Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

Upper Secondary School Teacher Training in English Language and Literature

Bc. Šárka Zlámalová, DiS.

Conforming to Society: Female Characters Finding Their Identity in Selected Muriel Spark’s Novels Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A.

2019

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..

Author’s signature

Acknowledgement

For sharing her knowledge, patience and advice with me, I would like to express

my thanks to my supervisor prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A.

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 5 I. Memento Mori ...... 9 II. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie ...... 24 III. The Public Image ...... 36 IV. The Driver's Seat ...... 45 V. Reality and Dreams ...... 53 VI. The Finishing School ...... 62 Conclusion ...... 70 Bibliography ...... 78 Primary Sources ...... 78 Secondary Sources ...... 78 Summary ...... 82 Resumé ...... 84

Introduction

This thesis focuses on providing the answer to the question of how Muriel

Spark’s female characters find their own identity within a society and what role, if any, is played by their education or upbringing. This thesis aims to collect and present evidence of an underlying theme in six selected Muriel Spark’s novels—Memento Mori, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Public Image,

The Driver's Seat, Reality and Dreams and The Finishing School. The thesis also remarks upon key elements from Spark’s personal life that might have influenced the process of shaping her fictional characters.

This thesis is divided into six main sections, each section focusing on one of the selected books. The aforementioned Spark’s books were selected to evenly represent her oeuvre over the years, analysing several of Spark’s well-known masterpieces as well as some of her lesser known and not as often commented upon novels and novellas.

The chapters are listed chronologically, according to the publishing date of the given books. Therefore, the first chapter discusses Spark’s early novel entitled Memento Mori (1959). The analysis is focused on the situation of three female characters—Dame Lettie Colston, Miss Jean Taylor and Charmian

Piper—contrasting the situation of the three women of an advanced age who occupy a very different social status, yet who all find it complicated to form a connection to the society around them. The chapter also draws a link between

Spark’s own experience with her elderly grandmother and the topic of her novel.

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The following chapter depicts the complex identity of one of Spark’s most famous characters, Miss Brodie from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961).

The chapter reveals how Miss Brodie refuses to adhere to the social role drawn for her by the conventional society and analyses the consequences that befall her for it. Miss Brodie’s character is compared with the character of Sandy, one of her students. The inspiration for creating Miss Brodie’s character is also explained as detected within Spark’s autobiography.

The third novel on which this thesis is focused bears the name The Public

Image (1968). The third chapter, accordingly, illustrates the deception of the novel’s protagonist, Annabel Christopher, and explains how the secrets she is hiding define her identity. Although it might not seem so at first glance, the same elements that have been already employed by Spark in her previous novels are to be found in Annabel’s case as well. Once again, there are striking resemblances between Spark’s own experience and the topic of her work.

The fourth chapter of this thesis strives to analyse the puzzle that represents a woman simply known as Lise, the protagonist of The Driver’s Seat (1970).

While Lise is intentionally crafted by Spark to pose as a misleading and unreliable character of the story, there can still be found certainties among the ever-present sense of mystery. Lise’s desperate attempts at controlling her own fate provide one such instance, her determination to follow through with her plans even though it means she has to pay the highest price provides another.

This thesis also points out the similarities between Lise’s approach and the approach of the other analysed characters in the preceding novels.

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The penultimate chapter of this thesis introduces the character of Marigold

Richards from Spark’s novel Reality and Dreams (1996) and explains how her disappearing could be compared to Lise’s actions. The thesis also brushes upon Spark’s own complicated family relationships that could have been a source material for her writing, including both Spark’s divorce from her husband Oswald Spark and the later fallout with her son Robin Spark.

It is outlined how these events are reflected in the fictional family ties of Tom Richards, his wife Claire and her two daughters Cora and Marigold.

While Marigold is not a main character of the novel, she is still the driving force behind the story. It is Marigold who refuses to accept the role that the society expects her to abide by. Instead, much to her father’s disapproval, Marigold sets on the complicated path of defining her own identity.

The sixth chapter offers the analysis of Spark’s final novel, The Finishing School

(2004). The chapter assesses the character of Nina Parker who, over the course of the story, matures from being her husband’s obedient wife

(and a compliant enabler) to being her own person. This novel, albeit not often acclaimed by the critics, is a vital piece of the puzzle when it comes to analyzing

Spark’s writing, seeing that this is her last completed and published novel.

At the time of its creation, Spark acknowledged that this might be her last story to tell. Therefore, the key elements that have fascinated Spark throughout her writing career resurface and unite in this crucial book. Because of this, the analysis of The Finishing School aids the understanding of Spark’s stimuli and motivations for her work as well as her perception of the pre-set social principles.

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The conclusion of this thesis offers a review of how all the aforementioned female characters find their identity, draws a comparison between the individual strategies the characters utilise in doing so and also summarizes the findings of this thesis. It is argued on the following pages that there is an underlying theme among all the discussed novels, a theme that Spark draws upon from her personal experience and a theme that is repeated in several variants throughout

Spark’s oeuvre; the theme of the society determining the female characters’ identities.

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I. Memento Mori

This chapter inquires into Memento Mori (1959), an early novel of Spark’s.

Albeit the novel introduces multiple characters, this thesis focuses on Dame

Lettie Colston, Charmian Piper and Miss Jean Taylor, since these three aging women are the most prominent female characters of the story. With these women, the novel propounds three different characters’ stances towards accepting their social role within their respective social circles. This chapter detects these themes and denotes how they form a part of what is to become

Spark’s pattern when providing her character’s identity.

Memento Mori is a story about a mystery in which several elderly characters receive anonymous phone calls that always relay the same message to them.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the message, eponymous with the title of the book, translates from Latin to English as ‘remember that you must die’, or, rather literally, as ‘remember to die’ (“Memento Mori”, Online

Etymology Dictionary, def. 31170). Therefore, the phone calls serve the purpose of being ‘reminders of the fleetingness of life’ for the elderly characters (“Memento Mori”, Online Etymology Dictionary, def. 31170).

Even though Spark does not use the term ‘whydunnit’ until referring to The Driver’s Seat, her later novel that will be discussed on the upcoming pages, the term is still applicable to the mystery of Memento Mori. There are no simple answers to finding out who is the person (or the entity) behind the unsettling phone calls since every character perceives the caller to be someone different, depending on the character’s personality and their approach to life and death. The identity of the caller changes along with the identity

9 of the person on the receiving end of the phone call. The characters within the book are focusing on ‘who’ is responsible rather than pondering ‘why’ are these constant reminders bestowed upon them. It seems that Spark structured the text so that the real value is in contemplating one’s life choices, state of family affairs and the need to redefine one’s identity in the face of the advancing years. Nevertheless, Cunningham reasons that the role of an author in the modern texts has been steadily diminishing and in its stead, it is the reader who has the power to construct the text. Therefore, the meaning of a text, as Cunningham puts it, is ‘under erasure’, especially since the identity of the reader is neither given nor fixable (Cunningham, 55). Thus, the analysis, interpretation and conclusions made about Muriel Spark’s works that this thesis proposes, are limited in their insight. Spark seems to be well-aware of these phenomena, since the shift of meaning behind an intent is often referred to in her novels. For instance, Annabel in The Public Image and Tom in Reality and Dreams are both depicted debating the real versus the imagined, the truth versus what is believed to be the truth and interpreted as such (Spark, Public,

17, 39, 42, 115, 123 and Spark, Reality, 1,44, 63, 56). The sense of what is real and what does indeed form one’s identity is but a reflection of the society’s beliefs and their attitudes—towards women, towards marriage, towards the frailty of old age.

In Spark’s novels, the society is the determiner of one’s character which is in accordance with what Bernd researched about the ties of one’s personality, identity and the society in which one lives. Bernd theorizes that it is the interaction between self and the social world that establishes one’s identity.

Bernd further distinguishes between one’s personal identity and the ‘social

10 identity’ that he explains as ‘an extended self’ (Bernd, 40). As far as the social identity is concerned, the identity is not demarcated by one’s personality but it points at ‘a higher-level social entity’ (Bernd, 40-41). This shared social identity is what is typical of ‘the Brodie Set’ from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie but it is also very notable for Miss Taylor, Charmian and Dame Lettie in Memento Mori.

Although all three women are of an advanced age—as are most characters introduced in the novel—there are key differences between them and the elements that form their identities.

First of all, there is the difference of their social status. Dame Lettie Colston,

OBE, is a respectable woman with a hereditary upper class status. Charmian’s status is partly due to her being a famous writer and party due to being married to Geoffrey, Lettie’s brother. Contrastingly, Miss Taylor does not occupy any prestigious social position according to the standards of society; she is

Charmian’s maid. However, due to the family’s close relationship with the maid,

Miss Taylor has been provided with opportunities to take interest in many things that would not be typical of a person of her status.

Secondly, there are pivotal differences in the three women’s mental faculties.

The mental capacity of Charmian falters, oscillating between ‘good’ days full of self-awareness and the confused haze that her ‘bad’ days bring. Yet,

Charmian’s physical health is in a good condition. Despite numerous talks about being placed into an institution, Charmian remains at home, being attended to by Miss Pettigrew, a maid who takes over the position once Miss Taylor’s failing health does not allow her to resume the employment. While Charmian’s physical health is rather strong, this is not the case for Miss Taylor, who has

11 kept her wits but is slowly losing the capability of controlling her own body.

Unlike Charmian, Miss Taylor retains all her wits and perception of the world around her. Charmian’s grasp on reality slips but her despairing want to remain self-sufficient persists. In contrast, there is Dame Lettie, whose paranoia indirectly causes her death; her personal maid leaves her and Dame Lettie, in order to avoid receiving any more perturbing phone calls, disconnects her telephone, so there is nothing that could save her from a home robbery gone wrong.

Finally, there are differences in the character’s stances towards their situation.

Miss Taylor is accepting of her fate but not indifferent to it. She is very aware of her body slowly failing her while her mind remains sharp. Charmian is in a different situation; her mind is failing her while her physical health remains near intact, yet she is also accepting of the situation. The only difference is that even after her stroke, Charmian wishes to remain self-reliant at her home whereas Miss Taylor is resigned to her loss of dignity and lack of privacy at the public nursing home. Dame Lettie is an interesting completion of the two previous attitudes towards one’s own old age; since her mind and body are not really giving her any issues, she remains stubbornly unaware, in denial of her powers slowly waning. Her paranoia sets in and her denial intensifies, causing her violent death at the hands of the robbers that invade her house.

To add to that, Dame Lettie is a character who stubbornly remains ignorant of what passes around her. It is clear from her interactions with other characters; Dame Lettie prefers the denial. Spark captures an intriguing dialogue exchange between Dame Lettie and Miss Taylor that shows the difference in accepting one’s fate. Dame Lettie asks Miss Taylor about

12 the nature of the mysterious telephone calls and Miss Taylor responds that it has to be ‘Death himself’ because ‘[i]f you don’t remember Death, Death reminds you to do so’ (Spark, Memento, 179).

The story Spark tells is not about solving a mystery, rather, it is about the acceptance of one’s finality, making peace with one’s life choices and if possible, atoning for the deeds done during both their youth and early adult lives. Among the three characters Spark uses to illustrate her point,

Miss Taylor is certainly the most at ease character, not one to complain and not one to make any desperate decisions. She accepts her fate for what it is and tries to make the best of the situation she finds herself in. For instance, she uses her previous connections to try to get an unpopular head nurse, Sister

Burstead, removed to another ward (Spark, Memento, 38, 110). Or, when faced with the clearly upsetting events that follow the death of one of the other elderly ladies at the ward where she is staying, Miss Taylor makes sure she ‘absorbed as much of the new experience as she could, for the sake of Alec Warner’

(Spark, Memento, 119). Miss Taylor takes solace in the ability to later narrate the events to her long time friend and once lover, Alec, who is a retired sociologist collecting narratives and general details from other people’s lives.

In addition, Miss Taylor’s reminiscences about the past times when she used to be a personal maid of Charmian reveal that her loyalty has prevailed throughout the years. Nevertheless, when it comes to choosing between keeping Charmian’s secrets and giving Charmian a chance at a more relaxed and peaceful home situation, Miss Taylor doesn’t hesitate to tell the secrets

(Spark, Memento, 174-176). This is not dissimilar to Sandy in The Prime of Miss

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Jean Brodie when she admits that her loyalty to her mentor was due only up to a certain degree (Spark, Prime, 127).

Even through pain and betrayal, Spark’s characters strive to make the best of their situation. This is also true for Spark herself. The society depicted in Memento Mori reflects Spark’s experience at the time; with her rapid literary success and fame came a lot of envy into her life. In her autobiography, Spark talks about the harassment from the others in her social circles and about the betrayal from those close to her. In fact, the main reason Spark decided to publish her autobiography was because she wanted to correct the misinformation that was being circulated about her, much of which, according to Spark, came from Derek Stanford. The same Derek Stanford with whom Spark had been friends for many years and with whom she almost daily exchanged letters—letters which Stanford later sold to the press once Spark became famous (Spark, Curriculum, 186-187). Spark explains that, ‘Stanford resented my success as a novelist’ and she also points out that the it would be wrong to assume that ‘the few years in which Stanford was acquainted with me are the sum total of my life’ (Spark, Curriculum, 190-191). Perhaps this betrayal was one such experience that inspired the sections about Miss Taylor betraying

Charmian’s secrets after many years of keeping them, and perhaps it has also translated into the main twist to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, where

Miss Brodie is betrayed by Sandy, a person very close to her heart. This seems probable, especially considering that Spark often admits that she utilizes her personal experiences and ‘transfers’ them ‘into a fictional background’ of her novels (Spark, Curriculum, 91, 184, 193).

