Scenes of Sympathy: Identity and Representation in Victorian Fiction 9781501719974

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Scenes of Sympathy

Scenes of Sympathy Identity and Representation in Victorian Fiction

Audrey Jaffe Cornell University Press Ithaca and L o n d o n

Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon F oundation Humanities Open Book Program. Copyright © 2000 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850, or visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. First published 2000 by Cornell University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jaffe, Audrey. Scenes of sympathy : identity and representation in Victorian fiction / Audrey Jaffe. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-3712-0 (cloth) — ISBN-13: 978-0-5017-1989-9 (pbk.)  1. English fiction—19th century—History and criticism. 2. Capitalism and literature—Great Britain—History—19th century. 3. Literature and society—Great Britain—History—19th century. 4. Group identity in literature. 5. Sympathy in literature. 6. Mimesis in literature. I. Title. PR878.C25 J34 2000 823ʹ.809—dc21 99-047449

The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Cover illustration: Houseless and Hungry, watercolor by Luke Fildes (probably 1860s). The Forbes Magazine Collection, New York © All rights reserved.

Contents A cknow ledgm ents In tro d u c tio n

vii i

P a r t I Sympathy and the Spirit of Capitalism

1 Sym pathy and Spectacle in D ickens’s “A C hristm as C arol” 2

27

D ete ctin g the Beggar: A rth u r C o n a n D oyle, H e n ry M ayhew, and the C o n stru c tio n o f Social Identity

47

P a r t II Fear of Falling

3 4

U n d e r C over: Sym pathy and Ressentiment in Gaskell s R uth

77

Isabels Spectacles: Seeing Value in East Lynne

95

P a r t III The Aesthetics of Cultural Identity

5 C o n sen tin g to the Fact: 6

Body, N atio n , and Identity in Daniel Deronda

121

E m b o d y in g C ulture: D o ria n s W ish

158

Index

181

Acknowledgments

I have benefited from the w isdom o f the following friends and col-

leagues, w h o read and com m ented o n various parts o f the m anuscript at var-

ious times: D eborah D yson, C atherine Gallagher, Jean G regorek, N icholas H ow e, B eth Ina, Jill M atus, M ary A nn O ’Farrell, Linda R aphael, D avid R iede, Peter Schwartz, Julie Solom on, D avid Suchoff, H erbert Tucker, and Susan Williams. I am also grateful to audiences at the D ickens Project in Santa C ruz, the U niversity o f Virginia, Texas A &M , and O h io State for their responses. Portions o f the boo k have appeared, in som ew hat different forms, in the following publications: C hapter i as “Spectacular Sympathy: Visuality and Ideology in D ickens’s A Christmas C a r o l P M L A 109 (1994): 254-65; C hapter 2 as “D etecting the Beggar: A rthur C onan Doyle, H en ry Mayhew, and ‘T h e M an w ith the Twisted Lip,’ ” Representations 31 (1990): 96-117, © 1990 by the R egents o f the U niversity o f California; and C hapter 3 as “U n d e r Cover o f Sympathy: Ressentiment in Gaskells R uth ” Victorian Literature and Culture 21 (1993): 5 1-65 . 1 am grateful for perm ission to reprint. M any o f the ideas that in fo rm this b o o k em erged in discussions w ith P eter Schw artz, n o t the least o f w ho se contributions was to suggest that I read a S herlock H o lm es story called “ T h e M an w ith th e Tw isted Lip.” A n d it is a pleasure, once again, to acknow ledge the u n d econstructable sym pathy and intellectual energy o f M ary A n n O ’Farrell. For Eli Jaffe Schw artz, a message: M o m has w ritte n a boo k , and pretty soon, if you w an t to, you can read it. vii

Introduction

Th e follow ing tw o

passages, illustrations offered in support o f

theoretical argum ents, fram e the p e rio d and the issues u n d e r discussion in this book. T h e first is a late-tw entieth-century, confessional reflection on a C alifornia street scene; the second, an eig h tee n th -ce n tu ry philosophical fiction. T ogether they define a co n tin u u m : a rec u rren t narrative ab o u t sympathy, spectatorship, and the spirit o f capitalism .1 Several times a week I must negotiate my way past the crowds o f hom eless people on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley Every time I do so, I am overcome w ith irrational panic__ T hen, one day, I realized that I always studiously avoided looking at the homeless people, w hom , w ith ruthless arbitrariness, I either help or don’t help. A nd I began to understand that my panic on these occasions is not just economic but specular. W hat I feel myself being asked to do, and w hat I resist w ith every fiber o f my being, is to locate myself w ithin bodies w hich would, quite simply, be ru inous o f my middle-class self—w ithin bodies that are calloused from sleeping on the pavement, chapped from their exposure to sun and rain,

1

I use this phrase— obviously appropriated from Max Weber s The Protestant Ethic and the

Spirit of Capitalism (1930)— to describe the way in which, under capitalism, econom ic relations structure social relations. Weber s formulation is especially relevant to the kind o f street scene discussed here, in which people encounter one another primarily as econom ic subjects.

I

2

Introduction and grimy from weeks w ithout access to a shower, and w hich can consequently make no claim to what, w ithin our culture, passes for “ideality.”2 As we have no immediate experience o f w hat other m en feel, we can form no idea o f the manner in w hich they are affected, but by conceiving w hat we ourselves should feel in the like situation. T hough our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us o f what he suffers. They never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person, and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception o f w hat are his sensations__ It is the impression of our own senses only, not those o f his, w hich our imaginations copy.3 T hese passages— th e first from Kaja S ilverm ans The Threshold o f the

Visible World (1995), the second from A dam S m ith ’s The Theory o f Moral Sentiments (1759/ 1790)— link sym pathy and spectacle in a way that, I w ill argue in this boo k , takes paradigm atic fo rm in V ictorian fiction. In each, a confrontation b etw een a spectator “ at ease” and a sufferer raises issues ab o u t th eir m utual constitution; in each, the sufferer is effectively replaced by the spectator’s im age o f h im or herself. As instances o f w h at I w ish to call “scenes o f sympathy,” these tw o passages, along w ith o th e r scenes and texts discussed in the chapters that follow, d o cu m en t m o d e rn sym pathy’s 2 Kaja Silverman, The Threshold of the Visible World (N ew York: R outledge, 1995), 26. “Ideality” is Silverman’s name for the “ego-ideal” or idealized self expressed in, and indeed indistinguishable from, “an idealized image o f the body” (70). “There is perhaps no more fundamental manifestation o f these kinds o f ‘difference’ [gender, race, class, sex],” Silverman writes, than the customary reluctance on the part of the sexually racially, or economically privileged subject to identify outside of the bodily coordinates which confer that status upon him or her, to form imaginary alignments which would threaten the coherence and ideality of his or her corporeal ego. Typically, this subject either refuses “alien” identifications altogether, or forms them only on the basis of an idiopathic or assimilative model; he or she imaginatively occupies the position of the other, but only in the guise of the self or bodily ego. This kind of identification is familiar to all o f us through that formula with which we extend sympathy to someone less fortunate than ourselves without in any way jeopardizing our moi: “I can imagine myself in his (or her) place.” (25) Silverman in fact defines the conventional formula— the self in the other’s place— as a refusal to identify, on the grounds that doing so would endanger the corporeal ego. 3 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976), 9.

Introduction

3

inseparability from representation: b o th from the fact o f representation, in a text s swerve tow ard the visual w h e n th e topic is sympathy, and from issues that su rro u n d representation, such as th e relation b etw e en identity and its visible signs. T h e V icto rian subject, as nu m erous studies have p o in ted out, was figured crucially and w ith increasing emphasis as a spectator; as such, m oreover, that subject was frequently called u p o n to w atch— and to participate in— a continual dram a o f rising and falling fortunes. In such a context, these scenes illustrate, ec onom ic status signifies visibly and spectatorship is inseparable from self-reflection. Society b e com es a field o f visual cues and its m em bers alternative selves: im aginary possibilities in a field o f circulating social images, co n fo u n d ed and in terd ep en d en t projections o f identity.4 4

There is an immense body o f literature about modernity and spectatorship. I am espe-

cially indebted to Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man (N ew York: Vintage, 1978). Elaine Hadley describes a late-eighteenth-century shift from secure, paternalistic social relations to a specular market culture, in which “the vast array o f customary rights and obligations, for so long central to rural society, gives way to enclosure and leaseholds. In short, kinship rights and responsibilities are replaced by contractual obligations among discrete and contending econom ic parties__ T he ranks became increasingly like strangers to one another, both literally and figuratively.” Melodramatic Tactics: Theatricalized Dissent in the English Marketplace, 1880-1883 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 18-19. For a fundamental discussion o f the idea o f theatricality in this connection, see Jean-Christophe Agnew, Worlds Apart: The Market and the Theater in Anglo-American Thought, 1330-1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Guy D ebord articulates the connection between capitalism and spectatorship as follows: “In societies where modern conditions o f production prevail, all o f life presents itself as an immense accumulation o f spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.” Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Black and R ed, 1983). In Discipline and Punish (N ew York: Pantheon, 1976), M ichel Foucault lo cates the origins o f modernity in the Panopticon s construction o f a subject o f imagined visibility: a disciplinary subject w ho imagines him or herself as always under surveillance. Foucault s m odel resembles Smith’s idea o f the imagined “impartial spectator” w ho regulates individual behavior in ethical society; in each case, as in my argument about sympathy, the construction that explains social behavior takes shape as an imaginary scene. As I argue in more detail in Chapter 1, the capitalist subject is also a self-scrutinizing one, and the spectator— the individual who, as in Debord s remark, sees life as representation— the prototypical consumer. For further discussions o f spectatorship and modernity, see Anne Friedberg, Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1993); Deborah Nord, Walking the Victorian Streets (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995); Dana Brand, The Spectator and the City in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Rachel Bowlby,Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreiser,

Introduction

4

Sm ith depicts sympathy n o t as a direct response to a sufferer b u t rather as a response to a sufferer’s representation in a spectator s m ind. As P eter de Bolla points out, for Sm ith, “ sym pathetic sentim ent is, in the last analysis, ‘imaginary.’ ”5 E ach participant in w h at has com e to be called, n o t incidentally, “the sym pathetic exchange,” envisions him self (and b o th participants are, for Sm ith, im plicitly male) as the o th er m ust see him . T h e result is th e transform ation o f sym pathy w ith the o ther into sym pathy w ith the self—a self already figured as representation. “As they are constantly co n sidering w h at they themselves w o u ld feel, if they actually w ere the sufferers, so he is as constantly led to im agine in w hat m an n er he w ould be affected if he was only one o f the spectators o f his ow n situation” (22). In S m ith ’s form ulation, w h e n sym pathetic spectator and sufferer occupy different places in th e social hierarchy (the problem w ith im agining the o th e r’s position is, after all, that “w e ourselves are at o u r ease”), w hat circulates in the spectator’s m in d are positive and negative cultural fantasies: im ages o f social degradation and, simultaneously, o f w hat Silverm an calls “ideality” T h e scene o f sym pathy in effect effaces b o th its participants, substituting for th e m images, o r fantasies, o f social and cultural identity. A nd it is because o f the interdependence o f and continual oscillation b etw een images o f cultural ideality and degradation in the scenes I discuss

Gissing, and Zola (N ew York: Methuen, 1985) Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer: Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: M IT Press, 1990). For a recent discussion o f the role o f race in similar scenes, and o f the way the image o f the spectator replaces that o f the object in narratives o f slavery, see Saidiya V Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror; Slavery; and Self Making in Nineteenth-Century America (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1997), chap. 1. B etw een Smith and Victorian fiction com es, for the purposes o f this narrative, Wordsworth, in w hose work sympathy appears as a similarly specular relation between observer and observed, and w ho, in ways too com plex to be enumerated here, repeatedly displaces the social into the poetic. Wordsworth often constitutes poetic authority in narratives o f social difference that give way to assertions o f likeness, as a character— the solitary reaper or leech gatherer, for instance— becom es an occasion for the p oet’s reflections on his ow n authority and creativity. For my purposes, the most relevant recent commentary on such displacements and their role in constructing the liberal subject is Celeste Langan, Romantic Vagrancy: Wordsworth and the Simulation of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). See also David G. R iede, Oracles and Hierophants: Constructions of Romantic Authority (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). 5

Peter D eBolla, “The Visibility o f Visuality,” in Vision in Context, ed. Teresa Brennan

and Martin Jay (N ew York: Routledge, 1996), 75.

Introduction

5

here— products o f the im agination o f a spectator positioned, phantasm atically, b etw een th e m — that I consider S m ith ’s scene o f sym pathy to stand b o th as a prim al scene in the history o f sym pathetic representation and as a visual em blem o f the structure o f middle-class identity.6 Kaja Silverm an offers the passage cited above to illustrate a thesis about the bodily d eterm in a tio n o f self-image. T h o u g h n o t explicitly about sym pathy, h er narrative renders manifest, even as it raises questions about, the im plicit threat th e hom eless sufferer poses to a m iddle-class observers identity. W h at, for instance, in this narrative, accounts for the “ruthless arbitrariness” th at bestow s m o n ey o n som e beggars b u t n o t o n others? W h a t logic links “ e c o n o m ic” and “ specular” panic? A n d w h e n Silverm an feels she is b eing “ asked” to inhabit a bod y o th e r than h e r ow n, w h o or w h at is doing the asking? T h e act o f looking, in h er account, fills the spectato r w ith the anxiety o f bodily contagion, the fear o f inhab iting the b eggar’s place. T h a t anxiety is w arded o ff by im agining a self victim ized by the m ere sight o f a person w ith o u t a hom e: the middle-class self on display here is a self assaulted by th e visual, o ne w ith n o apparent defense against the draining o f funds, feeling, and identity to w h ich that sight is felt to lead. D esiring h er m oney, th e fo u ndation o f h e r ideality, the beggar threatens her place, and in th e bourgeois im agination there are never e n o u g h places to go around. G iven th e close relationship b etw e en identificatio n and vio len t ap prop riation— w h at D iana Fuss has called “ killing off th e o th e r in fantasy in o rd er to usurp th e o th e r’s place, the place w here the subject desires to b e ”— o n e has to w onder, in Silverm an’s account, w h o is killing w hom ? Im agining that the o th e r w ants h er id e n tity, h er “ideality,” the spectator wards o ff th e threat as only a spectator can, “killing o f f ’ th e o th e r by refusing to lo o k .7

6 M y idea o f the scene o f sympathy is indebted to Mary Ann D oane s discussion o f the term “scenario”: “Spectatorship in the cinema has been theorized through recourse to the ‘scenario’ as a particularly vivid representation o f the organization o f psychical processes. T he scenario— w ith its visual, auditory, and narrative dimensions— seems particularly appropriate in the context o f film theory.. . . Freudian and Lacanian texts appear to be privileged at least partially for their ability to generate convincing scenarios w hich act as con densations o f several larger psychical structures or as evocations o f a particularly crucial ‘turning p oin t’ or m ovem ent.” The Desire to Desire: The Woman's Film of the 1940’s (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 13-14. 7 Diana Fuss, Identification Papers (NewYork: Routledge, 1995), 9.

6

Introduction T h e specular panic Silverm an describes here is, she recognizes, an effect

o f capitalist econom ics. T h e passage reveals the same anxiety about “fellow feeling” S m ith does w h e n he w rites that “persons o f delicate fibres and a w eak co n stitu tio n o f b o d y com plain, that in lo o k in g o n th e sores and ulcers w h ich are exposed by beggars in the streets, they are apt to feel an itching o r uneasy sensation in th e co rresp o n d en t p art o f th eir ow n bodies.”8 In b o th accounts th e sight o f a sufferer, associated w ith requests for m oney, is im ag ined as physically invasive o r contagious, a m e tap h o rical assault o n the observer s person and a threat to the in tegrity o f his or h e r identity. W ere she to inhabit one o f the “ calloused” and “ g rim y ” b o d ies she sees, Silverm an feels, she w o u ld n o lo n g er “precisely” be “h e rself” (26), and the self she w ould no longer be is n o t only a clean and w ellrested one, b u t the perceived object o f appeal: the subject constituted as a culturally valued identity. Indeed, in Silverm an’s narrative, no actual request is m ade: the m ere presence o f the hom eless person is im agined as constituting such a request. T h e scene suggests a negative version o f the A lthusserian scenario o f interpellation, in w h ich response to an appeal on th e street— in that case, a po licem an ’s “ hailing”— is said to transform the individual into a subject.9 H ere, the hom eless p e rso n ’s presence constitutes th e appeal th at form s the subject. B u t despite its idealizing effect, th e o th e r’s gaze, ren d erin g the spectator its object, poses a threat: a threat to w h ich n o t lo o k in g constitutes a response. N o t looking, Silverm an denies th e social self’s constitution in relation to o th e r social selves; n o t looking, she avoids th e literal gaze that, as she im agines it, at once defines h er as ideal and asks, she fears, for th at ideality (not ju st for h er money, that is, b u t for h er life, w ith “life” defined as cultural life: the ability to participate in w h at Silverm an elsew here calls th e cu ltu re’s d o m in an t fictio n ).10 Silverm a n s claim that, “if hom eless, I w o u ld precisely no longer be ‘m yself’ ” (26) defends against h er obvious ability to m ake the identification: it defends against, even as it invokes, h er im plication in the narrative o f decline, the im age o f th e self in th e o th e r’s place. Sym pathy in this scene, as in

8 Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, 10. 9 Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: N otes toward an Investigation,” in Lenin and Philosophy (NewYork: M onthly Review , 1971), 127-86. 10 See Silverman’s discussion o f this term in Male Subjectivity at the Margins (N ew York: Routledge, 1992), 42-51*

Introduction

7

S m ith ’s, is the nam e for a self engaged in an act o f self-definition and selfidentification, and th e m iddle-class self is the self th at is repeatedly and paradigm atically called u p o n to p erfo rm this act: the self that, lookin g anxiously b o th high and low, circulates betw een positions in the sym pathetic exchange, and never com es to rest in either one. Indeed, the fact that the sight o f a hom eless person suggests to Silverm an th e possibility o f sw itched identities registers, as Celeste Langan w rites, “ the pervasiveness w ith w h ich [in a capitalist society] the m odel o f exchange governs all social relations.” 11 T h e threat enco d ed in th e sym pathetic exchange is that o n w h ich a capitalist econom y relies: the possibility that the spectator “ at ease” and the beggar m ight indeed, someday, change places. B o th passages collapse the difference b etw een looking and n o t looking; in both, the act o f looking at a sym pathetic object provokes a narrative in w h ich that object is by definition— th e te rm “object” says it all— displaced into representation. T h e tendency to w ard o ff actual bodies in the sympathetic encounter, replacing th em w ith cultural fictions and self-projections, com plicates C a th e rin e G allagher’s arg u m en t that fiction, in doing away w ith actual bodies, does away w ith the b arrier that constitutes an obstacle to sympathy.12 For n o t looking, literally o r figuratively, accom plishes the same thing. Indeed, in S m ith ’s scenario, the sufferer has no nonfictio nal existence: sym pathy by definition produces its object. T h u s the distinction b etw een sym pathy for fictional characters and sym pathy for actual people dissolves into— or rather, may be reform ulated as— the difference b etw een th e pleasurable sym pathetic feelings fiction invites and th e potential threat o f an en c o u n te r w ith an actual person. Pleasure, here, coincides w ith an absence o f reciprocity: a fictional character cannot lo o k back. B u t in b o th accounts sym pathy is fictional, in the sense that it is fundam entally in volved w ith representation; in b o th , sym pathetic representation takes place 11 Langan, Romantic Vagrancy; 223. 12 Catherine Gallagher, Nobody's Story: The Vanishing Acts of Women Writers in the Marketplace, 1670-1820 (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1995), 171. Gallagher’s argument, which focuses here on H um e, is concerned w ith the relationship between sympathy, fiction, and property, the last term forming the “invisible link” between the first two. H er account emphasizes the difference between sympathy w ith actual people and sympathy w ith fictional characters, or “nobodies.” I argue that fiction draws m uch o f its power from the way readers have already imaginatively converted other persons into their own— in Gallagher’s and H u m e’s term— “impressions.”

8

Introduction

w ith in and constitutes a cultural narrative about the identities o f sym pathetic object and subject. T h e dynam ic o f projection, displacem ent, and im agined exchange that appears in Sm ith, Silverm an, and elsew here in this b o o k is the cultural narrative th at shapes th e sym pathetic scene. W h a t I call “ scenes o f sym pathy” illustrate in exem plary fashion the way sym pathy in V ictorian fiction takes shape in, and as, a series o f visualized narratives— narratives that ren d e r visible otherw ise invisible d eterm in ations o f social identity. By “ render visible,” however, I do n o t m ean to suggest the presence o f som e purifiable sym pathetic essence u nderlying these scenes. R a th e r, I argue that sym pathy in V ictorian fiction is inseparable from issues o f visuality and representation because it is inextricable from the m iddle-class subject’s status as spectator and from th e social figures to w hose visible presence the V ictorian m iddle classes felt it necessary to form ulate a response. V ictorian representations o f sym pathy are, as sym pathy was for Sm ith, specular, crucially involving the way capitalist social relations transform subjects into spectators o f and objects for one anoth er; they are also spectacular, th e ir representational dim en sion reinforced by the spectatorial character o f V ictorian culture. N o t an attem pt to define sym pathy p er se, then, this b o o k rather exposes and explores the recu rren t c o n n ectio n betw een sympathy, representation, and constructions o f social identity in a series o f V ictorian texts. A n d m y object, it follows, is n o t the analysis o f authors b u t rather that o f texts and images, som e o f w h ich (such as D ickens’s “A C hristm as C arol”) have com e to represent V icto rian sym pathy for tw e n tie th -c e n tu ry readers and audiences. Indeed, the fact that certain scenes te n d to signify V icto rian sym pathy in th e co n tem p o ra ry pop ular im agination speaks directly to m y purpose, since this p h e n o m e n o n suggests the inseparability o f V ictorian sym pathy from its particular representations and from representation itself.

T h e scene that, for m y purposes, gives shape to and renders visible the m eanings o f V ictorian sym pathy involves a spectator’s (dread) fantasy o f occupying an o th e r’s social place. T h o u g h its co n ten t varies, w h at rem ains consistent is its reliance on a phantasm atic opposition b etw een images o f cultural ideality and degradation. This opposition, also im agined as an atten u atio n o f th e spectator’s identity, raises crucial questions ab o u t the structure and in terdependence o f V ictorian social identities; so too does

Introduction

9

th e econom ic m e tap h o r that frequently inform s it, in w h ich sym pathy is represented as an investm ent in o r exchange w ith others. W h a t circulates in V icto rian representations o f sym pathy— w h at these representations b o th circulate and reveal as co n stitu ted in that circulation— are social identities; in particular, scenes o f sym pathy in V icto rian fiction m ediate and construct m iddle-class identities. O ccu p y in g th e m etapho rical space b etw e en “ h ig h ” and “lo w ” in V ictorian culture, the V ictorian m iddle classes sim ultaneously aspired to an aristocratic ideal and w ere h au n ted by th e specter o f econom ic and social failure. B u t incessant atten tio n to th eir progress and distance from the low er classes suggests the anxious disavowal o f w h at was perceived as a c o n tin u u m o f identity— the dependence, as M iria m Bailin puts it, o f “w h o one w as” o n “w h o one w asn’t, and, perhaps m ore im p o rtan t, w h o one no longer was.” 13 T h e “ objects” o f V ictorian sym pathy are inseparable from V ictorian m iddle-class self-representation precisely because they em body, to a m iddle-class spectator, his or h er ow n potential narrative o f social decline: they capture the fragility o f respectable identities psychically positio n ed betw een h igh and low, defined w ith in the param eters o f a narrative o f rising and falling. H aving, in effect, already b een “seen” by the m iddleclass subject, they n eed n o t— as in S ilverm an’s narrative— be seen at all; they function for that subject as em bodim ents o f cultural possibility, im ages o f w hat he o r she m ight becom e. Indeed, the im agining o f the self in the o th e r’s place o n w h ich C hristian charity and V icto rian sym pathetic ideology typically rely— “ there b u t for th e grace o f G o d go I” (significantly a refusal o f S m ith ’s fo rm ulation, sim ultaneously evoking and denying w h at th e observer in th e sym pathetic scene can n o t help b u t im agine: th e self in the o th e r s place)— designates “place” as id en tity ’s p rim ary com p onent: th e difference b etw een self and o th e r appears, if only m om entarily, as n o th in g m ore than the difference b etw een here and there. T h e emphasis in the follow ing readings o n visuality, fram ing, and representation calls atten tio n to the pow erful interplay b etw een the specular quality o f V ictorian sym pathy and the spectatorial character o f V ictorian culture. As I argue in particular for “A C hristm as Carol,” cultural form s such as novels and films exist in a circular relationship w ith o th e r struc13

Miriam Bailin, The Sickroom in Victorian Fiction: The A rt of Being III (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1994), 83.

io

introduction

tures o f spectatorship, n o t creating b u t rather giving m aterial fo rm to the value w ith w h ich particular objects and persons are invested. Similarly, cultural incitem ents to sym pathy b o th d epend on and reinforce the status o f th e sym pathetic object as rep resen tatio n .14 T h e texts discussed in this b o o k repeatedly stage sym pathy as representation, as if the attem pt to feel for an o th er across a social divide is necessarily m ediated by the im age o f the self as im age: th e self perceived as an effect o f social determ inants. T h e scene o f sym pathy opens up a space b etw een self and representation w h ich gives way to a p erception o f the self as representation; im agining the self occupying an o th e r’s place is only a step away from im agining the self as m erely occupying its ow n. W h a t “place” signifies, then, is cultural possibility: a negative or, conversely, idealized im age o f identity. Sym pathy in V ictorian culture, I argue, is sym pathy b o th for and against images o f cultural identity. S m ith’s scenario bears o n this argum ent in a n u m b e r o f ways; m ost significant is his recourse to a social, specular dynam ic in order to explain ho w sym pathy works. For Sm ith, sym pathy requires a scene— b o th w ith in his ow n argum ent and in the m in d o f his hypothetical spectator. T h e o th e r’s experience, Sm ith argues, may be apprehended only th ro u g h the m ediation o f the spectator’s self-image, and the sym pathetic object is, in effect, a projection or fantasy o f the spectator’s identity. Sm ith s sympathy is a circulation o f representations, and his account o f sym pathy is— it follows— encapsulated in a series o f scenes illustrating the effect o f images o f suffering o n a spectator. “W h e n w e see a stroke aim ed and ju st ready to fall u p o n the leg and arm o f an o th er person,” Sm ith w rites, “w e naturally shrink and draw back o u r ow n leg or o u r ow n arm , and w h en it does fall, w e feel it in som e measure, and are h u rt by it as well as the sufferer.” 15 D e Bolla notes that “such sym pathetic reactions are prim arily governed by w hat w e see__ the visual is crucial in determ ining the entire system.” 16 B u t

14 For further discussion o f the relationship between sympathy and representation, especially theatricality, see David Marshall, The Figure of Theater: Shaftesbury; Defoe, Adam Smith, and George Eliot (N ew York: Columbia University Press, 1986), and The Surprising Effects of Sympathy: Marivaux, Diderot, Rousseau, and Mary Shelley (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1988). 15 Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, 10. 16 D e Bolla, “Visibility o f Visuality,” 75.

Introduction

11

the purpose o f the visual here is to p roduce secondary experience in a spectator, an im age o r copy o f pain w hose significance— better, interest (for there is no small degree o f scientific detachm ent here)— lies n o t in its effect on the sufferer b u t rather in its representational potential: in the pow er o f its ripple effect, its capacity to reverberate in the spectator’s m in d and body, literally m oving th e latter. (Paradoxically and yet characteristically, the sign o f the spectator’s liberality in this illustration— o f his, or, in S m ith ’s language, “ our,” expansive sensibility— is a “shrinking” away M arking sympathy itself as pain, the scene dramatizes the am bivalence inscribed in sympathetic spectatorship: th e way it represents, sim ultaneously, b o th an expansion and a potential dim inishm ent o f the spectator’s identity) W ith the im age o f the P anopticon, M ichel Foucault drew the fo rm o f m o d e rn subjectivity and theorized the m o d e rn subject as a self-scrutinizing one. S m ith ’s scene o f sym pathy sketches a class-inflected im age o f this m onitoring, an im age o f the construction o f subjectivity in a hierarchical b u t increasingly m obile society in w h ich th e m iddle-class self exists in a perpetually vexed relationship w ith the figures o f social difference that surround it. Smith, im agining sympathy as a scene, tells us that self-construction is social: sym pathy is always em bodied. B u t in his illustrations, sym pathy “ does away” w ith bodies in ord er to pro duce representations, replacing persons w ith m ental pictures, generalized images o f ease and o f suffering. Sym pathy in these scenes takes shape as a constellation o f images in w h ich a threat to individual identity is b o th im agined and, theoretically, overcom e, w ith the spectator’s identity em erging as an effect o f the sym pathetic enco u n ter itself.17 V ictorian scenes o f sympathy, too, m atch culturally valued identities against identities that, in the p e rio d ’s pervasive econ om ic m etaphor, represent respectability’s social and psychic cost. In a social system for w h ich 17

“W hat w e find in liberalism is not itself a plan o f political and social action that re-

sponds to perceived conditions o f distress or inequity, but rather the represented conjunction o f surplus and distress, the ‘m oving spectacle’ contained in the image, for example, o f a man bent double by a pack o f merchandise. T he ‘revolution in manners,’ w hich Burke proclaimed as the m ost profound o f revolutions witnessed in 1789, is the supplanting o f an ethic o f ‘liberal, plenteous hospitality’ . . . by a liberal attitude— in com m on parlance, a social conscience. W here ‘T h e O ld Cumberland Beggar’ envisions ‘liberality’ as voluntary charity, ‘The R u in ed Cottage’ celebrates its spiritualization into voluntary sympathy” (Langan, Romantic Vagrancy, 2 29-30).

12

Introduction

vam pirism is an apt m etap h o r— in the psychic as w ell as financial ec o n om y o f capitalism, o ne p erso n s rise is tied to an o th e r’s fall— the subject w h o seeks co n firm atio n o f his o r h er desired im age in the external w orld (as Scrooge does in D ickens’s “A C hristm as C a ro l”) en counters a lessthan-pleasing likeness, a figure nevertheless recognized as one o f that subje c t’s stru ctu rin g identifications.18 R a th e r than e n c o u n te rin g an idealized im age o f the self (in Lacan s useful term s, the im age identified w ith the m irro r’s reflection and affirm ed by th e d o m in an t c u ltu re’s gaze), the m iddle-class o r respectable subject en counters his o r h er social shadow, the negative im age th at respectability necessarily im plies— an im age th at sim ultaneously invites identification (since a plea for sym pathy is itself a claim for identification, a claim for a c o m m o n hum anity) and requires disidentification.19 V icto rian objects o f sym pathy thus signify b o th cultural value and its absence. For the subject desiring to align h im or herself w ith such value, they represent an insurm ountable distance from it— a distance that manifests itself, in th e texts I discuss here, in a fantasy o f the subje c t’s death. T his scenario im agines the possibility, so vividly illustrated in “A C hristm as C arol,” o f b eing “left o u t” o f the d o m in an t culture and therefore, as seems to follow, o f life itself. Sym pathy w ith particular social figures takes shape in these texts as sym pathy for o r against— for and against— images o f cultural identity, and the texts themselves project alternative identities for th e ir central characters in distinct representations— scenes or pictures (such as those w itnessed by D ickens’s Scrooge, W o o d ’s Isabel Vane, and E lio t’s D aniel D ero n d a)— w ith w h ich these characters identify and in relation to w h ich th eir identities b eco m e attenuated. T hese representations display the valued o r devalued identities p ro d u ced by specific cultural narratives. Indeed, the novels I discuss here frequently em phasize w h at m ight be called an alternative scene o f sympathy: characters situated n o t in a dread 18 Elaine Scarry describes the relation betw een worker and capitalist as a confrontation betw een em bodied and disembodied figures and suggests that, vampiristically, the capitalist’s absence depends upon the worker’s physicality. See my discussion in Chapter 2. Scarry, The Body in Pain (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 276. 19 This formulation draws both on Lacan, “The Mirror Stage,” and on the Althusserian idea o f interpellation, in which the subject is formed at the moment he responds to a policeman’s “hailing”: “Hey, you there!” Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage,” in Ecrits, trans. Alan Sheridan (NewYork: N orton, 1977), 1-7; Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.”

Introduction

13

relation to a degraded im age b u t in a desiring relation to an idealized one. (H ence the im po rtance o f Sm ith s expansion o f the te rm “sym pathy” to include observations o n sym pathizing w ith pleasure: “W h e n w e consider the co n dition o f th e great, in those delusive colours in w h ich the im agin atio n is apt to paint it, it seems to be alm ost the abstract idea o f a perfect and happy state. It is the very state w hich, in all o u r w aking dreams and idle reveries, w e had sketched to ourselves as the final object o f all o u r desires. W e feel, therefore, a peculiar sym pathy w ith the satisfaction o f those w h o are in it.”)20 T hese novels tell the story o f a subject s attem pt to em b o d y th e cultural tru th o f a particular idealized identity, often as an alternative to a degraded im age w ith w h ich that subject is also identified (as in th e examples o f R u th , D aniel D eronda, and D o rian Gray). A n d the nature o f that idealization som etim es lies in the subjects capacity for sympathy: in Daniel Deronda, for instance, the idealized character is a liberal subject w hose capaciousness and m obile sensibility obscures his culture s investm e n t in identities defined in m ore specific term s. In its apparently infinite capaciousness, its aura o f all-inclusiveness, and its apparent vacancy and availability for p rojection, w h at appears finally as sym pathetic identity p er se, in these texts, itself becom es an object o f desire. To the extent, then, that objects o f sym pathy are em bedded in (are, in deed, the products of) cultural narratives— indeed, to the ex ten t that sym pathy is a cultural narrative (Silverm ans “ studious avoidance” o f looking, for instance, rem ains a w e ll-k n o w n stance th e m iddle-class subject p re pares to take w h e n sighting the beggar up ahead)— it is n o t so m u ch the absence o f actual bodies in novels that produces sym pathy as it is sym pathy o r its expectation that produces an effect o f fictionality— a scene— w ith its con co m itan t displacem ents in to narrative and representation (for instance, the narrative o f w h e th e r the beggar is deserving o r n o t deserving; the question o f h o w m uch, if anything, to give; the im agining o f the self in the o th e rs place). T h e cultural narratives that constitute sym pathy themselves do away w ith the body; indeed, m any o f the texts I discuss here literally do away w ith bodies, replacing th e m w ith pictures o r narratives, thereby im plicitly defining id en tity as cultural im age and fantasy. Silverm an s scenario is relevant, th en, less for its conclusion than for the fam iliarity o f its tropes: for th e way in w hich, even as it puts flesh o n Sm ith s 20 Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, 51-52.

14

Introduction

theoretical skeleton (“ o u r b ro th er o n the rack”), it rem ains firm ly w ith in the boundaries he describes. Indeed, read together, S m ith and Silverm an suggest that w h at Sm ith and o th e r theorists o f sym pathy typically represent as an inability to im agine the self in the o th e r’s place m ay in fact be a resistance to d oing so: a response, in the co n tex t o f a capitalist econom ics o f identity, to th e seem ingly endless dem and posed by th e spectacle o f those w orse o ff than oneself.21

V ictorian fiction assisted its readers in w h at R ich a rd S ennett has described as “ the constant attem pt [of th e n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry ‘personality’] to form ulate w h at it is one feels.”22 In this capacity, V ictorian novels also helped form ulate th e ideological m eanings b o rn e by em otional response, ch ie f am ong w h ic h w ere th e social im ages and relations th at accum ulated around the te rm “sympathy.” Indeed, the regular recurrence o f the adjective “D ickensian” in tw e n tieth -c en tu ry descriptions o f urban poverty suggests that V icto rian novels m ore than any o th e r fo rm (and D ickens m ore than any o th e r V ictorian novelist) con tin u e to provide the term s and im ages o f con tem p o rary sym pathetic representation. In a m o d e rn dispensation stru ctu red in p art by th e V ictorian novel’s ow n structuring and valuing o f interiority, ideologies o f feeling draw their pow er from feeling’s presum ed self-evidence: feeling, ostensibly em erging from the deepest interiority, seems by definition beyo nd the reach o f social regulation, and its cultural value depends o n that inaccessibility. A nd yet feeling’s usefulness as a co n d u it for ideological m eaning derives from the relation to th e visible sign such presum ed inaccessibility defines. For feeling, o f course, depends u p o n representation: in order to be know n, it m ust appear; insofar as it is k n ow n, it is constituted by representation. A nd th o u g h the ideological po w er o f feeling relies on the idea o f an essence or tru th to w h ich language and representation are said to rem ain inadequate, the specific nature o f that pow er becom es visible in the term s o f its rep-

21 H ence the relevance o f Silverman s identification with the supposed rationality o f a government agency, w hen she feels called upon to find some principle on the basis o f w hich to distribute money: “I fantasized that my crisis would be solved if I could only find an intelligent formula for determining w h om I should help ’’(Threshold of the Visible World, 26). 22 Sennett, Fall of Public Man, 152.

Introduction

15

resentation. Feeling is inseparable from the scenes that m ay seem m erely to provoke it and the signs by m eans o f w h ich it becom es k n o w n .23 In V ictorian fiction and the w o rk o f its critics, the te rm “ sym pathy” has co m m on ly b een used to describe an individualistic, affective solution to the p roblem o f class alienation: the attem pt to am eliorate social differences w ith assurances o f m utual feeling and universal hum anity. Such assurances take th e fo rm o f attem pts to resolve class differences th ro u g h direct know ledge o f a sufferer’s experience, as in Louisa G ra d g rin d ’s visit to S tephen B lackpool in D ickens’s Hard Times or the reconciliation b etw een Jo h n B arto n and M r. C arson at the end o f Gaskell’s Mary Barton. In each o f these examples, the p erceptio n o f the o th e r as a p articipant in a co m m o n h um anity replaces the stock appraisal o f h im or h er as a w orker or em ployer; as Gaskell w rites, “T h e m o u rn e r before h im was no longer an em ployer, a being o f an o th er ra c e . . . n o long er the enemy, the oppressor, b u t a very poor, and desolate old m an.”24 W ith its ostensible effacem ent o f differences and asserted dissolution o f individuals into a co m m o n h u manity, sym pathy thus form ulated seeks to efface the social and political problem s for w h ich it is offered as a resolution. A ttem p tin g to transcend the socioeconom ic o r bodily m arkers that signify difference, it defines as h u m a n w h at is least subject to th e contingencies o f politics. V ictorian identity, so b o u n d to m arkers o f class and place, is thus said to yield— in sym pathy— to an ideal that redefines its m ost crucial features as m erely contingent. Sym pathy thus conceived grounds the self in the dissolution o f the social, doing away w ith representation in order to reach a co m m o n groun d

23 Visuality in this study may thus be understood as a metaphor for representation and knowledge: what can be known at any given time is what can be seen. For more on this idea, see John Rajchman, “Foucaults Art o f Seeing,” October 44 (1988): 88-117. 24 Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1970), 435. Such sympathy, and the relevance o f Hard Times in this context, have been discussed recently by Martha Nussbaum in PoeticJustice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life (Boston: Beacon, !995)- For a discussion o f the way the novel o f the 1840s became the novel o f social reform, see Kathleen Tillotson, Novels of the Eighteen Forties (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1954), 124: “But in the late eighteen forties, people read novels more than ever; for the novel was n ow ready and able to absorb and minister to their ‘speculations on reform.’ N o longer does it belong to the world o f indolent languid m en on sofas, o f Aesthetic Tea___It belongs to the no-m an s-land on the frontier between the two nations.”

16

Introduction

o f feeling— as if the only escape from social difference w ere in a co m m o n hum an ity attained in dissolution and death. B u t representations o f sympathy in V ictorian fiction repeatedly re tu rn to the social differences such scenes discount; in them , sym pathy is frequently the m etaphorical currency by m eans o f w h ich identity is constituted and undone. For instance: insofar as sym pathy’s “tru th ” is m ade manifest in circulation, sym pathy threatens the fo und ation o f feeling o n w h ich individual identity is supposedly based. If, as I have suggested, em o tio n is subject to interpretation only in sofar as it manifests itself visibly, sym pathy has a special relation to representation for the V ictorians in that it frequently becom es visible in another fo rm o f representation: money. V ictorian charity, w ith its alignm ent o f feeling and funds and its emphasis o n individual ju d g m en t, figures b o th sympathy and coin in an eco nom y o f self-regulation in w h ich m iddle-class subjects m ust evaluate the tru th or falseness o f non-m iddle-class ones, and an error in ju d g m e n t— such as the investm ent o f “tru e ” feeling in “false” identity— threatens th e integrity o f the self doing th e giving. Sym pathy and charity situate the self in a hydraulic relation w ith o th e r selves, in w h ich a flow o f funds in one direction represents a drain unless balanced by som e— usually m oral— return. T h e offer o f sympathy for narrative, as in A ndrew H alliday’s en c o u n te r w ith the beggar in m y discussion o f M ayhew (C hapter 2), recapitulates the capitalist m yth that an exchange o f funds draws on, and constitutes evidence for, the existence o f transcendent value, and it locates that value in hu m an feeling and h um an identity. B u t narratives m eant to express and em body sym pathy’s value display a circular logic w hereby the tru th o f an appeal for sym pathy can only be validated by furth er narrative. E xchanged for narrative, sym pathy resembles the fluid, m u ltiply signifying nature o f m oney itself. A nd the tendency to regard appeals for sympathy as, potentially, n o th in g m ore than representation reflects the sym pathizer’s vulnerability to the same charge: the need to verify the id en tity o f the sym pathetic object suggests that the spectator’s identity is itself fallen and in n eed o f verification, lapsed from an idealized and naturalized aristocratic past. C o n c ern w ith the tru th or fraudulence o f a beggar’s appeal for sym pathy thus registers co n cern about the legibility o f social identity per se, and in particular about the construction o f middle-class identity as a tenuous balance betw een degraded and idealized cultural images. T h e preceding account applies, perhaps too specifically, to the m an on the street. A n d yet for the co n tem p o rary subject w h o is th e perceived o b -

Introduction

17

je c t o f charitable appeal, as in Silverm an’s narrative, class m ay figure m ore pro m in en tly than gen d er as an id en tity -d efin in g issue. B u t in V ictorian discussions and, frequently, in co n tem p o ra ry critical analyses, sym pathy tends to appear explicitly as a w o m a n s issue.25 A ccording to R u sk in , for instance, w o m e n ’s position w ith in the fam ily renders th e m b etter at feeling than m en. As the centers o f V ictorian dom estic life, w o m e n w ere exp ected to defer th e ir o w n desires and w o rk tow ard th e fulfillm ent o f o th ers’, and the nam e given that generalized identification was frequently sympathy. A n d that sympathy, in tu rn , suggested a m o re generalized capacity to identify w ith others, as in this R u sk in ian account o f im aginative identification: “ She is to exercise herself in im agining w h at w o u ld be the effects u p o n h er m in d and co n duct, if she w ere daily b ro u g h t in to the presence o f the suffering w h ich is n o t the less real because shut from h er sight.”26 In a discussion o f nationalism , Sam uel Smiles links sym pathy learned in child h o o d to the adult exercises o f charity and philanthropy: “ T h e nation com es from the nursery. Public o p in io n is for the m ost part th e o u tg ro w th o f the hom e, and th e best philanthropy com es from the fireside___F rom this little central spot, th e hu m an sympathies may extend in an ever w id en in g circle, until th e w o rld is em braced for th o u g h tru e philanthropy, like charity, begins at h om e, assuredly it does n o t end there.”27 T h e association o f w o m en w ith feeling inform s the representation o f female characters in w h at I call scenes o f sympathy. B u t sym pathy is n o t uniquely a w o m e n ’s issue; rather, V ictorian representations offer co m p eting and com plim entary structures variously associated w ith sympathy. For b o th m ale and female characters, sym pathy provokes confusion in the signs o f class identity (disguise, disfigurem ent); for b o th, sym pathy is associated

25 Separate spheres ideology is, o f course, grounded in the representation that w om en are more em otionally adept than men. As Amanda Anderson writes, “Part o f the way the w ider cultural discourse redressed the negative moral implications o f self-interestedness was to allocate a redemptive sympathy to the sphere o f private domesticity and to the character o f femininity.” Tainted Souls and Painted Faces: The Rhetoric of Fallenness in Victorian Culture (Ithaca: C ornell University Press, 1993), 41. For a reading o f the politics o f this construction o f the Victorian domestic w om an, see N ancy Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1987). 26 John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies (NewYork: W iley and Sons, 1885), 106. 27 Samuel Smiles, Self-Help (London, 1859), 394.

Introduction

18

w ith a fear o f falling (the w o m an fears the sexual fall, the m an th e econ om ic one). T hese scenes repeatedly project an im age o f sym pathetic identification as a loss o f identity, a dissolution o r evacuation o f an essential self that is often identified w ith, and represented as leading to, a loss o f life. B u t the dispensation o f charity, like the handling o f money, is im agined chiefly as a m asculine function: the m asculine subject, w h o “m akes” money, tends in these texts to be conflated w ith the invisible circulation o f m o n ey itself, w hile w o m en , frequently im agined as sym pathy’s objects, te n d to b eco m e indistinguishable from the d om inan t cu ltu re’s projections o f them . M y last tw o chapters suggest an o th er way o f contextualizing the relationship b etw een sym pathy and gender. B o th D aniel D ero n d a and D o rian G ray are aestheticized types; th e ir availability for sym pathetic id e n tification is figured as a beauty defined by an absence o f physical particu larity. T his absence— a blank receptivity that invites a spectator’s projections— is defined in o th e r discussions o f these novels either as fem ininity o r as an effect o f the challenge that sam e-sex desire poses to norm ative constructions o f heterosexuality.28 D espite the pow er o f m any o f these argum ents, how ever, th eir insistence o n th e p rio rity o f gender labeling masks the q uestion o f fem ininity’s or m asculinity’s cultural m eaning— in this case, the way fem ininity is coded as sym pathetic receptivity. D aniel D eron da and D o ria n Gray may appear to be fem inized, that is, precisely because o f th e w ay th eir representative status makes th e m available for sympathy. In these novels, as in th e ir cultural contexts, sym pathy’s face is a conventionally fem inine one: blank, receptive, and available for fantasy.

T h e figures V icto rian society defined as objects o f sym pathy w ere, o f course, its outcasts; situated outside respectable identity, they w ere essential to its definition. Such characters as beggars and fallen w o m en cir-

28

For an example o f such a reading o f Daniel Deronda, see Jacob Press, “Sam e-Sex

U nions in M odern Europe: Daniel Deronda, Altneuland, and the H om oerotics o f Jewish Nationalism,” in Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction, ed. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997), 299-329; on W ilde see Kathy Alexis Psomiades, Beauty’s Body: Femininity and Representation in British Aestheticism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 181-89.

Introduction

19

culate in these texts as projections o f a fear o f falling em b edded w ith in the structure o f V ictorian middle-class identity; they expose th e way in w h ich middle-class identity was experienced as a fall from a natural co n d itio n o f aristocratic id en tity in to the representation and dissim ulation that the realm o f the social seem ed, by contrast, to require. Identification w ith such figures, accom panied by incessant co n c ern about the authenticity o f their identities, registers an identification w ith fallenness and guilt that threatens the desired stability and presum ed naturalness o f m iddle-class identity. T h e en c o u n te r b etw een “w h o o n e w as” and “w h o on e w asn’t ” challenges th e com placency o f the stable self, theoretically ready to offer sym pathy and coin; B ailin’s use o f the past tense captures the tem poral disjunction experienced by a m iddle-class observer suddenly perceiving in the sym pathetic object a figure for id en tity ’s contin gent, social nature— suddenly perceiving iden tity as narrative, as fallen. E ach sym pathetic en c o u n te r thus has the effect o f an identity w ith sym pathy itself: it is a fall into representa tio n .29 V icto rian representations o f sym pathy capture th e tension b e tw een an em phasis o n sym pathy and charity as h u m a n ita rian values, o n the on e hand, and an uneasy identification w ith sym pathy’s visible objects, o n the other. Closely tied to a sense o f econom ic w ell-being, sym pathy follows a capitalist logic: like m o n ey it m ust be m e ted o u t w ith care lest it— and th e id en tity it represents— dissipate entirely. F or the V ictorian m iddle classes, th en , th e attem pt to im agine the self in th e o th e r’s place was less an enjoyable theatrical exercise than a rem in d er o f id en tity ’s co n tingency. In such efforts, w h at D iana Fuss calls “ th e d e to u r th ro u g h the 29

For a similar v iew o f middle-class identity, see Marjorie Levinson, Keats’s Life of

Allegory: The Origins of a Style (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988). Somewhat contradictorily as well, however, the cultural narratives surrounding the beggar in such encounters also figure as intrusions o f the real on the activities o f representation and speculation; the beggar’s appeal, w hich demands the kind o f “active interchange” (Sennett, Fall of Public Man, 27) no longer typical o f urban life, seems m omentarily to disrupt the Victorian urban spectator’s detached appropriation o f everything he sees. A request for change requires exchange, and in so doing confronts the man on the street w ith the misrecognitions and denials involved in the construction o f the respectable self. Balzac describes the flaneur as able to enjoy a “gastronomy o f the eye” in w hich “one is open to everything, one rejects nothing a priori from o n e’s purview, provided one needn’t becom e a participant, enm eshed in a scene” (See Sennett, Fall of Public Man, 27; Brand, Spectator and the City, 42). The beggars appeal “enm eshes” the spectator in a scene, taking away the privilege o f spectatorship.

Introduction

20

o th e r that defines a self”— the swerve along a linear ro u te to identity— threatens to b eco m e the place in w h ich identity gets stuck.30 T h e readings that follow locate in V ictorian representations o f sym pathy a conceptual fluidity that b o th was (and rem ains today) ideologically useful. R a th e r th an fixing a definition o f the term , they seek to elucidate its m echanism s and gestures, scenarios and identifications. Tying specularity to econom ics, and to the percep tio n and articulation o f identity, sym pathy em erges in these readings and in the V ictorian m iddle-class im agin ary as a vehicle for the circulation o f effects and identities b etw een classes. It expresses resentm ent and desire; it prom pts the exchange o f o b jects such as gifts, disease, o r coin; it sets in m o tio n o r reinforces a b elief in its ow n transcendent value as em otional currency; it produces narrative. Indeed, rather than p roducing truths o f identity, V icto rian representations o f sym pathy define identity as sym pathetic currency— currency that circulates in avowedly fictional fo rm (as in Ruth) as w ell as in the fo rm o f ostensibly “ tru e ” selves (as in “A C hristm as C arol” and Daniel Deronda). In the scenes discussed here, sym pathy’s requisite attenu ation o f self provokes narratives about the tru th or falsity o f self-representation; these scenes establish links betw een sympathy, disguise, and deception that call ostensibly 30

Fuss, Identification Papers, 2. Sympathy’s importance as a middle-class realm o f feeling

perhaps accounts for the tendency, from Wordsworth to Nussbaum, to align literary representations o f suffering w ith imaginative identification itself. In Nussbaum s argument, for instance, what awakens the “literary im agination” is the reader’s perception that “it might have been otherwise” for the sufferer. “W h en w e read Hard Times as sympathetic participants, our attention has a special focus. Since the sufferings and anxieties o f the characters are am ong the central bonds betw een reader and work, our attention is drawn in particular to those characters w h o suffer and fear. Characters w h o are not facing any adversity simply do not h ook us in as readers; there is no drama in a life in which things are going smoothly.” But anxiety for the character is heightened by the feeling that “it might have been otherwise” for the reader as well. “O ne way in w hich the situation o f the poor or oppressed is especially bad is that it m ight have been otherwise. We see this especially clearly w hen w e see their situation side by side w ith the rich and prosperous. In this way our thought w ill naturally turn in the direction o f making the lot o f the worst o ff more similar to the lot o f the rich and powerful; since w e ourselves m ight be, or becom e, either o f these two people, w e want to raise the floor” (Nussbaum, PoeticJustice, 91). This analysis suggests that the apprehension o f suffering may be especially keen in the literary imagination precisely because o f the bourgeois sensibility (in Nussbaum ’s universalizing language, “our” sensibility) w hich finds it “natural” that “drama” should inhere in the reflexivity, the potential reversibility, betw een the “worse o f f ’ and the “rich and powerful.”

