Reminiscence and Disappearance

 Elizabeth Wilson gracefully discusses the issues concerning conflicted subjectivity and ideology during the emergence and the aftermath of the City. Her discussion of the way “the fragmentary and incomplete nature of urban experience generates its melancholy” helps illuminate the ways in which Amy Levy’s poetry deals with loss and human meaning (107). In my explication of her poems, I refer to the speaker as female, and the dead person addressed as gender neutral. I am doing so simply because the poet is female, but I feel a little uncomfortable with assigning the person addressed with a particular gender.

In both “A Reminiscence” and “The Sequel to ‘A Reminiscence’” the speaker acknowledges and challenges the loss of human life. In the first “Reminiscence” (which literally means “a process of remembering”) she demonstrates how the constellation of lifeless objects fails to offer any meaning to the person who has died: “the glimmer of the cigarette,” the “picture in its frame,” “the blaze of kindled logs” all lead to “these dark mysteries of death” (3,5,7). Throughout the poem she uses caesuras between these objects to emphasize this fragmentary imagery that offers little insight about this person. However, she enjambs “why did you lead me in your speech” with “to these dark mysteries of death” to reveal that there is more to be said about the person who has died even though she feels incapable to do so (11-12). As Wilson explains, this “urban experience” causes individuals to have “a sense of nostalgia, of loss for lives we have never known, of experiences we can only guess at” (107-8). In “The Sequel to ‘A Reminiscence’” we not only hear the speaker’s anxiety towards her inability to accurately recollect the person who has died, but also her struggle to make sense of her own existence. The speaker expresses her melancholy by refusing to “feign” him/her as “dead” and intensifies this refusal by juxtaposing “dead” with “a voice” that “sounds clear”(6). This voice of the dead causes her to question the meaning of her own life. She asks “Can a man with motion, hearing and sight,/and thought that answered my thought and speech, be utterly lost and vanished quite?” (10-12). While she acknowledges that this person in bodily form has “vanished” she also sees herself in the dead’s “thought and speech” revealing her own mortality.

But in this stanza, the speaker is also acknowledging that she still hears this dead person’s voice suggesting that for her the person has not completely disappeared. But what do we do with this voice? The speaker explains that the gravestone that represents the dead gives no insight to this person she once knew. When she acknowledges this revelation, her “flowers that mocked” her “fell to the ground—“ and she realizes that “then, and then only” her “spirit knew” (20-21). These “flowers that mocked” suggest that perhaps dwelling on lifeless or (once alive, but now dead objects-like the flowers) offers the speaker no meaning when trying to recollect the life of the dead. The use of the dash could also suggest that trying to make sense of one’s death is also an endless and hopeless task.

The most troubling part of this poem, for me at least, is this last line: “Then, and then only, my spirit knew” (21). Does the poem offer us no hope—suggesting that our lives are meaningless and this is why “the flowers mocked” the speaker (20)? Or, does this poem suggest that we cannot look to lifeless objects for meaning (the gravestone, the “fresh-made mound”), but we have to find meaning somewhere else? The voice the speaker hears tells her to “go, find” her “friend who is far from here” suggesting that this person cannot be found within the lifeless body that lies underneath the “stone that stared” his/her “name and date” (8,16) So does this poem suggest that the speaker preserves, recollects, or recreates the dead person’s voice through the speech/writing act, or does it suggest that she can only fail in her attempt? 

Society of Surveillance

            At first it was hard to imagine how Foucault’s “Panopticism” would play out in Bleak House because I was primarily imagining the city as a panoptic construction which at first did not seem evident in the novel. Perhaps the structure of the city (as Certeau had demonstrated) in the novel does work as a panoptic place. However, I had never read this particular portion of “Panopticism” focusing on the society of surveillance that constantly documents individuals. Envisioning the panopticon as a society rather than a physical structure, I realized how each character in Bleak House is almost always surveying and at the same time under surveillance.

