To Trollope-l
July 16, 1999
Re: What Came Between The Warden and Barchester Towers
As we set forth on the second book of our journey through Barsetshire and since we have had some new people join our list recently, I thought the best way to introduce our second book would be to repost the chronological ordering of what publishers and Trollope's readers have come to call the Barsetshire novels.
After The Warden Trollope began his first essays into periodical journalism. Among other things, he worked towards a review of Charles Merivale's multi-volume History of the Romans under the Empire. Anyone who has written a review of a serious book know it takes work, and in academia it is still not work for which you get any kind of check. Trollope did an enormous amount of reading, including studying Caesar's Commentaries, and produced two articles, one on Julius and the other on Augustus Caesar.
He also wrote the full-length The New Zealander which has been called a Carlyle-like political tract which gives the reader the clearest insight you can get in Trollope's books of the moral stances behind Trollope's opinions on the way states and communities of all sorts work in human societies. N. John Hall says it was written between February and March 1855; it was first published in 1971-2 by Oxford University Press, as edited and introduced by Hall (and you can now buy it in a Trollope Society edition too).
Why the three-year gap? It wasn't just dithering about, for the above material meant something to Trollope. He remained interested in Caesar and the classics all his life, read them, studied them before adding to these studies, old English plays. Still the problem was that The Warden had not been the financial and social success that Trollope needed to be able to demand profitable pounds for the difficult effort it took to write novels while working for the post office.
Although The Warden was the first book by Trollope which he felt got some modicum of respect, in his An Autobiography, he writes that 'it failed altogether in the purport for which it was intended', by which he means to lead the public to think about the two opposing evils of
'the possession by the Church of certain funds and endowments which had been intended for charitable purposes, but which had been allowed to become incomes for idle Church dignitaries' and 'the undeserved severity of the newspapers towards the recipients of such incomes, who could hardly have been considered to be the chief sinners in the matter (An Autobiography, ed M Sadleir and F Page, Ch 5, p. 94).And, he adds a bit later,
"as regards remuneration for the time [it took to write the book], stone-breaking would have done better. A thousand copies were printed, of which, after a lapse of five or six years, about 300 had to be converted into another form, and sold as belonging to a cheap edition. In its original form The Warden never reached the essential honour of a second edition' (Ch 5, p. 98).
There is something poignant in a man really believing that he will get a large number of people who read novels seriously to think about, let alone understand the points he was trying to make in his honest satire'. In point of fact most of his reviewers didn't know what to make of the book as it didn't clearly take sides. He was disappointed. It was a disillusioning even if salutary lesson.
Thus as we open Barchester Towers, when we see Trollope picking up the characters, their situation, and some of the less knotted threads of The Warden, and assuming the same tone of drollery with which he began The Warden, we should not be surprised to find him spinning out a comic (Fieldingesque) version of what had by the 1850s become the conventional format for the middle class English novel: 3 volumes, a multiplot design with love-and-marriage stories now to the fore.
Still neither the treatment of religious politics nor the love stories are all that conventional -- nor the setting of the book in a contemporary framework of time and space. The church politics and love stories include two of my favorite characters in all Trollope: Bertie Stanhope and the Signora Neroni. Trollope has also not dropped his ecclesiastical/political satire. No. No. It's just a new angle. It's at this point we should maybe reread our earlier threads on high versus low church. To this he has added a saturnine depiction of a domineering repressed woman. So Arabin's studies are now specified, and we have three new characters who are probably favorites with many people too: Dr, Mrs Proudie and the inimitable Slope -- with his salacious name. I hope everyone knows what was the speciality of that eminent physician in Tristram Shandy to whom our narrator alludes at the opening of Chapter 3 in lieu of the usual parentage. The Archdeacon is not lost from sight either. Oh no.
Ellen Moody
To this Sigmund Eisner added:
Reply-to: trollope-l@onelist.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Barchester Towers
From: Sigmund Eisner Reply-to: trollope-l@onelist.com July 17, 1999
From: "Robert J Wright" One of the aspects of Trollope's novels I enjoy is when the author suddenly
appears in the narrative using his own voice.
There are even whole chapters when AT steps forward and takes centre stage.
These are not I think the most successful parts of his books as he tends to
adopt a soapbox style.
I read somewhere that Henry James was severely critical of this "weakness"
in AT but this morning, whilst listening to the Cover to Cover "Portrait of
a Lady", I caught James in the same act, when the author injected the words
"I confess..." in his own voice into the narrative, and then did the same a
few lines later. So even James could not resist it.
This sort of thing is rather like Hitchcock making cameo appearances in his
own films.
Robert J Wright
Re: Barchester Towers: The Author Appears in his Own Novel
In response to Robert, I recently read a commentary on Flaubert
in which the writer pointed out passage after passage in which
Flaubert appeared in his novels as the narrator and directed the
reader how to feel or think about what was going on, either
indirectly and ironically, or downright didactically. I'll bet one
could do the same with James.
