Joyce To LVI
Critical Essay on Passage “She refreshed…frenetic vision” (page 19 – 21)
In this short passage, we are given a vivid picture of the environment where the physical movement, and to some extent (it could be argued) the molding of the personalities of the main characters take place. Through a seemingly simple narrative that sees Cecilia move from the outdoors to the ‘doorway of the drawing room’, the Tallis’ family home is described to us in a way that alludes to the reader the nature and habits of those who inhabit it. However, what is really striking about this passage is how through a deceivingly narrative prose that certain explanations and prolepsis for future events are revealed to us. Through this passage, we see the scope for the possibility for a catastrophe to happen, borne out of restlessness and a sense of ‘not belonging’. Of course, it is important to note the historical context of the setting of the book. Part Two of the book is concerned with World War Two, a time of great change to Britain in almost every aspect of life. With this passage in mind, it is more important to inspect the pre-war situation. Tensions between Germany and Britain were high at this time, and this feeling of tension and a need for change is highlighted dramatically in this short passage. One of the most effective ways that this has been done is to show us why exactly there was tension in the Tallis household – or at least, a need for change in Cecilia’s opinion.
McEwan has strived to present the Tallis home in an imposing way, reflective of the rigidness and perhaps unfriendliness of a family as a whole in Cecilia’s eyes. The light is explicitly said to be unable to ‘conceal the ugliness of the Tallis home’ and the critics’ verbal attacks on the structure (which we can assume to be real condemnations that were made ‘one day’ through the factuality of “Pevsner, or one of his team…and by a younger writer of the modern school’ and quotation marks around ‘charmless to a fault’) is almost cruel in its bluntness. Here it is important to remember that the whole point of the novel is that it is Briony (and not some omniscient narrator who sees and knows all) who controls the plot of the story. Perhaps these brutal attacks on her childhood home shows her resentment and an almost childish inability to separate her sin (for which she means to atone for in the form of rewriting a different ending for the two lovers) from the environment in which this crime happened. Another important point to note about the house is that it is supposed to represent artificiality and a false sense of security, which is the reason why it seems so uninviting from the outside. The house had been built to replace one tragically ‘destroyed by fire’ and the only thing that remained was an ‘artificial lake’. Likewise, the Tallis family is simply a mere imitation of a seemingly happy family that has it all – land, servants, a Cambridge educated daughter (although she only receives a third in her degree) and a high-flying father who works in the government. However, its artificiality and sense of oppression, which perhaps the ‘squat, lead-paned baronial Gothic’ house contributes to, is perhaps what drives Briony to become a child fascinated with creating a reality of her own. Moreover, the fact that Cecilia’s grandfather had built the house with ‘padlocks, bolts, latches and hasps’ in mind hints that it is meant to keep evil things out – but also to contain evil things within. The spoilt demands of Briony who is doted on, a mother ever absent, an aloof father (who we suspect to be having an affair) and the resentment of Cecilia towards Robbie (which she herself cannot understand until all is made clear to her in the library scene) is meant to be metaphorically contained by all the security devices. Sure enough, Cecilia’s rebelliousness (she seems to permanently have a ‘blossoming need for a cigarette’) will not allow her to stay in a place where her freedom is clamped down upon and where there is a ‘timeless, unchanging calm’. This ‘calm’ is exactly what strikes up a certainty of having to ‘soon be moving on’ and therefore, a sense of restlessness that will soon be satisfied by the fateful event of Briony witnessing the two lovers in the library.
