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Wise Children - THEMES
Legitimacy and non-legitimacy
This theme is explored in three senses in the novel:
- Dora and Nora’s quest for legitimacy within the Hazard family
- The legitimate world of theatre and high culture contrast to the non0legitimate world of music hall and low culture
- The legitimacy of Dora’s story as a work of literature
Unaware of the question of paternity until their father is pointed out dramatically by Grandma Chance in the theatre, Dora becomes from that moment acutely aware of their absent father. His rejections of the twins as his daughters in the dressing room at the Brighton theatre, at his Twelfth Night party and in his opening speech for The Dream leave them on the outside. In the first instance they are nieces; in the second less valuable than a cardboard crown; in the third nieces again, ironically this time ‘almost as precious to me as my own daughters’ and named by their roles as Peaseblossom and Mustardseed. When he addresses them by their real names, he gets hem muddled up – “he didn’t even know us well enough to smell the difference.” At the first rejection Peregrine presents Melchior with the warning that holds the title of the novel: “It is a wise child that knows its own father”, following with this meaningful “But wiser yet the father that knows his own child”. Melchior’s wisdom is in question here and even his eventual realisation and acknowledgement owe more to sentiment and inevitability than wisdom. Tiffany’s warning to Tristram about there being “more to fathering then fucking” applies just as much to Melchior and possibly to Peregrine.
Nora and Dora’s defiance in the face of their illegitimacy is clear throughout the story. They are “the offspring of the bastard king” which could be more than just acknowledgement of their situation: perhaps a comment on their father who refuses to acknowledge them, perhaps a comment on his own paternity, of which there is some doubt, perhaps a comment on the kingly role he assumes on and off the stage. The conflict of physical legitimacy produces the rivalry between the legitimate Saskia and Imogen and the illegitimate Dora and Nora; but this too is turned topsy-turvy, when the situation is turned on them.
The conflict of high and low culture is made clear from the outset: “our father was a pillar of the legit theatre and we girls are illegitimate in every way – not only born out of wedlock, but we went on the halls, didn’t we!” It is reinforces when, as thirteen year olds they stand outside the theatre in Brighton “looking at the glossy photos of Father togged up in kilt” as he treads “the boards like billy ho, in Shakespeare and weren’t we fresh from singing in the street?” Though the success of high culture for a time places Melchior on a pedestal as the king of English theatre and relegates the music hall and Nora and Dora to nude revue, the situation is later reversed, subverted by the emergence of a new low culture: television. The fact that Melchior is reduced to playing his part in this low culture’s adverts adds to the subversion.
Melchior’s failure to emulate his father, Ranulph, in taking Shakespeare to the colonies, albeit by now an independent union of states, is a defeat for his version of high culture in the face of low culture represented by Hollywood. Melchior sees his battle to conquer Hollywood as “Shakespeare’s revenge for the War of Independence”, “his chance to take North America back for England, Shakespeare and St George”
Legitimacy of art is also apparent in Dora’s own story. The intention to write her memoirs, create order out of the collected data of the Chance and the Hazard families in the “archaeology” of her desk, becomes in the end a novel. Thus in spite of the many bastardisings from Shakespeare and other writers, the carnivalesque plots and the story’s refusal to remain in one time or place, Dora asserts her legitimacy in the art of the novel. The reversal of Irish’s predicament is another carnivalesque feature in the subversion of the normal order. In a different way from the drawing of Irish into the “mon semblable, mon frere” relationship in which Irish must prostitute his art to low culture, Dora moves from the low culture of theatre to her role as a novelist. Whether we believe the story or not is not the issue. Dora, in her drawing of the reader into Baudelaire’s intimacy with the writer has given us the chance to disbelief. The incredibility of carnivalesque scenes, extraordinary characters and the fabulous alongside the real are all held within Dora’s creation. Years on the non-legit side as a hoofer, “pounding the boards” are rewarded in her emergence as a legitimate novelist. This comes just after the acknowledgement of her parentage and the rightful position in the Hazard family.
Patriarchalism
Angela Carter’s deflating of the myth of male dominance, replacing it with a different order based on female qualities of love, appears many times in her novels and stories. In the search for legitimate identity, Melchior is bought to the fore. His denial of his illegitimate children is mirrored by Tristrams refusal to accept Tiffany’s pregnancy. Tiffany’s blunt advice to Tristram serves also as a warning to patriarchal attitudes that hold the belief that the male can control matters.
Melchior’s patriarchal attitude extends to his marriages, his role in society as king of British theatre and the lord over the “English Colony” in Hollywood, and his Shakespearean roles as king, overlaps seamlessly into his real world. The converse could also be said to be true for in the kingdom of Oberon male rule is dominant, just as it is in Athens, and just as it is in Genghis’s Hollywood kingdom.
The role that Melchior has assigned to himself is placed into its full context at the end of the novel. Though his pasteboard crown is mocked by Peregrine in the fire scene, its presence in Melchior’s closet alongside the portrait of Ranulph in a purple robe asks the reader to reconsider his position. His patriarchal arrogance and selfishness are softened by an understanding of the childhood influence that shaped his life. In the end he seems deflated, “two-dimensional”, as Dora puts it, “one of those great big papier mache heads…larger than life but not lifelike”. Nora expresses the thought that they might have made up this figure, “a collection of our hopes and dreams and wishful thinking”. It is as if in a carnival spirit he has been dethroned.
Male dominance is subverted elsewhere. Genghis’s return to his first wife is stage-managed by Dora.
Comments
These notes are aimed at people studying Wise Children for AS English Literature.
Originally posted by little one on TSR Forums.
