Monday, October 13, 2008
Old Mortality
Personally, I had a hard time reading this story because it reminded me so much of my own family. (This is probably not a unique experience at all...I'm sure at least a few other people were reminded of family legends!) I was struck, though, by the balance between the male and female voices in this piece. The main energy of the male voices come from Gabriel, the father, and Harry, the brother. All of them are concerned with how Amy appears to the world: Gabriel wants to be with the belle of the ball, the father is concerned that she displays herself too much, and Harry is concerned that she attracts too much attention at the ball. Harry and the father are in a position to claim some kind of possession over the honor and sexuality of a female relative, and Gabriel wants to protect the virtue of his future investment. Their repetition of family legends cement and protect Amy's use-value as such an object, if nothing else. In contrast, Eva, who has no claim to Amy's use-value, undermines the legend by suggesting that Amy forsook a pregnancy (female use-value in the most literal, physical sense). In an earlier response, I mentioned that Amy is the victim of the panoptic, patriarchial family circle--her brother and Gabriel do not object to immodest clothing, as long as she stays where they can see her. But the minute she leaves the dance floor with another man, her absense becomes transgressive and they take action to bring her back under their panoptic gaze. But wasn't Eva also in a kind of panoptic prison? Wasn't she also watched with as much energy for her lack of Amy's attributes? Eva's vocal energy in Part III interests me because she, as Amy's shadowy double, is the one to survive the panoptic circle and to speak outside of it. (Also, considering Harry and Gabriel's roles in an observing patriarchy, I found it telling that the grandmother speaks so little. For the most part, she sheds silent tears over artifacts. )
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3 comments:
I found the mention of the grandmother shedding tears over her deceased children's things very interesting. Rather than crying over their memories, the grandmother cries over their material possessions. I might be stretching this a bit, (it's fair to say that she may be, in fact, crying over her children and their memories), but I thought that this scene paralleled the idea of people (especially women) as objects. Rather than being defined by their spirits, they are more or less defined by their physical appearances and clothing.
What about Miranda's use-value?
She's no Amy in terms of beauty, she's freckled, she misbehaves . . . This, in her youth.
When she's older she's married without her father's consent, she hasn't finished school (and is thus uneducated?), she's disrespectful of her elders . . .
And then she removes herself from the situation.
Has Miranda bucked the system? Has she become an agent, rather than an object?
In vowing to herself to leave, is she vowing to escape the panopticon?
Good question. Miranda's use-value as a child seems to be acting as an audience for the family legend.
I think she certainly has the intention of escaping the panopticon at the end, but I also think Porter suggests her intention might be naive.
Miranda's transgression, after all, has been to marry unobserved, outside the authoritarian gaze, for which her father can't quite seem to forgive her.
But, with all of your questions in mind, isn't it also interesting that Miranda chooses to sit outside the carriage--in the front seat with the driver--and it is there that she makes her personal vows to escape her family history? Cousin Eva tells her, "with a sharp note of elderly command" to "Come back with us [in the carriage] (i.e. the panopticon)." Miranda refuses, and once outside it, determines to forge a new identity.
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