Dear Leonard Woolf, I personally do not find your subject of animals irritating in the least: no, indeed, I rather wish you'd had gone on. And on. And on. Or at least explained what exactly Bambi does when he acquires a nicotine addiction. i find myself horribly intrigued by Charles, "obviously a pukka English dog", as opposed to the pariah "yellow" dogs; I wonder what breed he was to have been so saliently genuine or superior, that he would, possessed by an "imperialist Anglo-Indian spirit" recognize a "native" cat. Caliber in this instance is proved by violence, the "rapidity" of murder that gleans "considerable prestige", which also gets translated into "canine society"- very reminiscent of colonial reaction and the modernist theme of anxiety about new uncertainties.
Growing actually made me think of a line: "For we are surrounded by mirrors, walled in by contradictory images of ourselves" when Woolf ponders on the rightness of sitting on a horse "arrogantly". This contradictory nature is also keenly observed in the anecdote he provided of his encounter of the graves of Adam and Eve. Charles is here the "dog of an infidel". The infidel here is also the savior, being trailed by "smiles and shaking of heads and lifting of hands".
Running an empire is, too, much like taming an elephant, using co-opted natives like "tame elephants" to assuage resistance, it's a "precarious position".
Who watched the newest episode of South Park (Pandemic) and tried grafting Stoler's ideas onto it? So if you obviously are a Peruvian pan flute band and yet... at the same time you're obviously not, you may very well be key in overthrowing Peru or saving the world from giant guinea pigs. Or it could just be why Craig says the kids at school dislike you. Heh heh heh.
Showing posts with label leonard woolf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leonard woolf. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
modernist by last name
I think my favourite question to ask is whether or not a text is modernist. So…is Growing modernist? I don’t think so but I shall suggest modernist elements other than those already talked about. I feel that the modernist impulse in Woolf has less to do with consciouness (as in the other Woolf) and instead more with narrative and representation.
I thought a very strong modernist gesture lay in the way Woolf would constantly take little sidetrips out of the narrative and tell us little anecdotes about various people. For instance, he relates Dutton’s naivety in sexual matters by way of an “example”, which comes in the form of a little story within a story. This serves to fragment the narrative in a sense, such that while narrative continuity is maintained, the notion of a single, overarching and totalitarian narrative is reduced. The same example is also similar to what Auerbach – remember him?! – describes as “excurses, whose relations in time to the occurrence which frames them seem to be entirely different” (537). Of course, the only occurrence that takes place here is the act of narration; nonetheless, these ‘excurses’ break up the temporal continuity of the narrative into two discontinuous narrative sequences.
These anecdotes also give the text an impressionistic quality – we learn about characters like Dutton through the impressions that Woolf gives us, rather than straightforward description. The most obvious – and funniest example I can think of is his encounter with Mrs Dutton:
“…perhaps owing to the overpowering smell of clean linen, it gave me the feeling of unmitigated chastity…”
Such suggestiveness even though he never really tells the readers what it is that makes her so miserable! However, my point is that impressionism makes the reader acutely aware of the mediating presence of the author/narrator, along with the realisation that the evocative images we are given are subjective impressions of a non-omniscient, non-objective narrator.
(299 words, excluding quote)
I thought a very strong modernist gesture lay in the way Woolf would constantly take little sidetrips out of the narrative and tell us little anecdotes about various people. For instance, he relates Dutton’s naivety in sexual matters by way of an “example”, which comes in the form of a little story within a story. This serves to fragment the narrative in a sense, such that while narrative continuity is maintained, the notion of a single, overarching and totalitarian narrative is reduced. The same example is also similar to what Auerbach – remember him?! – describes as “excurses, whose relations in time to the occurrence which frames them seem to be entirely different” (537). Of course, the only occurrence that takes place here is the act of narration; nonetheless, these ‘excurses’ break up the temporal continuity of the narrative into two discontinuous narrative sequences.
