To Trollope-l
January 13, 2002
Re: The Landleaguers, Chs 1-7: A Political and Social Novel
Although this novel is not a finished piece of work, it has power and just now great relevance to our lives.
The first seven chapters form two distinct segments. Perhaps they would have formed the first two instalments in one of those serialisations Trollope used earlier in his career. The first sets the political and private scene in an Ireland torn by class, economic, political, ethnic and religious conflicts of the sort that are not resolvable except over a long period of time if one or the other of the parties is willing or driven to compromise. Unfortunately, most of the time in such conflicts the majority of those who have the power to hold onto their wealth through law and military force are not willing to give any up, at the same time as those who are desperate, aggressive and angry form organizations determined to wrest from them some part of that wealth no matter how. Trollope presents this kind of situation to us through dramatizing the lives of a group of characters caught up in such a situation. He does load the cards on the side of the "haves", the property owners by making his hero a man of probity and decency who has not rentracked, not bullied, not humiliated and ejected people off his property and by making the "have nots" into nightmare figures, sleazy types, and individuals not at all justified in their hatred. Yet he does show the situation as it was, and provides sufficient information, and truthful picturing that the reader can see why the Irish tenants were driven to form a land league to secure for themselves a fair rent, fixity of tenure and free sale. As someone who was a tenant most of her life (we only bought a house after coming to Virginia where tenants have no rights of usufruct and there is no rent control or stabilization or leases after the first year), I know the difference between the way someone looks at where they live when they have some stake, some right to live there for a secure period they can count on and knowledge that the rent can only go up in pre-specified increments and when they don't have such security. As you read the book it's easy to make analogies between what Trollope is describing and many similar situations in past history and the recent 20th century.
Mary Hamer's introduction is very helpful especially if you know nothing or very little of Irish politics at the time or have read very little about such situations. Trollope assumes you know some of what had just happened in Ireland in the past three years. It is particularly important to know that in the early 18th century a group of penal laws made it illegal to Catholic Irish people to hold or own any land, disenfranchised them altogether, closed off their access to any higher education and the professions (Oxford The Landleaguers, ed MHamer, pp. xii- xiii). She tells you how the Land League formed; she also tells you how important American money was from the first. In the US Catholic Irish people could and did do well, and like many peoples who travel elsewhere, they did not forget their roots and the members of the families they left behind.
She also situates Trollope himself in this book. It's a familiar story to those who know about Trollope's life. Up until going to Ireland, he had known humiliation and failure; the fact that he could leave the place where the histories of his father and mother were a matter of utter indifference or unknown, and where simply because he was English, Protestant and had a reasonable job, he was respected and given work he was proud to do, thought useful, provided him with a "ground for a restored identity". The place where he had reconceived himself was moving into a violent disintegration (as he saw it). Hamer writes that although The Landleaguers is the book "least centered on private individual experience of any fiction Trollope wrote," it is a "personal testament" and written out of a passionate need to investigate the situation and lay it bare not only to the English public but to himself.
On the politics and Trollope's personal connection to it I'd also recommend Robert Tracy's introduction to the Arno edition. It will enrich your understanding of what you are reading. Like so many of Trollope's novels, this is a political fiction. It is unlike The Macdermots, The Kellys and Castle Richmond because Trollope did not go back in time from anyone from 1 to 3 decades for an analogous situation to the present, but instead dramatizes events that were unfolding as he wrote. Imagine someone today writing a novel about Afghanistan as the war went on. That's the analogy.
I'll divide this first general posting in two.
Cheers to all,
Ellen
Re: The Landleaguers, Chs 1-7: The Gender Politics
The second segment of this week's instalment focuses on a most unusual heroine for Trollope: Rachel O'Mahoney is an independent young woman who leads her own life, moves around as it is to her advantage: she earns her living by singing in the theatre. Later in the novel she will offer to support Frank Jones rather than return to the boring dull countryside where in any case his family is in dire difficulties and may lose their property if not their very lives. As Mary Hamer points out, what is really significant here is Trollope does not sneer at her -- as he does at the Amelia Ropers of his early books. He does not present her as corrupt -- as he does Lady Carbury. He does not caricature her as vulgar.
In this part of the story Trollope is introducing us to Rachel and her father who is himself a radical politician and American. The father is also presented with respect; he is presented as naive -- Trollope keeps referring to the "facts of politics" which he says Gerald is sublimely unaware of. I assume this is a reference to Gerald thinking he can sweep aside previous property arrangements without a terrible struggle and it certainly is a reference (Trollope makes this explicit) to Gerald not realising how difficult it will be to put any changes in place which will satisfy people without first going through intense dislocations and (probably violent) opposition and (in the end) continual dissatisfaction if not further (probably violent) opposition. But aside from Gerald's supposed lack of practicality, his ideals are not mocked, nor his manliness (the typical way Trollope gets us to dismiss male characters, e.g., Louis Scatcherd). Gerald supports and trusts and loves his daughter and she him.
Hamer writes that "Rachel's career is presented in tandem wth Irish revolutionary violence: they run concurrently". In Rachel we find an alternate way of dramatizing the radical disruption of the status quo that is happening. Gender roles are upside down between Frank and Rachel.