James was, of course, objecting to Trollope's open description
of himself as narrator or storyteller, and of his novels as narratives,
stories, and novels. Trollope was somehow to pretend this was not
a book -- as if the reader actually really forgets he is reading
a book and imagines him or herself in Barsetshire for real.
This reminds me of Samuel Johnson's mockery of the rule for
unity in drama which demanded a play take place
in one place, within 2 hours: as if the audience really
thought itself in the place the play is imagined taking
place in. Trollope should have at a minimum called himself
a historian, says James.
I'm with Robert in thinking the active narrator one of the
pleasures of Trollope's fictions. We are all the more
surprised by our emotions because they come upon
us unexpectedly as we have been reminded this is after
all a book and some characters. So why are we laughing
or near tears? I find Trollope's fiction is made more
intense by the device -- as he uses it -- not less.
Still, just to start the ball rolling tonight, I'll throw out this:
in The Warden and Barchester Towers Trollope goes
further than admitting he is storyteller and this is a
narrative he is continuing. In Chapter 2 he retells
Mr Harding's history as if the story were a biography,
but in Chapter 3 he gives Slope a heritage in Tristram
Shady; and in Chapter 6 he discusses with us
his aims as a novelist: he won't talk of sacred
inner things in the 'pages of a novel'; he may
'question the fallibility of the teachers' but not
be 'accused' of 'doubting the thing taught'
(Penguin Barchester Towers, 1987 ed RGilmour,
p 44). Later in the book Trollope's narrator
discusses the coming ending, tells us what
is not going to happen, because he's supposedly
worries lest we get too anxious.
He also puts himself in the story as if he were a person in it:
we can imagine him a character or the characters as real people
he has met. In The Warden the narrator tells us he
met the Archdeacon's three allegorical children, actually
met them and didn't like the smallest at all. In Barchester
Towers, Trollope writes of Mr Slope:
And of the cathedral:
Does this sort of thing turn Trollope's narrator into
a character in the book? Or does it rather
make the fiction realer because the places are
assumed to be as real as the author? (Thackeray
does this in Vanity Fair towards the end of the
book.)
HenryJames found this sort of thing disconcerting,
but then he was a 19th century person.
Many modern novelists break the illusions of
induced reverie reading (which is what reading
novels is) all the time. What do others think?
Does it make the book more pleasurable? or
does it jolt some readers?
Next term when I read Washington Square and
Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaitewith my
students I mean to pay close attention to the
narrator to see if James intervenes any less
than Trollope, or how he makes such intervention
unobstrusive. Trollope means to obtrude.
Ellen Moody
In response to Sig on Mrs Proudie, John Mize wrote on July 20, 1999:
What I find interesting about Mrs. Proudie is that she represents one
strain of feminism in a very pure form. Feminism is essentially the
movement to give women power, but there is a question as to how that power
should be used. Some feminists believe that women should use their power to
free themselves and live as they please. Others want to reform society and
make everyone act morally. A lot of women who supported suffrage in the 19th
century didn't base their claim on women having the same natural rights as
men. Instead they argued that allowing women to participate in politics
would purify the political process. The question of freedom versus morality
is one of the most important arguments in American politics, an argument
which has existed since the beginning of the country between Enlightenment
skeptics who wanted to be left alone and reformers, religious and secular,
who wanted to make the New World into a shining city on the hill to redeem
the fallen Old World. Most people were and are in the middle-of-the-road on
this issue. Sometimes we want to be left alone, and sometimes we want to
meddle.
For me the extremes of 19th century American feminism are exemplified by
Victoria Woodhull and Carrie Nation. Woodhull dabbled in spiritualism and
was a strong proponent of free love. She insisted that no one had any right
to tell her what to do, but she wasn't especially interested in telling
anyone else what to do. Carrie Nation may or may not have considered
herself a feminist, but many feminists strongly supported the temperance
movement. Nation's first husband was an alcoholic who physically abused
her. She left him and became an uncompromising temperance advocate, going
so far as to smash up saloons. Nation didn't think all the problems in the
country were caused by alcohol. She also wanted to do away with tobacco,
fornication and the Masons. I think she only wanted to abolish Masonism and
not the Masons themselves, but I'm not completely sure. 20th century
American feminism has the same sort of split, with Andrea Dworkin filling in
for Nation and Susie Bright, for Woodhull. Most people are in the middle,
just as they always have been. Mrs. Proudie is firmly in the Dworkin/Nation
camp and wants to force everyone to do the right thing.
Then Gene Stratton wrote:
From: "Ginger Watts" I feel badly about having to disagree, but I don't see Mrs. Proudie as a
feminist at all. I see her more as an eminence grise, in the sense of the
power behind the throne. A puppet master or mistress, if you will. This
type of person can be male or female.
Like her sovereign of the time, Mrs. Proudie seems orthodox in almost all
ways. She is religious in a way that might be called fundamentalist today,
and fundamentalist women are usually not thought of as strong feminists. I
don't think anyone would impute to her a belief in sexual freedom for women.
