HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H0076 9/12/00 "RETURN OF THE NATIVE ARTICLE" ====================================================== Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 22:47:55 -0300 From: Richard Nemesvari Organization: St. Francis Xavier University Subject: Return of the Native article Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------F432CE3E3AF4180DFF8F263A" Resent-From: HARDY-L@csusm.edu X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1257 Reply-To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu X-Loop: HARDY-L@coyote.csusm.edu Precedence: list Status: The article in *Studies in the Novel,* however, is quite different. I found Sara Malton's use of Foucault to analyze *The Return of the Native* very useful and convincing. I'm just getting ready to discuss *Discipline and Punish* in the theory course I'm team-teaching this year, so it was fresh in my mind when I read the piece. Ms. Malton's employment of Foucault's ideas about panoptical surveillance and the internalization of social mores, resulting in the kind of "disciplining of the self" which precludes the need for external punishment and control, strikes me as very appropriate to Eustacia's predicament, and her discussion of Clym's movement to an increasingly authoritarian attitude was also developed well. And of course this theoretical approach is particularly helpful in exploring that accomplished (verging on preternatural) master of surveillance, Diggory Venn. Indeed, given that a number of critics have commented on Hardy's extensive use of what might be called the "spying gaze" (Gabriel Oak at Bathsheba Everdene, de Stancy at Paula Power, Jude at Sue, etc.) this approach could be pursued further. My only question (and it is a question) involves Malton's assumption, throughout her argument, that Eustacia commits suicide. In her first paragraph she asserts "Deemed a witch, a temptress, and even a murderess by the voice of the social 'every-body,' Eustacia is liable to the terms of such judgment, the consequences of which are most obviously literalized in her suicide by drowning" (147). This is fairly crucial to the article's overall position, since it depends on the idea that Eustacia engages in the ultimate "self-punishment" - but can we be sure of this? A while back we had a fairly lively discussion about the ambiguities of Tess' "rape/seduction", so here we go again. Is Eustacia's death suicide, or an accident? Malton spends one short paragraph touching on this issue (pp. 159-160), but after briefly canvassing possible other readings she simply returns to asserting the suicide hypothesis. I'm not insisting on one or the other, I'm only suggesting that it would have been helpful to confront more directly the ramifications of the reader not knowing for certain what happens. And it might have been very interesting to explore how this (intentional?) ambiguity could play out in Foucauldian terms. In the section on Contributors at the back of the journal we are told that Ms. Malton is pursuing her graduate studies at the University of Ottawa, and I'm betting that means she's being supervised (or at least taught) by Keith Wilson. Hi Keith! If this is a student of yours, please tell her I enjoyed her article very much (whatever that's worth). Apologies to the list for the length of this posting - but hey, this can be complicated stuff. Richard Nemesvari Department of English St. Francis Xavier University ========== Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 10:35:46 -0400 (EDT) From: Keith Wilson Subject: Re: Return of the Native article, Yes and no (see below). I am sure that Sara won't mind my giving her potted biography, although I think she herself is on this list and no doubt modestly keeping quiet. She began her work on Hardy as an undergraduate at the University of Victoria, under the direction of Lisa Surridge. This, I believe, is where she prepared the _RN_ article, which seems to me a _most_ remarkable achievement for such a young scholar. She then came to Ottawa to do an M.A., and has just written her M.A. thesis, _Linguistic Authority and Female Autonomy in Thomas Hardy's Fiction_, which will soon be defended. She has now just entered the doctoral programme at the University of Toronto. Incidentally she also has a piece in the second issue of _The Hardy Review_ ("'The Modern Vice of Unrest': Railways, Mobility, and Fragmented Modernity in _Jude the Obscure_": 168-80), so Rosemarie knows her work too. And, for what it's worth (to return to Richard's comment on the essay and the earlier Tess discussion), no -- I don't think Eustacia committed suicide, but then I don't think Tess was literally raped either. However, I am not about to get into that debate again . . . All the best, Keith *** Keith Wilson Department of English, University of Ottawa 70 Laurier Avenue East, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1N 6N5 Telephone/Voice-Mail: (613) 562 5770; Fax: (613) 562-5990 e-mail: kgwilson@aix1.uottawa.ca ========== Date: 9/13/00 From: Sara Malton Subject: Return of the Native article Dear Hardy-L, Ê I am indeed quietly lurking about, and I thank Richard and Keith for their comments. As Keith's "potted bio" shows, I have been very fortunate in the guidance I have received during my work on Hardy thus far. Ê Best wishes to all, Ê Sara Malton University of Toronto sara.malton@sympatico.ca ==========