Quilt Vol. 1 by Quilt

A NOTE FROM US A thousand thank-yous to everyone who believed in us enough to send us a piece of their poetry or prose, our incredibly dedicated team of editors, designers, and logistic coordinators for making it happen, Dr. McKegney, Dr. Straker, and Dr. Evans for always telling us our work was important, Kelsey for never once losing faith in us, and my co-editor-in-chief, Daniel, for everything. I’m so excited to see where we take Quilt next and I hope you’ll stay with us for the ride! Larissa Zhong Co-Editor-in-Chief of Quilt Vol. 1

I could have never imagined that Quilt would become as beautiful as it is—thank you to the English department, especially Professors Sam McKegney, Scott-Morgan Straker, and Heather Evans, and DSC co-president Kelsey Watt who believed in us so early on, and of course to our editorial boards, design team, and logistics crew. Thank you also to Mitchell Crouse for doing such a masterful job in creating the website, and finally, to Larissa, my co-editor-in-chief who has been absolutely integral in threading together Quilt. Cheers to the first volume, and to hopefully many more. Daniel Green Co-Editor-in-Chief of Quilt Vol. 1

ELEGY FOR ELEPHANTS

THE VALLEY

BY SAM RUSSELL

BY JULIA HARMSWORTH

ROMANTICIZING THE VICTORIAN ROSSETTI AND BRADDON

WOMAN

"TIL DEPTH DO US PART: OSCAR WILDE'S CRITIQUE OF SHALLOW LOVE IN “THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST”

THE WIDOW

TOBACCO-STAINED FINGERS

SASSOON, TURNER, AND MCCRAE ON THE PARADOX OF REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING THE FIRST WORLD WAR

LIPS

TRANSCENDING FIDELITY IN ALICE MUNRO'S "THE BEAR CAME OVER THE MOUNTAIN”

BY LARISSA ZHONG

BY ELLA BLONDIN

BY BREANNA MCCARTY-SCOTT

BY ANNALYNN PLOPP

BY EDEN PLATER

BY ARVIND VENKAT

BY MITCHELL NEUERT

THE CANDLE

BY ARVIND VENKAT

SOFT BODIED

BY MEGAN GOODALL

WOMEN LOVING WOMEN, A SAPPHIC READING APHRA BEHN AND KATHERINE PHILIPS BY SHELBY TALBOT

CHANGE THE RECORD

39 45

BY EMMA MASTRE

LESSON FROM DOWN BELOW

BY KENZIE O’DAY

THE HUNGER OF WINTER

BY AIDAN GURUNG

ELEGY FOR ELEPHANTS by Sam Russell

Back to back, wrinkled and withered, we lay in the garden as sleeping thoughts flittered. Crumpled in grey, bathing in dirt, we will take to the grave all the lessons we learnt. But for now, who can say? Who could ever forget? Not us, surely, who have mastered intellect. The mammoth of knowledge, a titanic of our time, the enigma stands solid, serene and sublime. Till we collapse and crumple, from the weight or the shot, our ivory sells for double, more valuable than we thought. Take caution, dear stranger, for I cannot say it again, all minds will crumple, share your secrets while you can.

THE VALLEY by Julia Harmsworth

We used to live in a yellow house. It was beautiful, with white shutters on the windows and a garden in the back. We would spend every Sunday afternoon in that garden, helping Dad plant the chrysanthemums. My sister Daisy would pick which colours went where, I would dig the holes, and Dad would carefully lower the plants into their places. Mom would watch from the side of the yard with a content smile on her face. We grew there, together. The four of us. Then Mom and Dad started fighting. At first it was about little things, like who had control of the remote, or where we went out for dinner on Thursday nights. Then the fights got too big for the pot, overgrown, unable to fit, like the roots of a plant aching to escape. They yelled at each other about why Mom had quit her job, and about where Dad was all the time. They yelled about who was taking care of us. And we all started to wilt. That’s when the Valley started to grow. It started as a small dip in the garden that made it impossible to plant the chrysanthemums. Then it swallowed the fence, and the trees, erasing any sign that the garden was ever there at all. You forget about gardens, sometimes, when valleys start to grow. Then the house started to droop. Its bright-yellow paint turned mustard and its shingles fell to the earth. Cracks grew in the floor, until they split. The house was tearing itself apart, like it couldn’t bear to stay together any longer. Soon it split in two —the yellow house with the white shutters and the garden became two muddied, decrepit versions of itself. And the Valley grew to fill the gap. It became this deep green hollow, with one house holding ground on either side. Each edge was sloped, and the middle was flat. It had rich, soft dirt you could scrunch your toes in, and the sun shone down on fresh grass and white flowers. Mom picked the house on the left, because that’s where her books were. Dad picked the house on the right, because that’s where his recliner

was. Daisy and I didn’t get to pick. We lived in both, and in neither. We made the trek across the Valley once a week. It wasn’t so bad, at first. The walk didn’t take long, and we didn’t mind the exercise. The air was clearer in the Valley. It smelled like spring, and days at the park when Daisy and I were little. We talked all the way there, about our friends, a new movie we’d seen—anything but our parents. When we reached the house on the left, Mom was waiting with a new board game for us to play. When we reached the house on the right, Dad was waiting with a new recipe he’d found. It was remarkable, how happy they were to see us. We’d spend that whole week together, the three of us. After a while, though, Mom and Dad tired of the happy game. Instead of spending their week with the two of us, they spent it on the phone with each other. Dad yelled about how it wasn’t fair that he saw us less— his weeks always fell on Daisy’s soccer practices. Mom yelled about how that’s not her problem, that was the agreement. And they both yelled about not wanting to see us back on whichever day they had to. “Isn’t it funny?” Daisy said to me once, when we were sitting in the living room, waiting for Mom to get off the phone so we could eat dinner. “Before they were fighting about who had to take care of us. Now they won’t shut up about who gets to.” Daisy and I started crossing the Valley more and more often. It started as twice a week, then three times a week, then every afternoon. As soon as we got to either side, we’d get a text from Mom or Dad, asking when we were coming back. And when we said we weren’t sure, they’d pick up the phone. Each time we crossed the Valley, it grew. After a while, you couldn’t see one house from the other. When we descended down the slope and into the Valley, we walked down, down, down, with no sight of the other side. Each time, my breath felt more ragged, my legs heavier. I hated that walk—it sucked something out of me. Over time, the weather worsened in the Valley. It traded sunny skies and a light breeze for fierce storms, storms like you’ve never seen. The water pooled and mixed with the earth, so we had to free our shoes from the mud with each step. It weighed down our shoulders, our clothes, so we had to cling to each

other to stay standing. By the time we dragged ourselves out at the other side, the day was gone, and we had to go back again. And sometimes we forgot why we were even doing it, because we were the prize, but we were the players too. No one won. We started taking breaks in the middle of the journey. When we reached the abyss at the bottom, we lay there, watching the rain or the snow or the hail pour down on us. We felt it on our faces, on our clothes, pushing us down into the earth. Sometimes, we’d forget about our parents, or what was once the yellow house. We couldn’t see the house on the left, or the house on the right, from the bottom. It was just us—us and the Valley. We spoke to each other, to stay awake. We talked about Daisy’s practices and my classes, about the rain or the snow or the hail and how pretty it was. About how much nicer it was, when it was just us lying in the Valley. But then we’d have to get up again and finish our walk. And the storms just got worse. We continued on like this for a while, until we just couldn’t do it anymore. When we lay at the bottom, the mud crept over our clothes, tethering us to the ground like overgrown vines. I could barely move, let alone stand up. I turned my head, inch by inch, to look at Daisy next to me. “I just want to plant chrysanthemums in the garden again.” She smiled at me and closed her eyes. And we lay there, soiled, tarnished, like some old forgotten currency, until the Valley swallowed us too.

