2. Journal of Literature
and Art Studies
Volume 4, Number 8, August 2014 (Serial Number 33)
David Publishing Company
www.davidpublishing.com
PublishingDavid
4. Journal of Literature
and Art Studies
Volume 4, Number 8, August 2014 (Serial Number 33)
Contents
Literature Studies
Imagological Topoi in Balkan Literatures 599
Marija Gjorgjieva Dimova
A Feminist Analysis of Protagonists’ Self-development in O Pioneers! and My Antonia 605
YANG Han-yu
Jamesian Impressions of the Cities 613
Tzu Yu Allison Lin
Art Studies
From the 19th-Century Novel to the Portuguese Contemporary Film Adaptation 618
Filomena A. Sobral
I Sing, Therefore I am—The Political Representation of Taiwanese K-pop Urban Fans at
K-pop KTV (Karaoke) 628
Haerang NOH
Dracula as a Lovesick Monster, Iconology of the PFM’s Rock Opera 643
Andrea Del Castello
Revisiting Stoker’s Dracula: No Brave Good Villains Left 653
Carla Ferreira de Castro
Special Research
Birth of “Television Set” in Tashkent 661
Yuldashev Eldar Sadikovich
5.
6. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, ISSN 2159-5836
August 2014, Vol. 4, No. 8, 599-604
Imagological Topoi in Balkan Literatures
Marija Gjorgjieva Dimova
Ss Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
The purpose of this text is to research dominant/typical images which have been constructed in the process of the
perception and representation of the stranger in Balkan literatures, and reciprocally, the images that strangers
constructs for the Balkan in the same literary context. Under conditions where Balkan literatures have been treated
as an alternative history of the Balkan, the author intends to see the role and power of literary work in creation, in
changing or rejecting the image for/of the Other/stranger. The analysis covers several areas: the dominant position
of image constructions; acts of invention an in(ter)vention; forming and transforming the images of the stranger;
the role of stereotypes and prejudice in constructing images; the role of the discursive communities in creating
images; and the role of the projective ideology in creating images.
Keywords: imagological constructions, significant stranger, projective ideology, dicursive communities,
stereotyped image
Introduction
The metaphorical representations of the Balkans as a bridge, a road, or a crossroads, that is, as a space
unfit for a permanent stay, but for by-passing, establish the Balkans as the “ideal” pilgrimage destination. The
transitness and business of the Balkan region are also corroborated in the imagological representations of the
relations between “us” and “the Others”, presented in numerous cultural discourses: mass media, politics,
academic research, everyday life, reports and travelogues, popular literature, jokes, or novels. One variety of
the literary articulations of the Other is the imagological topos of the foreigner’s image/image of the foreigner.
If the foreigner is a concretized representative of a certain collective and a form of presence of otherness or
foreignness, then the literary image of the foreigner is a mediated representation of that collective. Hence, this
imagological topos in literature includes the relation between Balkanians and non-Balkanians. The elementary
definition of foreigners stresses their position of aliens, immigrants, visitors, or conquerors. Ulrich Bielefeld
underscores this aspect of foreignness, distance, non-belonging, joining a certain community—family or
nation—which they might influence: transform or threaten (Bilefild, 1998, p. 28). Hence, the concept of the
so-called significant foreigner, where the attitude towards the foreigner is key; s/he is not a passive observer
but an active and influential participant in the environment in which s/he is staying (Bilefild, 1998, p. 131).
Marija Gjorgjieva Dimova, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of General and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Philology
“Blaze Koneski”, Ss Cyril and Methodius University.
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7. IMAGOLOGICAL TOPOI IN BALKAN LITERATURES600
Several Imagological Patterns in Balkan Prose
The Image of the Foreigner as a Civilized Conqueror
That the old, clichéd images of the foreigner constructed through fascination and rejection have not
disappeared (Bilefild, 1998, p. 109) is evidenced by the 1985 novel Vježbanje života (Exercising Life) by
Croatian author Nedjeljko Fabrio. Among the multitude of images of foreign conquerors—Austrians,
Frenchmen, Italians, Hungarians—lies the one of the foreigner as the promoter of civilization values (the
revolution) and of progress (building a refinery in Rijeka). This perception is guided by the natives’
practical/existential reasoning: the foreigners will leave, but the refinery will stay. In the 1981 novel Nëpunësi
i pallatit të ëndrrave (The Palace of Dreams) (1993)1
by Albanian author Ismail Kadare, the constructors of
this image of the foreigner are the members of the Albanian Quprili family—they see the progress of their own
people in their connection with the Ottoman invader: “The Turks (…) gave us Albanians what we lacked: the
wide open spaces” (Kadare, 1993, p. 68).
The Image of the Foreigner as an Uncivilized Conqueror
In the 2002 novel Smrtta na dijakot (The Death of the Scrivener) by Macedonian author Dragi Mihajlovski
there is the opposite image of the foreigner as the uncivilized conqueror: the Bitola scrivener Ravul and the
Turkish commander Timurtaş are the two narrative focal points where the image of the other is projected. In
constructing the image of the conquering foreigner, the uncivilizedness is stressed through the absence of basic
patriarchal and ethical values—the lack of a sense of family and home, of decency and moderation: “Против
кого треба да се бориме? Против орда неверници што не можат да си ги додржат семејствата (…) скитаат
по светот, убиваат пристојни луѓе како нас” (Михајловски, 2002, p. 43).2
Both these images of the
foreigner—as a civilized and an uncivilized conqueror—are varieties of the traditional construct of the foreigner
as the outside enemy. This imagological stereotype is based on the dualism between us and the others, the relation
to the feelings of fear, hate, disdain or indifference towards outsiders, as well as feeling the safety and the
fundamental values of one group threatened by another (as, for instance, in Mihajlovski’s novel).
The Foreigner’s Image (of the Balkan Native)
The foreigner as an enemy assumes presence on a foreign territory, that is, his/her encounter with the
native is an encounter with the unknown, with the alien. In the analyzed texts, there is an identical position
from which foreigners perceive the native other: It is the position of the official representative of foreign
authority, implying an imposed presence in an official capacity. High-ranking imperial administrators in the
state/social hierarchy—consuls, viziers, generals, religious leaders, military commanders—participate in
creating an identical, stereotypical image of the Balkanian as a savage and/or barbarian.3
In Kadare’s
Gjenerali i ushtrisë së vdekur (The General of the Dead Army) (2008), the Italian general has come to Albania
on a state mission in order to exhume and repatriate the remains of Italian soldiers. Burdened by his task, as
well as the past, the general views the Albanian people as backward, with innate aggression and belligerence:
1
First published in 1981 in Albania.
2
“Who are we to fight against? Against a horde of infidels who cannot keep their families (…) wandering around the world,
killing decent folk like us”. (translator’s note)
3
Norris (1999) concludes that ever since the earliest travelogues one has continually documented the two varieties of the image
of the Balkanian as a “noble savage” and a “primitive barbarian” (p. 32).
8. IMAGOLOGICAL TOPOI IN BALKAN LITERATURES 601
“The Albanians are rough and backward people. Almost as soon as they are born someone puts a gun into their
cradle, so that it shall become an integral part of their existence” (Kadare, 2008, p. 27). In The Death of the
Scrivener, the sullen, exhausted Turkish commander is the perceptive background in relation to which the local
population is identified as a “банда словенски тврдоглавци” (“a gang of Slavic mules”) whose fate is to be
conquered and subjugated. In the 1945 novel Travnička hronika (Bosnian Chronicle)4
by Ivo Andrić the
various foreigners’ perceptions construct the image of the savage Balkanian. The West-European and Ottoman
emissaries in Travnik—the French and the Austrian consul, the Turkish viziers and their administrators—view
the Bosnians as uncouth, uneducated, superstitious: “The Vizier tactfully alluded to the backwardness of the
land and to the coarse and boorish manners of the people” (Andrić, 1993, p. 28). The French consul’s position
is identical: “They are wild ignorant people. They hate everything foreign (…) It’s their barbarian way”
(Andrić, 1993, p. 22).
Auto-Image
The imagological projections of the foreigner are reversible—they are founded on the parallel generating of
auto-imagological representations. The image of the self is indirectly defined through the image of the other. The
image is a translation of the other, as well as a self-translation (Пажо, 2002, p. 111). The self sees the other, and
the image of the other transmits a certain image of this self that sees, speaks or writes (Пажо, 2002, p. 105). In the
analyzed texts, the Balkan auto-image is founded on stressing several collective qualities, causally connected
with foreigners:
(1) Adaptability as an additionally developed survival instinct is in conditions of an alien/invading presence.
“Mi Hrvati ionako nećemo nikada nikog pobjediti” (Fabrio, 1986, p. 162).5
(2) Wavering between actual subjugation and the desire to rebel: “Pride is their second nature, a living force
that stays with them all through life, that animates them and marks them visibly apart from the rest of mankind”
(Andrić, 1993, p. 9).
(3) The need for open communication with foreigners—in The Palace of Dreams, the prosperity of the
Albanian people is conditioned by their political and cultural association with the Ottoman invader: “One day
they’ll win their independence, but they’ll lose all those other possibilities” (Kadare, 1998, p. 68).