The employment and independence of a woman is not the only issue Trollope confronts: he has to face the sexual one too. A woman who went out to work and negotiated and struggled was seen as endangering her "purity". Trollope is already countering this by his overinsistence on Rachel's frailty and her disgust at the absurdly named Mahomet Moss. Unhappily, this character is an instance of Trollope exploiting anti-semitism and the depiction is ugly. We are to see him as continually trying to get inside her dress, as disgusting, greasy, unscrupulous -- and this is presented as part of his Jewishness. Trollope protests Rachel's innocence so much (already) because he really doesn't believe it himself. Acting on a stage and singing are professional occupations, but it's clear a woman in a factory or office could be equally susceptible to pressure from an employer who might want sex from her in return for employing her. This was part of the subplot in Altman's Gosford Park, and it happened. In fact I know of an instance of it happening (a factory owner forcing young women to have sex with him and his friends) in the 1950s in the Bronx.
I bring it out this way because this sense of what people will do in reality is not just some paranoid notion of the gentry class of Victorian males. The requirement that women be utterly sexually innocent and thus repressed in a central part of their existence (and subject to the male at home) is a central real issue behind the continual objection to women going out to work outside the home. We see it in the Moslem world today where the "concern" is still acknowledged and explicit. Women are not to be allowed to own themselves and do with themselves what they wish -- as men do.
At any rate Trollope does confront this -- he hedges, slides away and as in the political plot takes the conservative side, but he does similarly show us frankly what's at stake and in this novel does not dismiss the woman's claim to autonomy, to have a story and life of her own, at least not until the end of the novel, when -- as in novels like Can You Forgive Her? -- the story is collapsed back into acceptable conventionality through in this particular novel a sudden crisis that cannot be gotten over.
Ellen
Re: The Landleaguers, Chs 1-7: The Acute Psychologist
In my first two postings I have only been able to sketch the general issues. I have not come near talking about how effectively Trollope dramatizes and analyses the characters. Several have already emerged as real and suggestively rounded in their past history and presence: the father; the boy, Florian; the sister, Edith; Rachel and her father. In the depiction of the priests Trollope shows us how character is an interaction of role and individuality, and they are believable too. In particular, the father is the well-meaning but not really perceptive man and not really determined enough when it comes to dealing with other people. He prefers his younger son more than his daughter, Edith, though he knows how honest, decent, intelligent and effective she is. This is one of those instances where I can't understand such behavior myself, but know it's real for I've seen it again and again. Edith is the dark small intelligent not-so-very pretty woman Trollope repeatedly favors.
I'll point to just one particularly powerful scene where the young boy Florian is being terrified and bullied into not telling what he knows. What's interesting there is how Trollope is not really sympathetic to the boy; he seems to suggest the boy has aspects in his character which led him to be disloyal to his family, some instinct for masochism and self-destruction which Trollope has a respectable priest find somehow despicable in the first place. When the boy tries to kiss a cross and is held back from this suppliant behavior, we cringe not because he is held back but because he wanted to. It's real all right, but we can see here that Trollope is still the acute psychologist who shapes a story towards an end that feels fated out of his character.
More later this week.
I hope others will be posting on this book too. People, it's really an interesting text.
Cheers to all,
Ellen
From: seisner@attglobal.net As usual my great interest in novels is how the characters are
presented, where Ellen has great interest in the social issues
involved. Trollope in The Landleaguers fluctuates from being very
good in his depection of characters to being not so good. Let's take
first young Florian.
Florian is ten years old. In general I do not think ten year old boys
tend to rebel against the standards of their own family. A fifteen year
old boy is a different thing. A ten year old tends to wait until
puberty to begin his rebellion. By the age of ten he has gotten over
his childish naughtyness and has settled down for a few years to become
a good family citizen. But here we have a ten year old boy defying
every standard and every person of his family. Still, everything he
knows was taught him by his father, sisters, and one brother. It seems
to me to be most unlikely that he would turn on all four of them to go
his own way. As I said, rebellion, when it comes (and it almost always
comes in one way or another), comes later, somewhat after puberty. Now,
we have said before that Trollope has very few child characters. I
don't think he understood children very well. He certainly didn't
understand them as well as he understood young adults, especially young
adults in the act of rebellion, as most young adults are.
So we have Rachel O'Mahony, aged 20. She is a delight. She is funny,
rebellious, and still loyal to the rules of 19th-century maidenhood.
She seems to me to combine the charm of Violet Effingham with the
feistyness of Lady Glencora. She talks back to her father, and she is
absolutely truthful with Frank Jones. I think she is one of the
surprises of this book.
So there we have comments on the first seven chapters. Trollope here is
as enjoyable as he ever was. He now is ever so much more smooth than he
was in his early youth. Although Florian is not comepletely believable,
given the circumstances, which themselves are slightly unbelievable, he
goes ahead with his part in the coming plot. Rachel is very
believeable, very. I knew feisty, independent, twenty-year old girls
for some 45 years of meeting a batch of new ones every September and
every January. The best of them are like Rachel O'Mahony, the young
Lady Glencora, and the young Violet Effingham. They all are delights,
and Trollope is a delight when he creates them.
Sig
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 In response to Sig,
I do believe in the boy, at least I find the depiction believable.