Christina Rossetti’s “In an Artist’s Studio” (1856) and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret (1862) each portray a woman perceived through the male gaze, which imposes upon them the impossible expectations of the Victorian woman and dresses them in romanticized idealizations to satisfy a male fantasy. To the artist in “In an Artist’s Studio,” the model is at once “[a] queen … A nameless girl … A saint, an angel” (Rossetti 5-7), and to Sir Michael in Lady Audley’s Secret, Lady Audley

simultaneously

embodies

queenliness,

childlikeness,

and

otherworldly fairy-likeness. Reflecting gendered Victorian standards, the model and Lady Audley are similarly subjected to romanticized misperceptions through the male gaze, transforming them into idealized objects of desire. “In an Artist’s Studio,” the speaker first describes the model as “[a] queen in opal or in ruby dress” —she wears “opal [or] ruby dress” (5), indicating that the specific garment or jewel is unimportant. Rather, the importance lies in the image of opulence the description creates. The artist projects his idea of a queenly woman onto the model rather than creating artwork surrounding her, revealing that he cares more about how the model satisfies his fantasy than the model herself. This projection indicates that the rendition is not intended as an accurate or realistic depiction; it is intended to satisfy the artist’s fantasy of the model as a queen, its dedication to appearances serving the artist’s enjoyment and failing to impart queenly power upon the model. Similarly, Lady Audley portrays herself as the pinnacle of the aristocratic woman by playing into the rising commodity culture of the Victorian era (Evans), boasting material luxuries such as “heaps of . . . rustling silk dresses” and “diamonds, rubies, pearls and emeralds . . . glittering on white satin cushions” (Braddon 69-70). In Lady Audley’s instance, the queenly woman is again associated with opulent appearances rather than legitimate power, thereby satisfying the male gaze without threatening its authority. Even as Lady Audley is recognized as “the woman who had reigned in [Audley Court] for nearly two years as queen” at the end of the novel (399), her associations with queenliness lack substance and legitimate power: the estate of Audley Court belongs to Sir Michael, who 8

provides Lady Audley with the affluent lifestyle she desires and who is in turn pleasured by the queenly air she adopts as a product of his wealth. Through the male gaze, even a woman’s queenliness ceases to imply power. The objectification of women through the male gaze continues as model is painted as “[a] nameless girl in freshest summer-greens” (Rossetti 6). The speaker calls her a girl rather than a woman, which emphasizes childlikeness, and describes her as nameless to suggest that she is yet to take a man’s family name in marriage, creating the ultimate image of feminine innocence. Likewise, Sir Michael idealizes this feminine innocence as he daydreams of marrying Lady Audley, romanticizing her ambiguously young age to satisfy his romantic fantasy: [H]er life had been most likely one of toil and dependence, and as she was very young nobody exactly knew her age, but she looked little more than twenty, she might never have formed any attachment, and that he, being the first to woo her, might, . . . by a protecting care that should make him necessary to her, win her young heart, and obtain from her fresh and earliest love, the promise of her hand. (Braddon 49) Like the artist who romanticizes “[a] nameless girl” (Rossetti 6), Sir Michael is attracted to Lady Audley’s youthfulness and seemingly vacant romantic history: he fantasizes being her first, projecting a romanticized love story onto her simply because she appears young and innocent. In marriage, the narrator repeatedly describes Lady Audley as childish and childlike, furthering Sir Michael’s initial romanticization of her young age and the deliberate infantilization of an adult woman. In both texts, the male gaze regards the infantilized portrayal of women and associated childlike characteristics as desirable. For example, in Anne-Marie Beller’s article “Sensational Bildung? Infantilization and Female Maturation in Braddon’s 1860s Novels,” she asserts that “in legal terms the midnineteenth century woman’s position was synonymous with that of a child [and] the cult of female dependency … contributed to this infantilization” (Beller 113), thus entitling men to authority over women and cultivating a culture that normalizes the appeal of childlike women.

Reflecting Beller’s notion of female dependency, Sir Michael’s tendency to romanticize and infantilize Lady Audley persists throughout their marriage because he willingly provides for her and she exploits this to preserve the affluent lifestyle and aristocratic status she so desires. This infantilization shows male misperception of the model and Lady Audley as children rather than women through the male gaze, which reflects the gendered social standard of the Victorian era and subjects the model and Lady Audley to a romanticized infantilization. Furthermore, both texts romanticize women’s appearances, expressing feminine beauty in terms of appeal to men, which reduces a woman’s worth to her satisfaction of the male gaze, ultimately empowering the man and objectifying the woman (Rosenman 36). For example, the artist in “In an Artist’s Studio” obsessively paints the model because he admires her physical beauty, capturing her on canvas and “[giving] back all her loveliness” (Rossetti 4). The poem revolves not around the model but around the artist’s perception of her, suggesting that the model’s worth as a woman is defined by her appeal to the artist. In Lady Audley’s instance, she leverages her physical beauty, intentionally subjecting herself to and exploiting Sir Michael’s male gaze to attain aristocracy. Additionally, both texts invoke imagery of blooming nature to illustrate youthful beauty: as the model dresses in “freshest summer-greens” (Rossetti 6), Lady Audley’s “pretty little rosebud of a mouth retained its brightest coloring and cheeriest freshness” (Braddon 168). Such descriptions are preoccupied with freshness, suggesting that their youthful beauty is seasonal and inclined to expire, just as their appeal to men is. This objectifies the model and Lady Audley by implying that their worth is as fleeting as summertime or the blooming season of a rose, reducing them to external appearances that serve to satisfy the male gaze. The model and Lady Audley are also portrayed as angelic by their narrators, the significance of which is twofold. Firstly, it reveals “the Victorian bifurcation of women as angels or demons” (Felber 472), an ideology that either idealizes or antagonizes women and, in any case, reduces them to one-dimensionality. Secondly, it implies the expectation of women’s domesticity—“angels in Victorian thought were frequently inseparable from the ‘house’” (Auerbach 250). Conforming to the angel-

demon conviction Felber describes, the artist in “In an Artist’s Studio” paints the model as “[a] saint, an angel . . . with true kind eyes” (Rossetti 710), evoking the image of a pristine, otherworldly creature whose goodness is unquestionable and unconditional, just as Sir Michael perceives Lady Audley to be until the final pages of the novel. The narrator in Lady Audley’s Secret repeatedly and specifically references Lady Audley’s “soft and melting blue eyes” (Braddon 48) and “feathery golden curls” (396) throughout the novel, literally resembling the beautified Christian angel; her hair is once described as “making a pale halo round her head” (49), reinforcing the characterization of Lady Audley as an angel. Furthermore, objects associated with Lady Audley are often described as fairy-like— “fairy-like boudoir” (69), “fairy-like bonnet” (94), “fairylike note” (100), fairy-like embroideries” (308)—to reflect her deceptively ethereal persona and to show Sir Michael’s misperception of her as pure and otherworldly. This extreme idealization of the model and Lady Audley occurs through the male gaze, effectively reducing each woman to one-dimensionality to fulfill a male fantasy. Conforming to the idea of Victorian women as angels of the house (Auerbach), Lady Audley is deemed the angel of Audley Court and masquerades as the perfect Victorian wife in an exemplary aristocratic marriage. Lady Audley’s domesticity is most clearly represented when making tea, as it is described as “[t]he most feminine and most domestic of all occupations” and she “seems a social fairy, weaving potent spells” (242). The aggrandization of Lady Audley’s power at the tea-table then resembles a performance rather than a trivial task, which she puts on to fulfill the expectation of domesticity (Evans). The role of ‘the angel of the house’ is thus imposed. At the end of each narrative, the men fail to admit the reality of the subject of their affections, hoping, instead, to preserve a romanticized image of her. For example, the artist sees the model “[n]ot as she is, but was when hope shone bright; / Not as she is, but as she fills his dream” (Rossetti 13-14). The anaphora, “[n]ot as she is . . . / Not as she is” (13-14), reinforces the artist’s ignorance to the present reality of the model, and

the shifts between past tense and present tense reveal that the artist clings to a bygone memory of the model, painting her as she was rather than as she is. The word ‘dream’ rather than ‘thoughts’ or ‘affections’ connotes fantasy and a sense of detachment from reality, which shapes the artist’s romanticized idealizations of the model. In Sir Michael’s instance, even after Lady Audley’s secrets are revealed, he plays little part in her admission to the Belgian asylum, and Robert decides that “Sir Michael Audley must never learn that the woman he had loved bore the red brand of murder on her soul” (Braddon 403). This keeps Sir Michael from recognizing Lady Audley’s reality and protects him from the destruction of the illusion of her wifehood. Thus, similarly imposed upon the model and Lady Audley are roles of the queenly woman, the childish embodiment of feminine innocence, and the angel of the domestic house, each of which serve to satisfy a male fantasy and neither of which truly centers the woman. In this sense, the subjection of women to romanticized misperceptions is consistent throughout “In an Artist’s Studio” and Lady Audley’s Secret, ultimately portraying idealized versions of the women as objects of the male gaze.

