"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." How does the contextual setting make the outcome of the novel (The Go-Between - L P Hartley) more tragic to a modern reader?"

“ “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” How does the contextual setting make the outcome of the novel more tragic to a modern reader?”

Settings create shortcuts – a novel or a film set, for example, in Paris in 1944 comes with expectations that enrich the writing and give it instant depth. Similarly, L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between, being set in both in 1900 and 1952, immediately alerts its readers to the significance of those years.

The main part of the novel paints a detailed picture of rural England at the beginning of the twentieth century, when Hartley himself was only five years old. It is, however, viewed in retrospect from 1952. The choice of a new century and particularly the twentieth century provides an ideal setting for Leo’s story of youthful idealism and ultimately his disillusionment.

The tragedy of the novel arises more acutely because of the modern readers’ knowledge of the epoch it refers to. While the new century was dawning, all was not as tranquil and promising as it seemed to young Leo. The Boer War was in progress and had left its brutal mark on Lord Trimingham’s face. His face, compared to Janus’, reminds us of the evils which had occurred already before the start of the century. Janus, the god of thresholds stands as a warning of the wars to come. The Boer war is in the background of the story throughout, even in the images used in everyday situations: “…Trying to sneak past in dead ground!” – calls Hugh accusingly when he sports the lurking Leo, and for a moment Leo seems like one of the elusive Boer soldiers. All these allusions to war, topical in 1900, develop a further meaning when connected with the theme of the twentieth century as the opposite of the ‘Golden Age’ for which Leo hoped.

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” – the use of this opening metaphor suggests to the readers that Hartley is taking them back in time to revisit the events of the past and to experience once again the things that the protagonist did not understand. There is also an implication that what occurred then would not happen now. Throughout the book, the reader comes to realise that the tragedy of The Go-Between depends on the book being set in a time when there was a more rigid class structure than there is today’s society. Hartley “evoked a past, a time half a century ago, a golden age, as he saw it, of Victorian morals and manners.” The tragedy of The Go-Between is not just the tragedy of Leo and his loss of innocence, but also one of Marian and her love with Ted. Putting aside any moral implications, Marian’s affair with Ted was a very shocking breach of the clear-cut social divisions. At the concert it is observed that they make a fine couple:

“If it wasn’t for the difference, what a handsome pair they’d make.”

Due to the difference in their status, however, marriage between them is out of the question, as they both know. Romantic love was very different from marriage at the time, as the latter was also a question of money and status. Marian’s tragedy occurs partly because the novel is set in a time when women from affluent classes did not work for their living. Thus Marian never really considers Ted viable as a husband because she does not want to give up the privileges of her social status and has no profession to support herself. She also lives in an age when there is a stigma attached to illegitimate childbirth. This explains Marian’s sense of despair that she must marry Hugh even though it is Ted’s child that she is carrying:

"But why are you going to marry Hugh if you don’t want to?"

"Because I must marry him… I must. I’ve got to!"

Marian’s desperation is firstly, due to the social pressure which makes it impossible for her to marry a farmer – in 1900 it was virtually a caste difference and marian would have felt it absolute; secondly, there is the society expectation that Marian will marry the man who owns the property. Thirdly, there is her mother's intention that her daughter marries a member of the aristocracy. Marian and Ted’s love for each other should have ...

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"But why are you going to marry Hugh if you don’t want to?"

"Because I must marry him… I must. I’ve got to!"

In his book The Novelist’s Responsibility (1967), Hartley wrote that he “didn’t choose the year 1900 for its period possibilities.” Hartley wanted to evoke the feeling of that summer, the long stretch of fine weather, and also the confidence in life, the belief that all is well with the world, which everyone enjoyed before the First World War. The Boer war was a local affair at the time and so The Go-Between is a “little private tragedy” set against a general backdrop of security and happiness.

The symbolism of the weather is used throughout the novel to highlight the anxiety of the characters. The effect of the weather on people is shown first in Mrs Maudsley’s uncharacteristic indecision to take Leo for a walk in the gardens, then in Leo’s reluctance to take Marian’s letter. The hurry with which he stuffs it in his pocket when confronted by Mrs Maudsley adds to the feelings of tension, as does his interrogation about the note. It is the thunder and sudden rain which rescue Leo from certain exposure – but the seeds of a later confrontation with Mrs Maudsley have been sown. The tension in the final chapter is built up by the ominous storm clouds at the beginning to the crashing of thunder which brings the action to a startling end.

Leo’s tragedy unravels due to a number of factors, with one of the most important ones being his lack of worldly knowledge. The novel needs to be set in a time when it is feasible for a boy to be ignorant of the facts of life when he is almost thirteen. Critics of the time when the novel came out have often suggested that Leo is too untypical of his age group – he is too imaginative, too ignorant of the passions of the adult world. They claim that Leo would have understood more and cared less, or at least a normal boy of his age would. However, Hartley, using his linguistic skills, makes the reader believe how out of his element Leo is at Brandham Hall. After leading a relatively secluded live with his mother, the world of Brandham Hall seems to have unbalanced his senses of the real and the fantastical. It is because of his imaginative life and his respect for the zodiac and the hierarchy, that he is so vulnerable to the shock that befalls him when he is suddenly forced to see what ‘spooning’ really is, thus resulting in the tragedy viewed by the readers. Such an experience, in such an intense emotional context, can be traumatic, in the sense of leaving a permanent emotional and mental wound. Anyone of Leo’s age is vulnerable in this way. Leo himself has expected so much of life, with a mystical sort of passion for rules which do not exist in life, that he is permanently disabled by an over-exposure to reality, like Icarus, as the novel suggests, the boy in the legend who flew too near to the sun and melted the wax of his wings. The loss of innocence is an important theme of the novel. For the book to work, it is necessary for Leo to be old enough for there to be signs of his stirring sexuality as well as for him to be ignorant of the actual facts. For a modern reader today, the most difficult thing to accept is the ignorance and naïvety of boy of Leo’s age. In our more open society, with mass media coverage of all aspects of personal life, it is difficult to believe that the possibility of a physical relationship between a beautiful twenty-two year old girl and an attractive young man should not have occurred to the boy. It is clear, however, that Leo knows nothing about sexual matters.