In all the images of the foreigner, the portrayal of the Balkan barbarian/primitive nature has been realized
alongside the auto-imagological representations positioned as counter-images. In Andrić’s novel, the French
consul, explaining the vizier’s inclination through the principle of compensation, universally applicable to the
other foreigners, creates an auto-image as well:
He thought he understood in a general way how and why foreigners loved France, the French way of life, and French
ideas. They were drawn to them by the law of contrasts; they loved France for all those things they were unable to find in
their own country. (Andrić, 1993, p. 141)
There is a superior auto-image of the foreigner as the counter-image of a hetero-image in The General of the
Dead Army as well: “He was the representative of a great and civilized country and his work must be greatly
worthy of it” (Kadare, 2008, p. 13).
4
First published in 1945.
5
“We Croatians will never defeat anyone anyhow”. (translator’s note)
9. IMAGOLOGICAL TOPOI IN BALKAN LITERATURES602
Mechanisms of Construction
The bifocal perception through which auto-images and hetero-images are created is founded on a
“projective ideology”. It involves a complex transfer of one’s own weaknesses/fears onto the other, resulting in a
double effect: creating a distance from the other and, through it, self-identification (Biti, 1994, p. 145). The
principle of turning the other into a dangerous enemy and turning oneself into a victim forced to defend
her/himself (Biti, 1994, p. 145) is a manner of justifying one’s own position and behavior. That which Ulrich
Bielefeld terms mixophobia or fear of mixture, of endangering one’s own purity and sense of domination are the
fundamental motives guiding the foreigner when projecting hetero-images, and that phobia in turn generates an
auto-image of the projected victim, as evidenced by Fabrio’s and Andrić’s novels. In the eyes of the dominant
foreigner, the Balkanian is deliberately distanced to the opposite pole—of the uncivilized, the barbaric—in order
to imply one’s own superiority. That is a direct application of the system of differential classification (Пажо,
2002, p. 117). In Fabrio’s novel, the conquering foreigner justifies his presence in Rijeka as part of the
enlightenment mission of civilizational influence on the primitive people: “Francuzi (…) običavali ponavljati da
su stigli amo zato da bi od domorodaca načinili civilizirane ljude” (Fabrio, 1986, p. 41).6
The image of the
foreigner as enemy is a projection used to justify one’s own position of a victim: the subjugation under foreign
rule for the Balkanians is a justification for their collective state of misery and backwardness. In Andrić’s account,
the Turkish rule created some typical qualities, such as pretence, mistrust, laziness of thought and fear of every
novelty, or everything and every movement. These qualities, developed through centuries of unequal fight and
constant defence, became integral part of the nature of the locals and permanent traits of their character (Andrić,
1993). In The General of the Dead Army, the roughness and the belligerence on which foreigners base their image
of the Albanian people get a different explanation in an auto-imagological context—as a survival instinct,
developed in circumstances of constant subjugation.
One parameter for the imagological constructions is offered by the concept of “discursive community”,
which Hutcheon (1994) defines as a “complex configuration of shared knowledge, beliefs, values and
communicative strategies” (p. 91). Belonging to different discursive communities not only makes
communication difficult but is also a source of the stereotypes and prejudices on which imagological
representations are based. In The General of the Dead Army, belonging to different discursive communities is the
reason of different interpretations of the phenomenon of the vendetta. Whereas foreigners understand the
vendetta only from a psychological aspect, the local expert has a different explanation:
I know there are some foreigners who have the idea that our vendetta and various other pernicious customs are to be
explained by the so-called Albanian psychology, but the whole notion is too absurd. They are merely customs that were
once imposed on us by our former oppressors and religion. (Kadare, 2008, p. 128)
In The Palace of Dreams the discursive community facilitates the understanding of Albanian folklore by the
Austrian consul. In Bosnian Chronicle, however, the unsuccessful reception of Racine’s tragedy Bajazet by the
vizier is due to his non-belonging to the discursive community of the foreigner (the French consul). From his
viewpoint, the theatrical representation of Turkish tradition—the harem—is unacceptable. For the same reason
there are different interpretations of the geostrategic importance of roads: For the foreigner, they are the
6
“The French (…) used to repeat that they had come here to turn the natives into civilized people”. (translator’s note)
10. IMAGOLOGICAL TOPOI IN BALKAN LITERATURES 603
prerequisites of progress, whereas for the Balkanian they are merely a way of easier and quicker access of
invading threats and therefore unnecessary.
Imagological Stereotypes
Literary images of the foreigner are imagological constructs projected through prejudice and stereotypes.
Discussing the stereotype as a powerful form of the image, Pageaux underscores its partiality and
polycontextuality. The stereotype as a short overview, as an abridged expression typical of a culture, transmits
the smallest amount of information for greatest communication, with the widest range of possibilities and tends
towards generalization (Пажо, 2002, pp. 106-108). In the novels too, the foreigner’s images of the Balkan native
are always stereotypical.7
In the foreigner’s imagological representations, the Balkan is reduced to the oriental,
as an antipode to the European. In Bosnian Chronicle (1993), the French consul perceives the Bosnian people
through his literary preconceptions, drawn from the French travelogues on the Balkans. The negative stereotype
in the hetero-image results from the stereotypical auto-image where one’s own dominance is reinforced—in a
political sense, as well as in the sense of a civilizational, cultural and intellectual superiority. The contrast in the
foreigner’s representations is strategic distancing of the natives through stereotypical stigmatization. This type of
prevention is included in the conviction with which the Italian general comes to Albania and the French consul to
Travnik. On the other hand, the natives are a priori mistrustful of the foreign, unexcited about novelty and
convinced that foreigners always bring misfortune.
However, the texts from our corpus also demonstrate a parallel process of de-stereotyping, provided by
double transformation. Firstly, there is a transformation concerning the explicit problematizations of certain kinds
of prejudices and stereotypes: in The Death of the Scrivener, the foreigner causes the stereotypical opposition
between conqueror and defender and the prejudices that identify the unknown and the foreign as unfortunate and
evil. Secondly, there is transformation in the instances where inherited or adopted experiences and knowledge will
be correctively treated in the act of immediate perception and in one’s personal experience with the other. Such a
change is experienced by the French consul after meeting the vizier and the local population:
For an Oriental, the Vizier was unusually lively, cordial, and outspoken (…) He had none of that monolithic
Ottoman dignity of which Daville had read and heard so much (…) Everything he met with in Bosnia and all that reached
him from the embassy in Istanbul, and from the military governor in Dalmatia, was contrary to what he’d been told when
he left Paris. (Andrić, 1993, pp. 28-31)
In The General of the Dead Army one witnesses the gradual transformation of the convictions with which
the foreigner comes to Albania: “I felt I wanted to get to this savage, backward country as soon as I possibly could
(…) But when we got there it all turned out differently” (Kadare, 2008, p. 134).
Conclusion
The imagological catalogue in the novels allows for several conclusions:
(1) The heterogeneity of the foreigners with regard to their ethnicity and their position on the territory in
7
This is also stressed by Norris (1999), according to whom the “production of a Balkan semantics is based on a narrow range of
persistent images, reinvented as appropriate in each historical moment” (p. 37), as well as by Todorova (2009), who sees the
Balkans as “the hostage of a tradition of stereotypes” (p. 187).
11. IMAGOLOGICAL TOPOI IN BALKAN LITERATURES604
which they are staying generates multiplied imagological projections: the foreigners as conquerors, enemies,
civilized, and uncivilized strangers; furthermore, the images they create for one another and the various
foreigners present in a third, neutral and, for them, foreign (Balkan) territory—the Frenchman’s image of the
Austrian, of the Turk and vice versa in Bosnian Chronicle—and, of course, the foreigner’s image of the
Balkanians. The multiplication also concerns the heterogeneity of the native—a member of various Balkan
nationalities (Macedonian, Albanian, Croatian, Bosnian). Finally, there is a special kind of microlayering in
Bosnian Chronicle, where the Turk is both the conquering foreigner and a native.
(2) The foreigner’s image is identical—negatively stereotypical, xenophobic, ideologically projective. The
image of the foreigner, on the other hand, is more richly nuanced. In The Palace of Dreams and Exercising Life,
the foreigner is necessary and undesirable, civilized and uncivilized, good and evil. Is that due to the fact that the
authors are Balkan, so they feel the need to stress tolerance as Balkan immanence? But, the problem might also be
interpreted differently: The Balkan sense of tolerance is not innate but acquired—the consequence of the
permanent presence of foreigners in the Balkan regions and the forcedness of cohabitation. Hence, the credit for
the development of Balkan tolerance goes to the foreigners as well.
(3) The images that are (self)referentially marked are multilayered. The novels contain a whole
imagological series—image, hetero-image, auto-image and counter-image—in a reciprocal relationship. The
dynamic perspective contributing to multilayeredness is also provided through the narrative proceedings in the
texts: The foreigner in them is either the bearer of the dominant focalization (The General of the Dead Army,
Bosnian Chronicle) or his viewpoint is equally juxtaposed to the native (The Death of the Scrivener). The play
with the viewpoints stresses the importance of the position from which one perceives, represents and constructs.
(4) The novelesque images confirm the susceptibility of the Balkans as the subject of imagological research.
They show its status as a “contact zone” and its historically confirmed status of a critical region, in terms of armed
conflicts. The action in the novels takes place in periods of crises, indicating another stereotypical image of the
Balkans as a “powder keg”.
