Genealogy and Fiction in Hardy: Family Lineage and Narrative Lines PDF
Preview Genealogy and Fiction in Hardy: Family Lineage and Narrative Lines
GENEALOGY AND FICTION IN HARDY Genealogy and Fiction in Hardy Family Lineage and Narrative Lines Tess OToole Assistant Professor of English McGill University flfl First published in Great Britain 1997 by * MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-333-68163-0 First published in the United States of America 1997 by tt ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York. N.Y. 10010 ISBN 0-312-17462-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data OToole, Tess, 1962- Genealogy and fiction in Hardy : family lineage and narrative lines / by Tess OToole. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. ISBN 0-312-17462-4 (cloth) 1. Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928—Knowledge—Genealogy. 2. Domestic fiction, English—History and criticism. 3. Genealogy in literature. 4. Family in literature. 5. Narration (Rhetoric) 6. Fiction—Technique. I. Title. PR4757.G42087 1997 823'.8-^dc21 97-1763 CIP © Teresa M. OToole 1997 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 7 6 54 3 21 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 Printed in Great Britain by The Ipswich Book Company Ltd Ipswich, Suffolk To my mother, Patricia Murphy OToole, and in memory of my father, Thomas Joseph OToole, who together taught me to value family and to love literature Contents Note on Editions and Abbreviations viii Acknozvledgnients ix Introduction 1 1 Fictitious Families 17 'Buried genealogical facts': The Mayor of Casterbridge 19 The genealogical trace . 24 Illegitimacy and fiction 32 Family frauds 40 2 Narrative Coercion 45 The machine in the narrative: The Well-Beloved 48 Naming and narrative 55 The impossibility of priority: A Pair of Blue Eyes 58 The exhaustion of narrative options: Jude the Obscure 65 Tess of the d'Urbervilles: The discomfort of existing in narrative 73 3 Gender and Genre: Women and the Family Script 93 Plotting gender 93 Models of triangulation 96 Sisters and mothers 107 Reinventions: The Hand of Ethelberta 115 4 Narrative Jamming in the Family Saga 125 Engendering narratives 125 Narrative jamming 130 Ghostly genealogies 134 The 'genealogical passion' 139 Narrative subversions 144 The problem of the ending 149 Epilogue 155 Notes 175 References 189 Index 193 vn Note on Editions and Abbreviations I have used the Penguin paperback edition of the novels when available. Citations to The Hand of Ethelberta and The Well-Beloved refer to the paperback Macmillan editions (1975 and 1986, respect ively). I have used the Oxford paperback edition of A Laodicean (1991). Desperate Remedies is cited from the 1984 AMS reprint of the 1912 Macmillan edition. The following editions of short story anthologies are cited. Abbreviations used in my text are indicated parenthetically: Life's Little Ironies. Oxford, 1996. (LLI) Life's Little Ironies and A Changed Man. St. Martin's, 1977. (CM) Wessex Tales and A Group of Noble Dames. Macmillan, 1977. (WT, GND) The abbreviation CL refers to The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, edited by Richard Little Purdy and Michael Millgate (Clarendon, 1978). The number given in parentheses after the title of a poem indi cates its place in The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy, edited by James Gibson (Macmillan, 1976). Vlll Acknowledgments My greatest debt is to Elaine Scarry, who advised the disserta tion that preceded this book and who has continued to offer unstinting support. Her patience and generosity are as remark able as her insight. I am also deeply grateful to Barbara Johnson and Philip Fisher for their incisive comments and advice. Special thanks are due to Deirdre d'Albertis for patiently review ing many parts of the manuscript, for offering astute commen tary and suggestions, and for providing fellowship from the earliest to the latest stages of this project. My colleagues at McGill have provided a supportive community within which I am privileged to work. I particularly wish to thank Kerry McSweeney for his good counsel, and Maggie Kilgour and Brian Trehearne for good meals and good movies. Thanks also to the graduate students in my 1996 seminar whose energy and insights helped reinvigorate my own reflections on Hardy. Finally, I thank my husband, Martin Stevenson, for his support and his patience, for allowing me to turn his sunroom into my writing room, and for choosing Hardy country in which to propose. A shorter version of Chapter 4 first appeared in Narrative 1 (1993). IX
The list of books you might like