She seems to be the type of person who believes ardently in marriage,
monogamy, and a well-defined division of duties between the husband and the
wife. Mrs. Proudie appears to be a champion of the status quo,
If anyone in Barchester Towers might be considered a feminist, I think it
would be free-spirited Madeleine Neroni, and possibly even her sister
Charlotte. Mrs. Proudie is a strong-minded person determined to get her
way. The world is full of strong-minded men and strong-minded women, and
also full of weak-willed men and weak-willed women. These are personalities
that go back to Adam and Eve. I don't think Mrs. Proudie would want
liberation if it were offered her.
Gene Stratton From: John Mize You're probably right. Mrs. Proudie reminds me a little of Carrie Nation, who
probably wasn't a feminist either. Nation reminds me of the controlling,
moralistic element in American feminism as opposed to the natural rights
element. Some of the women who supported female suffrage in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries used arguments designed to appeal to the American Mrs.
Proudies. Such arguments were probably not persuasive with those women.
From: Catherine Crean Gene Stratton wrote:
If this is so, why does Mrs. Proudie always "try to wear the pants in
the family"? One of the reasons the archdeacon and Mr. Harding find Mrs.
Proudie tough to take is her butting into church affairs. This is
unseemly and "unwomanly". I don't have a copy of BT handy right now, but
I recollect that when the archdeacon and Mr. Hardy first meet the Mr.
and Mrs. Proudie a reference is made to the archdeacon's being
unaccustomed to having the distaff side PRESENT at, not to mention
participating in a meeting about church business. I agree that Mrs.
Proudie is not a feminist as we think of a feminist. She domineers those
around her, men and women. If we could apply the word "feminist" at all
to Mrs. Proudie, I would call her a situational feminist. When it suits
Mrs. Proudie, she acts in a fashion that is "unwomanly" to the Victorian
eye. This is one of the reasons she causes such a stir. I'm also
thinking of the passage where the archdeacon (or Mr. Harding) talks
about the church women in the Barsetshire circle who wash the children's
hands, hear their catechism, and give the each child a bun. That is the
extent of female involvement in "Sabbath Schools." Gene's post also
brings to mind the comments on the women in BH. Did the Victorian
writers satirize evangelical women because of their religious activities
or because the women were "acting outside their sphere."
Catherine Crean
I tried to adjudicate:
July 20, 1999
RE: Barchester Towers: Reading Against the Grain & Feminism (I)
Mrs Proudie might provide the 'hot spot' for many readers today
in a way she would not have for Trollope's readers: by which I mean
a battleground and litmus test.
I thought I might contribute to the debate by suggesting that first we
need to make it clear when we are reading against the grain (meaning
ignoring Trollope's values and placing our own on the text) and what
we mean by feminism -- for there are schools of feminism and
some schools (groups of people) loathe the other schools, though
strong feelings are the mark of them all. Why? Our society has
for the last half century been undergoing a vast social rearrangement
whereby women are playing roles in society they didn't play before
-- and men are playing different roles in the home. The attitude
towards marriage itself has changed: although many people
still marry to obtain position, and measure a prospective date
in the first place by his or her 'presentability' to some idea of
what's acceptable to the respectable establishment, and most
people are conflicted from within if they should marry someone
whose position is lower than theirs (through education, money,
job); people expect a kind of full partnership in all responsibilities
and they look to their prospective mate for companionship,
real affection, congeniality of tastes and interests. These
latter expectations had only come to the fore in Trollope's
time; he is certainly for marrying for these things and against
marrying sheerly for position or money, but the weight put
on these things in his mind is different from the weight at least
some of us would give them.
When I called Mrs Proudie an anti-feminist figure, I was alluding
in a too brief way to the way many feminist critics read Trollope
e.g,. Jane Nardin, Kate Flint, Patricia Walton. They see in
such a figure an example of Trollope's anti-feminism. Catherine
Crean is right to point out that in the scene in Chapter 5 where
Harding and Grantly are introduced to Mrs Proudie along with
the Bishop and Slope implicitly as one of three who are all
powerful (a triumvirate), the objection is sheerly to her very
presence. She has no right to be there as a woman because
ecclesiastical positions and power was to be held by men.
In her Three Guineas Virginia Woolf has a good analysis
of the attitudes behind this prohibition: says she, men
see women as primarily sexual creatures; there is a tradition
going back before Christianity grounded in fear of giving
women any access to 'magic' (they then became sorceresses,
witches); there are a load of passages in the Bible which can
rationalise all these as obedience to Paul and the way things
ought to be (men in charge). Such prohibitions of women
having power in the church have only been swept away
recently, only in some churches, and even in these is still
controversial. (I have a sister-in-law who is a sort of Vicar
or Curate-in-Charge and she has tell saturnine stories of
responses she gets now and again to her functioning as
a relatively powerful church person.) Nardin, Flint, and Walton
take this prohibition, generalise it out and talk of how women
have the right to have powerful positions, control of money
in our society. They deplore Trollope's attitude here.