References
Andrić, I. (1993). Bosnian chronicle. New York: Arcade Publishing.
Bilefild, U. (1998). Stranci: prijatelji ili neprijatelji (Foreigners: Friends or enemies). Beograd: Čigoja štampa.
Biti, V. (1994). Upletanje nerečenog (Intertwining the unsaid). Zagreb: Matica hrvatska.
Fabrio, N. (1986). Vježbanje života (Exercising life). Zagreb: Globus. Rijeka/Opatija:Otokar Keršovani.
Goldsworthy, V. (1999). Inventing Ruritania. The imperialism of the imagination. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.
Hayden-Bakić, M. (1995). Nesting orientalisms: The case of former Yugoslavia. Slavic Reviеw, 54(4), 917-931.
Hutcheon, L. (1994). Irony’s edge. London/New York: Routledge.
Kadare, I. (1993). The palace of dreams. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Kadare, I. (2008). The general of the dead army. New York: Arcade Publishing.
Norris, D. (1999). In the wake of the Balkan myth. Questions of identity and modernity. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Todorova, М. (2009). Imagining the Balkans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Михајловски, Д. (2002). Смртта на дијакот (The death of the scrivener). Скопје: Каприкорнус.
Пажо, Д-А. (2002). Општа и компаративна книжевност (General and comparative literature). Скопје: Македонска книга.
Цивян, В. Т. (1999). Движение и путь в балканской модели мира. Исследования по структуре текста (Movement and path
in the Balkan world model: Researches into the structure of the text). Москва: Индрик.
Цивян, В. Т. (1990). Лингвистические основы балканской модели мира (Lingusitic basics of the Balkan world model). Москва:
Наука.
12. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, ISSN 2159-5836
August 2014, Vol. 4, No. 8, 605-612
A Feminist Analysis of Protagonists’ Self-development in
O Pioneers! and My Antonia
YANG Han-yu
Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing, China
This paper focuses on pioneer women’s development of the self from the perspective of feminism in O Pioneers!
(1913) and My Antonia (1994). As rigid social connections and concepts restrict women’s autonomy and freedom,
they must transform themselves and the world in order to survive. In order to analyze pioneer women’s process of
self-growth in the special period, the author of this paper compares and contrasts the specific situation, and
analyzes the characteristics of the protagonists in the above two novels. Through analysis, the authuor concludes
that pioneer women always create a nurturing and gracious atmosphere in their household. Practically, these
women successfully transmit the old civilization to the newly established homestead.
Keywords: Willa Cather, feminism, pioneer women, self-development
Introduction
Current Studies on Willa Cather
Willa Cather’s fiction has generated significant criticism and analysis during the last several decades. Four
biographical studies appeared within five years of Cather’s death in 1947. The first one is Mildred Bennet’s The
World of Willa Cather (1951), focusing on the memories and incidents of the Red Cloud years as they related to the
fiction. James Woodress’s meticulous biography, Willa Cather: A Literary Life (1987), illuminates the intricate
connections between her works and personal life. Sharon O’ Brien’s work on Cather, culminating in Willa Cather: A
Literary life is the most powerful body of criticism that deals with Cather as a woman and lesbian writer. Maxwell
Geismar’s The Last of the Provincials:The American Novel, 1915-1925 (on Willa Cather, Anderson,Fitzgerald)
(1959) offers the first comprehensive assessment of Cather’s fiction. He appreciates her investment of a life in art, her
attempt to find meaning through art, her struggle to maintain values in hostile and threatening times.
Another dimension in Cather’s studies began in 1967 with the publication of The Kingdom of Art by the
University of Nebraska Press edited by Bernice Slote. The volume gathers Cather’s dramatic and literary
criticism, from 1893 to 1896, and reveals both her intellectual complexity and her significant experience with the
arts and world literature. University of Nebraska Press published a book in 2000, named Willa Cather and
Politics of Criticism, written by Joan Acocella. It has evoked wide repercussion in study of Willa Cather.
Acocella provides an overview of Cather’s life and works, and shows that Cather’s works do not neatly fit the
YANG Han-yu, mater of arts, lecturer, Department of Foreign Languages, Beijing Information Science and Technology
University.
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13. A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF PROTAGONISTS’ SELF-DEVELOPMENT606
demands of critics—from the Marxists to the feminists.
Cather’s place in American literature and culture has been the subject of several studies. The latest one is to
re-examine Cather’s writings from the aspect of eco-criticism in the context of globalization. Cather’s works
emerge as environmentally conscious texts when they are read against the background of Deep Ecology. Deep
Ecology emphasizes that human beings represent only one strand in the intricate web of life; all forms of life have
a right to continued existence; and human beings must integrate ecology into the world around them in order to
achieve a suitable existence (Woodress, 1989).
Thanks to such groups of scholars of interpretation we have deepened the understanding of Willa Cather’s
works and broadened our view on Willa Cather studies.
A Brief Introduction of Feminism and Feminist Literature
Feminism originates in the struggle for women’s social rights, political movements, and later developes into
the fight for equality between men and women in cultural and spiritual aspects. Feminists advocate the overthrow
of the patriarchal domination and improve women’s status. As the inevitable product of women’s liberation
movement, feminist literature advocates literary expression of women’s situation from the perspective of the
creation of gender awareness, and explores the feminine consciousness.
Feminist theory, which emerges from feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender
inequality by examining women’s social roles and lived experience; it has developed theories in a variety of
disciplines in order to respond to issues such as the social construction of sex and gender (Chodorow, 1989). The
feminist movement produces both feminist fiction and non-fiction, and creates new interest in women’s writing. It
also promptes a general reevaluation of women’s historical and academic contributions in response to the belief
that women’s lives and contributions have been underrepresented as areas of scholarly interest (Blain, Clements,
& Grundy, 1990). Much of the early period of feminist literary scholarship is given over to the rediscovery and
reclamation of texts written by women. Studies like Dale Spender’s Mothers of the Novel (1986) and Jane
Spencer’s The Rise of the Woman Novelist (1986) are ground-breaking in their insistence that women have
always been writing. More recently, Broadview Press continues to issue 18th and 19th century novels, many
hitherto out of print, and the University of Kentucky has a series of republications of early women’s novels. A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist
philosophy. A Room of One’s Own (1929) by Virginia Woolf, is noted in its argument for both a literal and
figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.
The widespread interest in women’s writing is related to a general reassessment and expansion of the literary
canon. According to Elyce Rae Helford, “Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for feminist
thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice” (Helford, 2005, pp. 289-291). Feminist science
fiction is sometimes taught at the university level to explore the role of social constructs in understanding gender.
Notable texts of this kind are Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Joanna Russ’ The Female
Man (1970), Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), and Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale (1985).
The Harsh Social Environment
In the patriarchal society, “the sexual distribution of political authority and economic power tends either to
place women at the bottom of the system or to exclude them entirely” (Ryan, 1998, p. 5). Usually, women’s
14. A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF PROTAGONISTS’ SELF-DEVELOPMENT 607
function in the economic development is ignored or invisible. But in the social and economic development of the
American west, women possess a unique position because the value and degree of their participation in the
pioneering are necessitated by the arduous task that faces the American pioneers. “In order to accomplish the task
of planting a society in the wildness, no man, no woman can be exempted from this toilsome undertaking”
(Moynihan, 1990, p. 8). The efforts of frontier men as well as women are required and emphasized to create a
civilization out of the vast wilderness. Because women are needed in men’s undertaking, men’s oppression,
repression and suppression over women are not so evident and rampant. The pioneering process in the first part of
O Pioneers! (1913) is such a case.
In the patriarchal family, only the patriarch of the family can rise to the leadership in the economic, political,
cultural, and religious affairs of the community. The husband will make the important decision and does not pay
much attention to his wife. For example, Mrs. Bergson in O Pioneers! is one of these poor and neglected woman.
She is reluctant to leave her dear home for this raw place, but she has already internalized the patriarchal ideology
that makes men always have the dominant or masculine roles and women always have the subordinate or
feminine roles. Therefore, she has to move together with her husband against her own will, trying to reconstruct
her old life on the new land as possible as she can. Being unable to say “no” to her husband, Mrs. Bergson has to
content herself with preserving picking and other endless chores at home and in the garden. Since she identifies
herself with the traditional subordinate, passive and timid women, Mrs. Bergson will accept whatever her
husband gives to her.
Another couple in My Antonia (1994) plays the same. They are Mr. and Mrs. Harlings. Mrs. Harling actually
has strong, independent nature. She knows what she likes, and is not always trying to imitate other people.
However, such an independent and joyful lady behaves completely different when Mr. Harling is at home. No
matter how independent the woman’s own personality is, she is subordinated to male authority in marriage. The
husband is the God’s representative within the family, and a wife should not question his wisdom.
A man will have a sense of superiority enjoying his inherent privilege as a man in patriarchal society, no
matter how foolish and how incompetent he is. He firmly believes that he is always the dominant power in the
family and the woman only possesses a secondary economic and social status in it. A woman is inferior to the
patriarchal head and also the other male members of her household. What’s worst is that man intends to ignore,
even negate women’s function.
