This post is really a stimulus for my sixth formers to look more closely into this idea.
As we read A Doll’s House and The Merchant’s Tale, we need to explore a range of contexts to link the two works.
I recently posted 4 links to web pages on the Madonna/Whore complex and wanted to look a little more closely at the two female protagonists of our texts.
IN brief, Freud’s contention is this: men are driven by animal impulses to seek both a chaste, virginal wife and a sexually fulfilling ‘other’ with whom they can work out their darker sexual impulses. Women, on the other hand, have not only to contend with this state of affairs, but also are driven by their nature to wish both to be viewed as attractive whilst also seeking respect. This dichotomy can be traced usefully in our two texts, despite the fact that Chaucer, writing in or around 1399 would never have discussed psychoanalytical approaches to characterisation.
MAy , in the Merchant’s Tale, seems to be the living embodiment of the male fantasy – the Madonna/Whore in one person.
Januarie is very clear when discussing his marriage that he is seeking :
1417 She shal nat passe twenty yeer, certayn;
She shall not pass twenty years, certainly;
1418 Oold fissh and yong flessh wolde I have fayn.
Old fish and young flesh would I gladly have.
1419 Bet is,” quod he, “a pyk than a pykerel,
Better is,” said he, “a pike than a pickerel (young pike),
1420 And bet than old boef is the tendre veel.
And better than old beef is the tender veal.
The meaning seems clear – she must be under 20, yet also she must be experienced. The sensual enjoyment of the ‘tendre veal’ tells us all we need to know. He is a man who has taken sex freely and of many different women – he wants to be able to receive his desires and an inexperienced virgin is not really on his list of requirements. He is a dirty old man with few redeeming features at this stage of the tale. Once he sees MAy, he is entranced by:
Hir fresshe beautee and hir age tendre,
Her fresh beauty and her tender age,
1602 Hir myddel smal, hire armes longe and sklendre,
Her small waist, her arms long and slender,
1603 Hir wise governaunce, hir gentillesse,
Her wise self-control, her nobility,
1604 Hir wommanly berynge, and hire sadnesse.
Her womanly bearing, and her seriousness.
Here the opening couplet seems to describe perfectly the external beauty so required by this fantasy. In the second we read the beginning of Chaucer’s ironic development of the Fabliau. May has none of these virtues. Neither is she ‘fresshe’, the epithet used for much of the text to describe her. This adjective reinforces the sens of youth and purity which May has on the surface. It becomes increasingly ironic as we get to know her character. Chaucer is able to drop it shortly before the encounter in the ‘pyrie’.
May could hope for greater respect from Damyan – to be fair, Chaucer does not offer any exploration of their affair beyond Damyan being in thrall to ‘Venus fyr’ and May being revolted and disappointed by Januarie’s performances in bed – yet their consummation is remarkably quick and brutal – ‘in he throng’. Whilst making allowances for the tricky nature of love-making in a tree, this is perfunctory at best. Clearly Damyan is seeking his ‘whore’ rather than engaging with his Madonna figure.
May is not high born and neither is Proserpina, yet she was a nymph before her abduction. I love the fact that it is she who offers the rallying cry for women to be respected so clearly:
That you of women write not worth a butterfly!
2305 I am a womman, nedes moot I speke,
I am a woman, I must necessarily speak,
2306 Or elles swelle til myn herte breke.
Or else swell until my heart breaks.
Here, in response to Pluto’s self-righteous anger at the idea that Januarie is about to be cuckolded, she expresses the sentiments which could fit Nora in Act 3. There must come a point at which a woman must speak out and stand up for her gender in the face of the male-oriented commentary on female morals which run through this text and through most English Literature before the 20th century. Not to speak would be to shed any hope of respect and self-respect.
For Nora, this crisis is reached in Act 3 of the play. Until this point she has been happy to play Helmer’s game and even to indulge a little of her own flirtation to ensure appreciation from the men who dominate her life. With Helmer it is touching and button-twirling, with Rank the slightly bizarre stocking scene. Even allowing for this temptation providing an interesting link between Rank and Damyan who both would be asked to behave as courtly lovers if the scene had played out to the full (Rank evidently thrilled at being asked to undertake a task to prove his love, but who never gets the chance because he declares his hand), the action is interesting since it suggests Nora being driven by a need for (sexual) appreciation as well as being at the centre of every scene. Her need has caused her never to challenge Helmer’s nick-names and patriarchal put downs to her intellect which reach their height in act 3 as Rank explains his diagnosis:
HELMER. Well-spent! Well, I haven’t much to boast of in that
respect.
RANK. [Slapping him on the shoulder.] But I have, don’t you see?
NORA. I suppose you have been engaged in a scientific
investigation, Doctor Rank?