Works Cited Auerbach, Nina. Woman and the Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth. Harvard UP, 1982. Beller, Anne-Marie. “Sensational Bildung? Infantilization and Female Maturation in Braddon's 1860s Novels.” New Perspectives on Mary Elizabeth Braddon, vol. 50, 2012, pp. 113–131. Brill, doi.org/10.1163 /9789401208543_008. Accessed 30 Nov. 2020. Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Lady Audley’s Secret. Broadview P, 2003. Evans, Heather. “Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.” ENGL357 19th-Century British Literature and Visual Culture, Nov. 2020, Queen’s U. Lecture. Felber, Lynette. “The Literary Portrait as Centerfold: Fetishism in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's ‘Lady Audley's Secret.’” Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 35, no. 2, 2007, pp. 471–488. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable /40347169. Accessed 30 Nov. 2020. Rosenman, Ellen Bayuk. “Spectacular Women: ‘The Mysteries of London’ and the Female Body.” Victorian Studies, vol. 40, no. 1, 1996, pp. 31–64. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3828797. Accessed 30 Nov. 2020. Rossetti, Christina. “In an Artist’s Studio.” 1856.

Victorian society was riddled with harsh social constructs that dictated how people interacted and behaved, often exclusively for the sake of achieving or maintaining

social

status.

particular,

romantic

interactions

were

characterized by a consistent prioritization of external appearances and social class over internal qualities such as kindness or intelligence. The Victorian author Oscar Wilde draws attention to this hollow notion of romantic relationships in his written works. His characters and plots, which are often satirical, capture how the Victorian era’s rigid emphasis on propriety and reputation shaped both the class system and romantic relations. Much of Wilde’s writing examines how the implications of love and marriage are reinforced by these extremely confining societal values and behaviours. In his play The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde captures the socially restrictive ideals

the

Victorian

era

satirizing

the

fickle

and

superficial

understanding of romantic love and marriage in this period. Within the respective conflicts between Gwendolen and Cecily and between Jack Worthing and Lady Bracknell, love and marriage are shown to be founded on superficial attraction, and are valued primarily because of their social utility. Wilde’s critique of Victorian society is rendered all the more scathing with careful consideration of the context in which the play was produced. To fully comprehend Wilde’s critique, it is imperative to have a fundamental understanding of Victorian social values in this time period. In her book Romance’s Rival: Familiar Marriage in Victorian Fiction, Talia Schaffer states that Victorian marriage serves the purpose of exposing a woman to “larger social relations,” which will consequently allow her to be “oriented to a wider world” (200). In particular, Schaffer states that wives were expected to provide “a larger usefulness to the world” (200), which included upholding constant composure to appear adequate to others. Although the premise of broadening friendships and forging social connections appears beneficial on the surface, the drastic and widespread adoption of this mindset in society often meant that one’s social class and reputation were among their most valuable assets when attempting to seek out a marriage partner. In many Victorian romantic pursuits, then, an individual’s authenticity and personality could be rendered irrelevant; what often mattered instead were economic and superficial qualities, including one’s perceived levels of propriety and status. 15

Wilde, who was imprisoned for homosexuality and died in exile from England, directly experienced the debilitating romantic confines of the Victorian era. With firsthand exposure to the harm of this “intolerant society” (Foldy X), Wilde’s qualifications to criticize Victorian England’s shallow social norms are undeniable. Wilde’s claim in his collection of essays Intentions captures the values held by this society succinctly: “to those who are preoccupied with the beauty of form nothing else seems of much importance” (57). Clearly, Victorian society’s emphasis on superficial qualities in marriage left little to no room for alternative forms of love, or for love that sought to look beyond “the beauty of form.” In Victorian England, many individuals were thus restrained by a system that encouraged and permitted romance to transpire for the exclusive purpose of building social reputation. The characters in The Importance of Being Earnest capture this restraint and its implications by engaging in conflicts concerning love and marriage that critique the inevitable lack of romantic depth in the Victorian period. These conflicts involve matters that, in choosing a romantic partner, are ultimately trivial, such as diary entries, one’s family background, or physical attractiveness. By placing these topics at the centre of the play’s romantic conflicts, however, Wilde implies that romance in the Victorian period is scarce of earnestness and depth. Through the satirical plot of the play, Wilde suggests that these presently lacking qualities are what love should actually be founded upon. First, the conflict between Gwendolen and Cecily demonstrates the ways in which Victorian women fulfill their roles as conductors of shallow romance. Gwendolen and Cecily’s romantic competition represents the aesthetic focus of Victorian marriage. When the two women argue over which one of them is engaged to Ernest Worthing, they both employ superficial evidence including diary entries and their appearances to attempt to prove the righteousness of their claims. For instance, Cecily accuses Gwendolen of being “under some misconception” about their engagement to Ernest, as she presents her diary entry as chronological proof that Ernest proposed to her, and not Gwendolen, “exactly ten minutes ago” (2.585). In response, Gwendolen justifies her belief that Ernest proposed to her first by using her own “sensational” (2.589) diary entry to prove that “she has the 16

prior claim” (2.590). Evidently, Gwendolen and Cecily believe their personal diary entries are valuable and impactful pieces of evidence. However, as a personal and subjective piece of writing, diary entries have the potential to be fabricated, “sensationalized,” and based entirely on opinion. In particular, Gwendolen’s own reference to her diary entry as “sensational” reflects the Victorian propensity to place an unwarranted amount of value on ostentatious, yet ultimately trivial, aesthetic features. In both cases, superficial evidence and traits are regarded as more “sensational” and significant than they really are. Ultimately, Gwendolen and Cecily’s use of their diary entries to support the legitimacy

their

engagements

further

characterizes

the

shallow

understanding of love they seem to share. Envy of one another’s physical beauty also contributes significantly to the tension between the two women, further demonstrating that Wilde’s play is concerned with satirizing the superficial nature of love in the Victorian period. Gwendolen’s jealousy is made apparent when she wishes Cecily was “just a little older than [she] seems to be – and not quite so very alluring in appearance (2.549). It is alarmingly clear that Gwendolen believes that visual appearance and age are major factors in what renders a woman deserving of a husband. Shortly after Gwendolen’s remark about Cecily’s beauty, Cecily expresses her concern that Gwendolen’s confusion surrounding the engagement has caused the older woman “physical anguish” (2.561). Clearly, Cecily is aware that her youth and beauty are a source of envy for Gwendolen. Cecily’s response subtly highlights the fact that she is younger than Gwendolen through feigned concern for her “physical” well-being. Therefore, the ostensible conflict of who is Ernest Worthing’s true future bride represents the inherent shallowness of romance in this time period. On a symbolic level, Wilde uses this interaction to represent the conflict of whether love should be based upon superficial attractiveness, or upon factors that suggest greater depth, such as personality. The fact that Gwendolen and Cecily’s rivalry is founded primarily on mere diary entries and external qualities over which they have no control portrays the lack of emotional depth associated with their supposed engagements, as well as their disinterest in examining what qualities may actually make either 17

woman a good candidate for Ernest’s love beyond physical features or economic status. Through this conflict, Wilde comments on the lack of foundational integrity in Victorian marriages. Further, the dispute between Jack Worthing and Lady Bracknell depicts the insincere and superficial values that drive Victorian pursuits of romance. When Jack states that he wishes to propose to Gwendolen, Lady Bracknell assesses his quality as a suitor. Lady Bracknell believes that Jack is undeserving of her daughter’s love, as demonstrated when she remarks that Jack has not earned a place on her “list of eligible young men, although [she has] the same list as the Dear Duchess of Bolton” (1.414). This belief is based solely on Lady Bracknell’s superficial assessment of Jack rather than her judgment of his character or morality. Lady Bracknell’s possession of a “list of eligible young men” for her daughter, along with the fact it is shared with an acquaintance, implies that individuals in the period take a shallow and inauthentic approach to romantic affairs, and that the qualities that make a man “eligible” remain static regardless of the potential object of his affection. Upon discovering Jack’s background as an orphan abandoned at a train station, Lady Bracknell informs him, “you can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter … to marry into a cloakroom, and form an alliance with a parcel?” (1.514). Lady Bracknell’s commentary demonstrates that she regards him as an unsuitable husband based primarily on extraneous factors such as his family history. She is concerned that his perceived lack of social standing would harm Gwendolen’s reputation if the two were to be married, and reductively objectifies Jack in the process. In response, Jack states that he would do “anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen’s happiness” (1.503). Clearly, values such as compassion and happiness are not compulsory criteria in Lady Bracknell’s assessment of Jack’s suitability. Instead, she uses questions about his family background and social activities to determine whether he is a worthy husband or not. It is on these grounds that she labels Jack as an ineligible suitor. Much like the conflict between Gwendolen and Cecily, the symbolic meaning of the argument between Jack and Lady Bracknell

