this, then, was aging” [123].
Refreshing and innocent as it may be, that view is likely to put some distance between the reader and the focalizing character, exposing the latter’s perspective as child-specific. This narratorial position gains a growing significance once he starts relating the events at the theater. Describing an elderly artist, he comments:
His haplessness, his awkwardness,
these were what we had come to see.
Bemused and balding, and bespectacled,
he reminded me a little of my grandfather [124].
Soon after, he refers to his fellow spectators: “The audience were old people, / like my grandparents, tired and retired, / all of them laughing and applauding” (125, my emphasis). These fragments evoke the cultural stereotype of the old person as a funny character (Cuddy and Fiske 3; Woodward, “Performing” 164) and also undermine it through the overt materialization of the young narrator, who, generationally isolated, becomes the ultimate spectator, distanced from the artist and the elderly viewers alike. A disturbing aspect of the sense of detachment granted by the position of an observer is additionally underlined when Pearl, the narrator’s grandmother, is invited onstage: “The conjurer applauded her once more—/ A good sport. That was what she was. A sport” (Gaiman 127). Thus, the reader, sharply aware of the narrative’s viewpoint is given a choice whether to identify with it or not.
The fashioning of the reader’s viewpoint in “Chivalry” is definitely not straightforward, as the story is told in the third-person voice, which, however, represents the perspective of the elderly protagonist rather than the presumably younger receiver as identified by Woodward. The principal differences in the length as well as literary genre notwithstanding, Gaiman’s short story reflects, in its own way, characteristics of the Reifungsroman, a genre that deals with personal growth in the period directly preceding the end of life (Wallace 394). Barbara Frey Waxman defines the Reifungsroman as
a narrative structure which focuses on a journey or quest for self-knowledge; a narrative voice, either first person or third person omniscient, which draws the reader into the ageing protagonist’s world; the use of dreams or flashbacks for life review; a concern with the physical body and illness; and a sense that, even in frail old age, there is the possibility of an opening up of life [394, as cited in Wallace].
All those elements, with the possible exception of “flashbacks,” can be traced in Gaiman’s story, which might encourage a consideration of “Chivalry” in terms of Waxman’s formula, though it would exceed the scope of this essay. For the purpose of the current discussion, it is, therefore, enough to argue that the aspects of the Reifungsroman that feature in “Chivalry” establish an “elderly structure of the look,” to rephrase Woodward’s term.
The short story, set in modern Britain, traces one week in the life of Mrs. Whitaker, an elderly woman who, having purchased the Holy Grail in a local second-hand shop, finds herself visited by Sir Galaad. The mythic hero’s attempts to trade other magical items for the artifact and Mrs. Whitaker’s reluctance to comply result in three subsequent visits that he pays to her house, each time involving well-mannered socializing and domestic chores. Eventually, the woman accepts two magical objects in exchange for the Grail, though she rejects an item that might make her young and immortal. Galaad leaves, having fulfilled his quest, while Mrs. Whitaker faces an opportunity to buy Aladdin’s lamp and decides against it.
Because the aged protagonist is the story focalizer, the predictable and systematic patterns of her daily activities and her focus on details of the everyday routine affect the structure of the narrative. Its regularity is made prominent by the use of subsequent weekdays as a measure of the plot development; while the most important events take place on Thursday (36), Friday (37–39), Monday (40–42) and Tuesday (42–48), all the remaining days are also acknowledged, be it with just one sentence: “On Wednesday Mrs. Whitaker stayed in all day” (48). Descriptions full of seemingly irrelevant details produce both a dense background of the mundane reality into which the mythic is casually incorporated and an aged character’s point of view, as exemplified by the following passage:
At midday Mrs. Greenberg [Mrs. Whitaker’s acquaintance] went home, and Mrs. Whitaker made herself cheese on toast for lunch, and after lunch Mrs. Whitaker took her pills; the white and the red and the two little orange ones.
The doorbell rang [announcing the arrival of Sir Galaad] [37–38].
The older woman’s viewpoint becomes even more distinct during her meetings with Marie, a teenage shop assistant. The girl’s first description, though not filtered through Mrs. Whitaker’s perception directly, underlines awkwardness and lack of self-assurance typical of a young identity in the formative phase:
The volunteer on duty [as a sales person] this afternoon was Marie, seventeen, slightly overweight, and dressed in a baggy mauve jumper that looked like she had bought it from the [second-hand] shop.
