David Leavitt’s “Gravity” seen from diverse critical
perspectives.
Abstract
This paper aims to approach Davit Leavitt’s “Gravity” from diverse
critical perspectives, namely, Formalism, Structuralism, Marxism, Feminism and Psychoanalytic
literary criticism. It is an academic task while it must be born in mind that
reading is a versatile and many-layered activity that will never be fully
accomplished by means of only one critical perspective but by a kaleidoscopic joint
approach encompassing all of them. The story has been chosen from Joyce Carol
Oates’ anthology The Oxford Book of American Short Stories because it is
a superb example of how literature works: making language non-automatic,
condensing in a few pages a universal myth, showing how feelings are translated
into material commodities and finally depicting how people struggle to ultimately
disembowel their identities, eventually discovering that they are far from the
socially accepted canon and in desperate need of any small victory over universal
gravity.
A Multi-critical Perspective of David Leavitt’s “Gravity”
For its study the story has been divided into four parts, the two initial paragraphs marked [1] and [2], a central body of mainly dialogue: [3] and the final paragraph: [4].
[1] In the opening of the story the reader is confronted with the choice Theo had to take. A STRUCTURALIST critic who analyses the units of a system and the rules that make that system work will notice the linear syntacmatic sequence of the two possibilities:
a drug that would save his
sight
and
a drug that would keep him
alive
They are identical
but for the last three words in both phrases which imply an opposition though
using two verbs with similar meaning: save and keep. A logical analysis concludes
that what will save his life will make him ‘not keep’ his sight. The conflict was resolved by Theo choosing
‘not to go blind’. A FORMALIST critic will notice the antithesis and how the
author makes the construction ‘unfamiliar’ by not repeating one of the
propositions of the alternative, therefore increasing the difficulty and length
of the perception because “the process of perception is an aesthetic end in
itself and must be prolonged” (Shklovsky 18). Considering this same last
phrase, a STRUCTURALIST critic will further argue that “not to go blind” is
more than just the opposite of “to go blind” or ‘lose his sight’ for as “J. A. Greimas
has illustrated with his squaring of the opposition any semiotic system of
contrasting elements also imply the negation of each term in the binary”
(Felluga, 3), a contradictory pair, which in this case would be “non-to go
blind” and “non-not to go blind”. As the “bond between Signifier and Signified
is arbitrary” (Sausurre, 79) thus there can exist more than one Signified for
each Signifier, leading to multiplicity of meanings. In our case ‘ not to go
blind’ meaning not only to retain sight but be able to see- possibly more than
just the physical environment eventually grasping the ultimate reason of Theo’s
circumstance.
He stopped the
pills
and started the injections
these required the implantation of an ( ) above his heart
and within a
few days
the clouds in
his eyes started to clear up
he could see again.
A FORMALIST critic
echoing Osip Brik would say that the rhythm and stress in Leavitt’s prose
(which can be noted throughout the text) “are only the obvious manifestation of
particular instances of basic euphonic laws” and that “the figures play an aesthetic
role in its own right” (qtd. in Eichembaun, 9).
If we turn to what
a PSYCHOANALYTIC critic would have to say, we will immediately highlight the fact
that psychoanalytic literary criticism begins with Freud himself who “notices
that literary texts are like dreams that express unconscious material in the
form of complex displacements and condensations ( ) literature displaces
unconscious desires, drives, and motives into imagery that might bear no
resemblance to its origin but that nonetheless permits it to achieve release of
expression” (Rivkin and Ryan, 125). For Freud, in ‘The Uncanny’, fear for
castration takes the form not of a literal image, but of a metaphoric
substitute that displaces the protagonist’s anxiety onto a fear of losing his
eyes (160) and Theo’s choice can be taken as a flagrant example.
A STRUCTURALIST
critic will note then that this opening paragraph refers to the first plot
element – fright to lose his sight – as well as points out one basic “mytheme”(Lévi-Strauss,
104) in the laying out of the Oedipus complex-myth which the rest of the story
will further develop and which the reader can predict due to Leavitt’s
hermeneutic narrative: the reader knows from the beginning that Theo chose to
die and for a FORMALIST critic the story will then keep the reader’s interest making
him/her want to know how this will happen. The voice we hear is that of a
limited omniscient narrator, the FORMALIST critic would also point out: the
writer adopting the stance of an impersonal consciousness, itself not an agent
in the events of the story but able to observe the thoughts of one of the
characters. In our story it first seems to be narrating from Theo’s perspective.
But soon we realize it is really Sylvia’s feelings which are put through from
inside, while Theo is seen from an outer perspective. It will not be until the
last paragraph of the story that we are to deepen in Theo’s thoughts while he is
the one who tries to
analyse Sylvia’s. The FORMALIST critic will also point
out the use of analepsis or flashback taking us back to Theo’s childhood in the
third sentence of this first paragraph.
The anecdote depicted presents Sylvia – his mother- for the first time.
The Psychoanalytic critic will immediately observe the powerful mother-character
shaping the Oedipus complex/myth. The boy does not want to admit he needs
glasses and his mother, who gave him birth, who called him Theo (God) shoves her own harlequin glasses onto his face
(in the same impulsive way she will later toss the bowl to him) not caring what
people would think because he can finally see.
A FEMINIST critic is bound to note the family-rearing role the story
gives to Sylvia as well as her influence in Theo’s personality. Moreover, the
same critic will abound in noting that Sylvia has suffered an inmasculating
process taking on her back the task of further protecting her child as well as
bringing him up. A FORMALIST reading of the last phrase of the paragraph: ‘he
could see’ will highlight that it is a sort of antistrophe taking us back to
the previous ‘he could see (again)’ and further clarifying it: Theo had been
deprived of sight in an earlier stage of his life and it had been his mother
who had given him sight. Thus the ultimate purpose of the analepsis is to let
the reader know how it had been the same when Theo was twelve: his mother
protecting him – enhancing his sight. A
PHYCHOANALITIC critic would argue that Theo had not been able to acquire his
gender identity, not learning to give up his mother and identify with his
father. It can be noted again how the idea of fear of castration takes the form
of fear of losing his sight. Immediately a FEMINIST critic would point out that
Sylvia feels it is her duty to deprive herself of her own sight during the projection
of the film in order to allow her son to watch it.
[2]
The same idea is
further outlined in the second paragraph which starts: ‘Because he was dying
again, Theo moved back to his mother’s house in New Jersey.’ A FORMALIST critic will point
out the paradox of the situation. Cleanth Brooks explained in “The Language of
Paradox” that paradox is the appropriate language of literature (58). The
writer gives us a blurred impression that by helping him regain his sight once
more Sylvia is provoking his death as well. And that is quite so. Paradox,
though not a direct method, is the best to depict multiple implications. Sylvia
will be his nurse because having had already gone through her own mother’s
death she is fit to accomplish the same task with her son. Once more the
FEMINIST critic will note the further female role of caring and seeing through her
parent’s death in patriarchal society. The pipe stuck in his chest is the
‘constant reminder of how wide and unswimmable the gulf was becoming between
him and the ever-receding shoreline of the well’. A FORMALIST criticism will
justify the various metaphors and the subsequent contrast as a means to bring
the reader to the conclusion that Theo is definitely dying and that realizes it.
Immediately the contrast: Sylvia is cheerful – intricately though. She takes him to the library and the museum
and shields him when his thinness and cane draw stares. A PHYCOANALISTIC critic
will continue composing the image of castrated youth, and a STRUCTURALIST critic
will see as well in Theo’s use of a cane, another mytheme, one more constituent
unit of the Oedipus myth that normally is associated with the unsteady walking
when deprived of sight.
[3]
The central part
of the story confronts the reader -the FORMALIST critic will notice- with
another strange collocation of words in the first sentence: “they were shopping
for revenge”. The skillful use of foil here is a crucial part of the writer’s
repertoire. Setting things in systematic contrast to each other is one way of
drawing intense attention to details the writer refuses to spell out because
spelling things out would dilute the flow of events. A STRUCTURALIST critic
will argue on his side, following Sausurre that because language is a system of
interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the
simultaneous presence of the others, the reader must stop and think in all the
weak meanings ‘shopping for revenge’ arises. But the most emblematic analysis
could come from a MARXIST critic who will logically conclude that shopping
refers to the act of acquiring a commodity, which by definition is “an object
outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort
or another” (Marx, 268). For Sylvia this want is ‘revenge’ and the MARXIST
critic will further claim that as the utility of a thing makes it a use-value, therefore,
the commodity to be bought by Sylvia will have a high use-value because revenge
–for Sylvia- is very useful.
To Sylvia’s phrase
“Ah, you live an learn” Theo replies ironically: “You live” The use of irony
here will lead the PSYCHOANALISTIC critic to the conclusion that it is a
symptom of Theo’s blaming his mother for his dying, and the fact that he makes
her see him through his last days is a punishment.
Sylvia reminds
Theo how Bibi had given him a ‘cheap little nothing’ for his graduation and, on
his side, Theo comments on his giving as
a wedding present to his roommate Nick a five-dollar garlic press which reflected exactly how much he felt his
friendship was worth at that moment. The MARXIST critic will note the use, once
and again, of commodities to express feelings. The interesting part of the
question it poses is how people get to permeate commodities with such abstract
characteristics. The analysis of both MARXIST and PSYCHOANALISTIC criticism come
to be very close regarding this matter. “According to Lacan, it was none other
than Karl Marx who invented the notion of symptom” (Zizek, 312). There is no
doubt a fundamental homology between the interpretative procedure of Marx and
Freud. As Slkavoj Zizek puts it in The
Sublime Object of Ideology “we must accomplish the crucial step of
conceiving the hidden “meaning” behind the commodity-form, the signification
“expressed” by this form; we must penetrate the “secret” of the value of
commodities” (313). Sylvia had been looking a long time for “something heavy
enough to leave an impression, yet so fragile it could make you sorry” and she
found it materialized in a bowl worth four hundred and twenty-five dollars.
What mattered least was if it was beautiful or ugly, that was not the case.
Both the MARXIST and the PSYCHOANALYTIC critics will hint the “Fetishism”
(Marx, 271) attached to the bowl. While
the latter will explain it as a part of a process of exorcism, the former will
realize that “there is a definite social relation between men that assumes, in
their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things” (Marx, 271). Hence the productions of the human brain
appear as independent beings endowed with life and interacting in the world of
commodities with the products of the men’s hands. And that Marx called “Fetishism”.
But it is not
enough that Theo sees the bowl, he has to feel it – Sylvia suddenly argues -and
unexpectedly tosses it to Theo like a football. She effects the sudden movement
in the same manner twelve years before she had shoved her glasses onto his
face. Her action obliges Theo to catch it and though it sinks his hands and makes
his cane rattle in the floor, he succeeds in catching it. Our STRUCTURALIST
critic is bound to find coherent that following the rules of the Oedipus myth, Sylvia,
helping him not to go blind, is showing him with her action he can oppose
gravity, that universal force. No need anymore for a cane that can be left, if
even for a moment, rattling on the floor. That sole instant will prove the PSYCHONALYSTIC
critic that unconscious forces can be defied; a person may defeat the psychic
censorship if given the opportunity of “activating the repressed wishful
impulse sending it into consciousness in a disguised and unrecognizable substitute”.
(Baker).
[4]
A FEMINIST
analysis of this last part of the story will notice how Sylvia is depicted
through a number of characteristics that “phallocentric order” (Mulvey, 586) traditionally
have awarded women with. Sylvia “squeezed
her eyes shut so tight the blue shadows on her lids cracked”; furthermore “on
the surface things seemed right. She still broiled herself a skinned chicken
breast for dinner every night, still swam a mile and a half a day, still kept
used teabags wrapped in foil in the refrigerator”. Everything is right because
Sylvia continues embarking herself in all the activities patriarchy has imposed
women in order to give pleasure when looked at. Laura Mulvey noted in “Visual Pleasure and
Narrative Cinema”: “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking
has been split between active/male and passive/female” (589). A woman has,
therefore, to be a passive image of visual perfection. It is basically what a
MARXIST critic would call keeping the use-value of women and what one of Lévi-Strauss’ theories would explain: “as the
exchange of women is a fundamental principle of kinship, the subordination of
women can be seen as a product of the relationships by which sex and gender are
organized and produced” (qtd. in Rubin, 544).
The FORMALIST
critic, on his end, would mark the use of the hyperbole for emphasis in “she
squeezed her eyes shut so tight the blue shadow of her lids cracked” as well as
the metaphor in “that gleam of flight and regret” when referring to the bowl
which is so oblique it can only be wholly understood if referred back to “so
fragile it could make you sorry” at the end of part [3].
Theo in a last and
perfect state of clarividence understands that his mother was trusting “his two
feeble hands, out of the whole world, to keep it from shattering. ‘What was she
trying to test? Was it his newly regained vision? (.) that he hadn’t slipped
past all her caring, a little lost boy in rhinestone-studded glasses?” A
PSYCHOANALISTIC critic would argue that Leavitt has made his character act
himself as a psychoanalist, wondering about both Sylvia and himself and there
mutual close relationship, until he finally experiences an epiphanic instant which
a FORMALIST critic would argue qualifies him as a dynamic character undergoing
a radical change in his self-identification. The epiphany is in the closing of
the story when Theo recalls the broad smile of his mother and he realizes that
in that war, they were both engaged in, between heaviness and shattering, “he
had helped her win some small but sustaining victory”. Our STRUCTURALIST critic
would mark, once again, the use of foil but this time in an oblique and subverting
way contrasting, as in the two sides of a war, heaviness and shattering when
really one is but the consequence of the other. On his end the FORMALIST critic
would claim that foils offer the writer interested in psychological or social
realism a way of maintaining the illusion of reality while at the same time the
crucial distinction between art and life is not lost, achieving as a result a
much clearer situation in literature than what can be experienced in real life.
To conclude this
multi-perspective literary criticism, we can turn to the FEMINIST criticism
once more: Sylvia exercises the power the myths of sexism make available to
her, and pushes Theo to oppose gravity, but that power is minimal because it
only is the power of inducement. It is her son/male who really executes the
action. The merit is his; Sylvia – the female- being just a tool, an object by
which Theo- the dominant male- achieves victories.
“Gravity”, as any
other narrative, has as many readings as readers it may attract, and therefore,
as many critical perspectives as existing theories can be drawn to discussion.
In any case what cannot be denied is that it is a powerful and disturbing
narrative that brings to surface many present questionings including such a delicate
case as ‘AIDS’ which is only implied throughout the story but nonetheless very
present.
WORKS CITED
Baker, Lyman A.
“One of Freud’s Analogies for Explaining the Idea of Repression”
This work studies a selection of Joyce Carol Oates’ anthology The Oxford Book of American Short Stories. The aim is to analyse the grade of implicitness present in American short stories throughout the last three centuries. Grice’s Relevance Theory and Bonheim’s Narrative Modes and Techniques of the Short Story have been taken as framework for the research.
The meaning of a piece of literature is more
than often not an obvious matter. It may lie hidden entwined in the characters
thoughts for the reader to detect or it may be just awareness on part of the
reader at a certain moment in the story, many times at the very end. This study
focuses on these hidden elements that affect intrinsic meaning, what linguists
call “implicatures”.