These anecdotes also give the text an impressionistic quality – we learn about characters like Dutton through the impressions that Woolf gives us, rather than straightforward description. The most obvious – and funniest example I can think of is his encounter with Mrs Dutton:
“…perhaps owing to the overpowering smell of clean linen, it gave me the feeling of unmitigated chastity…”
Such suggestiveness even though he never really tells the readers what it is that makes her so miserable! However, my point is that impressionism makes the reader acutely aware of the mediating presence of the author/narrator, along with the realisation that the evocative images we are given are subjective impressions of a non-omniscient, non-objective narrator.
(299 words, excluding quote)
Putting a face to imperialism/colonialism
I have no clue how Leonard Woolf looks like, but somehow, strangely, I feel that he has managed to put a human face to imperialism/colonialism. But why? Has it to do with this 'frank' feeling I get while reading the text? Or is it because he was (so he claims) "a very innocent, unconscious imperialist" (25)?
Unlike the other texts, I find that Woolf's autobiography provides a new perspective into imperialism/colonialism. While it addresses the negative aspects of modernity on the empire - changing the natural landscape (48), erasure of culture (49), the hum drum of the machinery (53), it also points out the positive aspects - efficiency of a regulated system (110), etc... The text recognises the tension of "holding the balance" (110), perhaps it is its awareness of the "difficulties and the frictions" (111) of imperialism that somehow neutralizes this text.
Is it just me, or is this text very comforting? Odd word, but I do not find myself cringing or horrified as I was with the other texts.. maybe it is the lack of abuse and military might.
Literary References in Woolf
Woolf makes several explicit literary references over the course of "Jaffna"; He directly casts Mrs Lewis as an archtypal character from a Jane Austen novel, likens the native Sinnatamby, as well as the white people around him, to characters from a Kipling novel - he goes so far as to say that 'I could never make up my mind whether Kipling had moulded his characters accurately in the image of Anglo-Indian society or whether we were moulding our characters accurately in the image of a Kipling story'. Later on, he likens the 'profound melancholy and fatalism' lying beneath the surface of the natives to something that 'permeates the scenery and characters of a Hardy novel'. The effect of this is to highlight the unreality and performity of the situation that Woolf finds himself in, such that he seems to be living in the pages of a work of fiction. It makes his point that the Anglo-Indians are displaced people out of their natural habitat - echoes of Passage to India here.
colonial identity = masculine identity
the colonial anxieties of emasculation continue in leonard woolf, as we see from his description of dutton and miss beeching: "He seemed to have shrunk and she to have swollen...I sometimes think this must be the ideal life for a male--and, after performing his male functions, is killed by her or just dies. Not that I thought that Mrs. Dutton would kill and eat Dutton; but she seemed somehow or other to have absorbed what little life and virility he possessed." (72) this proves again how the colonial identity is tied inextricably to the masculine identity and its anxieties of challenge from any frontier of the suppressed and disempowered--whether female, native or other. while interpretations of colonialism and imperialism as an outlet for excess male sexual energy or as a sublimation of sexuality (hyam) might seem a little exaggerated, stoler's claim that "imperial authority and racial distinctions were fundamentally structured in gendered terms" (42) is certainly legitimised by the overwhelming literary (and historical--as she has introduced in 'carnal knowledge') evidence brought to bear on the idea that the colonial identity is fundamentally tied to masculine identity and is, as such, gendered.
It is significant that while marriage and sex are sites wherein the male is able to exert his sexual dominance, they are paradoxically then also the sites of his possible failure and sexual ineptitude. Mrs. Dutton's swelling and appropriation of her husband's virility reflect masculine anxieties about marriage and sex as potential sites of impotence. furthermore, the idea that the masculine identity is tied to performing some kind of sexual function, after which he is rendered useless and ineffectual reduces the masculine identity as tied to a simple physical function--a shallow act lacking actual substance. Likewise, the colonial mask is a "facade" for woolf, and as we have discussed with orwell's elephant, colonialism is very much the assertion and upholding of the image of the potent, virile male with whom must lie all military, racial and sexual power. Stoler's gendered analysis then is very useful for dissecting the colonial identity as fundamentally tied to masculine identity.