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As well as experiencing personal betrayals, Spark also had to face envy of her success in the literary field. She believed that ‘the dissatisfied groups were’ mainly ‘[p]eople who fundamentally resent a young woman in authority’ (Spark,

Curriculum, 178). Dr Marie Stopes was among the people ‘who joined in the campaign of harassment against’ Spark, Spark says that she ‘was young and pretty’ while Stopes was not (Spark, Curriculum, 174). Spark also says that

Stopes sent her letters to inquire into the state of Spark’s marriage (or rather her divorce) with Oswald Spark and her other private affairs. ‘I wrote back telling her to mind her own business; my private life had nothing to do with my work,’ recounts Spark her cross response (Spark, Curriculum, 174-175).

All the same, Spark mentions the advice John Masefield shared with her that resonated with Spark, ‘All experience is good for an artist’ (Spark, Curriculum,

183-184). Even the envy, begrudge and betrayal was something Spark managed to utilize for her benefit. As stated above, this attitude is shared among Spark’s characters such as Miss Taylor.

At the time of her success and the publication of Memento Mori, Muriel Spark was forty years old. At this stage of her life, the experience with advanced age that is captured in the book was not personally her own; it was gained by close observation of the world around her. Spark openly admits that the inspiration for the story came from her experience with her aging, dying grandmother and the way her family nurtured her, taking turns. Some evenings it was Spark who ‘minded her’ and on those days when young Spark was spending the evening out in a theatre under Miss Kay’s supervision (Miss Kay later become inspiration for Spark’s most famous character, Miss Brodie), it was

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Spark’s ‘mother who stayed at home to look after the failing old lady’ (Spark,

Curriculum, 95). Spark was summoned to witness her grandmother’s final moments and in her autobiography she recounts it in vivid detail; the exact time, what was Spark doing at that time, ‘the death rattle’, the memory of the few grandmother’s possessions she later inherited. Spark also admits that her

‘sharpest memories’ of her grandmother ‘went back before her illness’ when she was still ‘full of perkiness’ (Spark, Curriculum, 95-96).

Whether it was a positive or a negative experience, Spark utilized it in crafting the world of Memento Mori, where the society is harsh, envious and cold.

All of which aids to the mysterious undertone of the story. The sense of mystery of the caller’s identity prevails throughout the novel; some characters believe it is Death himself (mentioned by Miss Taylor and Mrs Pettigrew as well as

Emmeline Mortimer and her husband), some hear a very young male, some people perceive the caller to have an elderly voice, some believe him to be middle-aged or even a foreigner. Mortimer, a retired detective Dame Lettie and her group of friends hire to investigate the mystery for them since they believe the police ought to be more through as they are getting nowhere in their efforts to arrest the caller, acknowledges that the offender might be whomever the characters believe him to be. It is revealed to the readers through

Mortimer’s soliloquy that he also receives the mysterious phone calls and it is revealed that his caller is always a gentle-spoken and respectful woman (Spark,

Memento, 13, 143-144, 155-156, 178).

According to Norman Page, there are similarities to be drawn between

Memento Mori and The Bachelors (1960). Page draws comparison between the

16 two books, stating that both have the ‘air of parody of plotting’ and pointing out that the social phenomenon of bachelorhood is ‘a symbol of failure to achieve the oneness of reality’ (Page, Muriel, 38). As was already mentioned, Spark was forty years old at the time Memento Mori was published. She was already divorced and living alone. The themes Spark explores in the novel are likely to have been on Spark’s mind at the time. At one point of the story, Miss Taylor states, ‘How nerve-wracking to be getting old, how much better to be old!’

(Spark, Memento, 39). In Miss Taylor’s case, the shared sentiment is aimed at

Sister Burstead, a middle-aged woman for whom Miss Taylor feels sorry at the time. The social isolation, however, is a recurring theme in Spark’s writings.

That the bachelorhood (or in the case of Miss Brodie, being a spinster) is considered a social failure corresponds with the social conventions being the determiners of one’s identity. The judge of the worth or failure to society in

Memento Mori is the anonymous perpetrator of the phone calls.

The disembodied voice of the caller, Page claims, represents a link to the character’s internal reality (Page, Muriel, 21, 34, 38). The characters, therefore, perceive to hear different callers that reflect their different personalities and the reactions they have to the phone calls reveal the very core of their identity.

Among the different stances to the unsettling phone calls, there is also the reaction of Mrs Pettigrew who is a new maid hired by Godfrey to tend to Charmian. Mrs Pettigrew ‘had chosen to forger’ receiving the phone call, she

‘believed the denial’, ‘blacked it out from her life’ and ‘continued to persuade herself’ that she did not hear anyone (Spark, Memento, 157-158). Godfrey, upon receiving a first mysterious phone call that is specifically addressed to him to remind him of the inevitability of his death, is very angry and shaken

17 in general, so his new housemaid, Mrs Pettigrew, a rather opportunistic and manipulative woman, tells him, ‘Now, look. This is all imagination’ (Spark,

Memento, 122). Stannard remarks that ‘there is no rational explanation for the telephone voices’ and that ‘the voices are a metaphor’ (Stannard, Muriel, 207) .

Spark acknowledges her ‘addiction to the telephone’ originated at the times when her son was growing up with her parents in Edinburgh while Spark lived in

London (Spark, Curriculum, 163). Once again, there are specs of Spark’s own life shining through her fiction. Stannard states that even if Spark’s fiction isn’t true, it still ‘offer[s] an image of the truth’ (Stannard, Muriel, 207).

The question of imagination and reality is commonly alluded to in Spark’s writings. For instance, Miss Taylor debates with her old friend Alec the quirks of human nature, ‘Do you think, Jean, that other people exist?’ (Spark,

Memento, 65). Alec then goes on to ask her whether she views people around them as ‘real or illusory’ (Spark, Memento, 66). It seems that sometimes, what the characters imagine to be true of the people around them is just as defining as what really is true. Miss Taylor acknowledges the merit of Alec’s statement. ‘One does sometimes wonder, perhaps only half-consciously, if other people are real’ (Spark, Memento, 67). This issue is later revisited by Spark in both The Public Image and Reality and Dreams.

For creating Memento Mori, Spark utilizes the experience she describes in great detail in her autobiography as she reflects upon her grandmother’s failing health

(Spark, Curriculum, 94-96). The intimate recount of Spark’s grandmother’s final moments is mirrored not only in Charmian’s struggles with her health but also in depicting the Maud Long Medical Ward that is there to tend to elderly female

18 patients. Spark captures the social isolation, the loss of one’s previous identity and the complete depersonalisation that happens to Miss Taylor upon being admitted to the hospital ward. ‘Sometimes, on first being received into her bed, the patient would be shocked and feel rather let down by being called Granny,’ narrates Spark (Spark, Memento, 9). For the people at the hospital, Miss Taylor becomes Granny Taylor, not because of her family status but because they deem her to be within the apt age group. The society awards the label, not Miss

Taylor. By her friends, however, Miss Taylor remains called by the same name.

Miss Taylor is well aware that she is ‘past her prime’ and that her friend

Charmian and herself are not ‘social equals’, despite their close relationship

(Spark, Memento, 68). Over the course of the story, the two friends are never to reunite again. Spark never really explores how closely tied to Charmian is Miss

Taylor, her former maid and a close confidant. Although sexuality and sexual orientation is also a part of one’s identity, the issues typically remain covert in both Spark’s novels and her personal life; Spark did not discuss them openly and in her autobiography her life-long partner Penelope Jardine is always referred to merely on friendship terms. The issues of same-sex relationships are never fully addressed by Spark and even in most of her novels, the true nature of some of the characters’ relationships remains open to the reader’s interpretation. The only exception seems to be The Finishing School, Spark’s last published novel that she completed at the age of eighty six.

On the penultimate page of the story, Spark’s narrator offhandedly mentions that two male protagonists reunited after several elapsed years and ‘engaged themselves in a Same-sex Affirmation Ceremony’ (Spark, Finishing, 116).

No more is said about the topic before or after and the theme has not been

19 openly examined by Spark in her previous novels. It is therefore not within the scope of this thesis to further recount the elements of gender identity and same-sex attraction that are present in both Spark’s life and in her writings.

Regardless of the nature of the friendship between Charmian and Miss Taylor,

Godfrey feels responsible for Miss Taylor for she ‘is party what we have made her’ (Spark, Memento, 71). With this statement, he acknowledges having shaped Miss Taylor’s identity by his direct actions. Godfrey entertains the idea of looking after Miss Taylor at their home so that she would not have to be at the hospital ward. Miss Taylor, although she at first ‘longed for the private nursing house in Surrey’ (Spark, Memento, 71), has meanwhile adjusted to being a patient at the hospital ward that is intended as a public nursing house and is wary of losing the new identity. Even so, the option of making the choice for herself is taken from her by Dame Lettie. There is a disagreement about the price of the private nursing house and Dame Lettie challenges Miss Taylor, foisting on her that she should surely prefer being placed into a hospital since the hospitals are there for the general public, therefore they are there for the needs of people that have the same social status as Miss Taylor (Spark,

Memento, 71-72). Again and again, it is someone else making the decisions that affect Miss Taylor. Miss Taylor conforms to all of this, reconciled with her life. She has been made aware of her role in the society throughout her life (for many years she had assumed the social role of being Charmian’s maid) and she has accepted the new role of a patient at the hospital ward. Unlike Dame

Lettie, Miss Taylor is not under any delusions and although she knows her life force is slowly waning from her, she does not show any signs of distress over the inevitability of her death.

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As far as the readers are informed, Miss Taylor does not receive any mysterious phone calls. Perhaps that is the result of her genuine acceptance of her fate. The topic is broached when Miss Taylor is, yet again, visited at the hospital by her friend Alec and they are debating various issues.

Miss Taylor explains that the ‘senile group’ of people who have been relocated to share the room with the aging ‘grannies’, serves as a reminder to them

(Spark, Memento, 173). ‘That is our memento mori. Like your telephone calls,’ explains Miss Taylor to the other character as Spark draws a comparison between the two reminders (Spark, Memento, 173). Only a little later in the story, Miss Taylor discusses the same issue with Dame Lettie, ‘If you don’t remember Death, Death reminds you to do so. And if you can’t cope with the facts the next best thing is to go away for a holiday’ (Spark, Memento, 179).

Interestingly enough, ‘go away for a holiday’ is exactly what Lise, a protagonist of Spark’s then yet to be written novella The Driver’s Seat, does when she finds herself in a very similar situation of not being able to cope with the state of her existence any longer (Spark, Driver’s, 3-4). This only shows that Spark’s stories are interwoven with ideas that she expands upon fully in her other writings, allowing a better perception upon a certain subject by broaching the issue from a multifocal viewpoint.

The topic of mental health aside, the issues of failing physical health are a very prominent theme in Memento Mori; the pain and the way the characters cope with it capture what is a hidden part of their identity. Miss Taylor, when her health first starts worsening, is miserable before adjusting to her new situation.

Spark’s narrator explains, ‘Her pains were increasing, she was not yet resigned

21 to them’ (Spark, Memento, 72). As with any previous conflicts, Miss Taylor’s reaction is acceptance. Miss Taylor includes the pain as a part of her indentify as an elderly patient at the hospital ward. In comparison, Charmian’s pains aren’t psychical but rather psychological, something her new maid often misuses to purposefully confuse the aging lady. Charmian complains about her to her husband, Godfrey, ‘Whose fault is it […] if I am getting into such state?’

(Spark, Memento, 76). Charmian struggles to keep hold of the reality, resisting the tricks of the new maid almost daily, although due to her senility she sometimes confuses her for her old maid and a good friend Miss Taylor.

The purposeful manipulation of Miss Pettigrew (like convincing Charmian she has yet to take her pills) aside, Charmian also has to cope with her imprint slowly waning from the world. She ‘was famous once’ (Spark, Memento, 95),

Olive and Eric, the next generation of characters, debate in the story. Olive opposes Eric’s statement, believing that, ‘She’s still famous. Always has been.

[…] Everyone knows Charmian Piper’ (Spark, Memento, 95). Eric drily states that except for a few old people, nobody remembers her (Spark, Memento, 95-

96). Charmian’s identity comprises two things; her health and her fame, neither of which she has any control over. The development of Charmian’s identity is influenced by the people around her; Miss Pettigrew meddles with Charmian’s health, the forgetful society is behind her losing her reputation as a famous novelist. Simply put, it is the society that is the deciding factor of Charmian’s identity, not Charmian herself.

To reiterate, Memento Mori offers three different female characters that are each presented with the task of redefining their own identity in face of their advancing age. Spark draws from her experience with her grandmother

22 to portray her characters and she does not shy away from many complicated issues such as losing one’s previous identity and having to accept a new role in one’s life due to advanced age and failing health, both mental and physical.

Spark also explores what trace of one’s existence is left behind by one’s life; there are attempts to revive Charmian’s former fame as a writer, there are

Alec’s futile efforts to collect little memories for his memoir, there are also Dame

Lettie’s struggles to reconcile with her family and accept the reality. In all these characters, Spark portrays the struggle of defining one’s identity and also touches upon the fluidity of said identity; what defines one’s character today might be dramatically changed over the course of time, sometimes gradually

(as shown in Miss Taylor’s case) sometimes due to an abrupt turn of events

(as was discussed in Dame Lettie’s case). This reconciles with what

Cunningham states about the nature of human self—Cunningham remarks that the identity is ‘a work in progress’ (Cunningham, 55-56). In Memento Mori,

Spark captures this permanent struggle and explains the constant need for a change.