Implicitness in Short American Narrative
Introduction
On analysing Joyce Carol Oates’ The Oxford Book of American Short Stories as
the base for our study we encounter an outstanding selection of some of the
best and paradoxically least known American short stories. It was indeed, the
author’s intention to gather them in a collection, finding unfair that many
such an interesting story should remain practically unknown to the general
public. Joyce Carol Oates acknowledges having chosen the stories bearing in
mind storytelling as an art as well as political or social themes rather than
literary experimentation. This study will focus on the implicit ways these
themes are conveyed.
Part I of this work is a foreword on the elements considered important in the analysis of implicitness, in other words concepts relevant to our study such as implicature, explicature or narrative modes that have largely puzzled the erudite mind. Part II is entirely dedicated to the study of Implicitness under the umbrella of the distinct narrative modes and of the Relevance Theory. The Conclusion aims to outline the basic trend American short stories have followed since the eighteenth century concerning the grade of implicitness the writers pervade their literature by.
Part I – An approach to relevant
terms
Much has been written on Relevance
Theory, Implicatures, and Explicatures, but in general all linguists claim that
there is a distinction between the explicit content and the implicit import of
an utterance. Jim Meyer’s distinction in his article What is Literature? A Definition based on Prototypes is a relevant
one to bear in mind:
In
pragmatics there is an important distinction between ‘explicatures’ and
‘implicatures’ in understanding the meaning of a text. An explicature is the semantic
representation which is present in the linguistic cues of an utterance; an
implicature depends on the explicatures (the propositions which are expressed)
together with the context.
Jim Meyer makes some interesting quotations
from Diane Blakemore’s Understanding
utterances:
Speakers do not always intend to
communicate a specific set of assumptions: sometimes the speaker’s intentions
are less determinate so the hearer is simply encouraged to think along certain
lines without necessary coming to any specific conclusion (1992.168).
Every hearer (or reader) is guided
and encouraged by the text in the sense that it gives access to contextual assumptions
which yield implicatures…A creative hearer is encouraged to take a greater
share of the responsibility in the interpretation process, so that the extra
effort she invests is rewarded by a wide array of very weak implicatures, which
she is encouraged to explore (1992:172).
It is these ‘weak implicatures’ that
we intend to analyse as well as the way the writer may violate many of the
maxims Grice’s Cooperative Principle suggests as unequivocal to communicate
accurately under the four categories. Namely: under Quantity: be as informative
as required, do not be more informative than required; under Quality: make your
contribution one that is true, do not say what you believe to be false, do not
say that for which you lack adequate evidence; under Relation: be relevant; under
Manner: be perspicuous (avoid obscurity of expression, avoid ambiguity, be
brief and be orderly).
The violation of these maxims may
give place to what Meyer called ‘weak meaning’ or ‘weak implicatures’, meanings
which are present but which are less strongly present and that, sometimes,
combined with several other weak meanings may provoke in the reader the poetic
effect. Meyer also quotes Blakemore on the definition of the poetic effect “the
effect of an utterance which achieves most of its relevance through a wide
array of weak implicatures” (Blakemore 1992:157). For Meyer then, a
prototypical literary work contains many weak implicatures, so that the readers
are invited to think of many propositions which are only weakly present.
Two other terms that may deserve a
previous word are those of ‘short story’ and ‘narrative modes’. And in a way
the latter will help as a tool to understand the former. It is very difficult to define ‘short story’
most of all when it is still in midst of its development. Ian Reid tell us in The Short Story that we have to start
defining ‘story’ and only then continue with ‘short’, afterwards analyse its
evolution from the tale and note the impulse Romanticism gave to the genre
acknowledging :
..that the short story typically
centres on an inward meaning of a crucial event, on sudden momentous
intuitions, ‘epiphanies’ in James Joyce’s sense of that word; by virtue of its
brevity and delicacy it can, for example, single out with special precision
those occasions when an individual is most alert or most alone (1982:28).
Reid also points out in his fifth
chapter the ‘essential qualities’ of a short story, namely: unity of
impression, moment of crisis, and symmetry of design and, what is more,
questions their essentiality. It is not our intention to go into depth on these
matters, may they interest us as much as they do, but arrive to a close
definition which we can bear in mind while carrying out our research. For this
matter we find Joyce Carol Oates’ personal definition the most relevant, being
hers the selection of stories we are to deepen in:
My personal definition of the form
is that it represents a concentration of imagination, and not an expansion, it
is no more than 10.000 words; and no matter its mysteries of experimental
properties, it achieves a closure- meaning that, when it ends, the attentive
reader understands why..[..]..Its resolution need not be a formally articulated
statement…[..]..but it signals a
tangible change of some sort; a distinct shift in consciousness, a deepening of
insight. (7) [1]
James Joyce, Ian Reid,
Joyce Carol Oates, and many others, have realized that it was conflict and the
reader’s awareness of it all, no matter if suddenly experienced in an
“epiphanic” moment or through pages of swift consciousness, that generated a
piece of literature and therefore a short story.
Helmut Bonheim through his analysis
of The Techniques of the Short Story arrived
to the conclusion that some narrative modes have been more popular in one age
than in another. Bonheim starts his first chapter saying that “Even the
shortest of story forms, the anecdote, tends to use all of the chief modes of
narrative” (1992:3) which he later defines as description, report, speech and
comment. For Bonheim these four modes are “the staple diet of the short story
and the novel” (1992:3). But not in all ages the hierarchy of modes has been
the same:
“In our age speech stands high in
the esteem of most readers. Description is thought boring except in small
doses; comment of a particular kind, namely moralistic generalizing, is almost
taboo, even where imbedded in speech; and even report is preferred in the dress
of, or at least heavily interlarded with, speech.(1992:8)
Society’s tastes during a determined
period will be reflected in its literature and the study of short stories will,
no doubt, show us the same trend. For Bonheim a short story is:
“an amalgam, usually an unbalanced
one, of the four modes : whereas Irving’s story consists of description and
comment, these modes may be absent from stories written about a century later,
such as Katherine Mansfield’s “Theft”, which contains the other two modes
almost exclusively” (1992:14).
Part II – Implicitness in a
Selection of the Short Stories in Joyce Carol Oates’ Anthology.
In our days general literature
criticism believes that the writer should intrude as little as possible in the
reader, what Joseph Warren Beach called “exit author thesis” in The Twentieth Century Novel, Studies in
Technique (1932:14), but during the 18th and 19th century this was not so. The fashion then
indicated that the author could be very explicit in his comment and therefore
the most popular modes were report and comment.
Following a chronological order in
our selection, we first find Rip Van Winkle. Irving’s last sketch of his Sketch
Book has hardly got any speech at all – except for the middle part of the story
– but a lot of comment, description and report. Irving makes use of a series of pseudonyms
which act twofold: as a twinkle to the faithful reader, who will remember his
previous publicity campaign, and as a way to give his story authenticity. The
story is supposed to have been first told by Rip Van Winkle himself, written by
D. Knickerbocker as a true story and finally discovered by Geoffrey Crayon.
This introduction may also recall Cervantes’ introduction to Don Quixote where
he intends to assure accuracy. The interference of the writer is clear and very
characteristic of the time. The story itself starts with a long description of
the Kaatskill Mountains and with the author addressing
directly the reader: “Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson, must remember the Kaatskill
mountains. They are a dismembered branch (……) At the foot of these mountains,
the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village” (18). What
further characterises the opening of this story is that the description will
not really be relevant to the plot, what would be considered out of place in a
modern story. Irving
continues his story with a report of Rip’s character and his falling asleep to
wake up twenty years later. It is only when he wakes up that the author’s
intentions come to surface. Towards the middle of the story, here also helped
with speech, Irving
reveals that Rip has awakened being part of a Republic and not a subject of the
King of England. In his quest for identity, Rip symbolises America’s own
quest; his divorce from the past may well be America’s denial of her British
past. There are very ‘explicit’ symbols like the sign on the tavern which had
been disguised as George Washington, but could still be identified by Rip as
“the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful
pipe” (27) The story ends with one of its many samples of humour and irony: “it
is a common wish of all henpecked husband [..] that they might have a quieting
draught out of Rip Van Winkle’s flagon”.(32)
William Austin, in his Peter Rugg,
The Missing Man, makes use of a similar strategy to put forward his tale as a
letter form Jonathan Dunwell of New
York to Mr. Herman Krauff and to reassure, therefore,
its authenticity. Austin, nevertheless, alternates report with speech and
comment making his story much more ‘modern’, although it has also got a lot of
explicit symbolism. This old yarn had been long told as a nursery tale and
later was forgotten for a long time. Austin
like Irving at
the end of the story includes a “Further Account of Peter Rugg by Jonathan
Dunwell” advocating for its veracity.
Here we find out that after having been running for years to find his
home, without being successful because he had defied Nature with his cursing,
he arrives to find his house burned and its land auctioned. The story is a
parable and as Irving’s
has also to do with Time. The Further Account finishes with an “explicit”
explanation:
Then spake a voice from the crowd,
but whence it came I could not discern. “There is nothing strange here but
yourself, Mr. Rugg. Time, which destroys and renews all things, has dilapidated
your house, and placed us here. […]..Your home is gone, and you can never have
another home in this world.” (61)
Both Irving’s and Austin’s tales are
about a subject that has always fascinated men: Time, though the way they make
use of it may differ in intention and in form.
The Wives of the Dead follows the
same line, starting Hawthorne
the story addressing the reader “The following story, the simple and domestic
incidents of which may be deemed scarcely worth relating..”(63) It directly
starts informing the reader of an incident that though it may seem
insignificant it had aroused interest and for some reason or other, and one immediately
hopes for the best. The comment and
report on the part of the author will continue all through the story embedded
even in descriptions of the sort: “Her sister-in-law was of a lively and
irritable temperament, and the first pangs of her sorrow had been expressed by
shrieks and passionate lamentation.” (64) The descriptions will leave little to
the imagination of the reader and almost no implicit elements will be found
throughout the story. On the other hand, it has, as almost all Hawthorne’s stories, a lot of moral content, especially
concerning the well-natured sisters-in-law who, believing each to be the only
one to have her husband alive, behave so unselfishly as to delay telling the
other in order not to make her suffer. The author is always very present even revealing
the thoughts of the characters in the form of direct monologue “My poor sister¡
you will waken too soon from that happy dream,” thought Mary”.(68) What strikes,
for the first time in the story to the 21st century reader is the
last paragraph which leaves the final outcome open, “Before retiring, she set
down the lamp and endeavoured to arrange the bed-clothes, so that the chill air
might no do harm to the feverish slumberer. But her hand trembled against
Margaret’s neck, a tear also fell upon her cheek, and she suddenly awoke.”(68) This
paragraph also supplies an example of “implicature” with this tear that also
fell, telling us that in her anxiety the young wife had also wept. We are left
to imagine the following development of the scene leading towards the final
discovering on the part of both sisters-in-law that the other knew of their
husbands being still alive, or, as a more suspicious reader may suspect, one of two informers could not have told the
truth and the story could lead elsewhere had it been written. A final word can
be said on the last “she awoke”. Could it not have been Margaret, but Mary? She
might as well have been dreaming.
If we turn to Herman
Melville and his The Paradise of
Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids, we encounter a prose that sounds much
more familiar to the modern reader. To start with the story breaks out with an
initial “It” that the reader will not fully understand until the end of the
second long paragraph, thus violating one of Grice’s maxims, and making the reader
keep on with curiosity: “It lies not far from Temple Bar. Going to it, by the
usual way, is…” (70) The reader will also be intrigued about this ‘usual way’
which he is supposed to recognise. The technique was not very much extended in
Melville’s time and it violates Grice’s Cooperative Principle maxim “Be
perspicuous” The story is full of implicit meaning. It was the beginning of
industrialization which, as it stood, was against the incipient democratic
principles and Melville denounces it in the story. The two parts of the story
represent the two worlds: the wealthy capitalist class that produced nothing
and just lived an empty life “of quiet absorption of good living, good
drinking, good feeling and good talk” (76) – a men’s world and heaven – embodied
by the Bachelors- and the other, the maid’s world and hell which incarnate
wooing maids, young girls chained to a machine that dehumanize them and make
them as white as the paper they manufacture. With this paper the lawyers will
earn their money, bachelors will abuse maids, capitalist will control workers.
The way the story is narrated, almost as if it were two different stories, is
revolutionary for the time and indicates the gap between the two social
classes. It may even indicate a feminist defence on the part of the writer “The
girls,” echoed I glancing round at their silent forms. “Why is it, Sir, that in
most factories, female operatives, of whatever age, are indiscriminately called
girls, never women?”(89) For the bachelor that governs them women must be like
“mares haltered to the racks” and not allowed to have children or husbands that
would only disturb them. Their forms are silent, unable to fulfil their natural
development. The guide lad, Cupid, relates it all to the visitor, as if it were
joke on the part of the writer on the interrelation man/woman. The final
exclamation: “Oh¡ Paradise of Bachelors and Oh¡ Tartarus of Maids” (90) unites
both worlds in the character’s mind giving them their real importance,
realizing that the paradise he earlier praised was on account of the hell of so
many. It is what modern criticism would call an ‘epiphanic’ moment.
Edgar Allan Poe’s mad character in
the Tell-Tale Heart begins addressing in the first person the reader as if in a
conventional chat: “True¡ nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and
am; (….) You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me.” He
will continue trying to convince the reader he is not mad and by the mere fact
of doing so and telling how he killed the poor old fellow, because he could not
get rid of the look of “his Evil Eye”, he convinces the reader of the contrary.
Poe creates the ambiance and masterly
leads the reader to the final outburst of madness by means of a continued insight
of the character’s mind. The mind of a man or a woman, we do not know because
Poe uses “I” or “me” that is driven mad by the fear of the power of an evil eye
which he finally cannot escape.
The Storm is a master piece by Kate
Chopin which leaves little for the reader to imagine. It is one of the most
explicit stories of marital deceit with a happy ending in the story of American
literature and, what is more, with no sense of treachery on the part of the
actors. “The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was
like a white flame which penetrated and found response in depths of his own
sensuous nature that had never yet been reached”.(133) The writer goes a bit
further stating that it was her flame that penetrated him and taught him what
he still did not know. In a time, when women had to be aloof from all sexual
desire, not to say of the actual knowledge of sex, The Storm could not have been but ignored by all publishers as it
actually was. The metaphor of the storm depicts Calixta’s passion which when
put off leaves her feeling even a better wife. Both couples are explicitly told to be at ease
at the end of the story: “So the storm passed and every one was happy.”
The Yellow Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman may be considered the opposite of The Storm if we discuss implicitness.
There is so much implicit that still nowadays the story is being analysed and
interpreted on different levels, namely psychological, sociological or
feminist. There is a lot to be interpreted. Only some examples are cited below.
From the very beginning, the narrator names herself only with pronouns: myself,
me, one, I. This has been interpreted by many authors as
a way to disguise her identity under a veil of anonymity which could include
many other women in the same condition. When the narrator uses her name, it is
only at the end of the story and in the third person when she has become the
other woman, the one which has escaped from the yellow paper and is addressing the
husband. “I’ve got out at last,” said I, “ in spite of you and Jane.(169) She is no longer Jane, she is “I”. The yellow
paper symbolises the oppressive situation many women lived in at a time, when
post-partum depression was considered an mental illness and women were
prescribed isolation and immobility by male doctors, which many times drove them
to real madness. Gilman depicts how a woman can finally get beyond the yellow
paper defying men’s power. ”And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t
put me back¡” Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right
across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time¡”(169) In
the ending to the story it is the liberated woman that speaks, even if she is
on her hands and knees, she keeps creeping over the fainted man. Her husband faints because he cannot stand
her half disobedience, or because he cannot consciously accept not having full
power. The reader must make his own conclusions.
