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The Eye of the Beholder

Throughout this class, and within the subject of the final project, I have come to this conclusion: ruin is subjective. Being ruined, or having your life ruined depends entirely on what you value, and how you value it. For instance, in The Ruined Maid, Melia thought herself better for being “ruined”, or at least said so, because of the wealth and extravagance she was able to amass through her new vocation. Though she said she was “ruined”, it seemed quite the opposite, as though she simply used the word as society would’ve used it to describe her. Mrs. Brown even describes being coaxed into writing a novel in such light as to reflect ruin, saying how would-be writers are “led on by this will-o’-the-wisp, they flounder through volume after volume, spending the best years of their lives in the pursuit, and receiving for the most part very little cash in exchange” (Woolf). 

In most cases, we must make sacrifices to achieve things in life, be that time, money, or in the case of many women in the writings we’ve studied, our physical bodies and well-being. Ruin comes when we overextend ourselves and achieve nothing we value in return. However, even if others view us as ruined, because of its subjective nature, we can have achieved much, like Mrs. Warren, in Bernard Shaw’s play. Mrs. Warren, much like Melia, achieved much through what many considered her ruin. She then was able to effectively hide her profession, and live a double-life. Her true ruin was not that she had been or continued to be a prostitute, as the society of the time might have believed. She was ruined at the end of the play, when she lost the one thing she cared about most.

Perhaps my group’s project lacked some ties into these kinds of ideas, concerning ruin. Though I do feel that our project explored more of what leads us to ruin. We made our presentation on the theme of temptation – which often leads to ruin, if we give in to it. We looked at various forms of temptation in the texts, as well as what we are tempted by in modern life. Temptation by definition is to have the desire to do something, especially something wrong or unwise. Mrs. Brown was tempted into writing by the elusive character “Brown”, and so began what she calls her folly. Melia was tempted by wealth and beauty, and the escape from her life of hard work, and so became what was considered “ruined”. Nearly anything we are tempted to do can go awry, and lead us to ruin, or even to the ruin of others. As ruin is subjective, so too is temptation, preying upon our desires and things we hold dear. Temptation tells us “want” – even “need” – the thought of which drives us into those things that were best left undone, like in the man’s lamentation of Jenny. He was with her, and found her beautiful, but in the end, he was ashamed, and left only gold for her to wake to.

Jenny, my love rang true! for still

Love at first sight is vague, until

That tinkling makes him audible.

And must I mock you to the last,

Ashamed of my own shame, — aghast

Because some thoughts not born amiss

Rose at a poor fair face like this?

Well, of such thoughts so much I know:

In my life, as in hers, they show,

By a far gleam which I may near,

A dark path I can strive to clear.

Only one kiss. Goodbye, my dear.

~Dante Gabriel Rossetti

It’s unclear to me whether this truly brought ruin to either of them, save perhaps to Jenny’s reputation, but what is clear is that the man regretted his moment of weakness, and what he had done. Such is the nature of temptation.

Ruin is not always due to temptation, of course. Sometimes, things just fall apart, and things can seem hopelessly impossible. Many of us go through a low point like that, and I am no exception. As I wrote in my first assignment for this class, however, when everything seems to be ruined and at an end, we can persevere. “Tolerate the spasmodic, the obscure, the fragmentary, the failure. Your help is invoked in a good cause. For I will make one final and surpassingly rash prediction—we are trembling on the verge of one of the great ages of English literature. But it can only be reached if we are determined never, never to desert Mrs. Brown.” (Woolf)

References:

Virginia Woolf, “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown”

Bernard Shaw, Mrs Warren’s Profession (1894)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Jenny”

Thomas Hardy, “The Ruined Maid” (1866)

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Dancing With Shadows

In “The Harlot’s House”, Oscar Wilde doesn’t seem to speak directly about much, referring mostly to dancing shadows and ghosts, but upon closer inspection, there are some pretty profound things to think on in different parts of the poem.

First and foremost in my mind is the use of those terms: shadows, ghosts, skeletons, “black leaves wheeling in the wind”. The only human beings he speaks of are himself and his love. This was possibly the most intriguing aspect of the poem. Here they were, quite clearly “stopped beneath the harlot’s house”, yet he speaks not of a single other living soul there – they are all marionettes, skeletons, and shadows.

The word “shadow” can in fact be used to imply a sort of lacking of substance or presence, as in phrases like “a shadow of what it had been”. The same can be said of his use of “ghost”. This all seems to reinforce the idea that these people – the harlots, and possibly their clients – are quite less than human, in his eyes. They are very human-like, but had fallen to this level of contemptibility through their actions.

