The experience of alienation, a significant problem underlined by gerontologists (Stuart-Hamilton 127), becomes even more prominent when located on the background of Mrs. Whitaker’s relationship with her living family and broader community. While she keeps in touch with her niece and nephew, the bond with the former, who lives in Australia, is established first of all by means of material objects such as pictures and trinkets (43). The protagonist’s contact with the family of her nephew, though direct, is a little one-sided. Mrs. Whitaker is the one to make the effort of traveling to their house and bringing a gift (40). Her alienation is further reinforced when it turns out that there is “no one really to leave them [Mrs. Whitaker’s possessions] to, no one but Ronald [the nephew] really and his wife only liked modern things” (44). Thus, the family bonding is depicted as not strikingly different from the protagonist’s other social activities, such as the weekly meetings with Mrs. Greenberg (37).
While the heroine’s independence and control over her life is an important element of the narrative, it is also clear that the elderly woman might benefit from a more empathic and extensive attention on the part of other people than the one she receives. She does seem dejected when faced with the need of picking up a parcel from the post office because she was not fast enough to answer the doorbell when it was brought to her house (42). It also turns out that, in spite of her general briskness, she is not able to carry out all household activities on her own, and it takes Galaad, driven to Mrs. Whitaker by the Grail search, to provide her with the necessary assistance (44). It may, therefore, be concluded that the aged woman’s agency and self-sufficiency, emphasized throughout the story, is not enabled by the absence of marginalizing factors, but rather made prominent against the disturbingly transparent background of social indifference.
To Be Discontinued; To Be Detached
The heroines of both “Queen of Knives” and “Chivalry” are characterized by detachment from their communities, though the scale and impact on the aging woman’s identity is different in each case. Pearl’s public disappearance is significant not only in terms of the overt power relations, but also another aspect of the transparency affecting aging womanhood, namely, the phenomenon of “discontinuity,” identified by Joanne Trautmann Banks in Tillie Olsen’s writings as “a pattern imposed on women’s lives” (200). Its source is located by both Olsen and Trautmann Banks in the marginalization of the female identity, which prioritizes demands imposed by relationships with other people over its own integrity and needs (Trautmann Banks 200).10 The disappearance of Pearl may be considered as a culmination of that kind of marginalization combined with other forms of oppression against aging womanhood, though an alternative interpretation will also be proposed later in this paper. One way or another, the grandmother’s dematerialization is politically meaningful, as, according to Woodward, the “disappearing female body” (“Performing” 163) constitutes an important factor in cultural approaches to female aging and can be interpreted as a marker of the older woman’s irrelevance (163–164).11 Still, before the heroine disappears entirely, she undergoes a process of fragmentation on multiple levels.
An impression of “discontinuity,” though not directly in the context of identity structure, is provided by the very composition of “Queen of Knives.” What makes the flow of the poem uneven is its digressive character; the account of the narrator’s memory is repeatedly interrupted by references to an even more remote past, which are triggered by various details of the plot development, e.g., when the grandfather’s comment on the spectacle provokes an enumeration of facts from his life (125). The retrospective discourse does not blur the borders between timelines and the reader is able to follow the narration shifts, yet the text’s structure produces an effect of fragmentation or even a certain incompleteness.12 The magical performance scene, in turn, offers an overt visualization of the fragmentation process. The performer not only stabs the container with Pearl inside, but also divides it into two in order to “lif[t] the top / half of the box up and off, and put it on the stage, / with half my grandma in” (128). The disintegration continues as the magician separates a yet smaller container, supposedly with the woman’s head inside (129). The show ends with all three containers being reconnected and the grandmother disappearing from their interior, having shown her beaming face for one last time (130). Thus, the whole performance relies literally on the woman’s dissolution and may be interpreted as reflecting the “discontinuity” ascribed by Olsen and Trautmann Banks to women in general. A more subversive reading of the discussed scene as a turning point in Pearl’s personal development is also possible, the identity collapse being a necessary first step towards its redefinition–a process discussed by Trautmann Banks (202).