Marie sat by the till with a copy of Modern Woman magazine, filling out a “Reveal Your Hidden Personality” questionnaire. Every now and then she flipped to the back of the magazine and checked the relative points assigned to an A), B) or C) answer before making up her mind how she’d respond to the question [35].
During their second meeting, Mrs. Whitaker’s perspective explicitly empowers her to take a supportive, yet evaluative stance: “Mrs. Whitaker stared at her. Marie was wearing lipstick (possibly not the best shade for her, nor particularly expertly applied, but, thought Mrs. Whitaker, that would come with time) and a rather smart skirt. It was a great improvement” (43, my emphasis). Thus, contrary to the construction of the I-speaker in “Queen of Knives,” the narrative voice of “Chivalry” adopts a perspective marked by age and approaching youth as an object of an empathizing, but distanced scrutiny.
The defamiliarization of “the youthful structure of the look” becomes even more striking when considered in terms of a broader narrative estrangement which lies at the basis of the short story’s retelling of the Arthurian myth. It does not actually challenge the myth’s traditional plot development. Galaad mentions his conventionally acknowledged family background (44), pursues his “Right High and Noble Quest” approved by Arthur (38), and eventually moves on with the Grail (48), obtained thanks to his determination, courage, respectful attitude and humble willingness to perform the required tasks. These four qualities reflect the “chivalry” in the title. Instead, what is subverted is the perspective from which the mythic pattern is introduced to the reader.
While the practice of retelling Arthurian tales from various angles in order to make them relevant for changing audiences and socio-cultural contexts, especially those connected with gender relations, can be pointed out as one of the most important forms of the myth ongoing cultivation (Roberts 7, 10–12), Gaiman’s perspective reversal may also be expanded onto Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, which, though questioned by numerous subsequent scholars (Manganaro 153–154; Miller 68–69), can hardly be denied a widespread impact on the Western popular culture (Day 80–81). As argued by Dean A. Miller, Campbell’s crucial contribution is the “set[ting] up [of] stages and categories of the heroic biography” (69), which imposes on the reader the usually young protagonist’s perspective by tracing his or her development. When considered in terms of the monomyth, the function of Mrs. Whitaker can be related to those of a helper–associated by Campbell among others with an elderly female character (64–65) and defined as an embodiment of “the benign, protective power of destiny” (66)–or the “goddess” (100), the interaction with whom “is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the boon of love (charity: amor fati), which is life itself enjoyed as the encasement of eternity” (109): the quality possible to identify with the Holy Grail (Marino 106). With regard to another influential method of analysis applied to traditional narratives, namely Vladimir Propp’s formal morphology, Mrs. Whitaker occupies in Galaad’s story the position of a “donor” who faces the heroic charac
ter with a task before offering him or her a powerful artifact (24, 27).5 Thus, the narrator’s point of view in “Chivalry” is subversive on at least two levels: it represents not only a female and aged perception of the traditional story and its young hero, but also the perspective of a character whose function in the heroic progress is presumably episodic. In contrast to writers like Marion Zimmer Bradley, who in The Mists of Avalon centralizes both the viewpoint and the role of her narrator Morgain, Gaiman does not involve Mrs. Whitaker in Galaad’s original story beyond the act of rewarding him with the Grail in exchange for a number of favors. Her stand-alone personal narrative encapsulates the Arthurian myth, making the aged heroine’s point of view all the more prominent.
One of the Reifungsroman features of “Chivalry” is the aged heroine’s perspective, which is elaborately established and incorporates also two other attributes mentioned by Waxman: the “quest for self-knowledge” and the “possibility of opening up of life” (Wallace 394). A direct employment of such a “quest” is offered by the retelling of Galaad’s story, yet it also affects Mrs. Whitaker’s own identity, as it brings into her existence miraculous possibilities, including that of immortality, thus putting her willpower to a test. Thus, her involvement in the mythic narrative testifies to the potential of an elderly woman’s existence.