Even though traditions – especially religious ones – would have us believe that sexuality is contemptible, and often villainized in literature, I wanted the shadows in the image I created to be more than this clichéd idea of sinful humans, so I did some more digging.

In Jungian psychology, for instance, a person’s “shadow” can be considered anything outside of their conscious self. It can also be viewed as the entirety of a human’s darkness; those desires and thoughts that society has told us are wrong, and which we separate or even hide from – attempting to deny them a place in our conscious mind, though they are a part of our very being. Sexuality is very easily a part of this shadow, as are the fantasies and desires that accompany that primal urge.

With these ideas, I began to draft my image. I wanted to include shadows, and tie them to the humans in the picture, who were to represent certain types of people I’d been seeing in the literature and art we’ve been studying. First, I drew the Virgin – the character who would embody the moral argument. Virgin characters have long been made as virtuous paragons, to either succeed or fall prey to men of ill intent – again reinforcing the relation of virginity and chastity as being virtuous and right. Such characters as Belle of the old Beauty and the Beast fairy-tale – while yes, the Disney version is one of my favorite movies from my childhood, it does not have that same contrast between the virgin, Belle, and her wicked sisters, who had many lovers, but said they would only marry into more wealth. Rossetti’s Goblin Market also has Lizzie, who puts herself in harm’s way to help her sister, while keeping her virginity in-tact. The virgin basically exists as this polarized pure goodness, to contrast the other characters in the story.

With the virgin is the temptress – the fallen who lusts after the virgin, or seeks to make him fall. She is the shadow that invites the guests in to dance with her, and whose violin entrances Oscar Wilde’s “love” in the poem.

The love is represented by the tempted girl, who feels the draw of the beautiful mask. We all are tempted in different ways – physical attraction, social pressure, perhaps we even fall victim to circumstances that force us to sacrifice our “virtue” to survive, or a predator who takes it from us. At one time or another, we all are presented that choice, as is Laura in The Goblin Market, and she chooses to give in to the goblins’ call.

The last in the picture is the wolf. The wolf is the one who dives headlong into and may even revel in the debauchery and sin. He may even be that predator or tempter, who draws others in, to fulfill his own desires. He’s the Big Bad Wolf, the goblins in the market, the ancient succubus (or incubus), or even Dracula. I wanted very much for him to appear as both the human and the shadow, because we don’t always see the spider until we’re caught in its web.

Hopefully I was able to capture all these character types and ideas in my art. Even though it’s not really common belief that sexuality is so dichotomously good or evil anymore, I do think it can make for some provocative imagery. The Oscar Wilde poem is probably my favorite thing we’ve read, this semester, and along with some other insights, provided a lot of the inspiration for the finished piece.

References:

Beauty and the Beast, Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont, 1783

Goblin Market, Christina Rossetti, 1862

The Harlot’s House, Oscar Wilde

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Morals of the “Modern Woman”

Linton writes about “a fair young English girl” as being almost an ideal of moral purity and perfection. This kind of girl is strong in character, trustworthy, loyal, and self-sufficient. She writes about the “girl of the period” as being devoid of these characteristics, and doing and pursuing only things that please themselves. While researching for this post, I had hoped to find some kind poetry or essay to help reinforce Linton’s idea of a simple, moral girl, or maybe some writings about sexism. What I found instead was David Hume’s philosophical take on the morality of pain and pleasure.

In Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, he talks about how virtue and vice are directly related to pain and pleasure.

For if all morality be founded on the pain or pleasure, which arises from the prospect of any loss or advantage, that may result from our own characters, or from those of others, all the effects of morality must-be derived from the same pain or pleasure, and among the rest, the passions of pride and humility. The very essence of virtue, according to this hypothesis, is to produce pleasure and that of vice to give pain.   – David Hume, 1740

Linton talks at great length about the girl of the period pursuing pleasure above all else, regardless of how negatively it effects those around her: “She has married his house, his carriage, his balance at the banker’s, his title; and he himself is just the inevitable condition clogging the wheels of her fortune; at best an adjunct, to be tolerated with more or less patience as may chance.” So where does this leave this girl of the period, in Hume’s idea of morality? She does what pleases her, which is moral, but she causes pain to the poor man, whose checkbook she has married, which is immoral. And she certainly seems prideful, as well, in stark contrast to the humble strength of the young English girl.

There is, of course, a balance, which is sort of the ideal nowadays: do what makes you happy, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. This idea seems to be perfectly in-line with Hume’s idea of morality, and is certainly more socially acceptable, but I found it interesting that this idea of pleasurable morality predates the girls of which Linton complains. I’ve yet to find enough evidence to suggest that there’s any correlation between the two, but it’s certainly something to think about.

 

References:

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740), sect VII

Eliza Lynn Linton, The Girl of the Period (1868)