It may be he is made slightly too young, but this is common
in these novels. We get young women of 19 whose thoughts
are as perceptive as the 35+ year old novelist who inhabits
her. I would also argue that people grew up earlier in the
19th century (as life was shorter), and that they still grow
up earlier when their circumstances are fragile and all around
them at risk. Where I grew up in the Bronx, I saw rebellion
of this kind in "children" in the 5th and 6th grade -- to situate
that for our UK and other friends, that would be a youngster
of 10 through 12. I saw it in boy cousin. What happens
is the child is confused and enraged by the difficulties
and circumstances of life and unconsciously takes out
what is a large social force on his or her parent, blames
them and seeks to dissociate him or herself from them.
This is very typical of young black adolescents -- they
do get into just the sort of trouble we see Florian in.
This is also a more social novel than many of Trollope's --
not all. Hamer and Tracy think this is deliberate and
point to the social/political angle of The Madermots
and Castle Richmond. I wonder. Notice how uneven
in length are the chapters. I can't prove but suggest that
we have in some of the chapters a kind of "backbone"
that Trollope meant to pull out inwardly. I see points
in the narratives I call "nodes". Trollope has sketched a
character's outline very believably and summed up
a group of feelings and incidents. These nodes he
would have meant to return to in order to develop
them into longer dramatic scenes, dialogues, and
meditations. He didn't have time to do that. Since
reading Sutherland's description of Trollope's working
papers in The Way We Live Now and a couple of
similar essays on Trollope's actual drafts I have
seen that the conventional belief that Trollope simply
wrote out his books with nary a change is as much
a myth as Jane Austen sitting with delicate single
sheets by a creaking door. He may not have rewritten
in the manner of Proust, but he did rearrange, pull
out, and develop, come back. My view is what we have
are fair papers, a second copy in most cases. Many
a novelist might have to go through more copies,
and as a first or early draft Landleaguers is in
a remarkably cogent state, but it lacks a later
fleshing out. We'll see this even more strikingly as
we move into what would have been the beginning
of a third volume.
I like Rachel too -- but I admit as a character, or
person I like Edith more. Rachel is the more interesting
because more unconventional and Trollope pays more
attention to her. We see one of his ways of development
in that we have chapters really made up simply of letters.
That's how a novelist invents characters. They enter
into them by personating them in writing a letter. That
enables them to let go. So Rachel gets more space
and development and attention. But Edith is the finer
spirit. Trollope remarks if she could not reach Florian,
then no one would.
I'm glad Sig is reading with me; I hope others who are
will post too. This is a worth while book with real
insight into the roots of, and how social and political change,
demands for real justice in a rearrangement can and
often do develop into civil war. Men and women too
are violent and intense animals who don't see beyond
their own cases easily. That's central to this book.
Ellen
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 At 06:27 14/01/02, Ellen Moody wrote: Later in the text is a reference to a meeting at "The Rotunda". A maternity hospital, the first
such dedicated hospital in Britain or Ireland, was founded in Dublin in 1745 by Dr Bartholomew
Moss or Mosse, who might be a source for the surname. It moved from its site of origin to new
buildings and beside them was built, by the friends of the hospital, two assembly rooms, one
circular, called "The Rotunda", one rectangular, now used for "The Gate" theatre. The intention
was that these rooms should be used for fundraising functions for the hospital, and that rents
from other functions should also be applied to the support of the hospital. Dr Moss was born in
Ireland in 1712, so would not be a prototype for Mahomet Moss, other than perhaps for the
surname.
Rory O'Farrell Email: ofarrwrk@iol.ie
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 Dear all
Ellen wrote
I also found Florian very believable - I read The Landleaguers late last
year and the characterisation of the young boy was one of the elements which
really impressed me. It made me wonder why it is that there are so few
child characters in Trollope. There's Kate in The American Senator, who is
a lovely humorous character, but often the children are shadowy presences
rather than vividly created - for instance, the younger children in
Crawley's family in The Last Chronicle of Barset are very much in the
background.
But, getting back to Florian, in Victorian times many children would have
been going to work at this age or not that much older. There was pressure on
childhood, pressure to grow up fast, as there is for many young people
today.
It also strikes me that ten is getting towards the sort of age where
children are often vulnerable to sudden religious conversion. As I may have
mentioned before, I come from an area of England (East Anglia) which used to
be known as Britain's Bible Belt, though you don't hear this phrase so much
these days - when I was a child there were strong fundamentalist churches
and frequent tent crusades in the area, and I was one of many children aged
about 11 or 12 who were dramatically "converted" in public at such an event.
I then went through agonies in case my atheist family were consigned to
hellfire and damnation if I didn't manage to get them to be born again too.
I changed my opinions as I grew up and gradually returned to my natural
scepticism, but it was still a painful experience (one reason I often turned
to Victorian literature was the pervasive theme of loss of faith). Reading
about Florian reminded me of this episode in my life.
I think Trollope is as psychologically acute as ever in showing how the
young boy is flattered by adults taking him seriously and working hard to
convince him of their opinions - he enjoys the fact that he has had "no end
of an argument with Father Malachi".
I also feel that Florian's determination to fit in with his friends locally
rings true. He wants to prove he is somehow really Irish rather than an
unpopular English interloper, and so he tries too hard, becoming more
intense about his new-found religion than those who have grown up with it.
To draw on my own family experience again, I've been told that my father and
uncle were in a rather difficult position in Britain during the war, as
young boys who were half-German and had a mother with a very heavy accent -
my uncle's reaction was to deny his German heritage completely and become
more English than anybody.