Introduction

21

secure identities in to question. B reaking do w n and confusing social b oundaries and identities, they render disguise a figure for sym pathy and its projections. S om e o f th e texts discussed here— “A C hristm as C arol,” R uth, East Lynne, and Daniel Deronda— issue paradigm atic appeals for sympathy. W orking the borders b etw een sym pathy and transgression, they attem pt to redeem figures defined as m arginal o r deviant and in th e process com plicate th e social categories and identities they seek to stabilize. In a scenario rem iniscent o f R e n é G irard’s accounts o f victim sacrifice, figures positio n ed outside m ainstream V ictorian society— defined, as I suggest above, as that society’s negative im age— are transform ed into exemplars o f cultural value, em bo dying ideals o f universality and inviting th e harm oniou s resolution o f social conflict. T h e sym pathy and adulation lavished o n a few deserving “victim s,” in this scenario, displaces atten tio n from the destructive consequences o f industrialization and the rise to pow er o f the m iddle class. B u t know ledge o f those consequences is not, in fact, erased; rather, sym pathy em erges as a circulation o f representations, as these figures dissolve into the conflicting images they suggest to the m iddle-class im agination. Gaskell’s R u th , for instance, em bodies the cultural anxieties evoked by the very possibility Gaskell w ished to dramatize: that o f sym pathy for th e fallen w o m an .31 T h e first p art o f the b o o k establishes a n u m b e r o f connections b etw een capitalism and spectatorship in V icto rian representations o f sympathy. B o th “A C hristm as C arol” and A rth u r C o n a n D o y le’s “ T h e M an w ith the Tw isted L ip” align sym pathetic representation w ith the circulation o f social images. In b o th texts, the sym pathetic exchange— H alliday’s en c o u n ter w ith th e beggar, Scrooge s identification w ith his ow n im age— illustrates a m ore general problem atic o f exchange, in w h ich the identities o f beggar and capitalist collapse in to each other. Part II traces the representation and circulation o f fem inine identity and fem inine sym pathy in R u th and East Lynne, exp lo rin g the way anxiety ab o u t th e fallenness o f m iddle-class id en tity is p rojected o n to each te x t’s sym pathetic object. H ere, exchanged iden tity appears as illegitimacy, and, as in C o n a n Doyle, as disguise: identity disengaged from any naturalizing origin. 31 R en é Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972).

Introduction

22

In these first tw o parts o f the book, emphasis o n econom ic determ inations o f identity suggests similarities betw een V ictorian representations o f sympathy and contem porary ones. In Part III, the topic o f V ictorian sympathy intersects w ith, and suggests a lineage for, a different set o f co n tem porary identity issues. M y chapters outline a narrative in w h ich the self-undoing visuality o f V ictorian cross-class sympathy gives way, in the latter part o f the century, to explicit images o f sim ilitude: assertions o f m ysterious affinities betw een like-m inded individuals.32 This is n o t to argue that the nin e tee n th cen tu ry saw a fundam ental change in the representation o f sympathy, o r that vertical sym pathy— the sym pathy o f the m id dle- and upper-classes for the p o o r— disappears from literary representation. M y in ten tio n is rather to characterize the ideological discourses o f group id en tity that em erge in the latter half o f the n in e tee n th cen tu ry (such as nationalism) as scenes o f sympathy because o f their evocation o f and reliance o n generalized and opposing images o f cultural identity, and to suggest that this characterization reveals som e o f the lim itations of, and contradictions w ithin, liberal claims to universal sym pathy In particular, w hat has com e to be k n o w n as identity politics, w h ich conceives o f identity as a fo rm o f group identification, reveals the tension betw een the liberal ideal o f u n iversal sym pathy and the specificity o f particular identifications. T h e investm ents o f Daniel Deronda and The Picture o f Dorian Gray in ideals o f sym pathetic affinity, I argue, suggest a genealogy o f co n tem p o rary identity politics, refocusing that politics as a narrative o f sym pathy in w h ich id en tity is organized, o n the m o d el o f nationalism , as the n eed to construct, desire, and consent to a particular kin d o f self. Sym pathy in these novels enables the fo rm a tio n o f cultural bonds and solidarities o n the basis o f a con jo in ed sim ilarity and desire: these texts describe an ineffable and inexplicable attraction b etw een individuals, so that a sym pathy that m igh t challenge identity gives way to (is exchanged for) a sym pathy that seems unequivocally to affirm it, and sym pathy w ith th e o th e r gives way, explicitly, to w h at in one way o r an o th er it has always been: sympathy w ith the self—the subject’s attem pt to identify w ith his or h er id ealized image. Yet w h at m ight appear at this stage o f the argum ent as a revelation or exposure is in fact m erely an o th er perspective o n A dam S m ith ’s 32

I owe the formulation “self-undoing visuality” to an anonymous reader for Cornell

University Press.

Introduction

23

originary scene: one according to w h ich a spectator’s generalized im aginative possibilities— includin g th e possibility o f sym pathizing w ith “ o u r bro th er on th e rack”— are u n d erc u t by th e very particularities o f group identity that delim it th e bourgeois subject in the first place (defining that subject as, for instance, a national one). T h e im age o f the self as a m e m b er o f a group thus turns o u t to be th e flip side— the political unconscious— o f the scene o f sym pathetic exchange. In these la te -n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry novels, the m id -V ic to rian focus on class shifts to a cultivation o f like-m indedness that presum es to transcend all social boundaries, b u t in fact only transcends som e (such as those o f class) in order to enable the establishm ent o f others (such as those o f nationality), and the crucial category is no lo n g er class b u t the even m ore diffuse “ sensibility.” D ifferences ascribed to taste, ostensibly g ro u n d ed in personal identity and choice rather than in accidents o f birth, enable the assimilation o f individuals into larger, corpo rate bodies such as nations, or categories o f group identity based, for instance, on sexuality. W h a t p ro duces affinities b etw een individuals in these novels, then, is less a spirit o f hum anitarianism than an ineffable and exclusionary d eterm in a tio n o f like-m indedness. T h ese la te -n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry scenes o f sympathy, I w ish to suggest, b o th participate in and reveal the bou n d ary -d raw in g im plicit in earlier ones: sym pathy in V icto rian fiction is always abo ut the construction o f social and cultural identities, about the individual subject’s relation to th e group. B u t because la te -n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry ideologies construct individual identity as a fun ction o f group identity, the pain sym pathy m anifestly relieves, in these later form ulations, is n o t that o f physical suffering o r class alienation b u t rather th at o f a p o ten tial separation from identity itself. In these novels, as in th e lives o f m any o f their latetw e n tieth -c en tu ry readers, identity has becom e a m atter o f national and sexual allegiances w h ich m ust be discovered, declared, and consented to.

I Sympathy and Spectacle in Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”

In a well-known essay, Sergei Eisenstein describes literature in general and Dickens in particular as cinema’s predecessors because o f their evocation o f visual effects. Literature, Eisenstein writes, provides cinema with “parents and [a] pedigree,... a past”; it is “the art o f viewing.” 1 What Eisenstein construes as aesthetic development may be regarded, however, as evidence for what Christian Metz calls a persistent “regime o f perception” in Western culture— one in which appeals to the eye play a significant role in the production and circulation o f ideology.2 An emphasis on visuality, whether literary or cinematic, promotes spectatorship as a dominant cultural activity. But such an emphasis also reinforces, and thereby naturalizes, forms o f spectatorship already inscribed in the social structures within which particular cultural representations are produced. The idea o f a continuity between literature and film may thus be significant less for what it reveals about the genealogy o f cinema than for 1 Sergei Eisenstein, “Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today,” in Film Forum (N ew York: Harcourt, 1949), 33. 2 According to M etz, the “regime o f perception” perpetuated by cinem a is one for w hich the spectator has been “ ‘prepared’ by the older arts o f representation (the novel, representational painting, etc.) and by the Aristotelian tradition o f Western art in general.” The Imaginary Signifier (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), 118-19.

27

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Sym pathy and the Spirit o f Capitalism

w h at it tells ab o u t th e role o f visuality and its literary evocations in defining, reinforcing, and dissem inating som e o f W estern cu ltu re’s d o m inan t values. “A C hristm as C aro l” (1843) is arguably D ickens’s m ost visually evocative text. In its detailed atten tio n to and elaboration o f surfaces, its reliance o n contrasts b etw een darkness and light, its co n stru c tio n as a series o f scenes (a structure repro d u ced in th e im ages th e spirits exhibit to Scrooge), and particularly its en gagem ent w ith a dynam ic o f spectatorial desire, the story is an artifact of, and an exem plary text for understanding, the co m m o d ity culture G uy D e b o rd term s a “ society o f th e spectacle” ; the m echanism o f Scrooge’s conversion is, after all, spectatorship.3 P rojecting Scrooge’s identity into past and future, associating spectatorial and consum er desire w ith images o f an idealized self, “A C hristm as C arol” elaborates w h at I w ish to argue is the circular relation th at obtains b e tw een, o n the one hand, spectacular form s o f cultural representation, and, o n th e other, persons, objects, o r scenes invested w ith ideological value and thus already, w ith in their cultural contexts, spectacular. M oreover, an understanding o f the sto ry’s representational effects helps explain th e p e culiar pow er o f spectacle as a vehicle for ideology. For w hile “A C hristm as C aro l” anatom izes the relationship b etw e en an individual subject and spectacular culture, it also unfolds as an allegory o f the subject’s relation to culture in general, defined, by Clifford G eertz, as “ an im aginative universe w ith in w h ic h . . . acts are signs.”4 A recent revision o f “A C hristm as C a ro l” reproduces th e story’s circularity. A t th e en d o f the film “ Scrooged” (1988), the character played by Bill M urray, involved in m aking a television version o f D ickens’s story, steps o u t o f television space and into cinem atic space to address the view er “ directly.” T h e p o in t o f this shift is, o f course, to fram e television space as fictional by seem ing to m ove in to a m ore “real” space, and the p o in t o f his address is to direct spectators to do the same: to becom e engaged w ith the w orld beyond television. Telling viewers n o t to w atch television, M u rray s

3 Dickens’s story has long been recognized as an exemplary com m odity text for its unabashed celebration o f excess and consum ption, its commercial rendering o f the “Christmas spirit,” and the seemingly infinite adaptability and marketability attested to by its annual reappearance as literary text, public reading, theatrical performance, and film. 4 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (N ew York: Basic Books, 1973), 13.

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29

character reinforces, how ever, th e idea that som e m e d iu m is n eed ed to send th e m that message. Im plicit in th e directive to leave fiction beh in d and m ove in to th e w orld, in b o th this film and th e te x t o n w h ich it is based, is the claim that the way to the w orld lies th ro u g h representation. P resenting Scrooge w ith im ages o f his past, present, and future lives, D ickenss spectacular text seeks to awaken that characters sym pathy and direct it to the w orld beyond representation. As a m od el o f socialization th ro u g h spectatorship, the narrative posits the visual as a m eans tow ard recapturing o n e ’s lost o r alienated self—and b eco m in g o n e ’s best self. If it fails to explain h o w the process occurs— h o w sym pathy em erges from identification, and identification from spectatorship— it nevertheless asks its readers’ assent to this series o f effects. A nd if, as I argue, S crooge’s sympathetic self em erges from his relation to representation, such is also the im plied effect o f the reader’s relation to the scenes o f “A C hristm as Carol,” given the te x t’s explicit analogy b etw een S crooge’s activity and the reader’s (the narrato r notes, for exam ple, that Scrooge is as close to the Spirit o f C hristm as Past as the n arrator is to the reader: “ and I am standing in the spirit at your elbo w ”).5 M aking visual representation necessary for the p ro d u ctio n o f individual sym pathy and thus, ultimately, to social harm ony, D ickens’s text b o th participates in and reinforces the perceptual regim e to w h ich M etz refers. For at stake in the story’s appeal to visuality is n o t ju st the assertion o f a co n nec tio n betw een spectatorship and sym pathy b u t a definition o f spectatorship as a m eans o f access to cultural life. Paul Davis has used the te rm “ c u ltu re -te x t” to describe the way the “ C aro l” has b ee n rew ritte n to reflect particular cultural and historical circum stances.6 I w ish to argue that the story deserves this nam e, how ever, because it identifies itself w ith culture: it projects images of, has com e to stand for, and constitutes an exem plary narrative o f encu ltu ration into th e dom in an t values o f its tim e. “A C hristm as C a ro l” tells the story o f a V ictorian businessm an’s in terpellation as th e subject o f a phantasm atic co m m o d ity culture in w h ich

5 Charles D ickens, “A Christmas Carol,” in The Christmas Books, vol. 1, ed. M ichael Slater (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1971), 68. Subsequent references included in text. 6 Paul Davis, The Lives and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge (N ew Haven:Yale University Press, 1990).

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S ym pathy and the Spirit o f Capitalism

laissez-faire econom ics is happily w edd ed to natural benevolence. A nd, in a m a n n er that w o u ld be appropriate for a general definition o f culture b u t is especially suited to a spectacular society, the story articulates the relation b etw een the subject and culture as a relation b etw een the subject and representation. Scrooge gains access to his form er, feeling self and to a co m m u n ity w ith w h ich that self is in h arm o n y — and, n o t incidentally, he saves his ow n life— by learning to negotiate the text s field o f visual representations. C ultural “fram es” em bedded in the story’s images invite the spectato r ’s identification, collapsing sym pathy into an identification w ith representation itself. M ak in g p articip atio n in its scenes d ep e n d en t o n such identification, the story constitutes b o th its idealized charitable self and the ideal subject o f co m m o d ity culture. “A C hristm as C a ro l” reconciles Christm ases Past and C hristm ases Yet to C o m e, that is, by con ju rin g up an illusion o f presence.

T h e story’s ideological project— its attem p t to link sym pathy and business by in co rp o ratin g a charitable im pulse in to its readers’ self-conceptions— underlies its association o f charitable feeling w ith participation in cultural life.7 A narrative w hose ostensible purp o se is th e p ro d u ctio n o f social sympathy, “A C hristm as C a ro l” b o th recalls and revises those scenes in eig h te e n th -c e n tu ry fiction that, depictin g enco u n ters b etw een charity givers and receivers, m odel sym pathy for readers positioned as w itnesses.8 A lth ough such scenes have an instructional fu n ction and w ere m eant to 7 Despite the importance o f feminine subjectivity to Victorian ideologies o f feeling, “A Christmas Carol” links charity to a m asculine-identified form o f power: to the proper functioning o f the economy. Relevant here is Kaja Silverman’s discussion o f the way in w hich “our dominant fiction calls upon the male subject to see himself, and the female subject to recognize and desire him, only through the m ediation o f images o f an unim paired masculinity.” Male Subjectivity at the Margins (N ew York: R outledge, 1992), 42. Scrooge’s miserliness is by implication a corollary o f his rejection o f female com panionship and the family; the story presents Scrooge w ith images o f his ow n impaired masculinity and permits him to restore himself, through gift giving, as a symbolic father to the Cratchit family (“to Tiny Tim , w h o did N O T die, he was a second father” [133-34]). 8 I refer to such novels as H enry M ackenzie’s The Man of Feeling and Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey. These scenes are themselves “culture-texts,” in that they stage con frontations betw een characters situated in different social contexts and demonstrate em otion’s inseparability from social configurations.

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31

direct readers from the text to the w orld beyond it, they also posit the existence o f strictly “ literary” feeling; in te n d e d to “ in c u lc a te . . . h u m an ity and benevolence,” they nevertheless provided “ a course in th e developm e n t o f em otional response, w hose b eg in n in g and en d are literary.”9 W h a t I have described as a certain circularity in representations o f sym pathy is thus n o t n ew in the n in e tee n th c e n tu ry B u t from the eig h teen th cen tu ry novel’s scenes o f sym pathy to the spectacles observed by Scrooge, the sym pathetic text has b o th w id en e d its scope and tig h ten ed its grasp on th e reader; from a display o f v irtu e m ean t to incite im ita tio n and teach ju d g m e n t to a relatively select audience, it has m oved to a pro fo u n d m anipulation o f the reader’s visual sense in the fo rm o f —and by m eans o f — the mass m arketin g o f sym pathetic representations. In the “ Carol,” the subject is n o t the m an o f feeling b u t the m an w h o has forgotten h o w to feel; in V ictorian England, the poten tial charity giver no less than the b eggar requires socialization. N o t sim ply a representation o f an act o f benevolence o r an ex h o rtatio n about the pleasures o f sympathy, D ick ens’s text situates its readers in th e position o f the m an w ith o u t feeling in a narrative w hose fu n ctio n is to teach h im h o w to feel, and it constructs th e m as sym pathetic subjects no less than as spectacular ones by m anipulating “visual” effects in a m a n n er that m irrors S crooge’s ow n in terpellation th ro u g h spectacle. T h e story opens o n a w orld shrouded in fog that gradually dissolves to reveal Scrooge w o rkin g in his co u n tin g house (47). H ere, as in num erous o th e r scenes that evoke contrasts b etw e en darkness and light o r in o th e r ways em phasize th e visual, the story draws atten tio n to its o w n surface and its co ntrol over visual techniques (w hat M etz calls “m echanism s o f d esire”)— its pow er to let readers, positioned as spectators, see o r n o t see.10

9Janet Todd, Sensibility: A n Introduction (N ew York: M ethuen, 1986), 9 1 -93. See also John Mullan, Sentiment and Sociability: The Language of Feeling in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 10 See Metz, Imaginary Signifier, 77, for an account o f techniques that emphasize the camera’s control over the spectator’s vision. In evoking “the boundary that bars the look,” M etz suggests, the camera eroticizes seeing, in a “veiling-unveiling procedure” that excites the viewer’s desire. This kind o f procedure characterizes Dickens’s writing in passages such as the following: “M eanw hile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about w ith flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. T he ancient tower o f a church. . . became invisible___In the main street, at

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In doing so, it seems to create spectacle o u t o f a grab bag o f projective or fram ing devices that it im plicitly describes as the p ro p erty o f literary texts. B u t w hile suggesting that literature can transform any reality into spectacle, the story focuses chiefly o n objects, persons, and scenes that are already spectacular in V ictorian culture: already invested w ith cultural value and desire. As the story seems to spectacularize the real, that is, it in fact reinforces the desirability o f a series o f culturally valorized images and co n tributes to a sense th at n o th in g exists— at least, n o th in g w o rth lo o k in g at— outside those images. Spectacle depends o n a distinction betw een vision and participation, a distance that produces desire in a spectator. T h e early parts o f D ickens’s story dram atize the elder Scrooge’s identification w ith images o f his y o u th and associate th e effect o f those im ages w ith that o f literary texts. T h e scenes o f S crooge’s y o u th possess an im m ediacy that the S pirit o f C hristm as Past underscores by w arnin g Scrooge against it:“ ‘T hese are b u t shadows o f th e things that have been,’ said the G host, ‘T h ey have no co n sciousness o f us’ ” (71). B ut the te x t’s emphasis is o n the “reality” o f these “ shadows,” and that emphasis is reinforced by an insistence on the reality o f an even m ore rem oved level o f representation: th e characters o f Ali Baba and R o b in so n C rusoe, products o f the y o u n g S crooge’s im agination, n o t only appear in the first scene b u t are “w onderfully real and distinct to lo o k at.” A nd th eir realism seems b o th to produce and to be evidence o f th e sp ectator’s ability to identify w ith representations; exclaim ing ab o u t th e adventures o f these fictional characters, Scrooge “ expendfs] all the earnestness o f his n a tu re . . . in a m ost extraordinary voice b etw een laugh-

the corner o f the court, som e labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round w hich a party o f ragged m en and boys were gathered” (52). At stake in this description is less an attempt at mimesis than an evocation o f desire for light (and heat). Other scenes, discussed in the body o f the paper, similarly depend not so m uch on m inute description as on a “strip-tease” effect that fetishizes the visual (Metz, Imaginary Signifier; 77). Dickens resembles numerous other Victorian novelists in his interest in the interrelations o f vision and power. For more on this topic see D. A. Miller, The Novel and the Police (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1988), and Audrey Jaffe, Vanishing Points: Dickens, Narrative, and the Subject of Omniscience (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1991). T he ability o f “A Christmas Carol” to make readers “see” is further associated w ith a mechanics o f projection and dynamic o f spectatorial desire that produce in readers a condition o f consumer desire and construct the text as commodity.

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ing and crying,” his face “heig h ten ed and excited” (72). Subsequent scenes p ro d u ced by the spirit similarly evoke desire and com pel identification. T h e scene o f F ezziw igs ball takes Scrooge “ o u t o f his w its” : “ His heart and soul w ere in the scene, and w ith his fo rm er self” ; he speaks “u n c o n sciously like his form er, n o t his latter, self” (78). If S crooge’s relation to the scenes from the Arabian Nights and Robinson Crusoe is analogous to his response to o th e r scenes from his past and b o th are analogous to the reader’s relation to th e text o f “A C hristm as Carol,” th e n literature is here im agin ed as spectacle, and b o th are defined as com pelling identification w hile precluding participation. A lthough tem poral distance and fictionality separate observer from o b served in these scenes, the story’s emphasis on the realism o f w h at is seen blurs the difference betw een a spectacularity literature finds and one it creates. Similarly, w hat the spirits choose to represent as “ scene” is often, in effect, already one. Davis has described the story’s construction as a series o f scenes in its use o f dream and p rojection and its allusions to popular V ictorian images. B u t its scenes are also related to w h at M ary A nn D oane calls “scenarios” : constellations o f objects o r persons charged w ith cultural significance, they are images o f images displayed to evoke desire in a spectator w h o recognizes the values em b edded in th e m .11 T h e scenes o f Scrooge’s b o y hood friends, for instance, com pel spectatorial desire through their tem poral distance and through Scrooge’s evident, im m ediate pleasure in apprehending them . Indistinct as they are, however, they serve chiefly to signify y ou th and bo y h o o d fellowship and to gesture tow ard an idealized preindustrial w orld in w h ich w o rk resembles play. In the description o f Fezziw ig’s ball, similarly, desire is signaled by absorption, the disappearance o f b o th the spirit and Scrooge w hile the scene is being described. B ut desire is also inscribed in the display o f the dance itself, w ith its stylized em phasis o n couples and courtship. E n co d in g specific cultural values in visionary scenes, su rrounding w ith a golden o r rosy light the images that convey them , the story identifies those values w ith light and vision th e m selves, and ultimately, as I argue below, w ith w hat it calls “spirit.” 12

11 Davis, Lives and Times, 65-66; Mary A nn Doane, The Desire to Desire: The Woman’s Film of the iç4o’s (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 13-14. 12 T he cultural value placed on masculine virility, for instance, is conveyed by the detail that, as the old merchant danced, “a positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwigs calves” (77).

34

Sympathy and the Spirit of Capitalism

E n co d e d in these scenes, then, are som e o f V icto rian cu ltu re’s d o m inan t values— youth, b o y h o o d fellowship, heterosexual desire, and familial pleasure— th eir naturalness asserted by m eans o f a strategy that identifies seeing w ith desiring. For em bedd ed in the scenes are screens o f th eir ow n: cultural frames that define the contents as desirable. In perhaps the m ost pow erful exam ple, a scene after the ball, th e n arrato r m odels desire, m o v ing in to th e sp irit’s po sitio n and, im aginatively, in to th e scene itself. H e supposes him self o ne o f several “y o u n g brigands” playing a gam e at th e center o f w h ich is a y oung w o m an w h o m igh t in o th e r circum stances, it seems, have been Scrooge’s daughter. As to m easuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn’t have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishm ent, and never come straight again. A nd yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she m ight have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes o f her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves o f h air,... in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence o f a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value. (81-82) T h e m erg ing o f narrator, spirit, and Scrooge in the speaker’s “ I” is the narrative’s characteristic way o f dram atizing th e pow er o f its ow n representations. A nd the subject o f th e passage— th e im possibility o f to u c h in g an im age w hose status as im age provokes the desire to to u c h (and holds o u t a prom ise o f “value”)— m ight itself serve as a definition o f spectacle. B u t this seductiveness is a function n o t only o f the im age’s status as representation b u t also o f w h at Laura M ulvey calls the “to -b e-lo o k e d -a t-n ess” o f w h at is rep resen ted .13 W h a t prevents the n arrato r from to u c h in g the w o m a n ’s skin— the “ skin” separating spectator from spectacle— defines 13

As M ulvey explains, “In their traditional exhibitionist role w om en are simultaneously

looked at and displayed, w ith their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that it can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.” “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” in Visual and Other Pleasures (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 18-19. This effect is what I refer to as circularity: in representing wom an, “A Christmas Carol” (and, o f course, not only that text) highlights a figure already coded for visual impact, culturally defined in representational terms.

S ym pathy and Spectacle

35

b o th the reality o f w h at is seen and the spectacle’s co n d itio n as representation; the co m b in atio n o f desire and inaccessibility hints, as well, at w o m a n ’s status in the real as representation. By fram ing the scene as fantasy, the text doubles and eroticizes the im age’s spectacular quality It is n o t ju st projection that makes the idea o f to u c h — o f breaking the skin o f representation— seem faintly transgressive here; w h at is presented is already defined as spectacle in V ictorian culture. A n d as transgressive. For this im age is also desirable and unto u ch ab le because o f the p ro h ib itio n em bedded in the im agined desire o f the father for his o w n daughter. T h e w o m an s presence in the dream o r fantasy thus echoes and encodes o th e r prohibitions against touch, prohibitions m arking gender codes and familial relations. D esire is b o th elicited by these p ro hibitions and inscribed in them ; participating in that desire, observers b e com e com plicit in the scene s cultural dynamics. A lo ng w ith m o d e o f representation and co n ten t, tem poral distance gives the images o f S crooge’s past an in h e re n t spectacularity. B u t w hat the story offers as everyday reality— C hristm as P resent— possesses the same projective o r illusory quality. It is as if, in order to m ake Scrooge and the sto ry ’s readers desire the real, the te x t has to offer n o t everyday life b u t rather its image: everyday life polished to a high sheen. T he poulterers’ shops were still half open, and the fruiterers’ were radiant in their glory. T here were great round, pot-bellied baskets o f chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats o f jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tum bling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness o f their growth like Spanish Friars; and w inking from their shelves in w anton slyness at the girls as they w ent by.... There were pears and apples, clustered high in bloom ing pyramids; there were bunches o f grapes, made in the shopkeepers’benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths m ight water gratis as they passed. (89-90) Figs are “m oist and pulpy,” F rench plum s “blush in m odest tartness” ; there are “N o rfo lk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting o ff the yellow o f the o ranges and lem ons, and, in th e great com pactness o f th eir ju ic y persons, u rgently entreating and beseeching to be carried h o m e in p aper bags and eaten after d in n e r” (90). T hese objects carry the same erotic charge as did

36

Sym pathy and the Spirit o f Capitalism

th e w om an in the gam e-playing scene (and desire is once again m odeled, in the im age o f w atering m ouths); they also similarly suggest tem poral distance, w ith the spectator po sitio n ed as n o t yet in possession o f w h at he sees. B u t they have these qualities n o t because they are fram ed as projections, although they appear in the scenes show n by the Spirit o f C hristm as Present, b u t because they are b eh in d a screen already in place: th e shop w indow . As in the earlier scene, w h at the text situates w ith in its literary and phantasm atic frames is already culturally fram ed. Indeed, the idea o f “fram ing” C hristm as P resent has as its prem ise the propo sition that the real is only desirable— in fact, for Scrooge, only visible— w h e n m ade into representation.14 It makes sense, then, that V icto rian E n g lan d ’s m ost im p o rta n t site o f value— th e h o m e — also appears as im age, fram ed by a p ercep tio n from w ith o u t that invests it w ith longing. T h ere is no difference b etw een the fram e im posed by the spirit s presence and w hat a passerby in the streets w o u ld ordinarily see: “As Scrooge and the Spirit w en t along the streets, th e brightness o f th e roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts o f room s, was w onderful. H ere, the flickering o f the blaze show ed preparations for a cosy dinner, w ith h o t plates baking th ro u g h and th ro u g h before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be draw n, to shut o u t cold and darkness___H ere, again, w ere shadows on the w in d o w -b lin d o f guests assem bling” (99). T h e representational frames D ickens uses to set fantasy apart from reality— the dynam ics that give “A C hristm as C aro l” its m ythic or fairy-tale quality— tu rn o u t to be fully operative in the “ real” w orld: for Scrooge and the spirit as they w alk th ro u g h the streets, the w orld is a series o f such frames, o f w indow s and projective screens. T h e reality D ickens re-presents is, thus, already enco d ed as spectacle; it is “ to -b e -lo o k e d -a t.” A n d in this way the text, by em phasizing the real quality o f its projections and the projective quality o f w h at it offers at the level o f the real, dissolves any sustainable difference betw een the real and 14

Thomas Richards discusses the way the Great Exhibition synthesized, in the manu-

factured commodity, techniques associated w ith spectacle, such as the play o f light on the object and the im posed distance between spectator and object. But the presence o f these techniques in the “Carol” suggests that both Dickens and the Exhibition drew upon forms o f representation w idely present in everyday life, ones influenced perhaps most significantly by the use o f plate glass. See Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990).

Sym pathy and Spectacle

37

th e image. S tru ctu rin g desire th ro u g h the im position o f fictionalized p ro jections, on the one hand, and show ing that desire is already structured by such everyday frames as w indow s and blinds, o n th e other, the story effectively dem onstrates that the real already possesses the quality o f im age and shadow — if seen from the p o in t o f view o f som eone positioned o u tside it. A nd defining th e real as spectacle, the text positions all o f its readers outside it. Focusing o n objects already fetishized visually (w om en, h om e, and food) and fram ing th e already culturally fram ed, the story defines reality as spectacle— w h at one w atches and rem ains outside of; in vesting its representational surface w ith desirability, th e story turns its readers into spectators and positions th e m outside o f everything. A t C hristm as (w hen, in D icken s’s im ag inin g o f the holiday as in co n tem p o ra ry A m erica’s, the dom in an t fiction seems to be the only available reality), the story seems to say, the w orld is an im age; m oreover, it is an im age in w h ich spectators m ust seek to see them selves.15 T his im perative to locate the self w ith in the story’s spectacles, associating as it does the representation o f the self w ith th e story ’s o th e r representations, ultim ately defines sym pathy in the “ C a ro l” in spectatorial term s: as a relation to representation. Scrooge typically loses him self in the “ reality” o f w h at he sees, im itating, for instance, the y o u n g er Scrooge s m anifest identification. T h e story presents his w atching o f these scenes n o t only as the p ro duction, w itnessing, and loss o f self in spectacle (and, analogously, in reading) b u t also as the taking o n o f the im ag e’s desire. B u t the scenes p ro m p t com passion as well: Scrooge’s identification w ith his form e r self leads to sym pathy for that self, and, in tu rn , to sym pathy w ith o th ers, and n o t only w ith images. “ T h ere was a boy singing a C hristm as C arol at m y d o o r last night. I should like to have given h im som ething: th a t’s all,” he says after w itnessing the first scene o f his b o y h o o d self (73). T h e narrative o f th e d evelopm ent o f fellow feeling offered here makes the tw o kinds o f sym pathy (identification and com passion) appear to be co n tin u ous, as if the open in g up o f a space betw een the self and its representation produces a general desire to identify, w h ich can th e n be detached from the

15

This collapse o f reality and illusion suggests Jean Baudrillards simulacra. But I am ar-

guing not that the com m odity form dominates culture, but rather that com m odity culture draws its power from its status as an exemplary form o f culture— its identity w ith culture as a system o f representations.

38

S ym pathy and the Spirit o f Capitalism

self and shifted to som e o th e r identity. Indeed, th ro u g h o u t the story the presence o f visual representation is identified w ith th e presence o f Scrooge s fo rm e r self (the sight o f Fezziw ig’s ball renders h im “ u n c o n sciously” like his fo rm e r self), and representation takes o n a nostalgic quality, as w indow s o r screens define a tem poral distance b etw een observer and observed. T h e scenes o f S crooge’s past always possess m o re “presence” th an he does; the y o u n g er Scrooge has a natural ability to identify w ith representations that the older Scrooge recovers as soon as the scenes are presented to him . In several ways, then, the story ties the ability to sym pathize w ith images to the restoring o f a past self to presence. P ositioning Scrooge as a reader and in te rp re te r o f cultural scenes, D ickens’s story recalls G eertz’s definition o f culture as a system o f signs to be read. B u t reading in “A C hristm as C arol” also includes an elem ent o f internalization— o r m ore precisely w h at Louis A lthusser has called in terpellation, a process he im agines “ along the lines o f the m ost co m m onplace everyday police (or other) hailing: ‘Hey, you there!’ ” In this theoretical street scene, “ th e hailed individual w ill tu rn round. B y this m ere o n e h u n d red -an d -eig h ty -d e g re e physical conversion, he becom es a subject.”16 As A lthusser m aintains, the individual can respond to the policem an ’s hailing only if already a subject. A ccording to this narrative, if Scrooge learns his lessons w ith astonishing quickness, he does so because w hat is represented as learning in fact dem onstrates that in his heart he know s th e m already. R eadin g, for th e spectator o f the story’s scenes, is staged as the recovery o f know ledge the reader once possessed.17 A lthusser dismisses the apparently tautological structure o f his narrative (the p rob lem th at the subject m ust already be a subject in order to respond); for th e sake o f “ convenience and clarity,” he w rites, he has p resented in sequential fo rm w h at “in reality” is n o t sequential.18 B u t D ickens’s location o f spectatorial desire in the speaking com m odities b e 16 Althusser, “Ideology

and Ideological

State

Apparatuses: N o tes

toward

an

Investigation,” in Lenin and Philosophy (N ew York: M onthly R eview, 1971), 174. 17 This interpretation offers a solution to what Elliot Gilbert has dubbed “the Scrooge Problem”: “the unconvincing ease and apparent permanence o f Scrooge’s reformation.” Scrooge s “ease” also suggests a projection o f the text’s ideal reader, com pelled, as Scrooge is throughout, by the power o f the story’s representations. See Gilbert, “T he Ceremony o f Innocence: Charles D ickens’s A Christmas Carol ” PM LA 90 (1975): 22. 18 Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” 174.

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h in d the shop w in d o w suggests that the narrative structure o f A lthusser’s exam ple exposes a similar narrativity in the capitalist subject s identity. T h e images o f Christm ases Past invite S crooge’s identification and im itation, b u t access to th e ir reality is blocked by th e ir status as representation. T h e objects Scrooge sees in the “real” w orld, how ever— such as the N o rfo lk Biffins that ask to be “ carried h o m e in paper bags”— are conscious o f the spectator, and they explicitly invite p articipation in th e fo rm o f possession. Visual representation inscribes the spectator as absence o r lack and, in th e ir fullness, these im ages em phasize that lack. B u t th e relation b e tw een spectator and im age is reversed, as these com m odities call o u t to the spectator to com plete them . In the scenes o f C hristm ases Past, S crooge’s (and by im plication any spectator’s o r reader’s) relation to representation is articulated in term s o f absorption and self-loss: to supplem ent his ow n lack, Scrooge desires the presence projected by the image. B u t the images in the w in d o w are p resented as desiring th e spectator, n o w figured as consum er, w hose c o m ple tio n o f th e scene depends o n recognizing and id entifying w ith th e ir desire. Indeed, the logic o f D ickens’s speaking com m odities seems contrad icto ry at first. W h e n o n e desires th e objects that “ speak” to one, the speaking appears to m anifest either the external w o rld ’s acknow ledgm ent o f o n e ’s individuality (as if, w h e n a co m m o d ity says, “ Hey, you there!” so m ething essential ab o u t the self is bein g confirm ed) o r a recog nition th at the self requires so m eth ing b eyond itself to b ec o m e individual o r com plete. In fact, this narrative m ay be said to display th e same “ conven ie n t” logic as A lthusser’s, dem on strating that the individual w h o b e com es a subject already is one. B u t the apparent co ntradiction m igh t also be said to elaborate m o d e rn capitalism s co n stru c tio n o f a tem porally diffuse, o r narrativized, subject— th e kin d im plicit in th e tem poral division and reco n stru ctio n o f Scrooge’s life. For such a subject, th at is, only the m o m e n t o f co n su m ption offers an illusion o f presence, giving the self that consum es th e o p p o rtu n ity to coincide, phantasm atically, w ith the idealized and tem porally detached self projected in to the object consum ed. In a n ever-ending narrative o f self-creation and transform ation, that is, co m m o d ity culture may be said to w o rk its effects by m aking its subjects feel inco m p lete w ith o u t th e objects they m ay purchase to com plete th e m selves. T h ro u g h th e purchase o f com m odities, spectators b eco m e present to them selves, expressing an identification w ith representation and p e r-

40

Sym pathy and the Spirit o f Capitalism

haps, like Scrooge, seeking the presence projected in images o f a fo rm er self.19 Sym pathy w ith representation, th en, links sym pathy as com passion w ith th e co nstruction o f th e subject as spectator and consum er. D ickens’s speaking com m odities thus literalize and dram atize Scrooge’s im plicit relation to representation th ro u g h o u t th e story. All th e scenes Scrooge is show n “ speak” to him , positioning h im as spectator and as desiring subject. B u t unlike th e o th e r images he sees, the com m odities p ro vide h im w ith som ething to do, enabling h im to participate in the circulation o f representations the tex t defines as participation in culture.20

B y the tim e Scrooge gets to the third o f the series o f scenes show n to h im by the spirits, he has b eco m e an accom plished reader. H e know s he should seek som e m eaning, as well as his ow n image, in these scenes, and he does so w ith confidence. “ Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach im po rtan ce to conversations apparently so trivial; b u t feeling assured that they m ust have som e h id den purpose, he set h im self to consider w h at it was likely to b e ___[N Jothing d o u b tin g that to w h o m so ever they applied they had som e latent m oral for his ow n im provem ent, he resolved to treasure up every w o rd he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow o f him self w h e n it appeared— H e looked about in that very place for his ow n im age” (113). 19 The scene after the ball similarly imagines a consolidation o f past and present: its fantasy o f “presence” combines “the lightest licence o f the child” with a man’s knowledge o f value. 20 M y interest lies in asserting not that readers have no agency— that the story’s claims are irresistible— but rather that “A Christmas Carol,” like any other text, will interpellate those subjects w h o respond to its call, those for w h om the text compels or affirms belief in the feelings and cultural truths it represents. M y reading thus participates to some extent in the “always already” structure o f Althusser’s narrative. I do not mean to suggest that such readers cannot read otherwise; my ow n argument, as well as discussions by Teresa de Lauretis and Kaja Silverman about the way considerations o f gender complicate arguments about interpellation, may contribute to such revision. Silverman’s discussion o f Jacques R ancière’s term “dominant fiction,” as a story or image “through w hich a society figures consensus” (Silverman, Male Subjectivity; 30) helps elucidate the claim I want to make about the “Carol”— that it figures consensus in the process o f identification I outline here. But the best evidence for the story’s success at interpellation is the spectacle o f social cohesion that takes place around its images each Decem ber. Those w h o resist the spirit o f the “Carol” and o f the holiday are, after all, nothing but a bunch o f old Scrooges.

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41

B u t his im age does n o t seem to be there; instead there is th e shrouded bod y and a conversation about the profits that can rightfully be m ade from it, given the way th e living person had profited from others. “ I see, I see,” says Scrooge, th in k in g he has absorbed the lesson. “ T h e case o f this u n happy m an m ight be m y o w n ” (117). In a m o m en t, however, the thankful distance im plicit in th e conventional C hristian form ula for sym pathy— “ there b u t for the grace o f G o d ”— is exposed by a startlingly literal literary identification: the case o f this unhappy m an is his ow n. T h e scene p ro je c te d by th e spirit is n o w th e place in w h ich Scrooge d o esn ’t w ant to identify. T h e tex t teaches n o t only th e n ee d to pro ject the self into the consciousnesses o f others b u t also the potential unpleasantness o f doin g so: the desire not to be in the o th e r’s place. A n d that desire points tow ard w h at occupies the position o f the real in this text: the images that pose an alternative to the story’s scenes o f cultural value. F or although the story collapses the difference betw een reality and illusion, tu rn in g b o th into im age, the scene o f Scrooge’s death (and in d eed all scenes in w h ich Scrooge appears as his present-day, undesirable self) signifies th e real, p o in tin g as it does tow ard the end o f the narrative o f Scrooge’s actual life rather than tow ard th e ideal life that w ill replace it. “Yet to com e,” like serial publication, seems to prom ise plenitude; indeed, D ickens’s text dramatizes w hat M etz calls the ability o f cinem atic representation to con struct a spectator w h o b o th identifies w ith an im age and feels tem porally distant from it— w ho, paradoxically identifying w ith his im age, can only “ catch up w ith h im self at th e last m inu te.”21 B u t C hristm as Yet to C o m e projects a g rim scene by contrast w ith the seductive images offered previous to and alongside it. Scrooge is offered the end o f th e series, the inevitable consequence o f a life lived outside the representations presented to h im and to readers as life, or as cultural life— in deed, as the identification o f the two. “A C hristm as C aro l” accom plishes its interpellation o f its readers not, finally, by m odeling spectatorship in the p erso n o f Scrooge, b u t rather by identifying culture w ith images and scenes to be absent from w h ich is, effectively, n o t to exist. S crooge’s death is a m etap h o r for his absence from representation; m ore powerfully, it is a m etap h o r for his absence from culture, defined as representation: as a series o f images and structure o f significations in relation to w h ich , as he 21 M etz, Imaginary Signifier; 96.

Sym pathy and the Spirit o f Capitalism

42

learns to “ read” th em , his ow n im age takes on m eaning. H is death realizes, and teaches h im to fear, the absence from the w orld o f representations he— and w e— have b ee n show n.22 D ickens’s text doubles, by fram ing, the scenes the spirits project o r o th erw ise show and o th e r kinds o f frames, such as the w indow s o f shops and o f hom es. H ab itu atin g readers to frames and focusing o n the already spectacular, it presents th e real as a series o f images that exist even in th e absence o f any visible p icture-m aking technology. M oving its frames in and o u t o f visibility, th e story reproduces th e logic o f the relation b etw een cultural representation and ideology, in w h ich frames are som etim es literal— in pictures, literary texts, or m ovie screens— and som etim es appear as an in h eren t effect o n objects and vision. “A C hristm as C aro l” thus provides an anatom y o f the way in w hich, in a p rin t culture and even m ore em phatically in a “society o f the spectacle,” cultural values becom e m anifest in— and as— a collection o f images. M o re precisely, they becom e a way o f seeing in w h ich th e real is filtered th ro u g h cultural frames that precede any particular m anifestation o f it. M ak ing the C hristm as spirit visible and presenting visibility as a threat, the story dramatizes the coerciveness in h ere n t in a cu ltu re’s ability to en d o w certain artifacts, persons, and activities w ith “presence.” A n d the conversion o f Scrooge’s feeling provides an analogue for th e sto ry ’s com m odifying pow er: w hile alluding to the recovery o f th e natural, b o th reveal th e absence o f anything outside the frames o f culture.

T h e culture from w h ich Scrooge has b ee n absent is, o f course, c o m m o d ity culture; his failure to participate in h u m an fellowship is signaled by his

22

Vicki Goldberg discusses the idea o f images as collective culture in an article about

the use, in advertising, o f news photographs o f catastrophes. “W h ole populations,” she writes, “have the same m ental-image files, w hich constitute a large part o f the com m on culture.” “Images o f Catastrophe as Corporate Ballyhoo,” NewYork Times, 3 May 1992, sec. 2, p. 33. Such image repertoires, w hile obviously increased by the existence o f cinema and television, w ould exist as soon as and wherever images are circulated. Elizabeth Eisenstein also suggests as much: e.g., The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 37. T he identity between culture and a series o f visual images is reinforced by D ickens’s description o f his memories o f Christmas as a series o f images (see Davis, Lives and Times, 6 6 -6 7 ).

S ym pathy and Spectacle

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refusal of, and n eed to learn, a gift giving defined as th e purchase and exchange o f com m odities.23 T h e n eed for conversion the text stresses and th e fo rm Scrooge’s aw akening takes resem ble w h at T hom as Haskell has described as th e social discipline and character m o d ification effected by m o d e rn capitalism, w h ich created the cognitive conditions that m ade h u m anitarianism (in particular, the abolition o f slavery) possible, conditions such as the developm ent o f conscience and the necessity o f living “partly in the future,” anticipating the lo n g -te rm consequences o f o n e ’s actions. For Haskell, th e co nditions for hum anitarianism w ere created by the “ lessons” o f the m arket.24 Scrooge lacks, M arley’s ghost inform s him , “ the spirit w ith in h im [that] should walk abroad am ong his fellow -m en, and travel far and w id e ” (61). T h e aw akening o f this spirit prom ises h im affective relations w h ere he previously had none, as w ell as im proved business prospects. Scrooge’s ability to project in to past and future teaches him , and is co n c u rre n t w ith, his ability to project him self into the consciousnesses o f others; b o th skills in dicate possession o f a spirit that travels far and w ide— w h at m ig h t be called a spirit o f capitalism, a capitalist sensibility.25 T h e investm ent that c o m m odities require in this text is the same as that w h ich spectacle (and literary identification) invite— indeed, com pel: each attests to the possession o f a dispersed self capable o f being in several places at once. As the story illustrates in an exem plary fashion, th e extension o f self required by the h u m anist ideology o f “A C hristm as C a ro l” also characterizes the capitalist subject’s relationship to representation. 23 Scrooge does participate in the econom ic system; Davis discusses the idea that before his conversion Scrooge promotes a “supply side” econom y (Lives and Times; chap. 7). 24 Thomas Haskell, “Capitalism and the O rigins o f the Humanitarian Sensibility,” American Historical Review 90 (1985): 551, 560. 25 The serialization o f Scrooge s life (its division into past, present, and future) reflects the link between capitalism, serial publication, and the need for “projection”— living partly in the future— that Haskell defines as necessary to a capitalist sensibility. Haskell quotes D efo e on the connection betw een business and metaphorical travel: “Every new voyage the merchant contrives is a project, and ships are sent from port to port, as markets and merchandizes differ, by the help o f strange and universal intelligence; w herein some are so exquisite, so swift, and so exact, that a merchant sitting at hom e in his counting-house, at once converses w ith all parts o f the know n world” (“An Essay upon Projects” ; quoted in Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins o f the Humanitarian Sensibility,” 558).

44

S ym pathy and the Spirit o f Capitalism D ickens’s te x t draws o u t fu rth e r im plications o f the c o n n e ctio n b e -

tw een capitalism and the spirit that travels far and w ide, im plications that reintroduce an idea o f circularity in to an u n derstandin g o f capitalism ’s projective effects. Like w om en, hom e, and food, the p o o r in D ickens’s text are projections o r spectacles o f the already spectacular; fittingly, the images m ost frequently cited as evidence o f th e sto ry’s affective p o w er are the children displayed by the G host o f C hristm as Present, allegorical figures nam ed Ignorance and W ant. If, in H askell’s form ulation, capitalism p ro duces a spirit that travels far and w ide, it also creates th e distance betw een classes that makes such traveling necessary, in c o rp o ratin g distance into daily life and tu rn in g im m ediate surroundings into allegorical figures or projections.26 T h e sto ry ’s m ost fam ous icon, T in y T im , reproduces its econ o m y o f representation and co nsum ption . S crooge’s m acabre rem ark th at th e C ratchits’ C hristm as turkey is “ tw ice the size o f T in y T im ” associates such plenitude w ith the object o f sym pathy in a m an n er that has becom e paradigm atic for “A C hristm as C aro l” itself. E xem plifying the feeling that leads to the gift, T in y T im appropriately en o u g h im agines himself, at one po in t, as sym pathetic spectacle: “he h o p e d th e p eople saw h im in the church, because he was a crip p le” (94). C ra tc h its fam ily dines o ff th e im age that has becom e, for D ickens’s text, the em blem o f an inexhaustible fund o f sym pathetic capital. A n d th e nam e for that capital, here, is “spirit.” T h e gift is a visible m anifestation o f spirit, o f a reader’s willingness to en ter in to and identify w ith the te x t’s circulation o f representations. T h a t identification accounts for the sto ry ’s apparently limitless capacity for transform ation: cap tu rin g the co m m o d ity ’s po ten tial for sympathy, “A C hristm as C aro l” constitutes itself as an endlessly sym pathetic c o m m o d ity, its variable surface reflecting an u n changing ability to em body readers’ and spectators’ desires.27 26 These images reflect the sense in w hich, by the time o f D ickens’s story, poverty was a spectacle rather than a visible reality for many members o f the middle and upper classes. See Gareth Stedman Jones’s discussion o f the “separation betw een classes” in Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship between Classes in Victorian Society (NewYork: Pantheon, I97i),part 3. 27 “A Christmas Carol” is, o f course, concerned with relations betw een employer and em ployee— betw een the businessman and his clerk. But this story o f class relations is mapped onto the symbolic context o f a patriarchal Christian order, and its cross-class

Sym pathy and Spectacle

45

In a cultural scenario o f its ow n m aking, the m arketing o f “A C hristm as C aro l” consolidates and elaborates u p o n the te x t’s interw eavings o f co n sum erism and sympathy. If vision’s ability to evoke presence serves as a p rim ary way o f naturalizing ideological effects in the “ Carol,” th e sto ry’s annual retu rn m ay be said to p erfo rm the same function by m aking specific feelings and activities, including reading o r view ing th e story itself, seasonal im peratives. T h e “ C hristm as b o o k ” (for the “ C aro l” initiated a series o f C hristm as books) naturalizes literary p roduction , linking tex t and a u th o r to holiday and season— a season already b o u n d up w ith ideas o f resurrection and eternal presence.28 W ith the m etaphorical deaths and rebirths o f Scrooge and T iny T im echoing its annual retu rn , th e story associates the idea o f C hristian renew al w ith its ow n fo rm o f pro duction. A nd in a way that fu rth e r associates natural life w ith textual pro d u ctio n , S crooge’s life— its ending rew ritten by the reader-spectator, w h o thereby becom es his life’s ow n er and p ro d u cer— displays all the m alleability o f the serially published text. Indeed, S crooge’s exchangeable identity, and the sto ry ’s emphasis o n C hristm as as a tim e w h e n identities b eco m e exchangeable, may have given b o th D ickens and C hristm as n ew currency by revealing the fungibility o f self and tim e im plicit in b o th C hristian co n version and m o d e rn consum er culture. A capitalist sensibility is perhaps m ost evident in the story’s external and internal refusals o f tem porality: in the identification w ith a tim e o f year that ensures its annual retu rn and the offer— to Scrooge, to its readers or view ers, and, theoretically, to the p o o r themselves— o f an endlessly repeatable cycle o f failure and recovery, figured as an alienation from, and reacceptance into, an ever-forgiving culture. T h e reader-spectator w h o identifies w ith the Christm as spirit identifies w ith a culture in w h ich that spirit will

appeal attests to the consensus achieved thereby. The story allegorizes and, in its ow n terms, ideally effects the inscription o f its readers into Victorian culture’s dominant ideological structures. To the extent that those structures remain the same for contemporary readers and spectators, the story may be said to achieve the same effects. But in that context it also serves as a different kind o f culture-text, successfully representing Victorian England for present-day readers precisely because o f its ability to condense culture into a series o f representations. “A Christmas Carol” exemplifies the way in which, in a spectacular society, images mediate cultural memory. 28

“W e cannot remember w h en w e first knew this story. It is allied in our consciousness

to our awareness o f day and night, w inter and spring” (Davis, Lives and Times, 238).

46

S ym pathy and the Spirit o f Capitalism

always be necessary; the self as im age is a renewable self, forever holding o u t the possibility o f a new ending. Such an interpretation depends n o t o n the idea that the story has no effect o n the external w orld, b u t only that such an effect is never conceived as an ending; it is, rather, p art o f a cycle to w h ich the story’s o w n representation— having b ecom e a part o f the culture it represents— also belongs. For D ickens, the te rm spirit jo k in g ly yet insistently signals the weakness o f the boun d ary betw een the invisible and the visible— and w arns o f the likelihood that the fo rm er w ill manifest itself as the latter.29 T hus “A Christm as C arol” returns annually and, m ore often than not, visibly, w ith an emphasis (and a relentlessness) it has itself projected. In the story’s identification w ith Christm as and in the repetition this identification ensures, D ickens’s culture-tex t prom otes its ow n endlessness as well as that o f the culture it has helped to create.

29

“A Christmas Carol” was the first, and the most frequently performed, o f Dickens’s

public readings. Although the text varied from night to night, the crucial feature o f the readings was reportedly the author’s impersonation o f his characters and his evident identification w ith the “spirit” o f both b ook and holiday. See Philip Collins, Charles Dickens: The Public Readings (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), 4 -7 .

2 Detecting the Beggar: Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry Mayhew, and the Construction of Social Identity

“A

C hristm as C arol” renders visible the connections betw een

sym pathetic identification and the co nsum ing subject, show ing ho w b o th are consolidated in an identification w ith representation. A rth u r C o n a n D o y le’s “T h e M an w ith the Tw isted L ip” (1891) provides a la te-century unraveling o f that same structure: confusing and co n fo u n d in g the id en tities o f gentlem an, beggar, and capitalist, the text literalizes the m etap h o r o f sym pathetic identification as an investm ent o f self in o th e r by aligning that identification w ith, and identifying it as, eco n o m ic exchange. In C o n a n D o y le’s narrative o f m istaken identity, in w h ic h the discovery is m ade that the beggar really is a gentlem an, the attenuation o f self required by social sym pathy reproduces th e structure o f exchange that b o th defines and dismantles identity u n d er capitalism. In “T h e M an w ith the Twisted Lip,” Sherlock H olm es is uncharacteristically baffled by the disappearance o f Mr. Neville St. Clair, a w ell-to-do gendem an w ho, for years, w hile traveling to the C ity each day ostensibly to look after his interests, has been disguising him self as a beggar nam ed H u g h B oone, having found begging to be less arduous and m ore profitable than other professions available to him . H olmes, seemingly relying on his expectation that the case will yield the usual m urder victim, advances the idea that St. Clair is

47

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Sym pathy and the Spirit o f Capitalism

dead—-just as Mrs. St. Clair produces a letter she claims was recently w ritten by her husband. W edded to his interpretation— appearing, almost, to desire the death he has theorized— the detective attempts to explain away the clues that suggest St. Clair is still living: St. C lair’s ring, included w ith the letter, “proves nothing,” as “it may have been taken from h im ” ; the letter itself may “have been w ritten on M onday and only posted to-day.” 1 T h e ease w ith w hich H olm es detaches the signs o f St. Clair’s identity from St. Clair, and the fact that it is his jo b to reattach them , point toward the problematic o f identity the story uncovers: Inspector Bradstreet’s solemn insistence, at the end o f the case, that there be “no m ore o f H u g h B o o n e” reflects a determ ination to eliminate precisely the kind o f instability H olm es here acknowledges. For the possibility that identity can be dissociated from its signs underm ines, even as it provokes desire for, the stable categories o f identity b o th detective fiction and H enry M ayhew ’s studies o f the urban poor seek to construct. H olm es is called to investigate after M rs. St. Clair, retu rn in g from an excursion in to th e City, looks up to see in the w in d o w o f an o p iu m den (w here St. C lair puts o n and o ff his disguise) w h at appears to be an assault u p o n h er husband, b u t is actually his m anifestation o f surprise at seeing her. T h e story describes n o t a crim e b u t a disturbance in the social field, a confusion o f social identity, w h ich it becom es H o lm e s’s task to resolve. T h a t such a disturbance should appear as a crim e makes sense given the fantasy o f k now ledge and social co n trol detective fiction represents: St. C lair’s in determ inacy— the m obility that allows h im to occupy tw o social spheres at once— disturbs the possibility o f fixing social iden tity o n w h ich detective fiction, and H o lm es’s cases, rest.2 A nd that indeterm inacy is expressed b o th in St. C lairs ability to transform him self and in the figures betw een w h ich he oscillates— th e gentlem an and the beggar— w h o were, for the V ictorians, am biguous and som etim es interchangeable entities.