One should mention some feminists go further and argue that
her nasty grasping personality, one which seeks to repress
and control others, prevent them from enjoying themselves,
comes from frustration. The line runs, were she to have had
access to power from the very beginning, she would not
be this way. This strikes me as counterfactual arguing. My
view would be such a personality would be this way however
she was educated: there are people who love to have power
and will impose themselves on others. If Mrs Proudie -- or
Lady Arabella Gresham -- had been given more spheres
within which to dominate others, they would just have made
more people's lives difficult or maimed them if they had
the power to. One part of the seachange that has occurred
since Trollope's time is the way middle class women got
power and respect and money was by dominating a
family network, by marrying for rank; the way they get it
now is through a job network. But the impulses behind
such behavior are much the same, and the women who
become dominant do so as a result of personality types
and luck (born to money, access to good education)
just in the way luck and personality type operated in the
19th century.
Perhaps we ought to attempt to talk about different
feminisms, for the above comments would not please some schools
of feminists, while they would at least be understood
by others. Although a hostile account, Christina Hoff
Sommers' Who Stole Feminism identifies the different
groups in a remarkably similar way to Germaine Greer
and Gloria Steinem's categorising. I was simplifying when
I spoke of different schools, for women just have all sorts
of attitudes all over the place and one cannot split and
lump with any easy pigeonholing. In brief, I will try to
identify just a few general attitudes which can form
faultlines in attitudes towards characters in books.
First, there seems to be 1) a group of feminists who we might
call politically conservative or rightist: they don't want to reform
society for the better of all, but rather look for power for
individuals, for money. They dislike portraits of submissive
women; they detest stories of women's victimisation.
This is a growing group of the 1990s. There are feminists
who we might call 2) politically liberal or leftist:
they want to reform society, all marginalised groups
must be given equal opportunity through government
action and laws. Women would benefit. Laws must
be passed to free children of the tendency to regard
them as property of the their parents. Women must
be protected against male physical strength. This group splits
itself into 2a) those who look to the Supreme Court and
law to change the world and they would sweep away
earlier legislation which distinguishes women from
men as agents in society, and 2b) those who seek to change
mores slowly, and want laws to protect women left
in place. There are other groups: 3) some women want
radical change in attitudes towards sex. This group
splits into 3a) women who say marriage is a form of
prostitution and look upon the sexual encounter
as always a form a rape and game of power;
and 3b) women who merely want to change some
attitudes towards dating, rape, and sex inside
marriage. Most women are probably 4) for equal pay
for the same job, but even there you might find
different emphases. I have nowhere covered the
ground, merely tried to sketch the umbrella by
describing a few panels in it.
I don't know which group I belong to, probably 2b,
though I also share the attitudes I suggested
belong to 3b) and 4). I think to avoid arguments
when we discuss Mrs Proudie we should identify
ourselves carefully so we recognise wherein
we share presumptions and where we don't. This
will spare misunderstanding. So I'll go further and
say of my own that I think enormous strides in helping
women as a group to be happier, healthier, live longer
more fulfilled lives have been made in the 20th century.
I have a hunch a great deal of this progress is due to
the spread of safe, effective, contraception and
safe childbirth . But it's true women can now be
independent of men -- as well as of their family group
(of which men can free themselves too). It's true men have
always left women (Dickens threw his wife out),
and now at least some women can protect themselves
and be safe due to access to decent jobs. Many
women have access to and do get good educations in
school -- far better than ever before. Women
who don't want to marry are infinitely better off. Here I
will offend but never mind: I think some women
fundamentally don't like men, are not interested in love
(and many people are incapable of it); and some men
don't like women and don't want to marry either. All
can climb outside the family and finds connections
through the large institutions of our society as they could
not before the workings of industry, capitalist, and technology
provides so many niches for so many.
But in all social rearrangements there are winners and losers.
And there have been losers. And things have been
lost in human relationships which seem increasing to
be conducted as if we were negotiating contracts and
not entering into friendships whose values and
criteria are quite different. Some young children have
lost badly, perhaps many. Divorce devastates children -- miserably
unhappy married couples do too, but at least a man's
salary provides a minimum of money. Many sorts of women
feel they have lost badly, feel less safe. I don't think the
sexual revolution has liberated anybody. Yes you can
do what you like, but no act is without its consequences
and given human nature ... I'll go farther
and suggest teenage girls are at a real disadvantage
nowadays, very bad. Maybe I should
put it that one person can win on one front and loses on
another of this vast social rearrangement.
other. Here's a witty bitter cynicism which I more
than half mean: the real winner has been the boss in the
company who has an enormous pool of compliant workers.
I see I have gone on at length so will turn to Mrs Proudie in
a second post tomorrow under the same heading.
Ellen Moody
Re: Barchester Towers: Reading Against the Grain & Feminism (II)
Where does Trollope fit in when we consider a spectrum of feminism?
The movement had begun by his own day and he gave speeches
on women and education and discussed what he considered to be
the aims of feminists in these. He had feminists friends: he loved
one dearly and her name was Kate Field.