Florian is surely like this. While his sisters speak with conventional
English speech rhythms, he says "Deed and I know nothin' " and "Sorrow a
know, I know". His loyalties are painfully torn between his family and the
country where he has spent all his short life.
Trollope's portrayal of the boy seems triumphantly unsentimental to me - he
shows all the different motivations for his behaviour just as vividly as he
does with his adult characters.
Bye for now Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 At 22:29 14/01/02, Judy Geater wrote: A possible explanation for Florian's style of speech is his companions. His elder brother and
two sisters are all close in age (at the end of their teens, becoming young adults), whereas
Florian is some ten years younger. So his associations while growing would most likely be with
the stable boys and farmhands - it does not seem as if he had playmates of his own class with
which to associate. So his speech patterns would be heavily influenced by those of the
peasantry with whom he would put in much of his time. It is also not impossible that the upper
servants would speak a better style of English above stairs, whereas below stairs they would be
looser, and young Florian would most likely have spent much time below stairs.
Members of the list may feel that "Florian" is a rather strange name. It is not unusual to find
that or close variations in use even today. I recollect that at college some 35 years ago one boy
was called "Florence" (his given name), shortened to "Flann". I enquired about this, and was told
that in his area (Co Limerick) "Florence" was often used as a boy's baptismal name, but usually
abbreviated to "Flann" in everyday usage. One might also instance the name "Flann O'Brien",
the pseudonym of Brian O'Nuallain, also known as "Myles na gCopaleen".
Rory O'Farrell Email: ofarrwrk@iol.ie
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 Rory O'Farrell wrote:
As I understand, many Gaelic given names were over time Latinized or
Anglicized. For instance, "Tadhg" was Latinized as "Thaddeus" or
Anglicized as "Terence." Speaking of "Florence," I believe that was the
given (Latinized) name of Flurry Knox in "The Irish R.M."
Don Flanagan
January 15, 2002
To Trollope-l
Re: _The Landleaguers_, Chs 1- 7: Florian's Conversion The word nobody has used relative to Florian, a word which might ease acceptance of his
behaviour, is "precocious"
Rory O'Farrell Email: ofarrwrk@iol.ie
To which I replied:
The reason I didn't use the word precocious -- nor those who read the
character in my way -- is I don't look at Florry as precocious. He's not
growing up ahead of himself. In fact in the scene where he is bullied
it's clear he lacks certain abilities a boy in his mid-teens would have.
He is very childish there. It is painful to watch him
Those boys I knew in the Bronx who also rebelled in just this self-
destructive self-hating way were not precocious. They were confused,
angry, and hitting out at the parent for lack of anyone else nearer
to take their revenge on. It was painful to watch them once I grew
a bit older and was not myself confused by their behavior. I should
say quite frankly that these boys I am talking about were all
either African-American or Hispanic, boys who felt alienated in
just the way the two Judies have described their sense of Florian.
They hated themselves; they wanted to reject what they were
and that was not simply to reject the parent but to turn on him or her.
Repeatedly what would happen would be they would be left all
alone after they had done their self-destructive behavior. They
would be left such just such mean nasty and exploitative
types as Florian is, types who despised them as these Catholic
Irish rebels despise Florian. They would most of them end
up in schools for delinquents. Florry is not so lucky -- as
we shall see. He doesn't get the second chance -- the time
that can give some to see better, to (in effect) begin to grow
up.
Here's a general statement on this controversy, the sort of
larger question it brings up that interests me very much:
The Landleaguers is another of the many books Sadleir labelled
un-Trollopian (all the Irish books were un-Trollopian).
According to P. D Edwards, well over one half of Trollope's books
are un-Trollopian according to Sadleir's preconceptions; they are
strongly unlike the Barchester books. Sometimes (ironic joke
alert) I think Trollope should not only have kept to publishing his
brilliant novellas under a pseudonym, but published about half
his short stories and certainly the really finest among them,
and many other of his regular size works under a pseudonym
too. Stuck to it. That might have gained him the audience he is
still denied because of the reputation of the "brand-name" Trollope
attached forever to him since books like Framley Parsonage,
and it would probably have sent a signal to his "regular" readers
looking for the same material, though like other authors who
have tried to break out of the brand-name variety of their product,
he would still have very much annoyed them. These
pseudonyms don't work even in the short run for very famous
authors or authors who have the distinctive style and strengths
of adult perception of an Anthony Trollope. The psychological
and ethical mechanism underlying the annoyance interests
me and I wish I could understand it. If I did, I might get some
insight into why some groups of people really read, especially
those who become the "fans" of a particular writer or his brand-product.
I'd like to understand this because I see the phenomena in a particularly
fierce or virulent form in Janeites or Austen fans.
This question has come up at Litalk-l where we are actually
privileged to have the author of the book we have read with us.
We read The Vampire Tapestry and Suzy McKee Charnas
who wrote it is with us and has listened to our talk. Her
response has been generous, gallant, open-minded, interested.
She says that she is another author who published a book
under a pseudonym and talked about readers who get "annoyed"
at her books when they don't conform to expectations. I have
asked her about this phenomena and am hoping she can provide
some insight. If she does, I'll report back.