The Middle Years by Henry James is the story of an artist, a writer who achieves high
quality art when he is about to die and cannot accept not having a further
chance to continue with it now that it was finally in his possession. “The art
had come, but it had come after everything else. At such a rate a first
existence was too short-long enough only to collect material; so that to
fructify, to use the material, one should have a second age, an extension. This
extension was what poor Dencombe sighed for.” (174) James’ personal realism,
which depicted his character’s inner experiences not merely life as seen in a
mirror, works here very well. The writer by means of the character’s inner
thoughts will keep us informed of almost everything. There is little implicit
but we are taken by the hand of the author from beginning to end. Dencombe
laments his almost lost life very early in the story foreshadowing the last
sentences ”Frustration’s only life,”
said Doctor Hugh. “Yes, it’s what passes.” Poor Dencombe was barely audible,
but he had marked with the words the virtual end of his first and only chance.”
(189) This mixture of speech and comment on the part of the writer will close
an ending which otherwise would have remained a little more open and nearer to
21st century taste.
Even more explicit is Jack London’s In a Far Country where the author in his
celebrated two first paragraphs gives the reader a lesson of good behaviour
when leaving the well-known domestic world to venture into the unknown natural
world “For the courtesies of ordinary life, he must substitute unselfishness,
forbearance, and tolerance.” Making use of report and comment Jack London will
lead the reader till the end of the story where both characters kill each other
after incurring in almost every capital sin. There is very little speech, just
some thought in the third person narrator:
Well he would have company. If
Gabriel ever broke the silence of the North, they would stand together, hand in
hand, before the great White Throne. And God would judge them, God would judge
them¡
Then Percy Cuthfert closed his eyes
and dropped off to sleep.(205)
Old Woman Magoun by Mary E. Wilkins (Freeman) has relatively more speech than report or
comment. It is a cry in favour of women and mostly coloured women. “The
weakness of the masculine element in Barry’s Ford was laid low before such
strenuous feminine assertion” (207) The
reader of the story – if not familiar with the author’s tales – will not know
but for the language used by Old Woman Magoun that she is a coloured woman.
Neither is he told that Lily is the daughter of a black woman and a white man.
It is nevertheless implicit “She’s got a
good color” said Sally Jinks…(…)…”I know she’s got a beautiful color,” replied
Old Woman Magoun, with an odd mixture of pride and anxiety, “but it comes
an’goes.” (210) The beautiful colour and the mixture of pride and anxiety
implies all the horror that lies under the life of a mulatto girl (though we
are made aware of her blondness) whose grandmother knows better than let her
grow up because she foresees an unlucky destiny in the hands of a loathsome
white father. The episode of the berries which on the way to Greenham Lily is
forbidden to eat foreshadows the final outcome as, later on, on the way back
after having been denied the adoption which could have been the only salvation,
the girl is almost induced to eat, though in a silent manner. The author does not explicitly tell us what
is in Old Woman Magoun’s mind, but she leaves it very clear with the single
sentence “Come” she said, “it is time we were going. I guess you have set long
enough.” (221) The girl has had enough poisonous berries and she will be freed
from her terrible destiny of being given away as payment for gambling debts.
While getting closer to our time in
our chronological journey through the anthology, we begin to encounter more and
more implicit literature, less comment, more speech, and increasingly more
ordinary characters who, notwithstanding, will in their quest for identity
experience what any human being is deemed to experience: conflict and a moment
of illuminating awareness. Often these characters will feel that life is an
endless abyss of nothingness. On this line Ernest Hemmingway’s A Clear Well-Lighted Place is one of the
best examples of economy of words and comment but of profound enlightening on
the eternal dichotomy between the young and fearless man and the more mature
and sadly knowledgeable man who has finally realized there is “nada : pues
nada” (299) to pray for. Hemmingway uses only two short paragraphs, the first –
a description – and a middle one, in the form of interior monologue, to give
the reader some explicit clues on the characters’ thoughts. The rest – mostly
speech – serves to depict masterly the two worlds.
In The Strength of God, Sherwood Anderson’s Presbyterian minister also
experiences this moment of sudden awareness that functions as a high-pressure
valve through which all the repressed sexuality will give way to the appearance
of God in the form of a naked school-teacher kneeling on a bed. Basically the
story contains report and comment and the repressed thoughts of the only
character. It is not until the end of the story that he addresses a second
character, George Williard, to tell him how God gave him the strength to smash
the window through which he spied the woman. But this second character will not
utter a single word in response:
“I have found the light” he cried.
“After ten years in this town, God has manifested himself to me in the body of
a woman.”…..(….)..I am delivered. Have no fear…(…) “I smashed the glass of the
window,” he cried. “Now it will have to be wholly replaced. The strength of God
was in me and I broke it with my fist”. (263)
F. Scott Fitzgerald mastered another
character-maybe because he had had the same suffering- who felt lost in the
abyss of a wasted life. An Alcoholic Case
shows two characters that though sympathising one with the other are jointly
incapable of beating death. Death appears in a corner of the room, and both the
nurse and her ‘case’ feel it. ‘..she
knew that death was in that corner where he was looking’.(309) Discouraged the
nurse will explain, the day after, to her boss ‘It’s not like anything you can
beat’ …(…)..it’s so discouraging –it’s all for nothing”.(309) Once again there
is ‘nothing and then nothing’. With the use of ‘it’ and ‘anything’, of undetermined
intrinsic meaning, the author implies that which the nurse is not able to put
into words but the reader will perfectly grasp, thus violating all of Grice’s
Cooperative Principle maxims.
William Faulkner, the most original
writer of his day, almost re-invented fiction. He’s marvellous technique
enhanced him to talk in the voices of every kind of character. In That Evening Sun the eternal tragedy of
black people in the States is shown indirectly through the voices of the
children of a white American family (its member will appear again in The Sound and the Fury published later).
Through the incoherent chattering of the smaller children and a couple of
assertions on the part of the father and Quentin, his nine-year-old daughter
and first person narrator of the story, we learn the details of a frequent case
of abuse to black women by white powerful men. Jesus, the black woman’s husband
takes revenge in the person least guilty but most accessible: Nancy, his wife. “I
just a nigger. It aint no fault of mine”.(350) Nancy’s moaning has all the tragedy implicit.
She is not to blame but just accept her fate. After leaving Nancy alone in her cabin waiting for her
destiny, Quentin’s question clears the reader’s doubts: “Who will do our
washing now, Father?” I said. The matter is already settled and now the family
has to look forward to their immediate needs, even a nine-year-old is aware of
it. Faulkner mastered the economy of words and this “who?” is not questioning
but really answering.
Richard Wright, less innovating but
as reaching, depicts in The Man who was
almost a Man another tragedy another black abuse. The reader together with
the character, a fifteen-year-old black boy, will realize simultaneously at the
time of hearing the sound of a train approaching, that the boy had been cheated
into a-two-year slavery: “Two dollars a mont.
Les see now…Tha means it’ll take bout two years. Shucks¡ Ah’ll be dam¡” (383) The
reader is left running away with the boy after catching a train “away to
somewhere, somewhere where he could be a man”.(383) Here, once more in literature, an indefinite
pronoun stands for the staple of modern society.
It is no coincidence that the first
chapter of another memorable book starts: “It goes a long way back, some twenty
years. All my life. I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned
someone tried to tell me what it was.”(441)
This is how Battle Royal, the
first chapter of Ralph Ellison`s Invisible
Man, begins. Here we encounter another black writer, but essentially the
same character running after his identity and after success. Ellison’s
character, does not have a name, he embodies all negro boys. The story is written
in the first person singular and the reader does not have a clear picture of
the narrator but the events narrated foreshadow what fate he will suffer. The anecdote
of his grandfather will also serve as a device showing the boy the way to
follow “Grandfather had been a quiet old man who never made any trouble, yet on
his deathbed he had called himself a traitor and a spy, and he had spoken of
his meekness as a dangerous activity” (442) The remembrance will haunt him all
his life and it is explicit at the end of the chapter in the form of a dream
where his grandfather writes “Keep This Nigger-Boy Running”.(445) He
acknowledges not having at the time an “insight into its meaning”. So the
chapter starts as it finishes with a search for identity and this endless
running after self-assurance.
Human eternal quest seems to have a
tragic ending in Ray Bradbury’s Three Will
Come Soft Rains. It is a terrible future of nuclear war that mankind should
avoid. There are many interesting features in the story as personification to
describe the house’s actions, that
continues to function as if nothing had happened. The house is afraid, though, and that fright
is reasonable because the family is gone though “their images burnt in wood in
one titanic instant” (458) can yet been seen. The writer does not inform the reader
immediately of the facts but goes little by little drawing the picture. The
title of the story, the poem chosen by the house to be said –not precisely at random – parallels the story
up to the final outcome: “And no one will know of the war, not one will care at
last when it is done. No one would mind, neither bird nor tree. If mankind
perished utterly” (460) It is precisely the falling of a tree that will cause
the final disappearance of the house under the fire. Then everything collapses and leaves us one last
voice “Today is August 5,
2026, today is…”(462) and hoping it would not be premonitory.
For the last part of the anthology
Joyce Carol Oates selected several stories by contemporary writers, many of
which belong to ethnic or social minorities, that have progressively had more
and more echo in society and whose vindications are conveyed in their
literature masterly and growingly elliptically.
Leslie Marmon Silko is one of them
and Yellow Woman one of her best
stories. As many of her contemporary writers, she does not openly speak in her
literature but her message is implicit in depths in her stories. Hers is the
voice of many Native Americans and it brings up issues of personal identity,
cultural identity, and genre identity. The story is told in the first person
singular and the narrator loosens herself to gradually believe she is Yellow
Woman, part of myth and tradition and therefore free to live her sensuality
without guilty feelings. But there is much more to the story if closely
studied. With the frequent mention of dampness, heat, warmth in connection with
the narrator’s senses, the author is linking Mother Creator with her siblings. “My thigh
clung to his with dampness…[…]…I cleaned the sand out of the cracks between my
toes…[…]…I felt hungry…” (592) The land and the woman are all one, the narrator
begins to feel part of tradition too, she wonders “if Yellow Woman had known
who she was…[…]..Maybe she had another name. (493) Later Silva will tell her “ But some day they will talk about us, and
they will say “Those two lived long ago when things like that happened.” (595)
“Stella, cold, cold, the coldness of
hell” This is the beginning of Cynthia Ozick’s story The Shawl. This seven words foreshadow the hell to be lived by the
main character, Rosa , as well as depicts the
character of Stella, her condition of being terrible cold and the ultimate
reason of Rosa’s child death. The title of the story the ‘shawl’ also
functions as a symbol: it will first serve to hide Magda – Rosa’s
baby – from the Nazis and later stop her from screaming when she actually
watches the child die. In the story we first encounter coldness, naked, harsh
words but gradually the author will impregnate them with a poetic scent “All at
once Magda was swimming through the air. The whole of Magda travelled through
loftiness.” (605) The words describe the instant previous to the child’s death
against an electrified fence in a Nazi concentration camp. How else could it be
beared?
David Leavitt’s Gravity has lots implicit in the title too. Gravity is what has to
be beaten to prove human consistency. There is no direct reference to AIDS in
the story nor to HIV+ but it is very well implied as for example in the
incident of the two salesmen who refuse to shake Theo’s hand. The title is echoed in “It seemed Sylvia had
been looking a long time for something like this, something heavy enough to
leave an impression, yet so fragile it could make you sorry.” The
impression would be left, not only in Bibi but also in Theo who will
realize that – no matter what – he could still mark a difference, impose his
being and by doing so help both his mother and himself to “win some small but
sustaining victory” (745).
Today’s writer has no other choice
than to provoke with literature sudden revealing moments, epiphanies, ‘titanic
instants’ because today’s conflicts are otherwise unspeakable; perspicuousness
too flat.
Perspicuous writing is also too
limited for Sandra Cisneros. Her stories, almost poems, are like photographed
instants, exquisite life portraits that elliptically tell us about Latino
community in North America and its terrible
circumstances. A house of My Own for
example, consists of only two paragraphs, one of them only a sentence “Only a
house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem”.
(749) and yet encompassing so many “weak implicatures”.
Finally, a word on Heat: our author’s own contribution to
her anthology. Oates expresses in the foreword to the story that “For the
author, the formal challenge of Heat
was to present a narrative in a seemingly acausal manner, analogous to the
playing of a piano sans pedal, as if
each paragraph, or chord, were separate from the rest” (607). She thoroughly accomplishes
the challenge. As J. Alan Rice noted in
his detailed study Chord Structure in
Joyce Carol Oates’ “Heat” (1995), Oates “means that the narrative has been
pared down to its essentials”. Her intention being to diminish it gradually
until it is understood as unique notes “without sustaining notes from one chord
to another” asserts Rice. “But the most important aspect of the structure of
“Heat” is that the final chord, that which the story is about, is missing.” Once again how could something as despairing as
the raping and murder of two girls else be told?
Conclusion
The success of a piece of literature
is parallel to its success in reaching each and every reader. The best way to do it will depend on the
artist’s expertise and sensibility. There are no predetermined rules and the
history of literature endorses it, but, many times, to convey meaning on part
of the writer or to apprehend it on part of the reader is no easy task; it
implies alertness on both sides. In
Joyce Carol Oates’ own words: “Because the meaning of the story does not lie on
its surface, visible and self-defining, does not mean that meaning does not
exist. Indeed, the ambiguity of meaning, its inner, private quality, may well
be part of the writer’s vision.” (8)
From the 18th century up
to our days storytelling has experienced notable changes. Far back in time have
the parables with moralistic comment been discarded. Detailed description and
lengthy report have also suffered a continuous metamorphosis evolving to more
and more succinct speech, at times only images, the meaning of which the reader
is merely invited to seize.
Notwithstanding this evolution,
nothing is definite. Storytelling is a long winding road; a multi-dimensional
road along which Society can trek, develop, progress and be substantially
represented while led in its eternal quest for identity.
Works Cited
Beach, Joseph Warren. The Twentieth Century Novel: Studies in
Technique. New York.
The Century Co., 1932.
Bonheim, Helmut. The Narrative Modes: Techniques of the Short
Stories. Cambridge.D.S. Brewer. 1992
Grice, H.P. Pragmatics: A reader. Oxford
University Press. 1991.
Meyer, Jim. What is Literature? A Definition Based on Prototypes. Work Papers
of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. University of North Dakota.
41: [33-42].1997.
Oates, Joyce Carol. The Oxford
Book of American Short Stories. Oxford
& New York
: Oxford University Press. 1994.
Reid, Ian. The Short Story. Methuen & Co. Ltd. New York. 1982.
Este estudio – en inglés y parte de una tesis – es sobre el azaroso y rocambolesco devenir de un otrora inédito artículo de Jorge Luis Borges «Exámenes de Metáforas»
y su entrelazamiento con la mecánica cuántica, como tanto en la obra
del escritor argentino.
Myriam M. Mercader
We could cite many examples of similarities between Borges’ work and Science or specifically Quantum Mechanics and Parallel Worlds Theory, though reality once more has overruled literature in the case I will immediately discuss below.