All in all, this first novel introduces the theme of searching for one’s identity as a part of Spark’s writings and also explores the question of social constrains and the role these elements play in one’s life. The above mentioned role which the social conventions and expectations play in the process of shaping one’s identity is also detected in the next analyzed novel, The Prime of Miss Jean

Brodie.

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II. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

This chapter discusses the merits of Spark’s personal experience in shaping the identity of the lead female character, Miss Jean Brodie in the story

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961). It is argued that Spark crafted a strong female character that does not abide by the pre-set social constructs, chooses her own destiny and consequently finds disillusionment. Furthermore, this chapter succinctly delves into the character of Sandy, a student whose identity is defined by Miss Brodie and her unorthodox teaching methods.

The key aspects to consider when analyzing the influence of the writer’s personal experience are the historical and cultural context, the social status, the writer’s gender and also cultural models (Interpreting, ed. Barbre, 100-101).

It is also important to outline the alternative roles and life paths that were available to a female character within the given time period and society.

The social interactions and the relationships one nurtures are often the source of their identity. It is the reflection of those relationships that prevent social invisibility and determine one’s place within society (Interpreting, ed. Barbre,

251-252, 261, 264). For that reason, it is important to take into consideration

Spark’s own analysis of her work and her own shared insights into the process of constructing her works, as well as it is important to search for the elements of influence on Spark’s work in her own autobiography.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is self-reflective in ways Spark is very frank and open about. As an ex-Gillespian, the author draws from her memories of James Gillespie’s High School to recreate it in the world roamed by Miss

Brodie (Spark, Curriculum, 55). In Miss Brodie, Spark crafted into existence

24 an independent, peculiar character. Miss Brodie is a teacher that nurtures her flock of female schoolgirls—they are called ‘the Brodie set’. Nevertheless,

Miss Brodie’s controlling demeanour is turned against her in an ultimate betrayal by Sandy, one of her closest charges. Of this Miss Brodie is not to find out about. Page detects aspects of parody in Spark’s writing, claiming that a dark purpose is hiding behind the light overtones of student’s years at school and the innocence of childhood (Page, Muriel, 39).

Rather than the society itself, in the book it is Miss Brodie who is the propagator of the social pressure put upon the young girls. Miss Brodie acts as a self- appointed role model for her students, their spiritual guide, their teacher and controller. Without her guidance, ‘the Brodie set might easily have lost its identity’ (Spark, Prime 29). Miss Brodie is the authority figure that asks her students to conform to her rules and accept the social structure Brodie decides on. It is the teacher who asks of her students to respect the hierarchy she has brought into existence by establishing a circle of her closest followers.

Cheyette labels Miss Brodie as a maker of her own destiny (Cheyette in McQuillan, Theorizing, 96, 98). Miss Brodie refuses to conform to the norms; she is determined to be the one who sets them.

The book follows the impact of Brodie’s progressive yet rather manipulative style of education on her students. The readers are aware of this process that occurs unbeknownst to Miss Brodie. While Spark’s typical ambiguity does not provide a straightforward answer to the issue, it can be claimed that the novelty system Miss Brodie propagated was not a success. Despite the control

Miss Brodie gathers, in the face of free choices that her students can make, she

25 is helplessly met with betrayal. Therefore, Miss Brodie represents a character’s failed attempt to influence their own future, to pursue their dreams and not abide by the stereotypical structure. Miss Brodie is a character who is successful at first glance yet upon a closer inspection, the damage, darkness and disruption overweigh any possibly good intentions. While the character is allowed to make choices for herself, when Miss Brodie tries to intervene with the fate of the others and introduce her own rules, she is met with failure.

Miss Brodie’s intent to be the maker of her own destiny, regardless of the social ties, resonates with Spark’s own life path because one of the aspects of an identity is the feedback loop received from the surrounding society.

The judgement people pass on others can heavily influence the way people behave in their everyday life (Crumey in Schoene, 36). With this regard, Muriel

Spark leaving Edinburgh for Africa at the age of nineteen could be viewed not only as an escape but also as an exile. Spark had to reinvent herself and fit into a new role as a wife and as a mother. The experience of a sudden loss of all the previously familiar social connections and interactions and the need to recreate her own identity in a completely different country, culture and among new people could be seen as depriving yet it is also the reason Spark’s themes encompass far more than what is common for the period-typical Scottish literature. Spark has an ‘international identity’ (Brown and Riach, 125-126).

Due to her international identity, readers from all around the world find Spark’s novels relatable and her prose is one of the most translated works written by a Scottish writer (Ashley in Schoene, 351). Despite spending a lot of time travelling abroad, Spark’s upbringing leaves a mark on her writing.

Some influences are more notable, such as the inspiration drawn from attending

26 the Edinburg girls-only high school, some elements are more subtle.

Spark often examines the themes of the link between the belief in power, a person’s representation in the society and the value they hold in the society’s eyes and also how it connects to leaving a personal imprint in history. This is an aspect that, according to Gardiner, has to be applied to the late twentieth- century Scottish literature. Gardiner also talks about the active or passive role played in the idea of devolution and the tendency of British culture to leave out the personal representation of the Scottish identity to the point where the personal aspect of it is, as Gardiner phrases it, ‘smothered out of history’

(Gardiner in Schoene, 47-48). Spark achieves to retain the heritage of her origins while also employing her international experience to represent deeply intricate characters.

Spark’s first novel, The Comforters, draws from her personal experience with religious converting, Spark’s first novel that is told in first-person-narrative,

Robinson, is also evidently autobiographical (Page, Muriel, 17). Spark openly admits the self-reflective elements of her novels, yet she also points out the distortion between her fiction and the reality (Brown and Riach, 128).

In her writings, Spark draws from her personal experience yet her stories are still completely fictional.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has become a milestone to Spark’s commercial success; the book was published when Spark had firmly started to establish herself as a novelist rather than a poet. Spark experimented with different styles and even wrote drama before she started to seriously consider writing novels which she previously regarded as a lesser form of writing (Page, Muriel, 8, 10).

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As far as the structure of the story is concerned, Spark deploys a linear timeline and her storytelling is more straightforward than some of her other works that bear more traces of experimental novel such as is the case of The Driver’s Seat that is discussed in chapter three.

The success of Spark’s novel lies in the character of Miss Brodie. Stannard remarks that Spark relying on her experience from having attended the Gillespie’s to draw both the Marcia Blaine School and its teachers resulted in ‘timeless vitality’ of the novella. Miss Brodie is Spark’s most famous character and Spark admits that for an inspiration, she used a real life teacher who taught her while she was attending the school as a young girl. The teacher’s name was

Christina Kay and Spark recalls her in her autobiography thus: ‘I fell into Miss Kay’s hands at the age of eleven. It might well be said she fell into my hands’ (Spark, Curriculum, 56). Spark also muses that ‘Miss Kay was not literally Miss Brodie but I think Miss Kay had it in her, unrealized, to be the character I invented’ (Spark, Curriculum, 56). Spark stresses on several occasions that her characters are fictional and that they only resemble real life people instead of being their true reflections (Spark, Curriculum, 56-59, 61, 67).

Nevertheless, several of Spark’s former classmates who shared the class taught by Miss Kay from 1929 to 1930 wrote to Spark after the publication of this novella, claiming that they recognized Miss Kay in Miss Brodie’s character despite the name change (Spark, Curriculum, 57-60). About naming the famous character, Spark reveals that she might have unconsciously recalled the maiden name of a ‘young American woman who taught [Spark] to read when [she] was three’ (Spark, Curriculum, 56).

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In the same way Miss Kay shaped Spark’s character and broadened her horizons, it was the fictional Miss Brodie who shaped her student’s identity until ‘they remained unmistakably Brodie’ (Spark, Prime, 6). Spark does not keep Miss Brodie’s attitude a secret from the readers because the intentional process of bringing up the students according to her wishes in the form of Miss

Brodie’s special form of education is apparent from very early on in the novel.

Miss Brodie tells the students whom she had selected as her closest group,

‘I am putting old heads on your young shoulders’ (Spark, Prime, 8).

Furthermore, Miss Brodie is introduced as having her students ‘trained up in her confidence’ using her ‘progressive methods’ (Spark, Prime, 9). Miss Brodie’s manipulative tendencies are slowly surfacing word by word the more Spark reveals about her. Miss Brodie is unabashedly confident in her skills, ‘Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life’ (Spark, Prime, 9).

Regardless of Miss Brodie’s questionable methods, the elusive sense of being a part of the famous set was something many outsiders strove to achieve

(Spark, Prime, 8). Miss Brodie is carefully selective about who does and who does not become a part of her set and she is quick to point out the lack of respectable ancestry as a hindrance or to claim that the girls are ‘anxious to be of cultured and sexless antecedents’ (Spark, Prime, 49). The girls that pass Miss Brodie’s bar form a close-knit community and according to Jenks,

‘”communities” are made up of individuals whose total identity is proscribed by the sentiment of the collectivity’ (Jenks, 178). In accordance with this, it is more important to the girls to become a part of and be able to identify as ‘the Brodie set’ than to be their own person. Edgecombe observes that Spark often introduces ‘collective habits’ of characters so that they ‘create a unifying

29 background’ that can be noticed in Memento Mori, The Bachelors or The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Edgecombe, 8). Rather than a certain age or the option of singlehood, it is the school background that unifies both The Finishing School and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. In the later mentioned novella, however,

Spark goes beyond creating an identity linked to the school; the identity of the Brodie set’ surpasses temporal and local ties. Once the girls acquire the identity of being part of ‘the Brodie set’, it is impossible to separate them from this image. As has been stated earlier, once the girls become a part of ‘the Brodie set’, they belong to Miss Brodie ‘for life’ (Spark, Prime, 9).

Further, Spark writes in her novella, ‘The Brodie set might easily have lost its identity […] because Miss Brodie had ceased to preside over their days […]’

(Spark, Prime, 77). Once Miss Brodie is forced away from the school and the headmistress has set plans to have ‘the Brodie set’ dispersed, the girls are ‘brisk with the getting of knowledge fro unsoulful experts’ (Spark, Prime, 77).

Spark guides the readers through the realization that without Miss Brodie, the girls are no longer ‘the Brodie set’ (Spark, Prime, 77-78). Something that was an integral part of their identity, something that made them unmistakable from the very beginning of the story (Spark, Prime, 6-8) till the end (Spark,

Prime, 111), something that essentially differentiated them from the rest of the crowd, was vitally linked to Miss Brodie’s persona. Without Miss Brodie’s lead, there was no one to follow. It is also apparent that the girls, although they together formed ‘the Brodie set’, were not a cohesive, team-like structure.

Miss Brodie even advised her set against the dangers of ‘ideas like “the team spirit”’ that ‘[a]re always employed to cut across individualism, love and personal loyalties’ and therefore ‘ought not to be enjoined

30 on the female sex’ (Spark, Prime, 78). The girl’s individualistic character has been natured over their identity as a social group.

In addition, Miss Brodie, partially by ‘deliberation’, partially by ‘instinct’, made the girls ‘feel chosen’ (Spark, Prime, 79). Miss Brodie lays claim on the girls’ success, she considers them to be possessively hers and even tells the girls that ‘it is because you are mine’ that they get an invitation to the private meetings in Mrs Lloyd’s studio. Miss Brodie elaborates that, ‘I mean of my stamp and cut, and I am in my prime’ (Spark, Prime, 97). These methods, however, are not met with a warm welcome from everyone; when Miss Brodie’s plans stop aligning with the desires of Sandy, one of Miss Brodie’s favourite students of her set, Miss Brodie’s whole composition abruptly falls apart.

To put it simply, Sandy, one of the girls of ‘the Brodie set’, began to realize that there were other options and realities than the ones with which Miss Brodie presented them. Sandy muses about the difference in the perception of the reality surrounding her. ‘[…] Sandy knew with a shock, when speaking to people whose childhood has been in Edinburgh, that there were other people’s Edinburghs quite different from hers […]. Similarly, there were other people’s nineteen-thirties’ (Spark, Prime, 33). Spark captures the essence of different realities for different people experiencing the same events through different eyes. Jenks remarks upon the phenomena of an ‘urban location’ that can be ‘part of the process of identity-making’ just as well as ‘social space’ or ‘community’. Those can be viewed as ‘the key source of rootedness’ where

‘social identity’ is involved (Jenks, 185). The slums that some of Edinburgh’s quarters in the 1930s were—of which Spark was well-aware, according

31 to Stannard—would certainly pose such an urban location (Stannard, Muriel,

25). For the girls in the novella, however, it was the alignment with the character of Miss Brodie rather than the location that was the source of their identity.

Upon revisiting Edinburgh, Sandy ponders Miss Brodie’s nature; ‘Now that she was allowed to go about alone, she walked round the certainly forbidden quarters of Edinburgh […]’ (Spark, Prime, 109). The things Sandy observed there helped her understand ‘what went to the makings of Miss Brodie who had elected herself to grace in so particular a way and with more exotic suicidal enchantment than if she had simply taken to drink like other spinsters who couldn’t stand it any more’ (Spark, Prime, 109). Sandy has been accepted among ‘the Brodie set’ but it was Rose who Miss Brodie deemed suitable to become Lloyd’s lover. ‘It was plain that Miss Brodie wanted Rose with her instinct to start preparing to be Teddy Lloyd’s lover’ (Spark, Prime, 109).