RANK. Quite right.
HELMER. Bless me! Little Nora talking about scientific
investigations!
NORA. Am I to congratulate you on the result?
RANK. By all means.
NORA. It was good then?
RANK. The best possible, both for doctor and patient- certainty.
NORA. [Quickly and searchingly.] Certainty?
RANK. Absolute certainty. Wasn’t I right to enjoy myself after
that?
NORA. Yes, quite right, Doctor Rank.
HELMER. And so say I, provided you don’t have to pay for it
to-morrow.
RANK. Well, in this life nothing is to be had for nothing.
At this crucial juncture, with Helmer oblivious, Nora has risen to talk to Rank as an equal. Helmer is ignored and his barbed ‘witticism’ falls on deaf ears. Rank only has ears for Nora, and adoring and respectful lover. Ashe leaves he thanks her for the ‘light’ – the happiness and hope which her presence has brought into his tortured life. Nora has gained the respect of one of her two men.
The second is altogether more difficult and it is not clear whether she ever succeeds, but the manner in which she explains her state of mind clearly reflects her wish to be seen as serious and no longer as a doll.
Helmer has already shown his inner thougts in his sexual fantasies:
HELMER. Yes, don’t you, Nora darling? When we are among strangers,
do you know why I speak so little to you, and keep so far away,
and only steal a glance at you now and then- do you know why I do
it? Because I am fancying that we love each other in secret, that
I am secretly betrothed to you, and that no one dreams that there
is anything between us.
NORA. Yes, yes, yes. I know all your thoughts are with me.
HELMER. And then, when the time comes to go, and I put the shawl
about your smooth, soft shoulders, and this glorious neck of
yours, I imagine you are my bride, that our marriage is just
over, that I am bringing you for the first time to my home- that
I am alone with you for the first time- quite alone with you, in
your trembling loveliness! All this evening I have been longing
for you, and you only. When I watched you swaying and whirling in
the tarantella- my blood boiled- I could endure it no longer; and
that’s why I made you come home with me so early-
NORA. Go now, Torvald! Go away from me. I won’t have all this.
HELMER. What do you mean? Ah, I see you’re teasing me, little Nora!
Clearly he seeks his Madonna/Whore in the shape of Nora yet she will no longer play his game. Instead she dictates the terms of her departure. She seems determined not to be seen as attractive or alluring. She issues imperative commands and states truths which shock with their bluntness:
NORA. Yes, it is so, Torvald. While I was at home with father, he
used to tell me all his opinions, and I held the same opinions.
If I had others I said nothing about them, because he wouldn’t
have liked it. He used to call me his doll-child, and played with
me as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in your house-
HELMER. What an expression to use about our marriage!
NORA. [Undisturbed.] I mean I passed from father’s hands into
yours. You arranged everything according to your taste; and I got
the same tastes as you; or I pretended to- I don’t know which-
both ways, perhaps; sometimes one and sometimes the other. When I
look back on it now, I seem to have been living here like a
beggar, from hand to mouth. I lived by performing tricks for you,
Torvald. But you would have it so. You and father have done me a
great wrong. It is your fault that my life has come to nothing.
HELMER. Why, Nora, how unreasonable and ungrateful you are! Have
you not been happy here?
NORA. No, never. I thought I was; but I never was.
HELMER. Not- not happy!
NORA. No; only merry. And you have always been so kind to me. But
our house has been nothing but a play-room. Here I have been your
doll-wife, just as at home I used to be papa’s doll-child. And
the children, in their turn, have been my dolls. I thought it fun
when you played with me, just as the children did when I played
with them. That has been our marriage, Torvald.
HELMER. There is some truth in what you say, exaggerated and
overstrained though it be. But henceforth it shall be different.
Play-time is over; now comes the time for education.
NORA. Whose education? Mine, or the children’s?
HELMER. Both, my dear Nora.
NORA. Oh, Torvald, you are not the man to teach me to be a fit wife
for you
Helmer has let her down. In her mind, she could put up with the belittling comments if Helmer had shown her enough respect to take her actions seriously and to seek to take the blame onto himself. His cowardly celebration of ‘his’ reprieve is enough to send her over the edge into her new decision – to leave and to take her chances rather than submit to the life laid out be her husband. In this she may not gain his respect, but she does gain the respect of a 21st century audience. Is this Ibsen’s wish? At the time of writing his play was a scandal, its ending altered to accommodate the patriarchal society of Mid 19th century Northern Europe. In the 21st Century she is a leading figure of the proto-feminist revolution. At the very least she knows her mind and aims to claim what she clearly feels is hers: honest and ‘authentic’ behaviour based on deep convictions and we applaud her for it.
English Teaching Resources 