Here are the notes from the CLYCC lecture given on Nov 7 2011:
Hard, Bold, and Wicked:
Masculinity and Liminality in Lewis and Tolkien
Oxford University Children’s Literature and Youth Culture Colloquium
7 November 2011
Anna Caughey
anna.caughey@keble.ox.ac.uk
http://annacaughey.com
Philip Pullman:
The Guardian
October 1, 1998
“The Dark Side of Narnia”
‘For an open-eyed reading of the books reveals some hair-raising stuff. One of the most vile moments in the whole of children’s literature, to my mind, occurs at the end of The Last Battle, when Aslan reveals to the children that “The term is over: the holidays have begun” because “There was a real railway accident. Your father and mother and all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadowlands – dead.” To solve a narrative problem by killing one of your characters is something many authors have done at one time or another. To slaughter the lot of them, and then claim they’re better off, is not honest storytelling: it’s propaganda in the service of a life-hating ideology. But that’s par for the course. Death is better than life; boys are better than girls; light-coloured people are better than dark-coloured people; and so on. There is no shortage of such nauseating drivel in Narnia, if you can face it.’
Terminology:
‘Childness… is a composite made up of beliefs, values, experience, memories, expectations, approved and disapproved behaviours, observations, hopes and fears which collect and interact with each other to form ideal and empirical answers to the question ‘What is a child?’… Childhood itself, the first phase of childness, is constantly interacting with empowered adulthood, the second phase of childness, and the chemistry of that interaction at any one time determines the success or failure of adult-child relations. Children’s literature is one such field of interaction’
Peter Hollindale, Signs of Childness in Children’s Books (1997), p.76.
In this paper, I will propose the phrase ‘compulsory childhood’ to refer to the twentieth/twenty-first century construction of the Child as the idolised or denigrated Other of the Adult as theorised by Hollindale.
I’d also like to suggest ‘circumlegation’ as a potential theory to move towards an explanation of why we, despite Philip Pullman’s best exhortations, keep consuming that which may be regarded as poisonous to us. Circumlegation = ‘reading around’: taking what you need from the text and attempting to ignore or overlook that which hurts or marginalises you. I suggest that this is in fact (to some extent) a healthy and adaptive reaction that allows people from oppressed groups to continue engaging with the dominant culture, although it can be problematic when uninterrogated and/or overused.
Lewis and Tolkien against ‘compulsory childhood’:
Tolkien, ‘On Fairy-Stories’ (emphasis added):
‘Among those who still have enough wisdom not to think fairy-stories pernicious, the common opinion seems to be that there is a natural connexion between the minds of children and fairy-stories, of the same order as the connexion between children’s bodies and milk. I think this is an error; at best an error of false sentiment, and one that is therefore most often made by those who… tend to think of children as a special kind of creature, almost a different race, rather than as normal, if immature, members of a particular family, and of the human family at large.
Actually, the association of children and fairy-stories is an accident of our domestic history. Fairy-stories have in the modern lettered world been relegated to the ‘nursery’, as shabby or old-fashioned furniture is relegated to the play-room, primarily because the adults do not want it, and do not mind if it is misused. It is not the choice of the children which decides this. Children as a class – except in a common lack of experience they are not one – neither like fairy-stories more, nor understand them better than adults do, and no more than they like any other things… only some children, and some adults, have any special taste for them, and when they have it, it is not exclusive, nor even necessarily dominant.’
‘On Fairy Stories’, pp.34-5. Originally read as the Andrew Lang Lecture, University of St Andrews, 1939, published in Tree and Leaf (1964).
Lewis, ‘On Three Ways of Writing for Children’:
‘For I need not remind such an audience as this that the neat sorting-out of books into age-groups, so dear to publishers, has only a very sketchy relation with the habits of any real readers. Those of us who are blamed when old for reading childish books were blamed when children for reading books too old for us. No reader worth his salt trots along in obedience to a time-table.’