Miss Brodie’s exact reasoning is that ‘Rose will be a great lover. She is above the common moral code, it does not apply to her’ (Spark, Prime, 110).

Miss Brodie enjoyed her schemes and she enjoyed directing the lives of people around her. ‘Miss Brodie liked to take her leisure over the unfolding of her plans, most of her joy deriving from the preparation […]’ (Spark, Prime, 109).

In retribution, Sandy begins to see the fault in Miss Brodie’s way of ‘teaching’, or rather moulding the girls to suit her plans, and she grows determined to change it. ‘I’m not really interested in world affairs,’ proclaims Sandy in the story, ‘only in putting a stop to Miss Brodie’ (Spark, Prime, 125).

At the very end of Spark’s novella, Sandy is revealed to be the one who went to give the headmistress the information necessary for forcing Miss Brodie

32 to retire from her position at the school (‘on the grounds that she had been teaching Fascism’). When the headmistress says that, ‘It was one of your own girls who gave me the tip, one of your set, Miss Brodie,’ it is a pivotal moment for Miss Brodie (Spark, Prime, 125). Not only because her career at the school comes to an abrupt halt but also because from this moment on, she becomes obsessed with knowing who could have betrayed her. The school had attempted to have Miss Brodie removed several times before but they were not able to ‘prove personal immorality’ against her (Spark, Prime, 125). Miss Brodie is hurt and does not understand why would one of her own girls be behind the cause of her downfall. She does not suspect Sandy in the slightest, even confides to her that she knows that Sandy ‘had no reason to betray’ her (Spark,

Prime, 125-126).

Miss Brodie’s obsession with finding out whoever betrayed her is what, in the eyes of the her former set, becomes the reason Miss Brodie is ‘past her prime’ (Spark, Prime, 127). As the story shifts into a dialogue between Sandy and Jenny, two former members of ‘the Brodie set’, it is revealed that Miss

Brodie is already deceased and Sandy obliquely admits that it was her who betrayed Miss Brodie all those years ago. ‘It’s only possible to betray where loyalty is due,’ is Sandy’s exact wording with the addition that when Jenny asks whether such loyalty was not due to Miss Brodie, Sandy responds that

‘Only up to a point’ (Spark, Prime, 127). To Sandy, Miss Brodie was more than a mere teacher the same way Miss Kay was far more to Spark. Among the roles

Miss Brodie plays, Spark lists, ‘the leader of the set’, ‘Roman matron’ or even

‘educational reformer’ (Spark, Prime, 111). Even though the girl’s identification as ‘the Brodie set’ diminishes for them, they still remain ‘the Brodie set’. ‘It was

33 impossible for them to escape from the Brodie set because they were the Brodie set in the eyes of the school’ (Spark, Prime, 111). Spark states plainly that it was the school, not the girls, who bestowed the label of ‘the Brodie set’ identity upon them and it was the school who kept labelling the girls in such a way even after the label ceased to be accurate and topical. Spark even goes as far as to say the girls were not able to ‘escape’ the identity (Spark, Prime,

111).

In other words, Miss Brodie shapes the identity of her set and vice versa.

The very last statement of the story regarding the acquirement of ‘the Brodie set’ identity having determined the character’s identity for the remainder of their lives, comes from Sandy. Sandy, when asked about what were ‘the main influences’ when she was still a school child, says, ‘There was a Miss Jean

Brodie in her prime’ (Spark, Prime, 128).

Overall, Miss Brodie’s transgressive approach to teaching is what defines and shapes not only ‘the Brodie set’ but it also becomes a determiner of Miss

Brodie’s own identity. She assumes the role of the manipulative teacher, she invites her ‘progressive methods’ into her teaching, she is the one who is also affected in a roundabout way by her actions of affecting others when Sandy grows tired and jealous of her antics and causes Miss Brodie’s downfall.

The similarity between Sandy and Miss Brodie lies in that they both do the exact opposite from what is expected of them; Miss Brodie ignores the social conventions and the traditional way of teaching and Sandy ignores the methods and teachings of Miss Brodie, proving to be disloyal to her. Both of the female characters refuse to conform to the society and they define their own identity.

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Yet, neither of the characters finds much happiness in the results of their actions; Miss Brodie is betrayed and ousted from her teaching position, Sandy retires from the standard social life to live in a nunnery. The outcome Spark pursues within this thread seems to be that attempting to establish an identity beyond the protective yet restrictive bounds of the society earns the characters nothing but bitterness and woes. This theme is further expanded in The Public

Image, which is analysed in the following chapter.

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III. The Public Image

This chapter discusses Muriel Spark’s novel The Public Image (1968) and analyses the identity of the main character, a film actress Annabel

Christopher, to provide further evidence of the underlying theme of Spark female characters’ identities being determined by the bounds of the society surrounding them.

The Public Image offers another type of a reaction of the female character to the expectations of the society. Where Lise from The Driver’s Seat breaks down and ultimately schemes her own death, Annabel learns to thrive on the lies she has to feed the society about her life in order to retain her lifestyle. As the title of the novel, The Public Image, alludes to, Annabel has a carefully cultivated public image that is drastically different from the reality of her private life. The information about her private life that she either lets slip or purposefully shares with the public is also very misleading and does not translate to the reality of Annabel’s everyday life.

Stannard dismisses the notion which other critics have acknowledged that

Annabel’s double-life is a confession of how Spark viewed her situation.

Nonetheless, Stannard remarks that The Public Image ‘draw[s] obliquely on Muriel’s first year in Rome, it also reaches back through her whole history as an artist’ (Stannard, Muriel, 350). Stannard also observes that Spark often revisits the themes that are discussed in the book, namely the themes of ‘fact and fiction feasting off each other’ and the dissection the relationship ‘between identity and fame’ (Stannard, Muriel, 350-351).

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In addition to this, there are other instances Spark mentions in her autobiography that date back far earlier into her life and yet still bear signs of the themes Spark would later come to explore in her writings. The ever- watchful public eye is something Spark has become aware of fairly early, just as is Spark aware of the social constrains and expectancies.

In her autobiography, she recounts an event that took place early into her childhood at a party in a house of one of her friends’ parents. Spark, among about twenty other children was seated at a table and served orange mousse.

One of the adults present remarked upon them enjoying their treat by uttering a seemingly innocent remark, ‘Look at them tucking in!’ This remark caused

Spark to stop enjoying her treat. ‘I didn’t make any fuss,’ recalls Spark in her autobiography. ‘I put my spoon down, unable to finish my delicious orange sweet’ (Spark, Curriculum, 36-37). As an explanation of her loss of appetite,

Spark clarifies that ‘I thought it a terrible thing to say’ and that ‘no one would have made such an embarrassing remark at a grown-up party’ (Spark,

Curriculum, 37). Although no one took any notice of Spark’s indignation, this seemingly innocuous episode stuck with Spark into her adulthood and the same sense of unease that is to be felt under the watchful eye of the scornful society is often captured in her novels. In Memento Mori, Spark notes through the eyes of the narrator focusing on Miss Taylor (as an elderly patient at Maud Long

Medical Ward), ‘How we all watch each other for signs of failure!’ (Spark,

Memento, 63). In The Public Image, it is the constant pretence Annabel has to put on in order to appease the public and keep her life together.

Spark’s novel The Public Image reached her readers in the UK in June 1968 and her American readers in September of the same year and gained mixed

37 reactions. Stannard summarizes that some critics such as Martin Green, the New York Times or the TLS found the book lacking in plot and style while others such as William Trevor, Auberon Waugh or Rebecca West were intrigued by the flawed heroine and the difference between her public and private identity. Stannard also points out that The Public Image is focused on something that Spark has always been interested in; the mutual connection of fame and one’s identity (Stannard, Muriel, 350-353).

The main character of this story is Annabel Christopher, a successful actress who controls her public image that is very different from her private life.

Annabel’s identity is captured through the eyes of three characters—Annabel herself, her husband Frederick and ‘Billy O’Brien, her husband’s oldest friend’

(Spark, Public, 2). Annabel reveals that ‘Billy treated her newly-sprouting film success as a win on football-pools’, which shows how little worth she had in the eyes of the two men (Spark, Public, 3). Much to Annabel’s irritation, Billy can see through Annabel’s deceptions and throughout the story, he always appears to be several paces in front of her, taunting her. For instance, upon visiting her house, Billy aptly asks, ‘Is this all in aid of your public image?’

(Spark, Public, 3). Annabel does not receive any support from her husband either. Frederick despises her deceptions and abhors her for the alleged lack of talent but it might just as well be that he is envious of her success the same way the general public in England was envious of Spark’s success (Spark,

Curriculum, 170, 190). Spark captures Annabel’s musing thus: ‘she had not in the least attempted to overcome her stupidity […], she had somehow circumvented it. She did not need to be clever, she only had to exist; she did not need to perform, she only had to be there in front of the cameras’ (Spark,

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Public, 9). Her husband, pondering leaving his wife, is ‘hypnotized by a sense of the enormity of her deception the more her reputation grew and she accepted it as part of her rightful earnings’ (Spark, Public, 17). Frederick also muses that

‘nobody but he could know how shallow she really was. I know her, he thought, inside out’ (Spark, Public, 17). Whether this is true or not remains unclear.

The readers are tasked to assess Annabel’s talent for themselves, seeing that despite the many characters who are always ready to remind Annabel of her lack of talent (most notably her husband Frederick, his friend Billy and the family doctor’s daughter), Annabel herself never really shows any signs of incompetency. She is merely said not to possess genuine talent.

In comparison, Spark introduces another character, Francesca, a secretary who

‘knew she was good at her job’, possessed ‘newly-emancipated zeal’, lived on her own without a man at the age of twenty eight and was willing to keep secrets for men, commonly took on suitors and was willing to work ‘for long hours and poor wages’ (Spark, Public, 24). Francesca was the one who helped

Annabel and Frederick craft their public image, seeing that she ‘knew the Italian magazines as well as they knew themselves’ (Spark, Public, 25). Annabel was

‘presented […] as every man’s perfect wife, with her composed and conventional appearance’ (Spark, Public, 30).

While Annabel’s husband detests Annabel for who she is, some other characters in the book do not even realize there is any difference in her public and private persona. Luigi Leopardi, a film director, ‘was not at all concerned or cynical about the difference between her private life and her public image; he did not recognize that any discrepancy existed,’ describes Spark and through Luigi she adds another thought-provoking question, ‘What is

39 personality but the effect one has on others?’ (Spark, Public, 38). The same character has an identity-shaping conversation with Annabel. ‘I see no hypocrisy in living up to what the public thinks of you,’ Luigi informs Annabel and when she protests that she is not her role—that she is not the character of a Tiger-Lady she portrays in her movies and whose nickname has stuck as a label from the public for Annabel—Luigi acknowledges his part in shaping

Annabel into who he believes she is (Spark, Public, 38). ‘But I’m not a Tiger-

Lady,’ protests Annabel, to which Luigi responds simply, ‘Aren’t you?’ (Spark,

Public, 39). He also informs Annabel that, ‘Before I made you the Tiger-Lady, you didn’t even look like a lady in public, never mind a tiger in private. It’s what

I began to make of you that you’ve partly become’ (Spark, Public, 39).

This shows how the world Spark depicted treats Annabel, as clay that could be moulded into the desired form that is most useful for whomever is in control

(Spark, Public, 43, 48, 116). For her part, Annabel is trying to define her identity and see whether what the others say about her is true or not. She ponders whether or not she has become what the others see her as, and Spark uses the parallel of her learning her film script to shape the process.

It is not only Annabel that Luigi views this way; he finds Annabel’s husband’s purpose in playing ‘his part in her public image’ (Spark, Public, 115).

When Annabel’s husband commits suicide and causes her a great scandal,

Luigi, much like Lisa’s superior in The Driver’s Seat (Spark, Driver’s, 3), advises

Annabel to go on vacation (Spark, Public, 117). He does not ask Annabel for her input, he simply tells her that, ‘We’ll have to get a new image for you.

You’ll have to play wild, mad girls when you come back from your vacation.

We’ll make different movies’ (Spark, Public, 118). The words Spark uses

40 to capture Annabel’s situation are full of ‘you have to, you will, you must not be’.

That is very apparent in the scenes that ensue after Frederick’s death and Annabel desperately tries to keep her persona intact. The worry about ‘what would people think’ is present in more of Spark’s novels, for instance Nina Parker from The Finishing School, upon discussing one of her student’s unexpected pregnancy, is full of worry about what they are obliged to do and if they could be sued for the lack of vigilance (Spark, Finishing, 103-

104). Much like Annabel does certain things only to please the social conventions, Nina also keeps the social proprieties in mind—even after she

‘settled into her new life’ she is still ‘finding herself obliged to give dinner parties’

(Spark, Finishing, 117).

Clearly, Annabel always has the public eye in mind. Even when faced with the dire situation of her husband committing suicide, Annabel’s first thoughts are to keep her public image intact. Spark captures Annabel’s mindset,

‘These people must not be allowed to know that she had no idea where

Frederick had been, or that she was waiting for his return with any anxiety’

(Spark, Public Image, 54-55). Annabel evidently did not wish to speak to the press or to the gathered neighbours and friends but as it was the proper thing to do, she did it nonetheless. Spark describes that Annabel felt like she had no control over the situation and that she had to ‘keep up an appearance of politeness’, even if she wished to ‘get rid of the people as quickly and finally as her public image would permit’ (Spark, Public, 55-57). Plainly, Annabel’s stance is in depth influenced by the scrutiny she is put under. Rather than behaving in a way natural to her character, she always measures the risks involved in not abiding by the social conventions. More than anything, Annabel

41 is afraid of the society’s contempt and judgement for it is the society who provides Annabel’s identity; without the society’s approval, Annabel could not exist in the way she does in the story. Thus, the society controls Annabel’s identity, both from the outside by the ever-present watchful eyes and from within, in the form of Annabel’s ever present consciousness.