Ellen
Sig replied again on Florian:
I suppose I stand alone in my attitude toward Florian. Granted that Victorian
children matured earlier than they do today. But I still maintain that a boy
must arrive beyond his puberty before he becomes an active rebel against his
family. In a matter so dramatically severe as religion in Ireland, where a
Catholic man once told me he could tell a "Prod" by watching him walk across a
room, for a ten-year old boy to go completely against his family is still hard
to believe. As I said before, once puberty has come, it is easy to believe in
such a readjustment. But ten year olds are still immature in Ireland or
anywhere else. Ten year olds then called their father "Sir" and stood up when
he entered a room. Again, granted that the father was more tolerant than most
of his neighbors, he still wasn't so tolerant that he would convince his child
to act in a way contrary to his upbringing. Even a ten year old girl wouldn't
rebel to that extent, and girls mature earlier than boys in Ireland, Britain,
the United States or Madagascar for that matter. Ellen made a parallel of the
impoverished black children in New York. But Florian was not impoverished by
any means. He lived in absolute luxury compared to his neighbors. Judy
wonders why Trollope doesn't bring more children to the foreground. I don't
think he really knew how to handle a child under the age of puberty. One of
Archdeacon Grantley's sons is really a nasty little boy, but he disappears as
time goes on. What did happen to him? Anybody know? Trollope can handle
young women beautifully, but I still think he stumbles a bit when he gives us a
portrait of a small boy. Mark Twain would have done better.
Sig
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 It probably does depend on the environment. it is still common for
children of 6 to be sold into slavery in places like pakistan and the
middle east. they are put to work at that age, notably in factories
making 'oriental' rugs and bricks. phoolan devi -- at least supposedly
-- kicked up quite a fuss when she was sold as a child bride at age
11.
Dickens went into the blacking factory having just turned 12 and seems
to have been a bit of a namby-pamby up to that point, but adapted
quite readily to what was required. attitudes toward and assumptions
about children were quite different 150 years ago. Aa child's behavior
is greatly shaped by both.
mp
Having read over the passages on Florian, I would add this to the
'believability debate': I have a nephew who, from the ages of about 5
to 10, was an amazing and incorrigible liar. Not only did he lie his
head off about everything and anything, but the hand of God himself
could not get him to admit a falsehood. You could catch him in
flagrante and he would look you right in the eye and absolutely,
unflinchingly deny guilt. I therefore have no difficulty at all in
believing in the stubborness of the boy in this case.
Also, I would like to point out that 'precocious' does not necessarily
imply mature -- rather, it implies acting in a manner beyond one's
years in certain circumstances. A child may be precocious in one area
-- say, musicianship or chessplaying -- while in other respects
remaining at the natural age level or even being backward.
mp
Re: The Landleaguers: Florian and Trollope's Young Women
I just came across Sig's second message -- which I hadn't when
I responded just a wee bit earlier to the group as a whole.
I did use the word "poor" but I was really thinking race, ethnic
background, religion -- and gender. African-American boys
learnt to hate themselves for their skin color; they often
-- by end of elementary school (5th to 6th grade) -- were
intensely sensitive and proud in a reverse way. Precisely
what they were most ashamed of they defended most intensely.
Mike brings us Dickens. We only know Dickens in his
thirties, and that is remembering back. I wonder what
was his behavior at the time -- there is whin-y crying
aspect to Florian which strikes me as what Dickens
might have looked like from the outside, a sullenness.
Hispanic boys became virulent over their mothers and
Catholicism -- at the same time as themselves rebelling
intensely against the ethics to the point of endangering
themselves through the law. I'm talking about taking drugs
and the Draconian anti-drug laws in the US.
I say gender because that's intensely important too.
Girls didn't rebel in the same way at all. Males as
a part of our species have a hard-wired need to be
respected, to be recognized as potentially high
achievers in the patriarchy.
Money counts, but it's not all, especially if you are
part of a group of people who are isolated and
disliked. It's very confusing to a child. The Joneses
are also in danger of losing their property, and the
boy is aiding this sluicing away of this distinction
between himself and the Catholic Irish. Trollope's
portrait could be psychoanalyzed.
I have also labelled my header "Trollope's Young
Women". People have latched onto Sig's comments
on Florian, but I'd like to call attention to another
place where we may differ as groups of readers.
I don't find Trollope's young women all that believable --
some of them are to me unbelievable and the portraits
can annoy or irritate me. I certainly find many of
them anything but splendid. In this book there are
two young women who I can sympathize with but
in other of Trollope's books I find his view of young
women distorted. He validates a group of comforting
stereotypes about young women which were prevalent
and adhered to in fiction until the 1960s. When I
read some of his portraits of women I see him
avoiding very typical kinds of thoughts and rebellions
in ways that are improbably. Hester Caldigate is
utterly improbable when it comes to the way she
behaves to her parents and her utter self-abnegation
before her husband. She is so obedient it's amusing.
I also find ludicrously unreal -- leaving out the anger,
rebellion, real spites, sexy thoughts, all sorts of
things that are amoral -- all the sisters but Gertrude
and the mother in The Three Clerks, the daughter
in Harry Hotspur. I could name others but I have
named enough.