I have recently come across an old newspaper article in ABC Madrid Cultural, 25-09-92, where Eduardo García de Enterría in ‘Peregrinación de un Manuscrito’ explains why he decided to publish a then unedited article by Borges, ’Examen de metáforas.’ As I did not recall any data on the fact, I immediately decided to research on the matter. It is then and there that the many parallel universes of Borges’ started to appear or be created in the course of my research.
First, in the mentioned article in ‘Peregrinación de un Manuscrito,’ García de Enterría justifies the novelty of Borges’ essay on the metaphor studying two previous articles by Borges. The first (with the same name) had been pubished in Alfar, (1924) and then in Inquisiciones (1925, 65-73)); the second in Cosmópolis (1921) with the name ‘La Metáfora.’ After comparing them, Enterría comes to the conclusion they are substantially different from the manuscript he is publishing in ABC because the text in Cosmópolis was cited in Rodriguez Monegal’s Borges. Una biografía literaria (1987) as “predicando lo que sus nuevos poemas predicaban,” and: “en el texto que ahora se publica hay todo un párrafo explícitamente condenatorio a esa “secta contemporánea de versificadores” a que él pertenecía en 1921” (ABC, 15). Furthermore, Enterría explains that, when authorizing the recompilation of his completed works, Borges decided to keep his three first books of essays off print (Inquisiciones (1925), El Tamaño de mi Esperanza (1926) and El Idioma de los Argentinos, 1928) because he rejected most of what he had there written. Moreover, we read in ABC that: “cotejados uno y otro texto, carecen de cualquier relación directa y apenas un mismo número de los ejemplos de metáforas estudiados son los mismos” (15). Therefore, García de Enterría decides this lost manuscript was an enirely new essay with:” la fluidez, la gracia y la eficacia sorprendente de su prosa, la agudeza de sus análisis, todo lo que ha hecho su gloria literaria están aquí plenamente presente” (15).
Second, in ‘Borges: “Examen de metáforas,” edición crítica y anotada’ (2005), Carlos García analyzes the same article in ABC and concludes that Enterría was wrong when he argued that it was a different version which nothing had to do with Inquisiciones. Contrarily, Carlos García states that its precursor (so to say) was a previous article which appeared in Cosmópolis (1921) with the title: ‘La Metáfora:’
A pesar de la identidad de títulos, que suscita o favorece la confusión, no es ese trabajo de Alfar / Inquisiciones, como quiere Enterría, la fuente del que se reproduce y comenta a continuación. El artículo en cuestión se remonta, como se verá, a «Apuntaciones críticas: La me-táfora» (Cosmópolis 35, Madrid, noviembre de 1921, 395-402; TR 114-120), al cual, sin embargo, corrige de manera decisiva. (200)
I find this last quotation very clarifying concerning García’s confusion, as we have quoted Enterría when he states than none of the articles had direct relation with the one he was then publishing in ABC.
Third, I found the article in Cosmópolis,‘ La Metáfora’ (which García connects with the one in ABC) published in Jorge Luis Borges Textos Recobrados 1919-1929, but with an annotation that Borges had written another two similar articles on the matter: the one in Inquisiciones, which both Enterría and García had mentioned and which was first published in Alfar in 1924 and another one, paradoxically entitled: ‘Otra vez la metáfora’ (a new one this time) which appeared in the third excluded book by Borges: El Idioma de los Argentinos, in 1928.
Finally, I should add here that Carlos García, though confused on Enterría’s belief, has very thoroughly come to the conclusion the manuscript had been written by Borges at the end of 1923:
El manuscrito representa, pues, un estadio intermedio, surgido entre octubre de 1923 y marzo de 1924 (me inclino por fines de 1923); es decir, fue redactado entre Ginebra y Madrid, seguramente con intención de publicarlo en la Península (200)
After some confusing couple of hours going back and forth in all the above mentioned books (as well as in various other related articles), I realized I was confronting the creation of parallel worlds in Borges, where different versions of the article about the metaphor were instantly appearing. Up to the moment, not three versions (as all of the critics mentioned above had come to sum up, though each of them considering different series) but four, namely, the first in Cosmópolis (1921), the second written in the late 1923, as concluded García and published in ABC in 2005, the third in Allfar, in 1924 and published in Inquisiciones in 1925, and the fourth in El Idioma de los Argentinos in 1928. I was tempted to find a copy of the latter, which I did not have at hand, and continue the research, but I decided not to. I left the research, confident that if I continued more articles of the sort would appear or would be created on my way. Instead, it was more interesting to include all the output of the previous hours of research in this dissertation as an example of what it is being argued about the parallelism of Borges’ work and Quantum Mechanics.
El propósito de este artículo es el análisis del uso por parte de James de lo que se ha llamado ‘ambigüedad moral’ teniendo como punto de partida su obra The Pupil. Sin embargo, ya que esta característica narrativa no es exclusiva de esta obra, también se anotarán algunos paralelismos con otras de sus obras como The Aspern Papers, The Turn of the Screw, The Wings of the Dove, o The Spoils of Poynton por citar alguna
En términos generales podemos afirmar que James
recurre a la ambigüedad moral para producir en nosotros justamente la
advertencia de lo moral y por consiguiente la necesidad de una reacción del
lector estableciendo en la vida, que no es otro que el universo de la novela,
una moralidad clara e inequívoca a riesgo que de no ser así se produzca como en
The Pupil un desenlace fatal. Y es que para James, ambos mundos se
pisan, la vida es arte pues el arte es una impresión directa de la vida. El lector así, mediante su azoramiento frente
a lo ambiguo en un tema tan trascendente, no podrá más que reflexionar y a
adoptar una posición moral en relación con la anécdota.
The Pupil nos desvela el terrible drama de un niño-adolescente que sufre el desamparo moral de su familia (aunque de una manera más que sutil) y que tras un largo deambular compartiendo experiencias con su tutor cree encontrar en él ese asidero moral que le es tan necesario. Pero, y aquí la maestría del autor, el tutor también ha sufrido en el proceso de concienciación de lo moral, también tiene sus dudas, ha sido engañado, ha vivido su propio descenso a los infiernos y termina por provocar la tragedia. No es capaz de tomar una decisión inequívoca, de hacer que prevalezca lo moral, de renunciar a sí mismo en aras de su pupilo.
James estuvo siempre muy preocupado por la
conciencia moral que debe yacer bajo toda obra literaria. En palabras de Harold Beaver lo que James más valoraba era ‘refinement’,
‘awareness’ y ‘conscious moral purpose’ ….o como más tarde concluye en el
mismo estudio ‘It is moral awareness – the Arnoldian*
appeal to the ‘amount of life felt’ – to which James always returned, whether
(at its thinnest) in Hawthorne or (at its fullest) in Elliot.[1]
Es ésta una de sus mejores historias de duración
media, llamadas también tales, que
escribió a la edad de cuarenta y siete años cuando estaba muy arriba en su
propia escala de excelencia como escritor. Sin lugar a dudas, The Pupil nos ofrece todos
los ingredientes jamesianos , por nombrar algunos :
temas como el de la renunciación (aunque tratado más por su ausencia que por su
existencia), o la interacción inociencia-corrupción; y técnicas narrativas tan
suyas como la del narrador-observador con punto de vista limitado, el foreshadowing, o la que especialmente
nos interesa en este escrito : la ambigüedad.
La primera parte de este trabajo analizará estos dos
aspectos : la visión moral de James y las técnicas de las que se vale en The Pupil para producir en nosotros ese
grado de conciencia de lo moral.
La segunda parte del trabajo está dedicada al
análisis textual propiamente dicho de The
Pupil, para detectar así los casos de ambigüedad moral manifiesta entre sus
líneas y poder valorar el proceso de revelación por el cual James guía a sus
lectores, hasta la concienciación final.
La Tercera parte, intentará abordar esa curiosa
inclinación que tuvo Henry James de utilizar personajes muy jóvenes, sobre todo
en el período al que esta obra pertenece, para resaltar, aún más si cabe, el
contraste corrupción-inocencia muy presente en sus obras. Esta fase – también
llamada de Los Niños Inocentes – en la
literatura de James surge, curiosamente, muy cercana a la debacle teatral que
nuestro autor había sufrido. Analizaremos en esta sección – someramente- también pues, como su experiencia teatral
influyó en su forma literaria, lo que se puede advertir en The Pupil.
Finalmente la Cuarta Parte trata de un tema muy
ligado a la Ambigüedad Moral y que surge recurrentemente en la obra de James :
el dinero, o muchas veces como en el caso de The Aspern Papers o The
Spoils of Poynton materializado en
otras formas de manifiesto valor si no en dinero propiamente dicho. El dinero tendrá
su papel primordial en The Pupil donde aparecerá como un tema casi tabú
por lo innombrable aunque siempre subyacente a esta ambigüedad moral que
estamos tratando.
James escribió The Pupil en 1890, comenzando
con ella – casi como preámbulo – lo que se ha llamado, como comentamos
anteriormente, su Fase de Niños Inocentes que luego completaría con obras como What Maisie Knew (1897), The Turn of the Screw (1898), In the Cage (1898) o The Awkward Age (1899). En todas ellas niños inocentes experimentarán
distintos grados de agravios que terminarán produciendo en ellos efectos
devastadores y que irán desde la imposibilidad de madurar a su ritmo o la
pérdida de la inocencia como es el caso de Maisie hasta la propia muerte como
le sucede a nuestro Morgan en The Pupil o a Miles en The Turn of the
Screw.
PARTE I
VISIÓN MORAL EN HENRY JAMES Y TÉCNICAS QUE EMPLEA PARA SU CONCRECIÓN EN LA HISTORIA
Visión moral
Como ya se ha anotado en la Introducción haciéndonos
eco de las palabras de Harold Beaver. ‘It is moral
awareness to which James always returns’ . ‘Moral awareness’ o
conciencia moral, tal vez mejor expresado como la energía moral que impregna y
recorre toda obra, es de vital importancia para Henry James. En The Art of Fiction le debate al Sr.
Besant su somera alusión al ‘conscious moral purpose’ de la novela:
‘This
branch of the subject is of immense importance, and Mr. Besant’s few words
point to considerations of the widest reach, not to be lightly disposed of. …It
is a question surrounded with difficulties, as witness the very first that
meets us, in the form of a definite question, on the threshold. Vagueness, in
such a discussion, is fatal, and what is the meaning of your morality and your
moral purpose?’ [2]
Queda claro que James valoraba inmensamente el
propósito moral consciente del escritor y la dificultad de definición
intrínseca de lo moral – tanto en lo estrictamente literario como en la vida –
. Las formas en que nos alerta hacia este tema en casi todas sus obras son variadas
pero siempre certeras y, por sobre todo
apuntan a que la idea de moralidad no puede ser vaga : ‘vagueness is fatal’.
Él, al igual que muchos otros, entre los que
podríamos citar a Whistler§ o
Wilde¨,
se debatió en el intento de calificar a la vida y al arte, concluyendo que son
una misma cosa. No existe el arte fuera de la vida ni la vida sin arte. La novela para James no
es otra cosa que lo que definió – también en su magistral The Art
of Fiction – como ‘ a personal, a direct impression of life’. Pero esta
impresión de vida conlleva, sin lugar a dudas, como inseparable del hombre : su
conciencia moral. El arte trasciende la pura forma, los problemas de ejecución
y hasta de documentación (por lo que cuestionó a Zola durante mucho tiempo). El
arte es algo más, dijimos que es vida. Sin embargo esta vida para ser auténtica
para poder ser arte debe ser vivida en su plenitud, sintiéndola a la manera
arnoldiana – the amount of life felt-
dándole un significado, en definitiva solo puede considerarse como tal si posee
un trasfondo moral.
A James se le ha criticado, como lo hizo Frank Moore
Colby, que sus personajes no tienen cuerpo. Sin embargo el lector de James sabe
que lo que al autor le importa es la conciencia humana y que tal vez si hubiese
tratado con más detenimiento lo corporal – lo material – Henry James podría haberse alejado de lo que
verdaderamente le importaba.
Por esta razón cuando tratamos con escritores como
Shakespeare o James, preocupados por la mente humana y sus cuestionamientos,
inmediatamente surgirá la pregunta de cuál era sus visión moral. Ya hemos
comentado que la visión moral de James la encontramos en textos explícitos como
The Art of Fiction, sin embargo,
la evidencia que nos dejan sus obras es aún más importante.
Cualquier análisis que hagamos acerca de los
elementos morales que surcan la obra de James tendrá que basarse en lo que
podríamos llamar actos o elecciones morales de sus personajes. A saber, la
decisión de Isabel Archer de volver con su marido, la decisión de Stretcher de
volver a América, la decisión de Newman de renunciar a su venganza sobre los
Bellegarde o la decisión de Pemberton, en la obra que estamos estudiando, ésa
que en realidad nunca tendrá que tomar pues Morgan no le dará tiempo,
presintiendo de antemano lo que su tutor decidirá. The Pupil nos ofrece
uno de los casos de elección moral más ambiguos al punto que no sabremos nunca
con certeza cual ésta hubiese sido.
Los protagonistas de James tienen, sin lugar a
dudas, posiciones morales muy personales y profundamente sentidas y por otro
lado son consecuentes con su personalidad. Nunca tendrán actitudes que no se
condigan con sus “personajes”. En su ficción Henry James creó un mundo de
conciencia moral donde todo acto moral es relevante e importante aunque no por
ello seguirá los cánones dogmáticos. Y si bien la vida en sí no es fuente
directa de moralidad, sí nos provee de las condiciones en medio de las cuales
las elecciones morales se deben tomar.
En este aspecto la obra de James está ligada a la realidad. De ahí la
famosa frase de James que hemos mencionado antes y que viene a decir que el
sentido moral de la obra de arte depende totalmente de la “cantidad de vida
sentida” (the amount of life felt) que haya intervenido en su producción.
Un tema a debatir es si la visión moral de James es
pues la que se deduce del devenir de sus historias y del hacer de sus
personajes. ¿Creía James que el hombre es libre de decidir o por el contrario
es víctima de un determinismo más poderoso que su voluntad?
Si nos fijamos en algunos de sus pasajes como en el
caso de The Ambassadors cuanto Strether le aconseja a Litlle Bilham tomar una
decisión :
What one
loses one loses; make no mistake about that. The affair – I mean the affair of
life – couldn’t, no doubt, have been different for me; for it’s at the best a
tin mould, either fluted of embossed, with ornamental excrescences, or else
smooth and dreadfully plain, into which, a helpless jelly, one’s
consciousness is poured – so that one
‘takes’ the form, as the great cook says, and is more or less compactly held by
it; one lives in fine, as one can. Still, one has the illusion of freedom;
therefore don’t be, like me, without the memory of that illusion.
Debemos argüir que la visión de Strether es la de
James? No necesariamente. Sin embargo no hubiese puesto estas palabras en boca
de su personaje sin no las hubiese meditado antes. Es posible que quisiera
describir con ellas la sabiduría humana acumulada en cuanto a la
responsabilidad del comportamiento humano. La doble visión de que los actos
humanos, tanto en la vida como en el arte son provisionales y en definitiva
ambiguos. Volvemos pues siempre a la ambigüedad : un acto humano que no esté
condicionado es inconcebible. James al privar a algunos de sus personajes de la necesidad apremiante de tener que
preocuparse por el dinero (cosa que por otra lada también ha sido criticada),
está fijando el foco de interés en otras condiciones que pueden resultar más
interesantes para su análisis. Está fijando la atención en otras tensiones más
sutiles que atañen a la condición humana. Puede que sus personajes no tengan
cuerpo – como dicen algunos – pero todos coincidirán en que tienen una
capacidad enorme para sentir y para realizar elecciones morales, sean estas
ambiguas o no.