This situation is not dissimilar to the sentiment shared by the characters in Memento Mori, where the characters closely monitor each other, waiting to punish even the slightest sign of any misconduct (Spark, Memento, 63).

With the level of pretence Annabel displays, the question remains of how much her true self she is showing. In one of the post-mortem letters Annabel receives from her husband, Frederick appraises Annabel, ‘You are a beautiful shell, like something washed up on the sea-shore, a collector’s item, perfectly formed, a pearly shell – but empty, devoid of the life it once held’ (Spark, Public, 114).

This statement dehumanizes Annabel as a person and diminishes her value and it is not uncommon from Frederick. Annabel’s husband is not the only one who treats Annabel as inferior; Billy often adds insult to injury for Annabel.

When he talks to Luigi in front of Annabel, Billy tells him, ‘You must remember she’s only a woman’ (Spark, Public, 147).

At the time, Annabel says nothing and she does nothing; she lets things unroll around her without intervening or trying to divert the course of actions in a way she would find pleasing. This behaviour is perhaps motivated by an explanatory advice that Annabel shares, having it once received from a fellow actress,

‘Never try to explain yourself to others, it leads to confusion’ (Spark, Public, 59).

At first, Annabel puts on a smile and keeps her pretence for as long as possible.

At the very end of the story, however, Annabel, decides to stand up for herself.

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This turn of events is not dissimilar to Lise from The Driver’s Seat, only that

Lise’s story begins with her rebelling against the role scripted for her and ultimately failing, whereas Annabel’s story is about abiding by the role that is, in her case, very literately scripted for her before ultimately breaking free at the end of the story. ‘I want to be free like my baby,’ Annabel says although the narrator sombrely remarks that Annabel felt ‘neither free nor unfree’ at that particular moment (Spark, Public, 154).

Interestingly enough, of all the comparisons and descriptions that could have been used, Spark’s narrator mentions that Annabel was ‘pale as a shell’ while she was on her way to leave her old life behind (Spark, Public, 155).

With regard to Frederick’s last written words to Annabel that have been mentioned earlier, the comparison is rather uncanny. Acknowledging Spark’s attention to detail, it is very likely not accidental. On the contrary, the words that appear in Spark’s works are very purposeful, everything helps to aid the story.

In Spark writings there are allusions as well as clear references to the works of other authors, for instance Spark references poems by T.S. Eliot,

George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw

(Spark, Public, 39, Reality, 45). Much like Shaw’s play, Spark’s Public Image hides its true controlling nature and dark themes behind a light-hearted tone of the story. Upon a closer inspection, however, the society Spark portrays is just as macabre and unforgiving as in Memento Mori. There is hardly any warmth, for example, Spark often describes what her married characters feel not as love but as dependency (Spark, Public, 38, 41).

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All in all, this chapter has depicted how Annabel Christopher fears social judgement and that she chooses to conform to the social rules, although she finds the conventions against her nature. In a fashion similar to the earlier case of Miss Brodie and the following case of Lise, Annabel’s inner conflict with the rules of the society results in her unhappiness. The following chapter discusses how Lise attempts to define her own identity and play by the rules set by herself only to inevitably fail in her attempts.

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IV. The Driver's Seat

This chapter investigates the themes of finding one’s identity that are presented in Spark’s novel The Driver’s Seat (1970). Brown and Riach label the novel

‘an impossible quest for self-definition in conditions of personal isolation’ (Brown and Riach, 141). The novel’s protagonist is Lise—and not much else is known for certain about her and it is her identity that is the perplexing question the novel presents to the readers. Spark found the inspiration for the story in a press report (Stannard, Muriel, 364). As Page observes, the novel ‘parodies

[…] optimistic tales by showing the protagonist in quest of a lover’ (Page,

Muriel, 70). Just as Spark ‘parodied’ the style of the ‘traditional detective stories’ in Memento Mori, this novel ‘rejects the traditional’ and plays with the readers, deceiving them into believing Lise is on a foolish quest for a whirlwind romance in Rome (Page, Muriel, 70-72).

Similarly to the inattentive readers, the people around Lise do not realise what turmoil is happening beyond the surface. Lise’s superior merely remarks on the work needed to be done by Lisa that, ‘It can wait till you get back’ (Spark,

Driver’s, 3). It is subtly implied that Lise’s worth lies only in the workload she is able to manage; the society does not care about Lise’s mental well-being.

Upon Lise’s prompt breakdown where Lise first ‘begun to laugh hysterically’, then ‘finished laughing and started crying’ (Spark, Driver’s, 3), she is merely advised to take some time off work. ‘I’m going to have the time of my life,’ Lise responds (Spark, Driver’s, 3). This early into the story, most readers are likely to miss how ominous Lise’s sentence is in its true character.

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To further explore Lise’s character, it is to be noted how often Lise does things with the sole purpose of provoking a reaction out of people; Lise relishes breaking the social conventions. Among the things Lise does, one act stands out; purchasing a brightly coloured, mismatched outfit to outrage ‘conservative’ and ‘old-fashioned’ people, as Lise calls them while waiting to see if it got her the desired reaction (Spark, Driver’s, 5–6). Lise likes her outfit very much and she often checks her appearance throughout the story ‘as if wondering if she is ostentatious enough’ (Spark, Driver’s, 42). Lise’s outlandish clothing choices become her trademark, something that is very much Lise-like; her wardrobe choices become a trademark that distinguishes her from the rest of the society and becomes a part of her identity.

It is because of these perturbing details that Spark’s readers may detect rather early into the story that something is amiss with the protagonist. The moment

Spark reveals that Lise is going to be deceased in a matter of hours, the puzzle at first seems to be about trying to solve ‘who’ rather than ‘why’.

However, that is far from the actual story Spark offers to her readers. Spark often refers to the book as ‘whydunnit’ and as Stannard puts it, she ‘considered

The Driver’s Seat to be her best-written and best-constructed novel’ (Stannard,

Muriel, 365). That Lise is not looking for a suitor but for a suitable person that could become her killer is carefully hidden among the perplexing statements she makes. About one salesman, Lise remarks, ‘Not my man at al. He tried to get familiar with me,’ and she goes on to explain that, ‘The one I’m looking for will recognize me right away for the woman I am, have no fear of that’

(Spark, Driver’s, 52). Page also notes that ‘not my type’ is a ‘recurring phrase’ in the novel (Page, Muriel, 70). The shared character link of disturbed mental

46 health is something uniting Lise and her killer; Lise believes that they share a trait of their identity that she could easily distinguish. As reported by Stannard,

‘Lise is mad, and represents a perverse reversal of how Muriel managed her own existence. Like Muriel, in attempting to wrest control of her life from others, she has successfully written her own scenario […]’. Like many other protagonists, Lise shares certain traits with her creator.

By omitting several seemingly essential facts about Lise (such as her surname or her nationality), Spark nudges the readers into pondering what actually forms one’s identity. Perhaps this omission derives from the terseness and privacy protection of the press report that inspired Spark to write this novel. Either way, for how little is known about Lise, Spark spends a lot of time portraying her character. One female who steps forward to talk to the police, although her son who is a lawyer ‘advises her against it’, recounts her encounter with Lise. She will ‘repeat all she remembers and all she does not remember, and all the details she imagines to be true and those that are true’ (Spark, Driver’s, 15).

There is a twofold reading into this scene; firstly, that even in this small part

Spark represents a female character that chooses to go against what is recommended to her as being the best option in order to do what the society expects her to do in her role as a witness—come forward, and secondly, that

Spark revisits the theme of bridging the putative divide between the real versus the imagined truth.

Similarly to Annabel’s Billy who challenges her views, Lise encounters Bill who cannot relate to Lise’s situation and who does not understand her misery. Bill does, however, understand how the social constrains work. He tells her, ‘Don’t

47 cry, don’t cry, people are looking’ (Spark, Driver’s, 32). Clearly, the other people and their judgement is more important than Lise. Bill also admonishes Lise,

‘You can’t go on the bus, crying like that’ (Spark, Driver’s, 32). It is certain that the role of the society and conforming to it is far greater than the individuality of Lise. The ever-present eye of public is more subtle thing in The Driver’s Seat than it was in The Public Image but still, the themes are apparent.

The Driver’s Seat is peppered with subtle hints. For instance, where Spark talks about both Charmian and Dame Lettie’s mental health at length in Memento

Mori, in this story the issues are woven into the dialogues between characters and outlined in a few carefully selected remarks. Without knowing so, the readers learn about Richard, Lise’s would be killer from Mrs Fiedke, an elderly lady with whom Like keeps company after a chance meeting at a hotel, ‘My poor nephew has been unwell, we had to send him to a clinic.

It was either that or the other, they gave us no choice’ (Spark, Driver’s, 53).

When Lise enquires about the man’s age, Mrs Fiedke responds, ‘Only twenty- four. It comes from the mother’s side’ (Spark, Driver’s, 53). In another chapter,

Spark lets out another hint when Mrs Fiedke says that Richard had been away and that ‘the past will never be mentioned’ (Spark, Driver’s, 54, 60).

Those are the only remarks hinting at the deep-rooted mental issues and troubles with the law. When Mrs Fiedke asks what is Lise actually looking for, she responds that she is not looking for something but rather the lack of it.

‘The lack of an absence,’ Lise calls it (Spark, Driver’s, 58). She also addresses most men as cowards who have too much self-control, are timid and fearful.

Mrs Fiedke has different experience in life than Lise and she complains about men ‘demanding equal rights with us’, and that ‘There was a time when they

48 would stand up and open the door for you. They would take their hat off.

But they want equality today’ (Spark, Driver’s, 58). Mrs Fiedke goes on to say that ‘the male sex is getting out of hand’ although her late husband ‘knew his place as a man’ (Spark, Driver’s, 59). All of these views further aid the traditionalist social structure, bearing traces of patriarchy. Mrs Fiedke summarizes on the state of social roles of women and men that, ‘If we don’t look lively, […] they’ll be taking over the homes and the children, and sitting about having chats while we go and fight to defend them and work to keep them. They won’t be content with equal rights only. Next thing they’ll want the upper hand’ (Spark, Driver’s, 58-59). Spark and Lise alike, refuse to let any man have ‘the upper hand’ and it is their defiance that becomes a key element to their identity. As implied by Eagleton, it is not possible to form an identity without any link to what is external (Eagleton, Event, 14-15, 101, 119-120).

For that reason, there needs to be something outside of one’s identity in order to establish which aspects of one’s identity are different and which are in agreement. In Spark’s novel, such determiner is the society. It is the enforcement of social conventions that delimits the characters’ identities.

Seeing that Spark’s female characters are in general displeased with the roles defined for them by the society, it is the society that drives their actions.

Edgecombe has noticed that this theme resurfaces in The Driver’s Seat, having been present in Spark’s earlier novels (Edgecombe, 40-41, 46, 54, 105, 135).

Edgecombe points out that the ‘collective actions’ in Spark’s novels are commonly depicted ‘as a menace to humanity’ (Edgecombe, 41) and as such they represent constrains to the female character’s choices.

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Ultimately, Lise appears to be despondent, dissatisfied with the state of her life and determined to bring an end to her existence. Lise finds her killer in Richard, who had already tried to abscond from her earlier in the story (Spark, Driver’s,

19-20). At first, Richard tries to escape her again and then at least ‘put up some resistance’ when Lise’s plans for him become clear. In the end, however, he follows her to the car ‘as if he is under arrest’ (Spark, Driver’s, 85). Lise takes the driver’s seat and drives them to the designated spot she had previously selected and scouted. She informs Richard that he had wasted her time, having escaped from her earlier that day. Lise had to wait a whole day although she

‘was right the first time’ because Richard is her type, Lise had recognized it

(Spark, Driver’s, 85-86). She asks matter-of-factly whether he stabbed or strangled his victim (he stabbed her) but Richard admits that the woman did not die so he ‘never killed a woman’ (Spark, Driver’s, 86). To this, Lise responds, ‘No, but you’d like to. I knew it this morning’ (Spark, Driver’s, 86). She commands particular details of her own murder, stressing to Richard, ‘you won’t have sex with me’ (Spark, Driver’s, 86). Richard, ‘as if sensing opportunity to gain control’, realizes she is afraid of congress (Spark, Driver’s, 87).

Lise admits so by saying ‘only of afterwards’ (Spark, Driver’s, 87). By that time

Lise has brought them to the place she had previously selected and Richard remarks that ‘A lot of women get killed in the park,’ Lise’s retort is a often cited quote, ‘It’s because they want to be’ (Spark, Driver’s, 87). Lise believes that

‘they look for it’ but Richard opposes her, ‘No, they don’t want to be killed. They struggle’ (Spark, Driver’s, 87). Lise is murdered soon after but the act has her caught powerless which she did not intend. Eventually, Lise’s identity is ‘traced back to where she came from’ and her killer will narrate the final moments

50 of her life. Lisa commanded him, instructing of how to tie her hands and ankles, where she will lie down, where he is to stab her, how he has to twist his strikes.

