IVY COMPTON-BURNETT’S NOVELS
Dr. T. Asoka Rani
“Either the father or the mother is usually a
tyrant, and the parent who is not a tyrant is usually a weakling or a fool”1
so observes G. S. Fraser in his textual criticism of the novels of Ivy Compton - Burnett. Even the unmarried aunts, owing to their age and position in the
family, and with active support from the parents, tend to exercise oppressive
power over the children.
The novelist presents, in succession,
powerful tyrants like Sophia Stace (Brothers and Sisters). Harriet
Haslam (Men and Wives). Josephine Napier (More Women than Men), Duncan
Edgeworth (A House and its Head), Sabine Ponsonby and Hetta Ponsonby (Daughters
and Sons), Matilda Seaton (A Family and a Fortune), Anna Donne (Elders
and Betters) and Horace Lamb (Menservant and Maidservant). Except
for an aged, worn-out tyrant in Parents and Children, this Phenomenon of
bloody tyrants is seen in her third novel through to the eleventh. After the
total disappearance of tyrants in the next two novels, Two Worlds and their
ways and Darkness and Day, a milder version of tyrants, Aunt Sukey (Elders
and Betters), Cassius Clare (The Present and the Past). Miles
Mowbray (A Father and His Fate), Simon Challoner (A Heritage and its
History), Ninian Middleton (The Mighty and their Fall and
Hereward Egerton (A God and His Gifts) reappear. However, as an
exception, Miranda Hume (Mother and Son) rightly belongs to the bunch of
malignant tyrants of the earlier novels. In her last novel, (The last and
the First), a powerful but benevolent tyrant is portrayed in Hermia, for a
change in the company of two others of milder type.
The tyrants’ domineering grip on the family
is depicted in one sentence by Sarkar thus:
In a Compton - Burnett family the tyrant
head has displaced God and dictated rules to others forgetting that he has
anything or anyone above him to owe allegiance to2.
Among the tyrants, women outnumber men; of
the powerful ten or so of them, all but two are women and they include the
deadliest three, namely Anna Donne, Josephine Napier and Matilda. Elaborating
this point, Pamela Hansford Johnson Writes:
Most of her males are eaten by their women.
Her villainesses commit crimes of power: her villains, for the most part, crimes
of weakness…The spider analogy might, indeed, be carried further; her men are
like insects in the process of being devoured who, seeing that the female has
omitted a leg obligingly turn around and present the remaining limb in order to
make the, meal easier3.
Though these tyrants are generally wicked and
malicious, there are among them a few who possess positive qualities and who
are inclined to be good. Matilda Seaton is generous to her friend Maria Sloane.
She is at times very sensitive, sympathetic and full of understanding.
Josephine and Sophia are intelligent. Harriet and Sophia keep their families’
interest foremost and work for it even if they have to he ruthless in their
dealings. Duncan is considered a veritable God by his family members. Hetta and
Sabina appear to be living for others. Horace Lamb becomes a loving and
sympathetic father and a model husband. Their positive qualities are recognised
even by their victims. That is why the victims are strangely disillusioned when
they are suddenly released from the clutches of a tyrant. And when the tyrant
dies, all including the harassed feel sad.
The novelist does not agree with those who
condemn her tyrants as detestable monsters. She speaks of them as:
They don’t seem to me such monsters as they
do to other people. I think….that a good many of us, if subjected to a strong
and sudden temptation, without any risk of being found out, would yield to it 4.
She urges Robert Liddell to stress the
goodness of her characters and more particularly that of her tyrants5.
In an interview with John Bowen, Ivy
Compton-Burnett says, “I think there was a tendency for parents to misuse
power……Nothing’s more corrupting than power6”. After about two
years, speaking to Michael Millgate, Ivy Compton Burnett says that tyranny
does not corrupt people.
I don’t think it corrupts people. I think
their dislike of it, if anything, would send them the other way….I’ve seen
people who were tyrannised ones as children being careful not to be tyrants
themselves, and people who were indulged too much as children rather tyrannical
in their own families. It may be the natural reaction working 7.
It tends to contradict her own opinion
expressed to John Bowen earlier. She seems to think that the persons who grab
power or are given power, may be corrupted by that very power and they tend to
misuse it. But the others, who are victimised, do not want to retaliate by
becoming tyrants. In other words, power corrupts only those who are invested
with it and not those victimised by it.
However, it cannot categorically be gain said
that tyranny breeds tyranny. Traces of tyranny in seed form are discernible in
some children like Chilton (Daughters and Sons) Nevin (Parents and
Children), Lavinia (The Mighty and their Fall), Verena (A Father
and His Fate), and Justine (A Family and a Fortune). It can further
be argued that victims, when they gain power in due course of time, may not
like to persecute and wield power over others. One may hope that the formidable
parental tyranny will not recur and persist. What is certain is that tyranny
distorts and warps innocence and leads to unnatural reactions. The victims are
inevitably corroded by the misuse of power. So it has to be conceded that power
is corrupting and that her characters suffer a kind of moral corruption. Even
if it is natural, tyrannising is repugnant and therefore condemnable.
