1 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Beryl Margaret Bainbridge is one of the highly influential British novelists in the contemporary British literature. She is probably the most widely recognized living woman writer in Great Britain. Her novels have wide range of subjects. Beginning writing at the age of just nine, she has become the Dame of British Empire. She has tried to portray middle-class and lower-middle-class morality in her novels. She is an entertaining and insightful observer of human condition. Beryl Bainbridge falls in the category of the realistic writers. She has enormous respect for the objects, particularly those with the past. Her earlier works deal with her own childhood experiences in Liverpool countryside whereas her later writings deal with some of the great historical figures. Her autobiographical writings are quite entertaining. As a result she has been recognized as one of the assets of Great Britain. A] LIFE-SKETCH OF BERYL BAINBRIDGE: Beryl Margaret Bainbridge was bom on November 21, 1934 in i Liverpool, England to Winifred Baines and Richard Bainbridge. Beryl’s childhood was decidedly unhappy. Her father was a 2 commercial traveller, who went in eventual bankruptcy. Her mother had married him years before when he was wealthy. Beryl’s mother lived her life in a romantic fashion. There was a continual state of quarrelsome atmosphere in the family. As a result Beryl was irritated by the unstable and unhealthy atmosphere at home. She used to escape to the shore to get relief from the rigid interrelations at home. She didn’t get love and affection from her parents in her childhood days. When Beryl was six-months old she moved with her parents and a six- year-old brother to a small, semidetached house in Thomby on the seacoast about twelve miles from Liverpool. The household atmosphere was very tense. She described her father as a morose man who loved poetry and radio. Her father went into eventual bankruptcy. He taught his daughter the fascination for the past. She came to know about his bankruptcy only after his death when she was 23. Beryl’s father was moody, dictatorial and bad tempered. Beryl’s mother was a class-conscious lady. She hated her working-class husband, who was a salesman. The result was frequent clashes between the couple. Beryl Margaret Bainbridge was educated at Merchant Taylor’s School in Liverpool. Beryl began dancing at the age of six and worked as a child performer. She was expelled from the school for writing and illustrating a dirty rhyme and for corrupting moral influence. Then she was sent to Ballet School. Her father wanted her to be a doctor or journalist, but she was not at all serious about the studies. She v/orked as an actress at Liverpool Repertory Theatre. Beryl’s mother was a 3 stage-managing mother and Beryl enjoyed a theatrical career which began with her tap-dancing at the age of six and included instruction at The Arts Educational Schools Ltd., at Tring. By ten she was on the radio and by fifteen she was in the theatre. She worked for Liverpool, Windsor, Salisbury, London and Dunbee. At the age of sixteen she met Austin Davies, who later became her first husband. He was an Arts student at the Liverpool Playhouse. He used to paint scenery. Sensing the hopelessness of the affair Bainbridge ran away to London again and continued with her acting career at the theatres, television and radio. She foresaw a problematic marriage and in an attempt to avoid it she went to Scotland where she could become a Catholic before the age of twenty-one without paternal consent. Finally on April 24, 1954, she married Austin Davies and forgot about being a Catholic after that. Beryl had two children Aaron and Jo-Jo. But soon after Jo-Jo’s birth she found that Austin was having an affair and chucked him out. Once, in an interview she said, “If I’d just kept quiet and shut my eyes I could be happily married now. But I knew he didn’t really love me. I took years to get over.” (Willa Petschek, Beryl Bainbridge and Her Tenth Novel, March 01,1981). Austin Davies was a good provider and always supported Beryl and the children. He moved them all down to London in 1963 and bought 'her present house in Camden Town. When the last child was six-weeks old Austin Davis ran off to New-Zealand. 4 Like D. H. Lawrence, whom she admires, Beryl was the child of a father from the working class and a middle-class mother. Her father was a self-made man and commercial traveller and mother was always engaged in shopping. The Bainbridges stayed together for appearances sake, but their tiny house was full of frightening emotions. Beryl’s childhood was threatening. The tyranny of her parents and the grotesque claustrophobia of family-life form the basis of her novels. She says, “I write to make sense of my childhood experiences. Childhood is a thing that happens so early you don’t forget it. Everything else you grow out of, but you never recover from childhood. So I go over it again and again.” (Willa Petschek, Beryl Bainbridge and Her Tenth Novel, March 01, 1981). Every day was a spoiled one for Beryl. She was a stubborn child who fought for her family. To escape the tensions she wandered along the beach. She read a lot. She filled penny notebooks with stories and poems. The strongest source of her writing was the radio which was always kept on at home by her parents, hoping that the fine plays and civilized talks on The Third Programme would draw her out of the quarrels. In the year 1967 there was a remarkable incident in Beryl Bainbridge’s life. She fell for a writer Alan Sharp and had a daughter Rudi, by him. Sharp told her about his first wife but not his second, nor 5 even the fact that he got another girl pregnant at the same time, (the story is told in her novel, Sweet William (1975)). Alan showed up for Rudi’s birth, but went downstairs saying he was going to get a book out of the car and never came back. Austin Davis supported Rudi as if she were his own child; whereas Alan Sharp went off to America to become a successful screenwriter. In the year 1972 Beryl’s son Aaron brought home a playmate who happened to the son of Colin Hay craft, Head of the publishing firm of Duckworth. After working at Duckworth as a clerk she took a job in a bottle factory, sticking on wine labels at 4£ a week. The Bottle Factory Outing (1974) describes her experiences here. Since then she hasn’t looked back. At present Beryl Bainbridge is one of the most famous and widely regarded living writers in England. Her books have the biggest draws in the literary circles. She has got a very good reader. Her readers have appreciated her autobiographies, her histories and the screenplays too. In the year 2000 Beryl Bainbridge was made the Dame of British Empire. B] INFLUENCES ON BERYL BAINBRIDGE: Beryl Bainbridge began her literary career as early as she was nine-years-old. And now she has become one of the most highly regarded fiction writers in Great Britain. She began her writing career as a writer of humorous, biting fiction depicting people of lowered 6 expectations. There are number of factors which have influenced this great novelist. She has been greatly influenced by English Romanticism and Idealism which serve as escapes from poverty and boredom. She has been influenced by some important historical figures and also the autobiographical writings. The contemporary society bears lot of influences on the people living in it and it comes through the writings of the creative talents. The best way to reflect the reality of the society is through the literary forms. Bainbridge is in no way any exception to this universal fact. She has been greatly influenced by the contemporary society. Bainbridge has worked as an actress in her early life. The stage where she worked has great influence on the mind of this featured author. The explosive family atmosphere prompted her to be alone. There were frequent quarrels between her parents. This resulted in Beryl’s escape from the family. To escape she wandered along the beach. She read a lot during her strolls along the beach. The horrid childhood memories became a part of her personality throughout. Beryl’s father, a salesman by profession passed on his reading habits to his daughter. Beryl’s mother also encouraged her to write from an early age. Beryl’s father’s emotional state and her mother’s class-consciousness and a sense of female superiority influenced her a lot. She tried to imitate Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, and at the age of ten, began a novel based on her parents’ quarrelsome relationship. 7 At the age of eleven Bainbridge wrote her first book derived from parts of Dickens’s works and Stevenson’s Treasure Island. She also wrote love letters to her mother. Her theatrical career also influenced her way of thinking and served as the basis for her themes. Beryl Bainbridge is highly impressed and influenced by the writings of D. H. Lawrence. D. H. Lawrence has remained one of the highly influencing novelists of the 20th century. The discussions about the complex human relations and intrigues of sex in the novels of D. H. Lawrence influenced Beryl Bainbridge to much extent.