While it is possible that the poem heroine is about to enter the final phase of her self-development, or perhaps what May Sarton, followed by Waxman, calls the “ripening” of the aging identity (Wallace 394), Mrs. Whitaker seems to have already accomplished the better part of such a process. That presumption is confirmed not only by her quiet independence and self-sufficiency, but also the easiness with which she takes control over the extraordinary development of the story into which she gets involved. Her agency is reinforced by several kinds of detachment, which can be traced back to the psychological postulates of harmonious aging mentioned previously, namely, the distance from troubling issues; functions performed in the society; physical ailments; and egocentric impulses.
“Chivalry,” originally written by Gaiman for a Grail-themed collection (17),13 rests on a detachment from the traditional Authurian Romance, which centralizes Mrs. Whitaker’s perspective and offers the quest as secondary to the raison d’être of the narrative. This reverses the conventional conflict, resolution, and glory of the successful Grail quest. A similar kind of reversal occurs in the sole relatively extended reference to the protagonist’s physical condition. Tasting a sample of the fruit of immortality, she experiences “a moment when it all came back to her—how it was to be young: to have a firm, slim body that would do whatever she wanted it to do; to run down a country lane for the simple unladylike joy of running; to have men smile at her just because she was herself and happy about it” (46). Thus, the insight into Mrs. Whitaker’s physicality is made indirectly and any sort of information about its current state or her subjective attitude to it can only be deciphered from the contrast provided by the memory, which also suggests that the topic is not to be elaborated upon. The heroine’s distance from her physical as well as emotional self reaches its peak the moment she rejects the enchanted fruit, and the pursuit of moderation can be seen as a part of her motivation to do so (46–47). Mrs. Whitaker’s refusal challenges the conventional trope, where immortality-granting artifacts tend to be objects of desire, and thus her refusal becomes a mark of her agency. Moreover, it is mostly through restraint or refusal that she executes other kinds of control over the narrative.
The involvement of the “Chivalry” protagonist in Galaad’s Grail-focused mission does not, actually, violate its development, and therefore she effectively carries out her Campbellian helper / “Goddess” or Proppean “donor” function. The form of its fulfillment, however, serves as a spectacular reinforcement of Mrs. Whitaker’s empowered individuality. First, it is by an assertive refusal that she accomplishes an important part of her role, turning down Galaad’s offerings and thus exposing him to subsequent tests. Second, she spectacularly resists the heroic convention brought into the narrative by its Arthurian underpinning when, on her second visit to the shop, she chooses a Mills & Boon romance over Romance and Legend of Chivalry (43–44), previously located close enough to the Grail to look almost like an instruction attached to the artifact (36). Consequently manifesting her detachment from the epic narrative register, the protagonist imposes her own, strikingly anticlimactic and mundane rules of interacting with Galaad. To his voluntarily performed heroic deeds such as the winning of “the sword Balmung” (41), “Philosopher’s Stone,” “The E
gg of the Phoenix” (45) and an “appl[e] of the Hesperides” (46) she answers with non-committal socializing and requests for help with removing snails from her property (41) or cleaning (44). These mundane tasks can be interpreted as effective challenges to the virtues of humbleness, kind-heartedness, and respect, so they do not undermine the significance of his mission. She makes no visible effort to adjust to his archaically refined language (39), and having agreed to give him the Grail, interrupts his knightly thanks in order to offer her own mode of celebration by “getting out the very best china, which was only for special occasions” (47). More importantly, perhaps, she confirms her independence from both external authority systems and internal longings. For example, she chooses not to reveal the Holy Grail to the local priest (40) and rejects some of the powerful artifacts that appear within her reach.
The moderation and distance with which Mrs. Whitaker faces her life, from the experience of aging to the involvement in the Arthurian myth, does have empowering qualities, even if they may seem ambivalent from the gerontological perspective. The impact of the protagonist’s restraint-based control over the narrative manifests itself, first of all in a number of ironic effects, some of them developing the “liminal” dimension which, according to Mendlesohn, affects not only the plot and characters, but also the reader.