Toda la obra de James está tintada por este
trasfondo moral – que no moralina – a veces bajo formas sutiles, irónicas, o
ambiguas. Renegó en cierto modo de
Flaubert por la falta de moralidad que alguna de sus obras reflejaba y de
Balzac y
Maupassant pues también demostraban demasiada poca
estima a la dignidad personal en sus obras .
The Pupil en este aspecto no es una
excepción, muy lejos de ello tal vez sea una de las piezas más claras de
conciencia moral manifiesta. Entraremos en detalle en cuanto a The Pupil en el análisis de la segunda
parte de este documento. Puede resultar ilustrativo, sin embargo, citar aquí algunos otros ejemplos de
ambigüedad moral en otras de sus obras. Uno de los más notorios es el caso de The Aspern Papers cuyo narrador cuenta en
primera persona su renuncia moral al aspirar a la posesión de unas valiosas
cartas a cambio de hipotecar su dignidad y venderse a un matrimonio
esperpéntico, y qué, paradójicamente en el proceso, logra volver a la vida a
unos personajes perdidos en un pasado mohoso y yerto, hasta qué al final,
quemadas ya irremediablemente las cartas deseadas, siente vergüenza de si
mismo. Al igual que en The Pupil el
uso de un narrador-observador implicado en la historia, y por lo tanto no
fiable, suscita situaciones de extrema ambigüedad y por consiguiente de
ambigüedad moral. Semejante situación se da en The Turn of the Screw a través de cuyas páginas es la institutriz
la que nos cuenta la historia, que casi siempre veremos solo a través de sus
ojos – si acaso ayudados por la visión auxiliar de su confidente la Sra. Grose
– y que hasta el día de hoy mantiene división de opiniones con respecto a su
significado y al papel de responsabilidad moral que desempeña la institutriz en
el desgraciado desarrollo de la historia.
Es de señalar la coincidencia que existe entre The Aspern Papers y The Turn
of the Screw cuyos narradores-observadores implicados en la historia no
tienen un nombre definido adjudicado por James, al mismo tiempo que narran
ambos en primera persona. Para no hacer más tediosa la enumeración citaremos
tan solo otro caso más de ambigüedad moral, la de una de sus mejores obras de
la última etapa: The Wings of the Dove.
En esta novela la ambigüedad moral se mantiene – a través de silencios y de
palabras no pronunciadas– hasta el último momento cuando se resolverá mediante
la renunciación – el otro titán de la obra de James – y así nuestros
protagonistas se salvarán moralmente aunque no por ello obtendrán ni la felicidad ni tampoco el
reconocimiento social por el cual recorren su propio calvario a lo largo de
toda la obra.
Beaver en su comentario advierte de la particular
forma de visión moral de James y de las similitudes con Hawthorne y con Elliot,
pero fue a George Elliot a quién admiró realmente sobre todo en su primera
etapa, cuando su concepto de moral se acercaba más al de la escritora ganándole
siempre, en estas primeras obras, la batalla la conciencia a la pasión. Más
tarde – a través de las nueve críticas que hizo de la obra de Elliot – le supo
ver defectos como que en la vida real no siempre la renunciación traía consigo
felicidad espiritual y aceptación social, sino amargura y soledad. Así lo
plasmó en novelas como The Wings of the
Dove , acercándose de esta forma a escritores como Ruskin o Arnold.
2. Técnicas
de narración
2.1. Realismo
psicológico.
Henry James era un realista, pero un realista a
nuestros ojos modernos y no tanto para sus contemporáneos, pues se le reprochó
falta de realismo, como fue el caso de críticos como H.L. Mencken u otros que
alegaron que su mundo era demasiado estrecho e incompleto como para poder
llamarse realista. Es que James no estaba
preocupado por todos los aspectos de la vida.
Siempre intento evitar lo feo, lo vulgar, o lo común. No se preocupó como
Dickens de la pobreza, o de la pelea por la subsistencia, eligió una franja
social que conocía muy bien y cuyos miembros
eran susceptibles de dedicarse al goce de los
refinamientos que nos depara la vida, sin por ello dejar de tocar también
fondo. En su mundo James es realista, todos sus personajes actúan conforme a
sus características psicológicas y nunca transgredirán su naturaleza esencial.
Su idea de realismo estaba en contraposición con la
de romanticismo. Es decir, lo romántico implica todo aquello que como hombres
nunca lograremos alcanzar, mientras que, lo realista es aquello que como
hombres podremos esperar encontrar en el devenir de nuestras vidas. Así, sus
personajes van creciendo a lo largo de la obra pero no actúan de forma
transgresora a su propio esencia. La elección de esta franja social para pintar
su especial cuadro de ‘vida’ no le resta autenticidad, profundidad o carga
moral. Sus personajes se pueden arrastrar por las zonas más oscuras de la
decadencia humana, sin que por ello el arte de James deje de ser refinado.
James es capaz de mostrarnos lo más crudo con refinamiento, es esta su
maestría. Sus personajes tocan todos los mundos, ascienden al paraíso, buscan
sus propios paraísos perdidos, o descienden a los infiernos, y los lectores
sentimos en todo momento su angustia. El
enfoque es especialmente psicológico, no en balde Henry James ha sido llamado
el padre del realismo psicológico.
2. .2. Estructura
de sus novelas
Las novelas de James están estructuradas alrededor
de un centro hacia el cual todos los
hilos convergen, y que, en sus propias palabras, es lo que ‘supremely matters’
En The Pupil aquello que ‘supremely matters’ es la relación entre Morgan y su
tutor basada en la confianza y la fidelidad, ante las cuales la mínima traición
solo puede dar lugar a la muerte del inocente.
También el proceso de creación de James era
innovador para su época pues al contrario de los que comenzaban con un tema o
una idea y luego la desarrollaban creando personajes que se movieran en ese
universo hasta propiciar el fin deseado, James partía de una situación, ponía
los personajes a funcionar en ella y los observaba mientras iban dando forma al
desenlace final, que muchas veces confesó, no conocía con antelación. Eso sí,
una vez creado el personaje y en marcha nunca traicionaría su psicología. En
este aspecto volvemos a repetir, James fue fundamentalmente realista.
2.3. Narrador-observador, punto de vista
limitado y confidente
Una de las contribuciones al arte de narrar de James
fue el especial uso que hizo del punto de vista, el ángulo desde el cual se
cuenta la historia. Hasta entonces, casi siempre esta especial mirada era la
del escritor, era él el que contaba la historia y dirigía la reacción del lector. James creó una
inteligencia central, a través de la cual el lector casi siempre ve los
acontecimientos y que en muchas ocasiones es también el personaje central de la
obra. Sin embargo, esta inteligencia
central suele tener un punto de vista
limitado y no lo conoce todo. El lector correrá el riesgo de identificarse
tanto con el personaje central que perderá la perspectiva general, hasta que en
un momento de catarsis James lo llevará a comprender, o al menos a que surjan
dudas que el lector deberá resolver, tal vez creando nuevas incógnitas. En pocas
palabras: provocará la reflexión en el
lector.
James escribió en una época en la que nada se sabía
de técnicas como ´stream of consciousness´ y por lo tanto el escritor no se
sentía libre para zambullirse dentro de las mentes de sus personajes y escudriñar
sus más recónditos sentimientos. Para suplir esta necesidad James utilizó la
figura de un personaje confidente, es decir, un personaje de gran sensibilidad
a quien el personaje principal revela su sentir y su pensar y como consecuencia
de ello también les son revelados al lector. Pero James a veces juega con
nosotros muy sutilmente y nos presenta a este observador-narrador que- aún
cuando se pueda complementar con un confidente- tiene un punto de vista
limitado. Es decir en realidad no lo llega a saber todo, algo siempre se le
escapa pues en parte este algo esta relacionado con su propio ser, con su
propia esencia. En el caso de The Pupil todas estas técnicas confluyen para
crear esa ambigüedad que analizaremos en detenimiento más adelante, pues inteligencia
central, observador-narrador y punto de vista limitado parecen amalgamarse en
un solo personaje que es Pemberton que cuenta la historia, actúa de confidente
de Morgan y al mismo tiempo enjuicia a la familia, se distancia de ella, se
implica, se deja engañar y termina por engañar el mismo, cometiendo los mismos
errores, siendo víctima de los mismos defectos y por ende asestando
irremediablemente el golpe fatal. Conocemos a Morgan muy poco por sus propios
actos, pues no debemos olvidar que todo lo que sabemos de él nos lo esta
contando Pemberton, Lo único que sabremos de Morgan al mismo tiempo que
Pemberton-inteligencia central-narrador-observador será lo que nos sorprenda a nosotros tanto
como a él, ese grado de desesperación final de Morgan que será demasiado para
su débil corazón.
Pemperton es uno de tantos narradores no fiables que
surgen en la narrativa jamesiana como también lo es la institutriz de The Turn of the Screw, el
narrador-observador de The Aspern Papers
o Winterbourne en Daisy Miller. Todas
ellas historias donde la ambigüedad moral desempeña su papel revelador de la
necesidad de un trasfondo moral como basamento de toda relación personal.
2.4. ‘Foreshadowing’
Otra técnica narrativa que James utiliza
magistralmente es la llamada ‘foreshadowing’:
ese presagiar acontecimientos que terminarán por suceder de forma
ineludible y para los cuales mediante esta técnica nos va preparando, dotando a
la obra, una vez más, de un realismo irrefutable. En los primeros dos párrafos
de The Pupil James nos introduce en una serie de asuntos de ‘extrema
delicadeza’ que marcarán el resto de la historia:
The poor
young man hesitated and procrastinated: it cost him such an effort to broach
the subject of terms, to speak of money to a person who spoke only of feelings
and, as it were, of the aristocracy’…………..When Mrs Moreen bethought herself of
this pretext for getting rid of their companion Pemberton supposed it was
precisely to approach the delicate subject of his remuneration. But it had been
only to say some things about her son that it was better a boy of eleven
shouldn’t catch. They were extravanglantly to his advangage save when she
lowered her voice to sigh, tapping her left side familiarly, “And all
overclouded by this, you know; all at the mercy of weakness-¡”
Vemos la delicadeza de Pemberton al no querer tocar
el problema de su remuneración directamente pues es evidente que lo entiende
como vulgar; el niño, Morgan, que evidentemente es el tema delicado por el que
su madre lo anima a ausentarse de la habitación para así del cual poder hablar
con Pemberton mas libremente; y también
el tema de la delicada salud de Morgan a la que su madre ya alude en estos dos
primeros párrafos. Todos temas que nos
ponen en antecedentes de lo que importará en la obra. En esta misma
línea James seguirá haciendo uso de la técnica del foreshadowing a lo largo de la historia.
2.5. La ambigüedad y la falta de comunicación entre
los personajes.
El tema de la renunciación es de los recurrentes en
toda la obra de James, y en The Pupil no podía faltar, pero como con el caso
del tema de la moralidad aquí se caracteriza por su ambigüedad. A lo largo
de toda la obra, tenemos la sensación de que Pemberton
renunciará a vivir su propia vida para dedicarla a Morgan, de hecho no lo está
haciendo ya? Pero de a ratos vemos que
surgen dudas:
‘….the
extraordinary little boy who had now become such a complication in his life’
o más cerca del final
‘for the first time, in this complicated conexion , our friend felt his
collar gall him’….. ‘he saw his youth going and that he was getting nothing
back for it’
Es entonces la ambigüedad la técnica que mejor sirve
a James para crear en nosotros esa advertencia de lo moral, de lo que debe ser
y no esta siendo, de lo que debe suceder y no esta sucediendo. Esta ambigüedad
se sedimenta desde el comienzo con la continuada falta de comunicación entre
los personajes, una falta de comunicación que va desde la que existe entre Mrs.
Moreen y Pemberton desde el primer párrafo de la obra en relación con la
remuneración del tutor –y que se
sucederá a lo largo de muchos pasajes de la misma- hasta la que al final se
produce entre Morgan y Pemberton sobre
el delicado tema de sentimientos traicionados y que provoca la muerte del
chico.
Para crear esta ambigüedad y esta falta de
comunicación James se apoya en su técnica del punto de vista limitado. Vemos
todo a través de Pemberton, pero Pemberton no lo ve todo, no entiende
completamente a Morgan. Hay momentos en los que él se siente también engañado tanto por su
pupilo como por el resto de la familia Moreen:
“Dreadfully
ill – I don’t see it¡” the young man
cried. And then to Morgan “Why on earth
didn’t you relieve me? Why didn’t you
answer my letter?”
Pemberton ve la situación desde su prisma personal
teñido de sus propios egoísmos y conveniencias y no puede ser imparcial..
Aunque de sobra conoce los engaños de los que son capaces los padres de Morgan,
en un primer momento también sospecha del chico. Y es que nuestro
observador-narrador tampoco tiene conceptos muy claros acerca de la conciencia
moral de su pupilo y también está implicado en la historia, forma parte de ella
en tal medida que no se puede desligar y nos arrastra en su sentir la anécdota
como propia. Tan solo la catarsis final nos despegará de él brindándonos la
perspectiva y de alguna manera nos hará poner en orden todas esas incógnitas
surgidas a lo largo de la historia, todos esos retazos de moralidad ambigua que
habíamos ido percibiendo y que no terminábamos de valorar y de colocar en el
rompecabezas de la historia. Es esta última pieza la que de forma casi mágica
nos va a recolocar todo lo anterior y ofrecer la explicación final.
PARTE II
ANÁLISIS TEXTUAL DE THE PUPIL: AMBIGÜEDAD MORAL
Este análisis textual pretende resaltar los pasajes
que ilustren el tema que nos incumbe : la ambigüedad moral y al mismo tiempo
tocará temas relacionados que ayuden a esclarecer lo que intentamos demostrar.
La característica mas excepcional de todo el texto el la reiteración con que se
suceden circunstancias, situaciones y frases ambiguas y que por descontado
incluirán lo moral.
Capítulo I
Ya hemos comentado el comienzo de la historia en
cuyos dos primeros párrafos la falta de comunicación entre la Sra. Moreen y
Pemberton crea ambigüedad en cuanto a los honorarios que deberá percibir éste
último y, hasta por momentos, también
con respecto a la certeza de su eventual integración como tutor de
Morgan la cual, al igual que el propio Pemberton, el lector debe prácticamente
deducir :
At any rate
when Mrs. Moreen got up as to intimate that, since it was understood he would
enter upon his duties within the week she would let him off now, he succeeded
in spite of the child in squeezing out a phrase about the rate of payment. It
was not the fault of the conscious smile which seemed a reference to the lady’s
expensive identity, it was not the fault
of this demonstration, which had, in a sort, both vagueness and point, if the allusion didn’t
sound rather vulgar.
