Women and Labyrinths in the Fiction of AS Byatt and Iris Murdoch
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Tomazic Ariadne’s Thread: Women and Labyrinths in the Fiction of A.S. Byatt and Iris Murdoch Submitted by Elizabeth Mary Tomazic Bachelor of Teaching (Australian Catholic University) Bachelor of Arts (honours) (Australian Catholic University) A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Arts and Sciences Faculty of Arts and Sciences Australian Catholic University Research Services Locked Bag 4115 Fitzroy, Victoria 3065 Australia March 2005 ii Tomazic Statement of Sources This thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. 1.3.05 …………………………………………………………….. ………… Elizabeth Mary Tomazic Date iii Tomazic For Joe, my very best friend and trusted companion on the journey through life’s labyrinth.. You have lit up my way, picked me up when I stumbled, and encouraged me always to keep seeking the true path. You have removed obstacles, stretched boundaries, and created passageways for me. This is especially for you, my love, in heartfelt gratitude for all your sacrifices as you helped me fulfil my dreams. * Moj ljubi Jožko, iz vsega srca - najlepša ti hvala. * iv Tomazic Acknowledgements I thank my family for their unconditional love and sustained encouragement provided through the most trying of circumstances: Angela Tomazic, Mark Tomazic, Emilija Tomazic, Fee, Raff, Rob, Marnie and Nick D’Ademo, and Darinka, Joe and Silva Lukac. Your patience, faith, and ability to make me laugh filled me with hope and optimism when I needed it most. I would also like to thank the following people for their help, persistent encouragement, unwavering friendship, and support: Alexa Alfer, Hazel Bell, Isabel Bentley, Susan Blackburn-Mitchell, Pauline Caire, Laura Caire, Mara Cambiaghi, Mima Cestelli, Mike Crane, Helen Dacy, Nadia Doll, Draga Gelt, the Good Shepherd Community Writers Group (Jenny and John Buckwell, Leanne Farnsworth, Val Knapp, Pauline Suter and Eddie Tuck), Kerri Lawry, Karen McMenamin, the late Debbie McMillan, Liz Matthews, Norma Munson, Carol and Colin Patterson, Sue Phillips, Jo Rudd, Beatriz Santos, Christine Shuttleworth, Gillian and Keith Swaffin-Smith, Martin Tanti, Ruby and Jack Verberne, and Warwick Wynne. A very special thank you to Mark and Isabel for their gifts of music. Thank you to Gail Crossley for her support. Finally, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to John Murray for stepping in and providing a calm and sensible voice. No words I say or write could ever adequately express my heartfelt appreciation not only for your academic guidance but also, and above all, for your friendship. Thank you, too, to Nerolie for your warmth, friendship, kindness and support. I gratefully acknowledge assistance from the staff of the following libraries: Matheson Library, Monash University; Raheen Library, Australian Catholic University; State Library of Victoria, Melbourne. I am also grateful to HarperCollins Publishers for permission to use material from Daniel Taylor’s The Healing Power of Stories (Alexandria, Australia: Millennium, 1996). * * * v Tomazic Abstract This thesis is an investigation of the journeys towards a sense of identity or selfhood, achieved through honest and accurate appreciation of the lives of others, made by several female characters in the fiction of A.S. Byatt and the late Iris Murdoch. I believe that because Byatt and Murdoch value literature as a serious business that teaches as well as entertains, their writing can play a significant role in illuminating the lives of women by means of its portrayal of the resolution of women’s struggles. Women’s lives, despite the rise of feminism, are still not equitable. While many women strive to attain a balance of independence and intimacy – what Thelma Shinn calls a “meronymic” relationship – and connection within community, many do not succeed in this endeavour. The numerous challenges they face are difficult and confronting, and the stories of their efforts resemble journeys through a labyrinth or maze. Byatt acknowledges Murdoch as her literary mother, frequently citing Murdoch’s belief in the ability of literature to improve human life. While Byatt and Murdoch are interested in what characters learn about their relations to others and the world, they make it clear that characters are constructs, not real people. Yet their fiction is an ongoing exploration of the nature of reality and the nature of selfhood, particularly that of women. According to feminist theories, women are more constrained than men, and are therefore the focus of this study, but their experience of constraint is a more complex matter than