T h e scenario w h erein a beggar is revealed to be a gentlem an or n oblem an in disguise is a familiar one; b eh in d “T h e M an w ith th e Tw isted Lip,” ac1 All quotations from “T he Man w ith the Twisted Lip” and other stories have been taken from Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes (N ew York: Doubleday, 1930). Titles will be noted in parentheses in the text. 2 The definitive work on this topic is D. A. Miller, The Novel and the Police (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1988).

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cording to D o n ald A. R e d m o n d , lies V icto r H u g o ’s Uhomme qui rit, w h ich tells o f a noblem an stolen as a child and disfigured, so he w o n ’t be recognized, w ith a scar across the m o u th that makes h im appear to be smiling or laughing.3 In the late n in e tee n th century, the oppositions and sim ilarities m obilized by a pairing o f these figures w ere particularly charged: in the co n tex t o f changing ideas ab o u t gentlem anliness, for instance, p o p ular ideology had it that a beggar m ig h t very well be a gentlem an; at the same tim e an increase in financial speculation and u n expected, devastating crashes m ade it appear likely, at least from the g entlem an’s perspective, that a gentlem an m ig h t som eday have to beg. B u t rather than sim ply place a familiar tale in a n ew context, C o n a n D o y le’s story dem onstrates that the n ew context suggestively expands the problem atic o f identity im plicit in the tale. For even as it does away w ith H u g h B oone, restoring St. C lair to his p roper identity, “ T h e M an w ith the Tw isted L ip” dism antles detective fictio n ’s fantasy o f social control, establishing social identity only to disclose, sim ultaneously, the absence o f the identities it seeks to expose.

T h e figure o f the finance capitalist confounds th e attem p t— central to b o th M ay h ew ’s project and C o n a n D o y le’s— to define identity in relation to w o rk .4 T h e person o f the finance capitalist remains detached from the system o f p ro d u ctio n in w h ich he participates; w h ere the laborer m ight suffer “in his existence,” Elaine Scarry w rites, the capitalist suffers only “in his money.”5 T h e legalizing o f jo in t-s to c k com panies in 1844 and the in stitu tio n o f lim ited liability soon after increasingly separated businesses from those w h o invested in them , enabling capital, effectively, to carry on by itself, w ith “n o t so m u c h as a sign o f th e Capitalist to be seen.”6 A nd

3 D onald A. R edm ond, Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Sources (Montreal: M cG ill-Q ueen ’s University Press, 1982), 55. 4 H olm es characteristically identifies individuals by their professions: “B y a m an’s fingernails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the callousities o f his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuffs— by each o f these things a m an’s calling is plainly revealed” {A Study in Scarlet). 5 Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1985), 263. 6 Leland Jenks, The Migration of British Capital to 1873 (N ew York, 1927); quoted in Barbara Weiss, The Hell of the English: Bankruptcy and the Victorian Novel (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1986), 139.

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because o f the detach m en t o f “his o w n em bo died psyche, will, and co n sciousness” from the m a n n er in w h ich he produces his incom e, as Scarry puts it, the capitalist m ight w ell be called an “ exem pted p erso n ” : “it is that absence o f self, th at liberating relation, that attribute o f nonparticipation,” w h ich “is sum m arized by the w ord ‘capitalist.’ ”7 Such an exem pted person is C harles D ickens’s Alfred Lam m le, w ho, in place o f th e usual m arkers o f id entity and gentlem anliness, has “ Shares” : T he mature young gentlem an is a person o f property. H e invests his property. H e goes, in a condescending amateurish way, into the City, attends meetings o f directors, and has to do w ith traffic in Shares. As is well know n to the wise in their generation, traffic in Shares is the one thing to have to do w ith in this world. Have no antecedents, no established character, no cultivation, no ideas, no manners; have Shares. Have Shares enough to be on Boards o f D irection in capital letters, oscillate on mysterious business betw een L ondon and Paris, and be great. W here does he come from? Shares. W here is he going to? Shares. W hat are his tastes? Shares. Has he any principles? Shares. W hat squeezes him into Parliament? Shares. Perhaps he never o f himself achieved success in anything, never originated anything, never produced anything? Sufficient answer to all; Shares.8 “ Shares” substitute for cultivation, m anners, principles, and pro duction, replacing w h at had appeared to be substantive w ith w h at doesn’t appear at all. In O ur M utual Friend, th e sinister im plications o f such absence are m anifest in L am m le’s deceitfulness, as well as in the novel’s paradigm atic im age o f the bodies Gaffer H ex a m pulls from the river, devoid o f any distinguishing characteristics b u t for th e ir clothing and the m o n ey he retrieves from it. A n d it is in the atm osphere created by the novel’s in tertw ining o f finance and identity that Boffin engineers his “pious fraud” ; in such a context, D ickens seems to say, n o t even w ell-in ten tio n ed characters n ee d adhere to any notio ns novel readers m ig h t h o ld o f consistency o r legibility. 7 Scarry, Body in Pain, 265. 8 Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin 1977), 159-60.

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T h e identity o f the “m an w h o does som ething in the City,” then, seem ed as u n g ro u n d ed as the C ity ’s prosperity itself did to m any n in e tee n th ce n tu ry observers— a p ercep tio n n o d o u b t enhan ced by th e frequency w ith w h ich , in th e second h alf o f the century, p ro m in e n t businessm en w ere revealed to have built their em pires o n foundations o f nonex istent capital.9 (O f th e seem ingly u n b o u n d e d proliferation and circulation o f w ealth in th e City, o ne co n tem p o ra ry observer w rote, “W e find m any thousands w h o live by supplying o n e a n o th e r’s wants; and th e question arises, w h en c e com es the original m eans by w h ich such a state o f things is rendered possible? W h at, in fact, is the p rim ary fund o f w h ich these p e rsons m anage to secure a share?”) 10 In his passivity and detachm ent, in the disinterested relation he bears to his interests, the “m an w h o does som eth in g in the C ity ” exemplifies the k in d o f fungible id en tity that, his co ntem poraries feared, inhabited a realm o f exchange divorced from p ro d u c tio n .11

T h e m iddle classes in the n in e tee n th cen tu ry regarded the unproductive gentlem an in a dubious light. Since n eith er he n o r the beggar p u t in w h at they regarded as an honest day’s labor, b o th w ere subject to general suspicion— the suspicion, in particular, o f attem pting to deceive those w h o did. A section o f M ay h ew ’s London Labour and the London Poor, included u n d er the ru b ric “ T h o se W h o W ill N o t W o rk ” and w ritte n by A ndrew Halliday, discusses those “beggars and cheats” w ho, although physically sound en o u g h to p erfo rm “h o n e st” labor, choose instead to m ake th e ir livings by deceiving the charitable. T his “false beggar,” as M ayhew represents him , is a kin d o f actor, taking o n specific costum es and m annerism s for the perform ance o f his roles. O f o ne type o f “ street cam paigner,” for exam ple, H alliday w rites: “ H e is im itative, and in his tim e plays m any parts___His b earin g is m ost m ilitary; he keeps his n eck straight, his chin 9 See Weiss, Hell of the English, chap. 7. 10 Francis Sheppard, London, 1808-1870: The Infernal Wen (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1971), 81-82. 11 O n identity and exchange see Catherine Gallagher, “G eorge Eliot and Daniel Deronda: The Prostitute and the Jewish Q uestion,” in Sex, Politics, and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Novel, ed. R u th Bernard Yeazell (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 3 9 -6 2 .

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i n . . . he is as stiff as an em balm ed preparation, for w hich, b u t for the m o tio n o f his eyes, you m ight mistake him .” 12 A n d in order to see th ro u g h this deceptive surface, the m an o n the street requires H olm esian pow ers o f detection. In o ne instance Halliday, in the com pany o f a friend w h o had once b een a sailor, com es across w h at appears to h im to be “ a b ro th er sailor in distress.” “ O f course you w ill give h im som ething,” he says to his friend, to w h ich rem ark the friend responds negatively: “D id you see h im s p it? ...A real sailor never spits to w in d ’ard. W hy, he could’nt” (415). U nm asking the “false beggar” involves kno w in g the “tr u e ” version o f the character he attem pts to im personate, and it is th e purpose o f M ay hew ’s w o rk to codify these types, granting th e public the ability to distinguish “ tru e ” identity from “false.” Halliday is particularly offended by the figure w hose pose conflates the beggar and th e gentlem an. T h e b eg g in g -letter w riter, w h o “ is th e c o n n ecting link b etw een m endicity and external respectability,” affects w hite cravats, soft hands, and filbert nails. H e oils his hair, cleans his boots, and wears a portentous stick-up collar. T he light o f other days o f gentility and com fort casts a halo o f “deportm ent” over his wellbrushed, w hite-seam ed coat, his carefully darned black-cloth gloves, and pudgy gaiters__ A m ong the many varieties o f mendacious beggars, there is none so detestable as this hypocritical scoundrel, w ho, w ith an ostentatiously-submissive air, and false pretense o f faded fortunes, tells his plausible tale o f undeserved suffering, and extracts from the pockets o f the superficially good-hearted their sympathy and coin. (403) F or Halliday, th e link b etw e en m e ndicity and m end acity is m ore than m erely linguistic. B u t w hy should the b eg g ing-letter w rite r offend m ore than o th e r beggars w ho, th ro u g h various schemes, deprive the charitable o f their “ sym pathy and c o in ” ? H alliday s dislike o f this character seems related to his pretense to respectability: th e “intuitive k n o w led g e” o f the “ nobility and landed g en try ” that aids h im in his deceptive practice. T h e b eg g in g -letter w rite r im plies by his behavior th at gentlem anliness is

12

H enry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (N ew York: A. M . Kelley, 1967),

4:418. Subsequent references included in the text.

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m erely a m atter o f surfaces, disturbingly suggesting, in his capacity for im itation, the gen tlem an ’s ow n imitability. Such a possibility had already been explored in Lord C hesterfield’s Letters to his Son (1774), in w h ich the au thor tells his readers h o w to “ act” the gentlem an. “W h e n you go into goo d c o m p a n y . .. observe carefully their tu rn , th eir m anners, their address, and co n fo rm your ow n to them . B u t this is n o t all, neither; go deeper still; observe their characters, and pry, as far as you can, into b o th their hearts and their heads. Seek for their particular m erit, their predo m inant passion, or their prevailing weakness; and you will th en k n o w w hat to bait your h o o k w ith to catch them .” 13 As the general dislike w ith w hich C hesterfield s w ork was received in the eighteenth and n in eteenth centuries dem onstrates, the n o tio n that the gentlem an was im itable to u ch ed a particularly sensitive nerve. R o b in G ilm our points o u t that the behavior C hesterfield recom m ends was in fact necessary for social advancem ent in eig h teen th -cen tu ry society. B u t by recom m ending particular form s o f behavior rather than the cultivation o f m oral qualities, C hesterfield show ed “ ho w easily civilised behaviour could be reduced to the lowest co m m o n denom inator,” and revealed “ ho w w eak the links b etw een m anners and m orals” m ight b e.14 C hesterfield’s advice abou t “ catchin g ” m em bers o f “ good com pany” closely resembles M ayh ew ’s account o f the beg g in g -letter w rite r’s scheme: b o th the gentlem an, in C hesterfield’s view, and the “false beggar,” in M ayhew ’s, use know ledge o f a group or class to im itate it and to advance themselves by m eans o f that im itation. B o th figures take dissimulation as their means o f livelihood, cultivating exterior rather than interior; n eith er w orks in any sense M ayhew is w illing to call w ork. B oth, therefore, stand outside the w ide realm o f ordinary m iddleclass life, w hich m ade w o rk into a m oral im perative and accused b o th the gentlem an and the “false beggar” o f “living o ff the toil o f others.” 15 Potentially productive individuals n o t engaged in productive labor— regarded, as M ay h ew ’s “w ill n o t w o rk ” im plies, as refusing w o rk — n o t only 13 Q uoted in R o b in Gilmour, The Idea of the Gentleman in the Victorian Novel (London: Allen & U n w in , 1981), 15-17. 14 Gilmour is quoting Sheldon Rothblatt, Tradition and Change in English Liberal Education (London: Faber, 1976), 31; Gilmour, Idea of the Gentleman, 19. 15 H o w M ayhew articulates this for the beggar is described below. R uskin wrote that “G entlemen have to learn that it is no part o f their duty or privilege to live on other p eople’s toil.” Modern Painters; quoted in Gilmour, Idea of the Gentleman, 7.

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offended the age’s emphasis o n energy and productivity, b u t they also presented the V ictorians w ith a constant threat o f social unrest. D escribing the P oor L aw ’s inability to m e et the needs o f those in w ant, H alliday cites a letter to th e Times th at expresses this anxiety: “ It is an adm itted and n o torious fact, that after a fo rtn ig h t’s frost the police courts w ere besieged by thousands w h o professed to be starving___It was th e saturnalia if n o t o f m endicancy, at least o f destitution. T h e police stood aside w hile beggars possessed the thoroughfares__ W e had th o u g h t that the race o f sturdy vagrants and valiant beggars was extinct, or at least that they dared no longer show themselves. B u t here they w ere in open day like the w retches w h ich are said to em erge o u t o f darkness o n the day o f a revolution” (398). T h e N e w P o o r Law o f 1834 had as o ne o f its m ain objectives the separatio n o f th e ab le-bodied beggar from others w h o cou ld n o t raise th e m selves o u t o f poverty. M ayh ew ’s system o f identification, separating those w h o “ ca n n o t w o rk ” from those w h o “w ill n o t w ork,” fulfills the state’s n ee d to b rin g into the light o f “ o p en day” figures w h o represent a threat before they them selves choose to em erge. A n d it is th e fu n ctio n o f M ay h ew ’s labor and o f Sherlock H o lm e s’s, in this story, to p u t b o th the gentlem an and the ab le-bodied beggar to w ork. B u t the anxiety ab o u t “false” beggary is also an anxiety about the th e atricality o f th e social w orld: ab o u t th e po ten tial falseness o f social surfaces, the susceptibility to m anipulation o f social identity. T h e “tru e b eggar,” “w h o has no m eans o f livelihood,” H alliday w rites, “ has invariably c om m anded th e respect and excited the com passion o f his fellow m en.” B u t “ the beggar w hose poverty is n o t real, b u t assumed, is no longer a b eg gar in th e tru e sense o f the w ord, b u t a cheat and an im postor, and as such he is naturally regarded, n o t as an object for com passion, b u t as an enem y o f the state” (393). W h at, how ever, is a beggar “ in th e tru e sense o f the w o rd ”? W h at, indeed, is a “false” beggar? For M ayhew, the “false beggar” is n o t ju st a co rru p te r o f images b u t a c o rru p ter o f language: the desire for a “tru e sense o f the w ord,” like the desire for a “tru e beggar,” is a w ish for an absolute correspondence b etw een sign and referent. A “false beggar” is, m ore precisely, a professional: o n e w h o know s th e code o f beggary and seeks to m anipulate it, to sell a salable identity. B o th “ tru e ” and “false” b eggars deal in images, exchanging identity for coin. T h e te rm “false” is im p o rtan t, how ever, because it m aintains th e possibility o f locating “ tr u e ” identity: identity n o t subject to th e vicissitudes o f representation.

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As p art o f the apparatus o f the P o o r Law, the co n c ern w ith “tru e ” and “false” beggars reflects a desire to locate the tru th o f identity in the body by m eans o f the separation o f productive from unproductive bodies. (T he co m m e n t m ade by H alliday’s friend— “D id you see h im spit”— defines identity in term s o f the b o d y ’s adaptation to labor.) M ayhew locates the tru th o f the beggar’s identity in the presence or absence o f the potential for production: the “ tru e beggar” is one w h o cannot, for reasons o f physical disability o r illness, w ork. A n d if th e unproductive bod y is true, it follows for M ayhew that the productive b o d y is at least potentially false; the capacity for productive labor w ith o u t any sign o f a p ro d u ct suggests that the im pulse tow ard productivity is directed tow ard the b o d y itself. O n the one hand, a choice o f profession may be regarded as a choice o f identity. B ut, on the other, the very idea o f choice opens up th e possibility o f m u ltiple identities— an instability that the idea o f an identity divided b etw een w o rk and h o m e attem pts to resolve, as I w ill discuss later. P rod uctivity poses the threat o f m ultiple identities; for M ayhew, the “false beggar” epitom izes this prob lem by m aking the p ro d u ctio n o f identity a profession in itself.16 B u t the “false beggar” also disturbs because, in his capacity for p ro d u cing representations, he endangers the identities o f those w h o e n c o u n te r him . As D avid M arshall has argued, sym pathy— defined as the im agined rep rodu ction o f a n o th e r’s feeling w ith in an observer’s m in d — is inherently b o u n d up w ith representation and theatricality.” 17 T h e beggar m ay be the focus o f such intense c o n c ern ab o u t the possibility o f separating “tr u e ” id en tity from “false”— for us as w ell as for the V ictorians— because his confro ntation w ith the potential charity-giver presents an exem plary m o m e n t o f theatricality in social life: a m o m e n t in w hich, in M arshall’s words, individuals “face each o th e r as actors and spectators” (136). A n d th at co n frontation involves an exchange n o t only o f m oney b u t also o f identity— id entity already im plicated in a system o f representation and exchange. H alliday’s lin k in g o f sym pathy and coin im plicitly connects id entity w ith exchange: th e offer o f m o ney acts as a sign that th e observer has in -

16 O n individualism and the choice o f a profession, see Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 249. 17 D avid Marshall, The Surprising Effects of Sympathy: Marivaux, Diderot, Rousseau, and Mary Shelley (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1988), 21.

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volved his ow n id en tity — in clud ing his b elief in his o w n ability to tell “ tr u e ” from “false”— in an exchange w ith th e b eggar’s. Sym pathy and coin, themselves w ith in the realm o f representation, are presented as guarantors o f auth enticity in the transaction b etw een charity-giver and b eg gar, offering evidence o f the charity-giver’s b elief in the tru th o f the beg gar’s im age, as w ell as in his ability to read that tru th . (H u g h B o o n e is supported by the public, and tolerated by the police, because they k n o w h im to be a “professional” ; less im p o rta n t than the tru th o r falsity o f the beggar’s identity is the com fort they receive from b eing reassured o f their ability to tell the difference.) W h a t happens, then, w h e n the observer discovers that he has unw ittin gly identified w ith a representation? T h e category o f “false b eggar” n o t only reveals the observer’s failure to read id e n tity correctly, b u t it also reveals sympathy, coin, and id en tity to be m ere currency: no single one o f these, offered in exchange, can guarantee the authenticity o f the others. T h e “false beggar” makes visible a system o f exchange w h erein sympathy, coin, and identity can circulate endlessly, never draw ing u p o n any fund o f tru th . B u t the “false beg g ar” also takes advantage o f th e exchange b etw e en him self and th e p o ten tial ch arity -g iv er as exchange. A dam S m ith argues th a t w hile sym pathy involves th e ob serv er’s p ro je c tio n o f h im self in to the sufferer’s situation, it also requires th e sufferer w h o desires sym pathy to im agine h o w he w o u ld appear to a spectator: “ As th ey are constantly co nsid ering w h a t they them selves w o u ld feel, if they actually w ere the sufferers, so he is as constantly led to im agine in w h at m a n n er he w o u ld be affected if he was only o n e o f th e spectators o f his ow n situation.” 18 B o th figures in th e “ scene o f sympathy,” M arshall w rites, “play the roles o f spectator and spectacle” (173). T h e p o ten tial ch a rity -g iv er’s po w er in heres b o th in his ability to give m o n e y and in his im aginative projection: th e form er, in fact, depends u p o n th e vividness and perceived tru th o f th e latter. B u t th at p ow er is u n d e rm in e d by th e ch arity -g iv er’s susceptibility to representation: his im aginative re-crea tio n o f th e sufferer’s situation is m a tch e d by th e sufferer’s n ee d to im agine w h at w ill provoke his sympathy. A n d it is this reciprocity th at underlies th e anxiety ab o u t false 18

Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 22; quoted in David Marshall, The Figure of

Theater: Shaftesbury Defoe, Adam Smith, and George Eliot (N ew York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 172.

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beggary: the “false b eggar” endangers th e ch a rity -g iv er’s id en tity by en cou ragin g h im to id entify w ith a m ere representation. T h e fiction o f the “ tru e b eg gar” is consolatory, therefore, in its co n stru c tio n o f a figure w h o n o t only w ill n o t, b u t cannot, project: a figure seen as n o th in g m o re than a vessel for th e ch a rity -g iv e r’s p ro jec tio n . T h e “ false b eg g a r” and th e finance capitalist, th en , prove to b e n o t only exchangeable figures b u t also figures fo r ex change— figures w h o se identities seem to in h e re only in representation. A n d w h ile M a y h ew ’s pro ject w o u ld p ro tec t th e observer’s id e n tity by establishing th e b eg g a r’s, his w o rk finally u n d e rm in es th e safety o f b o th . Sim ilarly C o n a n D oyle, in a story n o t only destined for th e p o p u la r m arket b u t to be sold in railway stations to businessm en c o m m u tin g b etw e en h o m e and City, sim ultaneously assures his readers th at false identities can be done away w ith and im plicates those readers, and him self, in the processes o f exchange that b rin g such identities in to being.

Just as M a y h ew ’s w o rk pits the beggar and the jo u rn alist against each other, so to o does C o n a n D o y le’s story associate H olm es and St. C lair th ro u g h their use o f disguise. In its open in g section, W atson and his w ife receive a visit from K ate W hitney, w hose husband Ilsa has disappeared for tw o days, and w h o is k n o w n by his w ife to be in an o p iu m den in the City. V isiting the d en to seek h im out, W atson there encounters H olm es, disguised as a regular custom er. “ H e sat n o w as absorbed as ever, very thin, very w rin k led , b e n t w ith age, an o p iu m pipe dangling do w n from his fingers___It to o k all m y self-control to prevent m e from breaking o u t into a cry o f astonishm ent. H e had tu rn e d his back so that n o n e could see him b u t I. H is fo rm had filled out, his w rinkles w ere gone, th e dull eyes had regained their fire, and there, sitting by the fire and g rin n in g at m y surprise, was n o n e o th er than S herlock H olm es.” Like St. Clair, w hose beggar’s disguise originally served h im w h e n he was a rep o rter w ritin g a series o f articles o n begging, H o lm e s’s disguise helps h im penetrate the o p iu m den unn oticed . B o th H olm es and St. C lair em ploy disguise in th eir professions; for b o th , disguise becom es a m etap h o r for profession. T h e transform ation u n d erg o n e in the o p iu m den has its correlative, in V icto rian life, in th e im agined transform ation o f the husband and father w h o disappears mysteriously into “th e C ity ” in the m o rn in g and returns at n ig h t to a family

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w h ich has n o firsthand know ledge o f w h at he does th e re .19 A nd th e idea o f opium , like that o f disguise, allows for a literalization o f and play u p o n the idea o f transform ation: w h ere W h itn e y enters the den a “ n o b le” m an and em erges “pale, haggard, and unkem pt,” St. C lair finds that he “ could every m o rn in g em erge as a squalid beggar and in the evenings transform [himself] in to a w ell-dressed m an ab o u t tow n.” As H olm es describes him , even th o u g h St. C lair “had no occupation,” his regular departure for and re tu rn from th e C ity every day substitute for one, co n firm in g his g oo d character: he “was interested in several com panies and w en t into to w n as a rule every m o rn in g , retu rn in g by th e 5:14 from C a n n o n Street every night.” A nd, indeed, St. C lair gets along very nicely w ith o u t any evidence o f a profession; as he describes his situation, it was possible to continue this activity for years w ith o u t anyone’s actually k n o w in g w h at he did d u rin g th e day: “As I grew rich e r I grew m o re am bitious, to o k a house in the country, and eventually m arried, w ith o u t anyone having a suspicion as to m y real occupation. M y w ife k n ew that I had business in the City. She little kn ew w hat.” In m oving back and fo rth b etw een the City, the o p iu m den, and th e St. C lair hom e, th e story plays St. C lair’s various identities against o ne another: th e figure w h o plies his trade as a beggar in the C ity every day, th ro u g h th e use o f disguise— a painted face, a scar, a shock o f red hair— and skillful acting, “ a facility in repartee, w h ich im proved by practice, and

19

It is useful here to think o f Florence D o m b ey ’s adventure in the City: having lost, or

been lost by, Susan Nipper, Florence finds herself alone, know ing only that she could look for “her father s offices,” and that D om b ey and Son was “a great power in the City.” It is here that she encounters G ood Mrs. Brown. Dickens registers the strangeness and bew ilderment the City arouses in those w h o never go there. In the follow ing passage, Florence in her anguish is suspected o f “false beggary” : “Tired o f walking, repulsed and pushed about, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by what she had undergone, and the prospect o f encountering her angry father in such an altered state; perplexed and frightened alike by what had passed, and what was passing, and what was yet before her; Florence w ent upon her weary way w ith tearful eyes, and once or tw ice could not help stopping to ease her bursting heart by crying bitterly. But few people noticed her at those times, in the garb she wore: or if they did, believed that she was tutored to excite compassion, and passed on.” Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1981), 132. Though “altered state” clearly refers to Florence, it also suggests that Florence m ight find D om bey “altered” in the city.

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m ade m e quite a recognized character in the City,” versus th e dom estic St. Clair, w hose c o n c ern about “ exposure” manifests itself as c o n c ern for his appearance in his child rens eyes:“ G o d help m e, I w o u ld n o t have th e m asham ed o f th e ir father.” T h e alignm ent o f disguise w ith travel into the C ity recalls the V ictorian com m onplace that the husband s and / o r father’s tru e self could be fo u n d only at hom e: that profession was a mask, a false self p u t o n d u rin g the day b u t gladly relinquished “ on the stroke o f seven,” w h e n th e husband and father becam e “h im self” again.20 (“W h e n w e com e hom e, w e lay aside o u r mask and drop o u r tools, and are n o lon ger lawyers, sailors, soldiers, statesm en, clergym en, b u t only m en.”)21 B u t w hile St. C lairs disguise reinforces this n o tio n o f profession as mask, the story also im plies that his tru e self may be located in his C ity life— a possibility enhan ced by his desire to keep that life secret, as w ell as by the use o f his talents begging allows. B u t if St. C lair’s tru e identity is located in the City, in w h at does that identity consist? T h e C ity appears here n o t as a place w h ere the V ictorian husband goes to take o n a social role, b u t rather as a place w here he goes to lose one— w here, in the anonym ity o f the financial w orld or the o p iu m den, he can find privacy, freedom from the constraints o f social and fam ilial roles. M rs. St. C lair’s discovery o f h e r husband results in w h at looks like an actual crim e— an assault o n St. C lair— b u t it also appears as her violatio n o f his privacy: she sees h im w hile w alking in th e City, w h ere he doesn’t expect h er to be.22 (Earlier, a n o th er w ife acts as spy: K ate W h itn ey had “ th e surest in fo rm atio n ” that h er husband had “m ade use o f an o p ium den in the farthest east o f the City.”) T h e C ity and the o p iu m d en resem ble each o th e r as places w here the usual constructions o f identity can be abandoned, to g e th er m ediating and dism antling the opposition betw een C ity and hom e: first, by providing a place w h ere identity consists o f freed o m from iden tity— freedom fo u n d in exchange, in representation— and,

20 Mark Rutherford’s Deliverance; quoted in Walter H oughton, The Victorian Frame of Mind (N ew Haven:Yale University Press, 1957), 346. 21 James Anthony Froude, The Nemesis of Faith; quoted in H oughton, Victorian Frame of Mind, 345. 22 O n surprise as assault, see m y “O m niscience in Our Mutual Friend: O n Taking the Reader by Surprise,” in Vanishing Points: Dickens, Narrative, and the Subject of Omniscience (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1991), 150-66.

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second, by im plying that places serve n o t as loci o f tru e o r false identity, b u t rather as sw itching points along a path o f m ultiple identities. (W hen M rs. St. C lair recognizes h er h usban d’s w riting, w h at she recognizes is “His hand w h e n he w ro te hurriedly. It is very unlike his usual w riting, and yet I k n o w it well.” Identifying this w ritin g as St. C lair’s because it is u n ch aracteristic, she points tow ard the same fluidity o f identity literalized in her hu sband’s ch anging o f places.) T h e den resembles the C ity as a place w here id en tity is replaced by habit— a habit, m oreover, o f con su m p tio n associated w ith th e loss o f identity. W e have already seen that H olm es, lacking an o ccupation w ith w h ich to identify St. Clair, defines h im by his habits and his finances: St. C lair is “ a m an o f tem perate habits,” w hose “w h o le d e b ts .. .a m o u n t to £ 8 8 ios., w hile he has £ 2 2 0 standing to his credit in the C apital and C ounties B ank.” It makes sense, then, that w h e n the police search the o p iu m den for his body they find only a coat filled w ith coins— a coat m ore substantial, its pockets w eig h ted w ith pennies, than the bo d y w h ich had inhabited it.

A fo rm e r actor, St. C lair uses his skill w ith m akeup to devise the b eggar’s disguise; as H u g h B oone, he thus resembles one o f M ayhew ’s “false beggars.” B u t his journalistic b ackgro und— w h ich leads h im to p u t on the beggar’s disguise in the first place— connects h im w ith M ayhew as well. D isguised as H u g h B oone, St. C lair expresses his c u ltu re’s am bivalence about th e activity o f “ the m an w h o does som ething in the City.” B u t his transform ation also reveals w h at underlies the social scientist /jo u rn a lis t’s project: the sym pathy and identification responsible for M ayhew ’s success in collecting and transcribing th e stories o f those he interview s in L o n d o n ’s slums also acco u n t for St. C lair’s success as “false beggar,” and b o th am o u n t to a dealing in representation, a selling o f the beggar’s id e n tity. Indeed, by m aking H u g h B o o n e the beggar and N eville St. C lair the (former) investigative rep o rter one and the same, C o n a n D oyle erases the distinction b etw een identification and exploitation: to “k n o w ” the beggar is to trade in his identity, and to trade in his id en tity is to sell— as b o th M ayhew and St. C lair do— his words. (There is a difference, how ever: St. Clair finds rep o rtin g to be “ arduous labor” b u t has no difficulty w ith the labor involved in creating H u g h B oone. In fact, he takes pleasure in his

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role. “A rduousness,” here, w ould seem to stand for the visibility o f labor, w h ich can be perceived as difficult only after having b ee n perceived in the first place. Since labor is only w h at a culture recognizes as labor, the refusal to see that begging involves labor keeps society from having to acknow ledge its com plicity in th e creation o f begging as an activity T h e ease w ith w h ich St. C lair takes o n the identity o f H u g h B oone, and his pleasure in doing so, represent an effacem ent o f labor that makes it all the m ore n ecessary to p u t the “false beggar” to w ork.) A nd yet w hile unm asking the exploitative nature o f M ay h ew ’s project, C o n a n D o y le’s story perform s the same fu nction as M ayhew ’s social science: in detecting the beggar, and m aking the “false beggar” confess the “ tr u th ” o f his identity, it p u rp o rts to distinguish tru e identity from false. A nd, m aintaining the opposition betw een “ tru e ” and “false” in the figure o f the beggar, b o th w orks appear to support the possibility o f d oing away w ith the w orld o f representation th e “ false beggar” implies. It is this possibility, how ever, th a t they also finally u n d erm in e, since b o th M a y h ew ’s structure and H o lm e s’s reproduce the system o f representation they find so troublesom e. In his section on beggary, H alliday describes an en c o u n te r w ith a o n earm ed beggar claim ing to be a soldier w o u n d ed in battle. Q u izzin g the m an, H alliday catches h im in a factual erro r and, after accusing h im o f lying, proceeds to offer h im a shilling— and his freedom — in exchange for his tru e story (418). In initiating and reprodu cin g the business o f the “false beggar”— the trading o f identity, as narrative, for coin— H alliday exposes the ideology underlying M ay h ew ’s project: n o t the desire to u n d o the syste m o f exchange w h erein identity is offered for m o ney b u t rather the desire to m aintain it, reinstating th e hierarchy the b egg ar’s im posture has upset by reaffirm ing the social scientist’s position as arbiter o f social identity. T h e end o f C o n a n D o yle’s story, similarly, has St. C lair telling his tale to H olm es and the police in exchange for a guarantee o f confidentiality— a guarantee that w ill enable him , in spite o f adjurations to the contrary, to keep “H u g h B o o n e ” secret from his wife. T h e conclusion o f D o y le’s story revolves around th e question o f w h e th e r or n o t a crim e has b een com m itted. W h a t St. C lair m ost fears— “ exposure”— is exactly w h at the case requires, for H olm es discovers the solution to the crim e in one o f the m ost private o f bourgeois spaces: “ In

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the b athroom .” St. C lair’s violation o f bourgeois values is represented as dirt; w h at is n ee d ed to restore h im — to m ake h im com e clean— is a sponge and water. T he m an’s face peeled off under the sponge like the bark from a tree. G one was the coarse brow n tint! Gone, too, was the ho rrid scar w hich had seamed it across, and the twisted lip w hich had given the repulsive sneer to his face! A tw itch brought away the tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, sad-faced, refined-looking man, blackhaired and smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes and staring about him w ith sleepy bew ilderm ent. T hen suddenly realizing the exposure, he broke into a scream and threw him self dow n w ith his face to the pillow. H o lm e s’s w ashing reveals w h at m ig h t w ell be taken, for all its lack o f specificity and interest, as a description o f n o o n e in particular; the passage’s fascination lies w ith w h at it repeatedly invokes as “ g o n e ” rather than w ith w h at remains. As in th e d escription o f H olm es in th e o p iu m den, the narrative lingers over th e m o m e n t o f transform ation, the m o m e n t at w h ich id en tity is revealed to have b een — and to be— m istaken. Indeed, those m o m ents suggest that the pleasures o f identity (and, for the story ’s reader as for St. Clair, o f identification) lie n o t in o n e position or th e o th e r b u t in th e d etac h m en t from b o th and the possibility o f m o v em en t b e tw een; w h e n B o o n e ’s face (not mask) peels off, it reveals a m an w hose identity possesses little interest w h e n he isn’t being som eone else. T h e suspected crim e— m urder— is found n o t to have taken place; w hat did occur was rather w hat H olm es calls an “error.” A nd that error seems to have been in essence a crim e against the family: “You w ould have done b etter to have trusted yo u r wife,” advises H olm es. B u t w h at does H olm es m ean here— that, if St. Clair had confided in his wife, the beggar’s disguise w ould have b een acceptable? T h at M rs. St. Clair, apprised o f her husband’s plans, w o u ld have acted as the police, and prevented the situation from occurring? T h e actual crim e o f begging is regarded very lightly— “W h a t was a fine to m e?” M o re serious, it seems, is St. C lair s violation o f the rules o f bourgeois family life: his failure to confide his tru e identity to his wife. B u t the story only seems to resolve the problem o f St. C lair s identity by entrusting it to his wife: in fact, w hile retu rn in g h e r husband to her, H olm es and th e police keep th eir k now ledge o f his activity to themselves.

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(“ I f the police are to hush this th in g up,” says Inspector Bradstreet, “ there m ust be no m ore o f H u g h B o o n e ”) “ T h e M an w ith the Tw isted Lip,” like the P o o r Law, seems to resolve the p roblem o f the ind eterm in acy o f social identity by locating identity in the body: a cut o n the h an d assures us that B o o n e and St. C lair are the same. B u t it goes a step further, requiring the subject to tell his story, to constitute his identity in (and as) narrative. A nd, trading the confidentiality St. C lair desires for that story, the police and the detective p rotect the system they accuse St. C lair o f having perpetuated, reasserting th e ir pow er to control an exchange that w ill rem ain, necessarily, in the realm o f representation. For, having divested him self o f his m u ltiple identities at the police station, St. C lair w ill have to invent an o th er before he gets hom e, thus beg in n in g life again on a fo undation o f representation. R a th e r th an d eterm in in g th e tru th o r falsity o f any particular identity, then, these texts p erpetuate a system w h erein a subject is free to inhabit the id en tity designated as acceptable for h im o r h e r by the authorities. (H ence the unresolvable tension b etw een fluidity and hierarchy in all these examples: H alliday’s authority, for instance, lies n o t in his ability to discern the tru th o f the beggar’s second story b u t in his ability to have the beggar tell it. O n ly the storyteller know s w h e th e r the narrative he tells is true, b u t that know ledge is n o t accom panied by pow er. T h e tale told by the beggar, like St. C lair’s w ritin g — and like the han d that identifies H u g h B o o n e as St. C lair— may well be m erely “ on e o f his hands.”) T ru th m atters less th an the p ro d u ctio n and m aintenance o f the p ro p er fiction, or rather tru th lies n o t in the story b u t in the system o f exchange that requires the storyteller to tell it: a system w h ich unm asks that m an, and th e n requires h im to unm ask himself, before the police, the detective, the social scientist, the jo u rn alist. W h a t is u n d e rsto o d as stable id en tity in these w orks is constituted w ith in and p ro d u ced by the very system o f exchange M ayhew and C o n a n D oyle c o n d e m n .23 A n d it is that system o f exchange w h ich links the “false beggar” to his detractors— M ayhew , C o n a n D oyle, H olm es, and finally St. C lair h im self—as versions o f the w riter, n o t unlike the beg g in g -letter w rite r w hose

23

This supports a definition o f truth offered by M ichel Foucault: “ ‘Truth’ is to be un-

derstood as a system o f ordered procedures for the production, regulation, circulation and operation o f statements.” Power / Knowledge, ed. C olin Gordon (N ew York: Pantheon, 1980), 133.

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profession it is to trade stories o f poverty and decline for cash, providing th e public w ith an o p p o rtu n ity to w in n o w “false” identities from “ tru e ” ones by m eans o f narrative. Since M ayhew (actually Halliday, w ho, appropriately enough, allowed his professional identity to be subsum ed w ith in M ayhew s) includes him self as a character in his ow n story, he to o is im plicated in the exchange w ith his “false beggars” : he constitutes him self as social scientist at the same m o m e n t that he constructs the identities o f his subjects. It is m ore characteristic o f the w riter, how ever, to hide that im plication, and n o w rite r is m ore fam ously effaced b eh in d his creation than C o n a n D oyle— w ho, as a w orld o f Sherlockiana attests, seems to have created an actual p erson rather th an a fictional character. A nd, as fictional character, H olm es is also fam ous for self-effacem ent: for the skill w ith w h ich he projects him self into “ the crim inal m in d ” w hile at the same tim e rem aining alo o f from it, as if his identity inhered, like th e w rite r’s, in n o n identity: in th e ability to p roject h im self in to th e identities o f others. M ayhew , C o n a n D oyle, St. Clair, and H olm es are all, literally or figuratively, w riters, and the figure o f the “false b eggar” is a figure for the w riter, involved in a sym pathetic taking o n o f identity that is also an act o f self-effacem ent, placing its instigator in an am bivalent relationship n o t only w ith the o th e r into w hose identity h e projects him self, b u t w ith id en tity itself, so easily slipped in and o u t of.

B o th M ayh ew and C o n a n D oyle began to w rite o u t o f financial need. M ayhew, in particular, may be said to have deliberately differentiated h im self from his subjects precisely th ro u g h the act o f w ritin g about them : the sym pathy and identification that enabled his w o rk kept away the possibility that he w o u ld actually occupy the beggar’s place. A nd C o n a n D oyle discusses his decision to w rite in term s that parallel St. C lair’s decision to beg: “ It was in third year [1879] that I first learned that shillings m ig h t be earnd in o th e r ways than by filling phials.”24 (St. C lair says,“You can im agine h o w hard it was to settle dow n to arduous w o rk at -£2 a w eek w h e n I k n ew that I could earn as m u c h in a day by sm earing m y face w ith a little paint, laying m y cap on the grou nd, and sitting still.”) U p o n discovering that h e could m ake m ore m o n ey selling stories than as a m edical as24 Arthur Conan Doyle, Memories and Adventures (Boston: Little, Brown, 1924), 24.

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sistant, C o n a n D oyle— like St. C lair— sim ply exchanged o n e profession for another, m o re lucrative one. A ccording to at least one critic, however, C o n a n D oyle felt d egraded by the w ritin g o f m ystery stories: S tephen K night m aintains that “ T h e M an w ith the Twisted L ip” expresses C o n a n D o y les sham eful feelings ab o u t w ritin g “vulgar p o tb o ilers” rather than the historical novels by m eans o f w h ich he h o p ed to establish him self as a respectable author. Publishing in the Strand— a m agazine sold, appropriately en ough, in railway stations “ to catch the c o m m u tin g w h ite-co llar m a rk e t”— C o n a n D oyle felt (according to K night) th at he was taking “profits m ade in the street from C ity w orkers.”25 K night s reading depends u po n a n u m b er o f elements— H u g h B oone as “ degraded,” m ystery-story w riting as an “accidental discovery” w h ich suddenly supplies C onan D oyle w ith large sums o f m oney— that the story, and the biography, do n o t necessarily support. B ut the conn ection he em phasizes betw een w ritin g and beggary may be draw n o ut in a num ber o f ways: in term s, for example, o f the need to appeal to an audience characteristic o f both, or in term s o f the m ovem ent from “filling phials” to “sitting still” that describes C onan D oyle’s progression as well as St. Clair’s— a m ovem ent, that is, from m ore to less visible labor. If C onan D oyle identified w ith his subject, as M ayhew appears to have identified w ith his, b o th suggestively tu rn ed that identification to account. A n identification w ith illegitim ate production is legitim ated in a fo rm o f productio n— w riting — that allows for vicariousness', for b o th imaginative participation and professional “ disinterest.” O n the o ne hand, stillness suggests the achievem ent o f gentlem anly respectability; o n the other, it evokes the degradation and loss o f identity associated w ith the o p iu m den. T h e iden tity H olm es and the police desire for St. Clair, in contrast, seems to d epend u p o n incessant m ovem ent. A nd yet even as it seems to create such identity, this m ovem en t also dismantles it— and as he transform s co n tem p o ra ry readers o f “ T h e M a n w ith th e Tw isted Lip,” co m m u tin g b etw een h o m e and City, into a mise-en-abîme for his story, C o n a n D oyle challenges th e p olarity b etw e en tru e and false identities the story seeks to establish. For w h at is the identity o f the m an o n the train, reading? C o n a n D o y le’s story may ind eed express an oppositio n betw een “ tru e ” and “false” selves he felt him self to be living: a structure in w h ich the true, respectable self feels it necessary to trade o n a false 25 Stephen Knight, Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction (London, 1980), 70, 98.

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identity in order to survive. A n d yet if H o lm e s’s creator m aintained, along w ith m any o f his contem poraries, a n o tio n o f a tru e self that could be supp o rte d only at th e expense o f p articipatio n in the false identities o f the m arketplace, this passage b etw een high and low culture has the same im plications as St. C lair’s changes o f identity: in a characteristically V ictorian m ovem ent b etw een the poles o f respectability and nonrespectability, the subject m ust con tin u e to strive for the fo rm e r because he is always kept from com plete adherence to it by p articipation in the latter. T h e question the story poses is thus not, W h a t is identity? b u t rather, W here, at any m o m en t, is identity? since it illustrates perhaps best o f all the way the idea o f respectability keeps id entity in m o tio n : th e way th e social self circulates endlessly as it im agines itself n earing the im age o f a desired, culturally valued self that w ill finally (and paradoxically) sit still. T h e irresistible co n tinuity betw een “filling phials” and “ sitting still” recalls the o p iu m den, w h ich evokes the same images o f passivity and loss o f identity that th e figure o f th e C ity m an does— and that also su rro u n d H olm es. T h e story displays anxiety ab o u t labor that appears n o t to be labor, often m e n tio n in g the fact that, w h e n w orking, H olm es appears to be doing nothing. B o th H olm es and St, C lair live by th e ir wits; n eith er is perceived to be w o rk in g w h e n he is actually hardest at w ork. T h u s H olm es, at w o rk o n the case, took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown, and then w andered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and cushions from the sofa and armchairs. W ith these he constructed a sort o f Eastern divan, upon w hich he perched him self cross-legged, w ith an ounce o f shag tobacco and a box o f matches laid out in front o f him. In the dim light o f the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner o f the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, w ith the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features.” Indeed, H olm es at w o rk resembles n o th in g so m u ch as the habitué o f an o p iu m den. P ro d u cin g the solution to the case in a scenario w h ich h ig h lights the absence o f visible labor, H olm es resembles the “ m an w h o does som ething in the City,” as w ell as th e professional w hose productivity the V ictorians could n o t easily locate.

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T h e beggar, the finance capitalist, and the detective are unproductive in the same sense in w h ich A dam Sm ith fo u n d m any entertainers and p ro fessionals to be, since they p roduce no “vendible c o m m o d ity . . . for w h ich an equal quantity o f labour could afterwards be procured.”26 T h e figure w h o professes rather than produces— w hose speech, w ritin g, o r self is his com m odity— blurs the easily readable relationship b etw een p roducer and prod uct, laborer and com m odity; the professional perform s services w hose m erit, at least to som e extent, the client has to take o n faith. H aving, as H arold P erkin w rites, “ a professional interest in disinterest,” th e professional also aroused suspicion for his “P ro te an ” ability to “ assume the guise o f any o th e r class at will.”27 It is therefore appropriate that it is in the figure o f the professional as well as by m eans o f professionals— th e detective and the w riter— that, in this story, the beggar and the gentlem an m eet and b e com e indistinguishable from o ne another. W h e n W atson first m eets H olm es, in A Study in Scarlet, he has difficulty figuring o u t his future com rad e’s profession; given w h at H olm es seems to know, it’s n o t clear w h at h e ’s suited for. W atson actually draws up a chart, listing such item s as “ K now ledge o f L iterature— N i l . . . K now ledge o f C hem istry— P rofound,” and, w h e n finished, throw s it into th e fire in despair: “ If I can only find w h at the fellow is driving at by reconciling all these accom plishm ents, and discovering a calling w h ich needs th e m all___ I may as well give up the attem pt at once.” W h a t is baffling ab o u t St. Clair, similarly, is his failure to fit into any obvious profession. B u t H o lm es’s p ro fession, o f course, depends u p o n exactly th e k in d o f in d eterm in acy he finds inappropriate for St. Clair. H olm es, it has often b ee n p o in ted out, is a m odel o f the “ gentlem anly am ateur,” “ relaxed and disinterested.”28 H is lack o f specialization is his ch ief asset, since his w o rk requires a collection o f arcane bits o f know ledge that w o u ld n o t appear necessary to a m e m b er o f any o th e r profession. Yet H olm es does n o t simply accum ulate random 26 Adam Smith, A n Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. R . H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), 1:330. 27 Perkin, The Origins of Modem English Society, 1778-1880 (London: R ou tledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 260, 253. Perkin is referring here to the new professional class, in the process o f differentiating itself from the older professional class— represented here by W hitney and Watson— and from the capitalist middle class, more directly vulnerable to market fluctuations. 28 Dennis Porter, The Pursuit of Crime (N ew Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 156.

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inform ation: indeed, by his ow n accou nt his m ethods are suprem ely practical. H is th e o ry o f the m in d is based o n an analogy w ith m aterial labor: “ I consider that a m a n ’s m in d is a little like an em pty attic, and you have to stock it w ith such fu rniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lu m b er o f every sort that he com es across, so that the know ledge that m ight be useful to h im gets crow ded o u t___N o w th e skillful w orkm an is very careful indeed as to w h at he takes into his brain-attic. H e w ill have n o th ing b u t th e tools w h ich may help h im in d o in g his w o rk ” (A Study in Scarlet). In fact, H o lm es’s apparently scattered know ledge signals his p ro fessionalism. W h e n W atson m eets him , for instance, he has invented a process for distinguishing bloodstains; he also reveals that he “ dabbles w ith poisons a g o o d deal.” T h e one elem ent that signals “ gentlem anly am ateur” in its apparent lack o f professional value is H o lm e s’s violin playing. Yet even that, as W atson describes it, is geared n o t tow ard the ordinary p ro du ctio n o f m usic as a means o f relaxation, b u t rather tow ard cogitation: “W h e n left to h im se lf... he w o u ld seldom p roduce any music or attem pt any recognizing air. L eaning back in his arm chair o f an evening, he w ould close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle w h ich was th ro w n across his k n e e ___W h e th e r the m usic aided these thoughts, o r w h e th e r the playing was sim ply the result o f w h im o r fancy, was m ore than I could d eterm ine.” D espite his practicality, how ever, H olm es m aintains an attitude o f g en tlem anly disinterest; w hile asserting that “ the th e o rie s . .. w h ich appear to you to be so chim erical, a r e . . . so practical that I d ep en d u p o n th e m for m y bread and cheese,” he also claims that he may get n o th in g o u t o f a case b u t a laugh at the expense o f th e inspectors w h o fail to solve it. A sserting his econo m ic interest in his w o rk alm ost at th e same tim e that he disavows it, H olm es m aintains professionalism ’s characteristic tension betw een p ro ductivity and unproductivity. T h e idea o f the detective as am ateur mystifies, even as it transform s, the idea o f professional labor: his capital, H olm es suggests, is purely intellectual, his w o rk a fu n ctio n o f desire and a source o f pleasure rather than a necessity. It m akes sense, then, that in “T h e M an w ith the Tw isted L ip” H olm es confesses to a fascination w ith that o th e r professional w h o m anifestly enjoys his w ork: “ I have w atched the fellow m ore than once,” he says o f B oone, “before I ever th o u g h t o f m ak ing his professional acquaintance, and have b een surprised at the harvest w h ich he has reaped in a short tim e.” In trig u ed by B o o n e ’s apparently

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effortless p ro d u ctio n o f incom e, H olm es boasts, at th e end o f the story, that he solved the case m erely “by sitting u p o n five pillows and consum ing an o unce o f shag.” F rom the nonprofessional’s perspective, such effortlessness is only a step away from d oing nothing, and professionals are fo u n d in th e o p iu m den, in this story, because b o th professionalism and o p iu m focus V ictorian anxieties about unproductivity. T h e o p iu m d en was a fantasy ab o u t u n p ro ductivity: explicitly citing this threat, th e an ti-o p iu m m o v em en t in the n in e tee n th cen tu ry encouraged the idea that o p iu m represented a particular danger for the w o rking classes and raised anxiety ab o u t its spread to the m iddle classes; opium , w rote o ne physician in 1843, rendered “the in dividual w h o indulges him self in it a w orse than useless m e m b er o f society.”29 T h e lascar, similarly, was a figure o f “surplus” p o p u latio n associated w ith unproductivity: considered, paradoxically, to be “in d o le n t” him self— that is, likely to be a “false b eggar” (for M ayhew , Asian beggars w ere figures o f “ extraordinary m end acity”)30— this figure also aroused anxiety for his potential to take the place o f English o r Irish laborers, thereby p ro d ucing u n em p lo y m en t (and “false beggars”) in the native population. In his fictional role as p ro p rie to r o f the o p iu m den, the lascar is an entrep ren eu r o f passivity and unproductivity, his appellation en codin g the kind o f in fo rm atio n — ab o u t “race,” profession, and social p osition— such labels are m eant to supply.

T h e o p iu m d en underm ines the possibility that St. C lair’s “ tru e ” identity can be located either at h o m e o r at w ork; situated b etw een the two, the den provides a place for transform ation, for the constitution o f identity in, or as, exchange. B u t the den also suggestively associates o p iu m addiction w ith professional identity. Like disguise, w h ich functions th ro u g h o u t the 29 Anxiety about opium use in the late nineteenth century was associated w ith theories o f the degeneracy o f the middle class; the anti-opium m ovem ent helped spread the b elief that “opium sm oking was som ehow threatening in its implications for the indigenous population.” See Virginia Berridge and Griffith Edwards, Opium and the People: Opiate Use in Nineteenth-Century England (N ew Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 175,198-99, and passim. 30 See Mayhew, London Labour; 4:423-24; also R ozina Visram, Ayahs, Lascars, and Princes: Indians in Britain

1700-IÇ 47

(London: Pluto, 1986).

