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Abstract Ware, Stephanie Lynne ABSTRACT WARE, STEPHANIE LYNNE. Sexuality and Coming of Age in Two Works by George MacDonald. (Under the direction of Leila S. May.) This study attempts to follow George MacDonald as he engages in the strange juggling act by which he simultaneously idealizes women and releases them from the grasp of idolizing males, proclaims their purity and concerns himself with their healthy maturation into sexuality. A comparison of Phantastes and Adela Cathcart reveals the complicating role of sexuality in the coming of age process of both males and females. The male protagonist of the fantasy work Phantastes is asked to learn to control his sexuality and to abandon selfishness in love, and he does so in part by understanding that women, too, have sexual natures. In Phantastes, however, MacDonald hesitates between idealizing, and thus desexualizing, women and accepting sexuality as part of women’s nature, as Anodos’s continuing celibacy upon his return from Fairy Land illustrates. The realistic setting of Adela Cathcart compels MacDonald to address women’s sexuality. The novel demonstrates that a woman can fulfill her traditional angelic role even while confronting the demands of her sexuality. Women are fallen angels who must be taught how to live in their fallen bodies without compromising their angelic calling. In order to become the “angel in the house,” the moral center of the home, individual women must undergo a coming of age process similar to that of the males who struggle so much with handling their sexuality. To mature successfully, and to stave off the selfishness that is threatening to manifest itself in her, Adela, like Anodos, embarks on a journey through fantasy, though she will be borne there through the imagination and words of others. Taken together, these two works by MacDonald manifest both the importance of the image of women’s natural innocence in the nineteenth century and a growing awareness of the inadequacy of that image. SEXUALITY AND COMING OF AGE IN TWO WORKS BY GEORGE MACDONALD by STEPHANIE LYNNE WARE A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH Raleigh 2003 APPROVED BY: ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ Chair of Advisory Committee BIOGRAPHY I was born in France to missionary parents and began my schooling in the French public schools and then attended high school at Black Forest Academy, an international Christian school in Germany. After receiving my English BA in 1993 from Houghton College, a Christian liberal arts college in rural New York, I worked for two years for a Christian non-profit organization, followed by a three-year stint as an English and French teacher at Black Forest Academy. Having been secluded in a Christian environment for quite some time, I found my years at North Carolina State University afforded me the first opportunity to systematically examine not only the current perception of the Christian faith in America but also the larger social and historical perspective on the nineteenth century roots of evangelicalism, a tradition I closely associate with, both because of my personal faith and because of my parents’ continuing involvement in modern world missions. MacDonald’s novels are still read in evangelical circles today, and he remains an important Christian literary figure. My desire in discussing his work has been to avoid the aggressiveness displayed towards the author by those who either wish to psychoanalyze him or who find his views objectionable without making my thesis an apologia for his beliefs or his obvious personal eccentricities. I read several MacDonald works as a child, including the two Curdie books, the fairy tale “The Day Boy and the Night Girl,” and several novels. My interest in rediscovering MacDonald was sparked by taking two courses in Victorian literature at NCSU. Though I admire the fantasies of both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, I am not a fan of the genre in general. I turned to Phantastes, and originally to Lilith as well, because of its importance in the MacDonald canon and only stumbled upon Adela Cathcart in the course of my research. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 1. CHAPTER 1 . 1 2. CHAPTER 2 . 23 3. CHAPTER 3 . 57 4. CHAPTER 4 . 84 5. LIST OF REFERENCES . 