The Hidden Passion: A Psychological Study of Incest in
[The paper was published in Pegasus, June 2010 issue [ISSN 0975 – 8488 Pegasus]. Eds Dutta, Sukanti and Siddharta Biswas. Pegasus Press, Kolkata.]
CONTRIBUTOR
SAMRAT LASKAR
Assistant Professor
Krishnagar, Nadia.
Email: samlas0@gmail.com
William Somerset Maugham is often perceived as the most luminous example of literary mediocrity in the modern age. His rather pseudo-humble protestation that he is the best among the second raters is rather taken more seriously than was really intended and critics have continued to disregard his genius with an elitist malice that borders on crafty sadism. This bias might have something to do with Maugham’s use of an artless prose style which looks highly insipid in an era of brilliant technical and stylistic innovation. Writing at the zenith of Modernist movement and an immediate contemporary of Joyce, Eliot, Pound, Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, Maugham’s simplistic style which to his own admission is ‘flat, plain and pedestrian’[1] is indubitably dull and ordinary, if not repulsive.
There is however no direct one-to-one relationship between (apparent) dullness of style with lack or complete absence of literary genius. Maugham’s bland prose interspersed with frequency of clichés and colloquialism gives rise to the mistaken perception that he is an ordinary, mediocre author armed just with the gift of gab. He is grudgingly credited with a fine narrative craft but that is the only weapon he has in his armour. Maugham though, if he wishes, could be quite a complex, convoluted and challenging writer as is evident from the choicest of his brilliant short stories. In a number of short stories, he explores the complexities of human psyche with apparent objective detachment which needs serious introspection. Thus, in “Rain”, he narrates the fall of a narrow-minded and overzealous missionary due to his sexual lapse; in “The Kite”, there is the complex story of sexual jealousy between the mother and daughter-in-law; “Sanatorium” is another complex story of relationship where the tuberculosis affected husband is jealous of the fact that his wife is healthy enough to enjoy life outside while he is trapped in the morbid atmosphere of the sanatorium; whereas in “The Round Dozen” we meet an eccentric whose only goal in life is to marry a dozen of girls. Evidently, Maugham has traversed different facets of psychological complexities from Oedipus Complex to innocuous eccentricity, from sexual crime to utopian escapism with equal panache. I have here zeroed in on one of Maugham’s most challenging short stories “The Book-Bag” which makes a study of the taboo subject in society – ‘incest’ with courteous reticence although never reducing the shock value associated with the subject.
“The Book-Bag” as a short story has a long history of critical neglect. After including this short story in the anthology Great English Short Stories, Christopher Isherwood significantly commented that he has ‘chosen “The Book-Bag” for several reasons other than the fact that it is less well-known than it deserves to be.’[2] Isherwood goes on to praise its ‘leisurely, autobiographical opening’[3] and ‘extraordinary narrative tact’[4] and finally heaps praise on the art of reticence in depicting such a shocking subject like incest:
I don’t mean that I think reticence is necessarily a virtue; but you cannot help admiring such a classic demonstration of how to handle a ‘shocking’ subject – incest – in an absolutely inoffensive manner, yet without sacrificing any of the shock…. the nature of the situation is conveyed entirely by the violence of the reaction to it, not by any description of the situation itself.[5]
In fact, Maugham’s much criticized technique of objective detachment stands in good stead here as incest is a topic which needs careful and sensitive handling. The civilized society’s reaction to incest is that of violent censure, akin to a sexual horror and disgust; while the act of incest is regarded as unnatural, incest offenders are considered to be morally aberrant, social pollutants not fit to reside in the civilized society. However, the intensity of reaction against incest is perhaps a camouflage to the fact that incest as an idea equally attracts and repels. There is a sinful fascination to the idea as such and in spite of the taboo associated with it incest has never ceased to attract, appall and perplex human beings. The word ‘taboo’ too needs to be interpreted in a comprehensive way. Thus, we are reminded that ‘taboo is not necessarily, as in popular usage, a total prohibition; but it may also be sacred; and thus reserved to particular persons, or for special occasions.’[6] There is no denying the fact that there has been ambivalent reaction to the idea of incest even if we hesitate to support Isabel Drummond’s radical remark that incest as a subject ‘has touched the extremes in sanction and denunciation. It fluctuates in degree of illegality with the times.’[7]