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story as a m e ta p h o r for profession, o p iu m transform s appearance. Yet is does so m o re p rofou ndly th an disguise: o p iu m makes W h itn e y in to “ a slave to th e d r u g . . . w ith yellow, pasty face, d ro o p in g lids, and p in p o in t pupils.” W h e re disguise points to the existence o f the authentic identity u n derlyin g it, evoking an easy m o v em en t b etw e en tru e and false, W h itn e y ’s slavishness im plies an inability to m ove back and fo rth — a fixedness and loss o f identity. Indeed, w hile the story invites us to im agine disguise, profession, w ritin g, and, here, reading (W hitney begins his o p iu m addiction in deliberate im itatio n o f D eQ u in cey ) as analogous m ovem ents in and o u t o f identity, the idea o f o p iu m addiction deconstructs that m ovem ent, suggesting that the individual in m o tio n m ay becom e stuck, n o t in one identity o r another, b u t in that very detach m en t from identity figured here b o th in the ad d ict’s stillness and the C ity m a n ’s incessant m ovem ent. A lth o u g h the professional, o r the C ity m an, fancies him self m oving freely b etw e en identities, his very m ov em ent registers his enslavem en t. W h itn e y ’s addiction— th e presence o f w h ich disturbs the sto ry ’s regular m o v em en t b etw e en suburb and C ity— thus represents th e o th e r side o f the coin o n w hose face St. C lair and, preem inently, H olm es enact th e pleasures o f disguise. A nd in fact w h e n the police and H olm es require St. C lair to rem ain, visibly, in circulation, they insist u p o n exactly the kind o f d etac h m en t from self that m akes St. C lair in to th e en tre p re n eu r o f identities they accuse h im o f being. T h e professional, W h itn e y ’s addiction im plies, is addicted n o t to one identity o r an o th er b u t rather to the d etach m en t from self b o th opium , and profession, imply. B u t the story establishes a difference b etw een W h itn ey and St. Clair, on th e o ne hand, and H olm es o n the other. H olm es fam ously has no private life, only a bohem ianism that dramatizes the absence o f one; the uncovering o f his “ tru e ” identity in th e o p iu m d en requires no scrubbing b u t only, apparently, an act o f will, a change o f m o o d — or merely, on W atson’s part, a slight change o f perception. “ H is fo rm had filled out, his w rinkles w ere gone, the dull eyes had regained their fire.” H olm es “is” his professional identity: in him , enslavem ent to profession is disguised as the discovery o f identity th ro u g h it. (W hen, in th e same scene, he rem arks, “ I suppose, W a tso n ,. . . that you im agine that I have added o p iu m sm oking to cocaine injections,” H olm es emphasizes the bohem ianism that seems to draw h im away from his profession b u t in fact registers the absence, in his life, o f anyth in g else.) D ed icated to a profession he h im self has invented, and o f

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w h ich he is the only m e m b er (“ I suppose I am the only o n e in the w orld. I’m a consulting detective” ; A Study in Scarlet), H olm es is a fantasy o f p ro fessionalism as unalienated labor: o f the highly specialized professional as a figure for w h o m slavery canno t be an issue because his w o rk so c o m pletely fulfills his nature, because his w o rk is the com plete expression o f his nature. (Just as w ritin g provides C o n a n D oyle w ith an alternative to m edicine, so too is H o lm es’s professionalism contrasted here w ith the d o cto rin g o f W h itn ey and W atson.) H is w ork, in fact, is no w o rk at all, b u t rath er— as th e n ig h tlo n g sm o king session suggests— habit: “ F rom lo n g habit the train o f thoughts ran so swiftly th rough m y m in d that I arrived at the conclusion w ith o u t b eing conscious o f in term ed iate steps” (A Study in Scarlet). In the figure o f H olm es, addiction is the same as fulfillm ent; for him , losing the self in o n e ’s w o rk is the same as finding the self in it. Yet this fantasy o f professional id entity exists alongside, and depends u p o n the p ro d u ctio n of, everyone else’s divided self; it is purchased at the expense o f those w ho, im agining that they can w ear o n e identity in p u b lic and preserve another, secretly, for themselves, provide th eir culture w ith th e reassurance abo ut identity it desires (W ilde’s Picture o f Dorian Gray articulates an o th er version o f this fantasy). B o th W h itn ey and St. C lair b e com e objects o f official scrutiny, it is im p o rta n t to recall, n o t w h e n they b eg in leading double lives b u t w h e n they cease to do so; the police and H olm es require th e m n o t to abandon their double lives b u t to lead th e m in plain sight— and, above all, to keep m oving. F or W h itn e y ’s and St. C lair’s cessations o f m o v em en t reveal that the d ouble life functions for th em , and for V icto rian culture, in th e same way th at disguise does for H olm es: it preserves the fiction o f an authentic self. A n d that may be w h at H olm es— and B o o n e— are sm iling about. H aving revealed this secret, how ever, the story m ust conceal it once again, if only to provide H olm es w ith som eth ing to do. F or the detective’s business is to find th e strange in th e com m onplace: life, h e claims, “is infinitely stranger than anything th e m in d o f m an could invent” (“A Case o f Id en tity ”). In “ T h e M a n w ith th e T w isted L ip” he is m o m en tarily baffled by w h at has proven to be n o t so com m onplace: St. C lair’s choice o f profession. T h e p o in t o f th e case is therefore to re tu rn St. C lair the beggar— and St. C lair th e gentlem an— to the ordinary, m iddle-class w orld o f w o rk and family: the w orld that stands still w hile H olm es moves about, and that provides the identities into w h ich he will, tem porarily, disappear.

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T hus assured th at the ordinary w o rld ’s lack o f ordinariness w ill rem ain secret— until, that is, he discovers it once again— H olm es produces the co m m onplace w orld o n w h ich he depends for his labor, and clears the way for his ow n practice.

There, sitting by the fire and grinning at my surprise, was none other than Sherlock Holmes. T h e tw isted lip is suggestively n o t quite a smile. As scar o r deform ity, it elicits sym pathy even as it m ocks those w h o are persuaded by it; b o th subservient smile and m enacing grim ace, it takes away w ith on e h alf w h at it offers w ith the oth er.31 As scar, th e lip may be said to refer n o t only to the disability that w o u ld m ake physical labor im possible b u t to the b o d y o f the w ork er altered by such labor; B o o n e may thus be said to retu rn to the arena o f com m erce the figure o f the pro d u cer that has disappeared from it.32 B u t w h at is retu rn ed is sim ulacra and spectacle: no lo nger seen in its productive capacity, n o longer associated w ith objects p rodu ced, the w o rk e r’s body, as B o o n e m etapho rically represents it, appears only as som ething im m ediately transform ed into money. A nd yet as w o u n d o r deform ity th e tw isted lip w o u ld n o t have p ro h ib ited the perfo rm ance o f physical labor. T h e lip is n o t a disability b u t rather the sign o f one, alluding n o t so m u c h to physical injury as to a know ledge o f the codes that represent it. It is, above all, a k n o w in g smile, providing an o th er link betw een H olm es and B oone: H olm es, w e have seen, w ill take o n a case req u irin g as paym ent only a laugh at those w h o have failed to solve it. G lenn W. M ost has in te rp re ted the detectiv e’s smile as an ack now ledgm ent o f pow er: “T his is the smile o f w isdom , com placent in the su periority o f its ow n pow er and tolerant o f the weakness o f m ere h u 31 The connection betw een smiling and aggression is more fully developed in this character’s latest manifestation (by way o f the 1927 film The Man Who Laughs): the Joker in Batman. See Benedict Nightingale, “Batman Prowls a G othic Drawn from the Absurd,” NewYork Times, 16 June 1989, sec. 2, p. 16. 32 Elaine Scarry describes the relation betw een worker and capitalist as a confrontation betw een em bodied and disembodied figures and suggests that, vampiristically, the capitalist’s absence depends on the worker’s physicality. Body in Pain, 276.

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m anity; the detective adopts it in th e m o m e n t w h e n he has u n d ersto o d som ething that no o ne else has.”33 If the sm iling detective understands som ething no on e else does, w h at does the m an w ith the tw isted lip understand? G iving St. C lair the detective’s freedom o f disguise and fluidity o f identity, C o n a n D oyle makes the beggar’s smile detachable, preserving that realm o f n o n id en tity for his detective by enabling H olm es to rem ove it from — by w ip in g it off—St. C lair’s face.

33

Glenn W. M ost, “T he Hippocratic Smile: John le Carré and the Traditions o f the

D etective Novel,” in The Poetics of Murder, ed. Glenn W. M ost and W illiam W. Stowe (N ew York: Harcourt Jovanovich, 1983), 343.

3 Under Cover: Sympathy and Ressentiment in GaskelVs R uth U nder the cover o f sympathy w ith the dismissed labourers, Mr. Preston indulged his ow n private pique very pleasantly. — Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

E liz a b e th Gaskell’s goal in R uth (1853) was to elicit sym pathy for the figure o f the fallen w o m an by m eans o f the detailed representation o f an individual case.Yet as m any readers have noted, the novel takes an am bivalent approach to the category and the character w ith w h ich it is m ost concerned. C ritical o f the social barriers that w ould place R u th outside respectable society, Gaskell at the same tim e devised a heroine w h o is naturally good— indeed, o ne w hose inn o cen ce borders o n (and is figured as) an “unconsciousness” o f the social no rm s she violates. R u t h ’s claim o n readerly sym pathy thus seems to derive less from a critique o f the idea o f fallenness than from h er status as n o t truly fallen. A n d yet, as if d ou b tin g h er h ero in e’s virtue, Gaskell requires R u th to redeem herself. T h e novel rem ains unable to reconcile h er supposed in n o cen ce w ith h e r deviation from it, and— as if to escape all the confusion— she dies at its e n d .1

1

For a useful review o f Ruth criticism, see Elizabeth Helsinger, R o b in Sheets, and

W illiam Veeder, eds., The Woman Question (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1983),

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C riticism o f th e novel has, understandably, b een unable to leave th e subje c t o f the fallen w o m an behind. B u t in addition to b eing co n c ern e d w ith th e fate o f fallen w o m en, R uth expresses Gaskell s general interest in sym pathy as a solution to divisive social problem s; in Mary Barton and North and South, for instance, individual sym pathy is h er solution to class conflict. R uth, how ever, enacts a dram a o f id en tity transform ation that expresses and reenacts the tensions sym pathy is m ean t to resolve. O ffered as th e representative o f a social category— a type— R u th exem plifies the way the sym pathetic object n o t only represents b u t dissolves into a generalized social identity; like D aniel D eronda, as character she is inseparable from the im agining o f a social type and the attem pted resolution o f a social p ro b lem . W h a t follows is that the sym pathy she is m eant to elicit— sym pathy for the fallen w om an — takes a fo rm that expresses the social anxieties o f those in a position to feel “fo r” her: those m em bers o f the m iddle class for w h o m she em bodies an ever-present fear o f falling. A ccording to som e critics, sym pathy was G askell’s o w n “ cover story,” th e fiction that enabled h e r to w rite — as, disavow ing a conventionally m asculine know ledge o f fact, she claim ed the conventionally fem inine auth o rity o f feeling.2 R uth too, in one o f fictio n ’s m ost peculiar sym pathetic gestures, also figures sym pathy as cover: the novel’s p lot concerns the way in w h ic h th e B ensons— a m inister and his sister, w h o sym pathize w ith R u th and take h er into their h o m e— invent a false identity for her, ostensibly to shield h er from censure. R u th becom es k n o w n as the respectable w id o w M rs. D en b ig h , and h er eventual exposure causes outrage in the co m m unity and especially in M r. Bradshaw, the w ealthy m anufacturer and stern P u ritan w h o has em ployed h er as a governess. T h at sym pathy should m anifest itself as disguise brings out, n o t least, the way b o th involve an im aginative transgression o f the boundaries o f social 3:113-22. Angus Easson discusses the protestations that make Gaskell seem unconvinced o f R u th ’s innocence in Elizabeth Gaskell (London: R outledge and Kegan Paul, 1979). 2

Terry Lovell writes that Gaskell claimed “the right to speak not from knowledge o f

‘the facts’ but from an identification w ith the feelings o f an oppressed and suffering workforce.” Consuming Fictions (London: Verso, 1987), 87. See also Hilary Schor, Scheherezade in the Marketplace: Elizabeth Gaskell and the Victorian Novel (N ew York: O xford University Press, 1992), 2 1 -2 2 . T he phrase “cover story” com es from Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (N ew Haven:Yale University Press, 1979), chap. 5.

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identity. It suggests, in ways I will develop further in this chapter, the sympathetic object s status as a figure for im aginative appropriation, enlisted in the construction o f a spectator’s identity. A nd, m ost prom inently, th e deceit shifts the novel’s focus from R u t h ’s fall to the B ensons’ lie, p o in tin g tow ard w h at becom es the novels insistent concern: the inability o f its middle-class characters to sustain their ow n tenuously constructed identities. Focusing n o t o n the alleged crim e b ut on the cover-up— creating transgression, in effect, w h ere she insists n o n e had existed before— Gaskell subordinates R u t h ’s situation to (and makes it appear no less than a displacem ent of) the situations o f those m em bers o f the com m u n ity for w h o m identity itself seems fundam entally little m ore than a form o f covering up. T h e co m m o n critical view o f the novel’s am bivalence— that Gaskell attem pted to co n struct an in n o cen t character b u t could n o t escape h er b elief in that characte r’s sexual guilt— may thus be expanded to include the way sexuality in R uth becom es a figure, and cover, for issues o f class identity. Like the Bensons, Gaskell attem pts to protect R u t h ’s identity by distracting attention from it, m oving away from the idea o f sexual transgression as if to m itigate it by creating another kin d o f transgression on w h ich to focus. B u t the m ovem ent away from sexuality produces m ore, rather than less, transgressive energy, as Gaskell’s attem pt to elicit sym pathy for the fallen w om an becom es a story abo ut the the fallen identity o f the V ictorian m iddle class.3 R u th is only o n e o f m any divided and uneasy characters in the novel. T h u rstan B enson and his sister Faith are at odds w ith th e conventional society dom inated by the w ealthy m anufacturer Bradshaw, w h o patronizes them ; the brother, in particular, suffers from a vague em otional distress that ultim ately takes shape as a struggle o f conscience over his role in the deceit. Bradshaw, w h o expresses his o w n status anxiety in his treatm en t o f th e Bensons, has a troubled conscience as well: em barked o n a schem e to b rib e voters to elect his candidate for Parliam ent (the candidate, D o n n e, is 3

M y use o f the term “transgression” draws upon the work o f Peter Stallybrass and Allon

W hite, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969). The fallen w om an is, o f course, traditionally regarded as a site o f dangerous feeling, particularly feeling perceived as disruptive to the family. Susan Staves argues that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century “seduced m aiden” novels express anxiety about what Lawrence Stone has termed “affective individualism” : the shift from an assumed traditional, patriarchal con tinuity and familial order to an emphasis on individual w ill and desire. Staves, “British Seduced Maidens,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 14 (1980-81): 109-34.

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th e fo rm e r Bellingham , R u th s seducer), he w arns him self to take care that “th e slack-principled M r. B radshaw o f o n e m o n th o f ferm en t and excitem ent, m ig h t n o t be co n fo u n d e d w ith th e highly conscientious and deeply-religious M r. Bradshaw, w h o w en t to chapel tw ice a day.”4 Farquhar, the m an B radshaw s daughter Jem im a is to marry, seems to R u th to possess “ tw o characters” : “th e old o n e . . . a m an acting up to a high standard o f lofty p rin c ip le ,. . . [and] the n ew o n e . .. cold and calculating in all he d id ” (228). A nd Jem im a herself is caught betw een “ aw e” at h er father and a desire to follow h er ow n “passionate im pulses” (211). Bradshaw s relationship to D o n n e suggests an underlying cause for this nearly universal condition o f self-division. T h e politician s aristocratic m anner makes Bradshaw aware o f the “incontestable difference o f rank and standard that there was, in every respect, betw een his guest and his ow n fam ily. ... It was som ething indescribable— a quiet being at ease, and expecting every one else to be so— an attention to w om en, w h ich was so habitual as to be unconsciously exercised. .. a happy choice o f simple and expressive w ords” (261-62).“ In fact,” it seems to Bradshaw,“M r. D o n n e had been b o rn and cradled in all that w ealth could purchase, and so had his ancestors b efore him for so m any generations, that refinem ent and luxury seem ed the natural condition o f m an, and they that dw elt w ith o u t w ere in the position o f m onsters” (265). T h e difference b etw een D o n n e and Bradshaw, as the latter sees it, is one o f consciousness versus unconsciousness, the natural versus the forced (“His m ode o f living, th o u g h strained to a high pitch ju st at this tim e ... was no m ore than M r. D o n n e was accustom ed to every day o f his life” [265]), and aristocratic identity versus “m onstrous” and self-conscious self creation. Indeed, Bradshaw s “straining,” his m oral and econom ic uneasiness, is only one exam ple o f a m oral and econom ic discontent that affects almost all the novels characters: an awareness o f and uneasiness about identity constructed and anxiously m aintained rather than assumed as natural. In particular, the novels characters are to rm en ted by the way in w hich a rigid adherence to the conventions o f middle-class behavior inevitably gives way to a determ ination to deviate from those conventions.5 4 Elizabeth Gaskell, Ruth (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 307. Subsequent references included in text. 5 See John Kucich, The Power of Lies: Transgression in Victorian Fiction (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), for a discussion o f the role o f transgression in the formation o f Victorian middle-class identity.

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If the character o f R u th has traditionally b een regarded as the occasion for an im pulse that leads the Bensons outside conventional m oral b o u n d aries, then, she m ay also be seen as the fo rm such an im pulse takes. A social outcast— requ iring , as Faith B en so n decides, a n ew id entity— R u th provides the B ensons w ith a blank slate o n w h ich to w rite. A nd w hat they w rite projects b o th a desire for natural identity (w hich here, as in D o n n e ’s case, manifests itself in aristocratic form : “ she m ig h t be a Percy o r a H ow ard for th e g ran d eu r o f h e r grace!” thinks D o n n e / B ellingham [278]), and an iden tity constructed as a tension betw een an illicit self and its respectable cover. “M rs. D en b ig h ,” th at is, em bodies the problem Gaskell raises for all R u th ’s characters. H o v erin g b etw een a transgressiveness defined in term s o f b o th sexuality and class and a respectability p resented as b o th natural and artificial, R u th em bodies anxieties constitutive o f V ictorian m iddle-class identity: th e fear that respectability is a m asquerade, that the individual self is already and inevitably fallen— that, as Peter Stallybrass and A llon W h ite have p u t it, in the construction o f b o u rgeois identity, an “ u n d erg ro u n d self” has “ the u p p er hand.” In Ruth, b o th m iddle-class id en tity and the fallen w o m an take shape in a tension b e tw een w h at M arjorie Levinson has called “the m ythologically antagonistic u p p er and low er classes,” and Stallybrass and W h ite have described as the opposition betw een “h ig h ” and “lo w ” central to the construction o f bourgeois identity in the n in e tee n th century.6 R u t h ’s divided identity also serves as a co nduit for a feeling the novel associates im plicitly w ith sympathy: ressentiment. Like a n u m b e r o f Gaskell’s heroines, and like Gaskell herself, the B ensons fictionalize in the nam e o f sympathy. B u t w h e n Bradshaw, taken in by R u t h ’s disguise, takes h er into his hom e, the B ensons’ lie im plicates th e m in an act o f aggression against th e ir w ealthy neighbor. D isru p tin g and confusing social b o u n d aries in their transform ation o f R u t h ’s identity, and dem onstrating the ease w ith w h ich a w o m an from one social b ackgro und m ay blend in w ith another, th e Bensons— and Gaskell— play o n com m onplace V ictorian anxieties about the fallen w o m a n ’s ability to rise in society, in particular her ability to penetrate the protected boundaries o f the bourgeois household. T h e use to w h ich the fiction o f R u t h ’s identity is put, as well as the u r6

Marjorie Levinson, Keats’s Life of Allegory: The Origins of a Style (Oxford: Blackwell,

1988), 176-77; Stallybrass and W hite, Politics and Poetics of Transgression, 5.

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gency o f the B ensons’ desire to erase its alienating effects once it is discovered, recall M ax S cheler’s d escription o f ressentiment as anger against th e rig id categories o f iden tity against w h ich the socially disaffected struggle yet to w h ich they rem ain b o u n d .7 T h e social boundaries that w o u ld exclude the fallen w o m an from th e co m m u n ity also define the B ensons’ o w n powerlessness in relation to Bradshaw; disguising R u th , the Bensons construct a p lot that expresses in disguised fo rm th eir ow n social discontent. Social sympathy, figured as the im aginative crossing o f social b o u n d aries, is violently literalized here in the B ensons’ violation o f class b o u n d aries. Ressentiment thus appears here as the expression and inevitable accom panim en t o f m iddle-class sympathy. H eld responsible for the em otional w ell-being o f the family, V icto rian w o m en w ere typically represented as conduits for either salutary o r dangerous feeling. A ttem p tin g to co n stru ct an ideal sym pathetic object, Gaskell seems to create a character o f p ure receptivity— on e w hose receptivity is in fact the cause o f h e r fall. B u t from the b eg in n in g o f the novel, R u th is n o te d as well for h er ability to co m m unicate feeling to o th ers. W h e n she arrives at the B ensons’, th eir servant Sally declares h er sorrow ful feeling unacceptable since it threatens to “infect” others: Sally and Miss B enson “ each had keen sympathies, and felt depressed w h e n they saw anyone near th e m depressed.” Sally takes R u t h ’s baby o u t o f his m o th e r’s arms w h en , w hile lo o k in g at h er face, “ his little lip began to quiver, and his o pen blue eye to grow over-clouded, as w ith som e m ysterious sym pathy 7 Scheler writes: “Ressentim ent is apt to thrive among those w h o are alienated from the social order___These p ersons. . . hate the existing institutional arrangement but at the same time feel unable to act out this hatred because they are bound to the existing scheme o f things.” M ax Scheler, Ressentiment, trans. W illiam W. H oldheim (N ew York: Free Press, 1969), 29. The basic account o f ressentiment is Friedrich N ietzsches in On the Genealogy of Morals. I have used the terms “resentment” and “ressentiment” somewhat interchangeably, though the latter refers to what is explicitly a social em otion, one that exists w ithin a social context in w hich m obility (the ability not just to identify w ith the other, but to occupy the other s place) is simultaneously offered and denied. Sympathy and ressentiment resemble each other: each depends upon social inequity and a theoretical possibility o f “becom ing” the other. Indeed, as an em bodim ent o f sympathy and o f ressentiment, R u th enacts the other side o f Adam Smith s equation: sympathy as im agined from the sympathetic object s point o f view. Ressentiment in this account takes shape as a projection o f class anxieties and desires: as the psychologization o f class envy and a justification for social inequity.

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w ith th e sorrow ful face b en t over h im ” (173). In the novel, the te rm “in fec tio n ” and the idea o f infectiousness are frequently used to refer to feeling: R u th is “infected” by B ellingham ’s am usem ent (15); M r. Davis suggests th at his w ife has “in fected ” h im w ith a desire for children (437). L eonard, R u t h ’s son, at one p o in t develops a tendency to lie, the im plicatio n being that he has caught duplicity from his m o th er; he also “ catches” h er bravery later o n (427). Gaskell’s use o f the infection m e tap h o r suggests th e way fallenness in th e novel is everyone’s problem . L iteralizing the m etaphor, later, as disease, Gaskell paradoxically isolates the infection: since only R u th has b een infected by B ellingham , only for h er is fallenness the cause o f death. Sally’s anxiety about the infectiousness o f R u t h ’s feeling evokes the fear o f con tam in atio n conventionally associated w ith fallen w o m en ; it also amplifies an anxiety about the p ow er o f the sym pathetic object that suggests, again, the p o ten tial fluidity o f class id entity in the novel. T hese scenes dram atize n o t A dam S m ith’s general idea o f sym pathy— the im agining o f the self if th e o th e r’s place— b u t rather a fear o f sym pathy’s reversibility, as if th e o th e r’s id en tity m ig h t to o easily b ec o m e o n e ’s ow n. W h e n , in an effort to assist in h er disguise, Sally abruptly cuts R u th s hair, w h at is ostensibly d one to m ake h er resem ble a w id o w is in effect a test o f submissiveness and an insistence on difference: a dram atization o f the giving up o f identity in exchange for sympathy. A nd the novel as a w hole, like this scene, dram atizes sym pathy’s transform ation— and, ultimately, com plete appropriation— o f its object. R u t h ’s disguise— th e covering o f on e identity by an o th er— functions as an attem pt to transform one kin d o f feeling in to another, and as th e novel progresses, R u th becom es an in stru m en t for allaying the disruptive feelings h er “fallen” self represents. A fter Sally’s w arning, R u t h ’s potential to “in fec t” others is transform ed in to an “ unconscious p o w er o f en c h an tm e n t” (179), an unw illed co m m unication o f serene and harm on ious feeling. (Significantly, th e w arn in g is delivered by a fem ale servant w h o has u n d erg o n e a similar transform ation, learning to discipline resentful feelings and accept h er “ station” [176].) W ith this transform ation, Gaskell im plicitly defines as the novel’s task n o t so m u ch the alteration o f characters’ and readers’ feelings ab o u t R u th b u t rather R u t h ’s ability to alter th e ir feelings ab o u t them selves and each other, an ability rem iniscent o f the k in d o f reparation for past transgressions one o f Gaskell’s early critics de-

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scribed as necessary for the fallen w om an: “T h e sin o f unchastity in the w o m an is, above all, a breaking up o r loosening o f th e fam ily b o n d — a treason against the family order o f G o d ’s w orld— so the restoration o f the sinner consists m ainly in the renew al o f that b o n d , in the realization o f th at order, b o th by and th ro u g h and around herself.”8 “B y and th ro u g h and around h erself”— b u t n o t for herself—R u th radiates feelings o f serenity and cheerfulness; w ith o u t in ten tio n , “w ith no th o u g h t o f self tainting it” (366), she disseminates familial harm ony. T h ro u g h tensions w ith in the identities o f B enson, Bradshaw, Farquhar, and Jem im a, Gaskell displaces th e issue o f sym pathy for the social or m oral o th e r o n to the problem o f unifying m iddle-class identity. A n d the reform ation o f character in w h ich R u th assists w ith in th e novel resem bles the refo rm atio n o f id entity h er au th o r w ished to effect outside it: w ith h er peculiar pow er to transform th e feelings o f others, R u th em bodies the transform ative pow er Gaskell ho p ed h er novel w o u ld possess. R u t h ’s influence com es to bear m ost significantly on the character w h o possesses “passionate im pulses” rem iniscent o f conventional anxiety about fallen w o m en: B radshaw ’s daughter, Jem im a. R esisting h er father’s desire to control h er choice o f a husband, Jem im a is described as b eing in “silent rebellion” against h im (215). In a central episode, B radshaw asks R u th to encourage Jem im a to soften h er behavior tow ard M r. Farquhar, th e m an he w ishes h er to m arry. T h o u g h R u t h never consents to B radshaw ’s plan, and in d eed disapproves o f it, it w orks despite her: by “ simply banishing unpleasant subjects, and throw ing a w holesom e natural sunlit to n e over others, R u th had insensibly draw n Jem im a o u t o f h er glo o m ” (234). D issolving ill feeling, R u th reconciles u n ru ly im pulse w ith patriarchal design; w h at Jem im a later describes, resentfully, as “adm irable m a n ag e m en t” (241) is accom plished by R u t h ’s unconscious role in B radshaw ’s plan. W h e n Jem im a learns o f h er father’s request, she is outraged at this attem p t at m anagem ent, and the novel seems to endorse h er outrage. B u t it goes o n to m anipulate R u t h ’s feeling to achieve the same end. F or Farquhar subsequently becom es attracted to R u th as “ the very type o f w h at a w o m an should b e ” (308), and b o th th ro u g h the influence that makes Jem im a behave according to h e r fath e rs w ishes, and th ro u g h 8 “Ruth: A N ovel by the Author o f Mary Barton,” North British Review 19 (1853): 155.

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Farquhar’s attraction to herself, R u th encourages the m arriage the father desires. D escribed as “ one w h o always th o u g h t before she spoke (as M r. Farquhar used to bid Jem im a to do) and w h o was never te m p te d by sudden im pulse b u t w alked the w orld calm and self-governed” (242), R u th functions as a m odel for and unconscious influence o n Jem im a, focusing h er feeling and tam ing h er impulse. B u t— in a m a n n er that connects the novels authorial consciousness to R u t h ’s “ u nco n scio u s”influence— the greater p o rtio n o f that w o rk is done by the p lot o f the novel itself. Je m im a’s story, and Je m im a’s impulsiveness, are clearly a m u ted version o f R u t h ’s: a w arning about im pulse that leads away from the fam ily T h e episode stages the solidification o f V ictorian m iddle-class fem inine id en tity as a function o f the recognition and externalization o f o n e ’s “fallen” self: “ standing,” th e n arrato r com m ents, “ [Jemima] had learn ed to take heed lest she fell” (370). Sym pathy m ediates Jem im as in tern al conflict b etw een passion and authority, as Je m im a ’s resentm ent tow ard h e r father finds ju st cause in h e r sym pathy for R u th . A n d th at same sym pathy sim ultaneously enables h er to com e to term s w ith Farquhar, thus fulfilling h er fath e r’s wish: “ the u n acknow ledged b o n d b etw e en th e m n o w was their grief, and sympathy, and pity for R u th .” In a displacem ent similar to that o f the Bensons, threatening identification is transform ed into sym pathetic difference. R e d e fin in g the nature o f Je m im a’s passion and differentiating it from the unruly feeling it m igh t seem to resemble, Gaskell b o th exposes the novel’s u n d e rc u rren t o f disruptive feeling and resolves the conflict that feeling causes. B y m eans o f this solution— in w h ich the unconscious dissem ination o f feeling and th e deliberate attem p t to m anipulate it am o u n t to the same thing (the novel’s p lot is the same as the fath e r’s plot)— Gaskell enlists R u t h ’s affective p o w er in the service o f a strengthened familial order. B u t th at order, finally, has n o place for her. T h ro u g h o u t the novel, Gaskell returns repeatedly to the issue o f econom ic and em otional debt. H e r insistent detailing o f such debt, along w ith h er careful reco u n tin g o f the discom forts o f the B ensons’ poverty and the Bradshaw s’ ostentatious w ealth, links the B ensons’ fictionalizing to th eir resentm ent; even m ore suggestive is th e way R u t h ’s presence in B radshaw ’s h o m e disturbs the m anufacturer’s em phatic desire to m aintain legible social boundaries. B reaking th ro u g h social and eco n o m ic barriers, the B ensons’ d ecep tio n constitutes th e ir ow n “ silent rebellion,” expressing b o th a frustration at the fixedness o f social boundaries and a resentm ent

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against B radshaw ’s pow er in the com m unity. O n ly a few things circulate b etw een the B enson and Bradshaw households: m o n ey in the fo rm o f pew rents, gifts from Bradshaw, and R u th . R u th is the B ensons’ gift to Bradshaw: th e ir answer to his patronage. B o th as M rs. D enbigh, a character invented by Faith, and as B radshaw ’s em ployee, she exposes the vulnerability o f the h o m e o n w hose security B radshaw stakes his identity and that o f his family, the h o m e that w o u ld place h er irretrievably outside it and define h er as incapable o f red e m p tio n .9 A co n d u it for the feelings o f others and a figure o f silent rebellion herself, R u th enables the expression o f class feeling w hose existence the Bensons cannot ow n. F iguring sym pathy and resentm ent sim ultaneously, she exemplifies sym pathetic identity as a fo rm o f currency: she is the m eans o f paym ent, the coin offered to shore up the B ensons’ fragile identities. Gaskell has b een praised for h er ow n transgression o f middle-class norm s in her representation o f the unconventional B enson household: the fem inized minister, the strong sister, and the hearty servant represent social and m oral alternatives to the Bradshaws, unhappy in th eir prescribed roles (Jem im a rages against h er father’s dom inance; M rs. Bradshaw looks “ as if she was thoro ughly broken into subm ission” [153]). B u t in aligning R u th w ith feelings o f resentm ent, I am relying on the way in w h ich the Bensons feel themselves to be outsiders in their o w n com m unity and suggesting that their sym pathy for h er expresses that shared status. (Sympathy, the novel explicitly suggests, depends o n secret likeness; late in th e novel, M r. Davis offers to raise R u t h ’s son in ju st such term s: “I kn ew Leonard was illegitim ate— in fact, I will give you secret for secret: it was being so m yself that first m ade m e sym pathize w ith h im ” [441].) T h e line Faith’s lie draws b etw een the Bensons and the rest o f the com m unity expresses their u n c o n ventionality and marks their alienation. B enson is deform ed, his sister u n m arried, and Gaskell repeatedly associates th em w ith an older way \of life, one that is n o w in ideological co m petition w ith the livelihood o f the prosperous m ercantile classes. D espite their function as the m oral center o f the book, they lack the vitality o f the less scrupulous, m ore financially success9

N o te Gaskell’s ow n metaphor for the fallen w om ans fate: “Respectability shuts the

door upon her.” Q u oted in M onica Fryckstedt, Elizabeth GaskelVs “Mary Barton” and “Ruth”:A Challenge to Christian England (Uppsala, 1982), 138. O n wom an as mediator betw een inside and outside, see Janet Todd, Sensibility : An Introduction (London: M ethuen, 1986), 100.

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fui Bradshaw. W om en — particularly u n m a rrie d w o m en — and priests are am ong the figures Scheler singles o u t as likely candidates for feelings o f ressentiment; in particular, B enson recalls Scheler’s discussion o f the priest, w hose role requires that he “always represent the im age and principle o f peacefulness.” 10 T h e B ensons’ social fall is linked symbolically to R u t h ’s m oral one; B enson even averts h er suicide by literally falling to th e ground w hile pursuing her. For the Bensons, feeling for R u th is a way o f n o t feeling for themselves: it is a way o f gaining distance from , even as it im plicitly acknow ledges, an unstable social position. Expressing w h at Barbara E h renreich has called a “fear o f falling” endem ic to the m iddle class, the B ensons’ sym pathy acknow ledges in displaced fo rm — th ro u g h id en tification w ith a figure publicly identified as an outcast— the m arginality those w ith lim ited social pow er perceive in their ow n positions.11 Sym pathy in R u th is identified w ith a th reaten ed disturbance in, and subversion of, the rig id categories o f identity— particularly fem inine id en tity— that w o u ld exclude R u th from respectable society. A nd that subversion is possible only if R u t h ’s identity retains its transgressive force. It thus makes sense that th e disruptive energy Gaskell attem pts to elim inate by constru cting R u th as in n o c en t returns via the m echanism o f disguise. By displacing the novel’s focus from R u t h ’s fall to F aith’s lie, Gaskell alters the stakes o f sym pathizing w ith R u th (and w ith Ruth) to include n o t ju st sym pathizing, b u t fictionalizing, or, in the novel’s term s, lying: there is no m istaking the analogy b etw e en F aith ’s pleasure in m a n u factu rin g details o f R u t h ’s identity and Gaskell’s ow n activity. For w hile B enson m ig h t be said to identify w ith R u t h ’s outsider status and vulnerability, o r w ith h er u n conscious deviation from m oral behavior, Faith seizes u p o n h e r as an o p p o rtu n ity for transgression, saying “ I do th in k I ’ve a talent for fiction, it is so pleasant to invent and m ake th e incidents dovetail to g e th er___I am afraid I enjoy n o t bein g fettered by tr u th ”

(150). T h ro u g h

h er

fictionalizing, Faith strikes a blow against th e rig id roles th at keep the R u th s and th e M rs. Bradshaws o f th e w orld “broken in to subm ission” ; she disrupts the h o m e organized aro u n d th e assertion o f P uritanical values, and deceives the patriarch, Bradshaw, w hose outrage anticipates that o f 10 Scheler, Ressentiment, 36. 11 Barbara Ehrenreich, Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class (N ew York: Pantheon, 1989).

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G askell’s o u traged m ale readers— and ultim ately chastens F aith’s pleasure in the p ro d u ctio n o f narrative. T h e analogy b etw een F aith’s fictionalizing and Gaskell’s— b etw een gettin g R u th in to the Bradshaw h o m e and g etting R u th in to the hom es o f G askell’s readers— affirms, how ever, th e in separability o f Gaskell’s plea for sym pathy from the social discontent that plea expresses.12 Like h er author, Faith B enson transform s resen tm en t in to fiction; in v en tin g character to gain authority, she suggests th e p o ten tial fluidity o f social b o undaries and social authority. H e r fictionalizing w orks to alter th e balance o f p o w er in a co m m u n ity in w h ich B en so n ’s m oral concerns had b ee n increasingly m arginalized, his financial dep en d en ce o n Bradshaw u n d erm in in g his m oral position.

“I w ant to know how I am to keep rem em bering how old I am, so as to prevent myself from feeling so young?” (Faith Benson, looking in the mirror, 206) Sym pathy in R u th is an identification w ith the m arginal, expressed in th e falling that links B enson w ith R u th and the disguise w h erein he and his sister reproduce th eir o w n conflicted identities. B u t it is also a m ech anism for eliding th at identification, enabling the novel’s characters to retain th eir places in th e social hierarchy and rem ain unconscious, like R u th , o f th e ressentiment she em bodies. As w e have seen, Gaskell insists u p o n R u t h ’s unconsciousness: h er ignorance o f social conv en tio n saves h er from p articipation in h er fall; the lack o f deliberateness in h er subsequent b e havior underscores h er essential value (both B enson and Bradshaw adm ire R u t h ’s “ co m p lete unconsciousness o f u n c o m m o n pow er,” th e fact th at “ she did n o t th in k o f h erself at all” [187]). H e r unconsciousness, I have suggested, defines h er as a figure o f ressentiment: on e w h o can n o t act o n 12

Gaskell connected her ow n feelings about the novel w ith the idea o f sexual trans-

gression, identifying w ith her heroine. In her letters, she describes herself as being in pain from the things people are saying about Ruth; she is ill, and says she believes she must be ill w ith a “R u th fever.” A nd in a com m ent reminiscent o f R u th ’s “unconscious” fall, she writes, “I think I must be an improper wom an without know ing it.” J. A. V. Chappie and Arthur Pollard, eds., The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967),letter 150 (1853).

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h er o w n behalf, and for w h o m others are invited to feel, she em bodies the anger th e Bensons can n o t express directly.13 T h e character w h o exists as pure receptivity is, as A m anda A n d erso n points o u t, “ a m ere slave to th e other.” 14 (And as such, R u th s extrem e passivity may be said to suggest its opposite: n o t ju st th e B en so n ’s ressentiment but, in a displaced fashion, h er ow n: the rage o f th e fallen w om an.) B u t th e novel also associates unconsciousness w ith a desire to escape m iddle-class id en tity and its seem ingly inevitable transgressions. W h e n R u th first m eets B enson, she is ab o u t to d ro w n h erself—in th e n ovel’s w ords, to “seek forgetfulness.” B enson saves h er by enabling h er to replace o n e fo rm o f self-forgetfulness w ith an other; h e falls, and his fall “ did w h at no rem onstrance could have done; it called h er o u t o f h erse lf” (97). T h at initial m eetin g connects the capacity for sym pathy w ith self-forgetfulness, and th ro u g h o u t th e novel, th e possibility o f R u t h ’s red e m p tio n is id en tified w ith R u t h ’s fo rg ettin g o f h er fo rm e r self. Indeed, she is m ost h erself w h e n m ost “ o u t o f herself,” help in g th e p o o r and th e sick in an effort “ to forget w h at had gone before this last tw elve m o n th s” (191). (B enson to o strives “ to leave his life in th e hands o f G od, and to forget h im self” [142].) It is as if th e absence o f consciousness R u th exemplifies, and for w h ich B enson longs, expresses a desire for relief from consciousness, id en tified in this novel w ith an alm ost unbearable sense o f selfdivision. Indeed, it m ay b e in h e r unconsciousness— id en tified w ith h er unselfconsciousness— th at R u th best exem plifies m iddle-class identity: sym pathy here resembles a state o f forgetfulness that serves to assure the sym pathizer o f th e unqu estio n ed , secure nature o f his o r h er identity. A fter all, th e issue for m iddle-class identity, as th e novel w orries it (and Faith s co m m en t implies) is “rem em b erin g ” w h o on e is, as if identity inheres in its active m aintenance. B u t w hile sym pathy here may seem to offer m iddleclass id en tity a w elco m e unselfconsciousness, it also suggests the absence 13 Amanda Anderson argues that R u th ’s character represents an antidote to determinism, especially the determinism o f social construction. W hat the novel reveals, however, is the identity o f character with social construction: social identity may be a fiction, even a lie, but the transformation o f R u th ’s character into pure receptivity results in the creation o f a character w hose boundaries finally dissolve completely. Tainted Souls and Painted Faces: The Rhetoric of Fallenness in Victorian Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 127-40. 14 Ibid., 138.

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o f an essential self: the way in w hich identity built on identification w ith others may be im agined as no identity at all. As R u th takes on the fallen w om ans traditional role and moves toward death, the novel insists even m ore emphatically on her emptiness. O n her deathbed, as she becom es literally unconscious, she also becom es literally selfless: lying ill, “She could not remember the present time, or where she w a s . . . she was stretched on the bed in utter helplessness, softly gazing at vacancy w ith her open, unconscious eyes, from w h ich all the depth o f their m eaning had fled” (444,448). Lying “in utter helplessness, softly gazing at vacancy,” R u th becom es an em blem both o f the vacancy o f the ideal sympathetic observer, w h o forgets herself in her devotion to others, and o f sympathy’s object, displaced by the spectators projection. In attem pting to construct an ideally sympathetic character, Gaskell develops the sympathetic object to its logical extreme, finally exposing her character as a palimpsest o f the cultural desires and anxieties that surround the figure o f the fallen wom an. “She could not remember w h o she was now, or where she was” (444). Mrs. D enbigh, the novel seeks to reassure us, was never anything m ore than a fantasy about social mobility; m oving easily from one social position to another, R u th gives up the hold on identity she m ight have possessed had she stayed in one place. T h e exposure o f R u th s “true” self is thus only another m ove in the novels continual construction and dismantling o f her identity. It clarifies her function in the novel, legitim ating and solidifying— even as the history o f her identity may be said to underm ine— the identities o f the novels other characters. As w e have seen, Gaskell initially establishes social and moral uncertainty as norms o f middle-class identity: the novels characters are perpetually self-divided, guilt-ridden about the moral laxness and social uneasiness they seem unable to avoid. But the narrative works to efface such discomfort; though it rejects Bradshaw s desire for firm principles (“She has turned right into wrong, and w rong into right, and taught you all to be uncertain w hether there be any such thing as V ice in the w orld” [339]), som ehow events transpire so as to leave no uncertainty about everyones feelings toward R uth. T he novel transforms social identity into em otional unanimity, as social difference gives way to shared feeling and an unconsciousness o f the tensions R u th s presence made visible. T he novels plot demands the w orking out o f the conflict betw een B enson and Bradshaw, and the breach R u th s discovery causes betw een

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th e m — B radshaw had refused to co n tin u e atten d in g B e n so n ’s chapel (hence denying h im his p ew rents)— im m ediately effects a transm utation o f resen tm en t in to affection: “ H e [Benson] felt acutely th e severance o f the tie w h ich M r. Bradshaw had ju st an n o u n c ed to him . H e had ex p erien ced m any m ortifications in his in terco u rse w ith th at g entlem an, b u t they had fallen o ff from his m eek spirit like drops o f w ater from a b ird ’s plum age; and n o w he only rem em b ered th e acts o f substantial kindness___ [H ]e had never recognized M r. Bradshaw as an old fam iliar frien d so co m pletely, as n o w w h e n they w ere severed” (352). B u t B en so n ’s guilt about his failure to recognize B radshaw m erely suggests guilt ab o u t his ow n ressentiment; th e n o v el’s plot, rath er th an dissolving class bo u n d aries, has characters appear to forget that such b oundaries ever disturbed them . B u t sympathy, in the end, dem ands a series o f falls: B radshaw ’s son, for instance, is first revealed to be a forger and th e n in ju red in a coach accid en t.15 A nd w h e n Bradshaw sits in B en so n ’s ch u rch w ith his head “b ow ed d o w n low in prayer” w h ere o n ce “ h e had stood erect, w ith an air o f conscious rig h teousness,” his d em ean o r convinces B enson th at “th e old friendly feeling existed once m o re b etw een th e m ” (422). As these scenes suggest, the novel rem em bers everyw here w h at it claims its characters can forget; Gaskell’s language continues to invoke th e hierarchical structure it insists has disappeared. T h e novel’s en d finds B enson at the “ ap ex ” o f the com m unity: p reaching ab o u t R u th after h er death, he surveys around h im “ on e and all— th e w ell-filled Bradshaw p ew — all in deep m o u rn in g , M r. Bradshaw conspicuously so . .. the Farquhars— the m any strangers— the still m ore num erous p o o r— one o r tw o w ild -lo o k in g outcasts, w h o stood afar off, b u t w ep t silently and continually” (456-57).16 M oving from cen ter to margins, h igh to low, the m inister’s eye defines the

15 The elimination o f uncertainty— o f differences in feeling— thus requires a certain violence. For Bradshaw to be made part o f the com m unity— part, spiritually, o f Gaskell’s middle class— he must fall; it is not enough that his son turns out to be a forger, but the son must suffer a serious accident to awaken the father’s humanity. Indeed, the novel’s obsessive literalization o f the falling metaphor suggests the violence w ith w hich Gaskell imagines the social or moral fall. B enson’s deformity is “ow ing to a fall he had had” (135); Richard Bradshaw is seriously injured in his coach accident. T he latter case in particular literalizes Bradshaw’s unspoken fear: that self-forgery will lead to a fall. 16 In 1849 Edward Miall described the way old parish churches, and in particular the p ew system, reproduced social inequalities: “The poor man is made to feel that he is a poor

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congregation as an idealized m icrocosm o f th e social w hole, its m em b ers’ ability to share the same feelings unaffected by social difference. Finally, the novel’s m o d el for the circulation o f feeling is n o longer an infectious b lu rrin g o f boundaries b u t an assertion o f h arm o n y in social difference, o f p ersonal relationships disturbed by no feelings arising from social inequities. Sym pathy provides a way o u t o f im m ediate social conflicts and produces a fiction o f b o th individual and com m unal un ity here, n o t because it resolves conflict, b u t rath er because it enables the evacuation o r forgetting o f conflict in th e m anufacture o f sym pathetic subjects and objects. T h e in v en tio n o f M rs. D en b ig h m ig h t b e read as a sign o f G askell’s awareness o f th e difficulty, even impossibility, o f gaining sym pathy for h er heroine: an im plicit ackno w led g m en t th at sym pathy for th e fallen w o m an as fallen w o m an is im possible to achieve. T h e disguise m ig h t be considered a strategic ploy, an attem p t to encourage readers, aware as they are o f R u t h ’s “tr u e ” identity, to po sitio n them selves in o p position to the n arro w m in d ed M r. Bradshaws o f th e w orld. In eith er case, th e B ensons’ lie raises the same suspicion as R u t h ’s death: th e suspicion that, if she is to w in sym pathy, R u th can n o t be “herself.” For in w h at w o u ld such a self consist? In R u th , Gaskell describes an id en tity so enm eshed in th e projections o f o th ers, and in literary conv en tio n (her nam e tells us h er story), that it becom es a k in d o f exposure o f th e p o w er o f th e type— an assertion o f the capacity o f cultural id e n tity to annihilate any sense o f individual id en tity altogether. In this novel, as in o th e r fallen w o m an novels, unconsciousness is th e au th o r’s way o f p ro tectin g h er h ero in e from sexual know ledge. B u t it is also th e m anifestation in character o f th e way sym pathy denies its object agency and in ten tio n , m aking it n o t at all surprising that, o n h er deathbed, R u th “ co u ld n o t rem em b er w h o she was now.”

Early in th e novel, Gaskell foregrounds the naturalness o f R u t h ’s sym pathetic identity: h er responsiveness to nature, h er lack o f self-consciousness,

man, the rich is reminded that he is rich, in the great majority o f our churches and chapels___the arrangements are generally such as to preclude in their [the poor’s] bosoms any momentary feeling o f essential equality. We have no negro pews, for w e have no prejudice against colour— but w e have distinct places for the pennyless, for w e have a morbid horror o f poverty.” Q uoted in Fryckstedt, Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton, 58-59.

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h er in n o cen ce o f th e social w orld. W h e n B ellingham beckons h er to lo o k at h er im age in a p o n d , “ She obeyed, and co uld n o t help seeing h er ow n loveliness; it gave h er a sense o f satisfaction for an instant, as th e sight o f any o th e r beautiful creature w o u ld have done, b u t she never th o u g h t o f associating it w ith h erse lf” (74). R u t h ’s inability to associate h er im age w ith herself, and the tension b etw een w h at she “ could n o t h elp ” and w h at she “never th o u g h t”— b etw een the natural and th e social— appear again in a similar set piece at th e novel’s end. W h e n B ellingham returns, R u th finds herself in ch u rch b ein g observed by him , and “in this extrem e te n sion o f m in d to h o ld in h er bew ildered agony” focuses o n a gargoyle in on e co rn e r o f th e room . T he face was beautiful... but it was n ot the features that were the most striking part. T here was a half-open m outh, n ot in any way distorted out o f its exquisite beauty by the intense expression o f suffering it conveyed. Any distortion o f the face by m ental agony, implies that a struggle w ith circumstance is going on. B ut in this face, if such struggle had been, it was over now. Circumstance had conquered__ And though the parted lips seemed ready to quiver w ith agony, yet the expression o f the w hole face, owing to these strange, stony, and yet spiritual eyes, was high and consoling__ W ho could have im agined such a look? W ho could have witnessed— perhaps felt— such infinite sorrow, and yet dared to lift it up by Faith into a peace so p u re?. .. H um an art was ended— hum an life done— hum an suffering over; but this remained; it stilled R u th ’s beating heart to look on it. (282-83) T h e gargoyle projects R u t h ’s struggle in to th e future, suggesting at th e same tim e the future th e novel has in store for her: th e fulfillm ent o f h er o bjectification in death. A vision o f suffering transm uted— lifted up (“by F aith”)— in to art, it also crystallizes th e aestheticizing process in w h ich the novel is engaged and recapitulates th e structure o f sym pathy o n w h ich it depends. In this scene, R u th reflects u p o n an external im age she n o w here explicitly nam es as a reflection— an im age that, in effect, em bodies h er o w n em otional history. T h e em phasis is o n an im age that collapses narrative: an im age in w h ich n o th in g is left o f th e character’s history b u t o p posing images o f suffering and its transcendence. Focusing o n th at figure, R u th focuses, for th e novel’s readers, th e tensions she h erself em bodies; as

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she does so, she becom es— like th e statue— “still.” M o v in g b eyond R u t h ’s consciousness to seek the “lo o k ” th at transform ed hers in to art, Gaskell’s narrato r locates an und erstan d in g o f th e gargoyle s significance in th e co n sciousnesses o f th e n ovel’s readers, unifying th e m aro u n d th e d o u b led im age o f R u th . H ere, as in East Lynne— as m y n ex t chapter argues— class id en tity is figured as em o tio n al unanim ity, as subjects are “ stilled” by an im age o f th e ir social identifications and th e conflicts to w h ich those identifications lead. In this “ u n co n scio u s” act o f identification, th e sym pathetic observer— like the fallen w om an, and like S herlock H olm es— gains id en tity in th e act o f losing it. M iddle-class id en tity itself, by this account, is Ruth's scene o f sympathy.

