer and illustrator who assimilated his own experiences extensively into his work, from vividly remembered childhood in China to nightmare adult impressions of a concentration camp. My readings of Peake's fiction in this thesis are complementary to these biographical studies. I explore connections between Peake's life and his writings in one chapter only, dealing with Titus Alone and the Holocaust, where it pertains to my study of moral stuckness. Here I set out to demonstrate that allusions to the Holocaust are far more prevalent in the book than has been previously acknowledged. My argument builds on previous biographical criticism, especially Gardiner-Scott's work.

Load more