I'm not alone in finding some of Trollope's women
distorted by his own need to believe certain kinds
of things about women and his desire to reinforce
repressive codes of behavior and thought. If I name
feminist or liberal critics -- like Kate Flint or the
author of He Knew She Was Right my argument
might be dismissed. But I bring up critics who
are women and represent a goodly portion
of half the population. Trollope is not as popular among
women readers today as he once was -- because
the preconceptions about women have changed.
However, I can bring up conservative male readers
who have come to the same conclusion, felt the
same absences and gaps and ludicrousness in
the portraits of gentry women -- as well as unfairness
and ugly distortions in some of his portraits of
working class women as vulgar, man-trapping,
distrustworthy and somehow polluted -- not having
that "great aroma" which so pulls him. Rachel
is in great danger of losing that by-the-way -- Mary
Hamer laughs at that one in her introduction to
The Landleaguers. So male conservatives who
have agreed with me include (famously) Anthony
Powell, Robert Tracy, Cockshut, Harvey, Polemus,
and a number of novelists who laugh at these
chaste feisty young women who yet don't in the
least threaten their men. Powell's words
take us right to the point and are brief:
"downright dishonest in treating of individual
relationships" (by which is meant sexual
and marital in private between two people) ...
"women don't analyze their own predicaments
as there represented ..." -- which I agree with
in many cases. The long series of objections
are in The Soldiers Art and the speakers
who present each point of view are important
(meaning who they are in life, their roles,
and how they are personally characterized).
I rush to say there are many believable women in
Trollope, but there are often gaps and absences
of reality which are very strikingly in the portrait
of Hester Caldigate. The prejudice is seen in
the portrait of Mrs Smith which is also distorted
though not as badly.
On the other hand, Trollope's portraits of women don't make me happy;
I don't rejoice in them. I like them when they are
real and find intense gratification in them when
they are honest -- he is actually far more truthful
about women characters than most male writers
for the middle class in 19th century England
and more truthful than many of the women writers
too. Trollope's Alice Vavasour, Lady Glen, especially
in CYRH? but also many lesser know women
characters are important
to me because they tells truths still with us,
validate something significant -- although I rarely
identify with them. I identify with only a few
of the women characters in all Trollope's
fiction (one instance that comes to mind where
I do is the heroine of "Journey to Panama").
I couldn't bear Thackeray's falsifying portraits
of women in Pendennis nor the self-satisfaction
he took in manipulating them in the way he did.
I equally don't care for many of Dickens's
women characters. These are much worse
distortions than Trollope's -- and I suspect
that's so because Trollope is aware he is
distorting, aware he is departing from reality
where Thackeray and Dickens more than
believe in what they write and don't see that
it is their own sexual fears and inadequacy
which drive these figures..
We have here a line of thought which could be
developed into telling us the source of pleasure
for readers who approach writers in what I'd
call a cult-like way, "fans". I am still puzzled
and wondering about the psychological and
ethical mechanism here and would like to understand
how it works out more in particulars.
Our controversy over Florian has an important
subtext. It's not Florian we are debating -- but
how we validate our understanding of ourselves
and our lives, our views on things, and what
we read Trollope for.
Ellen
Now that you mention Flurry Know, I recollect that I also knew of a former master of a hunt,
the late Florry Webb.
My own given name "Rory" is in my case from the Irish "Ruadhri", meaning "Red haired king"
(although my hair is actually gray, from black), and generally agreed to be a form of "Roderick"
or derived from the Scandinavian "huarodrica" (sp?). In Ireland Rory is a male name, although
in Scotland I have heard it used as a female name also (rarely).
Rory O'Farrell
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 Can I join Sig in finding Florian's conversion quite unbelievable. His
mother had died 'some years after' his birth, say when he was five. At that
time his sisters were fifteen and fourteen, and would presumably have taken
on the upbringing of the young Florian in the family's Protestant faith.
There is talk of Florian's lack of education, but the three elder children
had clearly been brought up in an area of some culture and education, and it
is difficult to see Mr Jones accepting that his 'favourite' child would be
allowed to grow up with the village children, and to acquire their accents
and verbal mannerisms. Finally, I would have expected that a recently
converted ten-year-old would have been unlikely to have qualified to attend
mass.
I agree with Sig that if Florian had been fifteen instead of only ten, his
conversion and obduracy might have been more believable. At ten children
might be expected to support their own family against any others, and do not
understand why he should see the vaguely expressed complaints of Pat Carroll
as justifying what was clearly a major damage to the family's property.
I did not enjoy this book when I first read it, and am reading along with
the list to see whether there are points that I have failed to appreciate.
So far, I have not changed my opinion of Florian, or understood the
fundamental point that Trollope is trying to make about land rights. I am
also not looking forward to the appearance of the dreadful Mr Moss. I am
only commenting now because I don't want Sig to feel that his is on his own.
Regards, Howard
In the Catholic tradition of the time, any child over the age of First Communion - typically 7
in the Catholic tradition, and perhaps slightly later in the Protestant tradition - would be expected
to attend Sunday mass. It is the case that the Catholic church regard the Protestant church(es)
as deviant, but that their sacraments are nevertheless valid, so Florian's baptism into the
Protestant church would count as valid baptism into the Catholic tradition when he started to
practise that faith.
Sig then wrote in:
Joanwall wrote:
Joan Yes, Joan, but they did what they were told to do and would not consider
rebelling against the Code of the Vikings.