All in the Family: Power Relations and Empowerment
While the poem as well as the short story denaturalize the “youthful structure of the look” in their own respective ways, the complexity of power relations in both texts becomes even more visible at the intersection of gender and age. In “Queen of Knives,” this occurs in dynamics of the grandmother-grandfather and grandmother-grandson relationships, the former reflected in an especially interesting way by the contrast between the vocality of both spouses. “Chivalry,” in turn, focuses on the experience of a single character, implicitly suggesting the presence of power relations between Mrs. Whitaker, her family, and the broader community, though it remains in the background. Like most stories of old age, the predominant impression is of the protagonist’s independence—or isolation.
In “Queen of Knives,” the grandfather is labeled as one who “ha[s] the voice in the family” (Gaiman 131) and though this refers to his musical talent, its broader significance remains clear. While he never talks about himself directly (the majority of his utterances are speculations about the illusionist’s show technicalities), the reader gets to learn relatively much about the old man, either from Pearl’s recollections (125) or the narrator’s own comments (127, 132). The personal information deals mostly with the grandfather’s past activities and enterprises.6 The grandmother, in turn, is said to “ha[ve] no voice, not one to speak of” (124), which seems at odds with her habit of singing while completing domestic chores (123). When she talks, it is about her husband or her own past, but in the context of the anti–Semitic acts in London before World War II and the experiences of her family rather than her own (129–130). What the reader does get to know about Pearl as a person deals not so much with her actions or designs as her physicality:
My grandmother must have been, what? Sixty, then?
She had just stopped smoking
was trying to lose some weight. She was proudest
of her teeth, which, though tobacco-stained, were all
her own [126–127].
At this moment in the narrative, the narrator offers a hint of the grandmother’s advantage over her husband, but it is based on that physical detail, as the grandfather’s daredevil antics while bicycling left him toothless “as a youth” (127). The narration continues to show this slow-burning hint of superiority as she “chewed hard licorice, ... / or sucked hard caramels, perhaps to make him wrong” (127), though the story immediately turns to identify her secondary place in the home. She remains second to the conjurer (127).
Pearl does not talk about herself. However, the borrowed voices of the songs she likes—popular American and British hits from the early decades of the 20th century—may be significant as a part of her unexpressed self-narration. “You Made Me Love You (I Didn’t Want to Do It),” written in 1913 by Joe McCarthy and James V. Monaco (Herder 398), suggests her emotional submission is not entirely voluntary, and the selection implicitly depicts her voice as a form of rebellion in her gender relations (Studwell 142). “Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two),” Harry Dacre’s song from 1892, features a young man who refers to cycling as a metaphor of life in order to win a girl’s acceptance (Herder 75); as Pearl’s husband used to enjoy bicycle rides himself, her attachment to that particular composition may be something more than a coincidence.7 “If You Were the Only Girl in the World,” a 1916 hit co-written by Clifford Grey and Nat D. Ayer (Roshwald and Stites 334), spins an idyllic vision of a romantic relationship (Traditional Music Library n.p.), while Charles Collins and Fred W. Leigh’s “Don’t Dilly Dally (My Old Man)” produces a slightly sexist image of a wife forced to run after the car with her husband and all household possessions inside (Traditional Music Library n.p.).8 Thus, the selection of lyrics cited by the grandmother alludes to confining or imperfect relationships, which may reflect her otherwise suppressed frustration.
A more direct indicator of Pearl’s possibly underprivileged position in her marriage may be identified in the poem’s title. “Queen of Knives” is connected with Will Goldston’s Tricks and Illusions–the text quoted by Gaiman as a motto–where the phrase serves as the name of a trick similar to the one described in the poem (Goldston 173). While even such a straightforward explanation may suggest an unequal distribution of agency, with the artist as the active, and the woman as the objectified participant of the performance, another interpretation in terms of power relations is invited by the analogy between the phrase and the Queen of Swords Tarot card. In older explications of Tarot symbolism, such as those provided by Samuel MacGregor Mathers in 1888 (20) or A. E. Thierens in 1930 (198–199), the Queen of Swords is often associated with negative aspects of femininity, yet more recent sources emphasize her intellectual potential (Alessi and McMillan 71–72) or “intense personal development” (Paul 168). Thus, among the possible consequences of the card’s connection with the poem’s title is a suggestion of degradation or reduction—from swords to knives—foreshadowing the theme of the aged woman’s marginalization, confinement and inability to grow. The “Queen of Knives” label may be understood as an ironic reinforcement of the woman’s traditional role:
Lunch and dinner,
those were my grandmother’s to make, the kitchen
was again [after the grandfather’s preparation of breakfast] her domain, all the pans and spoons,
the mincer, all the whisks and knives, her loyal
subjects [Gaiman 123].