underscores the quandary of whether love should be founded on superficial aspects of selfhood or a sense of one’s true decency. In the exchange between Jack and Lady Bracknell, Wilde’s equation of marriage to an assessment based on social factors such as reputation effectively satirizes and critiques the materialistic conception of love in the Victorian period. Through resoundingly frivolous yet undeniably significant disputes concerning love and marriage, Oscar Wilde critiques Victorian society’s inherent shallowness as well as its adherence to a seemingly arbitrary and static set of social confines. In The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde employs the literary element of conflict to represent the misconstrued nature of romance in this era. When bickering about who is truly engaged to Ernest, Gwendolen and Cecily centre their argument around meaningless diary entries and physical beauty. Additionally, Lady Bracknell refuses to condone Jack Worthing’s marriage to her daughter simply because of his social standing. Both the jealous argument between Gwendolen and Cecily, as well as the disagreement between Lady Bracknell and Jack Worthing, symbolize some of the true motivations for romance in Victorian England: social status and reputation. To assert that love should not be based on social status is a bold statement in defiance of the Victorian period’s rigid values, but that does not hinder Wilde’s intention to satirize the fallacies of true love in his era. Works Cited Foldy, Michael. Preface. The Trials of Oscar Wilde: Deviance, Morality, and Late-Victorian Society. Yale University Press, 1997. Schaffer, Talia. Romance’s Rival: Familiar Marriage in Victorian Fiction. Oxford University Press, 2016, 200-215. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190465094.001.0001. Accessed 18 March 2021. Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. The Broadview Introduction to Literature: Drama, edited by Lisa Chaylkoff et al., Broadview Press, 2013, PDF File, (1-55). Accessed 29 November, 2019. Wilde, Oscar. Intentions. 14th ed., Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1999.

THE WIDOW by Breanna McCarty-Scott

The breath of spring births blossoms and young love. A thief of frost: she tongues each valley and kisses lips of dandelions. Watching is the weakened widow who spies upon the mating birds. The blood-red berries, succulent and bare, are plucked off one by one. The lovers prance outside her home lungs bathing in the lilac scent. They dance with lithe and elegance, filled with pleasure, and the richness of youth. Their watcher smiles with quiet envy: Oh, disillusioned love! Entranced by beauty, feasts on the scene, till she is foaming from the mouth.

TOBACCO-STAINED FINGERS by Annalynn Plopp

I rolled the cigarette paper between my thumb and forefinger, as the Wild West blew dust and ashtray memories into my mouth. My teeth crunched on gritty rocks, eroded by tides of passing centuries into desert sand. The film coated my gums and my tongue rolled over a jagged molar, like the moonshine mountain washed blueberry-field purple by the sunset. Tumbleweed car rides kick up clouds of crimson, when God whispers goodnight in Arizona. The cigarette paper moistens in my hand, Heaven forbid I keep living the memory Of a cowboy daydream, when I am just a fleck of Pacific indigo on the star-spangled landscape of collective memory.

Although it may at first appear contradictory to suggest that remembering inherently involves forgetting, upon second consideration this paradoxical statement proves to be legitimate. The quotation, “Only what one has remembered can actively be forgotten” (König), provides a clear premise with which to approach the paradox. In other words, remembering does not necessarily mean that certain details have not been or never will be forgotten. Questions arise from this premise as to whether

different

levels

remembrance—namely,

individual

collective—result in different levels and consequences of forgetting. Siegfried Sassoon’s “To One Who Was with Me in the War”, Walter Turner’s “Men Fade Like Rocks”, and John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” are poems that offer insight into these questions by considering remembrance of the first world war. Sassoon, Turner, and McCrae’s texts present the paradox that remembering requires forgetting and suggest that, while forgetting on an individual level can produce positive consequences, forgetting on a collective level presents dangers such as the promotion of propagandistic messages. Sassoon’s poem “To One Who Was with Me in the War” suggests that remembering the war inherently involves erasure. It also suggests that this erasure is potentially necessary and positive on an individual level because it allows healing to occur. The poem’s narrative perspective follows a former soldier reminiscing with another former soldier about the war, both of them viewing their experiences through a temporally distant and retrospective lens. While this temporal distance provides a more comfortable and positive perspective through which their memories can be examined, it also promotes forgetting through the act of remembering. Contradictory statements scattered throughout the poem, such as “we call it back in visual fragments” (Sassoon 2), “all the living presences who haunt us” (11) and “Remembering, we forget” (13), allude to this paradox. The paradox is fully revealed when the soldiers do not acknowledge their experiences’ uncomfortable and frightening details: To share again All but the actual wetness of the flare-lit rain, All but the gloom patrolling eyes. 23

Remembering, we forget Much that was monstrous, much that clogged our souls with clay. (9-14) When the soldiers reminisce on their past experiences, they note the uncomfortable sensory details, such as the wetness of the rain and the darkness of the night patrol. However, they reminisce from different conditions than the ones in which they experienced these details, and therefore do not have access to the same physical sensations. To reminisce on agonizing conditions from a place of comfort does not produce identical impressions. The temporal distance between them and the war parallels the distance between their memories of the war and the true reality—the sensory experience—of the war. Later in the poem, the speaker states that the soldiers choose to not acknowledge their memories’ emotional details, as seen in the statement, “We forget our fear” (18). However, by referencing these supposedly forgotten emotional details, the speaker acknowledges and remembers them while claiming to forget. This new paradox suggests that regardless of whether the individual soldiers remember or choose to acknowledge certain details of the war, the reality of their experiences still lives on in written accounts—such as war poetry and memoirs. Furthermore, although the soldiers may not remember or choose to acknowledge sensory details of the war, it remains probable that their ability to understand the futility of the war is fully intact. The quotation, “We’ll peer across dim craters; joke with jaded men / Whose names we’ve long forgotten (Stoop low there; it’s the place / the sniper enfilades” (30-2) depicts a harmless and potentially positive memory of the war interrupted by a harsh reminder of the war’s violent nature. As if by muscle memory, the soldiers have an awareness of the violence they endured and can recall the violent and futile nature of the war regardless of whether they can recall sensory details from their experiences in the war. The poem presents the paradox that remembering requires forgetting as a positive and healthy thing as it occurs on an individual level and does not affect the soldiers’ ability to understand the violence and futility of the war. Like “To One Who Was with Me in the War”, Turner’s “Men Fade Like Rocks” considers the paradox that remembering requires forgetting but comes to the conclusion that collective remembrance, as represented by 24

public monuments of the war, can lead to collective forgetting and the erasure of society’s memory of individual soldiers. Repetition throughout the poem emphasizes themes of death and forgetting, and the imagery of consistent actions conjures a slow and gradual rhythm: “Fade, fade in time” (Turner 2), “Slow chime on chime” (4) and “Dimmed, water-worn / Worn of the day and night” (10-11). The poem shows the effects of time: as the clock repetitively chimes, water erodes its surroundings. The speaker compares this slow but sure erosion to collective forgetting and how society gradually forgets war and the lives that were lost to it. The paradox in the poem’s title—“Men Fade Like Rocks”—reflects a similar gradual process. Although they appear solid and unchanging, rocks erode and lose detail over a long period of time. Therefore, I posit that the title’s paradox and the poem overall is a metaphor for a nation’s collective memory of men who fought and died in the war. One’s ability to remember the soldiers gradually decreases over time as details become smoother and less perceptible. The speaker builds on this idea with the acknowledgment that the sensory nature of monuments and memorial services, which are represented by chimes and stones, is a force that significantly wears away at the memory of the soldiers. Rather than honouring the soldiers’ sacrifices by promoting commemoration through experiential accuracy, the monuments and memorial services erode the authenticity of collective memory. The line “Slow chime on chime” (4) embodies memorial services’ repetitive nature, and the description, “Rock-like the souls of men” (1) dually describes the monuments’ solidness and stagnant symbolism. Memory is not a sensory or material thing; by attempting to represent the collective memory of the soldiers through physical monuments, a breach in translation and erosion of accurate memory is unavoidable. Furthermore, although monuments are meant to promote a collective remembrance of the war, they are not inherently tied to the soldiers or the war. By fixating collective attention on symbols standing in for the soldiers—rather than on the futility of the soldiers’ sacrifices, the war, and the soldiers’ memories’ accuracy—collective memory becomes stagnant and eroded. As such, the paradox that remembering requires 25