‘On Three Ways of Writing for Children’, pp.101-2. Lecture read to the Library Association Conference, Bournemouth, April 29-May 2 1952, published in Of This And Other Worlds (2000).
Lewis, Surprised by Joy:
‘The dreams of childhood and [young adulthood] may have much in common; between them, often, boyhood stretches like an alien territory in which everything (ourselves included) has been greedy, cruel, noisy, and prosaic, in which the imagination has slept and the most unideal senses and ambitions have been restlessly, even maniacally, awake’.
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (2002) (originally Geoffrey Bles, 1952), pp.81-2.
Education as a site of constraint:
‘There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and masters called him Scrubb. I can’t tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none. He didn’t call his Father and Mother “Father” and “Mother”, but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotallers, and wore a special kind of underclothes.’
Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p.293.
‘All sorts of things, horrid things, went on which at an ordinary school would have been found out and stopped in half a term; but at this school they weren’t. Or even if they were, the people who did them were not expelled or punished. The Head said they were interesting psychological cases and sent for them and talked to them for hours. And if you knew the right sort of things to say to the Head, the main result was that you became rather a favourite than otherwise’.
The Silver Chair, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), , p.376.
‘When at last she was free to come back to Edmund she found him standing on his feet and not only healed of his wounds but looking better than she had seen him look – oh, for ages; in fact ever since his first term at that horrid school which was where he had begun to go wrong’.
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p. 130.
Destruction of the school in Lewis:
‘The first house they came to was a school; a girls’ school, where a lot of Narnian girls, with their hair done very tight and ugly tight collars round their necks and thick tickly stockings on their legs, were having a History lesson. The sort of History that was taught in Narnia under Miraz’s rule was duller than the truest History you ever read and less true than the most exciting adventure story.
“If you don’t attend, Gwendolen,” said the mistress, “and stop looking out of the window, I shall have to give you an order-mark.”
“But please, Miss Prizzle – ” began Gwendolen.
“Did you hear what I said, Gwendolen?” asked Miss Prizzle.
“But please, Miss Prizzle,” said Gwendolen, “there’s a LION!”
“Take two order-marks for talking nonsense,” said Miss Prizzle. “And now – ” A roar interrupted her. Ivy came curling in at thr windows of the classroom. The walls became a mass of shimmering green, and leafy branches arched overhead where the ceiling had been. Miss Prizzle found she was standing on grass in a forest glade. She clutched at her desk to steady herself, and found that the desk was a rose-bush. Wild people such as she had never seen were crowding around her. Then she saw the Lion, screamed and fled, and with her fled her class, who were mostly dumpy, prim little girls with fat legs. Gwendolen hesitated.
“You’ll stay with us, sweetheart?” said Aslan.
“Oh, may I? Thank you, thank you,” said Gwendolen.’
Prince Caspian, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p.278.
‘Most of the gang were there – Adela Pennyfather and Cholmondely Major, Edith Winterblott, “Spotty” Sorner, big Bannister, and two loathsome Garrett twins. But suddenly they stopped. Their faces changed, and all the meanness, conceit, cruelty and sneakishness almost disappeared in one single expression of terror. For they saw the wall fallen down, and a lion as large as a young elephant lying n the gap, and three figures in glittering clothes with weapons in their hands rushing down upon them. For, with the strength of Aslan in them, Jill plied her crop on the girls and Caspian and Eustace plied the flats of their swords on the boys so well that in two minutes all the bullies were running like mad, crying out “Murder! Fascists! Lions! It isn’t fair.”
The Silver Chair, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p.452.
Hobbits as constrained figures:
He scowled so angrily at Gloin that the dwarf huddled back in his chair; and when Bilbo tried to open his mouth to ask a question, he turned and frowned at him and stuck out his bushy eyebrows, till Bilbo shut his mouth tight with a snap. “That’s right,” said Gandalf. “Let’s have no more argument. I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself. You may (possibly) all live to thank me yet. Now Bilbo, my boy, fetch the lamp, and let’s have a little light on this!”