It is significant that while marriage and sex are sites wherein the male is able to exert his sexual dominance, they are paradoxically then also the sites of his possible failure and sexual ineptitude. Mrs. Dutton's swelling and appropriation of her husband's virility reflect masculine anxieties about marriage and sex as potential sites of impotence. furthermore, the idea that the masculine identity is tied to performing some kind of sexual function, after which he is rendered useless and ineffectual reduces the masculine identity as tied to a simple physical function--a shallow act lacking actual substance. Likewise, the colonial mask is a "facade" for woolf, and as we have discussed with orwell's elephant, colonialism is very much the assertion and upholding of the image of the potent, virile male with whom must lie all military, racial and sexual power. Stoler's gendered analysis then is very useful for dissecting the colonial identity as fundamentally tied to masculine identity.
The Sun, the Sand, and the Sea....
Landscape becomes the site of physical and metaphorical change in Woolf’s “Growing”. The change also suggest a disjuncture between the metropole and the colony- not merely physically but psychologically as well.
It starts with the “warm welcome” of the harsh tropics for the “innocent, unconscious imperialist” like himself: "the Colombo sun, which in the late morning hits one as if a burning hand were smacking one's face, the whole of my past life in London and Cambridge seemed suddenly to have vanished, to have faded away into unreality".
The new reality for him is this, the tropics. The climatic change becomes the first indicator of change- of the reality of his situation.
"The strange sense of complete break with the past, the physical sense or awareness of the final forgetting of the Thames, Tilbury, London, Cambridge, St. Paul's, and Brighton, which came upon me". The old memories and places have paved the way for these new sites of memory. The places and buildings become the second indicator of this new reality.
And finally, the fear of colonial administrators back in the metropole: "But I lived in it for many years... and it got into my heart and my bones… I lived inside it to some extent... so that something of its rhythm and tempo, like that of the lagoons and the jungle, crept permanently into my heart and my bones".
This is perhaps a final metamorphosis for the individual living in the colonies, perhaps? As indicated in the highlighted words- there’s a disjuncture from the past, a conjoining with the new. But of course, this does not necessarily mean that he no longer is an “English gentleman”. If so, the suggestion would be that memories and places maketh the [English] man.
It starts with the “warm welcome” of the harsh tropics for the “innocent, unconscious imperialist” like himself: "the Colombo sun, which in the late morning hits one as if a burning hand were smacking one's face, the whole of my past life in London and Cambridge seemed suddenly to have vanished, to have faded away into unreality".
The new reality for him is this, the tropics. The climatic change becomes the first indicator of change- of the reality of his situation.
"The strange sense of complete break with the past, the physical sense or awareness of the final forgetting of the Thames, Tilbury, London, Cambridge, St. Paul's, and Brighton, which came upon me". The old memories and places have paved the way for these new sites of memory. The places and buildings become the second indicator of this new reality.
And finally, the fear of colonial administrators back in the metropole: "But I lived in it for many years... and it got into my heart and my bones… I lived inside it to some extent... so that something of its rhythm and tempo, like that of the lagoons and the jungle, crept permanently into my heart and my bones".
This is perhaps a final metamorphosis for the individual living in the colonies, perhaps? As indicated in the highlighted words- there’s a disjuncture from the past, a conjoining with the new. But of course, this does not necessarily mean that he no longer is an “English gentleman”. If so, the suggestion would be that memories and places maketh the [English] man.
Growing Skewed
I find myself having a perplexed attitude towards 'Growing'. On one hand, I think it is subjective to the point of being unrealistic, and on the other, it seems jarringly honest.
Let’s take the honest bits first: he includes extracts of letters, many of which appear uncensored. There is crudeness in his letters (““f*** your wife” I added and enraged him”), as well as a kind of sadism regarding the incident of his owl and rat (“All night long he chases a rat round the dog kennel…he never catches him and as I never feed the rat, they are both slowly dying of starvation”). Also, he admits to sleeping with a “young Burgher girl”, an act that I am sure would not have reflected well of him then.
