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174
Tek Meri,
Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Res. Assist. in English Literature, the Faculty of Letters E-mail: meri.tek@msgsu.edu.tr
Gender struggle in Edith Nesbit's short story "Man-Size in Marble"
Abstract: The aim of this study is to examine the gender struggle of the late Victorian period in Edith Nesbit's gothic short story "Man-Size in Marble". The paper analyses how the female image is victimized by the patriarchy through giving examples from the story.
Keywords: Victorian, gothic, short story, Nesbit, patriarchy, gender, new woman, woman's position.
Widely known as the author of Children Literature, Edith Nesbit is also recognized for her gothic short stories of the fin-de-siècle. As Kelly Hurley states in The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, English gothic fiction emerged between 1760 and 1820 as "a genre distinguished by its supernaturalist content, its fascination with social transgression, and its departure, in formal terms, from the emerging norm of realism." [1, 90-91]. With this historical reference, Hurley also points out the typical features of the early English gothic fiction. The gothic fiction of the period includes stock characters such as virtuous young heroines, demons in dark and gloomy settings with series of terrifying events which raise a suspenseful atmosphere. As a work belonging to the Fin-de-siècle period, however, I believe it would not be wrong to claim that Nesbit's Gothic short story, "Man-Size in Marble" is a notable work with its critical approach to women's position in the society. Victorian women were already known to be limited with certain social roles such as being a wife, being a mother that is referred as "The Angel in the House". As the definition implies, women were related with the domestic sphere of life. However, this concept was challenged with "The New Woman" which came as a social phenomenon in the society. In total contradiction with "The Angel in the House", "The New Woman" was not restricted with domestic life. The New Woman could take place in social and working spheres of life and could even have the right for vote which was such a radical strike for the century. Hurley remarks the place of gender roles in the literature of late nineteenth century and she also describes The New Woman image for gothic tradition; "Another such threateningly liminal subject was the 'New Woman', orfin-de-siècle feminist, an outspoken, independent, and thoroughly modern woman, whose 'masculine' behaviours made her something of monster." [1,199]. This historical and literary framework creates a renowned style
of gothic fiction in Edith Nesbit's "Man-Size in Marble" as she blends the gothic fiction setting with a problematic issue of the century putting forward her discontented commentary for the inequality between the gender roles. Nesbit bases her story on a newlywed couple's purchasing a house which is subject to many ghostly legends. Laura as a writer and Jack as an artist seem to form such a modern couple for whom "Living in town was out of question." [2, 2]. However, the revelation of the legend about Men-Size in Marble knights who are believed to raise from their place and walk to their old house on All Saints Day, which is now purchased by this couple reveals the course of the story. Nesbit gently reveals Jack's patriarchal attitude towards Laura which ends up with Laura's victimization to the patriarchy. Hence, setting the narrator as a male and sacrificing the female to male power at the end of the story, Nesbit shows the century's gender problem which I aim to examine in this paper.