Lise demonstrates it for him and then ‘she tells him in a shark, quick voice to take off his necktie and bind her ankles’ (Spark, Driver’s, 89). Richard kills her ‘as she instructed’ but not before raping her, something Lise repeatedly specifically told him not to do and only then, ‘as if he had forgotten something of her bidding’, he remembers to tie her ankles (Spark, Driver’s, 88-90).

It seems that Lise’s attempt at gaining control of her life (and death) ends with the same failure which Spark’s previously analysed female characters experienced.

This novel was made into a play and also a film adaptation that premiered in 1974, starring Elizabeth Taylor. Just like the book, the film was not very well received among the critics (Stannard, Muriel, 368-369, 390). The film, eponymous to the Italian title of the novella, is called Identikit.

According to Stannard, ‘Muriel liked it and was becoming increasingly engaged with the questions of identity at the heart of that novel and The Public Image: the fictional nature of “personality”, the gap between the public and private image’ (Stannard, Muriel, 363). Clearly, the question of finding one’s identity has been a recurring theme for Spark.

To summarize, The Driver’s Seat presents the exact opposite of the story narrated in The Public Image. Where crime and violence happens to Annabel,

Lise willingly seeks it out. Annabel resignedly lets it become a part of her identity whilst Lise freely opts for its ties. As Stannard phrases it, both stories explore ‘the relationship between choice and destiny’ that Stannard believes

51 to be a metaphor for ‘the relationship between the artist and the world’

(Stannard, Muriel, 365). The arbitrariness Lise presents is her ultimate goal and is de facto a form of self-identification. Lise is the architect of her downfall.

It happens on her terms, according to the rules she had set.

Nevertheless, at the very end of her story which corresponds with the very end of her life, Lise is betrayed by the object of her choosing and is killed in a manner she specifically did not wish to be killed. As with all the character studies before, even Lise cannot escape from the principles of society.

The next analyzed female character, Marigold, shares Lise’s capricious nature but not her determination to die in order to escape the social constrains.

The following chapter therefore analyses the similarities and differences of their identity.

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V. Reality and Dreams

This chapter investigates the identity-shaping process of Marigold Richards, a daughter of a famous film director Tom Richards, in the novel Reality and Dreams (1996). Albeit not the main character, Marigold is still a pivotal character since the story revolves around her disappearance and the effect it has (not) on her family and the other characters in the novel. Marigold shares

Lise’s rebellious streak and refusal of conforming to the society-assigned role but unlike Lise from the previously analysed novel, Marigold does not seek death; she seeks knowledge and understanding.

Because of Marigold’s complicated relationship with her family, it is worth taking a look at the relationship between Spark and her son, Robin, at the time of this book’s creation. Spark acknowledges that her relationship with her son has been difficult throughout her life, ranging from semi-cordial at times to disappointing at others. Regarding Robin’s upbringing, Spark was relieved to have Robin be brought up by her parents, Robin’s grandparents. She calls this ‘her plan’ that worked ‘remarkably well’ and brought her ‘immense relief’

(Spark, Curriculum, 137). Spark has been often criticised for her stance towards her role as a mother and the society had also hard time coming to terms with her earlier divorce from Oswald Spark (Spark, Curriculum, 174, 178, 183,

186,190). Later, Spark would start feeling that her son Robin envied her and that he wanted to compete with her as well as ‘cash in on her fame’.

Eventually, after many other disputes, they cut ties with each other and in 1998,

Spark had Robin excluded from her will (Stannard, Muriel, 92, 251, 462-464,

490, 529).

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Despite the unpleasant remarks made by critics about her person (or perhaps to spite them), Spark managed to thrive and create her novels. As Stannard posits, Reality and Dreams ‘becomes an addition to her autobiographical writings: the story of her artistic spirit’s resistance against infirmity and negativity’ (Stannard, Muriel, 515).

On top of Spark’s unhappy relationship with her son, there was also the unhappiness she experienced in her short marriage. Spark does not depict her marriage to have been very happy; she was nineteen when she was wed to Sydney Oswald Spark, whom she called S.O.S., and in hindsight, Spark mentioned that the name should have warned her. Among Spark’s bitter recollections are these incidents: Spark’s husband suggested she had an abortion when she got pregnant (she refused) and her husband mental health worsened as did his violent streak (Spark, Curriculum, 114, 127, 130).

All of these events likely helped Spark depict the complicated family relationships in Marigold’s family. In line with the tune of unhappy marriages,

Tom, the protagonist of Reality and Dreams, contemplates acquiring a large sum of money by murdering his wife ‘in some undetectable way, and inheriting her money’. This money he would give to his ‘hamburger girl’, a girl he saw flipping hamburgers in a manner that inspired Tom’s next film. Nevertheless,

Tom is not depicted by Spark as a cold-blooded killer. ‘Tom was aghast.

The film script, which conveyed an element of this scenario, was one thing; real life another,’ writes Spark (Spark, Reality, 10). Yet again, Spark revisits the theme of real life and fiction. Very much alike Miss Taylor and her friend

Alec debate the reality or illusion of one’s existence (Spark, Memento, 65-67),

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Tom also ponders whether people around him are real or if they are just characters playing their part in one of God’s dreams (Spark, Reality, 44).

True to his profession, Tom likes to direct other people’s lives in a fashion not dissimilar to the manipulative schemes of Miss Brodie from The Prime of Miss

Jean Brodie. This fashion is also not dissimilar to the way the author brings one’s characters into existence.

Be that as it may, Tom muses about his ‘hamburger girl’, pondering how she would react to him anonymously donating a large sum of money to her.

He often entertains this scenario, wondering if the ‘hamburger girl’ would ever learn it was him, if she would become a miser or if she would grow conceited, thinking too highly of her non-existent beauty. As stated above, Tom even entertains the idea of murdering his wife so that he could obtain a shocking amount of money that he could bestow upon the ‘hamburger girl’. With his friends, Tom debates the different possible reactions of the ‘hamburger girl’.

One of Tom’s friends, Dave, reminds Tom that in his scenarios, he is forgetting about the girl’s free will. ‘It depends on the girl […] It seems to me you’ve forgotten that the girl has a character, a personality, already functioning before you saw her dishing out hamburgers. She was already a person. It depends on her what she would do’ (Spark, Reality, 55-56). It is never revealed what the ‘hamburger girl’ would do; she dwells only in Tom’s mind.

Very much like Annabel is a reflection of what the society wants her to be, the ‘hamburger girl’, who is always only referred to in the story by others and is not actually a character on her own, is just as unreal. In the case of the ‘hamburger girl’, Tom, the director, forms her character as if it was one

55 of the roles for his film. He mentions to Dave that her charm ‘is that she has no history’. When Dave objects that this would mean the girl isn’t real, Tom retorts,

‘No, she’s not real. Not yet’ (Spark, Reality, 56). In his head, the ‘hamburger girl’ is a character to be fitted into a role and not a real girl with thoughts and wishes on her own. Dave’s sentiment seems to echo themes that are often discussed in Spark’s novels. Namely, Annabel is also such a ready-made character and the question of shaping young, impressionable students’ identities by a tutor is explored for instance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and in The Finishing School. One character manipulating the others to abide by their will is something Spark explores in full in The Driver’s Seat and it is apparently also Tom’s character trait. This controlling behaviour is already present in Miss Brodie but Tom makes a profession out of it. ‘It was typical of Tom, […] casting people in parts,’ Spark reveals about him (Spark, Reality,

109). In this novel, Tom is the one who spends his time crafting various roles for the people around him that he fully expects the others to assume in concordance with his wishes.

Tom believes that everyone plays a certain role and can therefore be swayed as pleases Tom. Moreover, Tom seems to be confident in knowing the figurative scripts to the roles of others. When Marigold goes missing, he is not worried because ‘Why should anyone bother to murder Marigold?’ (Spark,

Reality, 67). On one occasion, he says about Marigold’s character that she is

‘an unfrocked priest of a woman’ (Spark, Reality, 5). When the reporters inquire into Marigold’s disappearance, Tom responds that it is one fact that Marigold is his daughter but that his relations with her are another thing entirely. He is

56 looking for his daughter and his family relations should remain a private thing

(Spark, Reality, 86).

Spark presents the readers with a further example of the uneven social structure; there is a scene in which Tom discusses with Cora, his daughter, that his wife, Claire, has a man. Claire points out that Tom can hardly blame her since he has many women in the first place. Tom responds that it is part of his profession and that Claire’s profession is wife (Spark, Reality, 17). While Cora takes her parents’ escapades in stride, Marigold is cross with her mother for tolerating her father’s amours rather than going through a divorce (Spark,

Reality, 43). It is stated that Marigold’s parents do not understand her and that their relationship is rather detached and complicated at best (Spark, Reality, 43,

66, 68-70, 79, 86, 100). The strained nature of their relationship is eerily similar to that of Spark and her son as reported both by Spark’s own accounts and Stannard’s assessment (Spark, Curriculum, 163, Stannard, Muriel, 226-

227, 415, 490, 501).

Despite her indiscretion, Marigold’s mother Claire is secure in knowing her husband wouldn’t leave her (Spark, Reality, 42), perhaps also because among other things, ‘money was a built-in part of Claire’s personality’ (Spark, Reality,

46). Claire also believes that the mayhem caused by Marigold’s disappearance was a mistake on her part because she ‘settled money’ on her daughter who could then later use it to aid Jeanne, one of her father’s lead actresses

(and also a mistress), on the path of seeking revenge for not casting her into a main role (Spark, Reality, 92). This sentiment seems similar to the one

Godfrey displays regarding Miss Taylor in Memento Mori and the one Miss Kay

57 suppresses towards Sandy; they both feel they erred in educating those who were their charges. Claire regrets making the mistake of settling money on her daughter because she believes the mayhem that ensues after her daughter’s disappearance is in part caused by that. Moreover, Claire suspects Marigold’s disappearance to be a deliberate act because Marigold wants to make them feel guilty (Spark, Reality, 100). Nonetheless, Marigold is merely revealed to have done a thorough research on redundancy, something Tom considers to be eccentric (Spark, Reality, 67). The theme, however, has been on both

Marigold and Spark’s minds (Stannard, Muriel, 505) and Spark recollects the ‘social nervousness’ regarding unemployment in the 1930s Edinburgh marking her teenage years. In the world depression, the new generation had

‘little to lose’ and their desire for freedom was strong (Spark, Curriculum, 100-

101). In Marigold’s research, Spark perhaps recollects some of those early experiences with unemployment and redundancy. Spark even mentions opting not to pursue higher education due to the uncertainty of her monetary situation at those times (Spark, Curriculum, 101-102).

Once she is found, Marigold has to ‘explain herself’ and she makes a statement about her disappearance saying that ‘I’m free to do what I like, love where

I want’ (Spark, Reality, 105). Marigold explains that she had disappeared and she was lying low, camping on a field, living the life of the poor ‘in order to experience at firsthand what it’s like to be destitute’ (Spark, Reality, 105).

About this, she wants to write a book so that more people realize with the issues that follow the main problem of redundancy. For the television network that has been called to the scene of her temporary housing (rather than her parents or the police being contacted), Marigold lists the ‘loss of home’

58 and the ‘loss of social background’ as key issues that add to the ‘complete destitution’ (Spark, Reality, 104-105). This theme of being redundant has been present in Spark’s work before; be that Lise’s dispensability as an accountant, be that the fictional school’s attitude towards the innovative ways of Miss

Brodie, or even earlier, in Memento Mori, the elderly characters have lost their previous identity and have to redefine their current place in the social hierarchy.

Besides the theme of redundancy of one’s person, there is another theme closely linked to identity that remains a constant in Spark’s oeuvre; the theme of relativity. Spark recalls this fascination with the theme dating back to her high school studies under Miss Kay and her lessons on relativity that influenced

Spark’s very early writings, mostly poetry (Spark, Curriculum, 66).

This theme has already been detected in Memento Mori (Miss Taylor debating what is real), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Sandy realizing other people’s realities are different from hers, despite the input being the same), The Public

Image (Annabel pondering the real and the imagined) as well as in The Driver’s

Seat (Lise’s talk with Mrs Fiedke about human nature). In this novel, Spark goes a little further and dedicates a major part of the plot to the distinction of what is real and what only imagined and if something is not real just because it is imagined. Spark is also aware that the author’s claim over a story is weakening in accordance with what the theoretician said about the traits of postmodern literature; the role of the author is weakening (Cunningham, 55-56, 143).

For instance, Spark recollects in her autobiography the instance when she went to see Miss Brodie as a theatre play version and detected a few discrepancies that she did not comment upon since she ‘didn’t want to nit-pick’ and she also

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‘had the distinct impression that [her] views, as author of the book, were not really welcome’ (Spark, Curriculum, 61).

Miss Brodie was ousted from her teaching position because of her political views. Terry Eagleton states in his research on post-structuralism that,

‘Ideologies like to draw rigid boundaries between what is acceptable and what is not, between self and non-self, truth and falsity, sense and nonsense, reason and madness, central and marginal, surface and depth’ (Eagleton, Literary,

115). This cultural and political overview can be applied to the fictional worlds

Spark crafts; in those instances it is the society behind the ideology that determines all of the above mentioned. Those of Spark’s characters that do not abide by the rules and who refuse the role assigned to them by the society, are met with foul play. Yet, Spark keeps creating characters that keep trying to gain control through various methods.

By the same token, Marigold displays such irrepressible need to control her life that it resembles Lise’s efforts to determine her fate regardless of the costs.

