Author: eohara (Page 12 of 28)

SOURCE IDEAS:

“The driver further states that all the way the Englishman inside, who was so ragged and dirty that he was reluctant to carry him, kept up a sort of wailing noise which so attracted his attention that he twice got off his bix to see what was the matter, and each time he said it was nothing. The cabman is of opinion that both the Englishmen were of weak intellect. We were of the same impression here”(291). 

“Marjorie Lindon still lives. The spark of life which was left in herm when she was extricated from among the débris of the wrecked express, was fanned again into flame. Her restoration, however, was not merely an affair of weeks or months, it was a matter of years. I believe that, even after her physical powers were completely restored — in itself a tedious task — she was for something like three years under medical supervision as a lunatic”(319). 

SYNTHESIZING COMMENT/ANALYSIS:

These two ideas seem to reinforce the idea of a remark on Englishness, masculinity, and this new woman era and its anxieties of gender uncertainties. First, we get these remarks from regular people, ordinary British citizens, on the ‘ragged and dirty’ state of Englishmen and their ‘weak intellect’ that must have something to do with their being in the company of the ‘Arab’ but also the idea that they are thus more susceptible to this outsider influence. We also know that Marjorie was dressed as a man and how that could add to the anxieties and threat of an unknown — relating to other works I’ve encountered within the ‘New Woman’ context, there is this interesting notion where some believed they would become an ‘unsexed woman.’ I think this idea relates to some of the remarks made in the second quote, where I sense a critique of how the trauma of her experience marked her as a ‘lunatic.’ Another potential read could be where this ideal of Britishness and womanness are under attack by new, progressive mentalities surrounding the role of governments and empires as we moved into the 20th century and also a redefining of women’s roles in relation to men and the misconstrued idea that if women gain access to traditionally masculine roles, then it somehow means a lessening of men’s masculinity and power. Similarly, other nations, peoples, etc., gaining access to more power and international standing was seen as a threat to Britain’s empire and previously unparalleled power and influence.

QUESTION:

I want to know more or maybe discuss some theories on why the end is left so open regarding the actual Beetle. We get this conclusion, not entirely dissimilar to Jane Eyre, where there is a recounting of all the characters — a where are they now kind of section, but the state of the “so-called Beetle” is given the very last thought and has no definitive answer/closure to if people even believed it was a thing or if it was still out there. What might there be to gain from a literary standpoint of ending the novel in this way when throughout the whole novel, efforts were made to classify, describe, and almost diagnose it to then this shift to ‘I do not propose to pronounce a confident opinion”(322)? Thinking back to Cohen, does this ending perhaps feel ominous as the monster always escapes and still defies categorization?

My comment on Kiara’s site :

Overview of Entry: These two quotes emphasize feelings that I am picking up from the context of the era surrounding imperialism and reverse colonization anxieties, as well as this interesting connection with gender and perhaps a critique on the ‘New Woman’ emerging at the end of the century. Influence both from within Britain and this displacement into a foreign entity, but in this case, complexities arise as Egyptians were not truly foreigners if under British rule but still make distinctions throughout where the characters distinguish a person such as if so and so is an ‘Englishman.’ This idea led to a piece of secondary criticism I found where Margree discusses the impact of Marsh’s choice to make a critique on both the type of idealist masculinity of Victorian England and the effect of control, influence, and potential domination from a governmental standpoint as the very person, Paul Lessingham, who is in danger is within Parliament and representative of the greater British empire. Again, this connects with the quote from the novel that I found interesting, where Lessingham wishes to be protected from a type of terrorism and something that threatens his all. I also found it compelling to look at the relationship between France at this time and found the image from Punch an interesting way to look at the context of other imperial powers and the power dynamics and how it feeds into this theme throughout of keeping in control of oneself…and subsequently one’s country. 

• From the novel:

“Those eyes of hers! They were a devil’s. I can positively affirm that they had on me a diabolical effect. They robbed me of my consciousness, of my power of volition, of my capacity to think, – they made me wax in her hands”(240).

“In short, I want you to effectually protect me from the terrorism which threatens once more to overwhelm my mental and physical power, – which bids fair to destroy my intellect, my career, my life, my all” (251).

• Critical Commentary: Margree, Victoria. “‘Both in Men’s Clothing’: Gender, Sovereignty and Insecurity in Richard Marsh’s ‘The Beetle.’” Critical Survey, vol. 19, no. 2, 2007, pp. 63–81. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41556581. Accessed 8 Nov. 2023.

“It is legitimate and necessary, however, to distinguish the older, statesmanlike Lessingham from the youth who was barely yet a man, since what the text is trying
to defend is specifically a version of mature, masculine subjectivity. The reason it is so important that none of the adult, establishment males succumb to mesmeric control is because, as Wolfreys has noted the text establishes that mesmeric control is also equivalent to colonial domination. The significance of the novel’s setting in the milieu of the British parliamentary system thus becomes clear: it is because what is at stake is no less than British sovereign”(68).

• Historical Context/Visual: “Palmerston, the Imperialism of Free Trade, and the Inadvertant Destruction of Turkish and Egyptian Rulers.” Victorianweb.org, victorianweb.org/history/empire/egypt/13.html.

“Mr. Punch makes quite clear his views of the relative Egyptian roles of England and France by the relative size of fox and lion — and the lion holding the sack of money”(Punch, 21 July 1883)

Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Luc Olivier Merson (French, 1846-1920), 1879 from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA

SOURCE IDEAS:

“Before I was able to replace them, the tin was sent flying, and, while I was still partially recumbent within eighteen inches of me, that beetle swelled and swelled, until it had assumed its former portentous dimensions, when, as it seemed, it was enveloped by a human shape, and in less time than no time, there stood in front of me, naked from top to toe, my truly versatile oriental friend. One startling fact nudity revealed, — that I had been egregiously mistaken on the question of sex. My visitor was not a man, but a woman, and, judging from the brief glimpse which I had of her body, by no means old or ill-shaped either” (152) 

“How Paul, suddenly returning home, had come upon Holt engaged in the very act of committing burglary, and how, on his hearing Holt make a cabalistic reference to some mysterious beetle, the manhood had gone out of him, and he had suffered the intruder to make good his escape without an effort to detain him”(211). 

SYNTHESIZING COMMENT/ANALYSIS:

These two comments pick up on this idea of the uncategorizable nature of the beetle, especially regarding gender, but also this recurring theme of its relation to making men, Paul mostly, lose their ‘manhood’ or in some way feminize them by the reactions to the beetle. In this first quote, the scenario is Sydney getting a close look for the first time at this transformation of the beetle into its (kind of) human form — we can call back the encounter Holt has with this figure and how he remarks his categories or descriptors to try and identify what exactly “it” is are failing him. In this scene, we do get a more concrete aspect of their gender, but it is still defying those norms of identification in a very interesting way. Later in the book, where Marjorie is narrating, she recalls hearing about Paul’s reaction to the name of the beetle being invoked and how his ‘manhood had gone out of him’ and while I am not entirely sure what to make of that, I am intrigued by this ability for the creature to inspire this gender confusion both in its actual physicality and in the notion of how these men who encounter it are supposed to behave and what they are labeled as when they don’t.

QUESTION: 

Is there more we could look to with this idea of monsters and their transgressive nature surrounding social norms, etc., that we could apply to gender and also maybe connect with the uncategorizable nature of the beetle regarding Egypt and its connection with the mixtures of traits and species of its gods/deities? What might this added layer of context about the uncategorizable nature of Egyptian historical figures mean when we apply that to Victorian society’s gothic monster culture with the idea of mixture and defying norms?