Barring cruel and selfish tyrants, possessive
tyrants like Sophia, Harriet, Sabine, Miranda and Eliza Heriot are oppressive
only because of their love for their families. The nagging Bentley (Pastors and
Masters), does not consider himself a tyrant and thinks that what all he does
is only for the good of the family.
And now, because I try to keep a wise and
firm hand over people for their own good, and to prevent them from sinking
down, down, down, for their own sakes - whose, if not for
theirs, I should like to know? -
to be given as much to bear as
in were a tyrant and a monument of selfishness, instead of…….8
Eliza Heriot thinks that her tyranny is for
the benefit of all…..I am a tyrant, because I order the house for the good of
us all 9. Eleanor and Harriet are highly ambitious in their concern
for their children and they nag them only out of fear that their hopes may not
be realised.
Though Ivy Compton - Burnett sympathises with
her tyrants and endows them with some touches of goodness or fineness, readers
cannot be blind to their darker side and do not therefore completely exonerate
them. Still it is astonishing to see that lithe tyrants are never punished; they
are feted 10”.
Readers may well look for adequate requital
for their misdeeds, but nothing of the kind does happen. Josephine suffers no
legal retribution for her killing of Ruth. Matty is not punished for her
ruthless act driving away Miss Griffin. The callous Anna drives Jessica to suicide, marries her son
and enjoys her money. Nothing distasteful is visited upon her by way of
punishment. This is so because Ivy Compton - Burnett does not believe
that evil is punished in this world.
She says, “I…..don’t think guilty people meet punishment in life11”. In an interview with her friend, M. Jourdain, she says that
misbehaviour may meet with little retribution, some times it will not even be
recognised.
‘The new statesmen’ wanted wickedness to be
punished, but my point is that it is not punished, and that is why it is
natural to be guilty of it. When it is likely to be punished most of us avoid
it12.
One of the rare cases of punishment being
meted out to the guilty is that of Lady Haslam who is killed by her son,
Matthew who in turn commits greater sin than his mother. His own punishment
begins with not realising the very object which prompted him to matricide.
Verena (A Father and His Fate) does not escape punishment for her
wickedness. Ridley (Parents and Children) cannot achieve his intention
of marrying Eleanor. This kind of atonement for evil-doing is, of course, rare
to find in her novels.
It is observed in almost all her novels that
though tyranny casts its gloomy shadows on the home, it is not triumphant in
the end. The tyrants who have reigned supreme like Sophia, Harriet, Sabine,
Aunt Sukey, Miranda and Caseius do become weak and ineffective before their
death and Hetta even before her marriage. Other tyrant monarchs like Josephine,
Matty, Horace, Duncan, Miles, Simon, Hereward and Eliza Heriot, having held for
a while a tight grip over their families, progressively become meek and
ineffective towards the end. And the unbearable torments of power are no more
to be experienced by their victims.
Power and tyranny appear to form a vicious
circle in Ivy Compton Burnett’s novels. Power gives rise to
tyranny, the tyrants yearn for more and more of power. A vague pattern emerges
in her portrayal of these twin evils in her last novel, The Last and the
First striking a proper balance between them. Power is both used and
abused, a perfect balance is struck between self-defence and self-sacrifice.
Hermia represents this balance. Power is safe in her hands as she is endowed
with intelligence and generosity. Money to her is a source of benign influence
over others, and is meant to be used wisely. Following this principle, she
succeeds in guiding the family’s destiny in the right direction.
If Ivy Compton-Burnett has brought home to us
that misuse of tyrannical power, as in her earlier novels, is always
detrimental to family interests, she has also created Hermia as her true spokes
woman to reveal her mind that power and wealth need not corrupt life if handled
with maturity and wisdom.
REFERENCES:
1 G.S. Fraser, The
Modern Writer and His World (Penguin, 1967) P. 151.
2 Rabindra Nath
Sarkar Ivy Compton - Burnett: A Trend in English Fiction (Calcutta:
Firman KLM Pvt. Ltd., 1979), P. 152.
3 Pamela Hansford
Johnson, Ivy Compton - Burnett (London: Longmans, Green & Co.,
1951) P. 23
4 Michael
Millgate, ‘Interview with Miss Compton-Burnett’, Review of English
Literature, Vol. III, No.4. (October, 1962), P. 106.
5 Quoted from
Hilary Spurling, Secrets of a Woman’s Heart, (London: Penguin, 1984), P.
154.
6 John Bowen “An
Interview with Ivy Compton-Burnett”, Twentieth Century Literature, VI.
25, No.2, (Summer 1979), P. 169.
7 Millgate, P.
110.
8 Ivy
Compton-Burnett, (Pastors and Masters, (London: Victor Gollanez, Ltd., 1965)
PP. 84-85.
9 Ivy, Compton
Burnett, The Last and the First (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.,) P. 32.
10 ‘An extra
Grudge Against Life’, Review of A God and His Gifts’ Time, VI. 83, (Feb.
14, 1964) P. l00.
11 Millgate, P.
108.
12 ‘Ivy Compton-Burnett and M. Jourdain; A conversation Charles-Burkhart (ed.), The Art of Ivy Compton-Burnett (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1972) P. 30.