Sig
Re: The boy Florian
I think ten does seem a bit young for such stubborn strength in sticking to
a lie--but it's quite believable at 13. Maybe children "matured" faster in
those days though. I'd expect some kind of internal reaction in Florian
after such complete defiance and opposition to all authority--maybe
nightmares or upset. I wonder how such apparent anger towards one's family
would be explained now--reaction to his mother's death? How hurtful and
infuriating to all the family his behavior would be.
I was surprised by Mr. Jones' leniency towards the boy;perhaps it's because
he's the favorite son. I think he's right in this, I don't think he'd get
the truth through strong arm tactics, or backing him into a tight corner.
The sisters very much acknowledge their father's authority over themselves,
though they work around him, trying to get the truth from Florian.
Judy Warner
To Trollope-l
January 16, 2002
Re: _The Landleaguers_: Hot Spots
I can't resist one more email; the conversation has become
so interesting.
In support of her sense that Trollope's portrait of Florian
is believable Judy G wrote:
"I also feel that Florian's determination to fit in with his friends locally
rings true. He wants to prove he is somehow really Irish rather than an
unpopular English interloper, and so he tries too hard, becoming more
intense about his new-found religion than those who have grown up with it.
To draw on my own family experience again, I've been told that my father and
uncle were in a rather difficult position in Britain during the war, as
young boys who were half-German and had a mother with a very heavy accent -
my uncle's reaction was to deny his German heritage completely and become
more English than anybody.
Florian is surely like this. While his sisters speak with conventional
English speech rhythms, he says "Deed and I know nothin' " and "Sorrow a
know, I know". His loyalties are painfully torn between his family and the
country where he has spent all his short life.
Trollope's portrayal of the boy seems triumphantly unsentimental to me - he
shows all the different motivations for his behaviour just as vividly as he
does with his adult characters. Judy W wrote in the vein of bringing part of the matter that swirls
around Florian's rebellion up to date:
What Sig keep coming back to is this rebellion against the parent,
this anger towards the family, this alienation at such a young age.
This is what he protested against in his comment to Joan.
They wouldn't rebel; they wouldn't hate.
In my first posting like Judy W I agreed that for us it seems a bit
young, but we come across this all the time in these earlier novels,
and it may be that people were coerced into growing up earlier
by the demands of the hardness of life and nearness of mortality
or it may be the convention of making characters young and
innocent is often violated by the novelist who pours into them
older apprehensions than a given age group would have. This
is particularly obvious in some of the portraits of teenage girls
by female novelist well over 35. But here we are still concentrating
on Florian himself; I'd like to turn to the father briefly.
I suggest Trollope has hit a real hot spot in the rebellion and
hatred of the parents. It's something hard for readers to take,
and we don't like to believe it can happen at a young age.
All I can say is it can; I have seen it and like Judy in myself
-- and I'll add other members of my family, cousins. At age
8 one can turn around and suddenly see a parent so clearly
and with strong distaste and alienation because the parent does not conform
to what the parent has claimed, because the parent is despised
or in some way profoundly different from the surrounding
society. I felt the first towards my mother at 8; I know
my older daughter felt the second towards me when she
was in the fourth grade. Sometimes this sudden lifting of
a veil can emerge in action on the part of the child that
is self-destructive, especially if the social circumstances
work at the distaste and alienation -- that was my case. If the social
circumstances do not exacerbate the alienation
and distaste or discomfort with the parent's difference,
the child can remain silent and the parent only learns
about what occurred when the child gets bit older, in
my daughter's case, pre-teens. Parents and children
often remain blind to such things for decades and
puzzle over why each time they meet there is
an explosive painful psychodrama or much quiet
unhappiness and thus they hardly ever meet.
I'd like to say that parents are equally capable of
disliking a child -- and acting very destructively towards it.
Trollope shows this kind of behavior in women towards
their daughters and sons (Lady Ball in Miss Mackenzie
comes to mind; Hester's mother in John Caldigate)
and men towards their sons in several novels (the ne'er
do-well spiteful fathers).
There is some unreality here -- I am coming on to point out
where I see the flaw in this depiction. It's not in Florian; it's
in Trollope's idealisation of Philip Jones. Trollope is concerned
to make us sympathize with those who fought strongly
against the Land League Act. He wants us to understand
why the Catholic Irish rebelled, but he also wants us to
side with the landowners. So in these early chapters he
makes Philip Jones very likeable. Mr Jones is not permitted
to be unfair, unjust, nasty; he is a man who is grieving
for his wife's death years after she has died. He never
hurts his tenants; he never ejects any one. He is all
decency. He loves Florian unqualifiedly. Had Trollope
been willing to present Mr Jones with flaws and the
real ones such a man would have had in the situation,
then Florian's rebellion would not feel without sufficient
cause when it comes to the father. I have read some
of Maria Edgeworth's fiction, and some social realists
in American fiction. Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle
comes to mind. What Edgeworth and Steinbeck show
is that the landowner will be unjust; he will get angry;
he will not be able to have such clean hands as Philip
Jones does. Trollope will not even allow the father to
get openly angry at the boy for converting. In fact
he wants to us to blame the father's kindness and
softeness. What happens when children draw back
in distaste, is the parent gets angry and lashes
out -- for here where they are hoping to garner up
their heart's longings they find a figure who is now
presenting to them the society's scorn, the society's
misunderstanding of their motives, the society's
simplistic way of regarding their ambivalent and often
driven actions.