The Hobbit, Amazon Kindle Edition 2011, p.23 (emphasis added).
“It seems a great big hole to me,” squeaked Bilbo (who had no experience of dragons and only of hobbit-holes). He was getting excited and interested again, so that he forgot to keep his mouth shut. He loved maps, and in his hall there hung a large one of the Country Round with all his favourite walks marked on it in red ink. “How could such a large door be kept secret from everybody outside, apart from the dragon?” he asked. He was only a little hobbit you must remember.
The Hobbit, Amazon Kindle Edition 2011, p.26.
‘I suppose I was knocked on the head,’ he said to himself. ‘I wonder if poor Merry is much hurt. What has happened to Boromir? Why didn’t the Orcs kill us? Where are we, and where are we going?’
He could not answer the questions. He felt cold and sick. ‘I wish Gandalf had never persuaded Elrond to let us come,’ he thought. ‘What good have I been? Just a nuisance, a passenger, a piece of luggage. And now I have been stolen and I am just a piece of luggage for the Orcs’
The Two Towers (Collins Modern Classic 2001), p.435.
Reactions against compulsory childhood:
‘“I suppose you are the four children out of the old stories,” said Trumpkin. ‘And I’m very glad to meet you, of course. And it’s very interesting, no doubt. But – no offence?” – and he hesitated again.
“Do get on and say whatever you’re going to say,” said Edmund.
“Well then – no offence,” said Trumpkin. “But, you know, the King and Trufflehunter and Doctor Cornelius were expecting – well, if you see what I mean, help. To put it in another way, I think they’d been imagining you as great warriors. As it is – we’re awfully fond of children and all that, but just at the moment, in the middle of a war – but I’m sure you understand.”
“You mean you think we’re no good,” said Edmund, getting red in the face.
“Now pray don’t be offended ,” interrupted the Dwarf. “I assure you, my dear little friends –”
“Little from you is a really a bit too much,” said Edmund, jumping up.
Prince Caspian, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p.247.
‘“Farewell!” he said. “Farewell, Peregrin son of Paladin! Your service has been short, and now it is drawing to an end. I release you from the little that remains. Go now, and die in what way seems best to you. And with whom you will, even that friend whose folly brought you to this death. Send for my servants and then go. Farewell!”
“I will not say farewell, my lord,” said Pippin, kneeling. And then suddenly hobbit-like once more, he stood up and looked the old name in the eyes. “I will take your leave, sir,” he said; “for I want to see Gandalf very much indeed. But he is no fool; and I will not think of dying until he despairs of life. But from my word and your service I do not wish to be released while you live. And if they come at last to the Citadel, I hope to be here and stand beside you and earn perhaps the arms that you have given me.”
“Do as you will, Master Halfling,” said Denethor. “But my life is broken. Send for my servants!”. He turned back to Faramir.
The Return of the King (Collins Modern Classic 2001), p.807.
‘“This is no journey for such steeds as [Merry’s pony] Stybba, as I have told you,” said Théoden. “And in such a battle as we think to make on the fields of Gondor what would you do, Master Meriadoc, sword-thain though you be, and greater of heart than of stature?”
“As for that, who can tell?” answered Merry. “But why, lord, did you receive me as swordthain, if not to stay by your side? And I would not have it said of me in song only that I was always left behind!”
“I received you for your safe-keeping,” answered Théoden; “and also to do as I might bid. None of my Riders can bear you as burden. If the battle were before my gates, maybe your deeds would be remembered by the minstrels; but it is a hundred leagues and two to Mundburh where Denethor is lord. I will say no more.”
The Return of the King (Collins Modern Classic 2001), p.786.
Adulthood as a site of loss:
‘“Dearest,” said Aslan very gently, “you and your brother will never come back to Narnia.”
“Oh, Aslan!!” said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing voices.
“You are too old, children,” said Aslan, “and you must begin to come close to your own world now.”’
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p.369.