forgetting takes on a different meaning in this poem: the construction of monuments and memorial services accelerates the erosion of collective memory and draws attention away from individual soldiers and the war’s futility and violence. John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” also features the paradox of remembrance. However, unlike “To One Who Was with Me in the War” and “Men Fade Like Rocks”, an analysis of the poem exposes the potential for glorified and sentimentalized collective remembering and forgetting to promote propagandistic messages. Throughout the poem, one who forgets is classified as one who dishonours or breaks faith with the lost soldiers, which is seen in the lines, “If ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep” (McCrae 13-14). The speaker blames the soldiers’ inability to find peace on this act of “breaking faith”. The threat of being blamed is inconspicuously used to convince people to not only remember the lost soldiers, but to follow the propagandistic message of believing in and joining the war effort. The speaker appropriates the dead soldiers’ voices in order to strengthen this threat, meaning that this message distorts the dead soldiers’ images. By urging remembrance for the lost soldiers using their voices, the speaker creates an awesome and glorified image of the lost soldiers as a collective, and somewhat ethereal, group that detracts from a perception of the soldiers as real, individual people. Elevated symbolism further glorifies the soldiers and the war. Symbols in the poem present poetic and unrealistic versions of that which they are representing which means that the erasure of realistic details, and the consequent forgetting of these erased details, is inevitable. The speaker introduces poppies as symbols of honour for the fallen soldiers, as seen in the lines, “In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row” (1-2). The poppies’ beauty glosses over the soldiers’ violent deaths and their sacrifice’s futility; although they are symbols of remembrance, the poppies result in the war’s devastating nature being forgotten. Similarly, the lines, “The larks, still bravely singing, fly / Scare heard amid the guns below” (4-5) use larks as a symbol to glorify the idea of patriotism and hope. The speaker suggests that in order to reclaim the 26

lost ideal and pastoral world of the singing larks, one must continue to fight and endure the battles of war. Once again, this patriotic and hopeful message overwhelms the war’s gruesome and violent nature that “the guns below” refers to. Later in the poem, the war’s glorification that has been established through the appropriation of the soldiers’ voices and the use of romantic symbolism culminates in an urgent statement from the speaker: “Take up our quarrel with the foe: / To you from failing hands we throw / The torch; be yours to hold it high” (11-12). Readers are directly implicated with the duty of carrying on the war effort and the threat that not doing so may result in breaking faith with the soldiers lingers. The poem’s ideological and inspiring tone ensures that the propagandistic message it now promotes is well received. While the poem promotes collective memory and sentimentality towards the war, it does so in a way that also promotes propaganda and a glorified view of the war. “In Flanders Fields” embodies the potential for collective remembrance to endorse symbolic and sentimental representation of the war and ensure that the war’s violent and futile nature is forgotten. Implications arise when considering how remembrance of the war should be pursued if forgetting is an integral part of the process. By analyzing the works of Sassoon, Turner, and McCrae, it appears that forgetting on an individual level presents less of a threat of losing sight of the war’s violent and futile nature than forgetting on a collective level, which can lead to altered and glorified presentations of the war. Because the first world war is now viewed through a post-memory perspective, it is prudent to consider primary sources such as war poetry and memoirs as providing the most accurate accounts of the war (albeit pro-war exceptions, such as “In Flanders Fields”, do present different perspectives from that time period). Observing multiple subjective accounts and conducting individual research allows one’s perception of the war to be well rounded and less likely to be subjected to solely glorified or romanticized accounts of the war. Remembrance ceremonies and memorials, on the other hand, present the possible erosion of collective memory. Efforts must be made, both on individual and collective levels, to prevent the erosion of memory 27

and maintain focus on the soldiers’ sacrifices and the war’s violent and futile nature.

Works Cited König, Karin. “Paradoxes of Memory.” Osteuropa, Eurozine, 2011. www.eurozine.com/paradoxes-of-memory, Accessed 18 Dec. 2020. McCrae, John. “In Flanders Fields.” 1915. Penguin Book of First World War Poetry, Ed. George Walter, Penguin, 2006, pp. 155. Sassoon, Siegfried. “To One Who Was with Me in the War.” 1926. Memorial Tablet, 2006. Turner, Walter. “Men Fade Like Rocks.” 1921. Penguin Book of First World War Poetry, Ed. George Walter, Penguin, 2006, pp. 256.

LIPS by Arvind Venkat Words—they come out—a blazing golden Showering refulgence upon this night Out from the winter’s waning crescent— An altering air of mystery. In pebbled syllables—tossing and rippling, Trembling and flirting— And constantly vibrating Upon this heart they merrily flow. Freshly coated—some pink upon pink Jewelry—or a painting itself Resting upon the innocent face A portal to the heart. Of frozen flesh—turgid and whole Much like a fruit—a raisin— Sweetly stirring the wine pubescent And begging me to explore; Then creasing out at O's—utterances wide Scissoring away kept memories. I wonder of what more—but this If any, can a wonder be.

Alice Munro’s prose fiction is lucid, conversational, and charged with a sense of unwavering honesty in its refusal to oversimplify or deny the depth of her characters. As a result, Munro eloquently captures the ambiguity of their thoughts and emotions. She is careful to avoid idolizing or vilifying her characters' desires, motives, or allegiances, and instead opts to subtly expose the richness and ambiguities of human character. In the short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” Munro’s characters are spared narrative judgment as a means of evoking a more complex debate around moral dilemmas surrounding marital fidelity. The story follows Grant and Fiona, a seemingly loving elderly couple whose lives are changed dramatically upon Fiona’s entering a care home due to her rapidly deteriorating memory and resultant diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. In the care home, Grant powerlessly observes Fiona as she forgets who he is and develops an intimate relationship with Aubrey, a debilitated temporary care home member, leaving Grant to contemplate both his own adulterous past and the intensity of Fiona’s condition. Grant constantly second guesses himself as he wonders whether his wife’s newfound relationship is a response to his own past marital indiscretions. Although non-sexual in its nature, Fiona and Aubrey’s relationship challenges Grant’s assumptions about marital fidelity, leading him to wonder if their relationship may be more adulterous than his own indiscretions. Munro’s story thus casts ambiguity over the ebbs and flows of marital fidelity, suggesting that it is a concept that transcends merely sexual relations. “The Bear” also dissects the subjective unreliability of memory through its examination of Grant’s frustrated and puzzled attempt to comprehend his present circumstances. The chaotic narrative perspective, which is littered with anachronous elements due to its invocations of flashbacks and memories, characterizes the emotionally distant and disjointed reality of Grant and Fiona’s relationship. This narrative structure, which provides a tenuous foundation for Grant’s flimsy self-justifications, also offers a glimpse at how Grant’s retrospection is used to shelter his own feelings of shame, the recognition of which ultimately forces him to confront his abstracted concept of fidelity.

Munro’s short story uses a third-person omniscient narrator who, upon assuming Grant’s point of view through free indirect discourse, exerts a subjective influence on the interpretation of Fiona’s behavior and distorts the complexity of her needs. “The Bear” is told entirely through Grant’s perspective, leaving the narration susceptible to the sway of his perceptions, emotions, and modes of thought. Grant reflects on many seemingly major crises of their relationship with an unconcerned aloofness, stating he “could not remember” the cause of Fiona’s infertility, and subsequently dismissing her condition, as “he had always avoided thinking about all that female apparatus” (Munro 540). Similarly, Grant remembers that Fiona’s adoption of two Russian wolfhounds “coincides” with her discovery of her inability to bear children, and with the death of Fiona’s mother. His use of the word “coincides” implies that, in his view, the adoption merely occupies “the same space in time” (“coincide, v.”) as these significant life events, rather than suggesting a deeper relationship between Fiona’s grief and her caregiving needs. By neglecting to empathize with his wife even in his memories, Grant reveals his self-centeredness. In the present action of the story, this narration further demonstrates his clear disregard for how the troubling prognosis of his wife’s mental condition and her transition into a long-term care home impacts her on an emotional level. Grant never directly addresses Fiona’s feelings, and appears content with his understanding of her as mysterious and “vague” (538). Ana-Maria Fraile-Marcos argues that this viewpoint effectively “creates an alternative space for the reader to perceive [Fiona’s] personality as more troubled and complex than Grant is willing to acknowledge” (Fraile-Marcos 68). This “alternative space” also provides grounds upon which to question the accuracy of Grant’s retrospections and the nature of his growing sense of shame surrounding his lack of care for Fiona. The story’s chronological order of events is frequently interrupted with moments

analepsis,

wherein

Grant

becomes

consumed

with

contemplating the past. These analeptic moments also parallel the fragmented nature of Fiona and Grant’s relationship. After Grant, a retired professor, dreams about being confronted by the female students he seduced during his tenure, he reflects on the denouement of his repeated unfaithfulness, neglecting the obvious power imbalances of his extramarital 32

affairs (Munro 545). In an attempt to exonerate himself of shame, Grant postulates, “nowhere was there any acknowledgment that the life of a philanderer … involved acts of kindness and generosity and even sacrifice” (547). Grant even goes so far as to suggest himself, albeit absurdly, as a selfsacrificing hero who “had never stopped making love to Fiona despite disturbing demands elsewhere” (547). According to Christine LorreJohnston, this admission of Grant’s is illustrative of the ways in which “Munro exposes and makes fun of the male ego defending itself” (qtd. in Fraile-Marcos 66). Grant thus attempts to conceal his shame at having deceived Fiona with his feelings of pride at not abandoning her as her health worsens, and with his memory of drunkenly “promis[ing]” her “a new life” after word of his infidelity had itself “got around” on campus (Munro

545).

