This Thesis Is in Two Parts — a Novel We Too Shall Be Mothers (WTSBM) — and an Accompanying Exegesis
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This thesis is in two parts — a novel We Too Shall Be Mothers (WTSBM) — and an accompanying exegesis. 1 Volume One comprises the creative component of the thesis, the novel We Too Shall Be Mothers, which forms seventy per cent of the thesis. Volume Two comprises the theoretical component of the thesis, an exegesis which explores specific theoretical, literary and fictional paradigms with particular reference to We Too Shall Be Mothers. 1 The subtitle of the thesis 'Her story, our story, history' is taken from Susan Suleiman's introductory essay on Helene Cixous in"Coming to Writing" and other essays (1991). WE TOO SHALL BE MOTHERS: Her Story, Our Story, History Feminism and Postmodernism in the Contemporary Historical Novel Submitted by Sallie Muirden B.A. (Hons.), Melbourne University. Diploma of Education, La Trobe University. A research thesis submitted in two volumes in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Research) Department of Communication, Language and Cultural Studies Faculty of Arts Victoria University of Technology St Albans, Victoria 3021 Australia March 2001 ^^7^1 b VS&k THESIS A823.4 MUI 30001007177399 Muirden, Sallie We too shall be mothers her story, our story, s*: AfiOli S \K >&y~ CONTENTS Volume One Page Abstract v Acknowledgments vi Declaration of Authorship vii WE TOO SHALL BE MOTHERS, the novel viii Contents of the novel ix Part I, title page WE TOO SHALL BE MOTHERS References for the novel 186 IV Abstract This Master of Arts thesis is in two parts : a novel, We Too Shall Be Mothers, (WTSBM) and an exegesis which positions the novel in relation to several strands of contemporary theory and fiction. The novel is set during the French Revolution in the southern French city of Avignon and in Vienna, the capital of the Hapsburg Empire. WTSBM tells the story of a fictional nun, Marie-France, who leaves her Carmelite convent and embarks on a journey towards motherhood and fully sexualised adulthood. The exegesis contains three main strands of theorisation. First, it illustrates the profound influence of feminist psychoanalytic theory on WTSBM, but also argues that the novel reformulates and departs from specific aspects of the feminist psychoanalytic paradigm. Second, the exegesis argues that WTSBM can be classified as a 'postmodernist, revisionist, historical novel', which can be positioned alongside other postmodernist, historical literature. Third, the exegesis argues that WTSBM can be located within contemporary issues of feminist politics, particularly issues of gender, sexuality and relationship, which are also evident in Jeanette Winterson's The Passion (1987). The research material for this thesis has come from a range of sources. Primary sources include field visits to the European cities of Avignon and Vienna. Secondary sources include literary theory, novels, and newspaper reviews, as well as historical monographs and works of religious philosophy and autobiography. v Acknowledgments I acknowledge the support of the staff of the Department of Communication, Language and Cultural Studies at the Victoria University of Technology, especially that of my supervisor Bronwyn Cran. Antoni Jach read drafts of the novel and gave me excellent editorial advice. Andrew Brown-May and Lesley Muirden read the novel and made some helpful editing suggestions. Flora Nicoletti assisted with some of the eighteenth century Italian. vi Declaration of Authorship 1. I hereby certify that this thesis — the novel We Too Shall Be Mothers and the accompanying exegesis — is my own research and original written work. This thesis has not been submitted previously for any other academic award. 2. The content of the thesis is the result of work carried out since the official date of commencement of the program. vii WE TOO SHALL BE MOTHERS Sallie Muirden 2001 viii CONTENTS OF THE NOVEL Chapters Page Contraction 1. The Convent 1 2. Giselle's Mistake 13 3. Emmanuel's Water Music 32 Transition 4. The Avignon Academy of Dance 49 5. The Underwater Almshospital 67 6. The Bridge of Avignon 91 Birth 7. The Journey 119 8. The Musical City 130 9. Fire and Ice and a Multitude of Disguises in Vienna 150 10. Cherubino's Kindness 165 References for the novel 186 IX PARTI CONTRACTION I don't know how it happened, Just now I tripped over Onto a stone. I bruised my arm a little And bound it with this to stop the bleeding. The Marriage of Figaro, Da Ponte X 1. THE CONVENT