Isabel’s Spectacles: Seeing Value in East Lynne “T he w orld goes round and round by rules o f contrary.... We despise w hat we have, and covet that w hich we cannot get.” — Ellen W ood, East Lynne

T o w a r d th e end o f E llen W o o d ’s East Lynne (1863), Barbara Carlyle recounts to h er fam ily’s governess, M adam e V ine, th e story o f Isabel Vane’s elo p em en t— n o t kn o w in g that th e governess actually is Isabel, C arlyle’s first wife, transform ed by th e co m b in ed effects o f a disfiguring railway accident and a disguise. Barbara includes the o n e detail o f w h ich Isabel is unaware: that Francis Levison, the m an for w h o m Isabel left h er husband, is n o w k n o w n to be a m urderer. Isabel responds to that detail, and to th e cum ulative effect o f h earing the entire story, im m ediately and physically: “ In spite o f h er caution, o f h er strife for self-com m and, she tu rn ed o f a deadly w hiteness, and a low sharp cry o f h o rro r and despair burst from h er lips__ ‘I beg y o u r pardon, M rs. Carlyle,’ she shivered: T am apt to picture things to o vividly. It is, as you say, so very horrible.’ ” *

1

Mrs. H enry W ood, East Lynne, ed. Sally M itchell (N ew Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers

University Press, 1984), 417. Subsequent page numbers are included in the text. See Mary Ann Doane, Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis (N ew York: R outledge,

95

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reader: one for w h o m that gen re’s to o -v iv id pictures provide an occasion for the experience and release o f pow erful affect. Indeed, spending considerably m ore tim e detailing Isabels response to representations o f h er experience than it does reco u n tin g that experience itself, the novel suggests the superiority o f representation and sensational narrative over the experience represented to produce affect and sensation. P ositioning Isabel as audience to h er ow n story— asking her, in effect, to sym pathize w ith herself as a fictional character— W ood reproduces b o th the reader’s relation to Isabel and the divided structure o f Isabels ow n experience in the novel’s latter half, w h ich finds h er situated as spectator to the familial life o f M r. and M rs. Carlyle: to the life she m ight have led, that is, had she n o t ru n away w ith Levison. In doing so, the novel renders Isabel’s sym pathy for a fictional character inseparable from h er identity as that character (this is the same literalization o f identification fo u n d “A C hristm as Carol,” in w h ich the shock o f recognition stems from the fact that the character in the story is you), and it implicates its readers in h er identification: sympathy w ith Isabel is aligned w ith reflection on, and h o rro r at, the story she n o w recognizes as h er ow n. In this way, as, later, in Isabel’s active reconstruction o f h er body and id en tity, the novel defines her, has h er define herself, and im plicitly defines its readers as effects o f sym pathetic identification. To sym pathize w ith Isabel, in W o o d ’s novel, is manifestly to sym pathize w ith representation. R e c e n t criticism o f sensation fictio n finds in th e g en re’s reliance o n w h at m ig h t be called bodily sym pathy (as in th e co m m u n icatio n o f n e rvousness from character to reader) an erasure o f representation, an evocatio n o f the real and the natural in som atic responses th at seem to efface the b o u n d ary b etw e en reader and te x t.2 B u t B arbara’s narrative and Isabel’s spectatorship stage this ostensible erasure as a response to representation, affirm ing less th e im m ediacy o f sensation’s effect o n th e b o d y than the role o f cultural representations— such as East Lynne's o w n sensational n arrative— as m ediators o f sensation and its m eanings. Isabel’s response to

1991), 19, on the way the absence o f spectatorial distance characterizes the construction o f female subjectivity— the way in w hich w om en always “picture too vividly.” 2

See D. A. Miller, “Cage aux folles,” in The Novel and the Police (Berkeley: University o f

California Press, 1988), 146-91; Ann Cvetkovich, Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Culture, and Victorian Sensationalism (N ew Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992).

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B arbara’s narrative, like th e agony o f suffering she endures in h er position as spectator, aligns h er em brace o f m iddle-class values w ith th e m ed iatio n o f h er ex perience by representation— or, in th e novel’s term , “ reflection.” R a th e r than g ro u n d in g affect directly in th e body, th at is, East Lynne h ig h lights the cultural co n stru ctio n o f ideological effects— a highlighting for w h ich th e eyeglasses Isabel wears as p art o f h er disguise (w hich b o th fram e th e scenes she witnesses and m ake a spectacle o f Isabel herself) w ill serve as m y m etaphor. D espite th e novel’s reliance o n th e idea o f u n m ed iated bodily response (as in Isabel’s sexual response to Levison), then, I w ish to argue th at ex p erien ce in East Lynne counts m ost heavily and leaves a m ore lasting im pression w h e n filtered th ro u g h Isabel’s spectacular lenses. In particular, fram ing its representations o f dom esticity th ro u g h and as Isabel’s spectacles, th e novel reveals th em to be, precisely, vivid pictures. M eetin g Frances Levison in B oulogne, w h ere Carlyle has sent h er for h er health, Isabel “ shrank from self-exam ination” (175). N o sooner has she left East Lynne w ith Levison, how ever, ab a n d o n in g h usband and h om e, th an she develops a capacity for “ reflection,” sim ultaneously recognizing th e “ tr u e ” natu re o f h e r action: “ T h e very h o u r o f h e r d ep artu re she aw oke to w h at she had done: th e g u il t.. . assum ed at o nce its true, frig h tful co lo u r ” (237). “T h e terrib le position in w h ich she fo u n d herself, had b ro u g h t to Lady Isabel reflection. N o t th e reflection, so called, th at m ay com e to us w h o yet live in and for the w orld, b u t th at w h ich m ust, alm ost o f necessity, atten d on e w hose p art in th e w o rld is over” (249). M u c h o f th e rem ainder o f the novel is taken up w ith this process o f reflection, in w h ich Isabel reim agines— in th eir “ tru e colors”— events she has w itnessed o r ex p erien ced (the best exam ple is th e scene o f Carlyle and B arbara w alking in th e m o o n lig h t, a scene to w h ich th e novel returns repeatedly and w h ich , app earin g to co n firm Isabel’s suspicions o f h e r h u sb an d ’s infidelity, prom pts h e r departure). Indeed, th e entire seco n d p art o f th e novel, w h ich finds Isabel installed as governess to h er o w n children in the Carlyle h om e, in essence constitutes such a reflection, as Isabel, w earin g the tin ted spectacles som e V icto rian actresses used to indicate th e entire n o n e -to o -fla tte rin g disguise, entertains vivid pictures o f w h at w o u ld have b een h er life had she rem ained.3 “ T h e n cam e an o th er phase o f the p ic-

3 O n the glasses, see Sally Mitchell, introduction to East Lynne, xiv.

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t u r e s h e im agines before retu rn in g : “ H o w co u ld she b ear to see M r. Carlyle th e husband o f another?— to live in the same house w ith th em , to w itness his attentions, possibly his caresses?” (333). “T h e old scenes passed th ro u g h h er m ind, like the chan g in g pictures in a phantasm agoria” (493). In this process o f reflection, things Isabel initially observed through an ostensibly distorted lens are said to assume their tru e colors, as in the follow ing account o f the transform ation o f h er consciousness: “As h er eyes opened to h er folly and to the true character o f Francis Levison, so in p ro p o rtio n did they close to the fault by w h ich h er husband had offended her. She saw it in fainter colours; she began to suspect— nay, she k new — that her ow n excited feelings had m agnified it in length, and breadth, and h eig h t__ She rem em bered his [Carlyle’s] noble qualities; doubly noble did they appear to her, no w that h er interest in th em m ust cease... her esteem, h er adm iration, h er affection for him , had retu rn ed to h er fourfold. W e never k n o w the full value o f a th in g until w e lose it” (249). H e r eyes open in g and closing at once— o pening to an inw ard scene as they close to th e external w orld— Isabel w eighs h er losses and readjusts h er vision. R eg isterin g changes in m oral value as shifts in visual values, this passage illustrates b o th the b o u rgeois nature o f perception in the novel (its relentless attem pt to measure, to value, everything) and the embourgeoisement o f Isabel’s consciousness: as the passage slides effortlessly from “ appear” to “know,” swelling Carlyle’s retrospective value, Isabel’s b ody and vision serve (as they do th ro u g h o u t the novel’s latter half) as instrum ents for the recalibration o f social value.4 D efin in g th e acquisition o f k n o w led g e as a read ju stm en t o f vision— giving Isabel colored glasses th ro u g h w h ich to view things in th eir “ tru e ” colors— th e novel b o th suggests that she needs corrective lenses and offers a m e tap h o r for its o w n ideological coloring. For rejecting w h at she n o w perceives as “m agnified,” Isabel sim ultaneously expresses h er discovery o f tru th in equally exaggerated term s: “ she rem em b ered his noble qualities; doubly noble did they appear to h e r . . . h er affection for h im had retu rn ed fourfold.” B u t if, indeed, “ h e r o w n excited feelings had m ag n ified ” C arlyle’s fault in “length, and breadth, and h eig h t” (as if m easuring for a carpet, o r piece o f furniture), w h o is to say th at h er c u rren t feelings are 4

O n the calibrations or rationalizations o f the middle-class household, see Anne

M cC lintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Context (NewYork: Routledge, 1995), 168.

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any less the result o f m agnification, or, as th e passage has it, m ultiplication? M ak in g visible w h at it quickly moves to repress— th e difficulty o f separating value from th e “ c o lo r” w ith w h ic h o n e sees it (or o f separating “k n o w led g e” from “ suspicion,” w ith th e suggestion th a t th e fo rm e r is n o th in g b u t th e fulfillm ent o f th e latter— “ she began to suspect— nay, she k n e w ”)— th e passage calls atten tio n to th e instability o f its ideological calculus: its claim that “ d o u b ly ” and “fo urfold” add up to “full.” G ro u n d in g tru th in th e n ee d for Isabel to re-see an d revalue th e events o f h e r life, W o o d aligns Isabel’s “ d isco v ery ” o f th e tr u th o f b o u rg eo is verities w ith rep rese n ta tio n in several form s. M e n tal “ reflec tio n ” c o n ju res up “ p ictu res” an d “phantasm agorias,” all o f w h ich , aligned w ith th e characteristic visual in ten sity o f sensation fictio n an d m elo d ram a, suggest th e rep resen tatio n al fu n ctio n o f th e novel itself. A n d in East Lynne's seco n d half, th e p ro jec tio n o f dom estic spectacles th ro u g h Isabel’s eyeglasses in effect renders th e m indistinguishable from p ro d u ctio n s o f h e r o w n consciousness and, by im p licatio n , th e consciousness o f readers w h o “ see” th ro u g h h e r eyes. In a process th a t m irro rs th e self-alienation and desire p ro jected o n th e n o v el’s readers, th e n , Isabel’s n e w fo u n d in fe rio rity and th e in te rio ritie s o f h e r readers are rep resen ted as effects o f th e ability to p ro ject th e self in to representations. “ R e flec tin g ,” Isabel com es to k n o w h e r tru e self; seeing “ correctly,” she attests to h e r possession o f p ro p er values.5 Isabel’s in fe rio rity is cu ltu ral rep resen tatio n : ex p e rien c e filtered th ro u g h th e categories o f b o u rg eo is ideology.6 A nd, in d eed , to 5 This despite Margaret O liphants assertion that sympathy for Isabel w ould lead to “moral confusion.” East Lynne disturbed Oliphant because— like Gaskell’s Ruth— it seemed to her to direct feeling to the wrong place; in encouraging readers to sympathize w ith Isabel, O liphant writes, W ood makes “the w o rse. . . the better cause” (“Novels,” Blackwoods' 94 [1863]: 170). But to sympathize w ith Isabel at this point in the novel is to identify with her desire to occupy Barbara’s place: Readers w ho identify w ith Isabel imaginatively invest themselves in a consciousness emptied o f everything but a gaze; the spectacles through w h ich they look are filled w ith the domestic scene that has becom e the novel’s locus o f value. 6 Susan Stewart describes a similar effect as characteristic o f nostalgia: “The inability o f the sign to ‘capture’ its signified, o f narrative to be at one w ith its object, and o f the genres o f mechanical reproduction to approximate the time o f face-to-face com munication leads to a generalized desire for origin, for nature, and for unmediated experience that is at work in nostalgic longing.” On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Baltimore: Johns H opkins University Press, 1984), 23 -2 4 .

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sym pathize w ith Isabel is to sym pathize w ith rep rese n ta tio n in several form s. U n ab le to p articip ate in m iddle-class life by v irtu e o f h er aristo cratic identity, fig u red as h e r oversensitive body, Isabel in th e latter h alf o f th e novel “ assents” (W o o d ’s term ) w ith all th e in ten sity o f h e r spectato rsh ip an d suffering to th e value o f th at life. E licitin g readerly sym pathy for Isabel largely th ro u g h th e m ech an ism o f spectatorship— re q u irin g readers, as a c o n d itio n o f sym pathy for her, to gaze b o th at an d th ro u g h th e eyeglasses th at m ark h e r as spectator and spectacle— W o o d ties readerly sym pathy to a c o n d itio n o f spectatorship. Sym pathy fo r Isabel is id e n tifie d w ith a relentless sp ectato rsh ip th a t m irro rs Isabel’s ow n; it d epends u p o n id en tificatio n w ith th e represen tatio n s fo r w h ic h she com es to yearn, an d w ith h e r y earn in g for th em . In d eed , in several ways Isabel’s sto ry registers h e r social fall as a fall in to rep resen tatio n : as an increasing in v o lv em en t w ith spectacle, reflection, p ro jec tio n , dissim u latio n , and disguise. To id en tify w ith Isabel is to id en tify w ith Isabel’s spectacles: th o se she sees, those she w ears, and th o se in w h ic h she appears; it is also to sym pathize w ith an id e n tity in w h ich , as in th e fictio n called th e m id d le class, im ages o f vario u s class id en tities jo stle against o n e another. As a fallen aristocrat, an d in p articu lar a w o m an in decline, Isab el-in -d isg u ise em erges as a parad ig m atic figure fo r a fractu red m iddle-class identity, an im age th at captures th e tensions b etw e en h ig h an d low, “ n a tu re ” an d artifice, o u t w h ic h this id e n tity is co n stitu ted . R e n d e rin g sym pathy a sp ectato r’s m elo d ram a, East Lynne m akes spectato rsh ip a c o n d itio n o f sym pathy and, in d o in g so, discloses th e role played by sym pathy an d spectatorship, an d sym pathy w ith spectatorship, in th e co n stru c tio n o f m iddle-class identity. W o o d ’s reliance o n a dynam ic o f scenes and spectators has, it has often b ee n n o ted , obvious affinities w ith stage m elodram a.7 B u t th at co n n ectio n does n o t so m u c h explain away h er reliance on spectatorship as suggest the w ay b o th th e p o p u lar novel and stage m elodram a reflect and rep ro d u ce th e increasingly spectatorial nature o f ex perience in th e 1860s. To describe th e scenes Isabel im agines as a phantasm agoria, as W o o d does, is to im agine a spectator in th e m ind: to in clu d e spectatorship in subjectivity’s definition. As E. A n n K aplan notes, East Lynne dem onstrates the way th e 7

As Sally M itchell notes o f stage adaptations o f East Lynne, “The essential scenes were

in W ood’s novel” (Mitchell, introduction to East Lynne, xv).

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p o p u lar novel is “ affected by the culture o f the spectacle,” revealing in tu rn th e way that culture “ transform[s] th e subject’s ways o f perceiving and d es irin g ”8 H ere as in “A C hristm as Carol,” how ever, spectacular form s o f cultural representation do n o t create b u t rath er reinforce cultural values already in place. East Lynne’s visuality amplifies the spectacular fu n ctio n o f m iddleclass V icto rian w o m en , for w h o m visible details indicated status and value; th e novel functions in large part as a fem inine phantasm agoria, a p o rtrait gallery in w h ich w o m en h o n e th eir ability to distinguish g o o d fem inine spectacles from bad ones and evaluate the pictures o th e r w o m en make. For Isabel em bodies th e co n trad icto ry tensions o f a V icto rian m iddle-class fem in in e id en tity th at was, increasingly and p reem in en tly in the m id n in e tee n th century, a m atter o f keeping up appearances: o f displaying the visible evidence o f m iddle-class status.9 Sym pathy w ith representation, for instance, accurately describes B arbara’s activity as she observes and im itates Isabel’s m anipulation o f social codes (despite Isabel’s ostensible fu n ctio n as a negative role m odel, she is, as Jean n e B. Elliot points o ut, very m u ch a 8 E. Ann Kaplan, Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture and Melodrama (London: R outledge, 1992), 62. Richard Altick dates the first London phantasmagoria as occurring in 1801 or 1802. But he also points out that the term “phantasmagoria,” like “panorama,” was “quickly was absorbed into the com m on vocabulary.” The Shows of London (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1978), 219. “B y the 1860’s,” he writes, “they were well on their way to becom ing one o f the most w idely attended o f all forms o f Victorian entertainment” (220). N o specific form o f representation need be at stake here, then; “phantasmagoria” signifies the general way in w hich “dull” subjects are “glamorized” by means o f technological projection (220). But the actual structure o f the phantasmagoria (in w hich the size o f images projected from a magic lantern behind a screen could be increased or decreased to simulate m ovem ent toward or away from the audience) may also be relevant since, as one observer noted in the 1830s, images in a phantasmagoria could seem enlarged and all encompassing (219). In a manner relevant to Isabel’s experience at the Carlyle’s, as well as to East Lynne’s idealization o f middle-class life, audiences at the phantasmagoria were deceived into thinking they could touch the figures projected, so close and so real did those figures seem. The point was to focus the audience’s attention on the lighted figures: as Altick further remarks, “The ghostly figures were painted on glass ‘sliders,’ the extraneous portions o f w h ich were blacked out so as to concentrate the lig h t.. . on the luminous images” (217). 9 O n middle-class feminine display, see Elizabeth Langland, Nobody’s Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 33- 34.

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lady).10 In several crucial scenes at th e novel’s b eg in n in g — especially that o f Isabel’s first appearance in W est L y n n e’s church, w h ich finds Barbara ap p o in ted in p in k parasol, b o n n et, and feather, and Isabel elegantly u n d erstated in w h ite m uslin— Isabel provides Barbara, and th e novel’s readers as well, lessons in th e m an ag em en t o f fem ale spectacularity. If, for Isabel, an adjustm ent o f values can lead to n o th in g bu t, as th e novel puts it, “ on e lo n g scene o f repentance,” for B arbara and p o ten tially fo r W o o d ’s readers as well an openness to the colors o f class value translates in to a n ew identity, a n ew social self. Indeed, by the en d o f th e novel, Barbara— reproached in th e novel’s first h alf for h er love o f fm ery and for th e failure o f control th at results in h e r em o tio n al o u tb u rst to C arlyle— has, by w atch in g Isabel, learn ed balance, and th e ability to m anipulate h er ow n self-representation to achieve it. H e r accession to h e r po sitio n as C arlyle’s w ife and mistress o f East Lynne serves as a m o d el for a fluid, socially m obile subjectivity able to perceive th e hues and shades, codes and controls, th at enable m ovem ent from one class to an o th er.11 S eem ing to value th e id en tificatio n th at leads to social advancem ent, how ever, the novel also w orks to disavow the instability th at identification suggests; w h ile it values in B arbara th e fluidity th at leads to and defines m iddle-class identity, it disavows th at fluidity in its scapegoating o f Isabel, co n d em n in g h er awareness o f th e codes o f self-representation by associatin g th at awareness b o th w ith aristocratic indulgence and w ith disguise. In Isabel’s first public appearance at W est L ynne’s church, for instance, o u tdressing th e local w o m en by n o t dressing up at all, she avoids the “ u n n e c essary profusion o f sp len d o u r” Carlyle perceives th at same day at th e E arl’s din in g table (53-54). B u t subsequent events suggest that w ith in h er app arent m odesty lies an undesirable canniness ab o u t self-presentation. Later, 10 Elliott writes that despite Isabel’s beginning as the Earl’s daughter and ending as a governess, she remains a “lady” in w h o m “every Victorian female reader could encounter an idealized version o f herself.” See “A Lady to the End: The Case o f Isabel Vane,” Victorian Studies 19 (1976): 331. 11 O f the construction o f the “aristocratic bourgeoisie” in Victorian England, Elizabeth Langland writes, “T he middling classes did not ape the econom ic practices o f upper-class life, but, afflicted by status anxiety, set out to master its signifying practices.” Nobody’s Angels, 26. Kaplan writes, “T h e novel shows that the only class capable o f the correct balance betw een desire and its release is the m iddle class” (Motherhood and Representation, 89). But Barbara has to learn “balance” from watching Isabel, and from losing her ow n at a significant m om ent.

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for instance, she deliberately overdresses for a recital by K ane, th e music master, in order to show “ th at I th in k th e p o o r m a n ’s co n c ert w o rth g oing to, and w o rth dressing fo r” (63). It is as if, in W o o d ’s estim ation, Isabel cann o t fill the role o f th e liberal subject because she is unable to detach h erself from h er o w n spectacular class identity: she can n o t, as she w ill soon have to, “lose” h er self. E x h ib itin g sympathy, Isabel also displays h er ability to m anipulate self-display and h er awareness o f its consequences: “ I feared it m ig h t be th o u g h t I had p u t th e m o n to look fine,” she says elsew here o f som e diam onds she has chosen n o t to w ear (12).12 T h u s despite W o o d ’s ev id en t valuing o f Isabel’s feeling fo r K ane, the novel— as if rehearsing a characteristically m iddle-class response to this aristocratic gesture— expresses am bivalence ab o u t h er m o d e o f expressing it. A nd that am bivalence is reinforced w h en , su m m o n ed in all h er finery from the co n cert to h er fath er’s sickbed, she refuses to pay atten tio n to that same dress. H ow ev er aw kw ard it w o u ld be to change costum es for h er fath e r’s death, she is nevertheless fo u n d to be inappropriately dressed for the occasion. T h e episode suggests the difficulty, for th e aristocratic Isabel, o f w earin g the v irtu e she is co n d em n ed to lose; hard as she m ay try, she can never strike th e co rrect balance b etw een in n e r value and external display. F or she can n o t cease b ein g o n display: th o u g h h er im pulse in each instance is a sym pathy o f w h ich W o o d evidently approves, h e r unavoidable visibility suggests (and th e novel continues to dem onstrate) th at th e aristocratic h ero in e can n o t tru ly sym pathize because she can n o t help b u t m ake a spectacle o f herself: she can n o t accurately read, n o r can she b e quietly absorbed into, the scenarios in w h ich she finds herself. (And, indeed, the spectacle o f degradation Isabel em bodies as M adam e V ine reproduces Isabel V ane’s subjection to th e relentless m iddle-class gaze— a gaze literally rep ro d u ced w h en , tow ard the en d o f th e century, the novel was transform ed into th e ater.) O n ly m iddle-class identity, th e novel’s ideology suggests, w ith its valo rizatio n o f inw ardness and in tu itio n o f th e p ro p er balance b etw een feelin g and its m anifestations, is sufficiently m obile, sufficiently flexible, and— as its m etap h o rical fig u ratio n in th e th eater au dience suggests, sufficiently invisible— for th e p ro p er exercise o f sympathy. 12

Elaine Hadley links Isabel’s benevolent desire to display herself to her aristocratic

identity. Melodramatic Tactics: Theatricalized Dissent in the English Marketplace, 1800-1885 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 170.

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T his episode also marks gender differences in sym pathy’s m o d e o f o perations. T h e novel’s critique o f Isabel’s attem pt to assist K ane designates the personal gesture as fem inine and self-indulgent, w ell in ten tio n ed b u t insufficiently considered. T his leaves ro o m for th e dispassionate, “professional” sym pathy displayed in C arlyle’s b eh in d -th e-scen es assistance to Barbara s b ro th er James— and, presumably, in his later political life. W h e n Isabel “m istakes” m eetings b etw een B arbara and Carlyle for love scenes, she is o f course hardly mistaken; in these scenes, C arlyle’s cool, rational business m o d e— ostensibly ju st a convenient cover for discussing h o w to help James— develops as the novel’s alternative to Isabel’s overheated and unpredictable em otion. In this way, as in its later evocation o f mass sym pathy in the theater, East Lynne distinguishes a practical, m asculine sym pathy from an ostentatious and im practical— if also adm irable— fem inine one.

T h e novel valorizes B arbara’s self-presentation over Isabel’s. B u t it does so in a m an n er th at m erely replaces th e latter w ith th e fo rm e r as the novel’s glam orous center. A n d in this replacem ent, an aristocratic “ ethos o f visib ility ” is adapted to and seamlessly m erg ed w ith the visual m odality o f the V icto rian m arketplace, th e V icto rian bourgeois h o m e po sitio n ed , in A ndrew M iller’s succinct characterization o f the effects o f V icto rian co m m o d ity culture, “b eh in d glass.” B arbara’s spectacularized h o m e em bodies w h at T hom as R ichards has called “ capitalist representation,” and w hat, for Jü rg en H aberm as, m arks a h o llow ing o u t o f the private sphere, an “illusion o f bourgeois privacy” in w h ich th e h o m e in effect becom es an adv ertisem ent for a fo rm o f intim acy in th e process o f bein g displaced by p op u lar culture. T h e value o f W est L ynne’s dom esticity, then, is located in Isabel’s new ly altered p erception, and in ideological p ercep tio n in general as it projects value o n to everyday life.13 East Lynne allegorizes a social shift: th e replacem ent o f Isabel and h er father by Carlyle and B arbara signals the replacem ent o f th e aristocracy by

13

Thomas Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England, 13; Jürgen Habermas,

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: M IT Press, 1994), 161; Andrew Miller, Novels Behind Glass: Commodity Culture and Victorian Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Hadley writes that East Lynne “projects its vision o f a traditional social order and adheres to its ethos o f visibility even as the novel celebrates

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th e professional m iddle class, and the n ovels representation o f bourgeois life is inseparable from its project o f en g en d erin g desire for th at life. A n d replacing th e aristocracy w ith th e m iddle class m eans, for W ood, substitu tin g th e o n e fo r th e o th e r as th e o b ject o f th e read ers desirous gaze. T h u s w hile in th e novels first h alf th e m iddle class envies th e aristocracy, in its second the aristocracy is p u t in th e p osition o f envying the m iddle class, the fo rm e rs characteristically h eig h ten ed sensibility and em otional susceptibility given over to th e in c ite m en t o f m iddle-class desire. T h e n o v el’s idealization o f th e m iddle class is thus ren d ered as a fu n ctio n o f Isabel’s gaze: if w e b eg in by gazing at Isabel, w e en d by gazing— th ro u g h and w ith Isabel— at Barbara. A n d as th at gaze shifts from o n e w o m an to a n o th er and on e class to another, th e bourgeoisie seems less to replace th e aristocracy th an to b eco m e it. (O n ce she has b ec o m e an ex p ert at th e b o urgeois econom ics o f feeling and its expression, B arbara exem plifies w h at N an cy A rm stro n g calls— referrin g to an am biguously cod ed co m b in atio n o f character regulation and external display— “m iddle-class aristocracy.”)14 In East Lynne, spectacle, b o th naturalized and psychologized th ro u g h Isabel’s gaze, is identified w ith b o th aristocratic excess and an id ealized m iddle-class dom esticity. E ven w h e n the scenes Isabel w itnesses seem to speak o f n o th in g b u t surface, th e n — o f th e shallowness, for in stance, o f B arbara’s m anagerial m o th erin g — th e intensity w ith w h ich they are visualized figures th e intensity o f Isabel’s lo n g in g and invites readerly lo n g in g as well. Indeed, the no v el’s pictures o f East L y n n e’s dom esticity exist chiefly as m etonym s for Isabel’s desire. A nd that desire, in tu rn , suggests the inescapably representational status o f V icto rian m iddle-class d o m esticity: th e w ay its successful achievem ent is always in question. (And always in process: th e necessity for active h o u seh o ld m ain ten an ce— w h ich goes largely unseen— reflects th e p erp etu al id en tity -m ain ten an ce o f m id dle-class consciousness, as it w orks tow ard a n e v e r-to -b e -a tta in e d ideal. “W e never k n o w th e full value o f a th in g until w e lose it,” says W o o d ’s narrator, the “u n til” im plying th e inevitability o f loss.) As th e novel stru cwhat w e now recognize as the bourgeois virtues o f modesty and prudence.” Melodramatic Tactics, 169. 14

In connection w ith Austen s novels, Armstrong describes the “middle-class aristoc-

racy” as a formation that links middle-class moral and econom ic codes w ith aristocratic “nuances o f em otion and ethical refinements.” Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 160.

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tures its representations, the reader w h o identifies w ith Isabel, like Isabel herself, rem ains hopelessly identified w ith th e “pictures” she longs to in habit. W hereas early in th e novel Isabels perceptions are isolated, defined as excessive and overw rought, after h er fall readers share h er vision, w itnessing B arbara’s life th ro u g h lenses th at locate desire for bourgeois life in an overly sensitive aristocratic b o d y — th e b o d y offered to readers for th eir sym pathy an d id e n tific atio n .15 H ere is Isabel b ein g taken th ro u g h East L ynne for th e first tim e: O n she followed, her heart palpitating: past the rooms that used to be hers, along the corridor, towards the second staircase. T he doors o f her old bed and dressing-rooms stood open, and she glanced in w ith a yearning look. N o, never more, never m ore could they be hers: she had put them from her by her ow n free act and deed. N o t less comfortable did they look now, than in form er days; but they had passed into another’s occupancy. T he fire threw its blaze on the furniture: there were the little ornaments on the large dressing table, as they used to be in her time, and the cut glass o f the crystal essence bottles was glittering in the fire-light. O n the sofa lay a shawl and a book, and on the bed a silk dress, as if throw n there after being taken off. (336) D esire produces a d escription already fram ed, by b o th Isabels spectacles and th e doorw ay th ro u g h w h ich she glances; it produces a p ath o f glitterin g objects fo r th e eye to trace, and ultim ately a place— th e discarded dress— w ith w h ich b o th Isabel and th e novels fem ale readers are invited to identify, and in to w h ich th ey may, imaginatively, insert themselves. As M rs. Carlyle, B arbara becom es visible in th e visual details Isabel glimpses. A n d th ro u g h o u t th e novel’s latter half, the lives o f B arbara and Carlyle— 15

John Kucich argues that East Lynne “is centrally concerned w ith middle-class appre-

hensions about its rising political and econom ic fortunes, and the way those fortunes had fragmented its ow n moral makeup.” The Power of Lies: Transgression in Victorian Fiction (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 161-62. For Kucich, the figure o f the professional resolves tensions betw een middle-class and aristocratic values. In my view, Isabel’s unstable identity, and in particular her governess disguise, perform similar “resolutions,” suggesting middle-class id eology’s simultaneous, contradictory reliance on both stable moral truths and fluid identity boundaries.

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especially th at o f B arbara, w hose desires, am ply d escribed earlier, seem n o w to have b ee n fulfilled— sim ilarly appear as im age and spectacle. Isabel’s vision overlays w h at she sees w ith painful intensity, perhaps, w e are told, distorting it. T h u s “inexpressibly m o re beautiful lo o k ed B arbara th an Lady Isabel had ever seen her— o r else she fancied it” (339). B u t w h ere the “ o r else” m ig h t suggest a p ercep tio n w eakened o r at least called in to questio n by an acknow ledgm ent o f feeling’s effect o n percep tio n , here it also seems to define a m o d e o f seeing that, d ren ch ed in lo n ging, expresses a m o re p ro fo u n d tru th than any objective acco u n t could. C ollapsing Isabel’s consciousness in to its o w n representational strategies, th e novel generalizes h er percep tio n , as if to acknow ledge th at th e expression o f id eological truths requires a certain d istortion. East Lynne gives m iddle-class life b o th specular and spectacular fo rm by fram ing it th ro u g h th e eyes o f an observer w hose life has becom e, W o o d puts it, “as on e lo n g scene o f m o rtal agony” ($16). Like “A C hristm as Carol,” th e novel repeatedly— and relentlessly— positions readers, along w ith Isabel, outside th e h om e, staging w in d o w -scen es th at set a brilliantly lit East Lynne against a dark b ack ground: “ In on e o f th e com fortable sitting-room s o f East Lynne sat M r. Carlyle and his sister on e in clem en t January night. T h e w arm , blazing fire, the handsom e carpet o n w h ich it flickered, the exceedingly com fortable arran g em en t o f the fu rn itu re o f the ro o m altogether, and th e light o f the chandelier w h ich fell o n all, presented a p icture o f h o m e peace, th o u g h it m ay n o t have deserved the nam e o f lu x u ry ” (284). (Scenes show ing B arbara and Carlyle are usually fram ed th ro u g h Isabel’s eyes: “Lights w ere m o v in g in th e w indow s, it lo o k ed gay and cheerful, a contrast to h e r” [335])- T h e novel’s readers, p o sitio n ed along w ith Isabel as targets o f these representations, are invited to perceive them selves as similarly dispossessed, and Isabel’s distance from h er “ o w n ” ex p erien ce is thus inscribed as a division w ith in bourgeois life itself: as th e in su rm o u n tab le b u t inevitable distance b etw een the m iddle-class w ife and th e “scenes” in w h ich she lives. T hese pictures o f idealized dom esticity capture the tension b etw een p erm anence and transience that marks the professional m iddle class’s “in h e ritan ce” o f aristocratic property, its attem p ted appropriation o f aristocratic signifiers. For despite the sale o f the house, despite the changes o f m aster and mistress, everything— from th e fire to the “little o rnam ents o n the dressing table”— seems to Isabel “as they used to be in her time.” O n e m ight th in k that a n ew mistress w ould have chosen n ew ornam ents, o r that the

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“ crystal essence b o ttle s . .. glittering in the fire-light” m ig h t n o w be different ones. B u t here every detail, including and perhaps especially the dress lying o n th e bed, tells readers that w h at is susceptible to change is n o t the h ouse b u t its occupants, particularly its mistress. D escribing w hat, in h er view, constituted the m oral m isguidance o f sym pathy for Isabel, M argaret O lip h an t w ro te that “w h e n she [Isabel] returns to h er h o m e u n d er the guise o f the p o o r governess, there is n o t a reader w h o does n o t feel disposed to tu rn h er virtuous successor to th e door, and to reinstate the suffering h ero ine, to the glorious confusion o f all morality.” 16 For O liphant, sym pathy for Isabel takes the fo rm o f a reader’s w ish for h er reinstatem ent, into the house, the ornam ents, the dress; w h at is rejected is n o t the place and n o t even the husband, b u t the o th er w om an, w h o becom es— as any reader m ight im agine herself—ju st an o th er tem p o rary o ccupant (“ as if th ro w n there after b eing taken o f f ’). Indeed, given the p erm anence accorded to dom estic o b jects here— even to the fire that, it seems, is always b u rn in g — this picture gives female readers a rather tenuous h o ld on th eir bourgeois paradises. Sym pathizing w ith Isabel means sym pathizing w ith the place in w h ich she w ants to insert herself, and w ith h er desire to do so. (W ood stresses everyw h ere the identification betw een the tw o w om en; Barbara is w hat Isabel m ight have been; Isabel “ almost regarded M r. Carlyle as her husband” [497] [as, indeed, he is]. Em phasizing the reversibility o f their positions, the novel makes clear the precedence accorded social identity: b o th Isabel and Barbara lo n g to be, and identify w ith, the nam e “M rs. Carlyle.”)17

B arbara’s and Isabel’s gazes im bricate class desire and fem inine envy; b o th define middle-class fem inine consciousness as a condition o f being inhab16 Oliphant, “Novels,” 170. 17 Indeed, the idea o f arousing envy, and o f the attractiveness o f the picture she w ould make, play no small role in Barbaras desire to be Mrs. Carlyle:“She saw herself, in anticipation, the w ife o f Mr. Carlyle, the envied, thrice envied o f all West Lynne; for, like as he was the dearest on earth to her heart, so was he the greatest match in the neighborhood around. N o t a m other but coveted him for her child; not a daughter but w ould have said ‘Yes, and thank you ’ to an offer from the attractive Mr. Carlyle” (25). Emphasis on the permanence o f the house or name, rather than the individual w h o happens to inhabit it at the m om ent, is the aristocracy’s traditional m ode o f asserting power through continuity. In the middle-class version, the individual is always in the process o f attempting to assert the stability the aristocrat took for granted.

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ited by and d ependent o n the class-inflected images o f others. Seeing Isabel’s and Carlyle’s m arriage from the inside, readers learn o f the effects o f “ tim e and custom ” o n Carlyle, w hose “ dem onstrative affection, show n so greatly for h er in the first twelve m onths o r so o f th eir m arried life, had subsided into calmness__ D o w e n o t all,” W ood w rites, “b ecom e indifferent to o u r toys w h e n w e h o ld th em securely in possession?” (166). B u t such indifference never manifests itself in the m arriage o f Barbara and Carlyle. For w hile readers are invited to participate in the dissatisfactions o f various female characters at various points, for instance— to see th ro u g h B arbara’s “covetous eyes,” or to hear about Isabel’s jealousy o f Barbara and uncertainty about her ow n m arriage— the w om an w h o has achieved the novel’s ideal position seems to have no in terio rity once she achieves it. T his m arriage is an idealized and nostalgic construction w hose value Barbara perceives only because, living b o th literally and figuratively w ith Isabel’s shadow hovering at h er side, she does n o t fully possess it; in the novel’s term s, it can be p erceived as valuable only because (and this is in keeping w ith m any critical assessments o f Barbara’s character) no one really inhabits it. A n d yet W o o d also suggests th at w h a t appears as d isto rtio n o r m agnification in East Lynne s dom esticity is n o t only th e p ro d u ct o f the novel’s representations o r o f Isabel’s gaze: th e staged quality o f th e dom estic life Isabel observes in the Carlyle h o m e is, w e learn, inextricable from that h o m e ’s successful functioning. B arbara offers h er governess and East Lynne's readers the follow ing lesson in child rearing: “Now, w hat I trust I shall never give up to another, will be the training o f my children,” pursued Barbara. “Let the offices, properly belonging to a nurse, be perform ed by the nurse — let her have the trouble o f the children, their noise, their rom ping__ B ut I hope I shall never fail to gather my children round m e daily, at stated periods, for higher purposes: to instil into them Christian and moral duties; to strive to teach them how best to fulfill the obligations o f life. This is a m o th er’s task — a child should never hear aught from its m o th er’s lips but persuasive gentleness; and this fcecomes impossible, if she is very m uch w ith her children.” Lady Isabel silently assented. Mrs. Carlyle’s views were correct. (341) East Lynne is best k n o w n for its affirm ation o f natural m aternal feeling: for Isabel’s lo n g in g fo r h e r children, and (in th e th eatrical versions) th e

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d eathbed m elodram a o f recognition. B u t w h at Isabel approves here is n o t nature, b u t rath er a theatricality fully in g rained in ordinary life, and m ade possible by a division b etw een th e m o th e r’s em otional and th e governess’s physical labor: m o th e rh o o d in this acco u n t is the effect o f an im age m ak in g orchestrated by th e m o th e r herself. T his explanation o f th e m ach in ery w h ereb y m iddle-class dom esticity produces itself as ideology— w h at Jo h n K ucich calls “professional m o th e rh o o d ,” and w h at constitutes th e u n derlying co n d itio n for Joseph L itvak’s d escription o f th e h o m e as a stage set (see below )— m ight, like th e representational excesses o f the passage discussed earlier, be said to u n d erc u t th e novel’s idealizations. W h e th e r o r n o t W o o d h erself agrees w ith B arbara’s words, th at is, Isabel herself u n equivocally endorses a life d efined as represen tatio n an d a m o th e rh o o d th at consists o f k n o w in g h o w to play th e p a rt.18 Indeed, in a fo rm u latio n th at resolves th e confusing tension b etw een w h at appears to be W o o d ’s sim ultaneous approval and disapproval o f B arbara’s m ethods, Isabel m ay be said to assent n o t necessarily to B arbara’s exact m ethods b u t rather to h er d em onstrations o f th e value o f representation: to an ideal o f ideological representation she herself, as aristocrat o r as governess, can only clumsily m anage. In o th e r w ords, the novel registers here a perverse adm iration for th e em ptiness o f its dom estic images, for the exposure o f th e bourgeois h o m e as th eater— and for th e way in w h ich , to a desiring if am bivalent spectator (and these im ages p ro ject n o o th e r kind) th e scenes o f B arbara’s m arriage celebrate th e im possible cancellation o f the distance b etw een self and im age so relentlessly inscribed in Isabel’s experience. Litvak describes th e representational excess o f East Lynne's dom esticity as th e no v el’s tran sfo rm atio n o f dom estic space in to “ o n e big stage set” (138). O f W o o d ’s theatricalization o f the hom e, he w rites: “ If th e narrative can reinforce ‘h o m e c o n tro l’ o nly by casting th e h o m e itself in an en thrallingly theatrical light, th e spectacle thus staged may be com prom ising in m o re ways th an one. To refram e th e h o m e as a desirable site, glittering w ith crystal and silk, is to m ake it all the m ore intelligible as a site o f d esire” (140). W o o d ’s novel sketches the V icto rian h o m e ’s ow n fall in to representation— a fall th at reveals, by v irtu e o f th e h o m e ’s refram ing, th e 18

Kucich argues that W ood endorses neither version o f m otherhood on display here

(Power of Lies, 193).

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weakness o f th e “ controls” im ag in ed therein. Similarly, suggesting that the co rrec t practice o f m o th e rh o o d is indistinguishable fro m th e m o th e rs g o o d im age, and reco n fig u rin g th at im age in h er o w n n ovels spectacular closure, W o o d at o n ce exposes spectacle’s w orkings and exploits its p o w er as a m echanism for th e transm ission o f bourgeois ideology. A n d indeed, a fall in to representation is precisely w h at Isabel’s embourgeoisement— th e discovery o f h er “n atu ral” m aternal feeling— requires. For if Isabel’s spectacles give readers and audiences o f East Lynne so m eth in g to lo o k th ro u g h , they also give readers and audiences so m eth in g to lo o k at: seeing w h at Isabel sees, readers (and o f course spectators) also find th eir atten tio n relentlessly directed tow ard th e figure cut by Isabel herself. O n the o n e hand, East Lynne inscribes m iddle-class values o n a b o d y w hose aristocratic co m p lex io n gives th at in scrip tio n its ideological force; Isabel’s assent to B arbara’s idea o f m o th e rh o o d is reinforced by th e pain inflicted o n h e r oversensitive aristocratic body. B u t o n the other, h e r railway accident, like th e clo th in g and eyewear w ith w h ich she enhances h er disguise, transform s h e r b o d y ’s class m arkers; Isabel’s co m in g to bou rg eo is c o n sciousness— m o re precisely, th e v io len t infliction o f m iddle-class c o n sciousness u p o n h er— is signaled by a confusion o f th e signs o f class id e n tity, an exposure o f th at consciousness’s ow n vexed identifications. T h e novel frequently points tow ard Isabel’s essential self: w ith o u t h e r eyeglasses, w e are told, she is dangerously identifiable (M adam e V ine resembles her, Miss C o rn y rem arks at o n e p o in t, “ especially in th e eyes” [392]). Shielding h er identity, th e spectacles p o in t tow ard its irreducibility. B u t th e gaps th e glasses also dem arcate— b etw e en Isabel and h er surroundings, b etw e en h er vision before and after h er fall, and b etw een the p erso n b eh in d th e m and th e pictu re she presents to those w h o view h er— focus atten tio n o n th e rec o n stru ctio n o f h er b o d y an d h er experience. Indeed, Isabel’s disguise, like h er earlier skill at m anipulating h er appearance (for w h ich h er d efo rm atio n seems an appropriate p u n ish m en t), h ig h lights h er id en tity as a creature o f representations, and opens up th e same cultural space for identifying w ith representation th at th e novel itself does. C a p tu rin g th e tension b etw een claims to nature, o n th e o n e hand, and th e constructedness o f social identity, o n th e other, th at characterized th e V icto rian m iddle class, disguise in East Lynne registers th e same tension as disguise in R u th : it points tow ard natural id en tity at th e same tim e th at it

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signifies a distance from it, a fall in to a bourgeois w o rld o f representation.19 W ith h er n um erous and am biguous class signifiers, and h e r allegiances to ostensibly natural feeling as w ell as to a w o rld o f artifice and disguise, Isabel em bodies th e contradictions o f V icto rian m iddle-class identity. A n d she also illustrates, in exem plary fashion, th e co n stru ctio n o f th e sym pathetic object. For in taking o n th e governess’s disguise, Isabel w illingly becom es a m e tap h o r for a self seen prim arily as spectacle (and the v o luntary natu re o f h er self-abnegation is im p o rtan t). E n te rin g in to h er hu sb an d ’s h o u seh o ld service, she n o t only accepts b u t actively assists in the co n stru ctio n o f h er o w n im age as the d o m in an t ideology w o u ld co n stru ct it. In do in g so, she reveals th e indistinguishability o f th e o bject o f degradation from th e o bject o f sympathy. As Isabel reconstructs h e r body, en hancing th e d efo rm atio n w ro u g h t by h er railway in ju ry — and as she b ecom es th e agent o f h er o w n suffering, w illfully e n terin g in to service in th e Carlyle ho u seh o ld — she em erges as a paradigm atic sym pathetic spectacle, n o t only accepting b u t actively em bracing the p u n ish m en t h er actions w o u ld suggest to h er V icto rian readers. A nd th e o v erd eterm in ed n atu re o f h e r spectacularity registers h e r as an o b ject o f sym pathy par excellence as well, since spectacle itself—in th e co n tex t o f V ictorian sensatio n fictio n and th eater— is a signifier o f degradation, rem in iscen t o f other, “ ch e ap ” en tertain m en ts

in w h ic h

th e visual predom inates.

C o n stru ctin g h erself as a m iddle-class fantasy o f degradation and decline, Isabel is, again in an exem plary m anner, a figure ab o u t w h o m it feels go o d — indeed, v irtu o u s— to feel bad. R e ad erly sym pathy in East Lynne is thus inseparable from th e taking o f som e pleasure in h e r p u n ish m en t. F ashioning Isabel’s character as a series o f im ages th at fo reg ro u n d id e n tity ’s social and cultural configuration, th e novel reveals th e object o f sym pathy to be a p ro jectio n o f th e d o m in an t cu ltu re’s gaze, and sym pathy for Isabel to be inseparable from sym pathy against her. By th e en d o f th e novel, outcast, w earin g victim s’ clothing, deprived o f h er children, and physically as well as em otionally scarred, Isabel in all h er disco m fo rt fits com fortably in to th e category o f sym pathetic object.

19

For a reading that stresses the multiplicity and instability o f Isabels identity, see N ina

Auerbach, Private Theatricals: The Lives of the Victorians (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 22. O n construction o f a myth o f middle-class identity, see especially Samuel Smiles, Self-Help (London, 1859).

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O stensibly sym pathetic because n o o n e sees o r recognizes her, she is so garishly ap p o in ted as v ictim — as if she w ere w earin g a sign— th at she is th e inescapable o b ject o f ev ery o n e’s gaze. C lum sily d ro p p in g h er eyeglasses, a device th at in its m ost banal fo rm calls atten tio n to th e eyes it conceals, Isabel w orks at shattering th e illusion o f h er false identity as assiduously as any stage actress w ishing to leave a distinct m ark o n the role. A n d th e aw kw ardness— w h at m ig h t b e called th e staginess— o f h er disguise functions in th e same w ay h er spectacles do: p o in tin g tow ard th e “ tr u e ” self, it sim ultaneously suggests th e painful self-consciousness o f a self-constructed id e n tity U n d e rn e a th the disguise, say th e glasses, lie tru e id e n tity and tru e w o rth — n o t incidentally, in aristocratic fo rm — if only so m eo n e w ill recognize them . In d eed Isabel’s painful self-consciousness exposes a y earning for reco g n itio n that (certainly according to Jane Eyre) underlies th e governess’s stereotypically self-effacing facade. In its final, spectacular m om ents, East Lynne affirms a bourgeois publicization o f supposedly private values, as if tru e feeling can only be tru e w h e n ratified by th e public gaze. Isabel’s sexual fall leads to, b u t also displaces, a class saga in w h ich the aristocratic Isabel, co n fid en t in h e r ability to control th e term s o f h er selfrepresentation, is refashioned as M adam e V ine, a figure self-alienated b u t also and som ehow sim ultaneously at o n e w ith herself. T h e governess disguise thus effects a k in d o f solution to the claims m ade by East Lynne, and by V icto rian m iddle-class culture, to b o th stable m oral values and fluid id en tity boundaries: Isabel is b o th a victim o f disguise (deform ed by the accident) as w ell as the m an ip u lato r o f h er o w n im age. Signifying th e k in d o f fate th at awaits those w h o violate bourgeois morality, th e disguise m arks h er as having paid, and co n tin u in g to pay, for h er behavior; if Isabel appears to b eco m e aware o f h e r tragic mistake, sim ply by v irtu e o f th e pow er rig h t th in k in g has over evil, she is also m ade to feel and to represent— in h e r bodily injuries, th e loss o f h er child, and th e painful self-consciousness she experiences as governess— h o w inescapably she has left happiness b e hind. Indeed, w ith th e accident (as w ith th e hard labor to w h ich th e novel gleefully sentences Levison) Isabel is m ade to bear th e b u rd en o f m id d leclass ressentiment; h e r aristocratic sensibility has bourgeois verities violently im pressed u p o n it. In Isabel, a figure o f aristocratic ease experiences h er class’s decline in physical and em o tio n al term s as h er o w n personal narrative.

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B u t the novels sacralization o f Isabel as m o th er distracts from and ultim ately overshadows the class dram a h er various identities enact; class co n fusion gives way to phantasm atic unanim ity in the novels insistent claims for m aternal feeling. Emphasis o n th e p rio rity and passion o f that feeling conceals the m ore socially com plex division o f labor the novel also exposes: the way th e role o f m o th er is created here by tw o actors, one acknow ledged and the o th e r not. As B arbara’s lesson in m o th e rh o o d suggests, M adam e V ine is the repressed “ o th e r” o f this m aternal scene— the figure w ho, absorbing ch ild ren ’s (and readers’) anger, makes idealization o f the m o th er possible. T h e unrecognized m other, W o o d ’s plot suggests, is n o t ju st Isabel Vane b u t rath er th e V ictorian governess. B u t if for th e V ictorian m iddle classes m o th erh o o d required m ore th an on e player, sym pathy w ith Isabel’s m aternal feeling sweeps aside that class reality. B eh in d Isabel’s disguise readers are m ean t to perceive tru e m aternal feeling— feeling b elo n g in g to a m o th er significantly n o t allowed to live, as if the intensity o f h er feeling renders h er unsuited to the w orld o f representations that, if she did live, she w ould have to inhabit. A nd the placelessness o f Isabel’s feeling— the novel’s refusal to install th e tru e m o th er in h er tru e ho m e— contributes to its p eculiar pow er. For in th e social co n tex t in w h ich the novel was translated into theater, Isabel’s homelessness corresponds to the displacem ent o f the bourgeois h o m e itself: the removal o f dom estic feeling to the public sphere.

Sym pathy generally entails an atten u atio n o f self in a spectator’s disturbin g identification w ith the m arginal. In th e shift from Vane to V ine, one m arginal self becom es an o th er in a transform ation that, characteristically, elides th e m iddle. Isabel Vane th e aristocrat is favored, elite, b u t in decline; M adam e V ine th e governess w ould, in an o th er novel and by o th e r m eans, be the predictable result o f that decline. Sym pathy here involves th e creation o f a self p o sitio n ed o n th e m argins, yet occupying a place at th e cen ter, o f the consciousnesses o f th e m iddle classes w ho, policing the borders o f th eir cultural centrality, find them selves p reo ccu p ied w ith — and im agin in g th e spaces th ey co n stru ct invaded by— th e very characters they w o u ld exclude. (T h o u g h Isabel w ears h er governess disguise o n th e o u tside, sym pathy w ith h er appeals to th e governess “w ith in ” W o o d ’s female readers: th e ever present m iddle-class anxiety ab o u t degradation and d ecline.) T h e novels I have discussed som etim es literalize the invasion: Isabel,

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like R u th , p enetrates th e sanctified b o u n d aries o f th e bou rg eo is h om e, w h ile in M adam e V ine th e b o d y th e m iddle class w ishes to see as foreign to th at h o m e is rew ritte n as, literally, a foreign body. A n d in a scenario that captures th e way im aginative space legitim ates, and displaces, an increasingly segregated physical space, th eater audiences w atch in g stage adaptations o f East Lynne d u rin g th e latter decades o f th e n in e te e n th ce n tu ry w o u ld — by feeling for a character previously excluded from m iddle-class sym pathies— have expanded th eir em o tio n al horizo n s as they o ccu p ied an increasingly exclusive space: one m o re and m o re hostile to any b u t th e respectable m iddle classes.20 East Lynnes h om e-as-stage-set sets the scene for th e novel’s actual transfo rm atio n in to a w o rk o f th eater at th e precise historical m o m e n t w h e n th e th eater was b ein g reconfigured in th e im age o f th e m iddle-class hom e. T h e novel’s suitability for stage adaptation has already b ee n n oted; apart from scenes an d dialogue m o d eled o n stage m elodram a, its voyeuristic structure duplicates th e relation b etw een th eater audience and stage. A n d presenting h o m e as im age and Isabel as envious lo o k e r-o n , th e novel foreg rounds th e la te -n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry th e a te r’s them atics o f exclusion (uEast Lynnes central em o tio n ,” w rites Sally M itc h e ll,“is th e pain o f exclu sio n ”).21 T h e p e rio d saw th e tran sfo rm atio n o f th e E nglish th e a te r’s class associations: theaters w ere restru ctu red to m ake b o th attendance and enjo y m en t m o re difficult for m em bers o f th e low er / w o rk in g classes, and th e ir su rro u n d in g areas w ere sim ilarly (in R ussell Jack so n ’s term ) “ cleansed.” By th e 1880s, Jackson w rites, th eater “ had established itself as a rational en terta in m e n t for the m iddle and u p p er classes.”22 T h u s the p u tative expansion o f audience sym pathy signaled by a willingness (indeed an eagerness, suggestive o f a cohesiveness fo u n d ed as m u c h o n class resen tm en t as o n sympathy) to sym pathize w ith Isabel Vane was accom pa20 T h e novel was first dramatized in 1863 and “almost constantly acted” in subsequent years (Mitchell, introduction to East Lynne, x iii-iv ). Adeline Sergeant writes o f this supposed extension o f sympathy in m odern life in Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1897), 182-83. 21 Mitchell, introduction to East Lynne, xvi. 22 Jackson describes these changes in Victorian Theatre (London: A. & C. Black, 1989). Aside from “smaller, more comfortably appointed and socially exclusive theatres,” he describes “such ‘cleansing’ as Macready’s banishing o f prostitutes from the precincts o f Drury L ane. . . made it a safer place for the middle class” (11-12).

