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'On the Rack': Shame and Imperialism in Robert Louis Stevenson

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'On the Rack': Shame and Imperialism in Robert Louis Stevenson ‘On the rack’: Shame and Imperialism in Robert Louis Stevenson Roland Alexander Sydney, Australia B.A. & LLB. University of Melbourne, 2008 A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Research School of the University of New South Wales in Candidacy of the Degree of Masters of Arts by Research School of the Arts & Media Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences University of New South Wales August 2015 PLEASE TYPE THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Surname or Family name: Alexander First name: Roland Other name/s: Hugh Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: Masters of Arts by Research (MRES) School: School of the Arts & Media Faculty: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Title: 'On the rack': Shame and Imperialism in Robert Louis Stevenson Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) Shame features prominently in the writing of Robert Louis Stevenson yet it has not previously been the subject of a major study. This affect and its nuances reach back into the childhood and heritage of the writer, and forward through his most iconic novels to his stories of the South Seas (especially The Beach of Falesa and The Ebb-Tide) that are the focus of this investigation. The thesis argues that Stevenson uses shame as a tool to critique attitudes to imperialism in his fiction writing of the South Seas. It shows, first, that he had a particular understanding of shame, conscious and unconscious, that was informed by both his personal experience of shame and his ideas on the role of emotion in literature - what may be called 'Stevensonian Shame'. Secondly, Stevenson's experience and understanding of shame is shown to shape his understanding of Western imperialism in the Pacific within a wider context of conflicting contemporary attitudes to empire. Thirdly, Stevenson's understanding of imperialism, informed by shame, is presented as central to his use of the emotion in his South Seas writing, in particular his fiction, as a device to examine and project his attitudes to imperialism thereby challenging and moulding the attitudes of his contemporary readership. The thesis is structured to reveal the growing power of shame to provide Stevenson with a natural approach to understanding his own character and to developing his conception of the moral universe, especially in relation to his experience and writing in the Pacific. The first two chapters provide background and an~llyse 'Stevensonian Shame' as it relates to the author's understanding of empire, demonstrating the shift of shame in his work from preoccupation to occupational tool. Chapters three and four provide in depth explorations of Stevenson's use of shame in his South Sea tales: 'The Beach of Falesa', 'The Bottle Imp' and 'The Isle of Voices' (collected in Island Nights' Entertainments), and The Ebb-Tide, demonstrating conclusively that Stevenson's notion of shame is a significant part of his nuanced critique of Western imperialism. The thesis shows that it is the complex and conflicted rendering of shame in the South Seas narratives that generates their ambiguity in relation to imperialism, and that also enables Stevenson to instil in the reader at 'home' a sense of collective shame. Declaration relating to disposition of project thesis/dissertation I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all property rights. such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future worl<s (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstracts International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). Witness Date~jHfs The University recognises that there may be exceptional circumstances requiring restrictions on copying or conditions on use. Requests for restriction for a period of up to 2 years must be made in writing. Requests for a longer period of restriction may be considered in exceptional circumstances and reQuire the approval of the Dean of Graduate Research. FOR OFFICE USE ONLY Date of completion of requirements for Award: THIS SHEET IS TO BE GLUED TO THE INSIDE FRONT COVER OF THE THESIS Abstract ‘On the rack’: Shame and Imperialism in Robert Louis Stevenson by Roland Alexander Shame features prominently in the writing of Robert Louis Stevenson yet it has not previously been the subject of a major study. This affect and its nuances reach back into the childhood and heritage of the writer, and forward through his most iconic novels to his stories of the South Seas (especially The Beach of Falesá and The Ebb-Tide) that are the focus of this investigation. This thesis argues that Stevenson uses shame as a tool to critique attitudes to imperialism in his fiction writing of the South Seas. It shows, first, that he had a