By what Trollope said explicitly in these lectures, neither Mrs Proudie
nor the Signora Neroni qualify as feminists. Trollope's feminists are mostly
caricatures: Wallachia Petrie (He Knew He Was Right)
and Baroness Banmann (Is He Popenjoy?) These are notoriously
harsh depictions of women who go about lecturing to other
women to tell them marriage is a trap; they must have professions
and careers of their own; a woman should seek to fulfill herself
as an individual, her gifts and values first. Men are people who
prey on women, who use and exploit them. Now much of the
rhetoric given the above women reveals them as women who
don't like sex -- that eliminates the Signora Neroni. Wally and
the Baroness don't like men, but then men aren't keen on them
either. In fact Trollope seems to centre feminism as he understands
it as anti-sex and anti-marriage. He has some highly unsympathetic
unfavorable portraits of women who call themselves feminists
though they don't run about the world lecturing: e.g, Francesca
Altifiorla who argues strenuously she will never marry, she will
never be under a man's thumb. Trouble is when a rich man
suddenly asks her to marry him, she is willing (for the money
and position); when he dumps her, she returns to her 'feminism'.
In short Trollope regards feminists as women who
think like my group 1) and 3, with some admixture in all of
them of 3a). I'll reprint my descriptions of these groups:
to Trollope feminists are women who look for power for
individuals, for money, and women who want
radical change in attitudes towards sex; Trollope sees
feminists as women who look upon marriage as a disaster
for women and who want power in the arrangement,
equal power. Implied in some of what Wally and Miss
Altifiorla say is the idea that marriage is a form of
prostitution and the sexual encounter as a form a rape.
Now this is an idea that comes to many of Trollope's women:
Lady Glencora says she has been sold like a beast to
Plantagenet; Alice Vavasour wants equal rights to say
what her life shall be like in her relationship with John Grey.
Feminists have written books about Trollope's women which
argue Trollope was an unconscious feminist -- because he
has so many women who kick against the pricks of marriage
and so many men who are sympathetic and decent and
regard marriage as a friendship in which both must be
fulfilled. But Trollope's implicit feminists are not women
who seek power outside marriage, not women who bully
their husbands and dominate their children, seeking to sell them for
position and money. They are characters like Lady
Glen and Alice, Clara Amedroz (The Belton Estate);
Caroline Waddington (The Bertrams), Miss Forrest
in 'A Journey to Panama' is perhaps one of Trollope's
most beautiful portraits of this type who cries out
she is not to be sold by her family, not to be erased,
not to be used. Jane Nardin's book identifies and discusses
a host of these types very well. He has very sympathetic
portraits of old maids: Priscilla Stanbury says she doesn't
marry because she doesn't want to obey a man. She is liked
by Trollope.
So in a way Mrs Proudie can qualify as a feminist as
understood in modern terms and as presented by
Trollope since she bucks her husband's power; seeks
to dominate people outside her family; seeks to create
a network of power over many. She is an anti-sex
figure, against pleasure; later we will see that after
she and the poor Bishop come down from the bedroom
he is often particularly cowed. But in Trollope's terms
she is not explicitly feminist since she is adamently
for the status quo. I would add her adherence to the
status quo is for her another weapon for controlling
others, but that does not make her any the less for
her having authority over her children and anyone
else in her household who comes her way. This is
a stretch for it makes a character type a feminist
and Lady Aylmer then becomes a feminist as understood
in modern terms and Trollope's presentation of
her domineering and grasping ambition.
Perhaps the Signora Neroni cannot qualify for she
uses her sex to entrance. She has no ambitions, no
desire for power over others. She is willing to be
a sex object in male fantasies. She doesn't network.
She doesn't want to educate herself to better herself
(which Trollope identifies as feminist and some of
his females read). She doesn't have political opinions
(which Mrs Proudie does and Trollope identifes as
feminist) The Signora is subversive of most of the upbeat aims of
feminists. In fact she and her delightful brother are the
radicals of the book -- different kinds of radicals from
our Mr Harding. We can however bring the Signora into our umbrella
of modern attitudes by emphasising her crippled & poverty-striken
state: I am one of those who read Trollope's somewhat
ambiguous words about her crippling as indicating
her husband beat her and it was he who destroyed
her legs. She lives upon her father and her family.
She needs Charlotte desperately. She is really
a victim of patriarchy. She cannot get off her couch. Bertie
must move it for her. But of course to use the
word 'victim' of the Signora brings home to us how
Trollope can show us how some personalities can
exploit a weakness and turn it into a kind of strength.
No one thinks of the Signora as a victim in this
book -- her strength is one of her inward character
which is where it finally counts for Trollope.
I apologize for going on for so long. I hope this
laying out of terms and suggestions for ways of
discussing and clarification of all our attitudes
will help us as we move not only through this
novel but the other Barsetshire books. We don't
want again to struggle with the Signora as we did
over Dr Grantly.
Ellen Moody
There was some debate on Bishop Proudie which seemed simlarly about to go on
too strongly.