            In “Obstinacy,” we can see how this society of surveillance attempts to regain social order. In an attempt to clear up the disorder of Tulkinghorn’s death, George is atomically accused of the murder because of his actions surrounding the event. While Jarndyce and Esther both agree that George is innocent, they realize that “some appearances are against him” (691). Jarndyce’s list of George’s “appearances” reflects the ways in which the society of surveillance has documented George’s actions that have placed him into his accused position. However, the use of “appearances” implies the way that hard facts are not necessary for discipline, but only observations that suggest actions. And, therefore, these assumptions reveal how this system is only “egalitarian” at the imaginary level as Foucault suggests (222). We also see George trying to make some sense out of this confusion when he gazes upon Esther and takes note of “her height and figure” linking her to the woman who he had seen before Tulkinghorn’s murder (698). While he does not necessarily accuse Esther, his observations show how the characters in the novel are under constant surveillance and attempt to clear up confusion

Arresting George also shows how this society of surveillance attempts to restore order. As Foucault explains, “the image of the plague stands for all forms of confusion and disorder” (199). In order to regain order, the society of surveillance “use[s]…individualization to mark exclusion.” George realizes that he is a “marked and disgraced man” by his accusation and his life as a “vagabond” (694-5). While his denial of a lawyer is a part of his own disgust for the “breed,” he is also self-disciplining himself by accepting the false accusation which is arguably the most effective and efficient use of the panopticon (694). George realizes that even though he is innocent, these markings will work against him. Even if he attains a lawyer, he laments that he would only “keep circumstances back, chop the evidence small, quibble, and get me off perhaps” (my emphasis, 695). Again, George demonstrates how this “egalitarian” system is only imaginary because it does not necessarily serve justice, but instead works to maintain social order (Foucault 222). When Jarndyce tries to argue that George getting a lawyer is “equity” he is “at a loss” because he also realizes that a lawyer will not necessarily help the situation (694). While it is frustrating and frightening to envision the ways in which our judicial system closely mirrors the one in the novel, it is also hard to imagine it functioning in any other way. 

On Respectability (and IBS)

            I found Dickens’ satire in “Attorney and Client” very amusing when setting up a criteria for what defines one, or just Mr. Vholes, as respectable. In order to be considered respectable, one must: not “mis[s] a chance in his practice;” “never take pleasure;” be “reserved and serious;” and have “impaired digestion” (I think today we would just call that too much processed food or irritable bowel syndrome) (540).  The best definition I could find in the OED for this type of “respect” was “deferential regard or esteem felt or shown towards a person, thing, or quality” which seems to still give us a vague notion of what “respectability” really means. The narrator’s goofy description of Mr. Vholes’ “respectability” reflects what Nietzsche later describes when discussing the unstable meaning of works like “honesty.” According to Nietzsche, we do not really know what these abstract words mean allowing cultures to create their own unstable definitions.  We can see this instability of meaning throughout the novel with its preoccupation with skewed information and valuable secrets.

            In regards to this notion of “respectability,” it appears that Dickens is also critiquing men who Carlyle may have mistakenly regarded as respectable. We see this clearly when the narrator describes how “private authorities…will remark that they don’t know what this place is coming to” echoing Carlyle’s concern with this age of machines (541). Dickens reveals the false notion of particular people having a certain respectability when the narrator expresses “that these changes are death to people like Vholes” who maintain the greatest respectability. We also hear an echo of Carlyle when the narrator claims that Mr. Vholes is “continually doing duty,” so just like the notion of his respectability, we really do not know what exactly is his “duty.” We do find out, however, that within his duty as a lawyer, he scams Richard. So I guess Dickens’ narrator is asking: if the assumed man of respectability is a crook, then who do we consider as respectable? It is obvious who we as readers find as respectable in the novel; however, I think the more important point the text is illuminating is the way in which certain men could use their assumed respectability in order to manipulate others for their own self interest.