It should come to mind that this is still a male dominated world in which women are denied the freedom to
enter the public world. Society has the false belief that women are by nature less intellectually and physically
capable than men. Accordingly, a set of customary and legal constrains is established to block women’s
entrance to success is the so-called public world. As a result of this policy of exclusion, women are confined to
the domestic sphere and the true potential of many women goes unfulfilled. Because women are not given the
same opportunities and civil rights as men, they are confined to such household duties always assigned to
women in the sexual division of labor, such as cooking, washing, caring for children, ironing, mending, and
gardening. The space for women is so narrow that it nearly smothers them to death. Women can neither share
with men the rich and colorful life, nor participate in the keen competition on the battlefields of life.
Furthermore, they do not have many chances to embrace new ideas, without the sunshine from the outside, the
stimulus from competition, the introduction of new ideas, it can be easily imagined that women’s pace
15. A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF PROTAGONISTS’ SELF-DEVELOPMENT608
becomes slow; their way of thinking is becoming rigid; their germ of life is extinct and there is no need for
them to compete with men, they are content with their status quo, and they do not have great incentives and
consciousness to improve them, which will do a great harm to the development and self-fulfillment of women
in the long run. This is a vicious circle. In turn, women’s incompetence will reinforce her status quo as the
subordinate and subsidiary beings both in the family and in the society. As women, they are living in a house
with a glass window through which they can peep at the busy and interesting life lived by men, but they are
denied the entrance to participate in and enjoy it. Life is also like a game whose riles are male made by men and
for men only. Although both men and women are competitors, women as one group of the runners in the race
for society’s goods and services are systematically disadvantaged.
Alexandra’s Frustration With Marital Problems
Different from the traditional passive women images in the past, Alexandra is a creative woman, who is
passionate to create a meaningful existence for her in the patriarchal society. Success brings loneliness as well as
wealth. Although Alexandra possesses a large wealth and enjoys some benefits that go with it, she is not as happy
as she is expected to be.
Having dedicated her beauty, youth and energy in the tiresome work of carrying on her father’s task,
Alexandra is still single at the age of 40 and she lives a very lonely life. Being a woman carrying great weight, she
longs for a partner to share her sorrows and joys, to release her fatigue, and to refresh her after a day’s work. From
her girlhood till her adulthood, when troubled or tired, a same dream recurs, in which, she was lifted and carried
lightly by someone very strong, she felt free from pain.
Alexandra is ambitious for her achievements on her land, but she’s also hungry for love and happiness of a
marriage. However, in a patriarchal society, her rightful pursuit for her personal happiness is no easier than her
transformation of the wild land. She can transform the wild land but she can’t transform the society full of gender
injustice and oppression over women.
In the novel, when Alexandra grows older, Mr. Bergson has to depend more and more upon her
resourcefulness and good judgment, recognizing that his daughter is intelligent. But in his mind, son and daughter
do not mean the same thing. Unfortunately, although his sons are industrious, he can never teach them to use their
heads about their work. However, unlike her mother, Alexandra not only dares to say “no” to men, but also has
the consciousness as well as actions to defend her individual rights and protect the downtrodden and the
ostracized, resorting to the means of law.
Together with Lou and Oscar, Emil also objects to Alexandra’s marriage. As for Emil’s reaction to her
marriage, Alexandra encounters an unexpected disappointment, sadness and irony. She has expected that he can
understand her a little more, than his two older brothers but Emil fails her. To Emil, Alexandra acts as more a
mother than a sister. After their parents’ death, she brings up Emil herself, builds her house for him, and sends
him to college in an attempt to create a chance for him to do whatever he wants to. Although Emil loves and even
admires Alexandra, he can never understand and appreciate her. Ironically, the people who really understand and
appreciate Alexandra are her friends Marie and Carl. Emil remains the same as his brothers—one member of the
superior male group.
Even Carl, Alexandra’s love, is not as good as he is expected to be. Before Carl plans to go away, Alexandra
16. A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF PROTAGONISTS’ SELF-DEVELOPMENT 609
confesses to him that she doesn’t need money, but needs him for a great many years. Furthermore, she says,
“what I have is yours if you care enough about me to take it” (Cather, 1913, p. 84). But Carl is not only “too little
to face the criticism of even such men as Lou and Oscar” (Cather, 1913, p. 90), but is also unwilling to accept
what Alexandra would give him until he has something to show for himself and has something to offer her. In
other words, Carl believes that women should be dependent upon men rather than vice versa. To share with
Alexandra what she has without offering something himself is to Carl unthinkable as well as unacceptable.
Therefore, despite being tired of the endless wandering days, he chooses to leave for Alaska to seek his fortunes
in order to vindicate his poor indignity as a man.
Carl leaves and Emil is gone, Lou and Oscar do not come to her home again, severing the relations with
Alexandra. Success can bring man wealth, fame, love, friendship, and power, almost whatever he desires,
whereas it brings women loneliness and a sense of resignation. Take Alexandra’s marriage for example, her
dedication to fulfill her father’s task is one reason that she has not got married yet at the age of 40. She simply can
find no time and energy to consider her marriage in the painstaking process of pioneering. But the more important
reason is that her success and her independence turn out to be a hindrance rather than a help to her marriage. Her
independence, success, and power must have kept many a man at a distance. Since these qualities are indirect
oppositions to the gender-related roles and attitudes as dictated by a male-centered society for its women. This is
the great sadness of a successful woman like Alexandra. To be a woman in a male-centered society is a hard
destiny but to be an exceptional one must be doubly hard. Feeling puzzled, helpless and tired, Alexandra
questions sadly “I wonder why I have been permitted to prosper, if it is only to take my friends away from me”
(Cather, 1913, p. 105). History is repeating itself. It’s common to find a woman behind successful men. But it is
rare to find a man behind a successful woman.
Antonia’s Frustration With Social Bias
“When boys and girls are growing up, life can’t stand still … they have to grow up, whether they will or no”
(Cather, 1994, p. 155). Cather portrayed Antonia who fully developed her characteristics through the conflicts
with society. Antonia’s move to Black Hawk signifies another milestone in her development. In order to better
support her brother Ambrosch’s farm, Antonia moves to Black Hawk town as a hired girl for the Harlings. There
she will explore and battle with physical and mental challenges in the form of people and societal conventions
for women and immigrants. The hired girls in Black Hawk have received social prejudice on their dual
identification of women and immigrants. The self-consciousness of Alexandra is exposed. Although the
immigrant country girls are good laborers, people of Black Hawk have prejudice and regard the immigrants as
stupid foreigners. People in the town thought these immigrant girls were another race and a great menace to the
conservative social order. “Physically they were almost a race apart, and out-of-door work had given them a
vigor which, when they got over their first shyness on coming to town, developed into a positive carriage and
freedom of movement” (Cather, 1994, p. 127).
They are not used to accepting the unconventional figures with vigor, positive carriage, and freedom of
movement. Pioneer women are totally different from traditional Victorian women.
In the new stage of life, Antonia is industrious and hard working. She also displays vitality, vivacity and
strength as she has done on the farm. She reveals a deep and spontaneous response to life, so she immediately
17. A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF PROTAGONISTS’ SELF-DEVELOPMENT610
becomes popular with her employers. She herself also displays a happy life in the Harlings’ family. Antonia is at
first just as servile to her employers’ family as Mrs. Harling is to her husband, but soon rebels against the
orthodox expectations on the hired girls like her in Black Hawk. Her transformation is brought about after a
dancing pavilion has come to town. Being the best dancer of them all, Antonia is soon so fascinated by the dances
that she talks and thinks of nothing but the tent. As a result of her success at the tent, Antonia becomes the center
of a group of males who start to circle around her like flies. The iceman, the delivery boys and young farmers all
come to tramping through the Harlings’ yard to the back door to engage dances, or to invite Antonia to parties and
picnics, so a crisis is inevitable. Eventually she is forced by the autocratical Mr. Harling to quit going to the
dances where she attracts so much attention or get another job. In the eyes of Mr. Harling, Antonia has offended
public decency, as he tells her: “You’ve been going with girls who have a reputation for being free and easy, and
now you’ve got the same reputation” (Cather, 1994, p. 165). Mrs. Harling is of course on the side of her husband.
But to Antonia, the dances mean so much more than can be understood by men like Mr. Harling that she refuses
to give them up even if it means rebellion against her boss and giving up her job at the Harlings. “Stop going to
the tent?” she panted, “My own father couldn’t make me stop! Mr. Harling ain’t my boss outside my work”
(Cather, 1994, p. 165). Then Antonia and the Harlings part.
Antonia’s revolt against the Harlings is a rebellion in favor of the good things of life. Years of drudgery on
remote farm with an unpleasant mother and brother for company have begotten in her a fierce desire to enjoy
life’s sweets. The rebellion seems mild since it consists chiefly of having a good time and going out with young
men to dances, but the significance of her rebellion is that it shows Antonia’s asserting her independence from
Harlings as well as from her family.
After leaving the Harlings, Antonia decides to work for the notoriously dissolute Wick Cutter. Cutter is
described in such a degrading way that he reminds the readers of the filthy snake that Jim Killed. He is so hated by
the people that a boy would go to a good deal of trouble to throw a dead cat into his back yard. In fact, Cutter is
obviously planning to rape Antonia, but finally failed.