But I begin to challenge Woolf’s candidness when I see things like “No one, the man included, seemed to be much concerned by this” as a response to Woolf's mismanaged dog peeing on a Sinhalese man, or even that (according to him), “the Arabs were vastly amused” to be “hit…[by]a walking stick” to clear a path for himself. I see it as just another form of White validation of ‘native’ abuse—simply through a ‘but they don’t mind’ attitude. Woolf’s descriptions of events also seem exaggerated/almost ideological (the way the native crows began “eating the vomit as it came out” of Charles’s mouth, or the fact that tiny Charles defeated 3 “large” native dogs, each double his size mind you). I also find his depictions of women in the text fairly extreme, almost like caricatures—we see the phrases “true to type”, “true to the type”, “the kind of wife”, “the…freckled type”—who are flatly/spectrally depicted—“she was a Jane Austen character”, “an inveterate matchmaker”, “went out of her way to say the most outrageous things at the most awkward moments”, “two angels performing a miracle”. Perhaps, the politics of mis/ representation are in play here.
Let’s take the honest bits first: he includes extracts of letters, many of which appear uncensored. There is crudeness in his letters (““f*** your wife” I added and enraged him”), as well as a kind of sadism regarding the incident of his owl and rat (“All night long he chases a rat round the dog kennel…he never catches him and as I never feed the rat, they are both slowly dying of starvation”). Also, he admits to sleeping with a “young Burgher girl”, an act that I am sure would not have reflected well of him then.
But I begin to challenge Woolf’s candidness when I see things like “No one, the man included, seemed to be much concerned by this” as a response to Woolf's mismanaged dog peeing on a Sinhalese man, or even that (according to him), “the Arabs were vastly amused” to be “hit…[by]a walking stick” to clear a path for himself. I see it as just another form of White validation of ‘native’ abuse—simply through a ‘but they don’t mind’ attitude. Woolf’s descriptions of events also seem exaggerated/almost ideological (the way the native crows began “eating the vomit as it came out” of Charles’s mouth, or the fact that tiny Charles defeated 3 “large” native dogs, each double his size mind you). I also find his depictions of women in the text fairly extreme, almost like caricatures—we see the phrases “true to type”, “true to the type”, “the kind of wife”, “the…freckled type”—who are flatly/spectrally depicted—“she was a Jane Austen character”, “an inveterate matchmaker”, “went out of her way to say the most outrageous things at the most awkward moments”, “two angels performing a miracle”. Perhaps, the politics of mis/ representation are in play here.
Modernist experiences in Ceylon
Using Woolf’s “letter to Lytton” on May 21 1905, I am going to discuss how the experience of Woolf’s colonial encounter with the Indian “natives” is one of modernist alienation and disorientation. In this letter, Woolf draws our attention to the uncertainty and instability of events in the foreign space of the Jaffna Penisula using the metaphor of the cataclysm: “a hole had suddenly appeared in the midst of a field about 5 miles from Jaffna . . . every five or ten minutes, the crack widens and the earth topples over into the water, which heaves and swirls and eddies” (22). It is possible, I think, to see this violent geographical occurrence as a symbolic externalization of Woolf’s disturbed mind, disturbed because the colonial encounter and experience is one that is disorientating and confusing, to the extent that he can “neither read, nor think nor – in the old way he feel[s]” (22).
Certainly, Woolf’s disorientation here develops largely because of his alienation in “suddenly [uprooting] oneself into a strange land and a strange life” (3). The colonial encounter is seen as defamiliarizing and thus evoked as if it were an illusion, where “one feels as if one were acting in a play or living in a dream” (3). Indeed, the phantasgamoric element of the colonial encounter is continuously reinforced by Woolf: “there was something extraordinary real and at the same time unreal in the sights and sounds and smells – the whole impact of Colombo, the G.O.H., and Ceylon in those first hours and days, and this curious mixture of intense reality and unreality applied to all my seven years in Ceylon” (3). Ceylon, in other words, can be seen as the place where European anxieties are displaced and performed.
Certainly, Woolf’s disorientation here develops largely because of his alienation in “suddenly [uprooting] oneself into a strange land and a strange life” (3). The colonial encounter is seen as defamiliarizing and thus evoked as if it were an illusion, where “one feels as if one were acting in a play or living in a dream” (3). Indeed, the phantasgamoric element of the colonial encounter is continuously reinforced by Woolf: “there was something extraordinary real and at the same time unreal in the sights and sounds and smells – the whole impact of Colombo, the G.O.H., and Ceylon in those first hours and days, and this curious mixture of intense reality and unreality applied to all my seven years in Ceylon” (3). Ceylon, in other words, can be seen as the place where European anxieties are displaced and performed.