Todo en la conversación con Mrs. Moreen es ambiguo,
vago ‘had in a sort both vagueness and point’. James nos acostumbra a esta
vaguedad desde el principio y nos mete en un clima que será la tónica de toda
la obra y quenos llevará a aceptar de forma natural la vaguedad o ambigüedad
moral que tiñen las circunstancias. Es interesante recalcar que también en
estas primeras líneas se nos apunta el hecho que aunque Mrs. Moreen pertenezca
a ‘ as it were, to the aristocracy’ y tenga unas formas muy sofisticadas, a ratos puede
adoptar actitudes que suenan a los oídos de Pemberton
‘rather
vulgar’
o más tarde cuando Permberton cae en cuenta que
……As
for Mrs. Moreen Pemberton saw on a nearer view that her elegance was
intermittent and her parts didn’t always match.
El narrador omnisciente nos irá situando poco a poco
en la realidad y será nuestro único punto de apoyo para poder, al permitirnos
una perspectiva desde fuera de los ojos de Pemberton, utilizar elementos de
juicio claros a la hora de establecer cual deberá ser el patrón moral al cual
el autor apunta al final de la obra.
En el Preface James nos define a la familia
Moreen como ‘a wonderful American family, an odd, adventurous, extravagant
band’. Esta imagen se irá conformando a lo largo de la obra. Las primeras
palabras de Morgan – que muchas veces llevarán al lector y a Pemberton a la
confusión – refiriéndose a la situación financiera de su familia nos la pintan
como acomodada:
“We don’t mind what anything costs – we live
awfully well.”
Toda la personalidad de Morgan – al contrario de
otros personaje-niño como puede ser Maisie – parece hasta cierto punto
contaminada por su procedencia de esta familia de aventureros. Morgan es una
víctima de su familia pero pertenece a ella y no puede ser totalmente inmune a
su condición. A lo largo de la obra pues le oiremos pronunciar palabras o tener
actitudes que llevarán a Pemberton a malinterpretar la realidad. En relación a
su situación financiera pronto sabremos que Morgan, aún siendo joven, se da
perfecta cuenta de la hipocresía que
reina en su hogar.
Sucesivamente el lector y Pemberton irán dándose cuenta como la familia desciende en esa escala tanto socio-económica como moral hasta que, casi el final- se constata la terrible situación en la que ha caído la familia que ha sido puesta en la calle:
The host
and his staff, in a word, had ceased to “go on” at the pace of their guests,
and the air of embarrassed detention,
thanks to a pile of trunks in the passage, was strangely commingled with the
air of indignant withdrawal.
En lo moral lo que primero conocemos de la familia a
través de Pemberton son sus inmejorables intenciones para con su hijo Morgan
the amiable
American family looking out for something really superior in the way of a
resident tutor
así como exquisitos rasgos de la personalidad de
Mrs. Moreen
‘the
large affable lady’
o más adelante
‘the
lady’s expensive identity’
y que irá degenerando hasta la formulación por parte
de Morgan de la pregunta
Why should
his people have liked the line of pushing and toadying and lying and
cheating?”…..”And never a wince for dignity, never a throb of shame at looking
each other in the face
Dentro de esta tónica cada vez más degradante de la
moralidad de los Moreen recorreremos también la senda tortuosa de la ambigüedad
moral.
En su primer encuentro con Pemberton, Mr. Moreen le
explica que
He aspired
to be intimate with his children, to be their best friend, and that he was
always looking out for them. That was what he went off for, to London and other
places- to look out for; and this vigilance was the theory of life, as well as
the real occupation, of the whole family.
El man of the world como James reiteradamente
califica a Mr. Moreen nos regala uno de los pasajes de mayor ambigüedad moral
de la obra. Dice querer ser el mejor
amigo de sus hijos pero no lo veremos hablando con Morgan nunca. Está siempre
lejos para paradójicamente poder cuidar mejor de ellos. Y aún, más curioso, sus
palabras serán lo más cerca que lleguemos a estar de una definición por parte
de un miembro de la familia de cual es su ocupación real a la vez que un
ejemplo excelso de ambigüedad : la vigilancia de un hijo al que idolatran como
es el caso de Morgan, y que abandonan a la responsabilidad de un extraño que a
su vez tampoco tendrá claro su grado de responsabilidad para con el chico como
quedará explicito al final de la obra.
Capítulo II
En el capítulo II
James nos cuenta las impresiones de Pemberton y los sentimientos que le
provocó la familia aunque visto desde un distanciamiento en el tiempo:
Today after
a considerable interval, there is something phantasmagoria, like a prismatic
reflexion or a serial novel, in Pemberton’s memory of the queerness of the
Moreens…….Their supreme quaintness was their success – as it appeared to him
for a while at the time; since he had never seen a family so brilliantly
equipped for failure. Wasn’t it success to have kept him so hatefully long?
En la memoria de Pemberton los Moreens ocupan un lugar
poco delimitado moralmente. Lo ambiguo del lenguaje es obvio, sin embargo nos
choca aún más su significado. La familia había triunfado en mantenerlo con
ellos ‘so hatefully long’. Una familia abocada al fracaso cuyo éxito
consiste en obligarlo a aceptar una responsabilidad que no es suya. Lo extraño
de su cualidad es la clave de su éxito…el hecho de que Pemberton los
calificara mentalmente como abocados al fracaso lo induce a permanecer con
ellos…. nos preguntamos por qué? Todas estas incógnitas no tienen otro
significado que nuestra ‘moral awareness’. Este abonar el territorio por
parte de James hará que, cuando el brote reviente, la verdad acabe por
imponerse.
Por otro lado James nos sugiere que Pemberton no está preparado para entender las
reglas del juego de los Moreen
He was still young and had not seen much of the world – his English
years had been properly arid; therefore the reversed conventions of the Moreens
–for they had their desperate proprieties – struck him as topsy-turvy.
Debemos pues deducir que debido a que las convenciones de
los Moreen son retorcidas o que Pemberton no posee el conocimiento del mundo
suficiente como para entenderlas …. Una vez más James nos hunde en la
ambigüedad. Poco después nos sigue confundiendo en ese universo desdibujado
He had thought himself very sharp that first day in hitting them all off
in his mind with the “cosmopolite” label. Later it seemed feeble and colourless
– confessedly helplessly provisional.
He
yet when he first applied it felt a glow of joy – for an instructor he was
still empirical – rise from the apprehension that living with them would really
he to see life.
Por momentos Pemberton es un personaje engañado e
inexperto, luego inmediatamente pasa a
poder enjuiciar a la familia desde un punto de vista distanciado y con la
perspectiva necesaria para valorar sus graves carencias – al tiempo que nos
indica el gozo que le produce sentir que por fin vivirá la vida si permanece
con la familia. Es evidente que no solo las convenciones de los Moreen son topsy-turvy,
sino también las suyas y como lectores corremos el riesgo de contaminarnos con
la misma facilidad que lo hace nuestro narrador-observador-personaje central.
Al enumerarnos los sentimientos que los padres sienten por
el niño – aunque mas tarde lo abandonen a la suerte de su tutor – el
narrador-observador-personaje Pemberton
vuelve a las andadas en su
ambivalencia de sentimientos
It was a genuine tenderness, an artless admiration, equally strong in
each. They even praised his beauty, which was small…….Pemberton feared at first
an extravagance that might make him hate the boy, but before this happened he
had become extravagant himself. Later, when he had grown rather to hate the
others, it was a bribe to patience for him that they were at any rate nice
about Morgan.
Pemberton se sucede en odios y amores para con su pupilo y
para con la familia y no parece esclarecer sus sentimientos ni establecer el
patrón moral con el que medir a esta banda de gitanos o a sí mismo. Poco a poco
empezará a vislumbrarse la tragedia que acontecerá al niño – poco a poco estos
amores por parte de la familia empezarán
a convertirse en formas disfrazadas de desentenderse del chico de
desembarazarse de él que – como ya vamos adivinando – contaminarán
inexorablemente la relación pupilo-tutor que no se verá libre del contagio del
mal.
It was strange to reconcile the appearance, and indeed the essential
fact, of adoring the child with their eagerness and to wash their hands of him.
Did they want to get rid of him before he found them out? Pemberton was finding
them out month by month.
Pemberton – se nos indica- ha comenzado a darse cuenta de
la situación anómala que se da en el seno de los Moreen. Esta observación del
narrador omnisciente la compartirá el lector poco a poco y lo llevará mas
adelante a extrañarse al encontrar actitudes similares en el mentor. Pemberton
también estará tentado de librarse de Morgan.
Capítulo III
A partir del Capítulo III se sucederán diálogos con Morgan
y con su madre que nos adentrarán en este característico universo de ambigüedad
moral
Do you like it, you know –being with us in this intimate way?
My dear fellow why should I stay if
I didn’t?
How do I know you’ll stay? I’m almost sure you won’t very long.
“I hope you don’t mean to dismiss me”, said Pemberton.
Morgan debated, looking at the sunset. “I think if I did right I ought
to.”
“Well, I know I’m supposed to instruct you in virtue; but in that case
don’t do right.”
Este tipo de diálogo ingenioso será corriente entre pupilo
y mentor y no deja de estar dentro de la tónica predominante en la obra de no
decir las cosas por su nombre, de imprimir a todas las situaciones este aire de
indefinición y ambigüedad. Aquí – aún cuando con ironía – Pemberton sugiere que
en situaciones especiales tal vez sea mejor no ‘do right’.
Inmediamente a continuación Morgan pregunta
“Do you like my father and my mother very much?”
“Dear me, yes. They’re charming people”
They received this with another silence; then unexpectedly, familiarly,
but at the same time affectionately, he remarked : “You’re a jolly old humbug”
Aquí Pemberton es pillado por su pupilo (y por el lector
pues ya sabe desde el capítulo anterior que los tiene catalogados y que los
llegará a odiar) en un desliz moral – literalmente mintiendo- pues había
quedado claro que Pemberton desaprobaba la tendencia de los padres de
desentenderse del chico.
El narrador-observador-personaje termina reconociendo que
esta situación marcará un punto de inflexión en la relación pupilo-tutor
It produced for Pemberton an embarrassment; it raised in a shadowy form
a question – this was the first glimpse of it – destined to play a singular
and, as he imagined, owing to the altogether peculiar conditions, an
unprecedented part in his intercourse with his little companion.
Una vez más toda elección del lenguaje es conducente a lo
vago y ambiguo, apuntando preguntas borrosas, primera miradas, condiciones
peculiares, papeles sin precedentes a jugar por parte de los actores que
marcarán su relación.
Lo más ambiguo moralmente es que Pemberton de seguida se
justifica diciéndose a sí mismo que todo este proceder suyo surge tan solo de
su necesidad de inducir en Morgan la idea de que no debe faltarle el respeto a
sus padres – sensación por otro lado que el lector- al igual que Morgan- no
extrajo de sus palabras.
What had added to the clumsiness then was that he thought it his duty to
declare to Morgan that he might abuse him, Pemberton, as much as he liked, but
must never abuse his parents.
Como vemos esta solución tampoco nos saca del camino
fangoso de la indefinición moral. Siempre volveremos a lo largo de lo que resta
de conversación a este tipo de situación moralmente ambigua.
Capítulo IV
En este capítulo habiendo pasado otro año más en la relación del tutor y su pupilo y caído en
desgracia económica la familia, todos malviven en Paris, lo que no impide que
Pemberton y Morgan disfruten de Notre Dame o Les Invalides.
En uno de estos memorables párrafos se nos explica, a
través de la mirada de Pemberton, la lógica de Mrs. Moreen
Morgan was dear to his mother, but he never was better dressed than was
absolutely necessary – …….Mrs. Moreen shrewdly forebore to renew his garments.
She did nothing that didn’t show, neglected him because he escaped notice, and
then, as he illustrated this clever policy, discouraged at home his public
appearances. Her position was logical enough – those members of her family who
did show had to be showy.
Este pasaje nos indica como Morgan y Pemberton están
siendo desplazado de la vida social de la familia y por lo tanto no serán
acreedores a un buen vestir a la vez que va dejando cada vez mas clara la poca
estatura moral de Mrs. Moreen.
En este capítulo surgirá la primera exigencia del pago del
dinero que le deben por parte de Pemberton- y que lo irá aproximando a ese
estatus cuasi-carencial en lo moral a la vez que lo irá apartando de el
estoicismo altruista de estar con Morgan por que lo considere su obligación
moral – y por parte de Mrs Moreen el
primer uso de la estrategia de dar vuelta las circunstancias para mostrar que
Pemberton en realidad no merece ser pagado pues está disfrutando de la
presencia de su pupilo y de la generosidad de sus padres al mantenerlo con
ellos.
…she thought all the while they were getting on so beautifully.
Pemberton’s reply to this revelation was that unless they immediately put down
something on account he would leave them
on the spot and for ever.
…….
“You won’t, you know you won’t – you’re too interested.” She laughed
with almost condemnatory archness, as if it were a reproach –
Debemos inferir que a los ojos de Mrs. Moreen la posición
de Pemberton no solo no es extremadamente generosa al seguir con ellos sin
haber cobrado prácticamente nada, sino que es interesada. Esta declaración de Mrs. Moreen y las
reflexiones que al respecto le merecerán a Pemberton lo llevan a concluir que
He had simply given himself away to a band of adventurers….it pointed
out a moral, and Pemberton could enjoy a moral. The Moreens were adventurers
not merely because they didn´t pay their debts, because they lived on society,
but because their whole view of life, dim and confused and instinctive, like
that of clever colour-blind animals, was speculative and rapacious and mean.
Es ésta una reflexión final y definitiva – una definición
clara al fin – de la familia Moreen por
parte de Pemberton. Están lejos de ser
humanos, se les compara con animales daltónicos, con bestias rapaces, pero
también poseen aquellas cualidades que por terribles solo pueden pertenecer a
los hombres : son especulativos y egoístas. Queda claro pues quienes son y que
Morgan había esbozado ya estas cualidades en su lamentable familia – es más con
su típico presagiar James nos adelanta :
When this truth became vivid to their ingenious inmate he remained
unconscious of how much his mind had been prepared for it by the extraordinary
little boy who had now become such a complication in his life. Much less could
he then calculate on the information he was still to owe the extraordinary
little boy.
Morgan es más inteligente que Pemberton- lo prepara para
entender, le advierte de ciertas cosas –
o tal vez suceda que el chico no deja de formar parte de esta familia de
aventureros y por la misma razón está jugando con su tutor dejándole saber
algunas cosas ahora, y otras después. Revelándole como lo hará en el capítulo
VI que una niñera que había tenido de pequeño había pasado por el mismo trance
que Pemberton- cosa que aún no se atreve a contarle. Sin embargo se nos dice que Pemberton
permanece inconsciente de este ‘teje y maneje’ de los Moreen.
¿Como lectores debemos pues inferir que la inocencia de
Pemberton le quitará parte de su responsabilidad final en la muerte del chico?
Es de señalar otro punto importante que se nos adelanta :
el chico a empezado a ser una complicación en la vida de su tutor. Empezamos a
contemplar junto con Pemberton la necesidad imperiosa de alejarse de este
ambiente opresor y de empezar a vivir su vida que aún es joven y que de alguna
manera se concretará cuando Pemberton se vaya a trabajar a Londres.
Capítulo V
Es éste un capítulo revelador de la personalidad no solo
de los Moreen sino también de Pemberton, que como hemos señalado empezará a
contaminarse de sus formas, y hasta contemplará la posibilidad de descubrirle a
Morgan las malas artes de su familia e irse abandonándolos a su suerte.