Jeremy Idle remarks that ‘Spark enjoys destructive fires’, which holds true for nearly all the analysed female characters (Idle in Schoene, 145). Annabel,

Lise and Marigold alike are all unhappy with their lives and Claire remarks about Marigold that ‘She’d be miserable if she was happy’ (Spark, Reality, 115).

The bitter disappointment in society and its principles seems to be the driving force behind both Spark and her character’s actions. Judith Roof calls this

‘transform[ing] passivity into activity’ (Roof in Shoene, 49). In Marigold, this activity results in manipulating Jeanne, one of her father’s lovelorn actresses, into killing him, attempting to rid her life of his controlling authority.

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The plan, however, fails, with Jeanne being the one dying. Although a shadow of doubt remains over Marigold’s involvement, she is never accused. Spark’s narrator explains that ‘Cora was so beautiful it seemed impossible that she could have an ugly suspicion’ (Spark, Reality, 126).

Overall, Marigold has been proven to be yet another of Spark’s characters that refuse to conform to the standard social rules and Spark explores the effect her decisions have on those close to her. This time it is not the ‘victim’ (such as Lise who self-appoints herself into the role of a victim) who is intended to pay the price but rather the instigator of the reinforced social principles. Both Jeanne and Marigold refuse to abide by the rules while Cora and Claire decide their lives would be easier if they reconciled with the role that was assigned to them.

The following chapter provides a final analysis; it investigates Nina Parker’s seemingly compliant character and detects where the previously mentioned themes of social constrains and social identity resurface in Spark’s final novel.

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VI. The Finishing School

In order to cohesively resolve the subject of the themes that are to be found in Spark’s writings, this chapter focuses on Spark’s last published novel,

The Finishing School (2004). In a typical Spark’s fashion, the final novel delves into all the previously mentioned issues and shows that the topic of a female character being determined by the social conventions has continued to concern

Spark. The determiners of one’s identity were always areas on which Spark was willing to elaborate.

Although the main protagonist of The Finishing School is Rowland Mahler, founder of College Sunrise, this chapter examines the character of Nina Parker, his wife. Spark introduces her character by a sentence focused on Rowland, writing that Rowland works at College Sunrise, ‘assisted by his wife,

Nina Parker’ (Spark, Finishing, 1). Spark makes the structure of the hierarchy apparent on the very first page of the story; the readers learn about Rowland, his life, his work, his school and his wife. Nina is ‘Rowland’s wife and colleague’

(Spark, Finishing, 3). Spark poses the text in a way that makes it clear that

Nina’s purpose in life is to aid her husband and help him achieve his goals.

Nina’s own identity is therefore suppressed in order to tend to the need of her husband, as would be expected from her by the conventional society.

Spark’s story focuses on Rowland, who has once written a novel that had been well-received but then focused his efforts elsewhere, namely into founding and directing College Sunrise, ‘a finishing school for both sexes and mixed nationalities’ (Spark, Finishing, 1). The school has some very unique features to their style of education. Most notably, the school relocates annually, moving

62 from one country to another, alternating between at least two locations per a given school year—originating in Brussels, relocating to Vienna and then alternating between there and Lausanne, since ‘College Sunrise was to be a mobile school’, as Spark explains (Spark, Finishing, 1-2).

During her life, Spark left Edinburgh for Cape Town in Africa, returned after the Second World War to settle in London, left a few years later to live across the ocean in New York only to return to Europe where she eventually settled in Italy (Spark, Curriculum, 15, 117, 137, 143, 206, 211). Connor remarks on the difference between voluntarily leaving one’s country and being forced into exile and he mentions that ‘postwar British writers have tended to leave

England’ (Connor, 84). Even though Spark was a Scotswoman,

Connor comments that she also contributed to the ‘internationalisation theme’ as her works also offer the ‘opening of the inside to the outside, an imaginative

(and also sometimes imaginary) travelling’ (Connor, 84-85). To compare, as has been stated earlier, Stannard follows the inspiration for the settings of The Public Image to Spark residing in Rome (Stannard, Muriel, 349-350).

In The Finishing School, Spark’s College Sunrise draws from her vast travel experience. The mobile nature of the school is best suited to Rowland; Nina is said to have adjusted, although there are passages where she muses about the nicety of being able to settle in one place to give it a more homely feel; Nina wants to have items in her life simply for the sake of their beauty, not only because everything at the school (where they also live) has to be useful and has its purpose. ‘Nina sometimes longed for a less functional environment, for rugs and vases of flower arrangements,’ Spark writes, thus providing yet

63 another example of how yielding Nina is when faced with the choice of her needs versus the needs of her husband (Spark, Finishing, 43).

Nina’s compliant nature aside, the readers also learn about her that ‘[t]here was something studious about her appearance that made her slightly too intelligent- looking to be a beauty’ (Spark, Finishing, 32). Spark further cements the society’s belief that intelligence in a female is not something desirable.

There are other examples of a different prestige assigned to the male and female gender; for instance, Rowland readily dismisses Nina when she offers to teach a creative writing class in his stead because he believes that the students (most of which are female) would oppose since ‘for the fees we’re asking they expect a creative writer, and, I’m afraid, a man’ (Spark, Finishing,

33). In Spark’s story, Nina is not posed as a hindrance to Rowland’s success, rather, Rowland is his own worst enemy. Nina’s husband is bothered by Chris, one of their talented students who, much like Rowland, aspires to write a novel.

When Nina brings up the issue, Rowland is quick to dismiss her. ‘But he bothers you, I’ve noticed,’ says Nina to Rowland, talking about Chris. Her husband simply responds, ‘You notice too much’ (Spark, Finishing, 14).

Aside from Nina’s alleged fault of being too perceptive, we know about her character that she is kind to her students; for instance we learn during an exchange between her and Mary, one of her students, that Mary adores

Nina because Nina tells her ‘You are so right’ and, apparently, ‘Hardly anyone ever told Mary she was so right about anything’ (Spark, Finishing, 4). Providing gentle guidance is something the teacher characters in Spark’s novels do. Much like Miss Kay did for young Spark while she was at high school.

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Nina also advises her students to learn ‘the art of hypocrisy’ that Nina views are necessary ‘in places of business which have to do with the public’.

Nina elaborates on the topic of the necessity of hypocrisy, stating that it’s what people do ‘in civilised society the whole time’ and that it ‘makes the world go round’ (Spark, Finishing, 71-73). This seems to echo Spark’s worldview as has been remarked upon in the earlier chapters of this thesis.

To further expand on the theme of hypocrisy, Nina says that ‘In order to succeed with the public you have to be a hypocrite up to a definite point’

(Spark, Finishing, 72). This sentence resonates strongly with not only Spark’s other characters (such as Dame Lettie from Memento Mori or Annabel from The Public Image) but also with Spark’s personal life.

Stannard theorizes that The Finishing School, being Spark’s last novel, reflects many of her internal views about the relationship (and the discrepancy) between the beliefs of the public eye and Spark’s own life. The Finishing School is

Spark’s twenty-second novel, and Stannard notices that there are ‘many tiny references to her earlier work’ and that the book is also ‘a contemplation of her life as an artist’ (Stannard, Muriel, 526-527). The story is, after all, exploring the relationship between the authors’ work and their creation in the context of being overtaken by newer generations. This is something Spark has already explored in Charmian’s fading fame in Memento Mori. Another similarity is between Miss Taylor and Nina—neither of them are truly happy with their situation but they are content with it, knowing there are bright sides they get to enjoy, so they do not strive to alter the world around them. Edgecombe refers

65 to Miss Taylor as a conformist (Edgecombe, 10) and the same would apply to Nina, especially in the opening stages of the story.

Although Nina clearly wishes to achieve more in her life and she plans to eventually leave Rowland and start a new life and have a new family, for the course of the novel she keeps her displeasure to herself. She struggles to overcome ‘jealousy over a book’ and busies herself with preparing her students for their future career paths (Spark, Finishing, 51-53). She hopes her fate will be different in the future, ‘But in the meantime, shrewd woman that she was,’ Spark summarizes in her novel, ‘she knew there was a life to be lived as comfortably and pleasantly as possible’ (Spark, Finishing, 51). Similarly to how Annabel and Miss Brodie are both betrayed by those closest to them,

Nina Parker is also in a way betrayed by her husband and his infidelity, although, unlike Annabel, Nina is able to come to terms with it. Unlike Lise and Annabel, Nina does not pose as a victim. Instead, Nina utilises most from her situation.

Despite having difficulties accepting that her husband’s attention is divided due to a novel rather than some woman, Nina shows insight into the life of a writer.

When she and her husband debate Chris’ need of Rowan as his tutor, inspiration and a guide for his writing, Nina comments that it is ‘part of his identity as a writer’ (Spark, Finishing, 73). There are traces of postmodernist writing; Spark often seems to break the fourth wall during the dialogues her characters have and also Stannard views her novels as ‘reflexive, self- conscious postmodernism’ (Stannard, Muriel, 207). For instance, Nina reminds

Rowland that he always teaches in his creative writing class that the task

66 of the writer is to ‘persuade the reader to read on’ (Spark, Finishing, 85).

In another scene, in what might just as well be a nod to Lise’s character and the way the society determines who she is, Spark captures Chris’ musing about Mary, Queen of Scots—his own character in his would-be-novel,

‘How to prove she was a rebel at heart, socially speaking?’ (Spark, Finishing,

47). This very theme is central to Lise’s character but at the same time, the idea behind Chris’ would-be novel is one of Spark’s own unfinished and abandoned plays about Mary, Queen of Scots. In typical Spark’s fashion of breathing a little of her own essence into her characters, Spark ties the link between her life and her fictional worlds. Stannard states that Reality and Dreams as well as The Finishing School ‘investigates the mystery of the artistic process: its arbitrariness, its unteachable inspiration and the creator’s love affair with the created’ (Stannard, Muriel, 514).

In The Finishing School, Spark focuses not only on the link between the author and their creations but also on the relationship between the characters themselves. Nina and Rowland’s marriage is far from ideal. As has been mentioned before, so was Spark’s marriage to Oswald Spark. Similarly to Annabel’s and Frederick’s loveless marriage, where, as mentioned earlier, love is substituted by dependency, Spark captures the relationship between

Nina and Rowland more like a business partnership (Spark, Public Image, 38,

41). According to Stannard, the novel ‘documents the collapse of their marriage’

(Stannard, Muriel, 527). Spark’s narrator concludes The Finishing School by saying that Nina, who divorced Rowland, her first husband, remarried, relocated to another country and changed her career to find her happiness yet that she still, ‘sometimes felt nostalgia, not at all for Rowland, but for College

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Sunrise itself’, further cementing the business-like nature of the marriage Nina had to Rowland (Spark, Finishing, 116). Israel Brown, who is later to become

Nina’s love interest and the above mentioned second husband—although that is nor revealed until the last two pages of the book—comments about Nina that

‘She handled her plainly psychotic husband with admirable tact and helpfulness’

(Spark, Finishing, 76). Oswald Spark, Spark’s husband whom she divorced early into their marriage, suffered from ‘severe nervous disorder’ (Spark,

Curriculum, 127) and when Stannard remarks about Nina that, ‘She thought she had married a scholar and playwright. But that husband no longer exists,’ it is yet another sign of how closely linked Spark and her characters are (Stannard,

Muriel, 527-528). A variant of the conflict between a female character and the closest people in the character’s life can be found in all of the following works of Spark—Memento Mori, Reality and Dreams, The Public Image,

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Finishing School. In Memento Mori,

Spark offers Charmian’s helplessness to decide about her own fate and has

Charmian’s husband, his sister and their maid do all the deciding for her; in Reality and Dreams, there is a conflict between Marigold and her family, most prominently the disagreement between Marigold and her father; in The Public

Image, there is Annabel in a conflict with her husband, his friend and also with the general public; in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie there are two apparent teaching approaches, the traditional, tried and trusted way and Brodie’s manipulative innovations; in The Finishing School, Spark presents

Nina Parker’s conflict with her husband and the difference in their aspirations in life. Times and times again, Spark draws attention to the conflict between the public and the private life, between her female character’s aspirations

68 and that which is expected of said characters. It is therefore apparent, that

Spark has considered this theme thoroughly and explored in her writings in many variants. If the source of Spark’s fascination was to be looked at closely, one would find many striking resemblances between the conflicts her characters undergo and the conflicts Spark herself had experienced. As has been mentioned before, Spark openly admits this link (Spark, Curriculum, 91,

206). Furthermore, Spark acknowledges that even the negative response from the public aided her writing (Spark, Curriculum, 184). In The Driver’s Seat,

Mrs Fiedke, one of Spark’s characters, remarks that ‘[p]eople age when they’ve had an unpleasant experiences over the years’ (Spark, Driver’s, 57).

This sentence seems to summarize Spark’s experience—with her mother by whom Spark often felt embarrassed (Spark, Curriculum, 21), with her husband Oswald whose mental health was compromised (Spark, Curriculum,

127) and with her son Robin as well as with the watchful and hostile public eye.

All these individual elements doubtlessly contributed to what later became the foundations of Spark’s fictional characters.

To conclude, this final character analysis has shown how closely entwined are the lives of Spark and her characters, especially when it comes to the actions of society defining the character’s identity. Spark herself had acknowledged that her experience in real life often inspired her fictional worlds (Spark, Curriculum,

91, 114, 206). This chapter has also provided an insight into how social expectations have shaped Nina Parker’s character, contrasting Nina’s identity during her marriage with her aspirations. The following chapter concludes the findings of all previously analysed female characters and justifies the research.