‘“Hurray! Hurray!” said Corin. “I shan’t have to be King. I shan’t have to be King. I’ll always be a prince. It’s princes have all the fun.”’
The Horse and His Boy, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p.209.
‘“I was going to say I wish we’d never come. But I don’t, I don’t, I don’t. Even if we are killed. I’d rathr be killed fighting for Narnia than grow old and stupid at home and perhaps go about in a Bath chair and then die in the end just the same.”’
The Last Battle, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p.491.
‘Lucy said, “We’re so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often.”
“No fear of that,” said Aslan. “Have you not guessed?”
Their hearts leapt, and a wild hope rose within them.
“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadowlands – dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”
The Last Battle, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p.524.
‘“Well, Sam,” said Frodo, “I want you to see Rose and find out if she can spare you, so that you and I can go off together. You can’t go far or for a long time now, of course,” he said a little wistfully.
“Well, not very well, Mr, Frodo.”
“Of course not. But never mind. You can see me on my way. Tell Rose that you won’t be away very long, not more than a fortnight, and you’ll come back quite safe.”
“I wish I could go all the way with you to Rivendell, Mr. Frodo, and see Mr. Bilbo,” said Sam. “And yet the only place I really want to be in is here. I am that torn in two.”
“Poor Sam! It will feel like that, I am afraid,” said Frodo. “But you will be healed. You were meant to be solid and whole, and you will be.”’
The Return of the King (Collins Modern Classic 2001), p.1003.
‘Then Aragorn took leave of Celeborn and Galadriel; and the Lady said to him: “Elfstone, through darkness you have come to your hope, and have now all your desire. Use well the days!”
But Celeborn said: “Kinsman, farewell! May your doom be other than mine, and your treasure remain with you to the end!”.
With that they parted, and it was then the time of sunset; and when after a while they turned and looked back, they saw the King of the West sitting upon his horse with his knights about him; and the falling Sun shone upon them and mad all their harness to gleam like red gold, and the white mantle of Aragorn was turned to a flame.
The Return of the King (Collins Modern Classic 2001), p.960.
Slippage between boyhood and manhood :
(Image description: Peter stands, dressed as an English schoolboy but holding a medieval sword and shield, symbolic of power and self-determination in Narnia, and posing heroically. This picture suggests his subject position as poised between (English, twentieth-century) boy and (medieval-coded) man. To his left stands Lucy, dressed entirely in English schoolgirl clothes.)
‘Then came a horrible confusing moment like something in a nightmare. He was tugging and pulling and the Wolf seemed neither alive nor dead, and its bared teeth knocked against its forehead, and everything was blood and heat and hair. A moment later he found that the monster lay dead and he had drawn his sword out of it and was straightening his back and rubbing the sweat of his face and out of his eyes. He felt tired all over. Then, after a bit, Susan came down the tree. She and Peter felt pretty shaky when they met and I won’t say there wasn’t kissing and crying on both sides. But in Narnia no one thinks any the worse of you for that.’
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), pp.115-6
‘“Your Majesty,” said another voice at Peter’s elbow. He turned and found himself face to face with the Badger. Peter leaned forward, put his arms round the beast and kissed the furry head: it wasn’t a girlish thing for him to do, because he was the High King’.
Prince Caspian, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p.269.
‘Indeed Bilbo found he had lost more than spoons – he had lost his reputation. It is true that for ever after he remained an elf-friend, and had the honour of dwarves, wizards, and all such folk as ever passed that way; but he was no longer quite respectable. He was in fact held by all the hobbits of the neighbourhood to be ‘queer’ – except by his nephews and nieces on the Took side, but even they were not encouraged in their friendship by their elders.
I am sorry to say he did not mind. He was quite content; and the sound of the kettle on his hearth was ever after more musical than it had been even in the quiet days before the Unexpected Party. His sword he hung over the mantelpiece. His coat of mail was arranged on a stand in the hall (until he lent it to a Museum). His gold and silver was largely spent in presents, both useful and extravagant – which to a certain extent accounts for the affection of his nephews and his nieces. His magic ring he kept a great secret, for he chiefly used it when unpleasant callers came.’
