Pym's Less Than Angels begins with a great opening sentence introducing Catherine Oliphant (M-W defines the last name as "a hunter's horn made from an elephant tusk") and a good set-piece introducing an ensemble of other characters. Catherine - like Mildred in Excellent Women - is set apart from the other characters. Although she is not the narrator, she is literary. The aforementioned first sentence establishes her ability to be in both real and imagined worlds, so that the cafe where she drinks tea momentarily becomes a "church in Ravenna." The England vs. Italy dynamic comes up in the earlier Pym novel and is used as a shorthand (according to Long and in the tradition of writers such as E.M. Forster) way to contrast the influences of reason and passion. Mildred seems to be of the former but intrigued by the latter, and Catherine is also established in this way. This theme is continued in a number of allusions to Romeo and Juliet. Catherine's live-in boyfriend Tom has just returned for two years in the field (he's an anthropologist, another connection to EW) and becomes the object of affection for Deirdre, a young anthropology student. She gives Tom "starry-eyed looks" and falls for him at a party (like I.v in R&J!), the end of which corresponds to her discovery that he and Catherine are a couple (similar to R&J where the two lovers discover they come from feuding families). Interestingly, the earlier party that kicks off the novel subtly inverts conventional power dynamics of 1950s England. Although it seems like the pompous Felix Byron Mainwaring (what a name!) is in charge of the festivities, the reality is that Minnie Foresight (again, names) has provided the money for the venue and Miss Esther Clovis (a repeat character from Excellent Women) organizes the gathering. Men are only seemingly in charge.
"Catherine often wondered whether anthropologists became so absorbed in studying the ways of strange societies that they forgot what was the usual thing in their own. Yet some of them, she had observed, were so highly respectable and conventional, that it seemed to work the other way too, as if they realized the importance of conforming to the 'norm,' or whatever they would have called it in their jargon." (Pym 18)
Like Mildred, Catherine is a great observer of human behavior. The irony in this excerpt (i.e., that experts on social behavior don't recognize their own social behavior) gets to a point more universal than anthropologists: people are often so wrapped up in one area of their lives that they lose awareness of themselves.
"And so it came about that, like many other well-meaning people, they worried not so much about the dreadful things themselves as about their own inability to worry about them." (Pym 30)
This irony (worrying about not worrying rather than a true subject of worry) lightly admonishes the minor characters. Pym is great at such critiques of human nature. The idea that "well-meaning" people are uninvolved and insular is part of the subtext here and perhaps is more damning than it seems. It's hard to tell.
“How restful social intercourse would be if the face did not have to assume any expression - the strained look of interest, the simulated delight or surprise, the anxious concern one didn’t really feel. Alaric often avoided looking into people’s eyes when he spoke to them, fearful of what he might see there, for life was very terrible whatever sort of front we might put on it, and only the eyes of the very young or the very old and wise could look out on it with a clear untroubled gaze.” (Pym 43)
Just as Pope’s lines that lend the novel its title are reminiscent of Hamlet, so too is this passage. Alaric would rather wear a mask than have to perform in social interactions. His view of life is bleak. The point about only the “very young or the very old and wise” being able to face this truth is known only to Alaric and the narrator, making this passage similar to a soliloquy. allusion
“Conversation at real life parties is not usually very witty or worth recording, and where members of the same profession are gathered together it is likely to be incomprehensible to all but themselves.” (Pym 57)
This passage has a tone that is at once comic, humbling, and acute: Pym’s unique tone. The attitude manages to convey a care for and scorn for her subjects. It also grounds the work as realist. We are observing a "real life" party, even though it is truly fictional. There's an ironic wink here.
“No, perhaps not. [Life’s] comic and sad and indefinite - dull, sometimes, but seldom really tragic or deliriously happy, except when one’s very young.” (Pym 72)
While Catherine’s response to Deirdre’s mother might seem like a summation of Pym’s worldview, it also functions as commentary on Deirdre’s burgeoning relationship with Tom. Deirdre finds herself “deliriously happy” in Tom’s company. Will Catherine live by what she claims when she discovers Tom and Deirdre are seeing one another? characterization
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