Drummond’s controversial statement appears somewhat reasonable when we see that the historical presence of incest is blatantly evident in the classical scriptures and even in The Holy Bible. Zeus or Jove’s amorous dalliances almost inevitably included a female relation of close kinship; his marriage with his own sister Hera being the most famous of them all. The Roman emperors like Nero were notorious for their incestuous cravings. In the case of the Egyptians, Osiris and Isis were both siblings and married couple. The Pharaohs too were not hesitant to follow the examples set by their gods and copulated and married inside the family. In The Old Testament too, we can find several instances of incest relation. Thus, Noah’s drunken son sexually attacks the aged patriarch and gets punishment for this aberrant sexual behaviour, Abraham indulges in an incestuous union with his half-sister and
Incest finds reflection in world literature with astonishing frequency. Even if we leave aside Sophocles’ masterpiece Oedipus Rex, we can find numerous references to incest from different ages of world literature. Thus we can see direct and indirect reference to incest in Jacobean stage as in John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore or in Beaumont and Fletcher’s tragi-comedy A King and No King. Possibility of incest appears in Fielding’s Tom Jones eliciting the shock and horror of moralists like Dr. Johnson. It also resurfaces in recent literature from Herman Melville’s
“The Book-Bag” is an entangled love story involving four people, two of them being siblings and their mutual ‘love’ giving rise to all the complexities. The tragedy is narrated to the author-narrator by Mark Featherstone when the former was wandering along
In other words –because Olive cares sufficiently to commit suicide when her brother Tim gets married, we know that she and her brother must have been lovers. Maugham does not need to elaborate; there is no other possible explanation.[9]
Incest, like homosexuality, has long been regarded as unnatural or deviant sexual behavior. People with incestuous or homosexual leanings are considered ‘sick’ requiring therapeutic medical counseling. Recent studies are more sympathetic to homosexuality, calling it just a form of sexual choice [expectedly] between two consenting adults. But what about incest then? Why not call it also a form of sexual choice if performed between two consenting adults? Our modern liberalism stops short of it though. It has been argued by prominent sociologists and anthropologists like Bronislow Malinowski that incest has become a taboo because it is disruptive to the family organization.[10] Incest, especially when performed between parents and children has the potentiality to break down the hierarchy of family-structure. It is often inferred that violation of incest prohibition inescapably leads to ‘psychical catastrophes’[11] like murders, suicides and neurotic and psychotic breakdown. Olive’s suicide at the end can be seen as an instance of one such ‘psychical catastrophes’ - a psychological punishment for her violation of incest prohibition imposed by the society. We should though be careful from instantly jumping into such simplistic conclusions.
Indeed, if we go through several medical case studies,[12] we can see that the few recorded instances show a direct relation of incestuous relation to troubled upbringing and unhealthy moral environment in which the participants live or are forced to live. Though there are certainly some cases of serious guilt consciousness and consequent nervous breakdown - that is not always the case. Guilt consciousness often appears when there is a considerable age-difference between the participants and the sexual act is forced upon the younger one. The most usual instance is when a younger girl is forced by any elderly relative be it a father, uncle or even much older brother. In the case of most sibling-incest, where the age-difference between the participants is negligible and the act is consensual, guilt consciousness appears rarely. We should note that both Tim and Olive absolutely suffer from no pricks of guilt consciousness when they were involved in their mutual relationship. They seem perfectly happy and blissful in their own world distrusting the company of any outsiders. People are aware of their mutual affection and commented on it, without guessing the real nature of their affection. Featherstone’s comment on their mutual dependency and affection needs to be studied carefully:
People said they couldn’t have been more united if they were married….They were so charming with one another, so gay and happy, that really to stay with them was…a spiritual refreshment. [13]
They almost had a mutual agreement that none of them will marry:
They never spoke as though either of them would marry, but always as though it were a settled thing that they would remain together. [14]
While Olive remained horribly faithful to her part of the promise and continued to reject Featherstone’s earnest proposals, Tim’s sudden infatuation for Sally and his hasty decision to marry her made a breach to the silent vow they had made. What followed is disaster but with the implication that had Tim not married, the siblings would have suffered no psychical catastrophe. Olive’s neurosis springs from her sexual jealousy, not from any moral guilt of being involved in an incestuous affair.