Searching for a house away from the town, Laura and Jack finally find an old cottage in Brenzett Village. They seem to enjoy their life in this cottage's atmosphere according to the protagonist Jack's statement; "From the window you could see the marsh-pastures, and beyond them the blue, thin line sea. We were as happy as the summer was glorious, and settled down into work sooner than we ourselves expected. I was never tired ofsketching the view and the wonderful cloud effects from the open lattice, and Laura would sit at the table and write verses about them, in which I mostly played the part of foreground." [2, 2] Considering the protagonist's narration, everything seems quite normal in their life and the reader is likely to ask, why the protagonist hesitates at the very beginning referring to his claim, "Although every word of this story is as true as despair, I do not except people to believe it." [2, 1] However, the course of the story changes with the sudden decision oftheir old housekeeper Mrs. Dorman. Mrs. Dorman declares that she wants to leave the house on Thurs-
day as her niece is ill. Nevertheless, this does not appear as a valid reason for Laura and she feels quite disturbed of Mrs. Dorman's decision of departure. Her leaving the house means housework for Laura, which is quite contradictory for her character, as a representative of The New Woman. Aware of Laura's dissatisfaction with domestic work, Jack tries to convince Mrs Dorman to stay or at least to learn the real reason of her departure. Yet, he discovers far beyond of what he expects, which stands at the core of this story. Old Mrs Dorman wants to leave because she knows a terrifying legend about the 31st of October, The All Saints Day. According to the legend, "the man-size marble" knight figures in the church get up from their places and as the clock strikes eleven, they walk out of the church to go to their old house which is now a dwelling for our protagonist and his wife. Telling this legend, Mrs Dorman also warns; "Whatever you do, sir, lock the door early on All Saints' Eve, and make the cross-sign over the doorstep and on the windows." [2, 6] At this point, the protagonist is mostly expected to warn Laura as well and take precaution. However, the narrator does not inform Laura about the All-Saints Day legend claiming that this would affect her negatively:
I did not tell Laura the legend of the shapes that "walked in their marble," partly because a legend concerning our house might perhaps trouble my wife, and partly, I think, from some more occult reason. This was not quite the same to me as any other story, and I did not want to talk about it till the day was over. I had very soon ceased to think of the legend however. [2; 6]
This stands for the second decision that puts the story into a gothic basis. Because the narrator decides not to speak of this legend to Laura, at the end of the story Laura is found dead and is likely to be murdered by the knights on All Saints Day. Even though there are no ghostly incidents in the story, the "man-size marble" figures in the church and the Catholic routed story of Mrs. Dorman are enough to create the gothic atmosphere in the story. In "E. Nesbit's New Woman Gothic" Nick Freeman draws attention to Nesbit's style of Gothic in the story; "To class 'Man Size in Marble' as a ghost story is, however, a little misleading, for its spectres are not the airy phantoms that such a designation leads one to expect, and the tale is imbued with radical political energy in a way that remains unusual in Gothic fiction a century later." [3,457] However, through establishing this atmosphere, Nesbit draws attention to power struggle between gender roles.
At first glance to Laura and Jack as a couple, one may think that they share equality in the institution of mar-
riage. However, as the story continues, Nesbit's word choice reveals the patriarchal dominancy that Jack feels over Laura. Even though Laura stands for the representative of the New Woman with her exclusion from domestic life and working as an author, Jack calls Laura with numerous names such as "pussy" which is a weakening word for a figure like Laura. Referring to her with a pet name is not the only degrading act ofJack, however. He also claims Laura to be "unreasonable" on Mrs Dorman's departure problem telling:
I represented to her that even if we had to perform these duties, the day would still present some margin for other toils and recreations. But she refused to see the matter in any but the greyest light. She was very unreasonable, my Laura, but I could not have loved her anymore if she had been as reasonable as Whately [2; 3].
Freeman argues that in most of the story, Jack is content to live with rational principles, having a one and only neighbour, the Irish Doctor [2, 459] yet, he cannot free himself from the patriarchal conventions so that he defines Laura and her occupation in degrading manners. With definitions such as "pussy" and "unreasonable" Laura is also related with uneasy and nearly hysteric manners. Her crying and Jack's fear to affect her negatively, puts a contradiction to her New Woman position. This is what Nesbit does on purpose, depicting the woman character through the male gaze on which Freeman comments; "Worse still, Jack speaks for Laura and Mrs Dorman throughout the story, refusing to take either of them seriously" [3, 458]. As Freeman points out, the narrator not only speaks for Laura but also for old Mrs Dorman and in both respects, he refuses to accept what they point out.
Mrs Dorman's case is, however, different from Laura as a female character because she appears to serve conventional Victorian society. At the beginning, Mrs Dorman is pictured as a peasant woman who has suitable qualities for housekeeping:
Her face and figure were good, though her cooking was of the homeliest, but she understood all about gardening, and told us all the old names of the coppices and cornfields, and the stories of the smugglers and highwaymen, and, better still, of the "things that walked," and of the "sights" which met one in lonely glens of a starlight night. [2, 2].