To Trollope-l
July 22, 1999
RE: Barchester Towers: Bishop Proudie
I'd like to suggest that Dr Proudie is presented to us
in terms of a past history of continual trimming. This
is in contradistinction to Trollope's own life in politics
and his essays: in his political essays and behavior
at Beverly, Trollope took sides, and he did so firmly
and emphatically. In the Palliser novels his intense
dislike of Daubeny (=Disraeli) is again and again
connected to Daubeny not caring about the issues,
not taking sides except when taking a side means
staying in power.
The key or idea which informs Trollope's characters is
often to be found in their initial introduction when that
introduction is a set portrait -- as it often is in the earlier
books. We get a set-portrait of Mr Harding, Bold, Grantly,
and Towers as each is introduced to us in The Warden.
We get set portraits of the Proudies and Slope in these
first six chapters. Dr Proudie is placed before us in
Chapter 3. There we are told through a variety of particulars
that the whole of Dr Proudie's public life has been
that of a man who doesn't take sides, except as in
each particular case it becomes clear whose side is
going to win or is finally in charge by which is meant
the side able to give out plums and control the direction
a debate is going in. The first thing we are told about
him upon our introduction is he is a man who cares
about forms; he cares about his and the dignity of
others; he lives his life in such a way as to keep the
ceremonies by which those on top maintain their
apparent specialness from the rest of us intact,
untouched (Penguin Barchester Towers
ed RGilmour, pp 15-16). He is himself distantly related
to an Irish baron (on the mother's side); his wife
is the niece of a Scotch earl (the attitude we are to
take to pride in such a lineage may be found in
Virginia Woolf's acute piece in The Common
Reader 'The Niece of an Earl'). Such people know
ceremonies matter; it's their weapon in the game
of intimidation. They have no big income and no
title of their own.
We then get six paragraphs in which we are shown
that in controversy after controversy, political action
and committee after political action and committee,
no matter what these are, Dr Proudie makes himself
'useful' to those in power and who put him on their
committees and becomes a 'rising' man therefor.
He is an exemplar of worldly accommodation (pp.
16-17). To jump ahead, what is in fact wrong by which in the
real world we don't mean morally wrong but
undiplomatic, not prudent, running against his own
interests with Slope's speech is that he offends
all the powerful people in church that day. The
narrator tells us that for the day Slope rivets
everyone into listening to him, they fear him,
but that he may have made a serious mistake in
the long run. In fact the last paragraph of Ch 6
(War) depicts the Bishop with his hair almost
standing on end in terror; this is not how the Bishop
has risen at all.
After regaling us with the quietly ironic tale of the
Bishop's trimming, Trollope tells us the Bishop thinks
now at least he will get his reward. His time has come,
but what in fact he envisages is more toleration. He
will within what the establishment allows tolerate.
There is no principle here but the same as the above:
don't rock the boat, anything for a quiet life, and very
importantly this is the way up -- for the narrator now
tells us the Bishop doesn't envisage spending much
time in Barchester. 'No! London should still be his
ground' (p. 18). His longing to be in the Big Pond
and determination to keep to his trimming may make
us wonder how he intends to enjoy his power.
Certainly his idea of enjoyment is not in feeling his
control over others; it seems rather in presenting himself
to the world as an honorable and rich man. He
envisages parties to which he will invite 'fashionable
people'; he will be an exemplar of hospitality (p. 18).
This is a very realistic picture of the kind of people
who still get into powerful positions. It explains
how they get there or why they chose to bother
with the work of politics: they are people who are
not Top Dogs, but their supporters and hangers-on
(Slope is a man hanging on by his fingers to a
raft attached to the Bishop). They care far more
about rising, pleasing, the ceremonies of lies
(as Halperin puts it in his book on Trollope's
politics) than any reform or good that might happen
to any groups of people their actions might affect.
It explains to us why governments often do
nothing but what is to the advantage of the
people in positions of power and relative power.
The difference between the portrait
of Daubeny and Dr Proudie comes first from their
appearing in different books: Dr Proudie belongs to
a series of books which dwell on how religious
beliefs affect our inward lives. I won't go on to the
Pallisers, just say very generally these books
center on the social lives of English aristocrats
and their connections and hangers-on who are
all professional politicans based in London.
The mood of the two series is different: Barsetshire
is much more genial; Trollope is not in this book
skewering the amoral behavior which he depicts,
but rather holding it up for our amusement. The
tone is one of delectation. The leading types of
the series are also not that realistic: Grantly,
the Proudies, Harding too, Slope, the Ullathornes
all remain types. As Trollope proceeds he gets
into in-depth psychology, but that's to come in
Dr Thorne. Thus we laugh with serious undertones
at Proudie because we are not persuaded -- as
yet -- of the full burden of humanity he carries.
Of that we will be persuaded in The Last
Chronicle of Barsetshire. Still the pattern of
the character and moral point of view which
guides the shaping is that which lies behind
Daubeny.
How does this relate to Mrs Proudie? Coleridge
said genius brought together things people don't
usually bring together (that's a paraphrase in
easy language but it's accurate).
Trollope has had the genius to see that the trimmer in life
is often the man who submits to people at home
because one source of amorality and desire for
personal comfort and the flattery and security
offered to individuals by adhering to ceremony
is anxiety over how others will respond to us,
fear of others, need for their validation of ourselves.