            Speaking of self interest, Dickens also appears to be critiquing Adam Smith’s idea of the “invisible hand” in this same chapter. The narrator expresses that “the one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself” and “viewed in this light it becomes a coherent scheme” (540). In that sense, it seems that there is no “invisible hand” that allows the economy to work itself out as Smith explains, but instead it is driven by selfish self interest. We see this specifically with Mr. Vholes making “business for” himself by persuading Richard (with his respectability and commitment to duty) that he can help him with the case. In the larger sense, I think the text may be critiquing English economy and imperialism. As seen through out the novel, many, and specifically Mrs. Jellyby, are concerned with the “cause” (sorry to use Conradian language) not realizing how it is only to help England capitalize on other country’s resources while also neglecting their own families. I may have over-worked this Smith allusion, but it is worthy to discuss they ways the narrative reveals the instability of meaning. 

Attraction as Distraction

            I was a little confused with Benjamin’s discussion of “wish images” (4). From my understanding, he was explaining that each epoch hopes that the next imagined epoch will be one that will represent a “classless” “primal past.” And these “wish images” within the “unconscious” of the “collective” are transfigured from generation to generation. It was not explicit if he was referring to the collective consciousness/unconsciousness of the working class, but I guess it can be implied from his reference to Marx. I find it problematic to refer to a “primal” “classless” society. While class systems were not always explicitly established, it is hard to imagine that there was ever a time when power structures were not in place (maybe I have read too much Foucault). However, Benjamin does describe this society as a “utopia” so perhaps he can also only envision a classless society as a cultural myth.

            His discussion of the world exhibitions reminded me of   the Vanity Fair Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress where this type of marketplace is described as a place of sin. Interestingly enough, Benjamin describes these world exhibitions as “places of pilgrimage” where “the exchange value of the commodity” is “glorify[ied]” (7). While I do not take Benjamin as an ardent Christian, I do take him for an influential modernist who reveals how the industrial revolution has significantly changed society’s sense of value.

            Benjamin’s discussion of these exhibitions as being “distractions” also reminded me of Adorno and Horkheimer as well as Baudrillard. The German social critics Adorno and Horkheimer writing almost during the same time as Benjamin further his argument by explaining that the culture industry produces “distractions” in order to coerce the working class to be content with their material existence.  One of the examples Adorno and Horkheimer use for these types of distractions is the pub/bar. This establishment serves the worker alcohol to replenish him from his long day at work and allows him to forget about his hardships. Instead of the worker discussing resolutions for his struggles, he drinks beer to  deal (or not deal) with  these issues and returns to work the next day. Just as Benjamin describes, the worker “surrenders to its manipulation while enjoying his alienation from himself and others.” This argument of attractions serving as distractions reflects what Baudrillard argues much later in his Simulations and Simulacra. In one of Baudrillard’s examples, he describes Disneyland as being a place for people to experience the imaginary in order to distract them from the fact that they already have an imaginary existence. While many make take his idea as a stretch (which many do), it does play into Benjamin’s idea of the “phantasmagoria.”

            This reading made me question why Lady Deadlock was so bored. At first, I thought that Dickens was poking fun at the famous bourgeoisie women who suffered from the ennui. However, Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina were published later than Bleak House.  Either way, Lady Deadlock represents one who cannot be distracted with attractions. She has too many attractions at her disposal. I am not sure what else I can say about the ennui so I will end here and continue to follow our Lady’s boredom within the rest of the novel. 

"Can my prayers be heard? No!"

We can see Carlyle’s concerns about the condition of the impoverished working class erupt within the tenth chapter of Gaskell’s novel. We find John Barton with little to no work and Mary having to sustain herself with two meals a day. Gaskell’s biblical allusion in the title of this chapter drew my attention to the way she addresses her Christian readers. While Barton finds himself in a state of distress, he follows the teaching of Christ through his self sacrifices. He refuses any help from the Trades Union and tells them to give their “assistance” to his “enemy” Tom Darbyshire who apparently is in more need than Barton (78). Barton follows Christian moral by showing some compassion towards his enemy; however, he has his limits, and his moral begins to disintegrate. We find him looking like an “animal” because the hunger has taken a hold of him, and his stress has also caused him to abuse Mary (78-9). However, both Barton and Mary show their “repentance” towards one another (80). It seems as though Gaskell is warning her readers (similar to Carlyle’s outcry) that this working class population can only endure so much. Using the Bartons, who are a little closer to the class of her readership in comparison to the other laboring families in the novel, Gaskell may even be attempting to demonstrate how this family with similar beliefs/morals as her readers can lose faith in their values when enduring severe deprivation.