So I would say that our argument is not only about
subtext and responses to children; it is about parents
versus children and children versus parents and
what we are willing to face as real. I would also agree
there is unreality, sliding over truths, but it comes not
so much in Florian but rather in the deliberately
and politically motivated exemplary portrait of Philip
Jones.
Ellen Moody
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 In Ireland, as I am sure Rory will agree, there is a kind of contempt
shown toward what the Irish call, "The returned Yank." He or she is
usually pictured as talking with an American accent and being very
arrogant. O'Mahoney and his daughter both use the Americanism, "I
guess." Trollope here, I think, is slightly teasing them.
The great Percy French, an Anglo-Irish composer and poet who died in
1920 had this to say in a song called:
She sang the most beautiful songs, The Gerahgtys gave a grand ball. Coming home we were crossing a stream, Sig
To: Trollopenet
Subject: Characters in The Landleaguers
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 23:50:33 -0700
Re: The Landleaguers: The boy Florian
Re: The Landleaguers: Dr Bartholomew Moss
at the
absurdly named Mahomet Moss. Unhappily,
this character is an instance of Trollope exploiting
anti-semitism and the depiction is ugly.
Re: The Landleaguers: The boy Florian
I do believe in the boy, at least I find the depiction believable.
It may be he is made slightly too young, but this is common
in these novels. We get young women of 19 whose thoughts
are as perceptive as the 35+ year old novelist who inhabits
her. I would also argue that people grew up earlier in the
19th century (as life was shorter), and that they still grow
up earlier when their circumstances are fragile and all around
them at risk.
Judy Geater
Re: The Landleaguers: The boy Florian
Florian is surely like this. While his sisters speak with conventional
English speech rhythms, he says "Deed and I know nothin' " and "Sorrow a
know, I know".
Re: The Landleaguers: The boy Florian
Members of the list may feel that "Florian" is a rather strange name. It
is not unusual to find that or close variations in use even today. I
recollect that at college some 35 years ago one boy was called "Florence"
(his given name), shortened to "Flann". I enquired about this, and was
told that in his area (Co Limerick) "Florence" was often used as a boy's
baptismal name, but usually abbreviated to "Flann" in everyday usage. One
might also instance the name "Flann O'Brien", the pseudonym of Brian
O'Nuallain, also known as "Myles na gCopaleen".
Re: The boy Florian
Re: The boy Florian
way back when the Vikings were ahunting, most of them were only 11.
"It also strikes me that ten is getting towards the sort of age where
children are often vulnerable to sudden religious conversion. As I may have
mentioned before, I come from an area of England (East Anglia) which used to
be known as Britain's Bible Belt, though you don't hear this phrase so much
these days - when I was a child there were strong fundamentalist churches
and frequent tent crusades in the area, and I was one of many children aged
about 11 or 12 who were dramatically "converted" in public at such an event.
I then went through agonies in case my atheist family were consigned to
hellfire and damnation if I didn't manage to get them to be born again too.
I changed my opinions as I grew up and gradually returned to my natural
scepticism, but it was still a painful experience (one reason I often turned
to Victorian literature was the pervasive theme of loss of faith). Reading
about Florian reminded me of this episode in my life ...
"I think ten does seem a bit young for such stubborn strength
in sticking to a lie -- but it's quite believable at 13 ... I wonder how such
apparent anger towards one's family would be explained now -- reaction
to his mother's death? How hurtful and infuriating to all the family his
behavior would be."
Re: "The returned Yank"
When Donegan came from the States,
Himself and his daugher were seen
Parading the principal streets
Of beautiful Ballyporeen.
Her cheeks were as red as a rose,
Her hair was a beautiful brown;
And the lads I suppose,
Were as thick now as crows,
All tied to the heel of her gown.
There were short men and long men,
And weak men and strong men,
And right men and wrong men
Were all to be seen.
But Donegan's daughter
From over the water
She gave them no quarter
In Ballyporeen.
Of the words we had never a hint,
For her fingers went hammer and tongs
In a running accompaniment.
Like a dog running after a rat,
Such scrimmaging never was heard.
Then down went her claws, like a murdering cat
When it leaps on the back of a bird.
At every party
She sang them all forte,
From "Ah Che la morte" to "Wearin' the Green".
Oh! Donegan's daughter
From over the water,
"Twas little they taught her
In Ballyporeetn.
The girls were all ribbons and tape.
But Miss Donegan bested them all
With her perfectly wonderful shape;
And when she was taking the floor
With a high-stepping bachelor boy,
The rest of us scowled
In the doorway and growled
That 'twas him we would surely destroy.
There was kissing and squeezing,
And coaxing and teasing;
And sure there's no reason
Such things should be seen.
But Donegan's daughter
From oever the water,
"Twas she made the slaughter
In Ballyporeen.
I thought to beleaguer the belle,
A struggle, a kiss, and a scream
And into the water we fell.
To me that can swim like a trout
It was only a trifling reverse,
But when she came out,
"Faith there wasn't much doubt
She was changed very much for the worse.
For her hair it was bigger
She'd no sort of figure;
Her waist and her wig were
No more to be seen.
Oh! Donegan's daughter
From under the water,
Two pins would have bought her
In Ballyporeen.
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