The man who submits in politics will often be the man
who is henpecked by women,
who will in all relationships of life
not be the master but the servant.
Again and again great
novels show us that in any given pair of people
no matter what social roles they are given
and named -- husband and wife, master and
man, lady and maid -- the one who has a drive
to dominate will be the master. The so-called
servant in many relationships ends up the master;
the two people are always engaged in a fascinating
game of political give-and-take. That's why we
like master-and-man, lady-and-maid couples.
I would not turn to the large generalities Sig does
because I'm not sure that in the 19th century
people thought this way except when asked in
church or in grand terms about relationships
between people. In Trollope's novels he does not
come at us through these generalities. I agree
he blames the Bishop, but at the same time feels
for him, compassionates him in ways he does
not feel for Slope or Mrs Proudie. I suggest
Trollope's censure of the Bishop is rooted in the
Bishop's indifference to anything but his own comfort.
He is avoiding his responsibility not just as a man
but as a human being who luck has placed in
power to others. He is a 'compliant tool' (a
phrase used in the Pallisers of men like him,
and by other characters in other books who are
dominating types). I suggest also Trollope's ironic
sympathy for the Bishop is rooted in the psychological
reasons for the Bishop's indifference. Trollope
repeated shows human relationships in terms of
a struggle for dominance, and repeated shows
intense pity for the diffident, vulnerable, for those
who want love and would give it were they given
the chance. The Bishop is not presented to us
much in his private capacity except as we see
him emerge from his bedroom cowed, but he is
shown to be someone similar to all those
many characters of Trollope's who are unwilling
to impose themselves on others because they
are not sure they are right and because they
are fearful of the consequences of such
imposition as it will reverberate on themselves.
Not a hero, no. The Bishop is not a hero. But
he is given great sympathy and understanding --
especially as we see him in the last book,
The Last Chronicle -- as Mrs Proudie is
only in her last moments given a modicum
of sympathy. Trollope will enter into Slope's
case at the close of this novel sympathetically,
but it's interesting how we have gotten excited
at his unsympathetic portrait of an aggressive
woman but have not gotten excited at the
class-prejudice which is part of the basis for
his portrait of Slope. Slope is greasy; he has
crude manners; he comes from low-class
people. Oh Yuk (joke alert). There were people
on our list who objected to the class prejudice
of Trollope's portrait of fundamentalist evangelicals
in Rachel Ray. Would anyone like to class
Trollope unfair, injust, a snob now? Or at least
say a word about poor Slope as Trollope's version
of a Uriah Heep type?
Ellen Moody
To Trollope-l
July 22, 1999
Re: Barchester Towers and 'The Character of a Trimmer'
Someone asked me off-list if I would explain the words 'trimmer'
and trimming' as I used them of Dr, now Bishop Proudie. I think
this is a good question because the word 'trimmer' became
current around the time people in England started to differentiate
the political as well as religious outlook of political groups as
high and low church, with their attendant respective associations
of high and low class.
The word nowadays has come to mean (I cite the Concise
Oxford): 'hold a middle course in politics or opinion; attach
oneself to temporarily prevailing views, or neither of contending
parties; be a time-server'. My guess is the metaphor derives
from sailing terminology: one adjusts the balance of one's
ship by distribution of the ballast and arrangement of the
sails to suit the prevailing winds. A secondary related modern
usage is a state of fitness or readiness: you are trim,
adjusted and suitable for use.
It seems to first have become popular, even a cliché, when
George Savile, first Marquis of Halifax wrote a long sketch
called 'The Character of a Trimmer' (1688). The story
goes that an extremist Tory, Sir Roger L'Estrange hurled
the epithet 'trimmer' at Halifax when he attempted
consistently, stubbornly to moderate the extremist positions
of the time (the Catholic Duke of York, later James II, versus
the 'radical' or anti-monarchical but Anglican Whigs).
At the time 'characters' were popular: these were sketches of types of
people meant to amuse as well define people in terms of
the social roles and moral types they fit into. Halifax
rose to the occasion turning this derogatory word into a
word of praise by writing an exquisitely turned piece of prose
in praise of trimming, i.e., toleration, moderation, reasonableness,
and, in Halifax's version at least, independence. Halifax's
prose is graceful, supple, light, witty, yet weighty.
Alas, although Halifax is remembered for this piece (and
also A Lady's New-Year's Gift, or Advice to a Daughter)
and credited with helping to save the British throne (if
you like the word credited) by his resolute opposition to
the Exclusion Bill when Parliament was attempting to
exclude the man who became James II, the word 'trimmer'
kept its negative associations.
It was also in this period that the terms high v low church
first appeared, and the earliest ribald and sneering
class-based mockery of low-church practices emerged.