Traditionally,

analepsis

allows

the

recounting

phenomenon that precedes the present narrative time and is employed to “retroactively confer on the past episode a meaning that in its own time it did not yet have” (Genette 56). However, in this instance, Munro employs a more complex form of narrative ordering whereby Grant recalls a past moment of him planning for a future life with Fiona. The consequent effect is what Gerard Genette describes as a prolepsis within an analepsis, resulting in a collision between the two elements that chaotically superimposes Grant’s idyllic married lifestyle in the country with the cruel, distant reality of caring for a wife with dementia, revealing the stark inadequacy of his support for her in the past and present. The new reality of Fiona's cognitive condition and her life in the care home totally destabilizes Grant's understanding about who Fiona is, how she views him, and what she might know of his past infidelities. As he is struggling with his wife’s altered reality, Grant is also forced to question his own perceptions of their lives together. Munro uses the fragmented sense of reality experienced by both marital partners to question the accuracy and significance of memories themselves, particularly as they inform how Grant and Fiona attempt to navigate their present circumstances. Finally, Fiona’s desire for Aubrey’s companionship further complicates Grant’s abstracted view of marital fidelity. Ironically, between Grant’s moments of reflection on his past affairs, he spends much of his time

observing Fiona develop a romantic relationship with another nursing home member. He is forced to live in a reality where his wife has forgotten who he is and has fallen in love with Aubrey. Unbeknownst to Grant at the time, the supervisor’s attempts to settle Grant’s unease by assuring him that the patrons “end up as happy as clams” (Munro 542) has literal meaning beyond its figurative expression, as Fiona has developed an enclosed relationship that leaves others, including her husband, on the outside. Nevertheless, when Aubrey is released from the care home and Fiona’s condition seems to worsen, Grant coordinates Aubrey’s return to the nursing home. However, in doing so, he must indulge in the prospect of a relationship with Aubrey’s wife, Marian (577), who must in turn decide whether she will return her own husband to the care home. With this act, Munro irreversibly muddles the dichotomous division of infidelity and fidelity with the situational ethics of the story’s circumstances. On one hand, by pursuing a relationship with Marian, Grant’s selfless act of redemption is marred by his return to his past philandering behaviors. On the other, Grant exhibits radiating devotion and loyalty by adapting to the present events to meet Fiona’s current needs and secure her well-being. Grant must confront the fact that although Fiona has not been unfaithful in her sexual habits and behavior, she is able to break “out of her shell” (544) in the nursing home and develop a raw and intimate connection with Aubrey that is uninformed by their past life together. It is only through this experience that Grant is able to recalibrate his sense of present reality and come close to empathizing with what Fiona may have experienced in her past life with him. As a result, Grant is able to respond with the care and attention suggested by his selfless retrieval of Aubrey, along with his ringing Fiona gifts of flowers and a book about Iceland, where her mother came from (548; 559). While Grant’s experiences and memories throughout the story lead him to acknowledge that he has not always been sexually faithful to Fiona, his attempts at redemption in the present suggest that this acknowledgment may finally allow him to demonstrate a more sincere form of devotion to his wife. Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” offers an anachronic exploration of Grant’s unstable understanding of fidelity through its representation of his lived experiences and subsequent re-evaluation of 34

of them as memories at a time when his wife’s own memory is failing. Throughout the text, Grant discovers that his fidelity to Fiona cannot be defined by the sum of his sexual behavior, and finally proves himself capable of navigating their relationship in a manner that is more sensitive to Fiona’s needs. The dignity of Grant and Fiona’s relationship is thus maintained through their faith in, if not the explicit accuracy or fidelity of, their shared memories and experiences, as, by the end of the text, such acts of faith are all that are left to bind them together.

Works Cited “coincide, v.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, September 2020, www.oed.com/view/Entry/36004. Accessed 8 December 2020. Fraile-Marcos, Ana Maria. “Embodied Shame and the Resilient Ethics of Representation in Alice Munro’s ‘The Bear Came Over the Mountain.’” Ethics and Affects in the Fiction of Alice Munro, edited by Amelia DeFalco and Lorraine York, Springer Nature, 2018, pp. 57-77. Genette, Gerard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Translated by Jane E. Lewin, Cornell University Press, 1980, pp. 56-80. Munro, Alice. “The Bear Came Over the Mountain.” My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro, edited by Jeffery Eugenides. New York: Harper, 2008, pp. 537-79.

THE CANDLE by Arvind Venkat

Oh! Vexed candle—you! What sorrows you look into? With your crimson heart turning blue, Like my wounds were of you. As a flaming soul in an oyster's shell, In the silent wisps of air, you dwell. Sculpting your masthead with the turn— As you burn! As we burn! Of the rainbow! Of the purest heaven, In a splendid raiment of the seven, Cradled, cajoled by the drunken moon; Will thou melt as ice too soon?

Caressing; curling like indefinite waves, Roused from the borders of our embrace And smiling away like a shining doll, Carry you hope for us all. Hark! Blow not ye life in vain— In candled fate our hearts are twain. Stand we, together, well out of sight, In our desolate weeping of twilight. So, burn me down as you might wish, Then purge my soul as I perish; Bright as the striped tiger then, Swivel lazily to your sleeping den. Away then, in leeway of the skies, Shall we ride upon the fireflies; Our love pure as the morning dew— You are me, and I, you.

SOFT BODIED by Meg Goodall

He is warmth trickling through the trees; their leaves casting shadows that cradle her soft-bodied stem. A tulip to the sun, she unfolds against his touch she is no longer grace and beauty. She is textured edges and tangled roots she unravels herself before him

Aphra Behn and Katherine Philips were women poets in a patriarchal culture who wrote about sapphic relationships in a heteronormative one. Examining Philips’ “Friendship” and Behn’s “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More Than Woman” reveals the two women’s ability to push the bounds of what was contemporarily viewed as sexually acceptable within the Restoration period through their poetry. “Friendship” and “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More Than Woman” leverage the concept of women’s honour to negotiate female same-sex eroticism; specifically, both works veil their projected images of sapphic relationships behind ambiguity to suggest they are compatible with contemporary values of sexual morality. Philips’ “Friendship” explicitly discusses the love in a platonic relationship; implicitly, however, a Queer reading of the work is imbued with female eroticism. Although “Friendship” does not gender the relationship, many of Philips’ works on the same topic are aimed at a female addressee (Fanning). In the poem’s final lines, the speaker attempts eight similes to describe the virtue of friendship, ultimately concluding the work with an admission of the failings of her language to capture this phenomenon: true friends are “kind, / As but their selves I can no likeness find” (Philips, lines 55-56). Paula Loscocco argues this is an allusion to John Donne’s “Sappho to Philaenis,” an elegy which is preoccupied with sameness as the basis for ideal passion (Loscocco 19). “Sappho to Philaenis” discusses similar limits of discourse, as Sappho cannot find an adequate simile to describe her female lover: Thou art not soft, and cleare, and strait, and faire, As Down, as Stars, Cedars, and Lilies are, But thy right hand, and cheek, and eye, only Are like thy other hand, and cheek, and eye. (Donne, lines 21-24, qtd. Loscocco 19) It is entirely possible this parallel between Donne’s sapphic, homoerotic work and Philips’ “Friendship” is deliberate, especially when considering the precedent of Philips’ metaphysical and Donnean style of poetry. This reading injects a sexual undertone into the poem (Loscocco 19), transforming its subject

matter

from

strictly

platonic

female

unions

encompassing erotic sapphic relationships disguised as platonic love.