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n ied by a co n tractio n o f the place in w h ich th at sym pathy was to be felt, as th e new ly in tim ate and com fortable th eater grew to resem ble th e h o m e it (at least in th e case o f East Lynne) depicted. E xclusion from the th eater to o k a subtle fo rm , how ever, affecting n o t so m u c h m em bers o f a p articular class as th eir th eaterg o in g culture; low er- o r w orking-class audiences w ere n o t elim inated b u t rath er w ere conscripted in to an im agined m id dle-class solidarity. As theaters gained in “legitimacy,” so too, it seems, did th e ir audiences participate in and reinforce a u n an im ity o f feeling and b e havior: despite b ein g literally relegated to the m argins, w orking-class audience m em b ers enthusiastically enfo rced the n ew th e a te r’s codes and con v en tio n s.23 T h e diffuse gaze o f th e th e ate r au d ien ce em bodies th e fictional gaze o f th e d o m in an t culture. As public versions o f private space, th en , b o th play and th eater suggest w h at H aberm as calls “ th e floodlit privacy o f th e n ew [bourgeois] sp h e re . . . [an] externalization o f w h at is declared to be th e in n er life” th at reflects co n su m er cu ltu re’s d o m in atio n o f family life and leisure tim e as it disseminates and universalizes im ages o f cultural value.24 T h e th eater b e com es, in effect, an im aginary h om e, red eem in g Isabel’s solitary spectatorship by b in d in g its spectators to g eth er as consum ers and producers o f an em o tio n al surplus. F or despite th e sto ry ’s adjurations tow ard em o tio n al balance, th e extravagant sym pathy East Lynne evokes is a lu x u ry all can afford. East Lynne's m ost im p o rta n t scene o f sympathy, th en , occurs n o t in th e novel o r o n th e stage b u t rath er in readers and audiences, for w h o m Isabel serves less as an object th an as an occasion for (to adapt R a y m o n d W illiam s’s phrase) a m iddle-class stru ctu rin g o f feeling. Sally S h u ttle w o rth argues th at sym pathy for Isabel u ndercuts East Lynnes ideological prescriptions: readerly sym pathy for Isabel’s passion, she

23 “Num erous individuals com e literally together— assemble— in the space the theater furnishes in order to confront one and the same representation. It is as if the lines o f sight that connect them to a com m on object also unite them in a com m on identification.” David Lloyd and Paul Thomas, Culture and the State (London: R outledge, 1998), 56. Jackson points out that working-class audiences were often “more likely than others to insist on the strict observance o f conventional morality and decorous behavior in plays” ( Victorian Theatre, 13). I cannot say here— if it is possible to say at all— to what extent this insistence derives from the influence o f middle-class ideology and to what extent it belongs to working-class culture, if indeed cultures are so easily distinguishable from one another. 24 Habermas, Structural Transformation, 156-57.

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claims, subverts th e n ovels m oral co n d e m n a tio n .25 B u t th e injured, disguised Isabel is an im age o f the b o d y V icto rian sym pathy p ro d u ced for its ow n consum ption. Sym pathy for Isabel requires th e m onstrosity and d efo rm ity it seems to lam ent; rath er th an subverting th e novel’s co n d em n atio n o f Isabel, sym pathy is co term in o u s w ith it. T h e narrative o f Isabel’s pu n ish m en t and decline constitutes th e cultural narrative o f sym pathy for her: it is the narrative th at invites readers to im agine them selves in h er place. In a m an n er th at recalls R e n é G irard’s accounts o f sacrifice, Isabel seems to fall victim to h er ow n sensibility and susceptibility: th e violence inflicted u p o n her, ostensibly caused by n o on e b u t herself, purges h er from th e com m unity, w h ich th e n establishes its in n o cen ce by p ro d u cin g aro u n d h er death a spectacle o f em o tio n al u n an im ity and class cohesion (a p erfo rm an ce o f cohesion b ro u g h t to life, I have suggested, by th e novel’s translation in to theater). Sym pathy constructs an im agined class solidarity in w h ich a phantasm atic bourgeois in terio r makes a h o m e for an equally phantasm atic bourgeois interiority. “ T h e leisure activities o f th e cu ltu reconsum ing public,” w rites H aberm as, “themselves take place w ith in a social climate, and they do n o t require any fu rth e r discussions.”26

A ssenting to h e r appropriate role and its g eneric consequences w ith in the dram a o f bourgeois representation, Isabel does n o t die so m u ch as fade; in k eeping w ith th e novel’s phantasm agoria o f vision and value, she d im in ishes in color and strength as a direct result o f the “incessant irritatio n on the m in d ” (472) to w h ich she has subjected herself, literalizing in h er b o d y th e distance from value th at becom es th e defining feature o f h er ex p erience. W h ile Barbara, after h er initial o u tb u rst o f affection for M r. Carlyle, learn ed to keep h er feelings to herself, Isabel chafes against th at restriction; as h er response to B arbara s narrative shows, she is always o n th e verge o f giving h erself away. A n d h er “ reb ellio n ” against h e r situation, in th e n ovel’s eco n o m ic term s, “ cost[s] h e r h e r life.” (In fact, th e entire second h alf o f the novel is described as a k in d o f death: th e effect o f th e accident

25 Shuttleworth, “D em on ic Mothers: Ideologies o f Bourgeois M otherhood in the M idVictorian Era,” in Rewriting the Victorians, ed. Linda Shires (N ew York: R outledge, 1992), 3

26 Habermas, Structural Transformation, 163.

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is “little less th an death itself” [270]; h e r ex perience since h er retu rn to East L ynne is “ as on e lo n g scene o f m o rtal agony.” As in “A C hristm as Carol,” w h ere th e idea o f Scrooge s death threatens h im w ith irrevocable absence from th e scenes o f culturally sanctioned delight h e witnesses, Isabel’s death is id en tified w ith a spectatorial p o sitio n th at m arks h e r as hopelessly identified w ith , yet forever excluded from , the scenes W o o d identifies n o t ju st w ith health b u t w ith life.

5 Consenting to the Fact: Body; Nation, and Identity in Daniel Deronda

W h en, in G eorge E lio ts Daniel Deronda (1876), the aged Jew M ordecai seeks a m an to fulfill his nationalist and religious ideals, he fashions th e m ental equivalent o f w h at today w o u ld be called a personal ad. A cting o n w h at E lio t describes as “a m ature spiritual n ee d akin to the b o y ’s and g irl’s p ic tu rin g o f th e future beloved,” 1 M ordecai seeks th e im age o f his protégé th ro u g h o u t th e w orld and, specifically, in th e m useum : H e im agined a man w ho w ould have all the elements necessary for sympathy w ith him, but in an em bodim ent unlike his own: he must be a Jew, intellectually cultured, morally ferv id ... but his face and frame must be beautiful and strong, he must have been used to all the refinements o f social life, his voice must flow w ith a full and easy current, his circumstances be free from sordid need: he must glorify the possibilities o f the Jew, not sit and wander as M ordecai did, bearing the stamp o f his people amid the signs o f poverty and w aning breath. Sensitive to physical characteristics, he had, both abroad and in England, looked at pictures as well as men, and in a vacant h our he had sometimes lingered in the N ational Gallery

1

George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1986), 531.

Subsequent references included in text.

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in search of paintings which might feed his hopefulness with grave and noble types of the human form, such as might well belong to men o f his own race. (529) “H e must be a J e w ... but.” T he right m an for the jo b will be the character the novel calls the “refined Jew ”— the Jew whose background, education, and physical features “m ight well belong to m en o f his ow n race,” or— this passage strongly suggests— m ight just as well not. M ordecai’s m useum search recalls E liot’s use o f family portraits to describe D eronda’s appearance: “H e was handsomer than any o f them , and w hen he was thirteen m ight have served as m odel for any painter w ho wanted to image the most memorable o f boys: you could hardly have seen his face thoroughly m eeting yours w ithout believing that hum an creatures had done nobly in times past, and m ight do more nobly in tim e to com e” (205). T hough the absence o f resemblance betw een D eronda’s features and those o f Sir H ugo’s family tells o f his lack o f blood relation to them , it also seems to tell o f an absence o f relation to any ordinary hum an family. But the description, giving readers the opportunity to fill in D eronda’s blank features w ith their ow n designs (imagine for yourself “the most m emorable o f boys”), is in fact m ore specific than it appears: the vacancy established by referring the business o f description to “you,” like the vacancy that characterizes E liot’s descriptions o f Deronda, invites the constitution o f a subjectivity in effect already constituted— a space to be filled w ith images whose specific referents, hanging on the walls o f the National Gallery, are assumed to be the cultured readers intellectual property.2 As m odel and, implicitly, copy, D eronda occupies a niche less in a specific family history than in an aesthetic imaginary, as a descendant o f idealized types and portraits rather than particular individuals.3 B oth passages, in fact, exemplify 2 H u g h W item ey er’s discussion o f th e artw orks to w h ic h th e novel refers is relevant here, as is his q u o tatio n from W. J. H arvey that E liot had “a m ind like th e N atio n al Gallery.” George Eliot and the Visual A rts (N ew Haven:Yale U niversity Press, 1979), 9. 3 F or E lio t’s readers, sym pathy w ith th e individual presum ably lays th e g ro u n d w o rk for sym pathy w ith th e Jews. B y letting readers get to k n o w D eronda as an E nglish g end em an first, and as Jew ish only later, E liot attem pts to secure sym pathy from E nglish readers w h o th en find, belatedly, th at they have id entified w ith a Jew ish character. P refacing th e revelatio n o f Jew ish identity w ith an explo ration o f D e ro n d a’s E nglish self, how ever, prom otes th e association o f Englishness w ith individuality and Jewishness w ith type. E lio t’s strategy

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th e novel’s d u ck -rab b it, n o w -y o u -se e -it-n o w -y o u -d o n ’t approach to D ero n d a’s appearance, evoking stereotypes only to cancel th e m in th eir attem pts to describe th e character w h o se distinctive feature w ill be his ability to do th e same: to evoke a type, b elo n g to a group, w ith o u t b ein g co n strained by th at m em bership. T h e ir convolutions convey th e strain o f try in g to represent w h at is, in V icto rian readers’ m en tal p o rtra it galleries as in V icto rian novelistic representation in general, an im possibility: th e Jew w h o does n o t lo o k like one. As M ordecai w anders th ro u g h the N ational Gallery, he to o becom es a hypothetical object o f speculation: “ Som e observant persons m ay rem em b er his em aciated figure, and dark eyes deep in their sockets, as he stood in front o f a p ictu re__ B u t spectators w o u ld be likely to th in k o f him as an o d d -lo o k in g Jew, w h o probably g ot m o n ey o u t o f pictures” (529). As attem pts to im agine sym pathetic “ others,” D aniel and M ordecai figure in E lio t’s im agination, and for each other, as types and relationships to types. B u t E lio t’s use o f th e m useum as a setting for these descriptions also puts the idea o f type, as a sim plification and aestheticizing o f character, o n disis reminiscent o f one criticism o f a liberal idea about h ow to treat England’s Jewish population, namely, the idea that Jews should efface their identities as Jews to w in acceptance as individuals. See David Feldman, Englishmen andJews: Social Relations and Political Culture, 1840-1914 (N ew HavenrYale University Press, 1994), 27. Though she doesn’t discuss the term “noble,” Inderpal Grewal suggests that connections betw een ideas o f classical form, the whiteness o f w hite marble, and Englishness m ight be conveyed by that term. T he “valorization o f Greek art,” she points out, “participatfed] in creating an ‘ideal’ English subject, unquestioningly masculine but one w h o was receptive to a ‘moral’ art and w h o immediately recognized the ‘purity’ o f classical forms.” Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire and the Cultures of Travel (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), 108. Grewal quotes Sir H enry Ellis on the Elgin marbles— “T he possession o f this collection has established a national school o f sculpture in our country, founded on the noblest models w hich human art has ever produced”— and refers to the “nobleman [Elgin] to w hose exertions the nation is indebted for it [the collection]” (119, quoting Ellis, Elgin and Phigaleian Marbles, 10, 215). For a similar scenario o f looking for an aesthetically pleasing “norm ” in the museum: in a N ew York Times Magazine article on plastic surgery, the author asks one Dr. Joseph M . R o sen “how a surgeon decides on the shape o f a given altered part.” R osen replies, “I once asked that o f a w ell-know n plastic surgeon I work with, and he told m e he w ent to the Louvre and studies art, and that while he was aware o f many different standards and measuring systems, he ultimately decided by what looked right and nice.” Charles Siebert, “The Cuts That Go Deeper,” N ew York Times Magazine, 7 July 1996, 40.

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play— revealing how, in the m useum as in the novel, issues o f race, like those o f class and gender, are transm uted in to th e category o f sensibility o r taste. T h e m u seu m h ere figures, as it did in the late n in e tee n th cen tu ry and still does today, as a place in w h ich artw orks are n o t th e only things o n display: one in w h ich visitors, ex ten d in g th eir license to lo o k and seeking to b e c o m e spectacles them selves, serve as spectators o f and objects for on e another. T h e art gallery in particular, w hose visitors possessed (it was assumed) specific k n ow ledge o f th e w orks they had com e to see, provided a “key sym bolic site for those perform ances o f ‘d istin ctio n ’ th ro u g h w h ich the cognoscenti differentiate them selves from the masses”— and, the passage cited above also suggests, th e non-Jew s differentiate them selves from th e Jew s.4 T h o se spectators “ capable o f recognizing and appreciating those w orks [o f art] as su ch ” w o u ld also “ recognize” th at M o rd ecai’s pu rp o se in the m useum m ust differ from th e ir ow n; th e exam ination to w h ich he is subject is p art and parcel o f th e m u se u m ’s c o n trib u tio n to th e observation (in b o th senses) o f distinctions.5 T h e N atio n al G allery functions here as a version o f th e “im ag in ed co m m u n ity ” o f th e n atio n as Daniel Deronda finally envisions it, a co m m u n ity in w h ich a fantasy o f shared sensibilities produces a h e ig h ten e d consciousness o f social and cultural differences.6 M o rd ecai’s features, “b earin g th e stam p o f his people,” block th e evocatio n o f sym pathy his religious and nationalist plans require. T h ey also, for th e spectators w h o characterize him , signify th e lim ited scope o f his o b servation: narrow ly seeking his object, he em bodies th e refusal— p ro jected o n the Jews— to participate in th e general cultural project o f th e nation. For E liot and h er h ypothetical spectators, the Je w ’s gaze is focused elsew here: o n his n atio n b u t n o t o n theirs. L acking th e w hiteness th at signifies a w id e-ran g in g sym pathy (like th at o f th e novel’s invisible om niscience), M o rd ecai necessarily lacks w h at M ichael Ragussis calls “ the practical p ow er o f th e assimilated Jew.”7 D ero n d a, how ever, possessing the qualities M ordecai lacks (or m o re accurately, lacking th e qualities M ordecai pos4 Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum (N ew York: R outledge, 1995), 11. 5 Ibid., 163. 6 The term “im agined com m unity” com es from Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). 7 M ichael Ragussis, Figures of Conversion: aThe fewish Question” and English National Identity (Durham: D uke University Press, 1995), 288.

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sesses), possesses th at pow er, and invites th e sym pathy M o rd ecai’s project requires. For despite M o rd ec ai’s search fo r features th at suggest “Jew ish b irth ” (531), h e seeks a Jew w h o “ m ig h t o r m ig h t n o t” lo o k like one, and E lio t’s n arrato r describes D ero n d a largely th ro u g h references to historical, heroic types and by negation: he is “ n o t m o re distinctively o rien tal th an m any a type seen am o n g w h at w e call th e Latin races” (553).

“D iscrim in atio n ” is th e te rm E liot uses in the P hilosophers’ C lub chapter (chap. 41) for th e ability to distinguish different degrees o f Jewishness in its m em bers— characters w hose features are so m arked that, the n arrato r relates, “ even” D eronda, little practiced in this k ind o f “ discrim ination,” can p erfo rm it ( 5 8 1 ). Establishing h im as h er in ex p erien ced and im partial o b server o n the scene— “D eronda was well satisfied to get a seat o n the o p posite side, w h ere his general survey o f the p arty easily included M o rd ecai”— E liot supplem ents his know ledge w ith h er ow n: “ In fact, pure English b lood (if leech o r lancet can furnish us w ith the precise product) did n o t declare itself predom inantly in the party at present assembled.” B u t despite skepticism ab o u t the idea o f “p ure English blood,” the passage p ro ceeds to establish a relationship b etw een Jewishness and nationality for each o f the club’s m em bers: “M iller, the broad m a n ... had at least grand-parents w h o called themselves G erm an, and possibly far-away ancestors w h o den ied them selves to be Jews; B uchan, th e saddler, was Scotch; Pash, the w atchm aker, was a small, dark, vivacious, triple-baked Jew ; G ideon, the o p tical in stru m en t maker, was a Jew o f th e red-haired, generous-featured type easily passing for E nglishm en o f unusually cordial m an n ers__ O n ly three w o u ld have b een discernible everyw here as E n g lish m en ” ( 5 8 1 - 8 2 ). This passage establishes Jew ish identity, like all “ discrim inations,” as a m atter o f degree; w h at defines the discerning observer is the ability to perceive the Jewishness nationality conceals.Yet w hile the club m em bers em erge, in discussion as w ell as th ro u g h observation, as different “types” o f Jews, E lio t’s emphasis w ith respect to D ero n d a falls, som ew hat condescendingly, o n his gracious ability to participate as one o f th e company. It is the task o f m an ners to m ake h im an equal, that is, because until he encounters M o rd ecai’s w ishful vision, D ero n d a is th e Jew even th e m ost discerning o f observers can’t discern: “H e lo o k ed around h im w ith the quiet air o f respect habitual

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to h im am ong equals, ordered w hisky and water, and offered the contents o f his cigar case” (582).8 Indeed, despite E liot’s disclaimer, “discrim ination” is the m ode o f seeing o n w hich this novel depends, b o th in its depiction o f Jews said to be recognizable as such and in its characterization o f the Jew w h o is not. For tho u g h M ordecai s purpose in the m useum may n o t seem to its regular visitors likely to m atch their ow n, neither can it be said to differ greatly. Seeking the image o f his “beloved” in a gallery that expresses som ething o f the nature o f b elonging to the nation— as if m isunderstanding the m useum s function, b u t in fact understanding it all too well— M ordecai is also looking to discriminate, to find a cultural type “gathered from his m em ory o f faces seen am ong the Jews o f H olland and B ohem ia, and from the paintings w h ich revived that m em o ry ” (531). (M ordecai m ight be considered mistaken for pursuing n o t w hat the m useum invites its visitors to consider— the abstraction “m an ”— bu t rather an image he hopes will lead h im to an actual man.) T h o u g h he and the narrator establish different markers for D eronda s features— the one seeking some signs o f Jewish identity, the other em phasizing the absence o f such signs— b o th practice a m ode o f observation w hose essential quality is a habit o f noting the presence or absence o f “Jew ish” features. T h e m u seu m -g o ers struck by M ordecai s in co n g ru o u s presence, these passages invite us to im agine, m ust be th e k in d o f discrim inating observers he is; fo r all M o rd ecai know s, D ero n d a h im self m ig h t be am o n g th em . A ppealing to a consciousness o f social types in those same readers w h o w o u ld share an im age o f D e ro n d a ’s “ nobility,” th e novel links th e m u se u m -g o er’s sensibility n o t ju st to M ordecai s b u t to th e reader’s as well. For w h at M ordecai does in envisioning his beloved is w h at E liot does in envisioning M ordecai, w h at D ero n d a does w h e n h e im agines th e family h e dreads discovering is M ira h ’s, an d w h at D ero n d a w ill later counsel G w en d o len to do: “ take h o ld o f y o u r sensibility,” he tells her, “and use it as if it w ere a faculty, like vision” (509). W h ile th e sensibility in question in this passage is fear (D aniel is advising G w en d o len to let h er conscience be h er guide), seeing w ith o n e ’s sen-

8

The ease w ith w hich Deronda discriminates suggests that his ability to make him self

comfortable is perhaps the result o f the m embers’ visible difference from him. As Lionel Trilling suggests in “Manners, Morals, and the N ovel,” manners allow one to discriminate w hile seeming not to. The Liberal Imagination (NewYork: Viking, 1950), 206.

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sibility is in fact an excellent description o f th e novel’s m oral and aesthetic m ode. For w h e n sensibility is a faculty, taste becom es a sense, and in the racial and national co n tex t Daniel Deronda establishes, discrim ination (or “ d iscern m en t”) signifies n o t only th e ability to classify according to race, class, and nationality b u t also a visceral response to any o r all o f th e above. T his is w h at it m eans for D aniel to see w ith his sensibility: “ he saw h im self guided by som e official scout in to a dingy street; he en tered th ro u g h a d im doorway, an d saw a haw k -ey ed w o m an , ro u g h headed, and u n w ashed, cheapening a h u n g ry girl’s last b it o f fm ery; o r in som e qu arter o nly th e m o re h ideous for b ein g sm arter, he fo u n d h im self u n d e r th e b reath o f a y o u n g Je w talkative an d fam iliar. . . and so on.” Suggestively en ding thus, th e narrative once m o re allows its readers to fill in th e blank; as E liot w rites, co n fid en t in h er readers’ co m petence, such im ages are “the language in w h ich w e th in k ” (247). A ligning sensibility w ith vision, id e n tifying th o u g h t as a system o f im ages, E lio t underscores th e ease w ith w h ich , in this novel’s cultural context, m oral ju d g m en ts slide in to aesthetic ones. In such a co n tex t, th at is, it is im possible n o t to th in k in im ages.9 W h ile D aniel generally escapes the exam ination to w h ich the visibly Jew ish are subject, the diffuse features that express his ethical nature— the “m any-sidedness” o f his sympathy— establish him as a recognizable cultural type.10 It is not, in o th er words, that he is an absence, a “nobody,” b u t that his features are such that they m ake n o difference to a sym pathetic reader’s im agination— indeed, the lack o f difference they m ake is w h at defines that im agination as sym pathetic. T h e description o f the object o f M ordecai’s search no less than D aniel’s later decision to dedicate him self to “his ow n hereditary peo p le” renders explicit w h at is im plicit elsewhere in E lio t’s w o rk (and w h at I have argued th ro u g h o u t this book): that sympathy, ostensibly g ro u n d ed for E liot in personal know ledge and identification, is pred o m i9 Tellingly, in a passage lauding the working classes for their good behavior w hen visiting the museum, and the m useum for its civilizing powers, an 1852 guidebook to the British M useum uses the term “sympathy” to mean “taste”: “Verily this is an age o f progress, and the conviction o f this truth. . . that the sympathies o f the rich and the poor are identical.” Q uoted in Grewal, Home and Harem, 124. 10 Possessed o f “a fine person, no eccentricity o f manners, the education o f a gentleman, and a present in com e” (412)— Deronda resembles Conan D o y le’s no-identity capitalist, the man with the twisted lip. Says Ezra C ohen, “I thought you m ight be the young principal o f a first-rate firm ” (442).

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nantly a m atter o f cultural identification, as the sym pathetic self seeks o u t a particular assemblage o f social and cultural markers w ith w h ich to sympathize. As G w endolen says w h en she learns o f D eronda s background, establishing credentials to sym pathy m ore impressive, at that m o m en t, than his ow n “You are ju st the same as if you w ere n o t a Je w ” (873). T h o u g h Jew ishness ostensibly functions in th e novel as a signifier o f difference, th at is, it is th e p o in t o f D ero n d a s Jewishness to make, w ith all th e w eig h t th e narrative can b rin g to bear o n th e subject, n o difference; ju s t as Gaskell’s R u th is th e fallen w o m an w h o is n o t “ really” fallen, D ero n d a is the Jew w h o m ust be “ju st th e sam e” as if he w ere not. For this reason alone, it w o u ld m ake n o sense for E liot to refer readers to any physical m arker o f his Jewishness. In co n sidering this issue I necessarily refer to C y n th ia C h ase’s 1978 essay, “ T h e D ec o m p o sitio n o f th e E lephants: D o u b le -R e a d in g Daniel Deronda ”n D espite C h ase’s insistence o n the bodily natu re o f Jew ish id en tity — “ For D ero n d a n o t to have k n o w n he was Jew ish u n til his m o th e r to ld h im m e a n s . . . ‘th at he never lo o k ed d o w n ’ ” (222)— th e m ost im p o rta n t feature o f Jewishness as an aspect o f D ero n d a s cultural and physical id en tity is its invisibility.12 A figure draw n 11 A cknowledging the insights o f Lennard Davis and Steven Marcus, Chase writes: “For Deronda not to have know n he was Jewish until his mother told him means, in these terms, ‘that he never looked down,’ an idea that exceeds, as m uch as does magical m etam orphosis, the generous limits o f realism.” “T he D ecom position o f the Elephants: D ou b leR eading Daniel Deronda/ ’ PM LA 93 (1978): 222. 12 In this he resembles the “invisible” Jew o f the latter half o f the nineteenth century, as well as the one constructed by nineteenth-century liberal arguments: invisible unless he chooses not to be. O n the invisibility o f Jews in Europe in the latter half o f the nineteenth century, see Sander Gilman, The Jew ’s Body (N ew York: R outledge, 1991), 99. David Feldman explains that in nineteenth-century England Jews were “not recognized” by the state as such; “they were disadvantaged as non-Anglicans and non-Christians.” “The absence o f statutory recognition in Britain meant that structures o f communal authority and cohesion had to be manufactured entirely by Jews themselves.” Englishmen and Jews, 23. See p. 27 for liberalism’s idea o f the Jew, based on its identity as a “universalist, bourgeois creed, concerned w ith the rights o f individuals.” B oth M ichael Ragussis and Christina Crosby note Eliot’s effacement— Christianization and secularization— o f Judaism in Daniel Deronda. See Crosby, The Ends of History (N ew York: Routledge, 1991), 27; Ragussis, Figures of Conversion, 226. It is the increasing invisibility o f the Jew that makes it necessary for late-nineteenthcentury race theorists to rely on the idea that difference is inscribed in blood; science takes on the task o f “seeing” and quantifying what the untrained eye cannot easily discern.

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from E lio t’s p o rtfo lio o f classically featured sym pathizers (such as D o ro th ea B rooke, also likened to a m useu m piece) and from th e V ictorian novel’s tradition o f a liberal subject w hose centrality and universality m an ifest them selves in an ability to identify w ith th e narratives o f others, D ero n d a m ust possess th e ability to invest his self in o th e r selves. Paradoxically, in o rd er to identify h im self w ith and as W estern cu ltu re’s m ost “ m ark ed ” other, he m ust b e u n m ark ed him self. Figured in th e w h ite ness and blankness o f th e exem plary m iddle-class subject, his “representative subjectivity” is, in D avid L loyd’s w ords, a fu n ctio n o f his ability “ to take anyone’s place” ; he is the figure “ o f a p ure exchangeability.” 13 Yet by the en d o f the novel this figure o f pure exchangeability has b e com e a national subject, w illing to devote his life to help in g his “ h ered itary p eo p le” (724) fo u n d a nation. T his developm ent, encom passed in a narrative that elicits D ero n d a s consent to w h at he is said incontrovertibly to possess— a Jew ish identity— situates h im o n b o th sides o f a colonialist im aginary. It participates in a L aw rence-of-A rabia-like m o d e o f cultural cross-dressing that is an expression o f colonial pow er: an exem ption from th e identity bo u n d aries th at constrain others. A t th e same tim e, it idealizes an em otional attach m en t and co m m itm en t at odds w ith such freedom : the narrative o f D ero n d a s “ discovery” produces an id en tity d efined in narrow ly national term s. C ultivating in h er readers the k in d o f national and cultural d iscrim in atio n in w h ich th e n arrato r excels, E lio t constructs a Jew ish hero w h o ostensibly exemplifies yet is h im self clearly exem pt from such discrim ination, w ith an id en tity b o th global and narrow ly national, d iscerning b u t n o t generally discernible. In Daniel Deronda, E liot projects h er exem plary bourgeois subject in to th e co n tex t o f la te-n in e te en th -ce n tu ry nationalism and co n tem p o ran eo u s debates ab o u t th e relationship b etw een th e English and th e Jews. T h e idea o f nationalism allows h er to play o u t in political and historical term s th e

13

David Lloyd, “R ace under Representation,” Oxford Literary Review 13 (1992): 70. In

the course o f describing Eliot s use o f portraits in Daniel Deronda, H ugh W itemeyer suggests that, m odeling Mordecai on Italian portraits, Eliot “almost subliminally” encourages her reader to “grant the Jews whatever tolerance and respect he is accustomed to grant the Italians.” “Eliot s pictorialism,” he writes, “here becom es a sophisticated rhetorical device employed in the service o f a liberal social vision.” George Eliot and the Visual Arts, 98. N o te the phrase “H ebrew dyed Italian” (Daniel Deronda, 748).

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collapse b etw e en sym pathy and id en tity th at occurs elsew here in h er fiction: in th e idea o f national identity, as at th e en d o f m any o f E lio t’s novels, th e lim ited field d eem ed sym pathy’s p ro p er sphere defines th e self’s b oundaries. If, as th e novel seems to suggest, in th e m o d e rn w orld th ere is n o bourgeois subject w ith o u t his o r h er developm ental narrative, it also seems th at th e narrative th at subtends b o urgeois id en tity m ust b e a n ational one: th e em o tio n al and ethical coherence o f the bourgeois self d epends u p o n k n o w in g to w h at n atio n th at self belongs. A n d yet nationality is itself subordinated here to a h ig h -cu ltu ral ideal w ith in w h ich th e Jew can also be th e m o d el English gentlem an, and th e m o d el English g entlem an the Jew. B ecause o f these contradictions— and because sympathy, like n ational identity, has p o w er to th e ex ten t th at it seems to em erge from w ith in — sym pathy in Daniel Deronda is less a fu n ctio n o f self than a ratio nale for self-construction, a narrative from w h ich id en tity em erges apparently u n w illed .14

It was as if he had found an added soul in finding his ancestry— his judgm ent no longer w andering in the mazes o f im partial sympathy, but choosing, w ith the noble partiality w hich is m an’s best strength, the closer fellowship that makes sympathy practical— exchanging that bird’s eye reasonableness w hich soars to avoid preference and loses all sense o f quality, for the generous reasonableness o f drawing

shoulder

to

shoulder

w ith

m en

o f like

inheritance. (814; emphasis mine) E lio t devoted h er artistic career to th e expansion o f h er readers’ c o n sciousnesses th ro u g h sympathy. B u t th e ethical co m p u lsio n to em brace difference in an attem p t to recognize in th e o th e r “ an equivalent cen ter o f self” (in Middlemarch’s fam ous form ulation) gives way, in D aniel D ero n d a s

14

O n the Jew and the gentleman as similar figures o f exchange see Catherine Gallagher,

“George Eliot and Daniel Deronda: T he Prostitute and the Jewish Q uestion,” in Sex, Politics, and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Novel, ed. R u th Bernard Yeazell (Baltimore: Johns H opkins University Press, 1986), 39 -6 2 .

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decision “ to identify myself, as far as possible, w ith m y hereditary p eo p le” (724), to an explicit co m p u n ctio n to seek o u t sameness: D aniel w ill live o u t his life, to paraphrase G w en d o len H arleth, n o t necessarily w ith n o one he does n o t like, b u t w ith no o n e he is n o t like (says G w endolen: “ It cam e over m e th at w h e n I was a child I used to fancy sailing away in to a w o rld w h ere peo p le w ere n o t forced to live w ith any o n e th ey did n o t lik e” [760]). Som e years before W ild e exposes V icto rian sym pathy’s exhausted state in The Picture o f Dorian Gray, E lio t characterizes sym pathy as a cu rrency w hose ran d o m expen d itu re engenders em otional paralysis and in hibits action. G iving us in D ero n d a a character w h o n o t only fails to save G w en d o len H arleth b u t also fails to sym pathize w ith h er as w ell (his final advice to h e r is, essentially, that she learn to sym pathize w ith herself), E liot rejects, o r at least severely qualifies, th e intersubjective ideal h er novels have com e to represent.15 In Daniel Deronda, th e attenuated self th at tends to trouble participants in th e sym pathetic exchange appears as a single character’s sustained p ro b lem o f self-defm ition. D e ro n d a ’s to o diffuse ex tension o f self defines a sym pathy that, E lio t claims, threatens sym pathy’s dem ise: “ H is plenteous, flexible sym pathy had en d ed by falling in to o n e c u rren t w ith th at reflective analysis w h ich tends to neutralize sym pathy” (412). In particular, this k in d o f sym pathy engenders n o t ju st em o tio n al paralysis b u t an in ability to act: D ero n d a’s “ m any-sided sy m p ath y . . . hinder[s] any persistent course o f action.” S ym pathy’s m u ltip licatio n o f selves leads, oddly, to a deficit; the capacity to sym pathize w ith everybody renders D ero n d a a k in d o f nobody. B u t the te rm “sym pathy” serves as a confusing k ind o f catch-all here: in the phrase “that reflective analysis w h ich tends to neutralize sympathy,” one k in d o f sympathy is said to cancel another. D ero n d a’s early sympathy is associated b o th w ith an exem plary personality and w ith a search for self that suggests he has n o t yet fo u n d his identity. In fact, the negative cast o f D ero n d a’s p re-M ordecai em otional life— the free-floating sym pathy E liot calls a “m editative interest in h u m an m isery” that “passes for com radeship” (219)— heightens the n eed for the em o tio n that form s its necessary antidote and for the narrative o f discovery that w ill serve as that em o tio n ’s vehicle. 15

Alexander Welsh notes Eliots questioning o f her “steady faith in sympathetic under-

standing.” George Eliot and Blackmail (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 302.

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R eplacing one brand o f sympathy w ith another, th e novel rejects D ero n d a’s ability to identify universally in favor o f the strong em o tio n that arrives, in a narrative o f n ationhood, to narrow his concerns. T h e sym pathy D eronda possesses early in his life becom es passionate feeling w h en he finds the narrative in w h ich he wishes to insert himself, one that allows h im to define his identity in b o th individual and cultural term s and that he m ay im agine as thrust u p o n h im rather than am bitiously sought after: “ Since I began to read and know, I have always longed for som e ideal task, in w h ich I m ight feel m yself the heart and brain o f a m ultitude— som e social captainship, w h ich w ould com e to m e as a duty, and n o t be striven for as a personal prize” (819). D eronda’s Z ionism is usually regarded as a developm ent and expansion o f his early sympathy. B u t in fact, the identity he “discovers”— a national and religious identity as leader o f his people— is a rew riting o f the attenuated self he is attem pting to escape. For in this novel the substitution o f one form o f sympathy for another can replace one fo rm o f identity w ith another, or, m ore specifically, can replace an effect o f nonidentity w ith an effect o f identity only because, in nationalism s m odel o f the self, the others w ith w h o m one identifies are, precisely, n o t “other.” N ationalism draws its pow er from its ability to transform a certain kind o f attenuated identity into identity’s essence, saying “y ou are w h o you sympathize w ith.” As Julia Kristeva w rites, “in nationalism ,‘I am ’ becom es ‘I am one o f them ,’‘to b e ’ becom es ‘to belong.’ ” 16 T h e m odernist tendency tow ard diffusion, anonymity, and anom ie represented in the novel as an effect o f im perialism, in the characters o f G w endolen and G randcourt, and in the ever present m etaphor o f gam bling is countered by a pull tow ard identity that, as if to w ard o ff the “scattered” effect o f internationalism , casts sympathy in the fo rm o f national identity, in effect collapsing any difference betw een the tw o.17 It is this collapse that Eliot, startlingly, dubs “practical.” (In this sense, D ero n d a’s desire to give a 16 As Franco Moretti notes, Daniel Deronda is the product o f a period in which, “in ideology after ideology the individual figured simply as part o f the w hole.” The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture (London: Verso, 1987), 228. Julia Kristeva writes, “Subjectively, the issue o f ‘national’ identity is that indistinct domain o f psychic and historical experience w h ich transforms identity into belonging.” “Proust: In Search o f Identity,” in The Jew in the Text: Modernity and the Construction of Identity, ed. Linda N och lin and Tamar Garb (London: Thames and Hudson, 1995), 140. 17 Caroline Lesjack argues that the capitalist expansion for w hich the nation state serves as “m otor” is also responsible for the sense o f rootlessness and anomie from w hich Deronda

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“ centre” to his “scattered” people is the equivalent o f locating a center for his ow n scattered identity [875]. A nd n o t only is individual identity based o n national identity, b u t the nation itself is im agined as a kind o f unruly character requiring em otional organization.) In Daniel Deronda, w hat is represented as sympathy w ith the other turns o u t to be sympathy w ith the self. B ecom ing and at the same tim e discovering that he already “is” the o th er w ith w h o m he sympathizes, D eronda provides a m odel o f selective sympathy that, E liot w ished, w ould m ake it possible for her readers to sympathize w ith the Jew s.18

“T h en it is n o t my real name?” said Deronda, w ith a dislike even to this trifling part o f the disguise w hich had been throw n around him. “ O h, as real as another,” said his mother, indifferently. “T he Jews have always been changing their names.” (701) T h e n arro w in g o f D ero n d a’s id en tity in to Jewishness m ay be said b o th to evade and to avoid th e problem atic to p ic o f th e Jew ish b o d y by sim ply leaving it aside. In fact, E liot enlists b o th heredity and narrative in th e co n stru ctio n o f D ero n d a s identity. D espite language suggesting th at for E liot n ational feeling is “ genetically based,” 19 and despite C h ase’s claim th at Daniel Deronda self-deconstructs, E lio t’s novel in fact produces w h at n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry and later nationalism requires: consent. Daniel Deronda

suffers; nationalism, E liot’s prescription for Deronda, is also at the root o f his problems. Eliot’s contradictory use o f the term “sympathy” may thus be said to express nationalism’s contradictory impulses. “Labours o f a M odern Storyteller: George Eliot and the Cultural Project o f ‘N ationhood,’ ” in Victorian Identities, ed. R u th R obbins and Julian Wolfreys (NewYork: St. Martin’s, 1996), 25 -4 2 . 18 It should be pointed out that w hile many m odern critics discuss Eliot s effacement o f Jewish identity in Daniel Deronda, this strategy did not universally succeed in persuading English readers to sympathize w ith the Jews; rather, what many saw as the novel’s narrow concerns and intellectualism tended to alienate readers, some o f w h o m pronounced it a failure. See the reviews collected in John H olmstrom and Laurence Lerner, eds., George Eliot and Her Readers (London: The Bodley Head, 1966), 122-58. 19 Katherine Bailey Linehan, “M ixed Politics: T he Critique o f Imperialism in Daniel Deronda, ” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 34 (1992): 345.

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is less significantly ab o u t D ero n d a s discovery o f his Jewishness th an it is ab o u t w h at E liot calls his “ consent to th e fact” (819). As his m o th e r chides, bitterly b u t justifiably, “You are glad to have b een b o rn a J e w .. .. T h a t is because you have n o t b een b ro u g h t up as a Je w ” (693). Daniel Deronda is the narrative th at makes D ero n d a “glad to have b ee n b o rn a Jew.” C h ase’s arg u m en t for the n ovel’s self-d eco n stru ctio n depends o n th e w ay its logic seems to require D ero n d a to discover th at he is Jew ish, ren d erin g his identity, in H ans M e y ric k ’s w ords, a “present cause o f past effects” and disrupting the fundam ental ten et o f narrative realism, linear causality. F or Chase, M o rd ec ai’s “ coercive” id en tificatio n o f D ero n d a— th e way in w h ich D ero n d a seems to be a p ro d u ct o f M o rd ecai’s v ision— violates b o th M o rd ec ai’s apparent reco g n itio n o f D ero n d a and Paul de M a n ’s d efin itio n o f id en tity as so m eth in g k n o w n rath er th an constitu te d .20 H e r in terp retatio n m ig h t be said to w o rk so w ell precisely because o f its astounding literal-m indedness— o n e m ig h t also say essentialism— ab o u t Jewishness: a Jew m ust be circum cised; a Jew can n o t b eco m e a Jew th ro u g h conversion, and E liot m ust have k n o w n these things; therefore th e n ovel’s ac co u n t o f Jew ishness is contravened by Ju d aism ’s very nature. W rites Chase, “ C o n v ersio n precisely does not apply to Jew ish identity, w h ic h is in h e rited , historical, and finally, here, g en e tic” ; according to Chase, Jew ish id en tity can n o t be th e result o f a speech act.21

20 The phrase “present causes o f past effects” appears in a letter to Deronda (704) and is cited by Chase (“Decom position o f the Elephants,” 215). Chase’s argument is based on what she calls an “identity principle” articulated by Paul de Man, in which knowledge o f identity is received passively rather than imposed (221). As Chase writes, “Such a notion, that identity is the product o f a coercive speech act, deconstructs the identity principle and the constative concept o f language grounded upon it.” And for Chase this “identity principle” applies, somewhat peculiarly, especially to Jews. More recent criticism argues that it is not the novel’s logic but rather Eliot’s idea o f racial m emory that renders Deronda’s discovery o f his Jewishness inevitable. 21 Chase, “D ecom position o f the Elephants,” 222. Chase’s “here” attributes any apparent racism to the novel. It is my sense, however, that what I have called “essentialism” inheres in her argument— a sense influenced, for example, by her use o f de M an’s identity principle as the abstraction by means o f w hich identity is defined. I have been influenced as well by the way her argument echoes Sander Gilman’s description o f n ineteenth- and twentieth-century racial theories, in w hich “the circumcision o f the genitals is the outward sign o f the immutability o f the Jew w ithin ” (Jew’s Body; 204).

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N o t only are these assum ptions technically in co rrect, how ever, b u t in fact speech plays a p ro m in e n t role in b o th E lio t’s and D ero n d a’s im ag in in g o f Jew ish identity. It figures, for instance, in D ero n d a’s ow n consciousness o f it: M irah seems to h im “ a personification o f th at spirit w h ich im pelled m e n after a lo n g in h e ritan c e o f professed C atholicism to leave w ealth and h ig h place and risk th e ir lives in flight, th at they m ig h t jo in th eir ow n p eople and say,‘I am a Je w ’ ” (426). A n d D ero n d a him self m ust declare his Jewishness if anyone is to k n o w ab o u t it, especially given his w ish to m arry M irah. Som ew hat circularly, w h e th e r o n e considers these statem ents to be speech acts depends o n w h e th e r o n e considers Jewishness in h e re n t in, o r ultim ately detachable from , identity, o r considers id en tity fo r-o th ers constitutive o f id e n tity In any event, D e ro n d a ’s consent to his Jewishness, like his m o th e r’s rep u d iatio n o f hers, represents Jew ish identity as characteristically em braced, repudiated, o r at th e very least altered.22 For Chase, tw o “id en tity p rinciples” are in conflict in th e novel; id e n tity, she claims, can n o t be b o th the result o f reco g n itio n and its effect. B u t h e r ow n language suggests that these principles m ay in fact su p p o rt rath er th an cancel each other. “ O n th e o n e hand,” she w rites, “M o rd ec ai’s identification o f D ero n d a is p resented as a recognition, and for this reason his assertion o f a claim o n h im has au th o rity and appeal. O n th e o th e r hand, D ero n d a’s assumption o f the identity o f M o rd ecai’s prefigured frien d is show n to be a co n seq u en ce o f M o rd ecai s act o f claim ing him . H e b e For a response to Chase that challenges her deconstructive m ethod but reads D eronda’s body just as literally, see K. M . N e w t o n Daniel Deronda and Circumcision,” in In Defence of Literary Interpretation: Theory and Practice (London: Macmillan, 1986), 197-211. 22

In response to Joseph Kalonymos’s insistence that he “call [himself] a Jew and profess

the faith o f [his] fathers,” Deronda asserts: “I shall call m yself a Jew .. . . But I will not say that I shall profess to believe exactly as my fathers have believed” (792). See Feldman, Englishmen andJews, 23, on the idea that in Victorian England Jewish com munity “depended solely on voluntary association”— that is, on choice, the affirmation o f identity. As Ragussis notes, the idea that Judaism was “natural,” and that converting a Jew was therefore a logical impossibility, arose from the n ew “science” o f ethnology in the m idnineteenth century. R obert K nox wrote that the Jews were “unaltered and unalterable,” and that Jews could not be converted because “Nature alters not.” See Ragussis, Figures of Conversion, 26; K nox, The Races of Men: A Fragment (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1850), 206. Christina Crosby also discusses D eronda’s assertion o f Jewishness, though her reading differs from m ine and supports Chase’s (Ends of History, chap. 1).

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com es w h at M o rd ecai claims h e is.”23 B u t this “b e c o m in g ” in n o w ay conflicts w ith D e ro n d a ’s acco u n t o f his com ing-to-Jew ishness: as he tells M ordecai and M irah , “ I f this revelation had b ee n m ade to m e before I k n ew you b o th , I th in k m y m in d w o u ld have rebelled against it. Perhaps I should have felt th e n — ‘If I co u ld have chosen, I w o u ld n o t have b ee n a Jew.’ W h a t I feel n o w is— that m y w h o le b eing is a consent to the fact. B u t it has b een th e gradual accord b etw een y o u r m in d and m in e w h ich has b ro u g h t ab o u t th at full co n sen t” (819). Indeed, th e consent o f his “w h o le b ein g ”— b o d y and m in d — is crucial to th e co n stru ctio n o f D ero n d a s identity, and th e narrative th at produces consent, activating readerly sym pathy in th e process, is arguably m ore cru cial th an the “fact” o f Jew ish b irth . D evising a character w h o actively d esires his national identity, E liot produces in h er hero an exem plary subject o f la te -n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry nationalist ideology. A ccu sto m ed early in his life to “a state o f social n eu trality ” encouraged by “ th e h alf-k n o w n facts o f his parentage,” D ero n d a rejects success at C am b rid g e for th e sentim ental ed u catio n travel w ill provide, “ th e sort o f apprenticeship to life w h ich w o u ld n o t shape h im to o definitely, and rob h im o f th at choice that m ig h t com e from a free g ro w th ” (220). A n d in th at shapelessness, m anifest in his ability to “ [think] h im self im aginatively in to th e ex p erien ce o f o th e rs” (570), he resembles n o th in g so m u ch as th e conventional liberal subject o f th e n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry novel. Just as im p o rta n t as— perhaps m ore im p o rtan t than— th e know led g e o f D e ro n d a ’s m atern al o rig in , th at is, is the process by m eans o f w h ic h he arrives at and com es to em brace th at know ledge, and by m eans o f w h ich w h at is cast as shapelessness gradually gives way to w h at he, and E liot, w an t to call shape.24

23 Chase, “D ecom position o f the Elephants,” 221; my emphasis. 24 The novel, and my argument, may seem to leave the body behind by emphasizing consent. But the novel returns to the body— and returns the body to the text— by way o f its emphasis on feeling. In contrast w ith his m other and her “sincere representations” o f feeling, Eliot pointedly has Deronda pale w ith “what seems always more o f a sensation than an em otion— the pain o f repulsed tenderness” (6 9 7 ). And for Deronda nationality is less as an accident o f birth than som ething “throbbing in his veins” (411). If D eronda’s identity, like nationalism, presents itself as “simultaneously open and closed” (Anderson, Imagined Communities,

1 4 6 ),

simultaneously indeterminate and overdetermined, and simul-

taneously bodiless and em bodied, it is because o f the multiple and mutually contradictory tasks E liot’s sympathy requires it to perform.

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In Daniel Deronda and in other w ritings, such as “T h e M o d e rn Hep! Hep! H ep !” Eliot blurs the difference betw een constructions o f nation and race, suggesting that “national life” springs from “nature” and blood; in the novel, she implies as well w h at K atherine Linehan calls a “genetically based ancestral m e m o ry ”25 B u t national identity in Daniel Deronda, as in the late n in eteen th century, was m ade as well as found; constructions o f national identity depended then as they do now on constructing the m ade as found. As E. J. H obsbaw m w rites o f “that characteristic form ation o f the nineteenth century, the nation-state,” “the state n o t only m ade the nation, b u t needed to m ake the nation.” Like Eliot, H obsbaw m conceives o f Jew ish identity as a paradigmatic version o f n in eteenth-century E uropean nationalism; national identity, he w rites, especially in the H apsburg Em pire and the Jewish diaspora, inhered “n o t in a particular piece o f the map to w h ich a body o f inhabitants w ere attached, b u t in the m em bers o f such bodies o f m en and w o m en as considered themselves to belong to a nationality, w herever they happened to live.”26 T h e phrase “ considered themselves” bears directly on E liot’s account o f D eronda s acceptance o f his Jewish identity. Particularly tow ard the end o f the century, w h e n nationalist expansion and im perial conquest m eant n o t only locating national subjects and institutions outside territorial boundaries b u t also frequently inculcating a sense o f national identity in those w h o could n o t be said to have b een b o rn w ith one, the Jewish desire for a nation m ight well be regarded as a m odel for the idea o f desiring the “national” co m p o n en t o f o n e ’s identity. For at stake in latenin e tee n th -ce n tu ry nationalism is the identification b etw een the institutions that define the self and “identity” itself: w h at Terry Eagleton calls “that historically n ew fo rm o f pow er that A n tonio Gramsci has te rm ed ‘hegem o n y ’— that process w hereby the particular subject so introjects a universal law as to consent to its imperatives in the fo rm o f consenting to his ow n deepest being.”27 Indeed, given the m ultideterm ined nature o f latenin eteen th -cen tu ry Judaism (which, like an “u r” nationalism, encompasses and blurs distinctions betw een ideas o f family, race, culture, religion, and nation), it makes sense that Jewish identity in Daniel Deronda be b o th discov-

25 Linehan, “M ixed Politics,” 345. 26 E.J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 (N ew York: Pantheon, 1987), 148-49. 27 Terry Eagleton, “Nationalism, Irony, and Com m itm ent,” in Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature, ed. Seamus D eane (Minneapolis: University o f Minnesota Press, 1990), 32.

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ered and chosen: that a narrative describing the long-aw aited result o f a fam ily history o f repression and denial and, above all, o f the mystical prom pting o f feeling should produce a subject fashioned in an impossibly coincidental blending o f chance and choice. N ationalism s m agic is, as B enedict A nderson w rites, “to tu rn chance into destiny,”28 creating “ consent” for identities also authorized as “fact.” In Deronda, as I have suggested, bourgeois id entity em erges from national identity. Aware o f his ethical duty to others, D ero n d a does n o t actively prosecute that duty until he perceives it to be p art o f his identity: until he know s, o r feels, w h o he is. A n d kno w in g w h o he is means k n o w ing to w h at n ation he belongs. A t that point, w h at prepares th e g ro u n d for and in fact finally constitutes his iden tity is a sym pathy so unw illed as to present itself as the result o f a series o f fortuitous events, events that are n o t actively desired b u t that simply overtake th e self.

In the context o f late-nineteen th-century nationalist expansion and discussions o f Jew ish identity, w hat E liots exemplary sym pathizer m ust possess is the ability to “be at h om e in foreign countries” (220) and to “understand other points o f v iew ” (224), a phrase in w hich “ o th e r” signifies “other nations.” B u t in the context o f the novel, “ o th e r” points as well tow ard W estern culture s perennial other— the Jew — and to the m utually constitutive and phantasm atic roles played by body and m in d in nationalist co n structions. E xploiting the am biguous roles o f b irth and consent, accident and purpose in the construction o f national identity, E liot conceives o f a subject w ho, th o u g h b o rn a Jew, m ust com e to desire Jewish identity through the gradual assumption o f a feeling o f likeness and belonging. A nd, w h en this feeling arrives, this subject discovers— in a circular fantasy o f com plete sympathy in w h ich the physical body gives em pirical w eight to the feeling o f belonging— that he is that other. D eronda s body is sympathy m ade manifest, identified in its essence— so the story has it— w ith the social and cultural other.29 (H ence his body, invoked by critics from Chase o n as the place w here the novels realism founders, has in fact little to do w ith re28 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 12. 29 W hat after all is “consent” but a merging o f the willed and the unwilled? The term implies choice, but according to an essentialist reading Deronda w ould have no choice.