experience of mere undifferentiated oppression, and is better represented by the structure of the labyrinth than that of the simple, linear journey. I agree with Byatt’s and Murdoch’s view of the importance of fiction as a means of commenting on human relationships, particularly with the notion of the need for connection within community. The labyrinth, together with the Bildungsroman, provides a paradigm for the complex experiences of Byatt’s and Murdoch’s female characters. All the characters in this study struggle to flee from restraint, seek purpose and agency in the world through vi Tomazic interaction with others, and escape a feminised Plato’s Cave by learning to see more accurately, and all but one emerge from the maze into an autonomous and independent existence in community with others. vii Tomazic Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One: A Reluctant Nomad: Dora Greenfield, The Bell 53 Chapter Two: The Era of Realism: Marian Taylor, The Unicorn 83 Chapter Three: Paths and Stories: Yvonne Geary, “Something Special” Gillian Perholt, “Crocodile Tears” Patricia Nimmo, “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” 110 Chapter Four: Recognition and Sympathy: Christabel LaMotte and Maud Bailey, Possession: A Romance 153 Chapter Five: A Woman’s Castle is not her Home: Frederica Potter, Babel Tower 188 Conclusion 231 Works Cited 241 viii Tomazic Abbreviations Babel Babel Tower “CT” “Crocodile Tears” “The Djinn” “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” Virgin The Virgin in the Garden 1 Tomazic INTRODUCTION “… journeys become signs and symbols of the deliberate and constant self-blindness and of that avoiding of awkward questions of which Pascal spoke. One is therefore forced to conclude that the only worthwhile journey is the one which the individual undertakes within … themself.” − Chevalier and Gheerbrant1 This thesis investigates the journeys towards a sense of identity or selfhood made by several female characters in the fiction of A.S. Byatt and the late Iris Murdoch. As a woman, I am particularly interested in how images of women’s lives are portrayed in literature, especially the literature written by female authors. Women’s lives, despite the rise of feminism, are often still not equitable. For example, the attainment of a balance of independence and intimacy in one’s personal life, a meronymic2 existence, is fraught with difficulties for many. Because Byatt and Murdoch value literature as a serious business that teaches as well as entertains, I believe that their writing can play a significant role in its portrayal of the resolution of women’s struggles. Their fiction, spanning fifty years, depicts a broad range of female characters’ endeavours to find autonomy and connection within community. These women’s challenges are invariably difficult and confronting. Their efforts, requiring resilience, determination, and the capacity to learn from mistakes, resemble journeys through a labyrinth or maze in pursuit of an Ariadne’s thread leading them towards an exit into a fulfilling and self-determined life. Their traversal of many paths and passages resembles a female Bildungsroman3 in which a character experiences profound self-growth through “attention.” Byatt’s and Murdoch’s belief in the basic human need of the self to relate to others in order to become a whole individual is portrayed by protagonists who endure separation and 2 Tomazic journey alone, seeking and finally forming meaningful interpersonal connections. An individual’s journey towards an increased self awareness must inevitably be enmeshed in the lives of others. Murdoch’s fiction, concerned with the portrayal of characters developing a consciousness of others, or mirroring of self with the other, is summarised by Heusel as texts that “insist that in order to look outside oneself to see the self looking, one must first see the self in the other” (89). This sentiment is also echoed by Garzilli, who proposes that such awareness is of necessity a labyrinthine experience: In looking into himself man wonders where his real self is. He may seek to reassure himself that his real self is his consciousness, implicit in so many definitions of man. He may also wonder what function his roles in society and other people have to play concerning self, in terms of a personality that seems so inconstant. Sometimes, he may even seem to himself lost in a maze of possibilities, struggling to discern reality from unreality, dream from consciousness. (5-6) My examination of Byatt’s and Murdoch’s works pursues a thread that links their fiction with their ideas on what literature is and does. Although the primary purpose of this analysis is not