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21Elena Shelstiuk,
together with students, Yana Reizvikh and Nickolay Panfilov
Miass Filial of Chelyabinsk State University Love and War in Beryl Rainbridge’s Novel Master Georgie
Master Georgie (1998) is one of Beryl Bainbridge’s historical novels that deals with the British experience of the Crimean War. George Hardy, English surgeon and amateur photographer, changes his settled life in London for being the military doctor at Inkerman in the Crimea, followed by Doctor Potter, Myrtle and later Pompey Jones. Though quite a small novel, Master Georgie touches upon several vital themes; a brief analysis of the two of them - love and war - we would like to present in this article.
I. Love
As Bainbridge tries to evaluate objectively, in a photographic manner, all sides of life, however seamy they may be, she creates a very tangled system of love relationships in the novel. There is not a single link of reciprocal love in it, and, in fact, even the concept of love seems to be reconsidered. The reader would waver, which feelings of the main characters to each other may be qualified as love. Myrtle’s feelings for George, George’s attitude to Pompey Jones, Dr. Potter’s affection for Beatrice - these kinds of ‘love’ are in fact, different degrees of sexual urges, ranging from obsession to lust.
There are no romantic scenes in the novel. True, there are certain parts that may seem touching (e.g. the episode where Myrtle admires the way George walks), but they do not evoke romantic feelings, being too immersed in the atmosphere of commonplace. There is also nothing sublime in the protagonists’ feelings for each other, however passionate these feelings may be. Thus love, in Bainbridge’s interpretation, is neither romantic nor sublime, though, if lasting and strong, it is able to make an impact on people’s entire life.
As mentioned above, the task, which the author of the novel sets herself is to present life impassively and objectively. In pursuit of this, Bainbridge shows that human emotions are fundamentally basic instincts - the desire to belong, be protected, care and be cared for,
and, of course, the sexual instinct, the desire to satisfy one’s libido.
One of the points of the novel is to show that human libido is frequently realized in a quaint way - in this we see a clear link between Bainbridge’s concept of love and Sigmund Freud’s theory. There are a few scenes and characters in the novel that reveal the lowest human instincts, many of which suggest the idea that cultivation of the mind does not exclude the base Freudian drives in man, and that Id prevails in Man unconditionally.
Among the primitive characters, whose libido is scarcely discriminating, is Mr. Hardy, the father of the family which raised Myrtle. This ‘good man’, frequenter of brothels, does not hesitate to bare himself in front of his foster daughter. The short sentence ‘...he'd felt compelled to show them (his genitals) me, a thing rigid as a carrot had stuck out between his fingers’, shows that this representative of the respectable middle class is not alien to little forbidden sexual pranks.
Another passage describes how a ‘simple soul’ Mrs. O’Gorman tells the street performer, then adolescent Pompey Jones, that ‘she herself when little more than a child had borne an infant by an older brother who’d buried it alive in a turf bog.’
But this 'truth of life', or rather, truth of primitive instincts in human, is also reflected in ‘nobler’ characters, whose Super-ego is strong and claims to control their behaviour. Oedipus and Electra complexes are apparent in both George and Myrtle.
George is dominated by the grudging tenderness for his neurotic mother, succumbing to her whims and fancies. Psychologists claim, that sometimes such a relationship leads to the son's preferences of his own sex, which we actually observe in the text. Myrtle is obsessed by love for her foster-brother, whom she adores as a higher creature. She seduces him into a loveless (on his part) liaison, bears him children and acts as his guardian and faithful servant.
George's Super-ego induces him to take up medicine, to work devoutly and selflessly as a military surgeon. This may also be a sign of his sublimation, his escapism from his unnatural homosexual
drives. Myrtle, who to the end does not give up hope of winning George's love, is driven by her Super-ego to take care of her children, and when in war - of the wounded and weak.
Perhaps, the most 'healthy', from the psychoanalytical viewpoint, is the stunt performer Pompey Jones, George's lover and Myrtle's reticent admirer. His feelings are 'natural', and therefore morally justified, his Ego rules his life, staying in perfect harmony with his Id and muffling whatever Super-ego he had developed.
So, we may judge that Beryl Bainbridge's approach to love and human behaviour is covertly psychoanalytical. This approach, however common in modern Western novel, is somewhat deficient, in that it brings to the foreground human instincts and, more broadly, psychology, and relegates social ills and contradictions to the background.
Possibly, after all, the whole point of overloading Master Georgie with Freudian motives is to show love in its variety, which is all too often tantamount to perversion. However, such motives as homosexuality, latent incest, sexual obsession, as we may judge by contemporary literature, are no longer mauvais ton, so Bainbridge does not break the mould.
II. War
Master Georgie describes the journey of the protagonists to Constantinople, Varna and Crimea during the Crimean War. So, two thirds of the whole narration is somehow dedicated to the description of life during the wartime.
The author immerses historical details into the plot in a natural way, her idea being to create a war-context without a specific mention or evaluation of it, at least in the first war chapters. Thus our analysis of the war theme can be done only through the reflection of war in the novel, through direct description accounts of the effects of war on the characters.
As is well-known from history, ‘the Eastern question’ was insoluble for Europe, causing confusion in the international politics. And the Crimean war proved to be one of the most meaningless wars
in history, so it is no wonder that Bainbridge has taken this idea as a starting point.
This meaninglessness of war is mentioned several times by Dr. Potter in his discussions with Naughton and at the dinner with military representatives. But although Potter, being an educated and sagacious man, is the only one who understands the situation clearly, it is his free decision to accompany George on his ‘expedition’. It seems a little strange, as well as the fact that Potter, given his obsession with his wife, parts with her of his own accord only to anguish later over her return to London. There is one more inconsistency: as Potter is portrayed by Bainbridge as an armchair scientist, it is inconceivable for what reason he decided to go abroad and plunge into the midst of military action.
To summarize, one can find no detailed information about war, practically no estimations of it; instead the author gives us a brief melancholic commentary on the ‘meaninglessness’ if war, obscured by a number of Latin and Greek quotations.
However harsh and meaningless war can be, it is always full of great deeds and great tragedies. It is not by chance that the British have three enduring images of the Crimean War: the Charge of Light Brigade (that receives only an incidental mention), the nursing of soldiers by Florence Nightingale (which is not mentioned) and Russell and Fenton’s photographs. But Bainbridge’s characters are not heroes, and there is no one to sympathize with - Dr. Potter, selfish in his misery; Myrtle who neglects the request of a dying man, moved by jealousy when she sees George and Pompey Jones sleeping together; the indifferent and hard-hearted Pompey Jones; George, who seeks oblivion in his job.
As Matthew Bradley points out in his article ‘Mastering Georgie? A Brief Introduction to Beryl Bainbridge's Novel’ (.Footpath Issue 1):
By making every word and phrase count, often when reading Bainbridge there's a nagging feeling that you're missing something, a feeling that shouldn't be put down by non-English speakers to any failing on their part. It's
very much a deliberate effect of her careful prose. As in life, information doesn't grab your attention in proportion to its narrative importance, but drip feeds into your consciousness by means of surprise remarks and chance encounters [Bradley 2008: 38].
We would add to this, that though the information is here to stay, Master Georgie appears to be an example of literature, which defeats the reader's expectations. The reader can get no catharsis reading it.
Reference
Bradley M. Mastering Georgie? A Brief Introduction to Beryl Bainbridge's Novel // Footpath: A Journal of Contemporary British Literature in Russian Universities. Number 1. Perm: Perm State University, 2008. P. 37 - 41.