After leaving Cutter’s house, Antonia falls in love with a railroad conductor named Larry Donovan. He lures
her to Denver with promises of marriage and then deserts her. Antonia has to come back to the prairie, pregnant
and disgraced.
During this period, Antonia’s life stage moves to the town and city—Black Hawk and Denver. Antonia is
suddenly removed from a sparsely populated country to grow. In the beginning, Antonia lives the happy life at the
Harling’s. But as she leaves the prairie, she loses much of her contact with the land, which is the source of her
vitality and happiness, and experiences the bitterness of life in town and city. When she returns to the prairie, she
tells Jim, “I’d always be miserable in a city. I’d die of lonesomeness. I like to be where I know every stack and
tree, and where all the ground is friendly” (Cather, 1994, p. 250).
Pioneer Women’s Realization of Self-development
Traditional marriage is usually dominated and oriented by autocratic men. Hence, creating harmonious
family and marital life requires cooperation and endeavors of both sexes.
Women as geniuses always express their opinions and positions properly in order to achieve their rights.
With outstanding ability to express them and communicate with the world, these women characters never
18. A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF PROTAGONISTS’ SELF-DEVELOPMENT 611
embarrass them in facing difficulties and awkward situations. Pioneer women’s special capacity functions as a
rival to the suffocating and rigid social atmosphere. This trait of femininity symbolizes women’s devotion to life
and comprehending nature. Through communicating with their natural environment and people around, women
characters express themselves, forcefully and can comprehend their situation accurately. Consequently, capable
women are able to find adequate ways to adapt themselves to their environment. This feminine characteristic
qualifies them for keeping pace with the advancing world. In addition, independent women characters’ ability to
link strength with imagination carries weigh in the process of their self-development too.
Alexandra differs from Antonia in that she lays her emphasis on farming the land while Antonia pours her
energy to create harmonious family atmosphere. However, in addition to managing the farm, Alexandra protects
Ivar, watches out for Mrs. Lee, helps Emil to escape the corn fields, advises Marie, and organizes her brother’s
work. What she does shows her feminine and maternal affection. In a sense, she plays the role of a spiritual pillar
among people around her.
Antonia attracts Jim with her good nature. From the innocent and hard working country girls like
Antonia, Jim sees beauty, vigor and hope. Antonia as the most important woman in Jim’s life signifies the
country, the conditions, and the whole adventure of his childhood. Her womanhood and strength conform her
into “a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races” (Cather, 1994, p. 275). Jim admires her mainly
because “whatever else was gone, Antonia had not lost the fire of life” (Cather, 1994, p. 306). This merit of
endurance is the very element that Jim lacks in his life. From the beginning to the end, Antonia’s charm is
demonstrated in forms of womanhood, love and maternal affection. Jim remarks affectionately to Antonia
“I’d have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister anything that a woman can
be to a man” (Cather, 1994, p. 251). Actually, his admiration for her reveals men’s sterility and their
psychological dependence on maternal love.
Conclusion
This thesis focuses on pioneer women’s development of the self from the perspective of feminism in O
Pioneers! and My Antonia. As rigid social connections and concepts restrict women’s autonomy and freedom;
they must transform themselves and the world in order to survive. Through hardship, Willa Cather’s protagonists
have some common places that lead to their success. Pioneer women transform their environment with their
outstanding traits. Being intelligent and ambitious, pioneer women are extraordinary women who embrace new
ideas and new things full of passion, imagination and adventurous spirit. For them, life is to try, to experiment, to
pursue, to adventure, to transcend, and to die of having lived. Dissatisfied with her life no wider than her
cornfields, pioneer women yearn for the wide world to express herself and fervently hopes that they can enjoy the
freedom that men enjoy, the freedom, not just to create, but to be, to think and to feel.In Cather’s works, her
protagonists all respect knowledge and are interested in the things around them, which make them different from
the other people and could achieve unusual achievements. In order to analyze pioneer women’s process of
self-growth in the special period, the author compares and contrasts the specific situation, and analyzes the
characteristics of the protagonists in the two novels. Through analysis, the authuor concludes that pioneer women
always create a nurturing and gracious atmosphere in their household. Practically, these women successfully
transmit the old civilization to the newly established homestead.
19. A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF PROTAGONISTS’ SELF-DEVELOPMENT612
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20. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, ISSN 2159-5836
August 2014, Vol. 4, No. 8, 613-617
Jamesian Impressions of the Cities
Tzu Yu Allison Lin
Gaziantep University, Gaziantep, Turkey
A writer’s narrative style is about the way in which he or she comes to handle a subject—it can be a theme, a
character, or a place, etc.. When someone tries to define Henry James’s writing style, for instance, he or she is
amazed by the sense of richness in Jamesian styles, because of the writer’s own life experience and life style.
Travelling around different cities and going to art galleries and museums certainly construct James’s unique way of
seeing. In this article, the author wants to focus on Jamesian ways of seeing the relation between art and writing.
Treating novel as a form of fine arts, the author would suggest, James uses techniques of painting and photography
in the writing about the impressions of the cities.
Keywords: Henry James, impression, Paris, London, New York
Introduction
William James, in The Principles of Psychology (1890), proposes his understanding of the process of seeing,
focusing on the way which human consciousness interacts with the external world, in order to see “what the
world means to us” (Wilshire, 1968, p. 9). Human consciousness is the nexus of William James’s metaphysical
interpretation of subject-object dualism, because it does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as
“chain” or “train” do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing joined; it flows. A
“river” or a “stream” is the metaphor by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call
it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life (James, 1981, p. 233).
The subject perceives the external world by making sense of the visual objects—what one sees. Using the
word “stream” as a metaphor of depicting how human consciousness works to produce impressions, William
James’s claim actually comes to reveal the significant relation between vision and mind through the process of
seeing, in a way which visual objects are internalised as impressions via vision and consciousness. In Henry
James’s novels, the reader can see the way in which impressions are formed through the stream of
subject-object dualism.
Paris
Henry James’s writing style is personal and experimental, as the French impressionist painters do in their
paintings. The French impressionists, as James claims in his essay “The Impressionists” (1876), collectively
represent a new artistic way of seeing the external world. The French impressionists are not interested in
Tzu Yu Allison Lin, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Foreign Language Education, Faculty of Education, Gaziantep
University.
DAVID PUBLISHING
D
21. JAMESIAN IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITIES614
portraying the exact look of visual objects. Instead of painting what the external world looks like, the
impressionists would paint their own unique impressions of what they see. The impression would be taken as the
truth, showing the artist’s vision and design in a work of art. Henry James himself, as a literary artist and art critic,
sees the aesthetics of French impressionism as a process of conscious “arrangement, embellishment, selection”
(James, 1989, p. 114). Similar to an impressionist approach, the author would suggest, in The Ambassadors
(1994), the act of seeing people, things and places reveals a particular Jamesian strategy of knowing the truth,
instead of searching for meanings only through the surface of things and visual objects.
Jamesian artistic vision is expressed through “the stream of thought”, which serves as an “account of a
process” of seeing (James, 1994, p. 4). The novel The Ambassadors itself is an impression of an anecdote of a
friend, whose name is Jonathan Sturges (Matthiessen, 1946, p. 15). Through writing, the city of Paris comes to
unlock Strether’s process of observation. Eventually, Strether’s way of seeing Paris reveals his impression of the
city, which comes to form the significance of Jamesian narrative style.
A writer’s style can be read as a textual pleasure of his or her own. The reader can recongise this style while
reading, as if seeing the “signature” (Donoghue, 1995, p. 228) of the writer. A writer’s narrative style also
indicates “the conscientiousness with which he works” (Donoghue, 1995, p. 228). Seeing literature as an artistic
form, James depicts Strether’s stream of feeling, thought and memory in an objective way. In order to achieve
“objectivity” (Wellek, 1958, p. 309), James uses an objective point of view—the narrator’s own—to depict truth
in his fictional world. To define the term “stream of consciousness”, Baldick (2008) points out that “Marcel
Proust’s novel A la recherché du temps perdu (1913-27)” is one of the best examples for this writing technique,
presenting “the connection between sense-impressions and memory” (p. 318) directly from the first person’s
point of view. Jamesian style at this point is a perfect first person narration, given by the narrator “I”, observing
and depicting Strether’s process of seeing.
The picturesque view of the French countryside is significant, including a boat which contains “a man who
held the paddles and a lady, […], with a pink parasol” (James, ssion of the Parisian events, revealing his own
awareness of the love affair between Chad and 1994, p. 309). James’s literary image depicts two human figures in
the boat, referring to an Impressionist expression of leisure, as John Singer Sargent’s lady, Violet Sargent, and
her parasol in A Morning Walk (1888, as cited in Adelson, 1997, p. 22). The brightness of the sunlight seems to
be Sargent’s “salute to Monet” and his Woman with Umbrella (1886, as cited in Adelson, 1997, p. 22). Strether,
bathing in the sunlight, comes to achieve his ultimate vision of the truth—an impre Madame de Vionnet.