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alism at all: as the exemplary sympathetic body in all the ways I have suggested, it is the novel’s most phantasmatic construction.) But with his exemplary ability to sympathize, Deronda represents as well Eliot’s ideal o f high culture— the very culture to which her own novels belonged, and which they assisted in constructing. Thus the novel’s “others” must remain other, with the capacity to arouse repulsion and disgust; their role in the construction o f the hero’s identity cannot be acknowledged. And thus Eliot’s narrative of sympathy with the Jews takes shape as a narrative in which the obstacle of otherness vanishes. (Deronda’s rationalization o f his ready attraction to Mordecai s ideas despite their source, for instance— “what was there but vulgarity in taking the fact that Mordecai was a poor Jewish workman ... as a reason for determining beforehand that there was not some spiritual force within him that might have a determining effect on a whitehanded gentleman?”— testifies less to an egalitarian spirit than to the appeal o f the romantic idea that “poverty and poor clothes” have, “in some remarkable cases,” accompanied “inspiration” [571].) Deronda embodies an absolute merging o f self and other (a merging suggested repeatedly by Mordecai s insistence that Deronda must “be not only a hand to me, but a soul— believing my belief—hoping my hope— seeing the vision I point to” [557])»but this complete sympathy is possible only when identity has been evacuated o f everything but the self’s projections. A subject can become “other,” the novel’s collapsing o f sympathy and national identity suggests, only when identity equals identity politics: when self and other merge because they are already merged into an imaginary unified identity. The wish-fulfillment structure that for Chase deconstructs the novel’s realism may thus be seen as a consequence o f a logic the novel shares with nationalism, in which desire for a particular identity becomes a crucial component o f an identity said to be already possessed (what else might it mean to “consent” to one’s identity?). In a move that conveys the way the pictoriaiizing imagination assists in sympathy’s mystifications, Deronda is described as the realization o f Mordecai s wish: “the outward satisfaction o f his longing” (550). Deronda’s apparent production as an effect o f Mordecai s desire is thus not most significantly (as Chase reads it) a violation o f realism; it is rather an exposure o f the way sympathy turns happenstance into fate and makes choices seem to be determined by the promptings o f some unalterable essence at the self’s core. (Gwendolen, telling Deronda o f Grandcourt s death by drowning, uses a similar formulation: “I only know that I saw my wish

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outside m e ” [761].) In b o th instances, narrative is com pleted o r fulfilled by a picture that collapses narrative in the seemingly inevitable materialization o f unconscious desires. If, then, in Chase s w ords,“a reader feels” that “it is because D eronda has developed a strong affinity for Judaism that he turns o u t to be o f Jewish parentage,”30 this narrative convolution is less significantly “a deconstruction o f the concept o f cause” than a structural affirmation o f the privileged status the novel accords to feeling, especially “national feeling.” Daniel Deronda lays the groundw ork for a consent n o t at odds w ith physical identity, b ut rather in support o f it.31 In m aking Jew ish identity grow o u t o f feeling and require consent, E liot substantiates the mythos o f national identity on w h ich nation-states w ould increasingly com e to rely: the way in w hich, w ith the w idening reach o f em pire, feeling increasingly becom es the gro u n d o f national identity. W h at, after all, is national identity b u t fellow feeling, a sym pathy w hose o rganizing principle is the cou n try to w h ich (and the fellows to w hom ) one considers oneself to belong? Sim ultaneously “natural” and capable o f “naturalization,” national identity is constituted as a sensibility in w hich, advantageously for the natio n that w ishes to co m m an d allegiance, the genealogical and the em otive o r intellectual are suggestively confused. In Jo h n S tuart M ills language, fellow feeling b o th follows from and leads to all the givens o f nationality— race, descent, language, religion, geography and history, and “w ith o u t fellow -feeling. .. the un ited public opinion, necessary to the w orking o f representative go vernm ent cannot exist.” W ith reassuringly circular reasoning, Daniel Deronda— like nationalism — implies that feeling is also a given: the sym pathy that affirms identity is also its consequence.32

30 Chase, “D ecom position o f the Elephants,” 217; my emphasis. 31 M y concerns echo those o f recent criticism, in w hich the salient question is, W hat is a Jew? See, for instance, Lawrence Lipking s review o f Ragussis and others, “The English Question,” N ew Republic, 26 February 1996, 33. Controversy over whether Jews should take the Christian oath in order to serve in Parliament provides an interesting example o f the requirement for “consent.” As Feldman writes, “It was not until 1866 that the Parliamentary Oaths Act introduced a form o f words for both Houses w hich required a conscientious speaker to believe in G od but made no particular demands beyond this” (Englishmen and Jews, 46). 32 J. S. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (London, 1861), 287; quoted in Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 73.

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R a th e r th an p ro m o tin g sym pathy as a m eans tow ard u n derstan ding difference, th e n — indeed, strikingly rejecting that principle in D ero n d a s rejectio n o f G w en d o len — the novel valorizes sym pathy as an id e n tification w ith and affirm ation o f similarity. In this way Daniel Deronda m ay seem to naturalize o r racialize sym pathy: to suggest that D e ro n d a ’s sym pathy w ith M ordecai, like M o rd ec ai’s reco g n itio n o f D eronda, is linked to the presence in b o th o f Jew ish b lo o d (a version o f the superstition, discussed by Sander G ilm an, that Jews w ill always recognize one anoth e r).33 Indeed, “sensibility” may seem to provide the key to the novel’s idea o f racial difference, if one agrees w ith G ilm an’s reading o f the n arrato r ’s rem ark: “A n d on e m an differs from another, as w e all differ from the B osjem an, in a sensibility to checks, that com e from a variety o f needs, spiritual or o th e r” (370).34 A n d yet by restricting D e ro n d a ’s attraction to th e m o re “ refined” o f Jews, E liot reveals th e w eak p o in t in this argum ent: it is n o t so m u ch p e o ple o f the same b lo o d w h o w ill find one an o th er as peop le o f the same sensibility. In Daniel Deronda, the rew ritin g o f nationality as sensibility en ables th e w ell-k n o w n scenario in w h ich the novel divides Jew s into tw o types, one degraded and one ideal, and insists that its hero can identify w ith , and establish an identity as, the latter b u t n o t th e form er. D ero n d a’s discovery that he belongs to— is one o f —the people w ith w h o m he m ost sympathizes substantiates the im portance o f taste (w hat Sir H ugo, nicely suggesting that th e capacity to change identities is a m atter o f having the p ro p er credentials, calls D e ro n d a’s “passport in life” [217]) in the fo rm atio n o f his identity; indeed, it subverts w h at the novel calls sym pathy— an “ early habit o f th in k in g him self im aginatively into the experience o f o th ers” (570)— by m aking those others in w h o m D ero n d a finally decides to invest his feeling in to projections o f him self (“m y hereditary p eo p le”). H is n ew fo u n d sympathy, as an expression o f his identity, thus acts as a kind o f quality control, “ exchanging that b ird ’s-eye reasonableness w h ich soars to 33 Gilman, Jew ’s Body, 242. After he learns his history from his mother, Daniel has “a quivering imaginative sense o f close relation w ith his grandfather” (747); elsewhere he reflects on his “inherited yearning” for Zionism (819). Linehan notes these examples (“M ixed Politics,” 335-36). 34 Gilman, “Black B odies, W h ite Bodies: Toward an Iconography o f Female S exuality in Late N in eteen th -C en tu ry Art, M edicine, and Literature,” Critical Inquiry 12 (1985): 239.

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avoid preference and loses all sense o f quality, for th e generous reasonableness o f draw ing shoulder to shoulder w ith m e n o f like in h e ritan c e” (814). D e ro n d a’s identity requires a g ro u n d in g in feeling and intellect as well as in physical fact, then, n o t only because, despite its apparent naturalizatio n (the way, as B en edict A nderson puts it, “nation-ness is assimilated to skin-colour, gender, parentage and b irth -era— all those things one cannot h elp ”),35 n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry nationalism increasingly required citizens to “ consent to the fact,” b u t because for E liot sensibility transcends n atio n ality, rew riting b o th nationality and “ race” in the service o f the bourgeois m andate to sym pathize, so th at w h at is by d efinition constitutive o f b o th — a sense o f difference— ceases to exist. D e ro n d a’s discovery o f and sym pathy for M irah also undercuts the arg u m e n t th at racial im pulses underlie his attraction to Jews. H aving retu rn e d from abroad yet still possessing n o clear sense o f vocation o r duty, D eronda is a free-floating vessel o f sympathy, E lio t’s ethical self stripped to its essentials: a n o t-y et-fu lly fo rm e d bourgeois subjectivity aw aiting, barnacle-like, the appearance o f a figure to w h o m he may attach himself. H e drifts in his boat, “fo rgetting everything else in a half-speculative, halfinvoluntary identification o f him self w ith the objects he was looking a t” (229). A n im age appears that appeals to his discrim inating sensibility: in to n in g th e g o n d o lier’s song from R o ssin i’s Otello, he suddenly sees “ a figure w h ich m ight have b een an im personation o f the m isery he was u n consciously giving voice to.” Similarly, th e singing, w e learn later,“ entered h er [M irah s] in n e r w orld w ith o u t h er having taken any notice o f w h en ce it cam e” (227). A n idea o f “ racial” difference gives way to a fantasy o f em otional likeness expressed th ro u g h the vehicle o f cultural identity, o f playing th e same role in a cultural narrative; M irah, w ith h e r C hristian looks and h er desire to be accepted as an artist expresses the same assimilationist im pulse D e ro n d a ’s character does. A n d if cultural artifacts and narratives shape and give voice to w h at D eronda sees, they also shape his desire to con tin u e looking. In a version o f M ordecai in the m useum , the vehicle o f sym pathy here is the cultured eye selectively seeing and seeking its beloved; this scene at once exposes th e arbitrariness o f D e ro n d a ’s at-

35 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 143.

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tach m en t and shows h o w sensibility’s projections transform arbitrariness in to narrative. “ It was only the delicate beauty, the picturesque lines and co lo u r o f the im age that w ere exceptional,” b u t “ there was n o denying that the attractiveness o f the im age m ade it likelier to last” (228). Seeing M irah as b o th im age and narrative, as a “girl-tragedy” w hose outline is “ as clear to h im as an onyx cameo,” D ero n d a begins, “ unconsciously,” to find narrative fo rm for his ow n life as well.

“W hat I have been most trying to do for fifteen years is to have some understanding o f those w ho differ from myself.” (Deronda, 692) D ero n d a’s unconscious selection o f M irah is m atched by his rejection, at th e same u n in ten tio n al level, o f his m other. C ritics te n d to take E liot at h er w o rd w h e n she nam es sym pathy as D ero n d a’s ch ief quality.Yet in in terview after in terview w ith G w endolen and his m oth er, he appears aw kward, stiff, and unable to speak— unable, despite his ow n and E lio t’s protestations to th e contrary, to sym pathize. Scenes o f sym pathy in this novel record n o t D e ro n d a ’s em otio nal receptivity or effective counseling b u t rather D erond a as a h o rrified and helpless spectator to situations and individuals beyond his control, stiffly delivering m oral precepts that bear m ore o n his ow n situation than on anyone else’s.36 D e ro n d a’s encounters w ith G w en d o len and his m o th e r are m arked by a sense o f the distance b etw een th e m and o f D ero n d a’s inability to bridge that distance th ro u g h language. “ I beseech you to tell m e w h at m oved y ou— w h e n you w ere young, I m ean— to take th e course you did,” he pleads. B u t the plea is u n d e rm in ed by the n arrato r’s assertion that D eronda is “try ing by this reference to the past to escape from w h at to h im was the h eart-ren d in g piteousness o f this m ingled suffering and defiance.” H e assures his m other, “ T h o u g h m y ow n experience has b ee n quite different, I en ter into th e painfulness o f y our struggle” (694). D ifferences in experi-

36

O ne exception is R . H. Hutton, writing in the Spectator, 10 June 1876. See Holmstrom

and Lerner, George Eliot and Her Readers, 131.

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ence supposedly m ake no difference to w h at th e novel calls an “ early h ab it” o f sympathy, and to the claim m ade th ro u g h o u t E lio t’s novels for th e fungibility o f suffering. B u t Daniel Deronda jettiso ns this bourgeois ideal— th e possibility that anyone can p u t them selves im aginatively in anyone else s place— relying instead o n increasingly specific kinds o f exp erie n ce to justify th e chan neling o f D e ro n d a ’s sym pathies in n ew and specific directions. “ I have had experience w h ich gives m e a keen interest in the story o f a spiritual destiny em braced willingly, and em braced in y o u th ” (555), he tells M ordecai; o r,“ H e had lately b ee n living so keenly in an experience quite apart from G w e n d o le n ’s lot, that his present cares for h e r w ere like a revisiting o f scenes fam iliar from th e past, and there was n o t yet a com plete revival o f the inw ard response to th e m ” (752). T h e novel suggests that the liberation o f D eronda s m o th e r from a b e lief in the inevitability o f identity has its cost in feeling, m aking h er an actress in every realm o f life and ren d erin g h er unable to provide the m aternal feeling h er son requires. T h e Princess d o esn ’t ju st reject identity categories, that is, she rejects identities and the bonds that go w ith them : hers (as m o th e r and Jew) and D ero n d a’s (as h er son). B u t in fact she expresses the same sym pathetic principle D eronda eventually does: th e b e lie f that a specific group identification is a prerequisite for sympathy. H en c e h er reb u ff to h er so n ’s sym pathetic gestures (a reb u ff that u n d e rscores the p ro m in e n t position this novel holds in the history o f identity politics):“You are n o t a w om an.Y ou m ay try— b u t you can never im agine w h at it is to have a m a n ’s force o f genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery o f b ein g a girl” (694). H ere E liot discloses th e different effects and consequences o f w h at m ight anachronistically be te rm e d identity politics for m e n and w o m e n in late V icto rian England. Identifying as a Jew, D eronda can overcom e the effects o f prejudice and escape th e bitterness o f his m o th e r’s rejection. B u t his m o th e r is co n d e m n e d for h er lack o f m aternal feeling even as E liot seems to sym pathize w ith h er grievances. T h e Princess’s detach m en t from h er son causes the em otional vacancy he seeks to fill and requires h im to locate a source o f deep feeling elsewhere. Jewishness, “ discovered” by D eronda as the secret o f his identity, provides h im w ith the sense o f authenticity and identity he has felt lacking; it arrives w ith the charge o f feeling missing in his family, and the assertion that all Jews are family (586) justifies the substitution.

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M ichael Ragussis sees in D ero n d a a theatrical personality to m atch G w endo len s: “ his entire life has b ee n a kin d o f disguise o r perform ance.”37 G iven the sham e D ero n d a associates w ith the idea o f perform ance, this resem blance m ight be said to accou nt for his inability to sym pathize w ith b o th w om en: th eir theatricality renders th e m threateningly similar to him , and salvation appears as authenticity in the character o f M irah and in the Jewishness that offers D ero n d a a chance at a tru e identity. B u t to assert that D e ro n d a ’s disguise ceases w h en he discovers his tru e identity is to ignore th e perform ative associations o f Jew ish identity, especially th e strong V icto rian association b etw een Jew ishness and theatricality— w h ich is to say that, for D erond a, the Princess m ay represent the possibility that the id en tity he discovers is no m ore au th en tic than the o ne he gives up. Indeed, given h er offhanded rem ark, “ T h e Jews are always changing their nam es,” it m ay be m ore accurate to locate D e ro n d a’s Jew ish identity n o t in the fact o f his b irth b u t in his anxiety about his origins and reconstructio n o f his identity: n o t in his n ew nam e b u t in the changing o f his nam e. N o t only does the novel suggest the em ptiness o f D ero n d a’s sym pathy in relation to G w endolen, it also suggests that he possesses a capacity for representation similar to his m o th e r’s, th o u g h in his case that capacity is (like alm ost everything else abou t him ) u n in ten tio n al.W h ile finding the Princess guilty o f w h at the narrative calls “ sincere acting,” a nature in w h ic h “ all f e e lin g .. .im m ed iately passed in to dram a, and she acted h er o w n em o tio n s” (691), E liot also asserts that D ero n d a’s v o ice,“like his eyes, had th e unin ten tio n al effect o f m aking his ready sym pathy seem m ore p ersonal and special th an it really w as” (765). W h a t passes as sym pathy for G w en d o len is th e result o f a “lo o k ” that, rath er than substantiating his m oralizing, often records simply his instantaneous response to her. D espite this, however, G w en dolen is m ore than ready to m ake h im h er confessor. T h e ir initial e n c o u n te r prefigures the pattern: “ T h e inw ard debate w h ich she raised in D ero n d a gave to his eyes a grow ing expression o f scrutiny, ten d in g farther and farther away from the glow o f m ingled u ndefined sensibilities fo rm in g adm iration___T h e darting sense that he was m easuring h er and looking do w n o n h er as an inferior, th at he was o f different qual-

37 Ragussis, Figures of Conversion, 277.

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ity than the h u m a n dross around her, that he felt him self in a region o u tside and above her, and was exam ining h er as a specim en o f a low er order, roused a tingling resentm ent w h ich stretched the m o m e n t w ith conflict” (38). It is a m easure o f w h at is conventionally called G w en d o len s narcissism, and m ay also be view ed as the dynam ic o f the sym pathetic exchange as E liot im agines it here, that w h e n G w en d o len responds to D e ro n d a ’s lo o k rather than to his w ords, w h at she responds to is h er ow n projection: h er im age reflected in his eyes. It is n o t that D ero n d a’s co u ntenance fails to convey w h at he feels, for it shows his feeling all to o clearly; rather, D ero n d a reflects h e r desire to “be w h at you w ish ” (672), w ith a gaze “ G w endolen chose to call ‘dreadful,’ th o u g h it had really a very m ild sort o f scrutiny” (226). (“ O ften the grand m eanings o f faces as w ell as o f w ritte n w ords may lie chiefly in th e im pressions o f those w h o lo o k o n th e m ” [226]). A nd scenes o f sym pathy b etw een D ero n d a and G w endolen, too, em phasize the “looks” that register his sym pathy as G w en d o len ’s fantasy. T h o u g h a Foucauldian reading m ig h t stress the indistinguishability o f D e ro n d a ’s sym pathy for G w en d o len from his po w er over h er (indeed, D ero n d a’s ability to observe a face described as “unaffected by beholders” [38] is a m easure o f the panoptic pow er the novel grants him ), his pow er is less a fu nction o f his ow n actions than o f G w e n d o le n ’s eagerness to view h im as an externalized conscience.38 G w end olen is no less a projective figure for D ero n d a than he is for her; w h en , in the novel’s o p ening scene, he feels “ co erced” to lo o k at her, the te rm suggests his ow n conventional susceptibility to a fem inine beauty he also fears. H e n c e his instantaneous avowal that co ercio n has taken the place o f pleasure and desire: “W h a t was the secret o f fo rm or expression w h ich gave the dynam ic quality to h er glance? Was th e goo d or evil genius dom in an t in those beams? Probably the evil; else w hy was the effect that o f unrest rath er than o f u n d istu rb ed charm ? W h y was the w ish to lo o k again felt as coercion and n o t as a longing in w h ich the w h o le being consents?” (35). B o th the replacem ent o f aesthetic term s by m oral ones in the fam ous o p ening lines o f th e novel (first “beautiful or n o t beautiful,” th e n “g o o d o r evil” [35]) and the subsequent m ov em ent o f D e ro n d a’s eyes 38

For a Foucauldian reading, see Ann Cvetkovich, Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass

Culture, and Victorian Sensationalism (N ew Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992), chap. 6.

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(“A t o ne m o m en t they follow ed the m ovem ents o f the figure, o f the arms and h a n d s . . . and th e n ex t they re tu rn e d to a face w h ich , at present unaffected by beholders, was directed steadily tow ards th e g am e” [38]) show D ero n d a w o rk in g to m anage his desire for w h at h e im m ediately deem s an unsuitable object; it is th e expression o f that struggle that G w endolen interprets as disapproval. A n d G w endolen helps h im replace desire w ith m oral ju d g m e n t by assigning h im responsibility for h e r sham eful feeling: h er conviction that he “was m easuring h er and lo o king do w n on h er as an in ferio r” com es from n ow here so m u ch as h er ow n sense that gam bling lowers h er position in a m oral hierarchy. G w endolen is often accused o f an overly intense attachm en t to h er theatrical personality, b u t the pow er she bestows o n D ero n d a suggests a desire to escape that theatricality— to replace public dram a w ith the greater intensity o f private drama, the kin d o f in terio r or “ closet” dram a in w h ich she and D ero n d a engage.39 W h a t happens in this closet dram a is an exchange o f subjectivities, b u t n o t in the ideal fo rm the te rm “sym pathy” leads som e readers to expect. “W h a t should be a m o m en t in w h ich identities m erg e”40 is in fact a repeated opportunity for m utual projection, as D eronda and G w endolen continually miss each other, each using the o ther as a screen for his or her ow n concerns and anxieties. Indeed, w h en confronted w ith G w endolen s urgent need, D eronda m ost frequently notices, and Eliot m ost frequently calls attention to, the absence o r insufficiency o f sympathetic feeling in him — the same absence he notes in his interview s w ith his m other. (D eronda is acutely conscious o f the gap betw een the sympathy G w endolen expects and w hat he actually has to offer [765]). T h e n arrato rs separate observations about G w endolen s anguish and D eronda s response to it m aintain the isolation o f each— som ething like separateness w ith o u t com m unication. D eronda s interest in G w endolen, like his concern for M irah, is manifestly a function o f his interest in his ow n situation, especially his anxiety about the indeterm inacy o f his identity. (W hen D eronda asks G w endolen, by way o f

39 O n theatricality in Daniel Deronda, see Joseph Litvak, Caught in the Act: Theatricality in the Nineteenth-Century English Novel (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1992). W hile Daniel’s and G wendolen’s misunderstandings are mutual, Eliot’s tendency to let the reader know the truth behind D aniel’s look suggests that G w endolen’s misinterpretations allow him to maintain his inviolability. 40 Cvetkovich, Mixed Feelings, 147.

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therapeutic cure, “ Is there any single occupation o f m ind that you care about w ith passionate delight or even independent interest” (507), he m ight as well be speaking to himself; his recom m endation, that “the higher life m ust be a region in w hich the affections are clad w ith knowledge,” is exactly the cure he discovers for him self [508].) B ut in taking a parental, feeling role toward her and then finding him self unable, or refusing, to fulfill it, he resembles the m o th er w h o has similarly repudiated m aternal feeling for him . Indeed, it w ould appear that D erondas failures o f sympathy have m ore to do w ith overidentification than w ith an inability to identify: the failure he assigns to language seems to spring instead from his ow n anxieties. D erond a s inability to respond to G w endolen increases w ith his interest in, and know ledge of, his o w n situation; the m ore she needs him , the less available he is. A nd by the tim e o f G ran d co u rt s drow ning it is clear that sym pathy for h er has becom e an ethical obligation he acknow ledges b u t cannot fulfill: “ he w ished, yet rebuked the w ish as cowardly, that she could b u ry h er secrets in h er ow n b o so m ” (754). (Seeing G w en dolen once m ore after m e etin g his m o ther, D ero n d a “ seem ed to him self n o w to be only fulfilling claims, and his m ore passionate sym pathy was in abeyance” [752]). In the crucial scene after the drow ning, he in fact hides his “look,” averting his face, “w ith its expression o f suffering w h ich he was solem nly resolved to undergo.” T h e scene is rem arkable for its g eneration o f false interpretations: “ T h e ir attitude,” E lio t w rites, “m ig h t have told h alf the tru th o f the situation to a b eh o ld er w h o had suddenly entered.” A nd as D ero n d a grasps G w e n d o le n ’s hand, and “ she in terp re ted its pow erful effect o n her in to a prom ise o f inexhaustible patience and constancy” (755), the distance b etw een his feeling and h er understanding is as great as th e ostensible distance betw een their narratives. T h e scenes o f sym pathy b etw e en D ero n d a and G w en d o len and D ero n d a and his m o th e r suggest o th e r reasons as w ell for D e ro n d a s sim ultaneous attraction to and desire to distance him self from b o th, as well as for th e way in w h ich his sym pathy for G w endolen takes the fo rm o f w itnessing h er distress, hin tin g at w h at Leo Bersani has called a “ dysfunctional” attachm ent to scenes o f violence and suffering.41 D eronda cann ot 41

Leo Bersani, “Representation and Its Discontents,” in Allegory and Representation:

Essays from the English Institute, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (Baltimore: Johns H opkins University Press, 1981), 150.

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save G w endolen, that is— he m ust abandon h er— because, like his m other, she exemplifies th e id en tity he w ishes to leave b ehind: th e attraction to scenes o f suffering that characterizes D ero n d a s relation to h e r recalls his vexed relationship to his ow n suspected origins. E liot asserts that D ero n d a s activities “ o n beh alf o f o th ers” spring from a desire to distance him self from his ow n rage: “ In w h at related to him self his resentful im pulses had b een early checked by a m astering affectionateness. Love has a habit o f saying ‘N ev er m in d ’ to angry self, w ho, sitting do w n for the n on ce in the low er place b y -an d -b y gets used to it” (218). In D e ro n d a ’s em o tional pathology, that is, sym pathy is anger transform ed; his sense o f injury takes the fo rm o f “ a hatred o f all in ju ry ” and an “ activity o f im agination o n b eh a lf o f others.” B u t the sym pathy th at em erges from this process lacks passion; it is a “ m editative interest in learning h o w h u m an miseries are w ro u g h t” that, in D e ro n d a ’s C am b rid g e days, “passed for com radeship” (219). A nything m ore, it seems, threatens to u n d o D ero n d a s “never m in d ” w ith an acknow ledgm ent that he m inds. D ero n d a’s response to his m o th e r renders in psychological term s a response at the level o f cultural sensibility: as the actress Alcharisi, his m o th er represents a degraded cultural narrative that, paradoxically, challenges D ero n d a s im age o f him self as universally sym pathetic, an im age he associates w ith a self-educated, self-originated identity: “ Since I began to read and know, I have always longed for som e ideal task, in w h ich I m ight feel m yself the heart and brain o f a m u ltitu d e— som e social captainship, w h ich w o u ld com e to m e as a duty, and n o t be striven for as a personal p rize” (819). (It is w o rth n o tin g that the novel exchanges D ero n d a’s fantasy o f illegitim acy for the “fact” o f Jew ish birth, and that the attem p t to elevate th e latter does n o t cancel o u t the equalizing effects o f th e exchange.) T h e P rincess’s story and profession (based o n the life o f the actress R achel) lo cate h er squarely n o t only in Jew ish culture b u t in lower-class Jew ish culture, b u t the emphasis o f E lio t’s retelling is o n the m o th e r’s rejection o f the son.42 W h e n D ero n d a responds to his m o th e r w ith “im pulsive o p p o sition” (690), psychology justifies a m arking o f cultural boundaries: the rep u d iatio n o f the P rincess’s cultural sensibility is recast as, and validated by,

42

Welsh discusses similarities betw een G w endolen’s and D aniel’s stories in George Eliot

and Blackmail, 298.

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the m o th e rs aban d o n m en t o f h er son. It is as if “vulgar” Jew ish culture rejects D ero n d a rather than th e o th e r way around. G w endolen, w hose theatricality and self-absorption echo the P rincess’s, is similarly scapegoated th ro u g h o u t the novel to p ro tect D e ro n d a’s sympathetic identity.43 Identification w ith either w o m an w o u ld negate b o th his E ng lish-gentlem an self and his sym pathetic one, n o t affirm ing the id entity he w ishes to claim b u t rath er m arking its absence.44 Indeed, G w endolen and the Princess threaten n o t only th e narrative o f identity D ero n d a projects for him self b u t th e idea o f essential identity p er se: the Princess rejects all given identities, especially Jewishness; G w en dolen, m anifesting dissatisfaction w ith h er ow n identity, seeks outw ard assurance and instructions to construct a n ew one. B oth, that is, express a desire and capacity for transform ation; b o th diplay th e m alleability D eronda em b o d ies yet w ishes to reject. T h e self-know ledge th at supposedly crow ns his narrative and solidifies his identity— the know ledge contained in, and p ro duced by, the affirm ation “ I am a Je w ”— thus effectively saves h im from ano ther k in d o f self-know ledge: the k in d that threatens the n o tio n th at he has any essential id entity to discover at all. F or D eronda, sym pathy as a means o f defining identity enables an absolute denial o f origins, a rem aking o f the self in ideal form ; his em bracing o f Jewishness is thus n o t a discovery o f w h at he already is b u t a m eans o f escaping it. It is n o t so m u c h that “D an iel’s sy m p ath y . .. is a fu n ctio n o f his displaced social position,”45 b u t that sym pathy w ith G w endolen and his m other, if he had any, w ould brin g h o m e to h im the truths his chosen identity b o th expresses (in the 43 O n G wendolen, see Litvak, Caught in the Act, 182 and passim. O n the “obvious” Jewish context for the Princess and her narrative, see Carol Ockman, “W h en Is a Star Just a Star? Interpreting Images o f Sarah Bernhardt,” in Jew in the Text, ed. N och lin and Garb, 121-39. For instance, Ockman writes that the theater, “hardly an elevated calling in the nineteenth century, was a logical profession for those consigned by class or race to the lower echelons o f society” (123). 44 In her book on the actress R achel Felix, R achel Brownstein speculates that Rahel Levin Varnhagen, introduced to George Eliot by Lewes, may have suggested to the author some ideas about Rachel: like the actress, R ahel “had espoused assimilation,” and “had also believed that because she represented nothing intrinsically, she was free to stand for anything.” It is this idea o f representing “nothing intrinsically” that I w ould locate at the heart o f D aniel’s anxieties. Brownstein, Tragic Muse: Rachel of the Comédie-Française (N ew York: Knopf, 1993). 45 Cvetkovich, Mixed Feelings, 153.

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social displacem ent, the asserted nonidentity, o f th e Jews) and denies (in E lio t’s attem pt to reverse the im age o f Jew ish degradation; in D ero n d a’s p ro u d acceptance o f his Jew ish identity). Finally, D ero n d a clinches th e identification b etw e en G w endolen and his ow n m o th e r by abandoning her. H aving supposedly transcended his anger, he symbolically repays the w o m en w hose pow erful identities have w o u n d ed h im by finding his id e n tity in a religion and a nation in w h ich w o m en have no such pow er. For D eronda, assuming— better, asserting iden tity m eans affirm ing the exclusionary perspective on w h ich definitions o f identity depend. A nd yet D e ro n d a’s spectatorship is a fo rm o f violence linked textually n o t only to G w e n d o le n ’s ow n “intentionless” violence against G ran d co u rt bu t also to the characteristic intentionlessness o f sym pathy and o f his ow n sym pathetic narrative. As if in b itter acknow ledgm ent o f the paralysis by w h ich his early sym pathy is defined, as well as his sim ilarity to th e w om an w h o desperately requires his help, D ero n d a’s confession o f his inability to save G w endolen is significantly ech o ed by— and significantly amplifies— h er confession o f h er failure to save G randcourt. T h e parallel suggests at least o ne way in w h ic h th e novel’s tw o plots, often regarded as insufficiently related, intertw ine. O n tw o occasions, D e ro n d a ’s guilt ab o u t his inability to help G w end olen takes shape as an im age o f h im standing by w hile she drowns. A fter she tells h im o f h er displacem ent o f and guilt over Lydia Glasher, “ She broke off, and w ith agitated lips looked at D eronda, b u t the expression o n his face pierced h er w ith an entirely n ew feeling. H e was u n d er th e baffling difficulty o f discerning, that w h at he had been u rging on her was th ro w n into th e pallid distance o f m ere th o u g h t before the outburst o f h er habitual em o tio n . It was as if he saw h er drow ning w hile his limbs w ere b o u n d ” (509). In D e ro n d a ’s view, the failure is n o t his b u t hers: G w e n d o le n ’s “ d ro w n in g ” results from h er inability to m ove beyond h er o w n “habitual em o tio n .” A nd in th e scene before G ra n d c o u rt’s death, w h e n she urgently presses u p o n D ero n d a h e r desire to be w h at h e w ould like and he responds to h e r crisis w ith a profession o f his uselessness, D ero n d a assigns responsibility for his inability to help h er to the grander realm o f languages inadequacy: “W ords seem ed to have no m ore rescue in th e m th an if he had b ee n b eholding a vessel in peril o f w reck— th e p o o r ship w ith its m any-lived anguish beaten by the inescapable sto rm ” (672-73).

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T h e literalization o f these m etaphors in G ran d co u rt s death gives m ean ing to th em , n o t least by p u ttin g G w endo len and D ero n d a figuratively in the same position. To stand by and w atch som eone drow n, these parallels suggest, is to see o n e ’s w ish outside oneself: to achieve o n e ’s desires w ith o u t explicitly acting o n them . “W e ca n n o t kill and n o t kill in th e same m o m e n t” (72), w rites E lio t early in th e novel, attem p tin g to distinguish betw een the m ultiple valences o f feeling and th e necessary decisiveness o f action. B u t h e r novel proves h er w ro ng. S tanding by w hile som eone drow ns is an apt im age for th e a c tio n -in -in a ctio n th at defines b o th G w e n d o le n ’s m urderous im pulse and D e ro n d a ’s sym pathy: w atching som eone drow n is an im age o f a necessary ab andonm ent o f responsibility, o f obligatory inaction rather than clearly defined refusal. T h e scene captures the am biguity o f D e ro n d a’s w illed -yet-unw illed identity form ation, and o f the disidentification his identification requires: it externalizes the em otional force o f his rejection o f G w en d o len and his response to his m other. As a spectator o f G w e n d o le n ’s suffering— able to hear h er co n fessions b u t n o t to save h er— D ero n d a, like G w endolen, rem ains susp en d e d b etw een violence and its absence even as G w endolen does in relation to G ra n d co u rt.46 I f D eron da dem onstrates little o f his w ell-advertised ability to project h im self into o th ers’ situations in his encounters w ith G w end olen and his m o ther, w ith M ordecai and M irah he needs no such ability b u t rather seems to experience an unw illed dissolution o f self. C o m m u n ic atio n b etw een D ero n d a and M ordecai transcends language and in ten tio n : “ T h e m ore exquisite quality o f D ero n d a’s nature— that keenly perceptive sympathetic em otiveness w h ich ran along w ith his speculative tendency— was never m ore th o ro ughly tested. H e felt n o th in g that could be called b elief in the validity o f M o rd ecai’s im pressions co n cern in g h im or in the p ro b ability if any greatly effective issue: w h at he felt was a pro fo u n d sensibility to a cry from the depths o f an o th er soul” (553). D ero n d a’s encounters w ith 46

The image o f standing by watching som eone drown also suggests the more general-

ized, cultural guilt im plied by the novels references to the Inquisition. Killing and not killing simultaneously, that is, might be taken as a description o f historical guilt about the English response to the expulsion o f the Jews— a guilt Daniel’s representation exists partly to assuage. “The prelude to D aniel’s acceptance o f his inheritance as a Jew,” Ragussis writes, “comes w ith a return to what I have contended is for Victorian England the critical m om ent o f Jewish history.” Figures of Conversion, 281.

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M irah and M ordecai have n o n e o f the sense o f failed sym pathy that characterizes the scenes w ith G w en d o len and the Princess; rather, they dem onstrate the po w er o f the intuitive, the nonverbal, the unspoken b u t com m only held sentim ent. T his is th e fantasy o f shared sensibilities that constitutes “ national feeling,” a feeling w hose capacity to tu rn shared ideas in to a conviction o f shared genealogy E lio t suggests w h e n she w rites, o f D ero n d a’s increasing sense o f co m m itm en t to M ordecai“ in language that sensualizes, again th ro u g h the use o f visual m etaphor, the idea o f genealogical descent— “the lines o f w h at m ay be called th eir em otional th e o ry to u c h e d ” (605). (In p o in ted contrast to G w e n d o le n ’s expansive, m isguided in terp re tatio n o f D e ro n d a ’s grasp, M ordecai is represented as a m o re accurate reader o f the “ sym pathetic h a n d ” th an its ow ner: “ T h e sym pathetic han d still u p o n h im had fortified th e feeling w h ich was stronger than those w ords o f denial” [558].) T h e narrative o f D e ro n d a ’s discovery thus provides th e justification, in sentim ental, sym pathetic, and rom antic term s, for an identity politics that enables h im to consent to w hat, it happily turn s out, h e already is. It substantiates his identity as self-inventing liberal subject, a figure w hose ability “to discover purpose in apparently ran d o m details offers strongest p ro o f o f the subjects sovereignty.”47 For it transform s w h at he im agines Sir H u g o describing as a c o m m o n “fanaticism,” and a som ew hat less co m m o n “m o n o m an ia” (568), into a series o f “plainly discernible links” : “ I f I had n o t fo u n d M irah, it is probable that I should n o t have b eg u n to be specially interested in the Jews, and certainly I should n o t have gone o n that lo iterin g search after an Ezra C o h e n ” (573). B u t the very “plainness” o f the links betrays this identity-narrative s selfserving quality: at its end, n o th in g that does n o t fit, like the “vulgar” Jews en co u n te re d along th e way, rem ains. T h e sym pathetic im pulse, for D ero n d a, is essentially a narrative one, and his tale o f rational sym pathy collapses the difference b etw e en fin ding an id entity and choosing one. “A nd, if you like, he was romantic* T h a t yo u n g energy and spirit o f adventure w h ich have h elped to create the w o rid-w ide legends o f youthful heroes going to seek the h idden tokens o f th eir b irth and its inheritance 47

Celeste Langan, Romantic Vagrancy: Wordsworth and the Simulation of Freedom (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 232. See also Franco Moretti on the Bildungsroman in Way of the World, chap. 4.

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o f tasks, gave h im a certain quivering interest in the bare possibility that he was en terin g o n a like track— all the m ore because the track was o ne o f th o u g h t as w ell as ac tio n ” (574).

W h a t D ero n d a discovers w h e n he discovers his origins is the ratification o f his feeling by fact, and w h at he does w h en he discovers the fact is to ratify it w ith his feeling: the nature o f his identity, in a m an n er historically characteristic o f Jew ish identity, rem ains intim ately tied to th e issue o f acceptance o r rejection. Like his m o th e r in being a Jew, he chooses to differ from h er by consenting w here she has refused. In fact, in choosing Jew ish identity he replaces Judaism ’s m atrilineal principle w ith a patriarchal and spiritual line o f descent, em bodying his grandfather’s w ish rather than his m o th e r’s. R e p la cin g fam ily w ith nationalist ideology, th e novel replaces w h at it represents as an accident o f b irth and the em otional failure o f fam ily w ith w h at it construes as a m ore d eterm ined, d eterm in in g em otional bond; it gives D ero n d a a phantasm atic, idealized family to com pensate for his early disappointm ents. R e w ritin g accident as destiny, m oreover, it m im ics nationalism ’s ow n constructio ns o f narrative. A ccording to G eorge E liot, you can choose y o u r relatives— or at least you can choose am ong them . T h e Princess highlights th e invented nature o f h e r so n ’s identity w h e n she disrupts his sense th at “D e ro n d a ” is, as he puts it, his “real nam e.” If, as H o bsbaw m suggests, Z ion ism provides an “ e x tre m e” exam ple o f th e co n stru cted o r artificial n ature o f national identity, D ero n d a’s narrative o f discovery does the same.48 W h a t is revealed here is the capaciousness— the universal availability for projection— o f th e te rm “ sym pathy” in this novel. D ero n d a s affectlessness passes for sym pathy until som ething m ore like the real thing com es along; it constitutes a blank the discovery o f his Jewishness— his “real” identity— w ill fill. Sym pathy in Daniel Deronda is the nam e for an attenu ation o f self described b o th as a virtue— the result o f travel and a C am bridge education— and as a malaise for w h ich a dose o f strong feeling provides the cure. It attaches identity to narrative and ties passionate feeling to specific cul48

Ironically, Daniel himself suggests that Mirah change her name from C ohen to pur-

sue her singing career: “We could choose some other name, however— such as singers ordinarily choose— an Italian or Spanish name, w hich would suit your physique ’ (525).

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tural ideals, em b o d ied in an idealized self chosen to co u n ter the degraded im age D ero n d a has always associated fearfully w ith his birth; like a divining rod, strong feeling provides id e n tity ’s clues. A nd until this feeling arrives, bourgeois subjectivity— as in D ero n d a’s attem pts to sym pathize w ith G w end olen — is n o t an identity b u t ju st a job, and an onerous o ne at that. B u t as in any attem p t to resolve co n trad ictio n by division— here, the novel’s split betw een “ g o o d ” Jews and “b ad ”— each h alf retains traces o f th e other; Derondas idealized “ g o o d ” Jews reflect the pressure o f feelings and qualities rigorously excluded. W h ile the split b etw e en “ g o o d ” and “b a d ” Jews has lately provided evidence for charges o f antisem itism in Daniel Deronda, the division is fam iliar en o u g h in discussions o f transgression, in w h ich extrem es o f high and low, or nobility and degradation, offer an im age o f resolu tion for unresolved social conflicts.49 D e ro n d a s response to the novel’s “vulgar” Jews suggests the threat the unassim ilated Jew represents for the assimilated one: as if granted a kin d o f magical, sym pathetic pow er— the lure o f authenticity— the one threatens to give the o th e r away. B u t as th e ideal bourgeois subject, D ero n d a do esn ’t have to sym pathize w ith the Jews because his sym pathy has becom e a function o f his identity: sim ply put, he “is” one. A nd yet o f course he is not. T h e character “D aniel D ero n d a” thus expresses b o th the ideality and the im possibility o f E lio t’s liberal ideal. For if, as I have suggested, the fu n ctio n o f taste (or “ d iscrim in atio n ”) in the novel is to efface the difference Jewishness supposedly makes, the fu nction o f biology or heredity is finally the same. M aking D ero n d a b o rn b u t n o t raised a Jew, ren d erin g his Jewishness in visible, E liot strategically solves the problem o f sym pathy w ith the transgressive o th e r by eradicating otherness from the start. D ero n d a em bodies sym pathy w ith the Jews in the seamless b o u n d ary crossing, the transgressionless transgression, th at the fact o f his b irth represents. F or the m echanism o f b irth effectively renders D ero n d a s Jewishness intentionless: n o t his fault. A t the same tim e, as the English gentlem an w h o bears no visible traces o f Jew ish identity, he exem plifies E lio t’s h ig h -cu ltu re ideal. For E lio t’s ideal bourgeois subject is, significantly, n o t the Jew w h o is generally

49

O n transgression, see Peter Stallybrass and Allon W hite, The Politics and Poetics of

Transgression (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969). For the charge o f antisemitism, see Susan Meyer, “Safely to Their O w n Borders: Proto-Zionism , Feminism, and Nationalism in Daniel Deronda,” E L H 60 (1993): 733-58.

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discernible as one, w h o has n o choice; h e is instead the gentlem an w h o chooses to identify as a Jew (“ I w ill call m yself a Je w ” [792]), the o ne for w h o m otherness is happily assimilated th ro u g h the desire and freedom the “passports” o f culture and education m ake available. (W hen, early in the novel, E liot invites h e r readers to envision as “ th e m ost m em orable o f boys” th e figure w h o m , they w ill later discover, is o f Jew ish descent, she encourages th e m to envision in h er novels m ost significant test o f sym path y ’s pow er— its ability to reach across V ictorian E ngland’s least crossable o f barriers— an im age w ith w hich, as self-projection, they, and she, are already in sympathy. F rom the novel’s beginning, th e idea o f cultural affinity serves to w ard o ff th e specter o f difference.) As the Jew w h o is ju st the same as if he w ere n ot, D ero n d a expresses th e assimilationist nature o f E lio t’s liberal representation: h e r fantasy o f sym pathy w ith th e Jews. T h e cure for th e difficulties atten d an t u p o n n o n id e n tity sym pathy— sym pathy th at makes you lose y o u r identity, in w h ich you discover that you resem ble those you d o n ’t w ish to resem ble— thus turns o u t to be identity-sym pathy: sym pathy that enables you to choose y o u r identity, to identify w ith those w h o m atch yo u r im age o f y o u r best self. It is for this reason that sym pathy in the novel takes shape as a fantasy o f likeness: an identity politics in w h ich differences b etw een individuals are flattened o u t in favor o f a reassuring fantasy o f sim ilitude.50 W onderfully realized in tw in im ages o f C o hens, o n e degraded and on e refined, E lio t’s split representation o f Jews amplifies the w o rk done by D ero n d a’s sympathy. As an e m b o d im e n t o f sym pathy w ith th e Jews, D ero n d a incorp orates the d egraded o rig in he has always feared, w hile the discovery o f M ira h ’s “ refined ” b ro th e r M ord ecai and th e transform ative w o rk o f D e ro n d a ’s sym pathy allows h im to say “ never m in d ” to it: he m ay sim ultaneously claim and distance him self from that origin. In this way, D ero n d a’s family dram a enacts in m icrocosm th e general E urop ean anxiety ab o u t Jew ish “contagion.”51 H ere again is th e im age: “he saw him self guided by som e

50 As Christina Crosby writes, “To say ‘I am a Jew ’ is significant not as a matter o f personal identity, but as an acknowledgment o f the law and o f mankind s necessary corporate existence” (Ends of History, 20). 51 O n the connection betw een the Jew and the city, see Gilman,f e w ’s Body; on the connection betw een the city and ideas o f contagion and contamination, see Stallybrass and W hite, Politics and Poetics of Transgression, 13$.

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official scout into a dingy street; he entered th ro u g h a dim doorway, and saw a haw k-eyed w o m an, ro ugh headed, and unw ashed, ch eapening a h u n g ry girl’s last b it o f finery; o r in som e quarter only the m ore hideous for being smarter, he fo u n d him self u n d e r th e breath o f a you n g Jew talkative and fam iliar. . . and so on.” D escribing the search for M ira h ’s family, D ero n d a can not help b u t p u t h im self in the picture. M ediated th ro u g h the blen d ed im age o f cultural degradation and exaltation signified by the nam e “Je w ” (and em b o d ied in the figure o f M ordecai), D ero n d a s sym pathy is th e co n stru c tio n o f his id en tity th ro u g h a gradual process o f refinem ent, enabling a phantasm atic exchange o f on e aspect o f identity for another: good Jews for bad, that C o h e n for this one. A nd once this exchange has b een com pleted, the novel’s “b ad ” Jews disappear— dem onstrating that the energy that sustained th eir representation was less that o f antisem itism than o f the exercise o f sensibility as a faculty, a necessary p art o f the id entity-shapin g process I have described. For in Daniel Deronda, as in any identity politics, identity m eans k n o w in g w h o m to sym pathize w ith. H aving served th e ir fu nction in the co nstruction o f the h e ro ’s identity, Daniel Deronda s less-than-perfect Jews vanish into the fictional universe w h en c e they came.

6 Embodying Culture: Dorian’s Wish

I have argued th ro u g h o u t this b o o k that, in scenes o f sympathy,

identity takes shape as social identity: th at w h e n subjects confront each o th er across a social divide, the elem ents that define this b o u n d ary consti-

tute— at least for a m o m e n t— th eir subjectivity M y discussions o f Daniel Deronda and The Picture o f Dorian Gray are co n c ern e d less w ith th e attem pts to sym pathize across class lines that characterized earlier texts than w ith th e way, in these la te-cen tu ry novels, expressions o f personal affinity and desire also fu n ctio n as assertions o f cultural identity. Because laten in e te e n th -c e n tu ry ideologies define id entity increasingly in group term s— as, for instance, m em bership in a nation o r in a sexual category— sym pathy becom es m ore explicitly a m atter o f claim ing identity w ith, or distance from , such group identifications.

Indeed, in these la te -n in e -

te e n th -c e n tu ry texts expressions o f individual identity (identity th at m ight be defined as difference from others) b eco m e increasingly difficult to differentiate from expressions o f cultural id en tity (identity defined as m em bership in a group). T hus the self D aniel D ero n d a develops du rin g the course o f E liot s novel coincides neatly w ith his discovery o f his Jew ish background, w hile D o rian Gray s desires construct an avowedly sym bolic identity, o ne that— for n in e tee n th - and tw e n tieth -c en tu ry readers— em bodies b o th la te-n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry aestheticism and m o d e rn m ale h o mosexuality. A t stake in these readings is the way the scene o f sym pathy

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is also— and always— a scene o f cultural identification, in w h ich the specta to r’s identity is inseparable from an im agining o f th e o th e r’s place; at stake as well is the w ay in w hich, w h e n individual and cultural identity collapse into one another, th e o th e r w ith w h o m on e sym pathizes may tu rn o u t to be— as is the case, dramatically, in Dorian Gray— o n e ’s self. A character w h o enacts th e scene o f sym pathy w ith in him self—indeed, o f w h o m it m ig h t be said th at he sym pathizes only w ith h im self—D o rian Gray b o th reinforces and extends th e im plications o f the scene o f sym pathy as I have described it so far. Dorian Gray's scene o f sym pathy inheres in the contrast b etw e en the h e ro ’s idealized bod y and his fantasy o f that same b o d y ’s degradation, and in the way the novel positions these as alternative images o f cultural possibility. T h e contrast b etw een th e beautiful D o rian and his hideous picture recapitulates the scene o f sym pathy w ith w h ich this b o o k began: D o ria n ’s picture is a fantasy in w h ich m oral decline rationalizes econo m ic anxiety, m arking a safe distance b etw een the subject w h o m ig h t fall and the one w h o already has. In this case, th e id en tity -d efin in g o th e r— w h o is, o f course, D o ria n h im self—is m anifestly b o th cultural fantasy and selfprojection, a sim ultaneous internalization and anatom y o f th e scene V ictorian fiction and V ictorian culture located on the streets. T h e constellation o f em otions D o ria n ’s scene evokes— the tension b etw een fascination, repulsion, and attraction, for instance, in his relation to the picture— recalls other, earlier versions o f the scene o f sym pathy and the recu rren t questions that surround it. W ith w h o m , for exam ple (or as w hom ) is the sym pathetic spectator identified? W h a t are the im plications o f self-picturing— the replacem ent o f th e self w ith a picture? W h y is identity figured as an eco nom ic configuration, an exchange betw een im ages o f degradation and ideality? F oregroun ding these questions, the novels also revises them . A ttrib u tin g m oral significance to the blots and marks th e picture accum ulates, Dorian Gray m akes o f a paradigm atic aesthetic difference— the difference betw een beauty and ugliness— a paradigm atic cultural dram a that, I w ish to argue, finds its echo in co n tem p o rary form ulations o f cultural and political identity. T h e difference b etw een D o ria n ’s original w ish and his m e m o ry o f it, for instance— the difference betw een th e im pulsive expression o f a desire n o t to age and a m oral narrative abou t sin and retrib u tio n — encapsulates the transform ation o f ex-

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p erience into narrative that, as w e have ju st seen in Daniel Deronda, characterizes th e fo rm a tio n o f cultural narratives. T h e dram a W ild e ’s novel makes o u t o f the difference b etw een beauty and ugliness— for example, the danger o f discovery, the obsessive checking and rechecking o f the p icture, and the adventures in “low life” w hose m eaning D o rian confirm s on the surface o f the p o rtrait as soon as he lives th e m — suggests the fo rm atio n o f cultural id en tity as a m oralization or rationalization o f aesthetic choices w hose m eaning m ight be revealed in, or m ight ju st as w ell be h id den by, the face o ne chooses. Dorian Gray's scene o f sym pathy suggestively figures, in several ways and w ith relevance to several different discourses, the aesthetic dim ension o f m o d e rn and contem p o rary identities.1 N e ith e r perso n nor, exactly, character, D o ria n is, th e novel tells us, a type: the “visible sym bol” o f the age.2 A nd, it has follow ed, the novel’s critics have taken D o rian — and W ilde him self—to be p ree m in e n t figures for and préfigurations o f aesthetic culture and m o d e rn m ale hom osexual identity. B u t w h at happens at th e in tersection o f character and cultural em bodim ent: w h at does it m ean, as W alter B en n M ichaels asks, to im agine a culture “in the fo rm o f a p erso n ” ?3 Toward the en d o f the n in e te e n th century, historians and theorists o f sexuality agree, the shaping activities o f m edicine and the law codified a variety o f activities and m odes o f b ein g into an identity.4 In the form ula1 M y sense o f the way experience becom es cultural narrative, as argued here, is indebted to Walter B enn M ichaels’s account o f cultural identities in Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995). I refer to the transformation o f events, actions, or choices (such as, for instance, the eating o f matzoh or the noteating o f pork) into identity-producing narratives. See also Foucault’s narrative about the construction o f homosexuality as an identity in The History of Sexuality, vol. 1 (N ew York, Vintage, 1980), 101, and Linda D ow lin g ’s discussion o f the formation o f a homosexual cultural tradition in Hellenism and Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). 2 Oscar W ilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1985), 46. Subsequent references included in text. 3 Michaels, Our America, 80. Eve Sedgwick discusses “reading Dorian Gray from our twentieth-century vantage point where the name Oscar W ilde virtually means homosexual.” Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1990), 165. See also Ed Cohen, “Writing G one Wilde: Hom oerotic Desire in the Closet o f Representation,” PM LA 102 (October 1987): 801-13, and Jeff Nunokawa, “Homosexual Desire and the Effacement o f the Self in The Picture of Dorian Gray,” American Imago 49, no. 3 (1992): 311-21. 4 See, for example, Foucault, History of Sexuality.

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tions o f som e recent critics, w h at h app ened is that at the end o f the cen tu ry hom osexual persons, and hom osexual culture, becam e visible. In the final week o f April 1895 Oscar W ilde stood in the prisoner’s dock o f the O ld Bailey, charged, in the dry words o f the indictm ent, w ith “acts o f gross indecency w ith another male person.” ... T he prosecutor for the Crow n explained to the ju ry in m ore vivid terms w hat this meant: W ilde and his co-defendant had jo in ed in an “abominable traffic” in w hich young m en were induced to engage in “giving their bodies, or selling

them, to other men__ ” Wilde answered these charges, as is well known, in a speech o f sudden and impassioned energy. Passionately defending male love as the noblest o f attachments, a love “such as Plato made the very basis o f his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets o f Michelangelo and Shakespeare,” W ilde called it “pure” and “perfect” and “intellectual” . .. his superb self-possession and ringing peroration so electrifying that the courtroom listeners burst into spontaneous applause. ... T he applause o f W ilde’s listeners marks the sudden em ergence into the public sphere o f a m odern discourse o f male love formulated in the late V ictorian period by such w riters as Walter Pater and John A ddington Symonds and W ilde himself, a new language o f moral legitimacy pointing forward to A nglo-Am erican decriminalization and, ultimately, a fully developed assertion o f homosexual rights.5

Thus, although Basil’s painting is entirely exterior to the text, it provides the reference point for a mode of representation that admits the visible, erotic presence of the male body.6 W h en Basil Hallward confesses his love for D orian Gray, those w ho dwell under contem porary signs o f Hellenism cannot help but hear the opening notes o f their ow n song: “A while ago I w ent to a p a rty ... after I had been in the room about ten m inutes... I suddenly became conscious that som eone was looking at m e__ W hen our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation o f terror came over me, I knew that I had come face to face w ith someone [w h o ]... w ould absorb my w hole nature, my w hole soul__ I have always been my ow n master; had at least 5 Dow ling, Hellenism and Homosexuality 1 -2 . 6 Cohen, “W riting G one Wilde,” 806.