From the early depiction ofMrs Dorman in the story, one realizes that she is quite a contradictory when compared to Laura. Her domesticity is followed by her telling the legend to Jack but not to Laura that shows her obedience to patriarchy. Freeman's statement clarifies Mrs. Dorman's state in the story:
Nesbit is perfectly willing to exploit fictional convention as it suits her, and here offers a figure who was already a stereotype in less accomplished stories. Old and wise, with a deep store of local knowledge that refuses the neat and possibly artificial differentiation between legend and history, Mrs. Dorman is a character with close ties to the village [3, 459].
Having such a conventional and opposing status to Laura in the story, Mrs Dorman shares the legend with Jack and shows the obedience to the male dominancy.
The 'Man-Size in Marble' legend on the other hand not only stands for the horrifying element of the story, but it is also the allegorical embodiment of the patriarchy's victimization of the New Woman. These marble knight figures are firstly introduced in the church setting with the description of the narrator:
In the chancel, the windows were of rich glass, which showed in faint light their noble colouring, and made the black oak of the choir pews hardly more solid than the shadows. But on each side of the altar lay a grey marble figure of a knight in full plate armour lying upon a low slab, with hands held up in everlasting prayer, and these figures, oddly enough, were always to be seen if there was any glimmer of light in the church [2, 4].
This depiction of the marble figures follows some interesting details about the knights. The knights' names are unknown and along with village people's beliefs, those knights were very fierce and wicked so that their foul deeds ended up with punishment of the Heaven [2, 4]. The belief that the knights were once living in the cottage where the couple lives now make their possible existence far more interesting. The narrator states his feeling about the knights after the description; "Looking at the bad hard faces reproduced in the marble, this story was easily believed." [2, 4] Even though the first description of the knights does not refer to any gender-based violence, they create a frightening image in the reader's minds. With Mrs. Dorman's explanation about the All Saints Day, the knights seem to have a much more significant effect on the village people. At this point, the narrator seems in conflict because even though he does not want to believe in what Mrs. Dorman says, deep in mind he has fear about it. So, the knights arise a suspense not only in Mrs. Dorman, but also in Jack. However, the ending of the story refers to a much more significant message through the knight figures. In All Saints Day, the narrator takes a walk to the church leaving Laura at the house, thinking that she is tired. As he reaches the church he comes to realize that it is All Saints Day. Remembering the legend,
he walks to the altar to assure himself that the legend is not real;
Having thus remembered the legend, and remembered it with a shiver, of which I was ashamed, I could not do otherwise than walk up towards the altar, just to look at the figures — as I said to myself, really what I wanted was to assure myself, first, that I did not believe the legend, and, that it was not true. I was rather glad that I had come. I thought now I could tell Mrs. Dorman how vain her fancies were, and how peacefully the marble figures slept on through the ghastly hour [2, 9].
Nevertheless, as he reaches the altar, he faces the fact that Mrs. Dorman's fancies were not that 'vain' because he cannot see the marble figures in their places. Seeing that marble figures were missing, the narrator undergoes a horror and rushes to the house but, the Irish Doctor, the representative of reasonable man, in the story once more changes his direction. The Irish doctor laughs to what he hears and relates this as a dream because of too much smoking [2, 10]. After the Irish doctor's reaction, the narrator seems convinced and they follow the road to go the cottage. What they face in the cottage is the climax of the story which embodies Laura's victimization to the patriarchy. When they first enter the house, the narrator draws attention to the light and calls it "remedy" [2, 11] for Laura's uneasy and nervous state. Beside the word "pussy", now he even calls her as "poor child" [2, 11]. As they enter more to the scene, the death of Laura becomes much more apparent with the almost picturesque description of the narrator. In "The Feminist Orientation in Edith Nesbit's Gothic Short Fiction" Victoria Margree focuses on the picturesque description of dead female bodies in Nesbit's short stories:
It is highly significant that so many of her tales proffer tableaux of the dead female body and of the married couple lying dead in the grave. This constitutes a visual language expressive of a profound negativity about the place of women in society, and the character of the institution that is supposed by many to be a woman's best chance ofhappiness and fulfilment. Such images can also be read as symbolic of women's exclusion from the social realm, and this is particularly so in those stories that feature dead women attempting in vain to return to the world of living [4, 433].