London
James’s narrative point of view is personal and significant. It is a powerful way to show perceptions of a
character, in which the external world is observed by the viewing subject. James’s aesthetics of objective point of
view helps to examine human psychology in details, as in an experimental process of seeking “an impossible
perfection” (Wharton, 1925, p. 90), as in his novel The Golden Bowl (1983). The obsession of a perfect portrayal
of human consciousness, according to Fredric Jameson, is the very reason why Henry James is not “a minor
nineteenth-century man of letters” (Jameson, 1981, p. 222). Using the British Museum and the Bloomsbury area,
James’s London in The Golden Bowl, again, like his Paris in The Ambassadors, becomes a place where secrets
and hidden motives hide underneath artistic appearances. The “crack” (James, 1983, p. 429) of the gilded bowl
22. JAMESIAN IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITIES 615
was seen. The crack was mentioned by Maggie in a dialogue. Ignoring the reader’s impatience, there are always
more to be said, before one reaches the essential point of James’s novel.
The city of London fulfils the “suggestiveness” (Woolf, 1986, p. 23) of the feeling of Maggie, which is
externalised as “the impression betrayed by her companion’s eyes” (James, 1983, p. 429). Maggie’s feeling is
depicted in detail, but indirectly. The city of London reinforces the scene of Maggie’s process of seeing in a
dramatic way, in which the novel takes its “dramatic step” (James, 1983, p. xlvi). Maggie’s walk on the London
streets is “an independent ramble, impressed, excited, contented, with nothing to mind and nobody to talk to […]”
(James, 1983, p. 412). The Bloomsbury area is a place where “funny little fascinating” shops—such as “an old
bookseller’s, an old printmonger’s, a couple of places with dim antiquities in the window”—all these, in James’s
writing, give the reader an “optical echoes” (Grossman, 1994, p. 321) of the world of objects in which
photographic realism emerges, indicating Maggie’s “unexpected finds” (James, 1983, p. 412) would happen soon.
James’s power of description certainly is in the hidden visual significance of the city.
Through depicting London, James’s verbal art also comes to represent the mood of an era. Taking The
Awkward Age as an example, in Book 1, “Lady Julia”, the reader can see that Vanderbank and Mr Longdon have
a nostalgic moment in a rainy and stormy London day. Through “the pleasant, ruddy room” (James, 1999, p. 2),
the afternoon light leaves an impression in the room. Vanderbank observes Mr. Longdon, having an impression
that “he had somehow an effect” (James, 1999, p. 3) of his 30 years of living in London. For Mr. Longdon, Van is
young, representing the new generation of the London society. The framed photograph in the room is a gift from
Little Nanda, indicating friendship between herself and Mr. Longdon.
Vanderbank the young man would not believe in friendship in London. The city, for him, is like “a huge
‘squash’, […]—an elbowing, pushing, perspiring, chattering mob” (James, 1999, p. 13). For John Kimmey,
James’s London “was becoming a mad world, ‘a huge squash’, without delicacy, discrimination, or a sense of
privacy” (Kimmey, 1991, p. 114). In this respect, Nanda’s photo seems to preserve a sense of innocence, as the
person in the image makes the reader visualise the generation gap between Mr. Longdon and Van, which is a
30-year “process of change and decay” (Hall, 1963, p. 35). James’s London indicates a dialectical tone of writing,
in a way which the traditional light of realism and the sophisticated and dynamic modern light are synthesised.
Looking at the photograph, Mr Longdon’s vision comes to reveal the city’s nostalgic past, which is so
untouchable as his tears and his “emotions of grief” (Kimmey, 1991, p. 143).
New York
James’s New York city contains a strong sense of discontent. In one of his New York stories, “The
Impressions of a Cousin”, the narrator’s journal is full of detailed descriptions, revealing what the narrator “I”
think and how “I” feel in the city. The narrator comes to New York for seeing the family members, although the
narrator thinks that the city itself is “nothing to sketch” (James, 2006, p. 383). Underneath the appearance of the
“too hideous” cityscape, “the narrow, impersonal houses, with the dry, hard tone of their brown-stone, a surface
as uninteresting as that of sandpaper […]” (James, 2006, p. 383), the narrator Catherine Condit finds it is the best
to write and to draw her own emotional status, which is constructed through her reactions toward people and
things around her. James’s realism in this short fiction does not quite fit into a standard definition of realism. The
dull appearance of New York city, in James’s writing, does not create “a lifelike illusion of some ‘real’ world
23. JAMESIAN IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITIES616
outside the text” (Baldick, 2008, p. 281). Catherine’s verbal sketch does show psychological realism in James’s
own term, which expresses through a direct first person narrative form, representing Catherine’s personal
impressions in a very sufficient way.
In Catherine’s journal, there is a verbal portrait of Eunice, which depicts a moment of Eunice’s smile. Her
smile is highly suggestive, in a way which the narrator Catherine is very much confused. The meaning of her
smile is very much unknown—is Eunice troubled by seeing what Mr. Caliph wants, through his brother Mr.
Frank’s marriage proposal? How much does she know about her own situation? Catherine’s impression of
Eunice, in “a very hot night” (James, 2006, p. 429), is as ambiguous as Eunice’s thought. In a “very hot night”,
Eunice,
…was alone in her room, without a lamp; the windows were wide open, and the dusk was clarified by the light of the
street. She sat there, among things vaguely visible, in a white wrapper, with her fair hair on her shoulders, and I could see
her eyes move toward me when I asked her whether she knew that Mr Frank whished to marry her. I could see her smile,
too, as she answered that she knew he thought he did, but also knew he didn’t. (James, 2006, p. 429)
Eunice says there is nothing that Catherine can do, with “a laugh that was not like her usual laughter” (James,
2006, p. 430). She may not know exactly what Catherine knows—“Mr. Caliph is pushing his brother” (James,
2006, p. 430). Eunice’s situation is like the view outside of the window. There are hundreds of gas lights,
standing there, looking exactly the same, “as ugly as a bad dream” (James, 2006, p. 430). Catherine’s gaze and
impression reveal a typical “Jamesian moment” (Poole, 2006, p. 78) of knowing.
Conclusion
There is no ultimate version of truth. It depends on what one sees and how one expresses his or her own truth.
There are many different versions of truth, depending on not only one’s own perspectives, but also the social
context which one is situated in. As Maupassant once stated, “to believe in reality” is actually a very “childish”
thing, as “[o]ur eyes, our ears, our sense of smell, of taste, differing from one person to another, create as many
truths as there are men upon earth” (James, 1948, p. 72). Psychological realism is a style, in which James is able
to depict the mood of his own particular age. As an American travelled and lived through different European
cities, the significance of Henry James’s style, the author would suggest, is its difficulty to be understood by the
reader, with the international literary theme. Comparing Rome to New York, Catherine finds New York is not
very much likeable. As Tóibín (2009) once pointed out, the city of New York represents “a mixture of a
remembered Eden and a failed style” (p. 248). In James’s writings, the reader can sense his preference of
European cities. The charm of European cities stimulates James’s passion for art and life, as in the garden party of
Sunday afternoon, in 1895, in McNeill Whistler’s old house, James “reads into the Howells figure the pith and
precision of his character’s emotion” (Hocks, 1997, p. 43). Strether, in Paris, comes to realise that he “has
accordingly missed too much” (James, 1994, p. 1). Paris and London have their own charm, because they are
both old enough to arouse deep emotions and thoughts about art and life. James’s narrative style does have a
personal aim. The purpose of writing, for James, is to explore life through different places, in order to make “the
art, for if a picture a tale, or a novel be a direct impression of life” (James, 1948, p. 71). Henry James, in this
respect, is not merely a novelist. He is, ultimately, an artist.
24. JAMESIAN IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITIES 617
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Enacting history in Henry James: Narrative, power, and ethics (pp. 40-60). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Wisconsin Press.
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New York Review Books.
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Jameson, F. (1981). The political unconscious: Narrative as a socially symbolic act. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Kimmey, J. (1991). Henry James and London: The city in his fiction. New York: Peter Lang.
Matthiessen, F. O. (1946). Henry James: The major phase. London: Oxford University Press.
McNeillie, A. (Ed.). (1986-1994). The essays of Virginia Woolf. London: Hogarth.
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history in Henry James: Narrative, power, and ethics (pp. 75-92). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tóibín, C. (2009). Henry James’s New York. The Henry James Review, 30(3), 244-259.
Wellek, R. (1958). Henry James’s literary theory and criticism. American Literature, 30(3), 293-321.
Wharton, E. (1925). The writing of fiction. London: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
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25. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, ISSN 2159-5836
August 2014, Vol. 4, No. 8, 618-627
From the 19th-Century Novel to the Portuguese Contemporary
Film Adaptation∗
Filomena A. Sobral
Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Viseu, Portugal
Porto Regional Center of the Portuguese Catholic University, Porto, Portugal
The literary adaptations of canonical novels for film provide a unique repository of both identity contents and
socio-cultural observations which can be revisited through the filmic representations. These recreations symbolize
not only a privileged visual interpretation of a nation, but they also allow us to examine how a given society reflects
itself through the fiction. In this sense, the objective of this paper is to reflect upon the Portuguese updated filmic
adaptation of The Crime of Father Amaro (1880) by the canonical author Eça de Queiroz. On one hand, the author
intends to rethink about the Portuguese identity portrayed by the film and, at the same time, the author manages to
observe how the Portuguese society is revealed. On the other hand, the paper aims to analyze the particular process
of the adaptation of The Crime of Father Amaro following a qualitative methodology.