Restoring my faith...
I felt that Woolf was a much more honest writer than Orwell was, and he presented the dilemmas colonial masters faced in a much clearer light. Woolf highlighted the performative aspects colonialists had to play but at the same time, demonstrated to the reader his attempts at negotiating between the performativeness and truthfulness.
The four men “waded back slowly; the feet of the dead man stuck out, toes pointing up, very stark over the shoulders of the men in front. The body laid on the sand. The bearded face of the dead man looked very calm, very dignified in the faint light (95).
Woolf did not dehumanize the Arab man, did not try to impose strict binaries but rather his description of the man as ‘dignified’ touched me. Just when I had lost all faith in colonial masters as humans and saw them as just greedy and self-absorbed men, I’m glad Woolf came along to restore some faith in them. And I thought it was hilarious how he said he was ‘infuriated when I saw a rather unpleasant looking white man introduced into my room by the peon without my permission’ (129). Where he said ‘[t]he longer I was in
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
show me the women
There is hardly any mention of women, much less notable and interesting woman personalities in Leonard Woolf’s Growing. I think this is very much explained by Stoler’s article on how colonial policies discourage the immigration of European women into the colonies, limiting marriages only to high ranking officials and keeping salaries of European recruits “artificially low” to prevent them from starting a family (48). I think that it is the scarcity of European women, rather than Leonard Woolf’s deliberate omission that explains the lack of female personalities in his autobiography.
Leonard Woolf did pay special attention to the Lewis and Price couple. Mrs Lewis was “[l]arge, plump, floridly good-looking”, “a Jane Austen character complete in face, form, speech, mind – a Mrs Jennings” (42). She is “an inveterate matchmaker” equipped with “artless and embarrassing manoeuvres” (43). Mr John Penry Lewis was a “[l]arge, slow, fat, shy man” who was “extremely lazy and not fond of responsibility”, “took little interest in administration” (41). Mrs Price “was the exact opposite of Mrs Lewis. She was a real Victorian lady” (114). She is “rather silent and extremely nervous”, with an “impenetrable reserve” (114). Ferdinando Hamlyn Price was “[t]all, thin, athletic looking, baldish, with a long hatchet-face” and was “congenitally and incorrigibly lazy” (105).
There are a few observations to be made. Both Mrs Lewis and Mrs Price have “delicate sensibilities” and need for “elevated standards of living” (55). Mrs Price whose “life with Price and Ceylon ... terrified her” (114), Mrs Lewis and her gramaphone (88). Marriages are confined to high ranking colonial officials (i.e. G.A). Married men are lazy and seldom dealt with colonial administration, preferring to delegate the jobs to young and single subordinates (i.e. Leonard Woolf).
Contrary to Stoler’s article, I do not see European women and marriage as having that much of an impact on colonial rule. Then again, perhaps that is what Stoler is concerned with, the overlooking and omission in assessing the influence of European women with regards to colonial policies.
Leonard Woolf did pay special attention to the Lewis and Price couple. Mrs Lewis was “[l]arge, plump, floridly good-looking”, “a Jane Austen character complete in face, form, speech, mind – a Mrs Jennings” (42). She is “an inveterate matchmaker” equipped with “artless and embarrassing manoeuvres” (43). Mr John Penry Lewis was a “[l]arge, slow, fat, shy man” who was “extremely lazy and not fond of responsibility”, “took little interest in administration” (41). Mrs Price “was the exact opposite of Mrs Lewis. She was a real Victorian lady” (114). She is “rather silent and extremely nervous”, with an “impenetrable reserve” (114). Ferdinando Hamlyn Price was “[t]all, thin, athletic looking, baldish, with a long hatchet-face” and was “congenitally and incorrigibly lazy” (105).
There are a few observations to be made. Both Mrs Lewis and Mrs Price have “delicate sensibilities” and need for “elevated standards of living” (55). Mrs Price whose “life with Price and Ceylon ... terrified her” (114), Mrs Lewis and her gramaphone (88). Marriages are confined to high ranking colonial officials (i.e. G.A). Married men are lazy and seldom dealt with colonial administration, preferring to delegate the jobs to young and single subordinates (i.e. Leonard Woolf).
