Indeed Lady A can be lower class. Kate Webb noted, on Lady A living with Dora and Nora in their basement as Wheelchair that
Once at Bard Road she seems to undergo some sort of transformation; losing her upper-class tightness, she becomes another bawdy, bardy woman[.]
She is not at all quiet or passive as a Lady might be, having the aggressively protective nature for her family that all women have.
Carter also shows Melchior’s movement between upper and lower classes with a tragic ring. Melchior, part of “The Royal Family of the British Theatre”, fathers Dora and Nora in the attic with a chambermaid, and Dora asks when Melchior appears on Tristram’s game show;
Is he down on his luck at last, does he need the money?
The reader understands Carter’s presentation of a double-faced Britain through Carter’s humour and sees the absurdity of a system where transcending the gap between working and upper class is the difference between dictions and accents.
Angela Carter chose the names of the Hazard/Chance family carefully: Hazard and Chance are not two entirely different names. Hazard comes from the old French, hasard, and before that is of Turkish/Persian origin for a game of dice, "haz", (and therefore of exotic origin, lending itself to the elegant side of the family). “Hasard” means “die”, and is as such an active word, holding influence over others in a game of dice. The two syllables of Hazard also lend a more elegant “Hazard” when pronounced. Chance is from the old French for “befall”, “cheance”, which is a word with the sense of being acted upon, rather than acting over others as with hasard. The passivity, English sound and single syllable of “Chance” makes “Hazard” a lower class word. The meaning of “hazard” and “chance” in English is the same – luck.
Indeed, it is luck of sorts that separates these two words: the circumstances of origin – of birth – create differing class allegiances. Certainly if “hazard” and “chance” meant the same 100 years ago when Wise Children’s plot began, the meaning has since differed; “hazard” could be considered more stylish than “chance”, with “chance” being the more common vernacular. This is also shown by Perry and Melchior. Melchior conquers England through theatre and the aristocracy (Lady A), while Perry conquers America through Hollywood and oil on his ranch in Texas. The British nation and the English language divided between the New World in America and the Old World in Britain in the 17th century – as Perry goes to the New World and Melchior stays in Britain and their accents differ with the English language’s forms – Perry says “shee-it” in an American accent. We can see that Carter wanted to show the reader these two families, the Hazards and Chances, are the same family, separated only by birth and circumstance, like the words “hazard” and “chance” themselves. As Dora says,
It occurred to me, not for the first time, that a serious language problem existed between the two branches of the Hazard family.
The two sides to the linguistics of the family show British culture split between America and Britain, and the upper and lower classes in England.
How intimately connected are Shakespeare’s cultural domination and British imperialism.
Kate Webb’s quotation is useful when considering how Dora refers to Ranulph’s attempt to conquer American theatre through touring Shakespeare plays and Melchior’s attempt to conquer American cinema with The Dream;
Taking back America for King, God and Shakespeare[.]
Nevertheless, Ranulph thinks that
… the whole of human life was [in Shakespeare]...
Ranulph and Melchior subscribe to Kate Webb’s quotation above, viewing Shakespeare as part of upper class Britain. However, if Ranulph also believes that Shakespeare portrays the masses as well as the upper classes then he must allow for the working classes being able to access and understand Shakespeare, which is clear through Dora’s ability to reference Shakespeare so readily. Carter excuses Dora’s knowledge of Shakespeare by saying that Irish taught her it but Dora is able to understand Shakespeare, despite lacking formal education. Shakespeare is not strictly high-culture, available only to those who have studied it, because Shakespeare wrote for everyone.
The cultured actors, Ranulph and Melchior, choose Lear and Hamlet over Shakespeare’s lower-class, but equally valid, characters such as King Lear’s Fool who has more profound things to say than the King. The poor are as much Shakespeare as the courtiers, and Shakespeare is as much for the working classes as for the educated. Melchior and Ranulph are the aristocracy of the theatre, but not true aristocracy (Melchior only marrying into it). It would be hypocritical to try to keep Shakespeare for an elite because those representing it are not true elite. Shakespeare is a model for Britain, as is Wise Children.
Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people.
Dora is comic and tragic. The reader laughs when a white dove “craps” on the carpet at 69 Bard Road, but is saddened when Dora describes the war;
The purple flowers that would pop up on the bombsites almost before the ruins stopped smoking, as if to say, life goes on, even if you don’t.
Carter’s tone here is melancholic but hopeful, to show that Dora refuses “point blank to play in tragedy”.
Dora lets us see the tragedy in her life; thus in Britain. Surely, this is most melancholic – as Sarah Gamble said,
Happiness, in other words, can only be achieved by an act of will: by engaging in an editorial process which brings good things in life to the fore, and doggedly elects to ignore the bad.
The Hazards are also tragic. Ranulph kills himself and Estella, and Melchior hangs on to Ranulph’s cardboard crown with such love that it exceeds love for his children. There is also comedy; Melchior’s “package” is very visible during his speech at the beginning of filming The Dream,
“How well he filled those tights!”
That these two faces of theatre, comedy and tragedy, are portrayed throughout Wise Children’s society shows that British society is united in ability to fall victim to tragedy and to overcome it with comedy.
From a post-colonial critical viewpoint, we can look at the existence of black characters in the novel. Tiff is portrayed initially as having gone insane, in the game-show sequence, and used only for sex by Tristram. Leroy is a stereotypical black ex-boxer. They could be seen as peripheral characters in an extremely white novel. However, this would be to say that the storyline taking place on the day the novel is set, where Tiff goes missing and is found “dead”, is less valid than the storyline of Dora’s life.
At the beginning of Dora’s past there are no black characters but they gradually appear more and more in the novel, beginning with Brenda’s affair which produced Tiff,
The first Black in the family.
If we note the use of the capitalised “Black” we see the importance of Tiff’s appearance. We assume from the (albeit vague) timeline that Tiff is born in the late 50s or early 60s, around the time when the Windrush came from the Caribbean bringing the first black major immigration to Britain in the 20th century. This changed Britain’s ethnic composition forever, which is shown in the novel. After Tiff is born, Brenda marries Leroy: Although he does not have a major part in the novel, Carter portrays Dora as respecting him due to his caring nature towards Brenda and Tiff – for example, Leroy knocks out a photographer rather than let him follow them. Leroy becomes one of the most likeable “non-characters” in the novel.
Carter presents the integration of black people, in the media, from “The Black and White Minstrel Show”, and in society, with the acceptance of black G.I.s. as being just G.I.s – nothing unusual about them. Carter presents Dora as having a very accepting attitude to things which the reader may find it hard to accept, such as free love and Daisy Duck’s almost brutal thievery of Melchior from Lady A. Part of this is that Dora does not present Brenda’s affair as an affair with a black man –
Our Brenda, whom we took care of when she had her bit of trouble and brought home our precious little Tiffany.
Dora presents the fact that the affair was with a black man, as Tiff is mixed-race, but does not mention colour. Carter does not undercut the instinctive loving attitude of Dora: the man’s race is a simple fact.
Carter presents black people in their stages towards British integration, through their integration into the Chance family, until they are the future of Britain – the black twins. Thus, Carter shows black people to not only be the future of England, the Chances, but of the upper classes as well, being that it is a Hazard who fathered the twins. The presentation of a future black Hazard family – Britain – is not undercut and double-faced.
A feminist’s perspective is useful when considering how women, being part of Britain, are presented. Michele Roberts describes Carter’s non-traditional feminist views;
If Carter kicked against the pricks, she kicked over the feminist traces too. She certainly was a feminist but never a goody-goody or a prig, well able to imagine women as flawed and imperfect… [She celebrated] de Sade in the light of contemporary thinking about violence as a form of freedom… She declared that she was pro-prostitution.