(Being a student of postmodern/structuralist thought, it is very difficult for me to throw around those terms of values/morals/faith—even digesting Carlyle was a bit painful because of his elitist attitude. Anyways, when I use those terms, I am referring to the common Christian beliefs embedded within most of our own ideologies, such as: generosity, forgiveness, etc.)

When Barton reunites with Esther, however, he is unwilling to forgive her. At the same time, we also find Esther attempting to redeem her sins by trying to save Mary. Barton’s unwillingness to listen to Esther reflects the way the more privileged classes, parliament, and perhaps Gaskell’s readers have turned their backs upon the working class. As Carlyle explains, “the condition of the great body of people in a country is the condition of the country itself” (2). In that case, these people of power and prestige have turned their backs upon the country. After Barton abandons her, Esther asks if her “prayers” will “be heard” and cries that “he would not listen to”  her (85). This “he” is not only Barton, but is possibly also referring to the State or God (or religious institutions).  Esther’s outcry, however, is described as a summary of her incoherent “words, repeated in various forms” that are “always” in “the same anxious, muttering way—.“ Esther’s clumsy language reflects the way in which Carlyle describes how the working class lacks an articulate language that would allow them to express their needs and concerns (2). While Carlyle does reduce the working class to inarticulate, animal-like beings (that’s what I gathered from the OED’s definition of “dumb”), he does argue that these people have “hearts created by Heaven too.” Both Barton and Carlyle, therefore,  not only give voice to these shunned beings, but also reveal to their readers that it is their moral/religious obligation to not let this working class population continue to endure  this turmoil.

I am now curious to see how Gaskell works forgiveness, redemption, generosity, and providence throughout the rest of her novel.

Quick overview of the "People's Charter" (web page)

http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/struggle/chartists1/historicalsources/source4/peoplescharter.html

"He never tramp'd the weary round"

            Reading Vaughn alongside Engels and Glaskell illuminates the way the city serves as a place for intellect and innovation while at the same time being a place where even vermin would probably avoid. The physical and mental exhaustion of digesting Engels’ “The Great Towns” emphasizes the severity of the too-long-ignored poverty within the city. Engels points out that the city arrangement is designed to hide this malnourished, overworked population from the eyes of the wealthy. Glaskell’s novel aggressively addresses   the reader’s ignorance of the real city life when asking: “Errands of mercy—errands of sin—did you ever think where all the thousands of people daily meet are bound?” (43). We also hear the dismissal of these impoverished workers when Mr. Carson expresses that he “doesn’t pretend to know the names of the men” he “employ[s]” (48). While he may consciously chose to ignore the livelihood of his workers (as we would assume many would), he does provide Mr. Wilson with the “out patient’s order” and Mr. Carson Jr. shows his concern by providing him with “five shillings out of his pocket.” The Carsons’ surprising generosity suggests that the workers’ poor state may not be entirely due to the greed of individual factory owners, but perhaps a result of a system that fails to protect the working class.

While Simmel tells us that the population of the city is too overwhelming that we cannot possibly take the time to care for every individual we meet, Glaskell’s novel presents selfless characters that strive to help the well-being of others. We meet Alice Wilson who willingly runs to be the sick-nurse of almost everyone in need. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Barton also rush to the needs of their fellow worker, and Jem risks his life saving others. Margret also selflessly devotes herself to her grandfather’s well-being, while Job’s long story of finding Margret reveals how he found hope after a loss and was blessed by the generosity of strangers.