Keywords: cinema, adaptation, literature, Eça de Queiroz, classical novels
Introduction
Cinema has always been based on literary material as a source of inspiration for some of its most prominent
productions. This tendency dates back to the days of the silent movies and it is a practice that remains along the
historiography of the cinema in the sound era. This interest is justified because books and movies share a
common interest in narrative and, on the other hand, because both artistic languages benefit from this dialogue,
exploring new frontiers that offer expressive possibilities each time the film gives an interpretation of the original
text. Furthermore, national literature and movies represent an identity legacy that witnesses a unique cultural
heritage. In the case of the classical literature, beyond the book’s patrimonial value stands the temporal validation
and generational identification by the recognition of common references and by the repository of knowledge
which motivates a social and cultural reflection.
This close relationship between literature and cinema, anchored under the sign of adaptation, approaches not
only two important cultural forms of expression, but also provides a privileged observatory to reveal how a
society represents itself through the fiction. In this sense, throughout this text, the author intends to develop an
∗
Acknowledgments: FCT and CI & DETS (Center for Studies in Education, Technology and Health, Polytechnic Institute of
Viseu) (PEst-OE/CED/UI4016/2014), CITAR (Centre for Research on Science and Technology in Arts)
(PEst-OE/EAT/UI0622/2014) POCI 2010, Portuguese Government and the European Union (FEDER).
Filomena A. Sobral, Ph.D., professor, School of Education, Polytechnic Institute of Viseu and CITAR Portuguese Catholic
University.
DAVID PUBLISHING
D
26. FROM THE 19TH-CENTURY NOVEL TO THE PORTUGUESE CONTEMPORARY FILM 619
analytical perspective of the updated filmic adaptation of The Crime of Father Amaro (2005), a canonical novel
written in 1880 by the renowned Portuguese author Eça de Queiroz, to observe the Portuguese identity portrayed
by the movie and, at the same time, to study the transformational process of the adaptation.
The analysis reflects on the feature film The Crime of Father Amaro directed by Carlos Coelho da Silva,
because it is an updated transposition of the 19th-century Portuguese novel. This contemporary version provides
a modern-day portrait of the Portuguese identity and, on the other hand, the fact that it is an adaptation of a novel
by Eca de Queiroz motivates us to highlight the influence of an author who is considered a remarkable
international ambassador of the Portuguese identity (Guerra da Cal, 1980). Eca de Queiroz is actually considered
a brilliant observer of Portugal and of the Portuguese society (Monica, 2001), whose books have been adapted in
a transnational context throughout the years.
The methodology used in this paper aims to describe and explain, allowing us to review important concepts
associated to the literary adaptation, as well as questions related to the specificity of the up to date adaptations and
also the Portuguese cultural representations and identity. The methodological approach is based on a qualitative
content analysis. Therefore, it is established a dual task which begins to decompose the movie into its constituent
elements (decomposition/description) and then it is endangered connections between these data to understand
and explain (rebuild/interpret) (Gomez Tarín, 2010). This involves seeing the movie, identifying the narrative
structure and its basic components and distinguishing between thematic fields to relate all this issues with the
novel. Rejecting an approach centered on the textual fidelity, the perspective that was adopted is based on a
model that considers the evaluation of the individual qualities of the adaptation. Consequently, it was developed
a detailed analysis not only of the iconographic elements but also of the narration aspects, reflecting on the
features of the filmic product in order to offer a possible interpretation of the dramatic unity under review. This
meticulous process allows us to explore distinctive qualities of the transposition and attempts to emphasize the
filmic individuality to characterize not only the production itself, but the national identity represented as well.
The Novel
The Crime of Father Amaro (1880) is a 19th-century novel which was first published in 1875 in the form of
serials in the Western Magazine (Revista Ocidental), then it appeared as a book in 1876 and finally, in 1880, the
third version of this narrative was released According to Reis (2005, p. 17) the final proposal of The Crime of
Father Amaro is “an adult and mature” work of art.
The Crime of Father Amaro tells the story of Amaro Vieira, a young priest who, upon the death of the
Leiria's Cathedral cleric, is appointed to replace him. In that little country town, another cleric (Cónego Dias),
who is Mrs. Augusta Caminha lover, arranges accommodation for Father Amaro in her house, where her
daughter Amelia, a beautiful 23 year old girl also lives, as well as her paralytic old aunt Gertrude. Installed in that
religious residence, under the silent consent of all who attend the devout evenings of the two ladies, Amaro and
Amelia initiate a tempestuous love affair. Advised by his servant Dionysia, the young priest begins to have
romantic encounters with Amelia under disguise of preparing her for a nun. However, misfortune looms upon the
priest when he knows that Amelia is pregnant. To get rid of the situation the first idea of Amaro is to marry
Amelia with a previous boyfriend, but soon he knows that the boy has emigrated to Brazil; the second hypothesis
is to send Amelia to give birth in a distant place. When the baby is born Amaro gives him to a nanny who killed
27. FROM THE 19TH-CENTURY NOVEL TO THE PORTUGUESE CONTEMPORARY FILM620
all the babies who she received to take care. Weakened after the childbirth and imploring for her son, Amelia dies.
Cowardly, Amaro departs without attending her funeral. He reappears some years later, in 1871, remorseless and
even as a priest in a parish of Lisbon.
The Crime of Father Amaro is a novel that deals with a controversial central theme and it represents the
literary evolution of Eça de Queiroz. Whereas the first version of the novel is established in a moment where the
writer was outlining his style, in the two following versions of the novel there is a clear link to the Realism. This
literary movement proposes a reformulation of ideas and literary models and symbolizes the preference for the
detail, description and use of adjectives, as well as the use of new forms of expression. Furthermore, there is an
enthusiasm for more controversial topics such as sex, incest, adultery and human fragilities, experienced by weak
characters who give up to their fatal instincts. In a more radical level of these ideas emerges the Naturalism, a
literary school that advocates on behalf of detailed observation of the surrounding reality and emphasizes the
critical role of inheritance and environment in determining individual’s behaviors. Equally characteristic of
naturalistic novels is the construction of dialogues that resemble the spoken language, which results in believable
conversations and gives the book a contemporary dimension, as if we were reading a text that is always new.
Influenced by these features, The Crime of Father Amaro is a narrative that focuses not only on the crime of
a young priest, but represents the crimes of other amoral religious, as well as the sins of the parishioners who
represent a provincial and retrograde society. All this puts emphasis on the social observatory undertaken by Eça
de Queiroz. For this reason the novel has a title―The Crime of Father Amaro and a subtitle―Scenes of a Devout
Life, thus, extending the universe of the novel. The Crime of Father Amaro accomplishes a socio-cultural critical
process drawing attention to what Moura (2004, p. 502) considers to be the “revelation of an illiterate and fearful
society, hidden behind concepts and prejudices that they are not aware of”.
In terms of the dominant themes of this novel, apart from the question of the priesthood without vocation,
Eça de Queiroz underlines other subjects that concerned him, such as education, hypocrisy, political corruption,
fraudulent journalism, women’s status and domestic unhappy life, located in an extremely social and mental
well-characterized scenario (Reis & Milheiro, 1989). It emerges, therefore, the social environment and the small
social groups where the characters move as responsible for the moral degradation of the protagonist. The
construction of the fictional individuals is also object of meticulous attention by the 19th-century author because
for him the characters are, at the same time, a product of the society and a mirror of that same society. Moreover,
they also appear as critical tools and at the same time they are extremely credible.
Antero de Quental (2004), another well-known Portuguese canonical author, thinks that The Crime of
Father Amaro is “the best example of Portuguese social psychology” (p. 7) because in it Eça denounces a devout
life of a Portuguese province, the small parochial ambitions, the intriguer within the private and social life and the
ridiculous figure of some fictional beings that allude to members of the real community. Under the irony that The
Crime of Father Amaro is “just, basically, a plot of clerics and devotes whispered in the shade of an old
Portuguese province cathedral” (Queiroz, 2004, p. 13), the canonical author starts a narrative that is not simple
and represents a critical view towards the delay of Portugal.
Therefore, it is evident that The Crime of Father Amaro highlights several controversial issues with the
“purpose of social intervention with strong ideological motivation” (Reis, 2005, p. 60). The canonical author
condemns the inaction of the Portuguese and underlines the retrograde attitude of those who live dazzled by the
28. FROM THE 19TH-CENTURY NOVEL TO THE PORTUGUESE CONTEMPORARY FILM 621
foreign influence and are unable to produce knew knowledge autonomously. On the other hand, the 19th-century
writer illustrates a country that is dominated by a political, journalistic and intellectual elite which is
characterized by the mediocrity. The national parochialism emerges in contrast to European progress. However,
despite his tendency to caricature, Eca de Queiroz also shows a perspective of hope that progress destroys both
apathy and delays which dominates the nation. Therefore, this is the starting point for a cinematic representation
that gave rise in 2005 to a Portuguese film settled in the XXI century.
The Filmic Transmutation
In his letter to Augusto Fábregas, on 6th May 1890, Eça de Queiroz reveals admiration for the great interest
in the adaptation of The Crime of Father Amaro for theater. He writes that “I never thought this novel as being
capable of dramatization” (Queiroz as cited in Matos, 1993, p. 37). However, in The Crime of Father Amaro there
are actions which are truly dramatic (Andrade as cited in Matos, 1993, p. 37). The truth is that this novel
originated not only theatrical adaptations, but also filmic and television versions.