We may now traverse to a different angle altogether and try to understand the possible reasons of the development of such explicit incestuous relationship. It is generally argued (especially after Freud’s imposing idea of psychoanalysis with reference to Oedipus Complex) that incestuous desire is hidden in our unconscious, but it may come out open due to the lack/ absence of proper social and familial monitoring. Since “The Book-Bag” deals with a case of sibling-incest, I will here concentrate on few theories which are specially related to the context of sibling-incest and can thus be applied to understand the complex nature of Tim-Olive relationship. Psychologists like S. K. Weinberg, M. Schachter, S. Cotte and others have stressed that sibling incest often occurs when brothers and sisters who have been reared in different places during their childhood and adolescence, reunite after a long time.[15] R. E. L. Masters is of the opinion that it ‘is quite easy to understand, and to sympathize with the participants in this particular phenomenon. For psychological reasons, knowledge of the intimate blood-bond is conducive to affection. But this affection is not diluted in its sexual aspects, or diverted into non-sexual channels, as happens over a period of years in the day-to-day life of the family….Since such intercourse is not between two persons seeking [only] physical gratification, but between authentic lovers who may wish to marry, the consequence can be especially disastrous.’[16]
In the case of Olive and Tim, we can see an exact literary representation of the above theory.[17] Their parents were also separated during their childhood. Olive went to
Olive’s passion for Tim seems more intense than Tim’s for hers. Had Olive strayed from the relationship, perhaps Tim’s tragedy would not amount to a suicide. This might have something to do with Olive’s upbringing under a possibly neurotic, emotional mother who cared little for sexual morality. Her possible dissolute life led in
Interestingly, even if “The Book-Bag” takes an apparent neutral view on incest, the story ends in tragedy. The classical nemesis which claimed the fall of Oedipus returns with renewed vigour in claiming the life of one of the incest offenders and destroying the life-spirit of the other. Even Featherstone and Sally, the two outsiders who became indirectly involved in the incest complexity suffer no less. The story then follows the usual social decorum which would not let any incest offender go unpunished. However, Maugham himself a practicing bi-sexual, is never judgmental against Olive and Hardy. The author-narrator’s initial reaction to incest in “The Book-Bag” itself is worth quoting. When Featherstone asks him if he can understand the thing, he replies:
I can’t really. It doesn’t particularly shock me. It just seems to me very unnatural. Perhaps “unnatural” isn’t the right word. It’s incomprehensible to me. [22]
Incest as an idea might be unnatural or incomprehensible to him but he is never out of sympathy for the characters. H. E. Bates has once complained that Maugham ‘has no heart’[23] but surely that is a harsh and unjust comment made in haste springing from a failure to understand the technique of Maugham. In fact, Maugham’s heart throbs as much as that of any other man (perhaps less than the sentimentalist Bates) and his mute sympathy for his characters lie hidden under the veneer of objective detachment. The following quotation about any serious author writing about incest is as much applicable to Maugham as to any other great artists be it Sophocles, O’ Neill or Melville:
The serious author is likely to be sympathetic to the plight of incestuous lovers. In many cases, to be sure, he punishes, finally the offending couple. But it is plain that this is often a bow to custom, and a means of achieving publication, rather than a genuine conviction that punishment (by self, society, calamity, or whatever) should occur. [24]
Notes and References
[1] This oft-quoted self-deprecating quotation is easily available in one of the most popular prose anthologies for the Indian students – Thorpe, Michael, ed. Modern Prose: Stories, Essays and Sketches.
[2] I have found this quotation in Curtis, Anthony, and John Whitehead, eds. W. Somerset Maugham: The Critical Heritage.
[3] See Curtis, Anthony, and John Whitehead, eds. W.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] See the Introduction in Cory, Donald W., and R. E. L Masters, eds. Violation of Taboo: Incest in the Great Literature of the Past and Present.
[7] Ibid. 3.
[8] Incest also finds frequent representations in popular art, especially films. One can consult Hamer, Mary. Incest: A New Perspective.
[9] See Curtis, Anthony, and John Whitehead, eds. W.
[10] To get a rather elaborate view see Meiselman, Karin C. Incest: A Psychological Study of Causes and Effects with Treatment Recommendations.
[11] See Cory, Donald W., and R. E. L Masters, eds. Violation of Taboo: Incest in the Great Literature of the Past and Present.
[12] To know more please consult Meiselman, Karin C. Incest: A Psychological Study of Causes and Effects with Treatment Recommendations.
[13] Maugham, Somerset. “The Book-Bag”.
[14] “The Book Bag”, 480.
[15] To have a detailed knowledge about this very interesting and plausible theory of incest one can consult the following two works –
· Weinberg, S. K. Incest Behaviour.
· Schachter, M. and S, Cotte. “A Medical-Psychological and Social Study of Incest from the Perspective of Child Psychiatry”. Acta Paedopsychiatry, 1960, 27, 139-146.
[16] Masters, R. E. L. From Patterns of Incest: A Psycho-Social Study of Incest: Based on Clinical and Historic Data.
[17] In a rather less known American novel The Closest Kin There Is by Clara Winston, we see a brother and sister meeting after a lengthy separation, develop a strong mutual affection that consequently culminates into an incestuous affair. Very much like the Hardy siblings, this sibling pair also shows unwillingness and inability to develop relationship outside their own circle.
[18] See Meiselman, Karin C. Incest: A Psychological Study of Causes and Effects with Treatment Recommendations.
[19] “The Book Bag”, 484.
[20] Ibid. 484-485.
[21] Ibid. 485.
[22] Ibid. 476.
[23] See Bates, H. E., The Modern Short Story.
[24] See Cory, Donald W., and R. E. L Masters, eds. Violation of Taboo: Incest in the Great Literature of the Past and Present.
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