91 iii Chapter 1 Introduction George MacDonald was born December 10, 1824 in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The two most significant facts regarding his childhood are that he was steeped in the Scottish brand of Calvinism and that he lost his mother, Helen MacKay, in 1832 when he was eight years old. As a result of these early life experiences, MacDonald would later re- examine his beliefs regarding the nature of God and the nature of death. He gave his reformed views repeated expression throughout his extended writing career. Richard H. Reis cautions against the assumption concerning MacDonald’s childhood religious milieu “that MacDonald’s own family was conventionally Calvinistic: his father was a nonsectarian Christian of the sort which values the Bible more than what anybody says about it” (20). In that respect, father and son were very similar as George MacDonald would eventually form his own, sometimes eccentric, always very strongly held views on the teachings of the Bible. The loss of his mother influenced him strongly as well, as it was the first of many such familial losses that together caused MacDonald to spend much time thinking about what awaits us beyond the grave. However, many critics claim the loss of his mother had a much more particular impact than the losses that were to follow; they see MacDonald as having engaged in a life-long quest through the literature he created to fashion a mother figure for himself. MacDonald’s obsession with mothers is actually part of a larger preoccupation with women, and his writings afford us a much more expansive understanding of his thinking than this limited critical approach discloses. The extent to which his writing served MacDonald’s own psychological needs remains a matter of speculation. Nevertheless, it is certain that, in the absence of the daily 1 experience of a mother’s love, MacDonald used his keen sense of the importance of the lost relationship with a mother to express his conviction of the importance of a restored relationship with God. MacDonald’s fascination with women as mothers, and also as lovers, does bear spiritual significance. In a letter to his father dated October 16, 1850, the author states: “In all things I hope God will teach me. To be without him is to be like a little child, not learning to walk, left alone by its mother in Cheapside—and far worse than that faint emblem” (Expression of Character 36). As Glenn Edward Sadler observes of this excerpt, such “images from childhood experiences” provided “evidences to support his belief in personal immortality” (3). However, much remains of this fascination that is not strictly spiritual. As we examine the process of “coming of age”1 in Phantastes: A Faerie Romance and Adela Cathcart, the influences of the opposite sex upon that process in MacDonald’s works will be clear. At the same time, we will see that MacDonald adds to his usual emphasis upon the maternal instinct in women a decided stress upon female sexuality, the recognition of which plays a role in the maturation of both men and women. From MacDonald’s letters, it is evident just how important it was for him to be surrounded by the love of women: of wife, surrogate sister, and eldest child. His correspondence not only includes letters to his wife but also many letters to a Mrs. Cowper- Temple. Lord and Lady Mount-Temple first became friends with the MacDonald couple in 1867 (Sadler 138). In October 1877, MacDonald writes Mrs. Cowper-Temple, as she was then known, from his sick bed with a request for help. At the time, his wife and several of their children were enjoying a vacation in Italy (Sadler 256) paid for by the Cowper-Temples 1 According to Roderick McGillis, “coming of age” is what Phantastes as well as the turn-of-the-century work Lilith “are about” (“Phantastes and Lilith: Femininity and Freedom” 31). Kelly Searsmith likewise sees Phantastes as a “coming of age tale,” though not “a story of specifically masculine development” even if it does set forth an “idealistic, even heroic, masculine identity” (58). See also Colin N. Manlove, The Impulse of Fantasy Literature 73. 2 (Sadler 268). In his plea for help, MacDonald states: “It would be like a fairy story to have you to take care of me. [. .] It is much much to ask, but what are you my sister for if I am going to be doubtful before you[?]” (Expression 258-59). Writing to his wife on October 29, 1877, MacDonald refers to Mrs. Cowper-Temple as “the angel-sister” (Expression 260), and in November 1877, once he has rejoined his wife in Italy, he opens a letter to Mrs. Cowper- Temple with these words: “At last I am set down at my table to write to my great-great princess grandmother” (Expression 269). Sadler correctly identifies this address as “an allusion to his book The Princess and the Goblin” (271), which had been published in 1872. The miner boy Curdie in that children’s book is brought safely through many moral and physical perils by the intervention of his friend the princess’s great-great grandmother. MacDonald therefore mixes two contemporary images of women’s roles within society— angels and sisters, or “angel-sisters”—with his own vision of women as dwellers in the realm of fairy tales, endowed with particular influence therein.
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