Even though the very attachment to domestic chores is not necessarily oppressive, the further development of events may be read as the “loyal subjects’“ rebellion, as it is by means of blades, including the most casual one, that Pearl is stabbed and cut during the show (128–129): “The conjurer took a kitchen knife, / pushed it slowly through the red hatbox. / And then the [grandmother’s] singing stopped” (130).9
Apart from the identifiable inequalities of power relations in Pearl’s marriage, there is no clear suggestion that her husband is abusive; moreover, he has given up some of his own pursuits for the sake of the family, as pointed out in endnote 5. When the label of the “King” appears in the poem, it does not refer to the grandfather, but to “the King’s Theatre” (124). It might point to the stage performer as the actual power agent and the woman’s eventual destroyer, although her disappearance, catalyzed by the magical trick, can also be seen as a consequence of the overall, decentralized marginalization on several levels suggested above.
A possibly less complicated set of power relations links the grandmother with her grandson, whose juvenile mindset has already been discussed. The “Queen of Knives” narrator may be ascribed yet another attribute involved in the family-specific power distributi
on: an expectant attitude towards the older generation, and especially the grandmother. Tillie Olsen addresses that kind of relationship in her ground-breaking narrative of aged womanhood, “Tell Me a Riddle.” The title of Olsen’s story alludes to children’s unceasing demands for their grandparents’ attention (53–54) and, as pointed out by Constance Coiner, makes the aspect of enforcement prominent in the inter-generational exchange (294). A similar connection between the narrator of “Queen of Knives” and his grandparents is suggested early in the poem: “It was a hard week for my grandparents / forced to entertain a wide-eyed boy-child” (124). Further on, the kid’s unconsciously consumerist attitude towards Pearl is signaled when, after her disappearance, the grandfather reasons: “She’ll come back to us with / flowers, / or with chocolates” (130, original italics), and the narrator comments, “I hoped for chocolates” (130). The boy does not require pacifying; instead of being anxious about his grandmother’s situation, he enjoys the show: “I wanted him [the grandfather] to stop talking: I needed the magic” (129). The narrator’s behavior is well explicated and naturalized by his puerile identity, yet at the same time points to the inevitability of the unequal distribution of power between the younger and older generation.
In “Chivalry,” Mrs. Whitaker’s attitude about her deceased spouse, Henry, is underpinned with a quiet sentiment rather than any kind of obligation, though most situations in which the issue of their marriage is brought up underline its temporal distance from the heroine’s current life. The immediate references to the protagonist’s husband are triggered by the presence of photograph. The first description specifically locates the picture in space and time, as well as incorporates the framed photo itself into the unique mosaic of mundane and extraordinary items that add to the meaning of Mrs. Whitaker’s life: “it [the Grail] sat between a small soulful china basset hound and a photograph of her late husband, Henry, on the beach at Frinton, 1953” (36). In the second direct reference, the photo’s content is made almost unreal by its attachment to the past: “her late husband Henry, shirtless, smiling and eating an ice cream in black and white, almost forty years away” (47). The heroine’s memories of her partner carry a nostalgic aura when she remembers his fondness of a fishing trophy (42) or tells Galaad the story of their marriage (42). The clear attachment of Henry to a closed and distant chapter of Mrs. Whitaker’s life blurs the issue of power relations between them, and though her final rejection of the eternal youth prospect may be seen as at least partly motivated by some kind of commitment binding her to her spouse (46–47), the warmth of her memories suggests that she is driven by love or loyalty rather than some long-lasting sense of submission. What is, however, reflected by the issue of the protagonist’s marriage is the gender bias of the aging experience (Wallace 400), with the woman as the one to embrace the solitary life after her partner’s death.
Feminism in the Worlds of Neil Gaiman Page 35