Comienza el capítulo cuestionando Pemberton la idoneidad
de tocar con su pupilo un tema tan filoso como el de su situación en la
familia.
But it was during the ensuing time that the real problem came up – the
problem of how far it was excusable to discuss the turpitude of parents with a
child of twelve, of thirteen, of fourteen.
Absolutely inexcusable and quite impossible it of course at first
appeared; and indeed the question didn’t press for some time after Pemberton
had received his three hundred francs.
Empieza a tomar forma en la mente del lector que el tema
de dinero es importante – de hecho lo ha sido siempre desde el comienzo del
primer capitulo – aunque la exquisita relación entre pupilo y tutor muchas
veces lo soslaye. Pemberton duda en confesarle a Morgan en que condiciones está
como su tutor pero lo posterga pues recibe algo de dinero. Moralmente todo este
planteamiento no satisface al lector pues quisiera que Pemberton no tuviera
estos sentimientos tan mundanos, quisiera que su relación con el pobre Morgan
no estuviera contaminada por algo tan prosaico. Mas adelante Pemberton se
alegra de que la familia esté alquilando unos aposentos muy precarios pues en
caso contrario habría aún menos dinero para él.
…the rooms they wanted, were generally very splendid; but fortunately
they never COULD get them – fortunately, I mean, for Pemberton, who reflected
always that if they had got them there would have been a still scantier
educational fund.
Aquí James – o el narrador omnisciente – nos guía en nuestra valoración de Pemberton
al adentrarnos desde una perspectiva externa en su mente.
Aún una segunda vez Pemberton atacará en pos de su dinero
a los Moreen
He cornered Mr. and Mrs. Moreen again and let them know that if on the
spot they didn’t pay him all they owed him he wouldn’t only leave their house
but would tell Morgan exactly what had brought him to it.
Como vemos, Pemberton se decide por lo que antes consideró
impropio, exigir su dinero y en caso de no obtenerlo irse, explicándole a
Morgan toda la verdad. Nuestro tutor sigue descendiendo moralmente – aún cuando
se nos empuja a entenderlo y a justificar su comportamiento. De aquí la ambigüedad
moral que tanto comentamos y que se mantiene durante toda la obra hasta el
mismo final.
Como respuesta Mrs. Moreen le traerá otros cincuenta
francos y surgirá entre ellos una conversación muy reveladora
What Mrs.
Moreen’s ardour now bore upon was the design of persuading him that in the
first place she was very good-natured to bring him fifty franc, and that in the
second, if he could only see it, he was really too absurd to expect to be
paid………….Wasn’t he paid above all by the sweet relation he had established with
Morgan –
El desarrollo de la conversación llevará al maestro a
aceptar la propuesta de Mrs. Moreen – aún cuando él lo considere una forma
chantaje – de que siga con ellos bajo la forma de prestación gratuita de
servicios a cambio del privilegio de poder seguir disfrutando de la compañía
del muchacho.
Es curioso como la actitud de Mrs. Moreen y su
planteamiento a todo juicio absurdo es aceptado prácticamente en el acto por
Pemberton – quedando lejos sus pretensiones de remuneración aun cuando no así
su intención de contar a Morgan su verdadera situación.
“That leaves me more free” said Pemberton
“To poison my darling’s mind” groaned Mrs. Moreen
“Oh your darling’s mind- ¡” the young man laughed.
………….
“You may tell him
any horror you like¡”
Con esta conversación se sucede la condición de víctima y
verdugo, de chantajista y chantajeado de uno a otro y, por supuesto, James
logra una vez más que reine la ambigüedad moral en todo el pasaje.
Capítulo VI
En este capítulo – después de algunas dudas – pupilo y
maestro se sincerarán. Morgan le confesará que conoce la verdadera situación de
Pemberton pues no es la primera vez que tal situación se da en su entorno.
Zenobie, su niñera, había pasado por el mismo trance.
“They thought she’d stay for nothing” ….”She did stay very long, as
long as she could.”…..”She told me it was their idea. So I guessed, ever so
long ago, that they have had the same idea with you.”
Si todo este pasaje goza de ambigüedad en lo relativo a la
moral – por parte de uno y otro – más sorprendido nos dejará el siguiente en el
cual la relación inicial entre pupilo y maestro que podíamos representar por
DINERO POR MORGAN
ahora se convertirá en
DINERO PARA MORGAN
“We ought to go off and live somewhere together,” the young man said.
“I’ll go like a shot if you’ll take me.”
“I’d get some work that would keep us both afloat,” Pemberton continued.
La conversación derivará en el enjuiciamiento por parte
del chico de sus padres:
“They leave me with you altogether. You’ve all the responsibility”
y en la mentira –piadosa o no – una vez más de Pemberton:
“Except for the little matter we
speak of they’re charming people,” said
Pemberton.
El lector se pierde en esta vorágine de entrega por parte
de tutor hacia su pupilo, de búsqueda de lo que es justo para ambos, de
adivinar cual será la reacción de cada uno de ellos, y por sobre todas las
cosas, de lo que como lector, como persona imparcial, debe considerar justo.
Inmediatamente Pemberton constata para sí que Morgan
carece de la bajeza de sus padres y se pregunta como lo había hecho antes – en
el capítulo II cuando reflexiona
sobre ‘the far jumps of heredity’ – por
la razón que hace que Morgan no posea las terribles cualidades de sus
progenitores.
…a temper, a sensibility, even a private ideal, which made him as
privately disown the stuff his people were made of.
Estas reflexiones nos acercan a Morgan y una vez más nos
aseguran, por si antes había habido dudas, que es un muchacho intachable. Este
revelador capítulo también nos llevará a la idea clara que tiene Morgan de su
familia, aunque al igual que el lector no lo conoce absolutamente todo.
“I don’t know what they live on, or how they live, or WHY they live¡
What have they got and how did they get it ?…What the dickens they want to pass
for?
Pero sí sabe que, sea cual fuere el motivo que los guia,
la suya es una vida de hipocresía. Finalmente Morgan se pregunta y le pregunta
a Pemberton por qué permanece con ellos …y se contesta que Pemberton debe tener
su propia ‘idea’
“Oh you’ve got your idea”
“My idea?”
“Why that I probably shan’t make old –make older – bones, and that you
can stick it out till I’m removed.”
Este juego en el que el engañado pasa a ser el que engaña
y vice-versa , acabará por poner entre maestro y pupilo las cosas en claro
“Ah now that we look at the facts it’s all right”
Capítulo
VII
En la misma tónica el Capítulo VII nos narra como
Pemberton consigue un nuevo trabajo y – en principio bajo un acuerdo tácito de
labrarse un porvenir para Morgan– abandona a los Moreen.
El lector se preguntará, sin embargo, hasta qué punto esto
será cierto y hasta qué punto no estará – haciendo uso de todo su derecho –
escapando a la terrible situación.
Capítulo VIII
Es este un capítulo clave – el del desenlace final – en el
cual se plantean dudas que hasta cierto punto el lector solo se podrá contestar
si hurga en su fuero íntimo y reconoce un patrón moral.
Pemberton está felizmente trabajando para una familia en
Londres y recibe carta de Mrs. Moreen rogándole que vuelva pues Morgan está muy
mal. Lo que primero se le ocurre al lector es que es mentira, es decir otra
estrategema de Mrs. Moreen. Sin embargo, Pemberton no parece ponerlo en duda,
aunque más tarde sabremos que intentó cerciorarse de ello mediante cartas a
Morgan que éste no contestó. Cuando
abandona todo y llega a Paris se encuentra a un Morgan exultante y se indigna
“Dreadfully ill – I don’t see it¡ “ the young man cried. And then to
Morgan: “Why on earth didn’t you relieve me? Why didn’t you answer my letter?”
Lo ambiguo en todo este capítulo empezará por plantearse
al preguntarse el lector por qué Pemberton no sospecha que todo puede ser una
farsa de Mrs. Moreen. ¿No ha actuado ella siempre con engaños? Vemos como acusa
a Morgan y que éste le asegura que contestó todas sus cartas y por ende no debe
de haber recibido la que se refería a su enfermedad – lo que nos congracia con
el chico. Por otro lado, también podemos sospechar que Morgan – tan listo e
informado de los trapicheos de sus padres – supo de ello y prefirió que
Pemberton volviera a sacarlo de engaños. Las
dudas están ahí sin resolver, y es que el autor nos ha
llevado de la mano hasta este grado de ambigüedad que nos deja inermes en un
universo de incógnitas.
Mrs. Moreen se defenderá de las acusaciones de falsedad y
surgirá la posibilidad de que tutor y pupilo se vayan a vivir solos – aunque
ahora Pemberton haya perdido su trabajo.
Mrs. Moreen les asegura, sin embargo,
que su marido no lo permitirá. Finalmente Mrs. Moreen plantea dejarse de
experimentos tontos y que todo siga como antes de la partida de Pemberton.
..and we won’t have any more silly experiments, will we? They’re too
absurd. It’s Mr. Pemberton’s place – every one in his place. Your in yours,
your papa in his, me in mine – n’est-ce pas cheri? We’ll all forget how foolish
we’ve been and have lovely times..”
Pemberton, a su pesar,
no lo tiene tan claro
..the suggested amendment didn’t keep his heart rather from sinking, any more than it prevented
him from accepting the prospect on the spot.
Y Mrs. Moreen a todo esto comienza a adelantar que pueden
haber cambios en la familia.
Mrs. Moreen threw out more hints about the changes that were to be
looked for..
Pemberton se hospedará en una habitación aparte, y se nos
explica que esto agrada a Morgan pues favorecerá el momento de la escapada,
como si de un libro de aventuras para niños se tratara, con Pemberton. Pero hay
algo en el aire que aún no podemos – al igual que Morgan – aclarar. El foreshadowing
sigue funcionando y nos prepara a nosotros y a Morgan para lo que vendrá-
….their long probation was drawing to a close. Morgan’s conviction
that the Moreen’s couldn’t go on much longer kept pace with the unexpected
impetus with which, from month to month, they did go on.
Sin embargo la situación no tardará mucho en tocar fondo.
Unos meses después del regreso de Pemberton y luego de un paseo habitual con
Morgan, al regresar al hotel, pupilo y maestro se encuentran una escena
lamentable donde queda evidente que han sido echados por sus caseros. Este
hecho afecta terriblemente a Morgan
When Morgan took all this in – and he took it very quickly – he coloured
to the roots of his hair. He had walked from his infancy among difficulties and
dangers, but he had never seen a public exposure….the tears had rushed into his
eyes and that they were tears of a new and untested bitterness.
Parece que el agravio público afecta más a Morgan que el
que desde siempre había sufrido en silencio – nos preguntamos por qué? Pero los
acontecimientos se suceden rápidamente y veremos
…how the great change had come, the dreadful bolt had fallen, and how they will all have to turn themselves
about.
Palabras claves que anticipan y nos preparan para lo peor.
Cada uno de los personajes tendrán que por fin definirse, también Morgan y
Pemberton, y todo ello tendrá sus efectos irreversibles. Los Moreen explican –
según sus convenciones invertidas – que
ya que Pemberton había hecho del chico algo tan suyo, lo deberá proteger bajo
su responsabilidad ahora que ellos necesitan más tiempo y libertad para
dedicarse a sus asuntos largamente descuidados. Entonces Morgan comprende
Morgan had turned away from his father – he stood looking at Pemberton
with a light in his face. His sense of shame for their common humiliated state
had dropped; the case had another side – the thing was to clutch at THAT. He
had a moment of boyish joy,….the turn taken was away form a GOOD boy’s book –
the “escape” was left on their hands.
El giro finalmente fue dado y somos testigos de la reacción de Morgan que pasa de las
lágrimas al sentirse abandonado por la familia hasta la felicidad ante la
perspectiva de una vida nueva con su apreciado maestro. No habrá, sin embargo,
mucha tregua para la alegría pues inmediatamente James pone a prueba la
sagacidad del lector ante la reacción de Pemberton, que deberá ser
observada con mucho detenimiento si no
queremos perder su profundo alcance.
The boyish joy was there an instant, and Pemberton was almost scared at
the rush of gratitude and affection that broke through his first abasement.
When he stammered “My dear fellow, what do you say to THAT?” …but there was
more need for courage at something else that immediately followed and that made
the lad sit down quietly on the nearest chair. He had turned quite livid and
had raised his hand to his left side.
Si el lector no está muy atento fallará en advertir esa
otra cosa que sucede y para la que tendrá que existir coraje . Y ello no es
otra cosa que la vacilación de Pemberton que siente miedo y por un momento lo
deja traslucir. El chico de extrema sensibilidad y conocedor de los
intersticios psicológicos de su mentor, acusa el golpe y ello acabará con su
vida.
“He couldn’t stand it with his weak organ” said Pemberton – “the shock, the whole scene, the violent emotion.”
“But I thought he wanted to go to you” , wailed Mrs. Moreen.
“I told you he didn’t, my dear,” her husband made answer.
Todos reaccionarán
desentendiéndose y echándose mutuamente la culpa, pero Morgan , el inocente, no
vivirá para comprenderlos.
Es este último acto catártico el que produce en el lector
la revelación final, la pieza que encaja y que hace que el rompe-cabeza
cobre sentido. Lo moral debe
establecerse de forma clara, no podrá existir vacilación alguna si queremos
preservar la inocencia.
PARTE III
EL MÉTODO
ESCÉNICO Y SU ETAPA DE NIÑOS INOCENTES
1 El Método escénico
En 1890, año en que escribió The Pupil, James obtuvo el encargo de escenificar The
American (1877) con el cual obtuvo cierto éxito- lo que no le vino mal pues sus
últimas novelas The Princess Casamassima (1886) y The Tragic Muse (1890) no
había obtenido una respuesta muy esperanzadora.. James estaba preocupada de que
a este paso no podría vivir de su literatura y creyó ver en el teatro una
oportunidad de asegurar lo que él llamó ‘real freedom for one’s general
artistic life’[3]
Así fue que escribió tres comedias en los años siguientes,
aunque no encontró productor para escenificarlas. Finalmente descansó todas sus
esperanza en Guy Domville, un drama de costumbres ambientado en la Inglaterra
del siglo dieciocho y que trata de un joven católico que se debate entre su
vocación religiosa y la obligación, ante la muerte de su hermano, de casarse y
continuar el apellido familiar. James había puesto todas sus esperanzas en la
obra y fue abucheado personalmente al salir al escenario al final de la obra.
Todavía resonaban en sus oídos los aplausos de la obra de Wilde que acababa de
ver : An Ideal Husband, y este fracaso personal lo hizo abandonar para siempre
su vocación como dramaturgo.
Sin embargo dos conexiones con el tema que nos atañe
podemos extraer de esta malograda experiencia : la influencia que el método
escénico tuvo en su obra y la inclinación en la etapa inmediatamente posterior
de escribir sobre niños y jóvenes.