Avignon, Provence Winter, 1792 The cloister is a real cloister. There is a locked gate, a high stone wall and a grille to sit behind when visitors come. But before God made the world, the cloister already existed in your own head. It's why you entered in the first place. It's why your head broke open when you were inside. It's why all the King's men couldn't put it back together again but the brigands who stormed the papal palace could. After I had lived in the convent a year, I'd look at the nuns around the refectory table and see each of them with a miniature convent stuck on their wimple-bound necks. Under the veils their faces sat like cuckoo clocks with sloping chateau-style roofs. Broken cuckoo clocks that never revealed their birds. Tight mouths. Tight wimples. Convent faces with sealed windows and indented smiles. When I entered the convent we novices had to perform a symbolic key-throwing ceremony. It was a kind of initiation into the life of the veil. We'd go into the garden and fling a key over one of the walls, into the sacristy orchard, as far as we could throw. We were given keys that no-one wanted. Old keys that opened no doors, or none that coulcf be found or remembered. We were throwing away our attachment to the old world. To our families. To matrimony and motherhood. (Some of us were throwing away our dreams.) When I threw my key over the wall, someone on the other side (perhaps a gardener working there) threw it straight back. It landed at my feet. The nuns all looked at me. There was an omen in this, the Reverend Mother said. We Too Shall Be Mothers 1 'Shall I try again?' The nuns shook their heads and our company moved slowly back indoors, out of the sunlight. Years later, when my mind broke into pieces and I was trying to put it back together, I tried all the locks in the convent with the initiation key I'd kept in a drawer alongside my narrow bed. The nuns let me go from door to door like a janitor, rattling my key in one keyhole after another. Ruining some of the locks. They humoured me for they could see I wasn't myself. 'The key doesn't open any of the doors in the convent,' the Reverend Mother said, sitting me down and patting the palm of my hand. 'The key doesn't open any of the doors,' I repeated, trying to convince myself of the fact. I still believed I was looking for a way in, when in fact I was looking for a way out. 'I'm not a good enough nun,' I lamented. 'Strive to be better,' the Reverend Mother encouraged. I strove, broken crown and all. In Paris the sans-culottes were striving too. They pulled down an old fortress in a matter of days. You'd expect our Carmelite motto to be Strive to be better, as this was what we were told nearly every day of the week. It wasn't. Our Carmelite motto was Know thyself, which was an odd one because none of us knew anything about ourselves. We knew everything about the Holy Family and most of what there was to know about God, which wasn't much at all, but we knew nothing about ourselves. With my broken head (that which exists only two hand spans above a broken heart) I could say the things that needed to be said. I could say I needed someone to love. I could say I wanted a child. I had no reason but I made great sense. We Too Shall Be Mothers 2 The nuns laughed awkwardly. They didn't want me to have these things even if they'd never wanted them for themselves. They wanted to keep me in the cloister; another young face among the old, singing the Miserere on Sundays as we congregated behind the church organ where we could be heard but not seen. I was the convent jester with a brown paper crown on my head. I chattered away to myself or to anyone who would listen. Too sick to hear my own words. Too honest to be taken seriously. Distracted by the northern Parisian strife our Reverend Mother took pity on me and released me from my vows. Our King was dead, our Queen still languishing in gaol. The sisters had finally agreed to take the oath of liberty and equality, but in defiance of the new constitutional laws they still wore religious habits. And none of them chose to leave the convent, even when Saint Catherine's was pillaged by revolutionary guards and the atrocities against priests began. Before God made the world the cloister existed in their own heads. (The sisters continued to say mass with a chaplain hidden under the refectory floorboards.) The day my family came to collect me the Reverend Mother told me to make a good marriage and put aside my foolish romantic dreams. She told me that if I had a child I would find happiness in that child.