Empowering Liminality
While “liminal fantasy” elements signaled in the opening of this essay are present in both discussed texts, it is my impression that the explicitly intertextual character of “Chivalry” puts certain restrictions on those attributes, while “Queen of Knives” can be considered as a more representative example of the convention defined by Mendlesohn. A characteristic feature of “liminal fantasy” is the suspension on the verge between a realistic and fantastic reading of the text, a quality which Mendlesohn describes as a “possib[ility of] fantasy” (183). From the “liminal fantasy” perspective, however, a motif even more relevant than the woman’s unexplained fate is the surprisingly passive acceptance of her absence by her husband and grandson. After the show they try to contact the performer, but when it proves ineffective (131), they simply move on with their lives. The narrator’s emotional reaction is not mentioned at all, while the formulations used with reference to the grandfather resemble those applicable to a mourning person: “He got so old after that night / as if the years took him all in a rush” (131); “He bore it well” (132). The male characters’ fatalistic stance results in the “irony” typical of the “liminal fantasy” convention, in which “we are presented with the obviously fantastical, and watch while the protagonists ignore it or respond to it in ways that feel dissonant.... The moment of doubt is triggered by our sense that there should be some reaction to the fantastic” (Mendlesohn 191). Moreover, in some cases (as Mendlesohn comments referring to Joan Aiken’s short story), “some participants [of the action] ... are trying desperately to preserve the mundane habits of everyday life in the face of evident chaos” (192). This is something that Pearl’s family also seems to be doing. The grandmother’s disappearance—no matter if its direct reason is supernatural or rational—is denaturalized in the reader’s eyes by the reaction it evokes, and that denaturalization may be extended onto the social and cultural processes of marginalization and erasure as indirect factors potentially contributing to the woman’s fate. Still, such a conclusion points to the awareness-raising potential of the poem, but not exactly its subversiveness.
A possibility of the old woman’s empowerment, however, is provided by another process which Mendlesohn identifies as crucial for “liminal fantasy.” He describes “that moment where metaphor and magic become indistinguishable, where the reader is expected to suspend faith, not in reality, but in metaphor, to allow metaphor to be concrete” (195). The metaphor which undergoes such a “concretization” in “Queen of Knives” is the title phrase itself. The previous sections of this paper have suggested the expression’s abstract interpretations referring to the objectified role in the performance, the domestic confinement or the degraded Queen of Swords symbolism. Nevertheless, when considered to be the definition of the heroine’s actual identity, the name grants her a position of empowered agency. According to such a reading, Pearl may be said to use the opportunity provided by the blurring of reality borders during the magical show in order to take control over the blades and subvert them from an attribute of her housewife self to a tool of her release.
While the effectiveness of an empowerment which leads to the dissolution of the empowered subject might be questioned, the productivity of that process becomes clearer when referred to the aging woman’s identity. Analyzing Olsen’s protagonist from “Tell Me a Riddle,” Treutmann Banks acknowledges the factor of disintegration as inscribed not only in the dispersal of the heroine’s self caused by her lifetime submission to other people, but also in the process of her identity’s final emergence, which requires her “to undo, to reverse, in some ways, and to balance the style by which she has lived thus far” (202). Perhaps a similar process is needed by Pearl as she undergoes the onstage de- and reconstruction in order to get rid of the sources of her limitations, all of which—from the body through the family to the public role—are affected by the factors of oppression or marginalization.