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Conclusion

This thesis has focused on six books of the Scottish writer Muriel Spark, analysing how the female characters in the stories define their identity in relation with the choices with which the society presents them. It has been argued that this is an underlying theme among all six novels and novellas—

Memento Mori, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Public Image, The Driver's

Seat, Reality and Dreams and The Finishing School—and that it is the task of conforming to the society that is the deciding factor that delimits the character’s identity. There are recurring elements of social isolation, constrains, envy and conformity regarding the expectations attached to the role of a female in Spark’s novels that is not dissimilar to Spark’s real life experience. Faced with the failure of both choosing their own destiny and setting their own rules, the necessity of conforming to the society becomes a prevailing strategy.

This thesis has, inter alia, proved that in her works Spark focuses on the individual elements that determine one’s identity and that it is strongly implied in the aforementioned novels that it is the society and its conventions that cause the characters to assume a certain identity in order to survive.

Therefore, the answer to the question that has been stated at the beginning of this textual analysis—how Muriel Spark’s female characters find their own identity and what role, if any, their education or upbringing represents—lies in the state of the society. The society captured in Spark’s novels is hostile, malevolent and callous and as such, it leaves the female characters the choice to either submit to the manipulation (Miss Taylor, Cora, Nina) or refuse to be

70 swayed by the others and suffer for it (Lise, Annabel). In either case, it is the society that is the deciding factor. The society defines which role the character should play within the society; the character can either accept or refuse but they cannot redefine an acceptable role on their own terms.

In order to provide this answer and define the individual elements that support finding the underlying theme of the thesis in the selected novels, the thesis has used descriptive, textual analysis. The primary sources of this assessments have been the six selected novels of Spark’s as well as her own autobiography.

It has been established that conforming to society and being content with such choice is an intricately impossible task for Spark’s characters—Nina and Annabel are both unhappy in the role the society has determined for them,

Miss Brodie and Marigold are rejecting the stereotypical role of a wife and Lise and Dame Lettie both find themselves at odds with the needs of the society.

In every book, there is such a character, in every book, there is a jagged shard of Spark’s personal experience hidden among the lines. Regarding education, there is a common theme among the selected books, namely, that developing critical thinking and being able to explore one’s potential is not something that brings the characters happiness or comfort. None of the characters such as Miss Taylor, Miss Brodie, Sandy or Nina earn a benefit from their wits and are often ridiculed for their insights. Another topic Spark explores in her novels is the role of upbringing with regard to shaping one’s identity at a young age. It is shown in the analysis of Miss Brodie and Nina Parker how defining can be the views presented to the youthful characters.

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The purpose of this thesis was neither to narrow down Spark’s oeuvre to the depiction of unconventional female characters that refuse to abide by the social norms, nor to only determine which characters are readily accepting the part the society asks them to play. Rather, this thesis strove to prove that there is a common theme to be discovered and also propound sufficient evidence of the identity-shaping process.

The opening paragraphs of each section supply the necessary contextual information and the final ones highlight the relevant aspects of Spark’s life that have been discovered to be closely related to the events described in the selected novels. Without diminishing the socio-cultural and historical background, the thesis takes into consideration the way the period-typical social conventions might have affected the characters’—as well as the author’s—life choices. The thesis discusses various relevant aspects of the contemporary

British novel, Scottish literature, modernism, post-modernism and experimental novel; traces of influence of which can be detected in Spark’s writings. Since it has been revealed that the identity comprises the character’s gender, age, social status and their family situation, these are also debated in the concluding paragraphs of each chapter and linked to Spark’s own complex identity that originates in being a Scottish writer, a female writer, a Catholic writer with Jewish-Presbyterian origins. Regarding the formation of the character’s identity, there are common markers that determine the female characters’ identities throughout Spark’s whole oeuvre. The novels have been selected to serve as examples of Spark’s writing from the early stages of her writing career until the her final work in order to establish the permanent presence of the analyzed themes. The characters that have been chosen to represent

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Spark’s writing are all very well-developed, round characters that have a lot of common ground with the author herself. The lives of the female characters portrayed in the aforementioned Spark’s novels all bear elements of unconventional personality, strong-headedness and despair in the face of social constrains; all of which have not been alien to Spark’s own lifestyle.

Spark and her characters are in many ways similar, not because they strive to be rebellious or because the characters are set on the path of fighting for woman rights, but because they simply want to live their lives as they please, on their terms, regardless of what the society thinks. They want to define their own identity. Admittedly, much like Spark herself, the characters are not feminists, rather, they simply want to live their lives according to their own rules, they want to be the ones to determine their life choices.

Therefore, the determination not to conform to the boundaries delineated by the society is the common theme among not only the novels themselves but it can also be found in Spark’s recollection of her own life. The lines between the characters and Spark’s own essence are blurred. Within her female characters, Spark captures a part of her own experience and she is not afraid to say so in her autobiography. Spark’s female characters have a complex set of motives, they each have different ambitions and a different approach to achieving their goals but the underlying theme remains the same.

Namely, the female characters refuse to settle for the roles the society expects them to accept. In the case of Lise, this results in attempting to control the manner of her death. Lise is the one who chooses her killer and commands him how to carry out the morbid deed. Figuratively, Lise is the one in the driver’s seat, an active victim. Miss Jean Taylor, Charmian Piper, Annabel Christopher

73 and Nina Parker are all determined to persevere in the social roles that the public expects them to assume. Except for Miss Taylor, none of them are content with the identity they ‘had to’ accept but unlike Lise, Marigold and most notably Miss Jean Brodie, they do not attempt to change the conventional rules or influence the social structures so that they are better suited to their needs.

Altogether, this thesis has contributed to the analysis of the concurrent issue of the role of a female within a society by exploring the areas of individual elements of one’s identity; education, upbringing and the expectations of society. This topic has not been previously covered with regard of Spark’s writing, especially not concerning her later works. Based on textual analysis, this thesis has offered a new perspective on the way Spark determines her female characters’ identities. By also employing Spark’s own recounts of the events that influenced her writings, this thesis offers new links between

Spark’s life and her work. The theme of gender has been detected and thoroughly analysed in Spark’s works before (e.g. in essays by Dunker,

Hynes, Roofs, Sellers or Tomko), however, this thesis has put forward new details that are presented as an underlying theme in all of the selected books, including Spark’s later novels that are not as commonly included in the discourse of her writings.

Simultaneously, this thesis has employed the historical approach when dealing with the primary and the secondary sources, focusing on the period in which the six selected books were published, i.e. from 1959 to 2004, and linking the events in Spark’s life with the course of history within the given time frame of the novel’s settings to provide the socio-historical background. The thesis has

74 analysed the main theme using a qualitative research of all the six selected novels.

All in all, this thesis has collected evidence of the same theme of self- identification through the surrounding society spanning through Spark’s whole oeuvre. In all of the selected books that represent Spark’s writing, the female characters’ identities have been established by the society rather than the characters themselves. Spark’s depiction of the characters proved to be more focused on who they are in the eyes of the others and how that differs from whom the characters consider themselves to be. The incongruence between what the public believes to be true and what the characters themselves know to be true is the driving force behind all of the above analysed

Spark’s novels. Seeing that the selected novels have been chosen from different stages of Spark’s career and yet the same theme prevails, it is apparent that the issue of one’s own identity and the discrepancy of the others trying to mould and shape the said identity was something that captured Spark’s attention. The different reactions to the social norms and expectations is what

Spark has abundantly explored in her novels; there are characters that meekly abide by the rules and follow the path that has been chosen for them by other people (Miss Taylor), there are characters who rage against the status quo of the social norms and do everything but what the society expects from them

(Lise, Marigold) and there are also characters who suffer in silence and wait until the course of life changes in order to manage their lives differently from the social expectations (Annabel, Nina). There are characters who completely disregard the social conventions (Miss Brodie, Lise) and there are characters who conform to them (Claire, Cora). The common denominator

75 seems to be that either the characters are manipulators (Lise, Miss Brodie) or they are being manipulated (‘the Brodie set’, Annabel). The characters’ need to define themselves within the society seems to correlate with Spark’s own ambitions. Spark has chosen the path of middle ground that she also captured in Nina and Annabel’s characters; they conformed to the rules of the society, albeit reluctantly, since they knew the price of rebelling against it would be too high to pay (as explored by Spark in The Driver’s Seat). There are certain characteristic traits that have been discussed above, that Spark shares with the characters she brought into existence but there are also definite differences. Spark is not her characters but her characters’ concerns are not dissimilar to the ones Spark has admitted to or that have become apparent from her life paths. There are instances of Spark focusing on ‘why’ rather than ‘who’ is behind a cause of unpleasant events in her characters’ lives. Miss Brodie is obsessed in finding out who betrayed her, rather than focusing on why would someone do it. The majority of the characters in Memento Mori demand the police investigate who is behind the mysterious anonymous phone calls that always remind them of the inevitable certainty of their death, instead of focusing on why they are on the receiving end of those messages. The society never asks why, never doubts its role. In The Driver’s Seat, Spark narrates the story in a way that readers eventually realize the real question of the story is why Lise chose her own death rather than focusing on who was her murderer.

In the case of both Lise and Miss Brodie, the answers to ‘who’ are given to the readers; it was Richard and Sandy, respectively. The anonymous caller from Memento Mori is said to be the Death himself but the reason as to why the phone calls occur in the first place are only alluded to.

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Instead of pondering the individual ‘who’, to Spark, the focus lies in the purpose, in the formative process that shapes her characters into who they are—into who they chose to become and into who the society did not let them become.

In conclusion, the researched theme has been detected among all of the selected novels, as supported by the textual evidence analysed in the previous chapters. It has been proven that the identity Spark’s female characters assume is always a direct response to the restrictive expectations of conformity that the society bestows upon them.

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Primary Sources

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---. Memento Mori. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961. Print.

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---. Symposium. London: Penguin, 1991. Print.

---. The Driver's Seat. New York: Perigee, 1984. Print.

---. The Finishing School. London: Viking, 2004. Print.

---. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. London: Penguin, 1965. Print.

---. The Public Image. London: Penguin, 1970. Print.

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---. Literary Theory. An Introduction. Blackwell, 1996.

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Franková, Milada. Britské spisovatelky na konci tisíciletí. Masaryk U, 1999.

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Webster Barbre, Indiana UP, 1989.

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Summary

The aim of this thesis was to analyse the process of Muriel Spark’s female characters finding their identity in the following Spark’s novels—Memento Mori,

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Public Image, The Driver's Seat,

Reality and Dreams and The Finishing School.

This thesis has explored the part that the characters’ education and upbringing have on the said process. The process of conforming to the society has been proved to be an underlying theme within all of the six selected novels and evidence has been gathered to illustrate how the key events of Spark’s life are reflected in the concerns of her works.

Each of the abovementioned books are analysed in an individual chapter, with the first chapter on Memento Mori comparing Dame Lettie, Charmian Piper and Miss Taylor; the second chapter about The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie discussing the character of Miss Brodie and also contrasting it with Sandy’s character; the third chapter on the novel The Public Image presenting an analysis of Annabel Christopher’s character and the following story,

The Driver’s Seat, focusing on Lise; the fifth chapter on The Reality and Dreams debating the determiners of Marigold’s identity and with the chapter on The Finishing School proffering an analysis of what defines Nina Parker’s identity.

Finally, the last part of this thesis draws conclusions about the different yet inherently similar processes presented in the novels that are concerned about the female characters finding their identity.

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The methods of Spark either inducing her female characters to conform to society or allowing them to deviate from the conventions are compared with regard to the effect it has on the characters’ identity.

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Resumé

Cílem této diplomové práce bylo analyzovat proces, který Muriel Sparková aplikuje k utvoření identity ženských postav v těchto následujících románech:

Memento Mori, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Public Image, The Driver's

Seat, Reality and Dreams a také v knize The Finishing School.

Tato práce podrobně prozkoumala, jakou úlohu na daný proces měla výchova a vzdělávání postav. Bylo prokázáno, že proces konformity ke společnosti hraje stěžejní roli ve všech šesti výše zmíněných románech. Zároveň též byly předloženy důkazy, které pomáhají ilustroval, jak jsou klíčové události z osobního života Muriel Sparkové reflektovány ve zvolení témat přítomných v jejích publikacích.

Každá ze zvýše zmíněných knih je analyzována v samostatné kapitole.

První kapitola se zabývá knihou Memento Mori a porovnává tři postavy: Dame

Lettie, Charmian Piper a Miss Taylorovou. Druhá kapitola, The Prime of Miss

Jean Brodie, rozebírá postavu Miss Brodie a také ji srovnává s postavou Sandy.

Třetí kapitola, The Public Image, přináší analýzu postavy Annabel

Christopherové a následující kapitola se zaměřuje na postavu Lise z knihy

The Driver’s Seat. V páté kapitole jsou probrány faktory, které determinují identitu Marigold. Šestá kapitola se zaměřuje na knihu The Finishing School a nabízí analýzu prvků, jenž utváří identitu Niny Parkerové.

Samotné zakončení této práce pak přináší celkové závěry o různých, avšak ve své podstatně obdobných postupech, které Sparková uplatňuje ve svých románech týkajících se hledání vlastní identity již zmíněných ženských postav.

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Postupy, jimiž Sparková buďto přiměje své ženské hrdinky přizpůsobit se očekávání společnosti anebo jim dovolí odklonit se od ustáleného proudu zvyklostí, jsou porovnány s ohledem na efekt, které tyto postupy mají na celkový vývoj identity těchto postav.

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