INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 Nortfi Z eeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9211236 Our Mothers’ gardens: Mother-daughter relationships and myth in twentieth century British women’s literature Tyler, Lisa Lynne, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1991 UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Aibor, MI 48106 OUR MOTHERS' GARDENS: MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIPS AND MYTH IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITISH WOMEN'S LITERATURE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Lisa Lynne Tyler, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1991 Dissertation Committee: Approved by: Katherine H. Burkman Barbara Rigney Adviser Les Tannenbaum Department of English To Marian Sautter Beery ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to Dr. Katherine H. Burkman for her guidance and encouragement. I also wish to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Les Tannenbaum and Dr. Barbara Rigney, for their suggestions and comments. I am indebted to my mother, Marian Sautter Beery, and my sister, Laura Beery, for my interest in this subject; they have shown me how strong the ties between women can be. And I am especially thankful for the support and assistance of my husband (and first reader), Jim, who gave me courage. iii VITA January 5/ 1964 ...................... Born in Dayton, Ohio 1985 .................................. B.A., University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio 1985-1988 ............................. Editor, University Communications, University of Dayton Dayton, Ohio 1987 .................................. M.A., University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio 1988 .................................. Writer/Events Specialist, Ohio Public Images, Inc., Dayton, Ohio 1990-Present ......................... Part-time Instructor Sinclair Community College, Dayton, Ohio 1990-Present ......................... Graduate Teaching Associate, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English Twentieth-Century British and American Literature Minor Fields: Nineteenth-Century British Literature Composition and Business Communication iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication............................................... 11 Acknowledgements...................................... Ill V i t a ...................................................... Iv Introduction Unpercelved Patterns .................................... 1 Chapter I Mary and Motherhood In Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden .... 24 Chapter II "The Child's a Flower": Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden ...................... 53 Chapter III Mothers and Men In Three Short Stories by Doris Lessing ............. 82 Chapter IV The Loss of Roses: Mother-Daughter Myth and Mrs. Dalloway .................. 128 Conclusion The Remythologlzlng Impulse ........................... 166 Works C i t e d ................................................176 Introduction Unperceived Patterns The ancient Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone (or alternately, Kore, which means maiden) accounts for the changing seasons, establishes a basis for the celebration of annual rites known as the Eleusinian Mysteries, and celebrates the mother-daughter relationship. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the oldest known version of the myth, dates back to the seventh or sixth century before Christ (Richardson 6, 10). The Eleusinian Mysteries, the secret rites performed each year in honor of Demeter, are much older, dating back to perhaps as early as the second half of the fifteenth century before Christ (Mylonas 14). As George E. Mylonas writes in Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries, Let us recall again that the rites of Eleusis were held for some two thousand years; that for two thousand years civilized humanity was sustained and ennobled by those rites. Then we shall be able to appreciate the meaning and importance of Eleusis and of the cult of Demeter in the pre-Christian era. (285) 1 2 Several twentieth-century British women writers have adopted and adapted this ancient Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone to articulate the relationship a daughter can have with her mother. In writing of mother-daughter relationships, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Virginia Woolf, Enid Bagnold, and Doris Lessing use garden imagery and the seasonal cycle to link their stories to archetypal mythologies of women's experience.^ The works echo the dominant themes of the myth, and several focus on a daughter's literal return to a literal mother, as does the Homeric Hymn. The hymn begins with a depiction of the idyllic meadow of flowers in which the Kore, or young maiden, and her friends are at play. Attracted by a "wondrous and radiant" narcissus (1. 10), she "reached out with both hands at once" to pluck it (11. 15-16). Immediately, the earth opens up: [A]nd then over the Nysian field the lord and All-receiver, the many-named son of Kronos, sprang out upon her with his immortal horses. Against her will he seized her and on his golden chariot carried her away .... (11. 17-20) Her cries for help are heard by both Hekate, a goddess associated with the moon and the underworld, and 3 Hyperionides, god of the sun. Demeter, Persephone's mother, begins a search for her daughter but is unable to find anyone who can tell her what happened. For nine days, she fasts and abstains from bathing (11. 49-50), and finally, on the tenth day, Hekate comes and tells her that her daughter was abducted. Both Hekate and Demeter together appeal to Helios, who explains that Zeus "gave [Persephone] to Hades" (1. 79). Demeter, grief-stricken by her loss, withdraws from the gods and from Olympus and wanders the earth. No longer recognizable as a goddess, she pauses for rest in Eleusis, at the town well. When four young women ask her about herself, she responds with an apparent fiction that stresses her similarity to her daughter: And now from Crete on the broad back of the sea I came unwillingly; marauding men by brute force carried me off against my will . I eluded them and, rushing through the black land, I fled my reckless masters, so that they might not en j oy the benefit of my price, since, like thieves, they carried me across the sea. (11. 123-25, 130-32) The young women arrange for her to nurse their late-born infant brother and bring her to their house, where she has a momentary epiphany. Stricken afresh with grief, she sits 4 "speechless and brooding" (1. 198) and refuses to eat or drink until the jokes of an old woman named lambe (a name which in Greek suggests bawdiness and obscene jokes) provoke her to laughter. The goddess secretly tries to make her charge, Demophoon, immortal by placing him in the fire but is discovered in the attempt by Metaneira. The frightened mother understandably fails to comprehend what is going on, and her emotional reaction both ruins the spell and compels Demeter to reveal her divine identity. She commands the people of Eleusis to build her a temple and an altar and promises to "introduce rites so that later/ you may propitiate my mind by their right performance" (11. 273-74). Demeter, still grieving, creates a famine on earth by refusing to let seeds sprout or plants grow. A perturbed Zeus sends first Iris and then each of the immortals in turn to convince Demeter to come back to Olympus, but she "stubbornly spurned their offers" (1. 330): She said she would never set foot on fragrant Olympos and never allow the grain in the earth to sprout forth before seeing with her eyes her fair-faced daughter. (11. 331-33) Zeus then sends Hermes to Hades to persuade him to bring Persephone up from the underworld. Hades agrees— but gives Persephone a pomegranate seed to eat "so that she might not 5 spend/ all her days again with dark-robed, revered Demeter" (11. 373-74). Mother and daughter are reunited. But Demeter, suspicious, asks her daughter whether she ate in the underworld; if not, Persephone will be able to stay with her mother. Otherwise, you shall fly and go to the depths of the earth to dwell there a third of the seasons in the year spending two seasons with me and the other immortals. Whenever the earth blooms with every kind of sweet-smelling springflower, you shall come up again from misty darkness . (11. 398-402) Persephone tells her mother of the pomegranate seed: "Against my will and by force he made me taste of it" (1. 413). She then retells the narrative of her abduction from her point of view; like the poet's original version, this retelling again emphasizes the floral imagery (11. 425-28). Demeter restores fruitfulness to the planet: "The whole earth teemed with leaves and flowers" (1. 473), and she and her daughter return to Olympus together.