1.1 La influencia del método escénico
Ya en The Pupil vemos la estructura del método escénico
pues, aún cuando fue anterior a su fracaso como dramaturgo, ya estaba adaptando
The American. La historia se desarrolla en una serie de escenas o encuentros
dramáticos entre los personajes principales y cuyos diálogos albergan el motivo
que es relevante para EL argumento. Son diálogos cargados de vaguedad o
ambigüedad y que requieren del lector mucho afán de interpretación, pues están
siempre vistos desde la conciencia del personaje central – ‘central intelligence’ o ‘sentient
center’ como a veces se le llamó- y por
lo tanto, cada escena de la novela será reveladora de algún aspecto nuevo del
personaje del cual el lector0 deberá distanciarse si quiere valorarlo e
interpretarlo correctamente. Todas estas
características, las observamos en The Pupil y las hemos señalado en nuestro
análisis en la Parte II de este trabajo.
Muchas de estas escenas también poseen la cualidad, por
así decirlo, del tiempo real, al igual que en el teatro naturalista. Un ejemplo
de ello en The Pupil es todo el capítulo I – el primer encuentro de Pemberton
con Mrs. Moreen y Morgan – y que perfectamente podría ser la Escena I de una
obra de teatro.
Este método, en su época, representó todo un cambio, pues
James se inclinó más por ‘mostrar’ que por ‘contar’ . Es decir, en lugar de las
extensivas explicaciones y descripciones por parte del autor que eran tan
comunes en la literatura del siglo diecinueve James aparece poco en sus obras y
solo nos llegan las impresiones del personaje central. Como consecuencia
directa de ello, el esfuerzo interpretativo que se le requiere al lector es
equivalente al esfuerzo que experimente el personaje central de la obra.
James creyó lograr así una mayor intensidad y efecto en
sus obras que pretendió lo alejaran de los que llamó ‘loose baggy monsters’ de la ficción clásica
de la época. Así lo confesó en su Notebook
alrededor de 1897:
‘When I ask myself what there may have been so show for my long
tribulation, my wasted years and
patiences and pangs, of theatrical experience, the answer comes up as just
possibly this : what I have gathered from it will perhaps have been exactly
some such mastery of fundmental statement – of the art and secret of it, of
expresión, of the sacred mystery of structure.’[4]
2. La Etapa de
Niños Inocentes
Debido a este método subjetivo de representar la
experiencia la obra de James se presta a un análisis psicoanalítico. Leon Edel
, biógrafo de James, supo ver varias interpretaciones psicoanalíticas de su
obra. Una que nos puede interesar en este estudio es la simetría que creyó
entrever entre este momento tan angustioso de su carrera literaria – su fracaso
teatral – y su interés por la niñez – pintándonos en varias de sus obras la
exposición inerme de la inocencia frente a lo decadente y perdido del mundo
adulto.
Leon Edel creyó ver mucho de James en Maisie,
Maisie’s bewilderment and isolation is James`s ….but the world’s cruelty
and hostility are recreated into a comic vision of benign childish curiosity.
What Maisie Knew es por sobretodo la historia de una niña
inocente y generosa cuyos padres toman como campo de batalla en el discurrir de
su divorcio y que llega a aceptarlo todo, permaneciendo como espectadora de
unas vidas casi ajenas, hasta que al final deberá elegir sus futuro y tal vez
en esta última decisión perderá su inocencia, morirá el niño que lleva dentro,
teniendo que actuar como una mujer.
Sir Claude – uno de los personajes- de la novela –dice
hacia el final de la obra:
“One would think you were about sixty…”
Maisie contrastará en su inocencia con el comportamiento
abominablemente amoral de sus padres, pero en el proceso de maduración perderá esa
condición angelical que la caracteriza durante casi toda la obra.
También Miles , el pequeño de The Turn of the Screw, sufrirá
las consecuencias de los defectos de los adultos. Tanto su padre que lo
abandona a manos de unos criados cuando menos ignorantes o, como en el caso de
Quint decididamente malignos. Se ha escrito mucho sobre la institutriz de Miles
y Flora y parece prevalecer la idea de que era una persona desequilibrada que
imagina – debido a sus neurosis – los fantasmas. Ello no quita intensidad a
nuestra teoría de que lo que James nos está advirtiendo es que debemos seguir
patrones morales muy serios, por sobre todas las circunstancias cuando los
inocentes están por medio. La corrupción puede venir en forma consciente o
inconsciente – ello no afectará el resultado final.
En The Awkward Age las dos vírgenes ansiosas
sufrirán las vicisitudes interpuestas por los adultos y en In the Cage
la heroína terminará derrotada por las circunstancias de una sociedad corrupta
teniendo que resignarse a una vida por debajo de sus expectativas.
Esta fórmula ‘corrupción-inocencia’, a veces
‘moralidad-inmoralidad’ otras ‘lo que esta bien hecho-lo que está mal hecho’
que aparece tan interrelacionada por vínculos extremadamente delicados dará
lugar a circunstancias de ambigüedad moral. Y es que en la vida, como en la
literatura de James, es la perspectiva desde la cual cada personaje observa y
actúa lo que prevalece. Ello nos adentra en un mundo de incertidumbres donde
nada es blanco o negro. Donde debemos suspender los juicios hasta haber primero
interpretado en cada caso cual debe ser el patrón moral a seguir. James intenta
al menos llamar nuestra atención sobre tan filoso tema, que en sus propias
palabras es
‘the close
conexión of bliss and bale, of the things that help with the things that hurt,
so dangling before us for ever that bright hard medal, of so strange an alloy,
one face of which is somebody’s right and ease and the other somebody’s pain
and wrong’.[5]
Todos los personajes infantiles o jóvenes de James
se caracterizan por poseer una sensibilidad extrema – como en el caso de Morgan
– la misma ‘extreme sensibility’ que James
atribuye a los escritores en su ensayo The Art of Fiction.
Todos estos niños inocentes – de extrema
sensibilidad – parecen para Leon Edel identificarse con el propio James maltratado
ya no por el mundo adulto pero si por la sociedad – auditorio que no lo sabe
interpretar.
Sea como sea, esta relación inocente-corruptor
servirá maravillosamente a James para plasmar en su literatura esta visón moral
tan suya y sin la cual consideraba que la literatura no tenía razón de ser.
PARTE IV
RELACIÓN ENTRE DINERO Y AMBIGÜEDAD MORAL EN LAS OBRAS
DE JAMES.
The Pupil, es, entre muchas otras cosas, acerca de
dinero. El dinero es un tema, que aunque no aparece en primer plano, si subyace
a lo largo de toda la obra. Los Moreen viven sin dinero, pero Morgan hace
cábalas acerca del tema y Pemberton sufre por él. Es decir, está ahí,
subyacente.
En las primeras líneas del relato nos aparece el
caballeroso tutor de Morgan al cual vemos ansioso pues necesita el puesto de
trabajo para vivir. Ha estudiado en Yale y luego en Oxford y sus arcas están
vacías :
..when as yet one’s university honours had, pecuniarily speaking
remained barren.
Sin embargo no considera decoroso tocar el tema de su
retribución directamente.
The poor man hesitated and procrastinated: it cost him such an effort to
broach the subject of terms.
Es que Pemperton está criado y educado con el código de la
época, que justamente James está analizando y al que aplica su crítica. La
gente refinada del final del siglo diecinueve no debían hablar de dinero y el
hecho de no hablar de ello daba por supuesto que el tema no era importante pues
el dinero afluía a las cuentas bancarias de forma constante y un tanto
enigmática. James sin embargo nos dice :
…..he would have liked to hear
(la cifra de su
retribución)
La señora Moreen es reacia a tocar el tema del dinero pero
el lector comienza a darse cuenta que este rechazo no se debe a su refinado
desagrado en tratar temas tan mundanos sino que es una estratagema de evasión.
James nos pinta a las Sra. Moreen como la dama
…who sat there drawing a pair of soiled gants de Suede
through a fat jewelled hand and, at once
pressing and gliding, repeated over everything but the he would have liked to
hear
Con esta imagen James nos está diciendo que la Sra. Moreen
no es sincera en cuanto a su pertenencia a la alta sociedad. Sus guantes aunque
se nombren en francés están manchados y muy faltos de chic aristocrático.
El narrador de James, que continuamente entrará en la
mente de Pemberton y que por momentos es él, verá a la familia como una banda
de gitanos. Ni siquiera Morgan, que es el observador más cercano que tiene la
familia puede entender de donde sale el dinero que apenas se menciona :
I don´t know what they live on, or why the live¡
La pregunta no la puede contestar nadie, el misterio de
donde sale el dinero es impenetrable. A lo largo de la obra la Sra. Moreen y
Pemberton tendrán algunos encuentros donde el tema del dinero saldrá a relucir
y estas veces ya ambos habrán olvidado que no es elegante mencionarlo.
Cuando ya es obvio entre Morgan y Pemberton que el tutor
ha sido engañado por sus empleadores y no está siendo retribuido por sus
servicios, Pemberton le llega a decir a Morgan un tanto descuidadamente
We ought to go off an live somewhere together..
Cuando se decide a coger otro trabajo comenta
..I’ll make a tremendous charge : I’ll make a lot of money in a short
time, and we’ll live on it
Aquí una vez más el dinero aparece. Antes pretendía ganar
dinero cuidando a Morgan, ahora pretende ganar dinero para mantener a Morgan.
El drama se desencadenará cuando debido a que abandona a
su nuevo pupilo para volver junto a Morgan alarmado por la falsa enfermedad, ya
no poseerá dinero para mantenerse él ni a su pupilo.
Paradójicamente aunque James es criticado por el
alejamiento de sus personajes de lo material, The Pupil nos muestra como
claramente esto no es así, es más, no es la única obra donde subyace el interés
material de los personajes. En The Wings of the Dove, por ejemplo los
protagonistas deben contener sus sentimientos pues no disponen de dinero. Esta
carencia cambiará sus vidas y en definitiva arruinará un amor sincero. En The
Spoils of Poyton, unas antigüedades atesoradas por la Sra. Gereth cambiará
la vida de los personajes principales. En The Aspern Papers el
protagonista también pretenderá venderse en matrimonio por un “tesoro”. Hasta
en In the Cage, la protagonista pretende formar parte de una sociedad
donde Everand o Bredeen tienen dinero a
diferencia de ella misma y de su empobrecida familia. The Pupil nos
muestra como toda la familia de Morgan se mueve con criterios conducentes a
casar a sus hijas con unos buenos partidos.
Es obvio que James estaba muy preocupado en analizar las
motivaciones materiales por las cuales los hombres y mujeres hipotecan sus
principios y sus ideales; en esa eterna lucha que es la vida humana entre lo
que nos hacen creer que necesitamos y lo que realmente nuestro espíritu
necesita. La forma en la que James mejor supo contar estas tribulaciones está
generalmente basada en técnicas como la ambigüedad moral que sobretodo
magistralmente utiliza en The Pupil.
CONCLUSIÓN
Además de disfrutar de una larga y productiva carrera como
novelista, James fue un escritor prolífico de relatos cortos o tales.
Consideraba que esta forma era la idónea para la concentración dramática que
fue su pasión. A medida que fue creciendo como escritor más usó esta forma
literaria que le sirvió para examinar presiones y conflictos peculiares. The
Pupil le sirve para analizar los conflictos morales. Pero la técnica que
utiliza Henry James se basa en la ambigüedad, es esta expresa ambigüedad moral
lo que nos alertará acerca de la necesidad de guiarnos por patrones morales
sólidos.
Nuestro estudio nos lleva a concluir que para James
lo moral es ineludible, cualquier forma de minimización de su importancia es
peligrosa. Si la actitud en este caso del adulto es ambigua moralmente, el niño
inocente la detectará aún en su ínfima expresión, como ocurre en el caso de la
vacilación de Pemberton al final de la obra que nos ocupa. El doble drama en The
Pupil será que Morgan llegará a aceptar la hipocresía y falta de moralidad
de sus padres pues aún le restaba el ejemplo moral del maestro. Cuando éste lo
traicione ya no podrá continuar viviendo.
Morgan , como todos sus personajes niños, tiene mucho de
James. James había sido un niño de hotel, de ambientes acomodados y que había
dedicado su vida a asombrarse y a vagabundear. Para él la contemplación había
constituido la acción. Morgan y Pemberton pasan sus años contemplando y en su
contemplación viven y crean patrones morales. Los crean para seguirlos, no para
transgredirlos, de ahí el desenlace.
Hemos analizado y concluido que esta ambigüedad moral no
existe tan solo en Pemberton, también en Fleda, en la institutriz de The
Turn of the Screw , en el protagonista de The Aspern Papers, o en
Kate Croy y Merton Densher.
James tiene debilidad por lo implícito, lo tácito, las
medias palabras, las insinuaciones, lo no dicho y esta manera de no decir,
cuenta más que mil palabras. Esta forma ambigua le proporciona un ambiente
idóneo para remarcar lo que más le importa. Y lo que más le importa en este
relato es lo moral.
BIBLIOGRAFÍA
EDEL,
Leon (1985) Henry James : A Life. New York : Harper Row.
PEROSA,
Sergio (1983) Henry James and the Experimental Novel. New York
University Press.
STOWE, William
W. “Realism, the Drama of Consciousness and the text : The Wings of the Dove” .Princeton :
Princeton University Press.(1983).
1979
(1981) “The Pupil”; (1982) “The Real Thing”; (1903) “The Beast in the Jungle”. The
Portable Henry James, M.D. Zabel (ed.). Penguin Books.
1992
(1884) The Art of Fiction. Taller
de Estudios Norteamericanos : Textos bilingües. (introd.. y Trad. M.A.
Álvarez) León : Ediciones de la Universidad.
1987
(1897) The Spoils of Poynton, Penguin Books.
1985
(1897) What Maisie Knew. Penguin Books.
1984
(1899) The Awkward Age. Oxford University Press.
1984
(1899) The Wings of the Dove. Oxford University Press.
1983
(1914) A Small Boy and Others. Autobiography. F.W. Dupee (ed. Introd.),
Princeton : Princeton University Press.
1979
(1881) A Portrait of a Lady. Penguin Books.
1987
(1961) The Complete Notebooks. Leon Edel & Liall H. Power (ed.
Introd.).Oxford University Press.
1984
(1902) The Ambassadors. Oxford University Press.
Henry James etexts at Adrian Dover’s web site : In the Cage (1898)The purpose of this dissertation is to analyse moral ambiguity in one of Henry James’s finest middling-long stories, written when he was forty-seven and very much at the top of his game : The Pupil.
* Mathew Arnold poeta, ensayista y crítico literario inglés.1822-1888
[1] Henry James’ Moral Vision. Harold
Beaver, ‘International Needs’ in the New Pelican Guide to English Literature 9.
American Literature. 1991. Harold Beaver was Professor of American Literature
at Amsterdam University and visiting professor at Denver University.
§ Whistler, James (Abbott) McNeill 1834-1903 pintor americano que
residió en Inglaterra y Francia a partir de 1855.
¨ Wilde, Oscar 1854-1900 poeta, dramaturgo, ensayista y novelista
irlandés.
[3] Leon Edel, The Life of Henry James
(Harmondsworth,1977). Vol 2, p.15.
[4]The Notebooks of Henry James, ed. F.O. Matthiessen and Kenneth
B. Murdock (New York, 1961). P.208
[5] Cita tomada del Prefacio de la Edición de New York de 1908.
[6] Henry James’ Moral Vision. Harold
Beaver, ‘International Needs` in The New Pelican Guide to English Literature 9.
American Literature, 1991. Harold Beaver was Professor of American Literature
at Amsterdam University and visiting professor at Denver University.
[7] Taken from Henry James’ Preface to
the 1908 New York Edition
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