The contextual setting of the novel makes it all the more tragic for the modern reader because we know how different the world is today. Everything, from clothes to our attitudes, has changed. Technology, for instance, would have made Marian and Ted’s affair that much easier to conceal. At the end of the novel even Leo admits that it might have made an enormous difference if there had been telephones in those days:

“Was there a telephone here in your day?”

“No, it might have made a great difference if there had been.”

Leo, of course, states that in 1952. The modern reader would have suggested mobile phones and text messaging. That way, no one would have even guessed about the relationship of the two lovers and there would be no third party involved.

It is difficult for us, as the modern readers, to understand the attitude of the past towards sexual relationships. The kind of crude mockery practiced by Marcus, for example, seems inexplicable.

"Un couple qui fait le cuiller … Spooning, you idiot. Let’s go and rout them out"

Marcus's words, underline the schoolboy thrill of discovering whoever ‘they’ are. This mockery is an ironic reaction to the social ban on speaking openly of any matters to do with the body.

The level of naivety of Leo is revealed even more intensely in his infatuation with the zodiac. The childlike distinctions he makes between the Archer and the Water-carrier are perhaps somewhat amusing to the adult reader, as well as the older Leo:

“…the idea of shooting appealed to me.

“…as to the Water-carrier … I could not help conceiving of him as a farm-labourer or at best a gardener.”

The way Leo idealises the inhabitants of Brandham Hall and likens them to their zodiacal counterparts is touching when viewed by the older and especially modern readers. The older Leo finds it hard to come to terms with the fact that his transcendent and god-like hosts betrayed his loyal trust. The reader feels and sympathises with Leo’s tragedy even more profoundly as we witness all the events unfold without the bias that the characters or narrators have.

Many novelists choose to set their work a few decades in the past. No longer current but not yet remote, ‘about fifty years ago’ is an era with a special fascination. The fifty years span gives Hartley, firstly, the possibility of achieving a perspective, a whole view in relation to the present, with a degree of detachment. Secondly, there is authorisation to criticise. The style of narration based on hindsight is another factor that makes the tragedy more poignant is. The framing structure of the novel combined with the effect that reminiscence has on the tone of the novel makes the reader aware of the time gone by and the effects the events of the novel had on the older narrator. The narrator, of course, is the adult Leo, and he, therefore can select material from the past and comment with the mature attitude, while at the same time re-living the experience with the emotions and feelings of a young boy:

“This is what I think now but it is what I felt then.”

Throughout the novel the reader comes across passages where an adult voice is noticeable. Leo’s childish interpretations of the situation around him are often criticised by the adult Leo. At several points this dichotomy is made explicit, for example, just before telling the readers about the match, the older Leo makes his presence felt by admitting:

“I have never voluntarily watched a cricket match since, but I realise that the conditions at Brandham were exceptional.”

Hartley bases his use of this genre on the privileged knowledge he feels adult Leo has about his past. He might be using selective memory and subjective assessment of the adult narrator as a way of discrediting the narration and commenting on the younger storyteller. The sympathy we feel towards younger Leo is heightened due to the fact that his naivety and youthful age are constantly commented on by the older Leo bringing them to the reader’s attention. Young Leo can seem both comic and pathetic in adult eyes. Conversely, using Leo as a point of view can make adult behaviour look foolish. The older Leo mocks his earlier optimism:

“I could not find a flaw in the universe”

The varying moods of high elation, bewilderment, embarrassment, boredom and impatience are conveyed in turn. Hartley’s ability to give the adult reader the sense of what it is like to be a child is demonstrated well in Chapter 22 where arrangements for Leo’s birthday are being made.

“This evocation of the twin Leos, young and old, green and grey, fully alive and in danger – safe, but ‘all dried up inside’” – The Go-Between is the story of a life that failed after beginning with great promise. The first readers of the novel might have felt similarly about their lives, as they would have just experienced the two World Wars and the hopes and dreams that they might have had for the twentieth century did not come true. For the modern reader, on the other hand, the story of Leo provokes deep sympathy and compassionate emotions as our understanding of his tragedy is enriched by our knowledge of the contextual background of the time. Had it been set even fifty years later, the novel might have had a completely different outcome for all its characters. The rise of trade unions and equal rights for women changed the relationship between social classes and between sexes. Marian could have been married to Ted and their grandson would not have felt ashamed of his background. Leo might have not had such a deep shock after discovering what ‘spooning’ really was as he would have had some knowledge of the matter though his upbringing.

On the whole the world was a different place for older Leo compared to the young boy after experiencing two world wars. Just as the potential glory of a new century has been spoiled buy the hate and death which warfare entails, so too has the glory of life at Brandham Hall been blighted. Leo becomes dehumanised by his experience at Brandham hall just as the warfare of the twentieth century dehumanised many people. His traumatised state could be equated with the shell shock suffered by many survivors of the First World War. Interesting parallels that are drawn between the larger national events of the early twentieth century and the story that takes place at Brandham Hall emphasise the fact that Hartley’s choice of the year 1900 as the setting for his novel seems very appropriate. The modern readers find the novel all the more tragic for the knowledge that they have of contextual background makes the story of The Go-Between poignant.