allegory

Through this allusion, “Friendship” not only becomes a smokescreen for a same-sex relationship between two women, but also an argument for their validity. In this interpretation, “Friendship” idealizes a sapphic friendship charged with sexuality as an honourable and virtuous love superior to the traditional marriage

institution,

effectively

negotiating

for

female

same-sex

relationships within sexual morality. The speaker makes a distinction between the love of marriage versus friendship: “Lust, Design, or some unworthy ends / May mingle” in a marriage union, but “are despised by Friends” (Philips, lines 31-32); the incorruptible love of friendship is “Love’s Elixir, that pure fire / Which burns the clearer” than the love of a marriage “’cause it burns the higher” (37-38). Marriage, in the patriarchal culture within which the poem is contextualized, occurs between a man and a woman. Friendship, however, is a relationship that can exist between two women, something that is frequently the subject of Philips’ poetry. In a Queer reading of “Friendship,” the love between two women is asserted to be purer and more honourable than a traditional marriage because it does not conform to its “violent extremes” (33) and patriarchal values. Since the institution of marriage was contemporarily viewed as the ideal of sexual morality, suggesting that a relationship between two women is a superior form of love is a testament to its virtue. Subtly extending that virtue to romantic, sapphic relationships argues they, too, should be viewed as honourable. Behn’s “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More Than Woman” is more overtly sapphic than “Friendship,” but still fosters some uncertainty regarding the nature of the relationship between the speaker and Clarinda. The title of the work asserts two foundational truths: Clarinda is a woman, and the female speaker’s relationship with her is romantic. To imagine Clarinda as “More Than Woman” implies she is a woman to begin with. The narrator is or has been in a non-platonic relationship with Clarinda, as Clarinda “Made Love to” her, a phrase which contemporarily described amorous attention and wooing ("love, n.1."). Despite establishing the expectation of Clarinda as a woman, the speaker uses inconsistently gendered descriptions when referring to Clarinda. The

narrator fluctuates between a male-female dichotomy: in one moment, Clarinda is a “Fair lovely Maid” (Behn 1), and in another, a masculine “Charming Youth” (4). Jennifer Frangos argues in her article “Aphra Behn's Cunning Stunts: ‘To the Fair Clarinda’” that the effect of Clarinda’s ambiguity establishes the trope of “hermaphroditism” (Frangos 1). However, despite invoking the mythology of the first hermaphrodite from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the poem’s conclusion (Fanning), most of the ambiguity does not center around Clarinda’s physical sex, but on her gender expression: Clarinda is specifically “Imagined” as more than a woman. The speaker suggests deceptive temptress, like the biblical serpent of Eden in Genesis, and phallic male genitalia hidden beneath a feminine exterior. However, Clarinda’s “[m]anly part” (Behn 20) is implied to be more relevant to her gender expression than potential intersex physicality: the poem repeatedly returns its focus to Clarinda’s “Form” and how it both prevents sexual penetration and “excuses” the perceived immorality of same-sex eroticism (15). Thus, this ambiguity cultivated by the speaker manifests as gender androgyny, suggesting Clarinda possesses both masculine and feminine qualities rather than male and female genitalia. Behn’s speaker uses Clarinda’s androgyny to negotiate same-sex desire between two women. “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More Than Woman” makes the case that in a culture with a heterosexual, penetration-centered view of sex, it is impossible for the speaker

and

Clarinda

violate

contemporary

sexual

morals

and

compromise their virtue because neither has exclusively male genitals: the two women “might Love, and yet be Innocent” (Behn, line 13). The speaker contends that even if their same-sex intercourse was considered a crime, Clarinda’s androgyny “excuses it” (15), because their sex would not be viewed as being between a man and a woman in the eyes of contemporary society. In a violently heteronormative culture, Behn’s speaker utilizes Clarinda’s suggested masculinity as a sort of stepping-stone between heterosexual and lesbian intercourse. The speaker selectively prioritizes the legal and moral definitions of sex that justify a sapphic relationship as honourable, while promoting enough ambiguity surrounding Clarinda’s gender identity to shelter their relationship from the harshest of homophobic criticisms. 42

Behn’s speaker promotes the apparent superior morality of a same-sex relationship between two women while intentionally using androgyny to mask her relationship with Clarinda as an intermediary between homo- and heterosexuality. Ultimately, both Philips’ “Friendship” and Behn’s “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More Than Woman” present ambiguous representations of same-sex relationships between women and leverage this ambiguity to advocate for their honour and sexual morality. These poems make a case for the sexual morality of homosexuality without overtly depicting

erotic

relationship

between

women

honourable:

“Friendship” is a subtle allegory for a sapphic relationship concealed beneath a platonic one, whereas Behn’s speaker cultivates androgyny in Clarinda’s gender expression to mask the homosexual nature of their relationship. Neither of these poems are as offensive to traditional, heteronormative

perceptions

sexuality

they

could

be,

while

simultaneously suggesting the relationships they depict are superiorly honourable for women. The necessity of this careful nuance speaks to a larger cultural intolerance for sexuality that extends beyond rigid definitions of heterosexuality, pointing to a heteronormative standard for relationships that persists today.

Works Cited Philips, Katherine. “Friendship.” British Literature 1640-1789: An Anthology, edited by Robert Demaria Jr., 4th ed., Wiley Blackwell, 2016, pp. 237-238. Fanning, Christopher. 2020. “Female Friendships and Pastoral Fantasies: Aphra Behn and Katherine Philips.” ENGL330, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON. Accessed 5 Nov. 2020. Frangos, Jennifer. “Aphra Behn's Cunning Stunts: ‘To the Fair Clarinda.’” The Eighteenth Century, vol. 45, no. 1, 2004, pp. 21–40. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41467933. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020. Loscocco, Paula. “Inventing the English Sappho: Katherine Philips's Donnean Poetry.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 102, no. 1, 2003, pp. 59–87. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27712301. Accessed 6 Nov. 2020. "love, n.1." OED Online, Oxford University Press, September 2020, www.oed.com/view/Entry/110566. Accessed 18 November 2020. Behn, Aphra. “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More Than Woman.” British Literature 1640-1789: An Anthology, edited by Robert Demaria Jr., 4th ed., Wiley Blackwell, 2016, pp. 270.

CHANGE THE RECORD by Emma Mastre

I’d leave the light on, keep the door unlocked (but you know where I hide the key, the backdoor’s always open for you and Elijah). there’s a place set -your glass is upside down, so the dust never settles. your empty chair keeps the room hollow, foggy through the fall. I’m sure if you strolled in late, slammed the door, flung your coat on the staircase I’d stare; but only for a moment for the betrayal to my agony only remains. I can already see it, asking about your brothers, joking about the new scratches on your car. you know so much has happened, this year, it only makes sense I’d lose you, too.

storms hardly linger, like the constant dirge of Sinatra on the skipping record. And when I go to shut the light off, lock the door, blow out the candles, remove your cutlery, piece by piece, a car passes the house, slow, high beams on peering in to see if the house is still there if it’s still welcoming guests. I always go, sprint, bloody feet and deceitful eyes. yet, each moment I reach the lawn, you’re gone and its, just a neighbour, pulling in after a long night shift. I’ll play it again and again, until the story changes and the record ends.

(I’ve left the light off again, it’s been weeks.) Knowing I’d drop everything, with these bloody palms and a scratched up throat; such keen and desperate awareness of my mother’s curse keeps my end of the line dead. maybe the next dinner you crash, when you arrive on time I will scream relentlessly, until spit colours the picture frames as the world blackens and blurs, choking on wordless gasps, devoid of any sarcasm to redeem and mend the veils that have shattered and eternally scarred my hands from piecing together, the futureless moment suspended in time.

Virginia Woolf’s “Kew Gardens” is a short story in which human life is glimpsed through snapshots into several characters’ lives. Woolf contrasts these vignette-esque passages with scenes of a snail also living in the garden in order to reveal the dissociation between humans and their natural environment. She explores the overarching idea that as humans become more sophisticated, we also become ever more self-involved, unable to truly relate to non-human entities around us. The juxtaposition of the snail and the human characters accentuates the disconnect, transience and triviality of human lives, suggesting that there is perhaps more significance to the natural world than just an aesthetically pleasing location for a stroll. A central theme in “Kew Gardens” is that human life is transient, and Woolf exhibits this theme throughout the story by using specific diction to

differentiate

between

the

permanence

the

snail

and

the

impermanence of the human characters. The human characters are often described as “dissolving” (Woolf 70) and “half transparent” (67), with “irregular movement[s]” (66). Woolf’s use of these words repeatedly implies the impermanence of the human characters, as though they are only truly present in the garden for moments before they disappear, leaving little impact. Meanwhile, the snail’s shell is “stained red, blue, and yellow,” by the light of the sun (67). The use of the word “stained” connotes a lasting quality, and the snail’s position as an embodiment of the natural world implies the permanence of nature itself. In using this diction, Virginia Woolf illustrates that human life is transient and almost insignificant in comparison to the natural world represented by the snail. This comparison can be seen again in the last passage of the story, when from the snail’s perspective, “both substance and colour [of the humans] dissolve[s] in the green-blue atmosphere” (70). In contrast, the snail is shown at one point “taking stock of the high brown roof and getting used to the cool brown light” (69). The snail’s surroundings are specifically assigned the colour brown, a colour which is often associated with the Earth and environment, whereas the humans are ascribed an ambiguous “green-blue” surrounding, reminiscent of smoke, as if even the narrator is uncertain of their existence. This contrast once again places the snail firmly in reality and the humans just on the edge of it. Woolf’s snail, 49