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always been so, till I m et [him]__ Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge o f a terrible crisis in my life.”7 O ffered as o riginary m om ents in the instantiation o f m o d e rn male h o m o sexual identity, these scenes (from essays by Linda D ow ling, E d C o h en , and Je ff N unokaw a) m ay also be regarded as illustrations from a cultural history un d er construction. M om ents at w h ich hom osexuality is said, w ith som e suddenness, to becom e visible, they manifestly dem onstrate the im aginary status o f cultural identity: they are opportunities for identification, places w here the self m ay im aginatively be located. T hese are n o t ju st m om ents in the history o f a cultural identity, that is, b u t m irro r scenes for the constitu tio n o f one, delineating for reader, spectator, consum er, and critic w hat I w ish to call the im aginary body o f culture. For rather than annou ncing that a particular identity has currency, visibility bestows that currency; and w hat “ cu rrency” means, in this sense, is availability for identification (“ H is attraction to D o rian Gray appears as n o th in g o ther than the first act o f the no w well developed dram a o f self-realization w e call com ing o u t”).8 R eg isterin g the transform ation o f an im age o f degradation into one o f ideality, o f the degraded object o f sym pathy into a figure in w hose place anyone— theoretically, everyone— may see themselves, these images exchange a scene o f sym pathy for one o f identification, replacing one kind o f sym pathy (revulsion as secret sympathy; sympathy w ith society’s “victim ”) w ith another (sympathy as identification and desire, so that the o th e r’s place b ecom es one a reader m ight w ish to occupy). For to en ter into visibility is to give up som e degree o f cultural difference at the very m o m en t one claims it, to becom e part o f the co m m o n realm in w hich cultures (or, m ore precisely, images o f cultural identity) circulate. As theorists o f the visible from Jean Baudrillard to Kaja Silverm an have po in ted out, rather than registering the em ergence into public light o f som ething already in existence, visibility is that som ething, signaling the inseparability o f identity from its representations. C ultural identity is an identification w ith culture itself, b o th in its specific and m ore general form s.9 7 Nunokawa, “H om osexual Desire,” 312. 8 Ibid. 9 I am, o f course, aware o f the fact that same-sex desire was for the Victorians an occasion more for revulsion than for sympathy. But I am relying both on the way in w hich identity politics depends upon a claim for victim status and on the blend o f sympathy and

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Franco M o retti, W e rn er Sollors, and others have described a shift in constructions o f identity d u rin g the eig hteenth and n in e tee n th centuries from the (m ore o r less) given to th e invented. Invoking B enedict A n d erso n ’s idea o f im agined com m unities, for instance, Sollors describes the way, as aristocratic pow er declined in the eighteenth century, “ the im m ediate connectedness o f the aristocracy was replaced by a m ediated fo rm o f cohesion that depended, am ong o th e r things, o n literacy and ‘national’ (and ethnic) literatures.” Literature and the circulation o f p rin te d texts in general, A nderson argues, assist in the fo rm atio n o f com m unities circum scribed less by b irth o r te rrito ria l boundaries th an by th e ir m e m b ers’ shared k no w ledg e.10 A n d im agined com m unities, o f course, require im agined identities— identities n o t lim ited (as the com m unities are not) to categories o f nationality or ethnicity. D o w lin g ’s history o f the O xford M ovem ent, for in stance, w h ich traces th e hom osocial codings o f th e O x fo rd H ellenistic tradition, b o th reveals the em bedding o f one culture in an o th er and details the m aking o f a n ew culture, a n ew group identity, o u t o f an already existing tradition. W h a t D o w ling traces is, precisely, “the role o f V ictorian H ellenism in legitim ating hom osexuality as an identity.” 11 Yet still requiring explanation is the relationship betw een the previously uncodified in dividual and the n o w codified group, since the fo rm atio n o f a n ew id e n tity is the fo rm atio n o f n ew identities, and the in vention o f hom osexuality the invention o f persons deem ed hom osexuals. If such form ations require n ew identities, that is, they also require th e inculcation o f desire for those identities— and, as a corollary, the inculcation o f desire for identity itself.12

identification one might hear— and D ow lin g certainly hears— in the applause for W ilde s courtroom peroration. 10 Werner Sollors, The Invention of Ethnicity (N ew York: Oxford University Press, 1989), xxi.; Franco Moretti, The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture (London: Verso, 1987); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities : Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). 11 D ow ling, Hellenism and Homosexuality, 31. 12 Foucaults work has, o f course, explored in detail the means by w hich subjectivity is produced through techniques such as confession and self-examination. M y concern here lies closer to the problem Judith Butler explores in The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), w hen she asks what causes us to desire our own subjection (see 102).

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In response to a literary-critical tradition oblivious to th e hom osexual or hom osocial c o n ten t o f literary texts, recent readings have b een devoted th e act o f decoding. In the case o f The Picture o f Dorian Gray; the goal has b ee n to re tu rn the novel to its specific historical and sexual context, reading against w h at Eve Sedgw ick calls the “ alibi o f abstraction” : the abstract moralism , the evacuated sexuality, o f its standard in terpretations.13Yet the abstractions o n w h ich W ild e’s novel relies, the em pty term s o f its codings, and perhaps above all its definitive binarism (beauty / ugliness) are u n avoidable; it is, after all, the affiliation betw een the aristocratic m ale b ody and the abstraction “b ea u ty ” th at allows for th e te x t’s general currency. R e g ard ed as o ne o f m o d e rn hom osexual id en tity ’s m ost im p o rta n t icons, D o rian Gray is also a paradigm atic im age o f m asculine b eauty and desirability. In re tu rn in g som e degree o f abstraction to the novel’s in terp retation, therefore— o r at least re tu rn in g to the abstractions o n w h ic h the novel relies— I w ish to locate desire for D o rian , and D o ria n ’s desire, w ith in a m ore inclusive eroticization o f identity: one in w h ich D o ria n ’s w ish to change places w ith his p icture reveals identity itself, here allegorized as culture’s visible form , to be one o f the m o d e rn subject’s m ost sought-after objects o f desire. T h u s the la te -n in e te en th -ce n tu ry ideology that, follow ing F oucault’s logic, is said to have redefined self in term s o f sexuality— in w h ich “w h o I am ” becom es “w h at I w a n t”— is here reim agined w ith o n tology as desire’s subject, so that w h at is w anted is, precisely, “w h o I am ” : identity itself.

D o ria n ’s id en tity inheres in— is m ade o f —the contrast and active in te rchange b etw een th e novel’s constructions o f beauty and ugliness, and in terpretations te n d to rest o n the m eanings attributed to each.14Yet it has 13 Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet, 164. 14 To raise the issue o f the novel’s aesthetic context is also to raise that o f its relation to the aesthetic movement. W hat is important about the m ovement, for the purposes o f this reading, is its exposure o f the role played by aesthetics in Victorian structures o f identity, for rather than making identity into an aesthetic issue, the aesthetic m ovem ent revealed that it already was one. W ilde’s novel has always presented a signal critical problem: how can it be the case that such a resolutely antimoralistic novel is so relentlessly moralistic? Dorian s fate seems to confirm Victorian morality’s counter-aesthetic position: beauty, it insists, is definable only in moral terms. And yet in playing out such a paradigmatically

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never b een n o te d that the m oral w eight the picture com es to bear d u rin g the course o f th e novel— the m eaning D o ria n him self com es to attribute to it— is far rem oved from th e initial w him sy that brings it in to being. H ere, from the m iddle o f the novel, is D o ria n ’s recollection o f his wish: “ H e had uttered a m ad w ish th at he him self m ight rem ain young, and the face o n the canvas bear the bu rd en o f his passions and sins; that the painted im age m ight be seared w ith the lines o f suffering and th o u g h t” (119). B u t w h at he actually says (at the novel’s beginning) is this: “ If it w ere I w h o was always to be young, and th e p icture that was to grow old!” (49). D o ria n ’s w ish for an exchange is itself exchanged, his original, im pulsive desire for y o u th and his aversion to aging replaced by a m orally charged scenario in w h ich the picture becom es th e bearer o f “passions and sins.” A n d this exchange, o r false m em ory, is actually tru e to th e novel’s ec o nom ics o f degradation, since, as th e picture alters, w h at m atters is n o t the type o f action co m m itted — n o t th e k in d o f “ degradation”— b u t rather (as if such m atters w ere codifiable, and self-evidently so) th e am ount. T h e picture pictures accum ulation, displaying n o t the detail o f experience b u t th e fact o f it (we can ’t know , from lo o k in g at it, w h at ex perience it records— as th e history o f the novel’s reception, and the con tin u in g n eed to decode the picture, suggests). F or D o rian , sin, old age, suffering, and even “ th o u g h t” are ren dered equivalent in a generalized picture o f degradation that looks like this: “ T h e cheeks w ould b eco m e hollow o r flaccid, yellow crow s’ feet w ould creep ro u n d the fading eyes and m ake th e m horrible. T h e hair w o u ld lose its brightness, th e m o u th w ould gape or droop, w o u ld be foolish or gross, as th e m outh s o f old m e n are. T h ere w o u ld be the w rin k le d throat, b lu e vein ed hands, th e tw isted body, that he rem em b ered in the grandfather w h o had b ee n so stern to h im in his b o y h o o d ” (153). O r m aybe this: “Lying on the floor was a dead m an, in evening dress, w ith a knife in his heart. H e was w ithered, w rinkled, and loathsom e o f visage. It was n o t until they exam ined the rings that they recognized w h o it w as” (264). Victorian identity drama, the novel suggests the extent to w h ich identity was, for the Victorians, an aesthetic category For in insisting on the collapse between Dorian and his picture at its end— the novel’s most quintessentially Victorian gesture—‘W ilde suggests that D orian’s tragedy is largely a tragedy o f beauty: one that inheres in the disparity betw een exterior and interior values. The aesthetic m ovem ent, then, rather than being Victorian morality’s opposite, develops that morality’s implicit aesthetic.

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T h e speculations o f the first passage (“ the m o u th w o u ld gape and d ro o p ”) are, for all intents and purposes, fulfilled by the second. A nd, in tru th , as the picture reduces all degradation to a c o m m o n currency, that o f ugliness, it exposes the surprising presum ption, given th e subtleties o f taste D o rian com es to em body, that w h e n it com es to ugliness there is no questio n o f taste (at least for W ild e ’s readers— in this sense b o th the picture and the b o o k express a w idely shared fantasy about ugliness). Age and sin, th e novel’s language suggests in its circulation o f ugliness term s— “ hideous,” “ ho rrib le,” “w rin k le d ”— are interchangeable n o t only w ith each o th e r b u t also w ith o th e r form s o f the “loathsom e,” such as the figure o f the “h o rrid old Je w ” w h o ow ns the theater in w h ich Sibyl Vane p erform s, o r the grandfather o f w h o m D o ria n has “hateful m em ories.” D o ria n ’s b eauty similarly lacks specificity; like his ugliness, w h ich attaches itself indistinguishably to the figures “ o ld ” and “Jew,” it b o th evokes and denies specific affiliations. F or despite the possibility o f nam ing those affiliations— Sedgw ick, for instance, contrasts W ild e ’s m iddle-class Irishness w ith D o ria n ’s aristocratic Englishness, w h ile for D o w lin g D o ria n ’s b eauty has a H ellenic textual history— w ith in its im m ed iate social and cultural context, the novel’s ideal o f beauty (“gold hair, blue eyes, rose-red lips”) constitutes an evacuation o f m eaning: it is m eant to signify n o th in g o th e r than beauty itself.15 T h us bin d in g to g eth er its ideal o f beauty w ith its exchangeable images o f degradation, the novel forecloses its ow n celeb ration o f insincerity as a m ultiplication o f personalities into a stark division and accountability: the difference b etw een beauty and ugliness. D o ria n ’s relation to his picture has, o f course, b ee n th eo rized in m any ways, n o t the least pow erful o f w h ich rely o n the m oral term s the novel itself provides. F iguring D o ria n ’s identity in an econom y o f appearances, how ever— as the difference and exchange betw een beauty and ugliness— the novel allows for an o th er k in d o f interpretation , one that has m o re to do w ith its role in a history o f cultural identities than w ith the history o f its literary interpretations. F or the difference betw een beauty and ugliness p er se participates in the underlying binarism o f certain m o d e rn cultural narratives o f identity, narratives that dep en d less o n specific details o f id e n tity than o n the positive or negative valuation o f identities: th e positing o f 15

Eve Sedgwick, Tendencies (Durham: D uke University Press, 1993), 151; D ow ling,

Hellenism and Homosexuality; 150.

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desire or its absence. Such narratives, that is, resolve w h at m ight be a m u ltiplicity o f identities in to a choice b etw e en identities, in the fo rm o f a difference betw een self and other. A nd this difference, I w ish to argue, in tu rn reflects the c o n d itio n o f b elo n g in g o r n o t b elo n g in g to a group. E m b odying the im aginative possibilities o f the scene o f sym pathy as I have described it, îo r instance, the contrast b e tw e e n beautiful and ugly images o f D o ria n Gray reproduces th e aesthetics o f co n tem p orary identity p o litics, in w h ich identity takes shape as th e difference betw een negative and positive cultural projections. Identity politics attem pts to bestow value on identities the d om in an t culture devalues: it attem pts to transform ugliness (a particular id en tity as perceived by the d o m in an t culture) in to b eauty (that same identity, as projected in response by the g roup so nam ed), and its m echanism is the transform ative p o w er o f the idea— and im age— o f th e group. In the “ id e n tity ” o f id entity politics, th e individual and th e group function as reflexes and projections o f each o th e r— m utually co n stitutive im ages— w ith the group fun ctio n in g as the engine o f the desire for identity, the bo d y o u t o f w h ich individual bodies are made. Indeed, it is because o f th e sim ilarity b etw een the ideologically constructed id e n tities o f the late n in e tee n th century, th e im age m aking o f identity politics, and Dorian Grays figuration o f iden tity as an interplay b etw een valued and devalued images o f the self that, in W ild e ’s novel, “w e may catch the early strains o f an identity politics w hose an th em w ill eventually b ecom e lo u d en o u g h to m ake itself heard even o n Saint P atrick ’s Day.” 16 E ven as the novel refers to a specific politics, how ever, th e aesthetic fo rm by m eans o f w h ich that politics is represented— its reliance o n an idealized im age o f m asculine identity— makes the character D o rian Gray w idely available for identification: for, at the very least, “literary” sympathy. M y arg u m en t thus situates Dorian Gray in the c o n tex t o f la te-n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry ideologies that may be view ed as precursors o f a m o d e rn sym bolic politics o f identity: ideologies in w h ich the individual is w ith in -

16

N unokaw a,“H om osexual Desire,” 313. D ow lin g recognizes, implicitly, the role o f the

group in the transforming o f homosexuality’s image: “Such writers as Symonds and Pater and W ild e. . . find the opening in which ‘hom osexuality’ m ight begin to be understood as itself a m ode o f self-development and diversity, no longer a sin or crime or disastrous civic debility but a social identity functioning within a fund o f shared human potentialities, n ow recognized as shared” (Hellenism and Homosexuality, 31).

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creasing frequency im agined as a m e m b er o f a group. R elev an t here is the F oucauldian account o f a shift from action to essence in the form u lation o f n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry identities. B u t m ore useful is the m odel o f n atio n alism, w h ich serves as a general m o d el o f id entity from th e n in e tee n th cen tu ry onw ard, and w h ich accounts for b o th the affective passion and the d om in an t trope o f m ale b o n d in g in Daniel Deronda and Dorian Gray. For nationalist ideology positions identity as th e culm ination o f a narrative o f desire and an effect o f group m em bership; in it, desire for group m e m bership is indistinguishable from desire for identity p er se (thus the relevance, o nce m ore, o f Julia K risteva’s d escription o f nationalism as a co n d itio n in w h ic h “ to b e ” is “to b elo n g ”). In this co n text, D o ria n ’s w ish to change places w ith his ow n idealized im age may be u n d ersto o d n o t only as a desire to be an o bject o f desire, o r as a desire for a particular identity, b u t m ore fundam entally as a desire for identity itself. Je ff N un o k aw a w rites that the achievem ent o f W ild e ’s novel was to give m o d e rn hom osexual identity a h u m an face.17 A nd indeed, th e novel accom plishes this w ith precisely the kin d o f narrative sleight o f hand that, belying the d irection o f the narrative itself, enables N u n o k aw a s co m m en t to pass w ith o u t eliciting th e obvious questions: how, exactly, “h u m a n ” ? and, m ore com pellingly, w h ich “face” ? T h e conversion o f loss into gain the novel effects— th e way th e en d u rin g im age o f th e beautiful D o ria n em erges (if o ne agrees that it does) from an ostensible narrative o f d ecline— resembles w h at m ight be called the conversion narrative o f id e n tity politics: D o ria n dies into representation, his beauty, prefiguring w h at D ow ling refers to as the cu rren t w ide acceptance o f hom osexuality by the dom in an t culture, functioning as a kin d o f projection in to the future: an invitation to th e transform ation o f th e im age o f hom osexuality itself.18 T h e novel’s erotics, I thus w ish to suggest, is finally a cultural one, and its language o f sexual desire supports a narrative o f cultural desire, a desire for cultural em b o d im e n t (the same desire, expressed as b o th an attraction to w ard and revulsion against an “ o b je ct” o f sympathy, that, I have suggested, shapes earlier scenes o f sympathy). D o ria n ’s w ish is a w ish for beauty, b u t D o ria n ’s b eau ty is a figure for th e desirability o f a certain m o d e rn 17 Nunokawa, “H om osexual Desire,” 313. 18 D ow ling locates W ilde at the origin o f “the m odern emergence o f homosexuality as a positive social identity” (ibid., xvi).

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configuration o f identity: for the achievem ent o f iden tity as a place in a cultural narrative.19

In his b o o k o n th e politics o f A m erican identity, O ur America, W alter M ichaels takes aim at w h at he calls the essentialist bias o f all accounts o f cultural identity: the way in w hich, in his words, these accounts “u n d erstand culture as a k in d o f person.”20 To u n derstand culture as a kin d o f perso n is, for M ichaels, to tie actions to essence, identifying oneself w ith ancestors w hose experiences and m em ories o ne did n o t share. To no go od end, cultures are im agined to possess identity, argues M ichaels, and in h e ren t value is (therefore) attributed to their survival. B u t h o w is it that a set o f practices (his definition o f culture) com es to be identified w ith p erson hood? H o w do habits acquire th e nim bus o f identity; w hy is the sum m ore than its parts? (Or, h o w is it that “m o d e rn hom osexual id e n tity ” com es to acquire a “face,” and w h at does it m ean that it does?) O n e answer, as I have suggested, m ight lie in F oucault’s discussion o f th e way la te -n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry m edical and ju rid ic al discourses transform ed practice into identity, m aking “possible th e form ation o f a ‘reverse’ discourse: hom osexuality began to speak in its ow n behalf, to dem and that its legitim acy or ‘natu rality’ be acknow ledged, often in the same vocabulary, using th e same categories by w h ich it was m edically disqualified.”21 W h ile this form ulation begs the question, since rather than explaining personification, it personifies— “ hom osexuality began to speak in its ow n b e h a lf”— it nevertheless suggests that desirable im ages o f cul-

19 It is, o f course, important that the paradigmatic representation o f this desire is figured as the difference betw een beautiful and ugly male bodies. As Sedgwick writes, almost everything in the late nineteenth century takes this form: “In the development toward eugenic thought around and after the turn o f the century, reifications such as ‘the strong,’‘the weak,’ ‘the nation,’ ‘civilization,’ particular classes, ‘the race,’ and even ‘life’ itself have assumed the vitalized anthropomorphic outlines o f the individual male body and object o f medical expertise” (Epistemology of the Closet, 178). I want to emphasize both the cultural specificity o f Dorian Gray’s images and what might be called the novel’s will to abstractness: the way the opposition betw een beauty and ugliness encapsulates the binary con struction o f identity in identity politics, 20 Michaels, Our America, 180. 21 Foucault, History of Sexuality, 101.

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tural identity em erge in response to, and are inseparable from , w h at Ju d ith B utler calls the “injurious te rm ” that gives a particular identity its nam e— the te rm that, in the A lthusserian scenario o f interpellation, calls it into being.22 A n d it suggests, too, via the rh eto ric o f personification, the role group identity plays in this id e n tity -fo rm in g narrative: that it is possible to speak o n o n e ’s b eh a lf only w h e n identity is defined in collective term s, as som ething shared w ith others. If w e pursu e the im plications o f F oucau lt’s narrative, in w h ich conflicting images o f identity exist in necessary relation to one another, th e n W ild e’s p ic ture-paintin g scene— the scene in w h ich D o rian recognizes him self “ as if for the first tim e ”— begins to resem ble a positive alternative to the A lthusserian scenario in w h ich the subject is hailed as a subje c t o f the law. Indeed, th e scene provides a response, in the fo rm o f a counternarrative, to the question B utler poses ab out A lthusser’s scenario: “W h y should I tu rn around?”23 T he lad started, as if awakened from some dream. “ Is it really finished?” H e m urm ured, stepping dow n from the platform. “Q uite finished,” said the painter. “A nd you have sat splendidly today. I am awfully obliged to you.” “T hat is entirely due to me,” broke in Lord H enry.“ Isn’t it, Mr. Gray?” D orian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front o f his picture, and turned towards it. W hen he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks flushed for a m om ent w ith pleasure. A look o f joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognized him self for the first time. (48) F or B utler, such an invitation is itself com pelling: th e subject turns, d espite his o r h er ostensible guilt, because id entity is an offer that can n o t be refused. W ild e ’s version, im agined as response or resistance to this scene, reproduces its fo rm b u t n o t its co n ten t: D o ria n ’s response to the picture enacts a fantasy o f self-hailing, in w h ich th e self answers to its ow n desire rath er th a n to th e ad m o n ito ry call o f th e law. W h a t seems im p o rta n t, th e n , is n o t th e undecidable status o f th e self th a t tu rn s (must n o t th at self—so th e q u estion goes— already be a subject in o rd er to turn?) b u t 22 Butler, Psychic Life of Power; 104. 23 Ibid., 108.

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rath e r the fact o f th e scen e’s replication: th e w ay b o th A lthusser and W ilde figure th e p ro d u ctio n o f id en tity as a tu rn , im agin ing id entity as th at w hich, in a narrative o f desire, the subject moves tow ard. W h a t c o m pels and confers identity, in b o th these scenarios, is n o th in g o th e r th a n desire for it.24 A nd that desire, once again, is the desire to belong. T h e self hailed here, as in Althusser, is no t, n o r can it be, w holly self-appointed: it is rather the effect o f the existence o f the group, o f society. F or if, as B utler suggests, the desire for iden tity is the desire to be constituted socially, th e n identity m ust take shape as th e im age o f social life.25 A nd so it does in Dorian Gray. In a discussion preceding D o ria n ’s arrival, L ord H e n ry W o tto n and Basil Hallw ard discuss the partial nature o f th eir ow n and oth e rs’ identities: one possesses intellect and talent, an o th er beauty, an o th er w ealth (“Y our rank and w ealth, H arry; m y brains, such as they are— m y art, w hatever it may be w orth; D o ria n G ray’s goo d looks”). D o rian , in this conversation, is said to possess only beauty: “ H e is som e brainless, beautiful creature, w h o should always be here in w in te r w h e n w e have no flowers to lo o k at” (25), and w h e n he appears he is ind eed depicted as n o t yet in possession o f an identity— as em pty and available for one.Yet at the en d o f this scene— the scene in w h ich Basil paints the fam ous p o rtrait— D o rian possesses all the qualities H enry, Basil, and form erly D o ria n h im self possessed individually. Indeed, the apparent fluidity o f identity boundaries in this scene is c o u n tered by th e way D o ria n ’s identity em erges as th e only o ne th at counts (there are three bodies here, b u t finally only one identity), and he is n o t only an im age o f the oth e rs’ desire b u t an em b o d im e n t o f th e ir very qualities: o f Basil’s images and H e n ry ’s words.

24 The very problem o f the subject’s status in Althusser’s scenario suggests the answer I propose in this chapter: the subject, “already” one, locates subjecthood outside the self because cultural identity, w hich appears in such scenarios as identity tout court, is an external construct. 25 “Called by an injurious name, I com e into social being, and because I have a certain inevitable attachment to my existence, because a certain narcissism takes hold o f any term that confers existence, I am led to embrace the terms that injure m e because they constitute m e socially” (Butler, Psychic Life of Power, 104). “Existence,” in this formulation, is the same as being constituted socially: life is equated w ith cultural life, w ith existing within a the context o f a social group. 26 Lee Edelman, Homographesis (N ew York: Routledge, 1994), 17.

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As Lee E delm an has argued, W ild e’s novel inscribes identity in a narrative o f desire.26 F rom the novel’s initial representations o f D o rian as b eautiful vacancy and potential, to the “lo o k ” that com es in to the lad’s face that Basil had never seen there before, to D o ria n ’s “ reco g n itio n ” o f him self in the portrait, identity is som ething D o ria n achieves in the p ic ture-paintin g scene, and it is the result n o t ju st o f his ow n w ish, b u t o f th e co m b in ed yearnings o f all three. In these scenes, the group is im agined as a body, each m e m b er possessing som e aspect o f the w hole, and D o ria n is the projected im age o f that w h o le— a com posite body. It is this w holeness that he recognizes as if for the first tim e in th e portrait, this w holeness that makes the pictu re th e place he w ants to occupy. D esire for D o ria n — including D o ria n ’s desire for him self as picture— is desire for th e im agined w h o le ness o f the group. Indeed, it is the im possibility o f distinguishing b etw een desire for a particular individual and desire for cultural em b o d im en t that D o ria n ’s w ish to change places w ith th e picture defines, and that defines the picture o f D o ria n Gray. T hus w h e n D o ria n ’s im age appears o n the canvas, th e very picture o f Basil’s desire for h im and o f H e n r y ’s influence, n o t only does the novel dram atize w h at E d C o h e n has called the inscription o f hom o ero tic desire, b u t it also allegorizes the em ergence o f cultural identity p er se as an effect o f triangulated desire. It is the idea o f culture that takes shape here in, and as, an im aginary body, and the idea o f the group— o f th e self as an idealized pro jectio n o f others— th at enables th e replacem ent, o r at least the overlapping, o f th e injurious nam e w ith the beautiful face. If the po licem a n ’s call is the call o f the dom in an t culture, defining the respondent as guilty before the law, the alternative picture illustrates the reverse fantasy, or fantasy o f reversal: it is an allegory o f b eing interpellated as an object o f desire. Collapsing the difference F reud w ished to m aintain, in his discussion o f hom osexuality, b etw een desire for and possession o f the other, it suggests a fantasy o f such perfect sym pathy w ith the o th e r that th e o th e r turns o u t to be, for b etter o r worse, the self.27 P rodu cing D o ria n ’s idealized im age, the p ainting scene thus allegorizes the elem ent o f desire that transform s practice into p ersonhood. F or a set

27

For a discussion o f this issue in relation to Freud s construction o f homosexuality, see

Diana Fuss, Identification Papers (NewYork: Routledge, 1995), 12, 19.

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o f practices does n o t constitute a culture: only a set o f practices endow ed w ith m eaning and value does. A n d such a set o f practices, as M ichaels’s arg u m e n t suggests, takes an em bodied form : culture is always w h at som eone else (even, as Dorian Gray makes clear, o n e ’s ow n self im agined as som eone else) is doing. C u ltu re is n o t a “ set” o f practices (M ichaels’s definition) b u t rather a reading o f them : an in terp retatio n that unifies disparate practices, attaching m eanin g to action and in this way individualizing it, w ith the idea o f the individual— o f actions p erfo rm ed by som eone— giving co h erence to the activity o f the group. D o rian Gray thus figures in this arg u m e n t as an exem plary im age o f a person w h o is also an em b o d im e n t o f culture— an em b o d im e n t o f a particular culture, to be sure, b u t also an allegory for th e way culture in general takes shape “ as a k in d o f person.” B u t w h at k in d o f culture, and w h at k ind o f person? T h e rh eto ric o f exchange— specifically, o f changing places— that inform s D o ria n ’s w ish and structures his story fu rth er reinforces the im portance o f the idea o f culture in the im agining o f m o d e rn identities. For the self, even w h e n im agin ed as o n e ’s ow n, is constituted w ith reference to an external image. It is p ictu red elsewhere: in D o rian G ray’s case, in the fo rm o f an im age readily available w ith in and appropriated from the d o m in an t culture (an image, w e m ig h t go so far as to say, o f the d o m in an t culture. F or the beautiful face, m aking no secret o f its desirability, defines the d o m in an t culture’s requirem ents for beauty; hence its class determ ination: aristocratic— and its national one: English). D o rian symbolizes his era in m ore ways than one: his beauty is no m o re idealized w ith in the co n tex t o f his co terie than in V icto rian E ngland generally, and it is th e abstractness o f th at beauty, o f course— the p rotean significance o f his cultural ideality— th at enables n o t only D orian, b u t the novel itself, to “pass.” A nd here th e narrative o f identity politics gives way— briefly— to that o f cosm etology: to th e very real (no lo n g e r m agical, th at is) business o f choosing a face. D o rian wishes, o f course, for b o th faces, the beautiful and the ugly— n o t for one o r the other, b u t rather for the exchange b etw een them . A nd his desire is fulfilled n o t ju st by the beautiful face b u t by th e ugly one, w ith its m arks and blotches, as well— and by th e way each supplem ents th e other, each suggests m eanings the o th e r fails to provide. F or despite the exchangeability o f images discussed earlier in this chapter, W ilde s novel does attrib u te value to ugliness. As p art o f the narrative culm inatin g in

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D o ria n ’s death, the picture evinces the tem porality he rejects: it ages, w rin kles, degrades. B u t it also reflects a process o f accum ulation: the p o rtrait turns sin into gain by ren d erin g it visible. This is, after all, w here D o ria n ’s actions appear, w h ere his experience accum ulates like capital. Like a m iser visiting his w ealth, D o rian obsessively checks his profits, each blo tch and w rin k le challenging th e novel’s m oralizing w ith an equally com pelling logic o f accum ulation. D espite the absence o f individuality the novel’s general representation o f ugliness suggests, then, th e accum ulation o f m arks o n the p ic tu re’s surface does suggest the possibility o f individuality: here, at least, som ething is happening. W hy, then, is it n o t a pretty picture? In the M u rad advertisem ent (Fig. i), an advertisem ent for a w rin k le rem oving cream for w o m e n and a suggestive u p d ating and revision o f D o rian G ray’s picture, th e lines o n the w o m an ’s face are replaced by— are, indeed, only visible as— the advertiser’s lines, labeled w ith th e contents o f a cultural narrative (and directed tow ard b o th the w o m a n ’s im age and the spectator— “ th e day you totaled the car”): the p rojected replacem ent o f one face w ith an o th er replaces one narrative w ith another. T h e face (and, indeed, the id en tity o f its ow ner) is thus figured as a k in d o f map, each m ark ren d e rin g experien ce visible, d en o tin g a site at w h ic h som ething happened. B u t o f course rather th an sim ply m aking the invisible visible, the m arks d enote the absence o f anything b u t cultural narrative: the map, like D o ria n ’s hideous portrait, figures the inseparability o f “real” self and cultural projection. Since identity becom es visible only w h e n m arked as cultural narrative, b o th identities— the ugly (or less desirable) and the beautiful— appear as pictures (hence, as in m y analysis o f “A C hristm as Carol,” visibility itself signals and evokes desire, the distance b etw een the self and its representations) .Yet the fantasy, and the parallel in co ntem p o rary culture, is that one can participate in (em body) cultural value w ith o u t giving up o n e ’s tru e self. In the advertisem ent as in W ild e’s novel th e “ ugly” self occupies the position o f the real, and is similarly im agined as detachable: that to w h ich one necessarily refers, o n e ’s undesirable face is also— as in V ictorian scenes o f sym pathy— that w h ich o ne n ee d n o t (but for the grace o f G od, and plastic surgery) acknow ledge, or, indeed, be. A nd, again as in Dorian Gray; and Deronda as well, the ugly face is the particularized face, the attractive face generalized— its evacuation o f experience ren d erin g it available for a

Fig. i. T h e marks o f experience: Dorian Gray revisited.

ij6

The Aesthetics o f Cultural Identity

spectators projections.28 (T he fem ininity o f this exam ple is thus relevant to the novel’s co nstruction o f D o ria n s identity as sym pathetic, for here as in Daniel Deronda sym pathetic id en tity is equated w ith generalized and fem inized identity, w ith the visual cues that conventionally invite a specta to r’s identification and fantasy) W h a t happens, then, to the self one does n o t w ant to be— the self w hose identifications are, o r have been, refused? This advertisem ent’s persuasiveness relies on its ability to appeal to a spectator w h o wants to erase, b u t also values, experience’s marks: w ith its labels insisting on the very debilities the cream is to erase, the ad suggests n o t exactly (or n o t only) the effacement o f experience b u t rather its dem aterialization or internalization. Like Dorian Gray; it offers the spectator an o p p ortunity to em body the cultural ideal yet preserve an alternative, “ authentic” self—n o t exactly keeping the body that records that experience, b u t rather m aintaining as m ental picture the m e m ory o f such a b ody (though perhaps w ith less energy than one devotes to actively m aintaining, or attem pting to achieve, the culturally idealized o n e). D o ria n ’s obsessive retu rn to his hideous image— the way he com m its his “sins” in a spirit o f scientific inquiry in order to gauge their effect o n the picture (124), and m ore tellingly the way he finds him self “ enam oured” o f it (135)— suggests a similar desire for a self that isn’t picture perfect: a self one can call one s own* For the attraction o f the ugly self, here as in the case o f H u g h B oone, that hideous m an w ith the tw isted lip, is the lure o f authen^ ticity: o f the cultural authority granted th e idea o f the true self R e a d thus, as a narrative about a choice o f cultural narratives, W ild e’s novel may appear to be less about sin— either sin in general or any particular variety— than it is about the eroticization o f particular images o f cultural identity and o f the idea o f cultural identity itself.29

28 Here, as in Daniel Deronda, it becom es evident that the generalized character— the type— is by definition a sympathetic object, the projection o f a collective fantasy about the group’s desires and about the way it views, or wishes to view, itself. 29 Even as the m edical/juridical establishment creates a type, D o w lin g ’s analysis suggests, a cultural tradition for that type emerges— deliberately and self-consciously, using as its framework another, previously existing tradition. The form that the “coded counterdiscourse” o f homosexuality takes, in D o w lin g ’s reading (Hellenism and Homosexuality, xv), literalizes my claim in this chapter— the claim that culture is always som eone else s— at the same time that it deconstructs the idea o f an “original” tradition by suggesting that traditions always emerge in discourse with one another.

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T h e idea o f culture invests a single p erso n ’s actions w ith the identity, or shared m eaning, o f th e group; p u t a n o th er way, in cultural id en tity the identity o f the group is discernible— m ade palpable— in a single p erso n ’s actions. C ulture, according to this logic, is always em bodied, always a m atter o f value m anifested in so m e o n e’s appearance, so m e o n e’s place. Indeed, as a m atter o f im agining the o th e r as a person w ith w h o m one w ould like to change places (“ I w ish I could change places w ith you, D orian,” says Lord H e n ry wistfully [256]), cultural identity collapses person into place: iden tity becom es a cultural position, a place one can occupy. A n d ju st as culture depends o n the illusion that a practice is m ore th an a practice, so to o does changing places substitute b ein g for d oin g— so th at culture m akes itself, and reproduces itself, by substituting id en tity for practice, im agining practice in em bodied form . T h e scenario o f “ changing places” short-circuits a scenario o f im itation (I do w h at you do) w ith a scenario o f replaced id en tity (I beco m e you, p u t m yself in y o u r place) in w h ich identity, seem ingly kept intact, in fact is revealed as n o th in g m ore than a fu nction o f place. P ictured outside the self, the identity o ne w ants— w h ich one w ants because it is pictured— appears know able and available for occupation. (In th e w orld according to Dorian Gray— the w o rld that, the M u rad ad tells us, w e still inhabit— there is always a m ore desirable version o f “y o u ” o u t there.) “ C h an g in g places” replaces narrative and tem porality w ith substitution and magic, exchanging a co n d itio n o f desire in w h ich identity is always slipping away w ith one in w h ich identity is to be had for the asking— or the w ishing. E ven as it is said to signal the n ew visibility, the em ergence into public light, o f late-V icto rian hom osexual culture, th en , The Picture o f Dorian Gray allegorizes th e general desire th at transform s practice in to culture, that m arks the difference b etw een practice and culture. C u ltu re appears here as a structure in w h ich practices have m eaning precisely because, and only because, som eone else is p erfo rm in g th e m .30 W h y is it, I have asked o f F oucault’s acco unt o f n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry identities, that individuals n o t only accept the term s o f their m edicalization, b u t they take o n those id en tities, begin to speak “in their o w n b e h a lf” ? T h e eroticization and idealization o f group identity in the p rojection o f an im aginary b o d y figures cu ltu re’s invitation to spectators to recognize them selves— and seek to 30 This formulation is obviously indebted to R en é Girard’s idea o f triangular desire.

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T he A esth etics o f C u ltu ral Id en tity

place themselves— in a symbolic structure not o f their ow n creation. Dorian s beauty signals the (illusory) achievement o f an identification w ith culture itself: it is the beauty o f identity as wish-fulfillm ent, a fantasy o f experience invested w ith value. Desire for D orian captures the lure o f cultural narrative as the context in w hich, at a historical m om ent w hich is ours as m uch as Dorian Gray s, self-recognition can and does take place. Identity as this novel figures it— and, I have suggested, in contemporary identity politics as well— is the imagined occupation o f a place in a cultural narrative, a place that takes visible form as an imaginary body w hose identification w ith the group gives new m eaning to the visual fullness o f the Lacanian imaginary. Diana Fuss has defined identity politics as “the tendency to base one s politics on a sense o f personal identity— as gay, as Jewish, as Black, as female.”31 But this definition classifies as personal what are obviously terms o f group affiliation, terms w hose appropriation guarantees visibility in the sym bolic realms o f culture and politics. In the m odel I have described here, identity politics is reconceived, follow ing the m odel o f latenineteenth-century ideologies, as the creation o f a desirable identity, its m echanism the projection o f that identity in an imaginary body. That same desire for visibility— w ithout, o f course, the accompanying political concern— is manifest in the desire to em body a spectacularized, massproducèd version o f beauty. In both cases, cultural identity takes shape as an im plicit opposition betw een images o f ideality and degradation; in both, identity is constituted as an exchange betw een identities— identities imagined, finally, as different versions o f the self. The body im agined as desirable, I have suggested, is the body o f culture: a projection o f the image o f culture itself as an imaginary body. Such a formation depends not just on the desirability o f particular identities but on the positing o f identity itself as desirable: as that w ith w hich everyone must identify, that w hich everyone must desire. Thus embodied, identity presents itself as som ething to be desired, som ething to be wished for, som ething others could im agine being. Imagining identity as a body w hose place a spectator may wish to occupy, and as a person w ith w h om one m ight like to change places, W ilde s novel renders visible the elem ent

31 D iana Fuss, Essentially Speaking (N e w York: R o u tle d g e , 1994), 103.

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o f desire— and the transform ations o f sym pathy— o u t o f w h ich cultures are made.

T h e sym pathetic spectator does n o t, as w e have seen, sym pathize w ith everyone— least o f all w h e n sym pathy is explicitly linked to selfidentification, as in identity politics. In this way, identity politics calls into question the ostensible universality, o r blankness, o f the ethical, liberal subje c t— th e subject, as E liot dem onstrates in Daniel Deronda, w hose identity is m eant to transcend the logic o f group identity o n w h ich it is founded. In E lio t’s novel as in W ild e ’s, and elsew here in this b oo k , the rh eto ric o f exchangeability and im personality o n w h ich liberal subjectivity rests— the equalizing gesture o f “ there b u t for the grace o f G o d ”— is circum scribed by the particularity o f the subject’s identifications. F rom this perspective, th e illustration from A dam Sm ith w ith w h ic h I began— his co n ten tio n that, try as w e m ight to im agine ourselves in an o th e r’s place, w e are lim ited to the evidence o f o u r ow n experiences— may be new ly u n d ersto o d to suggest the way claims for the im aginative possibilities o f sym pathy in W estern liberal th o u g h t are u n d erm in ed by the very structures o f group identity w ith in w h ich m o d e rn identities are im agined. To return, then, to M ichaels’s problem w ith the personification o f culture: the problem (if it is one) is n o t that w e im agine culture as a person, and that w e could have it som e o th er w ay T h e problem is that culture is, essentially, the im agining o f the self in an o th er’s place (or, as in Dorian Gray in an other place): a fantasy o f participating in an experience that has m eaning precisely because it is em bodied, because it is— at least figuratively— som eone else’s. A nd the logic o f culture, at least in this account— involving as it does the externalization o f identity, the nagging feeling that o n e ’s real self is really som ew here else— is sym pathy’s logic as well. T here is no less desire in the eye that turns tow ard the beggar than there is in D o rian G ray’s eye as it turns tow ard his beautiful picture, for to the extent that the beggar figures the “tru th ” o f middle-class identity, and allows for the co n struction o f an idealized, culturally valued alternative, his gaze w ill attract that o f the subject w ho, professedly, w ould rather lo o k away.

Index

“A Christmas Carol.” See Dickens,

C ohen, Ed, i6on,

161, i 6 2 n , 172

Collins, Philip, 46n

Charles Agnew,Jean-Christophe, 3n

Crary, Jonathan, 4n

Althusser, Louis, 6 , 12n, 38-4 0 ,17 0 -7 1

Crosby, Christina,

Altick, Richard, io in

Culture: as collection o f signs,

Anderson, Amanda, i7n, 89 Anderson, Benedict, i24n, I36n, 138,142,

163

modity, son,”

I2 8 n , I35n, I56n

4 2 —45; “in

28;

com -

the form o f a per-

1 6 0 - 6 1 ,1 6 8 - 6 9 ,1 7 1 - 7 3 , 178-79;

h ig h /lo w in Daniel Deronda,

Armstrong, Nancy, I7n, 105

homosexual, 161,

177 ;

Auerbach, Nina, H2n

162, 1 6 9 - 7 0 ,1 7 3 ;

as image,

149-51;

and identity, 41-42.

12,

See

also Identity Bailin, Miriam, 9n, 19

Cvetkovich, Ann, 96n, I46n, i47n, 15on

Baudrillard, Jean, 37n, 162 Bennett, Tony, I24n

Daniel Deronda. See Eliot, George

Bersani, Leo, 148

Davis, Paul, 29, 33, 42n, 45n

Bowlby, Rachel, 3n

DeBolla, Peter, 4n, ion

Brand, Dana, 3n, I9n

Debord, Guy, 3n, 28

Brownstein, Rachel, 15 on

DeLauretis, Theresa, 40n

Butler,Judith, i63n, 170-71

Desire: for identity: 150,163-64,170-71; for middle-class life, 106-8; and specta-

Capitalism: and exchange, 7; and humanitarianism, 43; and identity, 1-3, 5 -7 ,9 , 1 1 -1 2 ,4 3 -4 7 ,4 9 -5 1 ; and sensibility, 45-46. See also Identity; Subject Chase, Cynthia, 128,133-36,138-40

l 8l

torship, 33-37 Dickens, Charles: “A Christmas Carol,” 8 -9 ,1 2 , 2 0 -2 1 ,2 7 -4 6 ,9 6 ,1 0 7 ; Hard Times, 15; Dombey and Son, 58n; Our Mutual Friend, 50, 58n

182

Index

Doane, Mary Ann, 5n, 33, 95n

Girard, R en é, 21, 117,177n

D ow ling, Linda, i6on, 161, i62n, 163,166,

Goldberg, Vicki, 42n

16711, i68n, I76n

Grewal, Inderpal, 123n, I27n

Doyle, Arthur Conan: “T he Man w ith the Twisted Lip,” 21, 47—73, I27n; Memories

Habermas, Jürgen, 116—17, !94

and Adventures, 6411

Hadley, Elaine, 3n, 103 n Halliday, Andrew, 16, 51-2, 54-55, 61

Eagleton, Terry, 137

Hard Times. See Dickens, Charles

East Lynne. See W ood, Ellen

Hartman, Saidiya V., 4n

Edelman, Lee, 172

Haskell, Thomas, 43

Ehrenreich, Barbara, 87

Hobsbawm, E.J., 137

Eisenstein, Elizabeth, 42n

H om e: as representation, 36, 104—11,

Eisenstein, Sergei, 27

115-16

Eliot, George: Daniel Deronda, 12-13, 18, 20-22, 78, 121-57, !58, 176; Middlemarch, 130; “The M odern Hep! Hep! Hep!,” 137 Elliot, Jeanne, 101, I02n

Identity: aristocratic, 80,103; beggars, 52-57; bodily, 1 - 2 ,4 -7 ,1 0 —11,13,41,44, 55, 5 8 -6 0 ,6 2 ,7 2 -3 ,9 0 ,

h i

, 133,138-39;

capitalists, 49, 51; cultural, 4,1 0,1 2 -13 , 2 3 ,1 2 7 -2 8 ,1 4 2-4 3,1 5 8-5 9 ,16 0 -7 9 ; as

Feeling: national, 153; and representation,

cultural narrative, 166—69,174—75;

14-15; and w om en, 17-18, 82-83. $ee

definition of, in Daniel Deronda, 134—37;

also Femininity; Sympathy

detectives, 66—73; and disguise, 17, 57,

Feldman, David, I23n, I28n, I35n, i4on

78, 83,111-13; and forgetfulness, 89-91;

Femininity: and display in East Lynne,

gentlemans, 48, 53; group vs. individual,

1 0 1 - 2 ,108-9; and feeling in Ruth,

171-72; homosexual, 161,168-69; Jewish,

82-83; and feeling in Victorian culture,

122-25,128-29,133-38,140,145,154;

17-18; as sympathetic receptivity, 18. See

journalists, 64; liberal subjects, 22,153;

also Sympathy

loss of, 59, 89-91; middle-class, 7 -9 ,13 ,

Foucault, M ichel, 3n, 11, 63n, i6on, i63n, 169-70 Freud, Sigmund, 172

18-20, 87, 89-90,94,103; and narrative, 63,153-54; national, 13 0,132-33,153;and opium, 69—70; politics, 22—23,156—57,

Friedberg, Anne, 3n

167,178; professional, 66—72; self-con-

Fuss, Diana, 5, 1 9 - 2 0 ,172n, 178

structed, 145,153-54; and social control, 4 8-4 9 ;“true” v s.“false,” 53-65; w om ens,

Gallagher, Catherine, 7, 5 m , 13on

17-18, 8 2 - 8 3 ,1 0 1 -2 ,108-9. See also

Gaskell, Elizabeth: Mary Barton, 15; Ruth,

Capitalism; Subject; Sympathy

1 3,2 1 ,7 7 -9 4 , 115 Geertz, Clifford, 28, 38 Gender: sympathy and, 18,104. See also

Interpellation, 6, 38, 41. See also Althusser, Louis

Femininity; Masculinity; Sympathy Gilbert, Eliot, 38n

Jackson, Russell, ii5n , 116

Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar, 78n

Jaffe, Audrey, 32n, 59n

Gilman, Sander, I 28 n , I34n, 14 1 ,156n

Jameson, Fredric, 55n

Gilmour, R ob in , 53

Kaplan, E. Ann, 100, io in , i02n

Index Knight, Stephen, 65n

183

Nussbaum, Martha, I5n, 2on

Kristeva, Julia, 132, 168 Kucich,John, 8on, io6n, n o

Oliphant, Margaret, 99n, 108 Our Mutual Friend. See Dickens, Charles

Lacan, Jacques, 12, 178 Langan, Celeste, 4n, 7, n n , i53n

Perkin, Harold, 67

Langland, Elizabeth,

The Picture of Dorian Gray. See Wilde,

io in , I02n

Lesjack, Caroline, I32n

Oscar

Levinson, Maqorie, ign

Porter, Dennis, 67n

Linehan, Katherine Bailey, I33n, 137

Press, Jacob, i8n

Litvak, Joseph, n o , i47n, i5on

Psomiades, Kathy Alexis, i8n

Lloyd, David, 129; and Paul Thomas, n 6 n Lovell, Terry, 78n

Ragussis, Michael, 1 2 4 ,135n, 145, I52n Rajchman, John, I5n

Mackenzie, Henry, The Man of Feeling, 3on “The Man with the Twisted Lip.” See D oyle, Arthur Conan

Ressentiment, 8 1 - 8 2 , 8 8 - 8 9 , 9 1 * i : 3 Richards, Thomas, 36n, 104 R iede, David G., 4n

Marshall, David, ion, 55-6

Ruskin,John, 17, 53n

Masculinity: sympathy and, 16-17, 3on

Ruth. See Gaskell, Elizabeth

Mayhew, Henry, London Labour and the London Poor, 16, 48, 51-57, 61, 63-4, 69 M cClintock, Anne, 98n

Scarry, Elaine,

I2n,

49—50, 72n

Scheler, Max, 82, 87

M etz, Christian, 27, 31, 41

Schor, Hilary, 78n

Meyer, Susan, i55n

Sedgwick, Eve, i6on, 164, 166, i69n

Michaels, Walter Benn, 160, 169, 179

Sennett, Richard, 3n, 14, I9n, 22

Middle class: attitude toward beggar by, 51;

Sensation fiction, 96, 99

attitude toward gentleman by, 51; em o-

Sergeant, Adeline, ii5 n

tional econom ics of, 105; structure o f

Shuttleworth, Sally, 116, ii7 n

identity in, 5-9; w om en of, 101—2. See

Silverman, Kaja, 2, 5 -7 ,9 ,1 3 -1 4 ,1 7 ,3on, 162

also Identity

Smiles, Samuel, 17, ii2 n

Mill, J. S., I40n Miller, Andrew, 104

Smith, Adam, 2, 3n, 4 -5 , 8, i o - n , 13-14, 22, 67, 82n, 83, 179

Miller, D. A., 32n, 48n, 96n

Sollors, Werner, 163

M itchell, Sally, 97n, ioon, 115

Spectacle: class associations of, in East

Moretti, Franco, I32n, I53n, 163

Lynne, 105; and degradation, 112; and

Most, Glenn W , 72, 73n

desire, 33—36; and distance, 32; everyday

Mulvey, Laura, 34

life as, 35-36; hom e as, 106-8, 116; Isabel Vane as, 97, 112; and middle-class life,

Nationalism, 17,129-30, 133, 138-40,142, 153. See also Identity

107-10; society o f the, 28; sympathetic object as, 112-13; and sympathy, 2,

N ew to n , K. M ., I35n

37—38; w om an as, 34,101—5. See also

Nietszche, Friedrich, 82n

Spectatorship; Visuality

Nord, Deborah Epstein, 3n Nunokawa,Jeff, i6on, 162, i67n, 168

Spectatorship: and cultural life, 29; and desire, 33-39; and identity, 11; and

184

Index

Spectatorship: (continued) ideology, 28, 31; and sympathy, 30-33,

81-82, 87-88, 91; and violence, 117-18; and visuality, 10-11, 29. See also

37,100-101; theatrical, 116;

Femininity; Identity; Masculinity;

and violence, 117,151—52. See also

Spectacle; Subject

Spectacle; Visuality Stallybrass, Peter, and Allon W hite, 7£>n, 8 1 ,155n, I56n

Theatricality, 100, n o , 113, 115-17, 145, 149-51

Staves, Susan, 79n

Tillotson, Kathleen, I5n

Sterne, Laurence, A Sentimental Journey,

Todd, Janet, 31, 86n

3on

Trilling, Lionel, i20n

Stewart, Susan, 99n Subject: capitalist, 1 -3 ,11 , 43; and consumption, 39; liberal, 11, 153-54,179;

Visuality: 9-11, 37-38, 98-101, 103-4; and interpellation, 31—32; and sympathy,

national, 131—33; and representation,

i o - n , 29. See also Spectacle;

43-44. See also Identity

Spectatorship

Sympathy: and cultural identity, 12, 127-28; as cultural narrative, 8, 13,

Weber, Max, in

154-55; and degradation, 117,127,

Weiss, Barbara, 49n, 5m

139,149, 156-57, 159-60,165-66;

Welsh, Alexander, 13 m , i49n

and exchange, 4 ,16,129; and femininity,

W ilde, Oscar, The Picture of Dorian Gray,

17-18,104,108; and gender, 18,104; and

13, 18, 22,1 5 8 -7 9

identity politics, 2 2 - 2 3 ,156~57; and lib-

Witemeyer, H ugh, i22n, I29n

eral subjectivity, 22, 131—33; and mas-

W ood, Ellen (Mrs. Henry), East Lynne, 12,

culinity, 16-17, 3on; and money, 16; and narrative, 16, 153-54; and ressentiment,

21, 95-118 Wordsworth, William, 4n