While these generous, selfless characters exist within Mary’s world, she does not completely share their attitudes. When Alice expresses the pleasure she finds in “helping others,” Mary “was glad she had not gone into service” (22). Mary, instead, is aware of the value of her beauty and speculates on how it will allow her to have upward mobility through Mr. Carson Jr. While Mr. Barton despises the idea of his daughter being a part of that class, he also does not want his daughter to be a meager factory girl. Mary’s “ambit[ion]” and Mr. Barton’s restlessness display how they both cannot be content within their present economic state (54). From a young age Mary found “power” when performing a monetary transaction (13). Her “fond[ness]” of “money-spending” is perhaps why she dreams of being Mr. Carson Jr.’s wife who can make dress orders instead of taking them (13,55).

Now that we are about a third into the novel, I am interested in Mary and her father’s relationship in contrast with Margret and her grandfather’s relationship. As readers, it seems that we are drawn to the warmness between Margret and her grandfather. I am suspicious of our likeness towards the pair because I assume our perceptions and desires would be more similar to Mary’s. And if so, what is Glaskell suggesting about her readers?

An Overly Early Blog About the City

 Keri Blanco

            Simmel’s work not only reveals how the city causes individuals to become desensitized to the mass population and movement of the city in order to survive, but it also reflects how the emergence of technology has also caused a stimuli overload on our current culture. After reading Bridge and Watson’s work, however, I realized that I had never stopped to critique Simmel’s  overly nostalgic view of  the “real self,” a “self” that exists in individuals who live a rural lifestyle (10). This overly ideal sense of the an individual’s idea of the “self” overlooks how the “self” is socially constructed—developed from language and social activities that exist outside the “self.” As Bridge and Watson discuss, most social criticism does not lament over the loss of the ideal “self” because post-modernist thought argues that “there is  no real self to be estranged from” (10).

Even though Simmel’s argument tends to over idealize the sense of the lost “self,” it does not negate the significance of how his work illuminates the way the city had a drastic effect on the way individuals relate to one another. As he explains, social interactions are created by “obligatory associations” in which the merchant must associate with the purchaser (12). Relationships and social interactions, therefore, are created by their quantitative value. Similarly, Virginia Woolf later argues in her “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” that as result of the change of human interaction, writers have failed to effectively and honestly create characters because they do so by using materials rather than experiences. In Blake’s poetry, however, we find him pulling away from material objects when expressing human experience. In his “Introduction” to Songs of Innocence, the speaker describes a child from “a cloud” who asks the speaker to “pipe” him songs (3,5). Emerging from “a cloud” rather than the city, this child perhaps has no conditioned desire for material objects with monetary quantitative value. As Simmel explains, early in childhood individuals become conditioned by stimuli overload and develop a “blasé attitude” (14). This child from “a cloud,” however, is not numbed by the city life, and has an emotionally reaction the speaker’s songs by “we[eping] with joy to hear” (12) The speaker also writes with a “a rural pen” that he has made with a “hollow reed” (17,16). To put into Simmel’s terms, the speaker is not producing an object for mass consumption nor is he entering into the marketplace to purchase a pen to write with. In that sense, Blake’s “Introduction” to Songs of Innocence  reveals hi attempt to not create poetry as a material product, but instead to creates a response and refusal toward this culture that operates at a quantitative level.

While Blake attempts to describe human experience through a non-material means, his poetry also forces his readers to examine the harsh realities of the city. Simmel argues that in order for individuals to mentally survive within the mass population of the city, they have an “aversion” and “mutual strangeness” with others because they simply cannot handle the overload of relationships that would form if they communicated with everyone they encountered (15). In Blake’s “Holy Thursday” from Songs of Experience, the speaker points out that while others enjoy the “rich and fruitful land—“ children are “fed with cold and usurous hand” (2,4). Blake is not merely illuminating the poverty that exists within the city, but his use of “usurous hand” also indicates that individuals only give one another something for their own self interest. Not only is the one with the “usurous hand” giving someone a “cold” meal, but also is expecting a return with interest. Again, Blake’s work responds to the ways in which individuals relate to one another at a transactional level.

While I have focused on the negative effects of the city (perhaps because my focus was on Simmel and Blake), I am anticipating the discussion of how the city serves as a place for imagination and freedom as Bridge and Watson describe. Most of my study of the city and capitalism has been through the lens of oppression, and I am looking forward to seeing it through the lens of liberation.