Eating Away at the Foundation (Jess and Averyl)

Averyl and I are considering the ways in which documenting the subversive via acts that contravene the cultural standards of moral rightness set forth in our respective texts conversely gives these subversive acts power, as Greenblatt asks: “But why, we must ask ourselves, should power record other voices, permit subversive inquiries, register at its very center the transgressions that will ultimately violate it?” (50). Then, however, we want to posit that these narratives--Gallathea and What Maisie Knew in this specific instance--open up cans of subversive worms in their respective societies, worms (to continue the metaphor) that may destroy and undermine the stability of cultural systems of power (think worm-eaten supports that can no longer hold the weight of their structure), or, can be incorporated into these cultural systems in a manner that nurtures, enriches, and even strengthens such systems (think gardeners putting worms in their gardens to aerate and fertilize the soil).

In a nutshell, without the worms: Subversion happens --> it becomes a social possibility that undermines cultural norms--> we acknowledge it, usually through cultural strife --> it is then incorporated into our cultural lexicon until we don’t see the original problem, thereby once again restarting the cycle of subversion by investigating a new threat and thereby again giving it power it might not have otherwise obtained on its own. (We are happy to explain this in more depth, just ask).

Before tying this to our novels, we want to briefly point out that Greenblatt’s argument is rather Foucauldian. Greenblatt writes, “Thus the subversiveness which is genuine and radical—sufficiently disturbing so that to be suspected of such beliefs could lead to imprisonment and torture—is at the same time contained by the power it would appear to threaten” (48). Foucault similarly wrote of silence counterintuitively awarding power to the entire discourse of sexuality in The History of Sexuality, “Silence itself—the things one declines to say, or is forbidden to name, the discretion that is required between different speakers—is less the absolute limit of discourse, the other side from which it is separated by a strict boundary, than an element that functions alongside the things said, with them and in relation to them within over-all strategies.” (The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism 1508). I.e. because we condemned sex acts (among other things) to silence, we actually exploded the discourse by finding new ways to discuss it (which is admittedly a bit of a sweeping overview, but we wanted to throw it out there).

On to the textual cans of worms...

Gallathea is an extremely subversive text: the same women who disobey their state and the gods in escaping to the forest also undermine patriarchy, heteronormativity, and even the economic system of inheritance by desiring to marry each other. At the very moment in which it appears that Gallathea and Phillida’s actions have called into question nearly every single institution of early modern English culture, Neptune--a literal deus ex machina--agrees to transform one of the virgins into a man so that they can enter into a heterosexual union. By transforming one of the virgins into a man, Neptune also transforms all of their subversions into reaffirmations of the play’s constructed hierarchies. It is not simply coincidental that the gods reaffirm cultural hierarchies through subversive characters; incorporating subversion into systems of hierarchy is the only way to affirm such systems. The marriage promised at the end is, in Elizabethan comedy, a trope that signals the confirmation of kyriarchy and the submission to authority.  Perhaps the only truly subversive moment in the play is that the play ends before the sexual transformation and the marriage can happen.

In What Maisie Knew, James deconstructs the nuclear family by exploring a new and subversive construct: divorce. The “Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857” established marriage as a legal contract rather than a sacrament and moved divorce proceedings from the ecclesiastical (i.e. the church) to the civil courts (wikipedia source and more cool information about this). What Maisie Knew was published in 1897, at which point it could take years to get through the divorce courts and people could, via newspaper updates, follow the story like your best Kim Kardashian gossip. It is postulated that in fact James got his inspiration for this novel from one such ongoing divorce story published in the papers. In our subversion cycle we outlined, then, James takes a controversial/subversive issue (dissolving a marriage no longer “sacred”), applies it to a family so we can observe the effect it has on a child, but then wraps up the narrative in the only more-or-less culturally acceptable way: he has Maisie leave with Mrs. Wix, the only woman who can somewhat adequately perform the role of motherhood. Without her, Maisie would be left to either fend for herself, which doesn’t gel with our conception of innocence and childhood, or she would be forced to choose between her real parents and her pseudo-parents (her stepparents get together as their own couple) in an uncomfortably adult capacity that she’s not equipped to handle. Now, however, divorce is no longer subversive, so it’s almost odd to analyse it.   

So, if subversion is only something that can be seen once it is incorporated, what are we not seeing? We want you to consider this clip about framing cultural narratives relating to Ferguson:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/you-are-promoting-a-certain-narrative-ferguson-protestor-confronts-cnn-reporter/. Is this an example of a veteran reporter dealing with an angry, out-of-control protester, or is it a deconstructive moment in which American media is exposed simply as a person who speaks into the camera louder than anyone else?

We leave you with this Greenblatt quote: “The historical evidence, of course, is unreliable; even in the absence of substantial social pressure, men lie quite readily about the most intimate beliefs.”