Contrary to Stoler’s article, I do not see European women and marriage as having that much of an impact on colonial rule. Then again, perhaps that is what Stoler is concerned with, the overlooking and omission in assessing the influence of European women with regards to colonial policies.
Growing Up Woolf
It looks like I'm the first to post this week. I found the chapter, "Jaffna" a bit of a drag to read towards the end. Am I the only one? It starts out interesting enough, but as the memoir progresses Woolf starts transitioning abruptly from one incident to another, leaving me a bit disorientated(and bored, all those acronyms do NOT help),and I was wishing I was reading Roald Dahl's Going Solo instead, indicative of the state of nostalgia I'm currently wallowing in. (aka: I miss my childhood!) But to be fair, this Woolf's not that bad. Okay now on to my post proper:
In "Jaffna", Woolf writes retrospectively about working experience as a civil servant in Ceylon, working hard and efficiently for indolent G.As, doing their jobs for them, improving office effiency etc etc. He recounts his life in the imperialist White society, talking about the White civil servants he met. Interpersed between his accounts are extracts from his correspondence with his Bloomsbury friend, Lytton Strachey.I found most interesting his resemblance to Orwell's Shooting an Elephant, in his "growing" awareness of himself as a "ruler of subject peoples" (111) and the doubts that came along with it, where at the beginning he had been a "very innocent, unconscious imperialist" (25). Like Orwell, he becomes conscious of the dilemma that faces the white imperialist as a "cog" in the imperial machinery through day-to-day incidents with natives. Woolf, in the horse-whip incident, doubts the White imperialist's right to rule in thinking that his "sitting on a horse arrogantly in the main street of their town was as good as a slap in the face" (114). It is ironic that Woolf had disregarded traffic laws in stopping his horse to be this nit-picky, exacting civil servant, pointing out how the natives had encroached on the highway with their property. Woolf becomes aware of this irony which highlights inequities in treatment that White imperialists assume, in order to perpetuate their rule. Similar to Orwell's Shooting, Woolf becomes aware of the White imperialist as "acting" on the "stage, scenery, backcloth" that was imperialism. What Woolf seems to be projecting is the implication of being an individual within a larger organisation or machinery. In Woolf's bid to be a good civil servant, an "effective cog" so to speak, he assumes a stance that compromises fair, un-rascist treatment of the natives, thus perpetuating their dominance.
(295)
In "Jaffna", Woolf writes retrospectively about working experience as a civil servant in Ceylon, working hard and efficiently for indolent G.As, doing their jobs for them, improving office effiency etc etc. He recounts his life in the imperialist White society, talking about the White civil servants he met. Interpersed between his accounts are extracts from his correspondence with his Bloomsbury friend, Lytton Strachey.I found most interesting his resemblance to Orwell's Shooting an Elephant, in his "growing" awareness of himself as a "ruler of subject peoples" (111) and the doubts that came along with it, where at the beginning he had been a "very innocent, unconscious imperialist" (25). Like Orwell, he becomes conscious of the dilemma that faces the white imperialist as a "cog" in the imperial machinery through day-to-day incidents with natives. Woolf, in the horse-whip incident, doubts the White imperialist's right to rule in thinking that his "sitting on a horse arrogantly in the main street of their town was as good as a slap in the face" (114). It is ironic that Woolf had disregarded traffic laws in stopping his horse to be this nit-picky, exacting civil servant, pointing out how the natives had encroached on the highway with their property. Woolf becomes aware of this irony which highlights inequities in treatment that White imperialists assume, in order to perpetuate their rule. Similar to Orwell's Shooting, Woolf becomes aware of the White imperialist as "acting" on the "stage, scenery, backcloth" that was imperialism. What Woolf seems to be projecting is the implication of being an individual within a larger organisation or machinery. In Woolf's bid to be a good civil servant, an "effective cog" so to speak, he assumes a stance that compromises fair, un-rascist treatment of the natives, thus perpetuating their dominance.
(295)
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