In “Chivalry,” the already analyzed detachment-based agency of Mrs. Whitaker may confuse the reader as to the status of the protagonist herself, as well as the unrealistic elements of the story, though its strong connection with the Arthurian theme seems to limit the possibility of either a coherent rationalization or estrangement. Still, as concluded in the previous section, the said detachment results in dissonances close to those produced by “liminal irony.” One category of such effects, manifested in the story’s very first sentence—“Mrs. Whitaker found the Holy Grail; it was under a fur coat” (Gaiman 35)—are the repeated juxtapositions of ordinary and magical items. A medieval parchment appears instead of a “little card with a photograph on it” when the protagonist asks Galaad to confirm his identity (38); various kinds of everyday food are offered to the knight each time he turns up to with a powerful artifact (42, 48); the Grail is packed for the journey in “some old Christmas wrapping paper” (48). Such contrasts may sustain the reader’s uncertainty as to the protagonist’s judgment, as well as the actual function of the supernatural objects. The ambivalence is further reinforced by the clash between Mrs. Whitaker’s calm awareness of their nature and her continuous practice of evaluating the relic, as well as the remaining artifacts, according to the criterion of aesthetics. She keeps referring to them as “nice” (36, 41, 45) even in the climactic moment of making the decision to accept Galaad’s offer: “I’ll take the other two [Philosopher’s Stone and the Egg of the Phoenix].... They’ll look nice on the mantlepiece” (47). Whatever reaction might be expected from the heroine when exposed to the magical items, her dominant restraint deprives the reader tangible clues as to the actual scope of her awareness, insight or intentions. Simultaneously, Mrs. Whitaker’s aesthetics-oriented treatment of powerful artifacts points, once again, to her independence, marking the distance she keeps from the myth she has become involved in. From that perspective, the ironic dissonances, caused to a large extent by the heroine’s narrative agency, testify to her empowerment.
Another type of cognitive ambiguity is generated by the broader interaction between the mythic and the mundane in the story. While Mrs. Whitaker’s impassive acknowledgement of the supernatural events, from discovering the Grail in the second-hand shop through meeting Galaad to being offered magical gifts, may partly be connected with her moderation-based integrity, the reception the knight receives from other characters is also worth mentioning. The interest of local kids in the presence of Galaad’s stallion on the street (39) shows clearly that they find it extraordinary, yet the only development of the situation is that the knight encourages them to play with the animal, which they gladly do (39, 44). After Galaad has talked to Marie before visiting Mrs. Whitaker, the only thing t
hat she finds worth commenting on is: “He was really dreamy. Really, really dreamy ... I could of gone for him” (43). While such attitudes towards the mythic disturbance of the mundane reality seem to inscribe in the characteristics of “liminal fantasy,” the impact of the characters’ unexplained flexibility of judgment seems mitigated by the Arthurian myth working in the background of the story. The intertextual context shifts the polarity framing the plot from the real vs. the unreal or known vs. strange towards Brian Attebery’s continuum rather than opposition established by “the familiar” and “the magical” (131); or Jean-François Lyotard’s distinction between “scientific knowledge” (23) and “narrative knowledge” (18). Attebery characterizes “mythic discourse” as incorporating the supernatural and mundane elements of a tale into a continuum which is also expanded to contain the worldviews of the persons involved in the narration and reception of the plot, and thus blur boundaries between life and fiction (131). As he underlines in his discussion of modern fantasy literature, such a continuum does not naturally exist in the contemporary Western culture, and the fantasy convention is motivated by an ongoing attempt to reestablish it (131). Lyotard, in turn, associates the “scientific knowledge” with reasoning based on objective evidence (23–24), and “narrative knowledge” with “competence that goes beyond the simple determination and application of the criterion of truth, extending to the determination and application of criteria of efficiency (technical qualification), of justice and/or happiness (ethical wisdom), of the beauty of a sound or color (auditory and visual sensibility), etc.” (18). He also points to the crucial role of various kinds of storytelling, including myths, in the latter knowledge category (19–20). Thus, the presence of the commonly recognized mythic narrative in “Chivalry” encourages an explanation of the characters’ openness to the extraordinary as an activation of a mode of cognition alternative to the rationalistic one. Such flexibility seems probable in the case of the kids’ developing worldviews, while Marie responds to the myth’s conventionally romantic potential turned down by Mrs. Whitaker, and, following the rules of a formulaic tale, eventually elopes with Galaad (48). As for the protagonist, her lack of surprise when faced with the young knight, and later with the wonderful items, may be interpreted as a “mythically logical” extension of the preliminary acceptance with which she reacted to the Grail itself—the commonly known story around the artifact has, in a way, made the subsequent events predictable, as suggested by the following exchange:
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