The Crime of Father Amaro (2005), apart from being the Portuguese most successful film in terms of
number of viewers (380,671, ICA, 2009, p. 37), focuses on a subject that seems to be pleasing the Portuguese
audiences. Indeed, the other Portuguese film that previously held the viewers record was Temptation (1997)
directed by Joaquim Leitão, with 361,312 viewers (ICA, 2008, p. 39). This film was also based on the story of a
forbidden love between a priest and a parishioner.
The 2005 filmic adaptation of The Crime of Father Amaro, although has its roots in the 19th-century novel,
presents quite creative reinterpretations, which allows us to catalogue this sort of filmic adaptation as a free
adaptation according to Doc’s Comparato typology (1993). In this type of adaptation it is common to emphasize
the dramatic aspects of the text to create a new structure. This is what, effectively, the filmic transmutation of The
Crime of Father Amaro materializes, emphasizing the desire and celibacy of priests and transposing the story to
an urban context in the 21stcentury. Therefore, the main subject of the film questions once more the celibacy and
focuses on the fictionalization of the contemporary living of the priests in a Lisbon parish. Moving away from the
source text, the process of metamorphosis involves other issues, such as delinquency, violence and problematic
experiences within a social district. The adaptation also focuses on the question of social solidarity. In this sense,
in parallel with the central theme of the priests' celibacy, the film accentuates a message of social solidarity,
drawing attention to a subplot included in the narrative, to the reality of Lisbon’s problematic neighborhoods.
Thus, the film dramatizes criminality problems commonly associated to violent districts, and at the same
time it underlines values such as solidarity, inclusion, rehabilitation and reintegration into society. The Parochial
Centre attached to the church emerges as a space that brings together individuals and resources that are seeking to
organize activities in order to raise funds to help the needy people and, secondly, it also develops a series of
educational initiatives, training and basic health care.
In the Portuguese adaptation of The Crime of Father Amaro the subjects, as well as dialogues and scenes, are
represented in an impetuous manner, using sex scenes, physical aggression, violence and, sometimes, obscene
language. On the other hand, the film also fictionalizes controversial issues, such as suicide or child abuse.
Therefore, alongside with the problems experienced within the Catholic Church, such as corruption, sexual
scandals, power abuse and excessive behavior of some members of the church community, the filmic adaptation
29. FROM THE 19TH-CENTURY NOVEL TO THE PORTUGUESE CONTEMPORARY FILM622
focuses on contemporary themes. Although Amaro has always been interested in the female, the idea exhorted by
the film is that his integration into a group of corrupt clerics will accelerate his sin. In the filmic transposition
Amaro is the sinner and Amelia symbolizes an angry and unstable girl whose childhood innocence was stolen by
a cleric who raped her. This disturbed past conditioned Amelia’s present. She is inconstant and erratic, always
fighting with her mother and boyfriend and putting herself to the test. She defies the limits and is frequently
aggressive, but also needy. Like Amelia, Carolina, the subplot’s protagonist, is also a problematic young girl.
It is precisely through Amelia and Carolina that other problematic topics are presented on the big screen.
Carolina represents the disobedience to her father by becoming involved with the leader of the marginal, appears
pregnant and runs away from home in the middle of the night. It is likewise through her that the abortion issue is
explored in this fictional narrative text for the first time. Similarly Amelia also reveals family problems,
inconsistency and attraction to problematic men, such as the criminal João Eduardo or the hypocritical Amaro.
Thus, the character Amelia unveils four major themes: child abuse and rape, on the one hand, and abortion and
suicide, on the other hand.
In this sense, in terms of adaptation, the film offers a reinterpretation of Eça’s literary heritage putting the
emphasis on the creative freedom to renew a canonical narrative. The filmic interpretation adopts the novel as a
starting point, especially in terms of theme and main characters, but transforms the substance (Comparato, 1993)
to create a contemporary fiction where the dialogues, scenes and actions were written to approach the modern
times. Therefore it is an adaptation that distinguishes itself from the classic-novels adaptations, in terms of
aesthetic and narrative, and it also proposes a hybrid language (articulating various styles), albeit in a
simplified manner.
Identity Portrait
Eca de Queiroz illustrates Portugal and the Portuguese in a caricatured and ironic way which facilitates the
recognition of certain impressions of identity, culture and Portuguese society (melancholic tendency, artificiality
and moral weakness (Reis, 2005, p. 40)), that continues to be of interest to the generality of the other arts. The
author is responsible for the formation of a very important part of the Portuguese common identity as well as the
cultural imaginary and Portuguese collective consciousness (Reis, 2009).
Knowing that the identity of a community defines itself “among many other things, for its models of fiction,
and in particular by the dominant models of fiction which it consumes” (Lopes, 1995, p. 13), contributing the
fiction to the revelation of important cultural references and identity, we can recognize in the film The Crime of
Father Amaro various elements to understand how the Portuguese cinema represents the contemporary society
and the Portuguese identity through the filter of fiction. Several examples support the argumentation. First, the
representation of the Catholic tradition of the country, not only visible in the historical architecture of the
churches, but also evident in various symbols of the Catholicism present in the houses of the characters, such as
the image of the Virgin Mary, the representation of The Last Supper (1495–1498) hanging in the living rooms or
the crucifix placed above the beds. Also Joaneira’s friends symbolize the figure of the Portuguese religious
women known for the constant gossip and the continuous lament of many diseases who act as the faithful
representative of the traditionalist mentality, evoking the portrait suggested by the philosopher Lourenço (2009,
p. 76) that the denigration and the constant criticism “is a tradition among us”.
30. FROM THE 19TH-CENTURY NOVEL TO THE PORTUGUESE CONTEMPORARY FILM 623
Paradoxically, the film induces an image of a conservative society, along with the idea of an advanced and
cosmopolitan nation. Throughout the times, the traces of the Portuguese identity have been qualified as idealistic
and emotional (Dias, 1971), resulting from the maritime adventure that has highlighted not only a spirit of
tolerance and adaptability, but also a mind shaped by religious influence that believes in miracles and presages
(Lourenço, 2009). Later, under a period of dictatorship, the Portuguese developed a spirit of obedience and the
society closed within itself (Gil, 2008). Therefore, the call of the sea and the memory of the great achievements,
but also the consequences of the autocracy and the decolonization produced a feeling of present delay in the
Portuguese nature which has intensified the sadness and nostalgia (Barreto, 2009). Despite the development of
the country and the participation in the European Union, the Portuguese remain traditionalists and inheritors of
ancient inertias of which José Gil (2008, p. 88) underlines envy, “passivity, fearful respect for hierarchy,
individualism and the lack of future perspectives” and he recalls that what “we need today more than ever, is
solidarity ”(Gil, 2008, p. 89). According to the same source, the Portuguese society “is among a modernity that
never came through and a post-modernity that is gradually invading us” (Gil, 2008, p. 40), this corresponds to an
“unfinished modernity” (Machado & Costa, 1998).
Aware of this context, the filmic adaptation of The Crime of Father Amaro portrays the national identity as
paradoxical, between the religious and traditional, but also permeable to outside influences and seeking for
modernization. Besides this, the adaptation represents a fictional frame in which the urban family is in collapse, it
emphasizes the misunderstanding between parents and children, where children live independent lives and
survive through a parallel economy. The film focuses the violence between gangs, the passivity in the face of
crime, the respect for the religious authority and a daily living in a neighborhood where the opportunities for a
better future are limited. At the same time, the filmic transposition emphasizes a message of solidarity and social
inclusion in a creative strategy to captivate audience and approaching the national character.
Another aspect of the Portuguese identity presented in the film The Crime of Father Amaro (2005) is the
traditional gastronomy. Based on the argument that the cookery is an important part of the history and cultural
traditions of every nation, this characteristic appears as a Portuguese cultural heritage which is perfectly evident
in the fiction. So when the character Joaneira receives Amaro into her house, the meal that she serves him is
codfish, a popular dish well known and particularly appreciated by the Portuguese. In this scene the presence of
the codfish is especially accentuated by a close-up of the fish being placed on the character's plate. To accompany
the meal, Amaro drinks red wine, which reminds us of a cultural habit rooted in the national behavior and that
Portugal is traditionally a country producer and consumer of wine (Silvério, 2000).
Another Portuguese identity routine shown in the film is the ritual of drinking coffee after the meals. The
Portuguese are well-known for drinking strong black coffee in small cups, a practice that remains from the
influences of the colonial past. The filmic adaptation under analysis also highlights a typical feature of the
Portuguese culture that is the use of diminutives in the oral language. This facet is also emphasized by Eça de
Queiroz in his novels, usually for ironic or critical characterization. This is what happens, for example, in the
novel The Crime of Father Amaro with the character “Libaninho” whose name is precisely a diminutive and that
uses plenty of expressions abundant in diminutives (Queiróz, 2004, pp. 61-62).
A further element of the Portuguese cultural identity that is evidenced by the film is the enthusiasm of the
nation for the football. This is perceptible in the adaptation by the soccer games played by the kids and also in the