Before the decade leading into the Civil War, the Anglican
Church was actually in tendency and doctrine leaning
heavily towards Protestant beliefs as these were
understood by Renaissance theologians. The
more radical groups within the church were 'high'
and more egalitarian practices were practiced by
powerful, rich, well-educated, influential people. It
was really in the 1620s that the association of
working-class and fundamentalist emerged as the
reality of low-church practices was democratic,
anti-monarchical, and its emotionalism and
simplicity appealed to those artisans and other
semi-educated people who had begun to read the
Bible on their own. John Bunyan is the result
of this transformation. The poem which mocked
such people in terms Trollope would understand
and includes Slope as a type is a parodic Don
Quixote story in doggerel verse called Hudibras
by Samuel Butler (1678). It opens thus:
Shakespeare's Malvolio who thinks because he is virtuous
there should be no cakes and ales becomes an absurd,
half-educated crude knight who we are told is
Arabin uses the phrase 'church militant' in defense
of himself when Eleanor says, "I never saw anything
like you clergymen ... you are always thinking of
fighting one another'. Arabin only admits to the
doctrinal struggle; it is also a class-, rank- and
property-based one. It is also struggle between those
who sympathise with a secular outlook and its pleasures
and those who have come to be called work-ethic
puritans (as in Weber and Tawney's books). In
Barchester Towers we do have representatives
of the secular outlook and its pleasures: Bertie
and our Signora. And Slope is drawn to our
Signora like a fly to a honeypot.
There is an excellent book by Christopher Herbert,
Trollope and Comic Pleasure in which Herbert
explains the Trollope's intense hostilty to the
Slopes and Mrs Proudies of his novels in terms of
a deeply hedonistic and charitable impulse in
Trollope himself, one which Herbert sees as at
the heart of Trollope's use of comic structure
and the character types he invents. I was reading
an interesting book tonight, Hugh Hennedy's
Unity in Barsetshire and he mentions how
often Trollope cites Milton's 'Lycidas' a poem
about how a man has to choose between a
sincere adherence to a passionately true
and useful vocation and the necessity of holding
a position in the world to work it out.
So we can come at this apparently light comic
novel in many ways. No wonder Barchester
Towers became, as Trollope says in An
Autobiography a novel which serious and
novel readers felt called upon to and still
do read (An Autobiography, ed
M Sadleir and F Page, Ch 6, p. 104)
Cheers to all, John Dwyer publicly complimented me:
john dwyer "From: Ellen Moody Dear Ellen:
This is a very fine post that I have stored for future reference. One
might add an allusion to Sterne's Corporal Trim. After the great tragedy
of Dr. Slop's obstetrical diminution of the infant's nose, the further
tragic misnaming of Tristram:
-Make tea for yourself, brother Toby, said my father, taking down his
hat-but how different from the sallies and agitations of voice and members
which a common reader would imagine!
-For he spake in the sweetest modulation--and took down his hat with the
gentlest movement of limbs, that ever affliction harmonized and attuned
together.
-Go to the bowling-green for corporal Trim, said my uncle Toby, speaking to
Obadiah, as soon as my father left the room. (Tristram
Shandy, Odyssey Press, 1940. 4.14.288) I cannot help but think [Locke's Association of Ideas at work] of Dr/Bishop
Proudie's sharpness of nose giving an air of insignificance to his
features. His mouth and chin greatly redeemed it; but compared to a nose.
. . . And by whom is he trimmed? "The truth is that in matters domestic
[Mrs. Proudie] rules supreme over her titular lord, and rules with a rod of
iron. . . . Not satisfied with such home dominion [she]stretches her power
over all his movements, and will not even abstain from things spiritual"
(Macy, 1958. 3.24).
John Dwyer
Subject: [trollope-l] The author appears in his own novel
'I never could endure to shake hands with Mr
Slope. A cold, clammy perspiration always exudes
from him, the small drops are ever to be seen standing
on his brow, and his friendly grasp is unpleasant Ch 4, p.
25).
'Ah! how often sitting there, in happy early
days, on those lowly benches in front of the altar,
have I whiled away the tedium of a sermon in
considering how best I might thread my way up
amidst those wooden towers, and climb safety
to the topmost pinnacle! (p. 42).
gwlit@worldnet.att.net
"I feel badly about having to disagree, but I don't see Mrs. Proudie as a
feminist at all. I see her more as an eminence grise, in the sense of the
power behind the throne. A puppet master or mistress, if you will. This
type of person can be male or female."
Then he said:
"She seems to be the type of person who believes ardently in marriage,
monogamy, and a well-defined division of duties between the husband and
the wife. Mrs. Proudie appears to be a champion of the status quo ..."
When civil fury first grew high,
And men fell out, they knew not why;
When hard words, jealousies, and fears
Set folks together by the ears
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For Dame Religion as for a punk ...... of that stubborn crew
Of errants saints whom all men grant
To be the truth church militant:
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun ...
A godly, thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on
And still be doing, never done,
As if religion were intended
For nothing else, but to be mended.
Ellen Moody
"Someone asked me off-list if I would explain the words 'trimmer'
and trimming' as I used them of Dr, now Bishop Proudie."
No!-'tis not my fault, said Susannah-I told him it was Tristram-gistus
(instead of Hermes Trismegistus).
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