particular understanding of shame, conscious and unconscious, that was informed by both his personal experience of shame and his ideas on the role of emotion in literature – what may be called ‘Stevensonian shame’. Secondly, Stevenson’s experience and understanding of shame is shown to shape his understanding of Western imperialism in the Pacific within a wider context of conflicting contemporary attitudes to empire. Thirdly, Stevenson’s understanding of imperialism, informed by shame, is presented as central to his use of the emotion in his South Seas writing, in particular his fiction, as a device to examine and project his attitudes to imperialism thereby challenging and moulding the attitudes of his contemporary readership. The thesis is structured to reveal the growing power of shame to provide Stevenson with a natural approach to understanding his own character and to developing his conception of the moral universe, especially in relation to his experience and writing in the Pacific. The first two chapters provide background and analyse ‘Stevensonian shame’ as it relates to the author’s understanding of empire, demonstrating the shift of shame in his work from preoccupation to occupational tool. Chapters three and four provide in depth explorations of Stevenson’s use of shame in his South Sea tales: ‘The Beach of Falesá’, ‘The Bottle Imp’ and ‘The Isle of Voices’ (collected in Island Nights’ Entertainments), and The Ebb-Tide, demonstrating conclusively that Stevenson’s notion of shame is a significant part of his nuanced critique of Western imperialism. The thesis shows that it is the complex and conflicted rendering of shame in the South Seas narratives that generates their ambiguity in relation to imperialism, and that also enables Stevenson to instil in the reader at ‘home’ a sense of collective shame. Acknowledgments I am deeply grateful to my supervisors Associate Professor Roslyn Jolly and Dr John Attridge in the School of the Arts and Media, at the University of New South Wales, for their teaching, support and guidance in the writing of this thesis. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: ‘My ears burn’: Stevensonian Shame 25 Chapter 2: ‘A hollow fraud’: Shame and Empire 53 Chapter 3: ‘My conscience smote me’: Shame in Island Nights’ 83 Entertainments Chapter 4: ‘A mind divided’: Shame in The Ebb-Tide 139 Conclusion 163 Works Cited and Consulted 169 1 Introduction Robert Louis Stevenson has recently been recognised as one of the most important writers in English fiction of the second half of the nineteenth century. Popular in his own time, his reputation has waxed and waned like the shadow in his famous poem. For much of the twentieth century, his choice of genre and narrative aesthetics were largely misunderstood and his ‘parables of adventure’1 were relegated to children’s or young- adult fiction. In 1966, he was omitted from the influential Victorian Fiction: A Guide to Research, which included his colleagues Gissing and Reade but judged that ‘in spite of [Stevenson’s] influence on romantic fiction … his adult novels are few and of debatable rank’.2 As Alistair Fowler pointed out in 1979,3 despite Henry James’s own admiration for his friend Stevenson’s ‘romance’, Jamesian critics continued to misunderstand Stevenson’s artistic progression and exclude him from the literary canon. The early 1990s saw a number of critics reconfigure this existing simplified image of Stevenson as no more than a romance writer of adventure fiction into a proto-modernist and anti-imperialist; and, with the rise of Scottish Studies, Stevenson has been claimed with pride and his works examined with new critical acumen. More recently, Stevenson studies has been dominated by anthropology and psychoanalysis, as 1 Alistair Fowler’s astute phrase for Stevenson’s longer prose works usually catagorised at the time as ‘romances’ and therefore ‘debatable novels’: Alistair Fowler, ‘Parables of Adventure: the Debatable Novels of Robert Louis Stevenson’ in Ian Campbell (ed.), Nineteenth-Century Scottish Fiction: Critical Essays (Manchester: Carcanet New Press, 1979) 105. 2 Ibid 105. 3 Ibid 105-6. 2 critics have sought to understand his work within its historical context and in relation to his own intellectual interests. It is not too much to claim that Stevenson scholarship has recently undergone something of a renaissance in the way the author is viewed both as a writer and as a representative of Empire living in the South Pacific. Critics have now come to recognise the ‘aesthetic shaping’ and ‘firm moral patterns’ in Stevenson’s work, but are still exercised by the way his stories challenge any stable narrative or moral meaning. Some have explained this by characterising Stevenson’s development as ‘a search for fuller psychological mimesis’,4 while others have recognised the conflict involved in his critical exploration of colonialist and racist thinking.
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