Abjection and degeneration in Thomas Hardy's "Barbara of the House of Grebe"

THE ABJECTION OF BARBARA AND THE DEGENERATION OF UPLANDTOWERS

In her study of female masochism in Gothic novels, Michelle Masse argues that Gothic heroines feel "the cultural, psychoanalytic, and fictional expectation that they should be masochistic if they are 'normal' women" (Masse 1992, 2). Defying this expectation when she weds Edmond and then when she resists the Earl's precedence as her husband, Barbara finally acts masochistic under the rigors of the latter's statue game. That game can be compared to the Gothic beating drama that Masse explores. Masse describes the Gothic dyad of male beater and female victim, in which romance requires female suffering and sacrifice. Surely, the Earl's repeated torments through the statue game are a kind of psychological beating of Barbara that results in her abjection. She learns to seek her beater's attentions, though they torment her. In the light of Masse's analysis, Barbara's sufferings become the expected results of a wife's culturally conditioned "natural" abjection as a "normal" female masochist.

The editors of The Graphic, the periodical for which "Barbara" was commissioned as part of A Group of Noble Dames, forced Hardy to remove the intimate details of physical abuse that dramatized the Earl's cruelty towards Barbara; those details remain absent from the story published in Noble Dames the book (Wing 1987, 82, 87).12 However, George Wing posits that what remains of the brutality of Uplandtowers is "not more than a filament removed from so-called normal posture" (Wing 1987, 89). Wing is referring to an alleged Victorian norm of mild mental abuse of wives; such a "normal posture" may stem from widespread use of the myth of degeneration to justify placing "uppity" women in abject positions.

Like a stereotypical Gothic heroine, Barbara ultimately embraces her role as the Earl's abject victim. She experiences an intense absorption in her abjection that recalls her previous focus upon prostrating herself before Edmond's statue. Kristeva writes of the appeal of abjection that it can create "a jouissance in which the Other, in return, keeps the subject from foundering by making it repugnant. One thus understands why so many victims of the abject are its fascinated victims-if not its submissive and willing ones" (Kristeva 1982, 9). Barbara is fascinated, submissive, and willing when she gives up her autonomy to Uplandtowers. Abjection appeals to her because it will save her from having to make further, perilous decisions that could cause her to feel the intense guilt and pain that she faced after Edmond was maimed. Not only does Barbara accept abjection as her punishment for rejecting Edmond long ago, but because abjection relieves her from the burden of self-determination.

To make Barbara experience herself as abject and degenerate, Uplandtowers takes on the role of the late-Victorian doctor battling the female patient for control of her psyche, a practice discussed in The Female Malady (Showalter 1987, 160). It is reassuring for Uplandtowers to pretend that Barbara's interest in Edmond's statue is a sign of mental disease, not the result of her unhappiness in their marriage. One reason she worshipped the statue was to defy the authority of Uplandtowers under the self-righteous guise of a grieving widow rather than the incriminating one of a shrewish wife; Uplandtowers reacts in a similarly sneaky manner to make his tyranny look benevolent. Uplandtowers hopes Barbara will be "cured" of her illicit passion for Edmond by the sight of his ghastly statue (Hardy 1891, 568).