The Hobbit, Amazon Kindle edition 2011, p.237
“I wager I could stand you on your head or lay you on your back.”
“Maybe you could, if I let you,” said Pippin with a laugh. “And maybe I could do the same to you: we know some wrestling tricks in my little country. Where, let me tell you, I am considered uncommonly large and strong; and I have never allowed anyone to stand me on my head. So if it came to a trial and nothing else would serve, I might have to kill you. For when you are older, you will learn that folk are not always what they seem; and though you may have taken me for a soft stranger-lad and easy prey, let me warn you: I am not, I am a halfling, hard, bold, and wicked!” Pippin pulled such a grm face that the boy stepped back a pace, but at once he returned with clenched fists and the light of battle in his eye.
“No!” Pippin laughed. “Don’t believe what strangers say of themselves either! I am not a fighter. But it would be politer in any case for the challenger to say who he is.”
The Return of the King (Collins Modern Classic 2001), p.752.
‘Lordly’ folk called them, meaning nothing but good; for it warmed all hearts to see them go riding by with their mail-shirts so bright and their shields so splendid, laughing and singing songs of far away; and if they were now large and magnificent, they were unchanged otherwise, unless they were indeed more fair-spoken and more jovial and full of merriment than before.
The Return of the King (Collins Modern Classic 2001), p.1002.
Womanhood as a site of constraint:
‘“Oh, Susan!” said Jill. “She’s interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.”
“Grown-up, indeed,” said the Lady Polly. “I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.”
“Well, don’t let’s talk about that now,” said Peter.
The Last Battle, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p.506.
‘“Where I come from,” said Jill, who was disliking him more every minute, “they don’t think much of men who are bossed about by their wives.”
“Shalt think otherwise when thou has a man of thine own, I warrant you,” said the Knight, apparently thinking this very funny.’
The Silver Chair, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (HarperCollins 2000), p.425.
‘“When I first looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel. Or was it, maybe, a frost that had turned its sap to ice, and so it stood, bitter-sweet, still fair to see, but stricken, soon to fall and die. Her malady begins far back before this day, does it not, Éomer?”
“I marvel that you should ask me thus, my lord,” he answered. “For I hold you blameless in this matter, as in all else; yet I knew not that Éowyn, my sister, was touched by any frost, until she first looked on you. Care and dread she had, and shared with me, in the days of Wormtongue and the king’s bewitchment, and she tended the king in growing fear. But that did not bring her to this pass!”
“My friend,” said Gandalf, “you had horses, and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours. Yet she was doomed to wait upon an old man whom she loved as father, and watch him falling into a mean dishonoured dotage, and her part seemed to her more ignoble than that of the staff he leaned on.”’
The Return of the King (Collins Modern Classic 2001), p.848-9.
‘“I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,” she said; “and behold! The Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.” And again she looked at Faramir. “No longer do I desire to be a queen,” she said.’
The Return of the King (Collins Modern Classic 2001), p.943.
Critical references/further reading:
Burns, Marjorie, Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien’s Middle-earth (2005).
Cecire, Maria Sachiko, ‘Medievalism, Popular Culture and National Identity in Children’s Fantasy Literature’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 9:3 (2009).
Filmer, Kath, The Fiction of C.S. Lewis, Mask and Mirror (1993).
Frederick, Candace and Sam McBride, Women Among the Inklings: Gender, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams (2001).
Gibbons, Stella, ‘Imaginative Writing’, in Light on C.S. Lewis, ed. Jocelyn Gibb (1965).
Hollindale, Peter, Signs of Childness in Children’s Books (1997).
Miller, John, ‘Alternative Masculinities and the “Dominion of Men” in The Lord of the Rings’, in Images of Masculinity in Fantasy Fiction, ed. Susanne Fendler and Ulrike Horstmann (2003).