A feminist reading would note that the women in Wise Children go mad with love, as when Dora imagines her mother;
Perhaps she was the first woman who went mad for [Melchior]… Had she pressed her cheek against the pillow and wished the pillow were his cheek?
This, while being a figment of Dora’s imagination, shows Dora’s emotion for her father. From a psychological perspective, possibly, Dora displaces her unrequited love (as it is sometimes ambiguous as to the sort of love Dora feels, platonic father-daughter or physical attraction) for Melchior onto her mother, thereby making it more acceptable for Dora to think that way. Genghis Khan’s first wife cuts her face to pieces to get the man she wants, and still coats herself with makeup;
You could see the bruises under the Max Factor Pan Stick… Ooh, how it must have hurt!
The feminist could disapprove of this as Carter presents a woman who destroys herself for a man who would have nothing to do with her before, tricking him into marrying her, and a woman who is used for sex then left. This could be seen as representative of a patriarchal society where men are on top no matter how much effort the woman takes;
Fancy taking so much trouble over a man.
The feminist could argue, however, that Carter presents woman as active and man as passive; therefore, the feminist would appreciate the woman’s presentation. Women chase the men: Pretty Kitty perhaps chases Melchior (“How did she do it?... Lewdly?”), Dora tricks Nora’s boyfriend into sleeping with her, and Genghis Khan’s first wife tricks Genghis into remarrying her. The women almost kill themselves for love (Genghis Khan’s first wife’s plastic surgery), and leave the man before he leaves her (Lady A physically leaving the set as Daisy Duck announces her pregnancy with Melchior’s child). While some women do obsess over men, in the novel, the woman is still active in her relationship with her man.
Carter’s writing is favourable towards women because of the language used, for example, when Dora talks about her mother going mad over Melchior, Carter uses, gentle sounds and puts questions to the reader, which makes the reader empathise with Pretty Kitty. The reader is drawn in, is sympathetic, and applauds a character who does not sit back and accept bad or indifferent treatment at the hands of men, a character who acts for herself, such as Daisy Duck (“Not a shred of malice in her” although she did have more than a shred, such as stealing Melchior from Lady A). Both these feminist views of woman’s actions in the novel come together as part of Carter’s views and of the different views Carter wants us to think about – being that, as a good novel, the aim is to make us think about the world we live in and about how we think about it personally.
The two differing attitudes towards women presented to the reader show the different attitudes towards half of Britain’s population at the time the novel is set. Furthermore, because the attitudes are presented through interactions with men, the reader is shown two attitudes towards men as well. Firstly, men are the protagonists, interested in surface beauty and selfish, to the degree that they will drive women mad and then abandon her, as with Genghis Khan and Melchior and Pretty Kitty. Secondly, men are passive, with the woman manipulating the man’s natural interest in surface beauty.
It is interesting to see that both men and woman can be seen as two sided, in what can be deemed to be a feminist novel. Comedy must relate to the reader and because the reader can recognise these portrayals, the reader will see the two sides of gender politics in Britain. Gender politics are part of Britishness, with “the worth of women” being a popular debate since mediaeval times (in Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Tale for example). Gender politics is portrayed in Wise Children through, for example, the power struggle between Lady A and Melchior within their marriage – who leaves whom, who needs whom for support and money, whom Saskia and Imogen will choose. This is a model for British gender politics.
Carter’s Wise Children is certainly a microcosm of Britain, and her characters represent different aspects of Britishness. There are two or more viewpoints on characters and situations. To call the family “double-faced” is to call Britain double-faced. Politics is double-faced: respectability masks scandal: Lady A retains respectability throughout Melchior’s infidelity. Gender is double-faced – who is passive and who is active in the male-female relationship? Language is double-faced: words that mean the same have different connotations.
Indeed, “the complexity and hybridity of British society and culture” (Kate Webb) is the very essence of why Carter must present the Hazard/Chance family, Britain, as double-faced: to present it as anything but a complex melange of different sides of Britain would be to present Britain inaccurately.
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Bibliography
Naomi Bloomer, U6H Page of