What Margree states is predictable in the story, because as the dead body of Laura is given in such an artistic frame, the finger of the marble found in her hand reveals the murderer. The cause of Laura's death is the man-size marble knights, which indicates a social criticism. While the narrator stands in an in between of rationality and
conventional belief, the marble knights, representing ancient violence kill Laura. In other words, the conservative Victorian society destroys the New Woman image which is depicted allegorically through the marble figures and Laura.
Another disturbing fact about the murder is Jack's fault of not sharing the secret with Laura. The Marble figures remain as a secret concerning patriarchy, but not the woman and the exclusion ofwoman from knowledge leads to the destruction of her image. In "Re-Reading Disability in E. Nesbit's Late Victorian Gothic Fiction" Kathleen A. Miller comments on the social criticism under the murder of Laura and shows how patriarchy is responsible of the women's destruction in society;
Even though the narrator clasps, kisses, and calls Laura 'by all her pet names', these futile gestures of affection prove empty. Not only does Laura remain dead, but the clasped finger alludes to a possible phallic penetration and violation. In 'Man Size in Marble' a seemingly equal partnership turns sinister, where the husband does not respect his wife as an equal, where valuable secrets are kept as male privilege, and where masculine able-bodied rationality is still deemed superior to female intellect, intuition, and capability [5, 150].
Hence, telling that the destruction of the woman image grows step by step in the story would not be wrong as Laura's indirect underestimation and weakened position ends with the literal destruction of her life. Besides, the marble knights' murder is almost celebrated in a ritualistic way because the narrator's description is almost a fascinated one and even though the doctor is with him, he does not let the doctor disturb this moment which destroys his rational manners. So, Nesbit reflects the consequences of the gender struggle, patriarchy's desire of destructing female power.
Furthermore, the ancient Catholic root of the legend is conflicting with the shift that Nesbit makes in or-
der to reflect her comment on the society. While Freeman gives information about the Ancient All-Saints Day, he also underlines an important detail which is shifted by Nesbit in the story: "Nonetheless, it was a night when young people, 'usually but not always, girls', could perform acts of divination to discover whom they would marry, and when bonfires were lit: medieval Christians believed that souls in Purgatory would be purged by holy fire, the feast of All Souls being attempt to relieve them by living" [3, 465-466]. Nesbit wisely uses this detail in the story with the candles and the murder. Laura does not reflect any spiritualistic qualities in the story. Their church visits are being except for Sundays as the narrator points out in the story. These visits on the other hand are for inspirational purposes rather than religious purposes. Nevertheless, her none spiritualistic character is punished by the knights in All Saints Day. Nesbit deconstructs the original belief that young girls would see whom they marry and she causes the death of Laura by patriarchy lighting the candles herself.
As the ending of the story sets forth, Nesbit's gothic structure depicts a social reality about the gender roles. Nesbit is able to create an uneasy atmosphere with the presence of the man-size marble knights and their frightening legend which makes Mrs Dorman leave the house. However, as argued in this study, the man-size marble knights refer to something wider which is the representation of patriarchy. Using the knights as a tool of horror element in the story, Nesbit creates gender struggle between the marble figures and the New Woman image. As the marble figures represent the patriarchy, they destroy and exclude the woman image from society allegorically. Through the narrator's perception of Laura and marble knights' murder, Nesbit remarks the gender problem of her century with harmonizing gothic elements and the social criticism she aims to reflect.
References:
1. Hurley Kelly. "British Gothic Fiction,1885-1930" The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. Ed.Jerrold E. Ho-gle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
2. Nesbit E. Man-Size in Marble.1st ed. -Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, 1-12.
3. Freeman Nick. "E. Nesbit's New Gothic". Women's Writing. 15.3 (2008): 454-469.
4. Margree, Victoria. "The Feminist Orientation in Edith Nesbit's Gothic Short Fiction". Women's Writing.21.4 (2014): 425-443.
5. MillerA., Kathleen. "The Mysteries of the In-between: Re-reading Disability in E. Nesbit's Late Victorian Gothic Fiction'Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies. 6.2 (2012): 143-157.