despite being a much smaller being is depicted as an established member of the natural world, highlighting the contrast between the eternal nature of the natural world and the transience of humanity. Through her characterization of the humans and the snail, Virginia Woolf suggests that the snail has a more meaningful existence than its human counterparts. When the audience is introduced to the snail, it is described as “appear[ing] to have a definite goal in front of it” (60), whereas the human characters are often shown wandering with “irregular and aimless movement” (70). The snail is characterized as determined and goal oriented, having a clear purpose to its actions, which gives greater insight into the snail’s character than its human passersby, whose lives they are only given short glimpses into. At one point, two women are depicted as “piecing together […] very complicated dialogue” (69) which is then revealed to be a string of nonsensical words and names. This conversation highlights the lack of meaning that Woolf attributes to human life. She implies that people have become so absorbed with trivial things that their conversations no longer make sense; they no longer carry any meaning. The human characters in “Kew Gardens” are often not concerned with things other than themselves, as evidenced by the constant reminiscing of their own pasts (66-67) and frequent search for tea (69; 70). Woolf then implies that all humans are the same in this way when she writes “thus one couple after another with much the same irregular and aimless movement passed the flower bed” (70). The phrase “one couple after another” suggests repetitiveness and lack of individuality, as though all the couples are wandering through the garden for the same purpose, which is implied to be insignificant. With this contrast between the trivial nature of human life and the determination of the snail, Woolf implies that the natural world and its beings hold more meaning than human societal constructs. Both the discussion of transience and triviality contribute to the overarching theme of disconnection that pervades Woolf’s work, which is again displayed by the juxtaposition of the snail and the humans in the garden. To establish this juxtaposition, Woolf presents the setting from the snail’s point of view in much greater detail than that of the human characters. For example, when the reader is first introduced to the snail, 50

it is described as crawling amongst “brown cliffs with deep green lakes in the hollows, flat-blade like trees that waved from root to tip, round boulders of grey stone, vast crumpled surfaces of a thin crackling texture” (67). This description paints a vivid picture, and images such as “brown cliffs,” “deep green lakes,” and “vast green spaces” depict the seemingly simple flowerbed as being wild and diverse. In contrast, the reader is barely afforded a description of the natural setting from the perspective of any human characters, with one female character describing her surroundings simply as “a garden with men and women lying under the trees” (67). This description is not only much less detailed than that of the snail, but it also centres around other human beings. Her need to describe the garden with people as a central feature exemplifies her inability to focus on her natural surroundings. By contrasting the snail’s vivid setting with that of the human characters, Woolf comments on how as humans become more entangled with their own lives, they lose their ability to appreciate the natural world they were born into. Virginia Woolf’s use of the snail as a non-human character in “Kew Gardens” directly juxtaposes her human characters to the natural world. Snails are often thought of as slow, silly, and quite insignificant; Woolf’s character, though, is thoughtful, intentional, and appreciative of its surroundings. Woolf’s discussion of themes of transience, triviality and the human relationship to nature brings to mind the state of modern humanity, and suggests that perhaps we should take notes from the slower, smaller beings of the world and learn to truly appreciate the world around us. Humans tend to think of themselves as the most advanced species on the planet, however Woolf makes it clear that humanity is far from that, considering they have lost their ability to connect to the simplest things around them, such as a snail in a garden.

Works Cited Woolf, Virginia. “Kew Gardens.” The Broadview Introduction to Literature: Short Fiction, edited by Lisa Chalykoff, Neta Gordon, and Paul Lumsden, Broadview, 2018, 66-71. 51

THE HUNGER OF WINTER by Aidan Gurung NOVEMBER

2010. It is Tihar, the Hindu festival of lights. For five days, there are fireworks and rituals and prayers; everything is done for Yama, the god of death. Each day something different is celebrated: first crows, then dogs, cows, oxen, and finally, our brothers. Crows are the messengers of Yama and so we worship them to ward off grief for the coming year. Dogs stand guard at the gates of Naraka, the Hindu concept of Hell, and in our offerings, we show our respect. Cows and Oxen are also connected to death, but I can never remember why we celebrate our brothers. I follow my mom as she guides me through the ritual: I put the purple garland around Surya’s neck, I put Tika, different coloured paste, on his forehead, I close my eyes and press my palms together as my mom recites some prayers. On the table, we have sliced apples, bananas, papayas and peeled oranges on decorative plates. When I ask if I can have some fruit, mom yells at me like she’s never yelled before. She says that the fruit are offerings for the gods because only they can keep us safe. They are the only ones that can watch over us. We have cut this fruit, we have peeled this fruit, and in exchange the gods will give us protection, in exchange they will give us divine love. She sends me to buy more fruit so I can be forgiven. When I return, it is almost dark and Surya is lighting diyos, oil lamps, on the stairs. I can hear mom’s voice from upstairs, marvelling at what a great job he has done. Surya stands at the top of the stairs, looking down at me, cupping a diyo with both palms. I throw the bag of fruit at his leg and run to my room. DECEMBER

2014. It’s just me and my family and we are driving down Taffy lane. This area is famous in Ottawa for its Christmas decorations. It’s just one narrow road, and you’re done looking at everything in 15 minutes, but there are houses with blow-up reindeer, houses with electronic elves that

wave at you, houses with lights and lights and lights. As we drive along, Surya tells us that Canada is the land of cereal and Christmas. He tells us that only once we accept both these things can we, in turn, be accepted as Canadians. Dad doesn’t say anything but nods approvingly. Mom tells Surya he will have no trouble fitting in, seeing how he knows so much about the culture already. All of a sudden I burst out crying because I don’t like cereal, because it tastes weird and so it must mean I’m doomed, it must mean we should move back, go back, we have to go back. Between my sobs I realize no one is crying with me, no one is even trying to comfort me. Instead, they are laughing, all of them, and mom tells me that we can’t go back to Nepal. She tells me that life must be lived in a linear fashion, going from A to B to C. She tells me that we have to force ourselves to go onward, even if we leave something precious behind. I can’t sleep that night, so I decide to get a bowl of cereal, to give it another shot. As I walk toward the kitchen, I see Surya kneeling over in prayer on the living room floor. I can see the curve of his back lit up from the Christmas tree in the corner, our second-hand lights strung around it to give the room a yellow glow. Even from a distance, I can see his shoulders shaking. I go back to bed with an empty stomach. JANUARY

2008. Today, mom takes us to the temple to pray that this winter passes soon. She tells us that January is the worst of winter, that it only gets better from here. Mom makes me peel the oranges this time, and when I am done, she puts them naked on the altar. She says a few prayers and then she turns to both of us, except she is looking only at Surya. She gives him a small smile, a kind smile, and then we all go home. At dinner, mom tells us more about the temple. She tells us that we prayed to the Sun god, Surya, who my brother is named after. Dad is cutting his goat meat when he starts talking, except he is only talking about Surya. He says, we named you after the Sun god so that there will be no winter in our lives. With you here, our days will only be the summer. Under the table, I kick Surya’s shin, but I think maybe I hit the chair because he doesn’t say anything. I barely touch my food that night.

FEBRUARY

2019. In the waiting room, I scroll through Facebook on my phone. I see an article about Nepal and stop at the section about Bhai Tika, the fifth day of Tihar where we celebrate our brothers: Bhai Tika originates from a Legend about the goddess Yamuna. When her brother fell gravely ill, the god of death, Yama, came to collect him. The goddess begged Yama to spare him, but he would not budge, until finally, she managed to strike a deal. She could perform one final ritual for her dear brother, and only after the flowers on his garland had wilted, only after the tika on his forehead had faded, only after this could Yama take him. To this day, sisters perform this ritual to ward off Yama, to protect their brothers from harm. I try to remember the last time we celebrated Tihar when we hear the news. Mom keeps yelling, Surya! My son! My sun! She clasps my dad’s hand and doesn’t stop mumbling, son, sun, son, my son… Dad doesn’t say anything but puts his other arm around her and kisses her hair. Eventually, I go hug them. Our three bodies cling to each other, unsure of what we are to orbit now. MARCH

2011. The winter is over, and spring has started to show herself. The days are longer, and the air is warmer. On the radio a Nepali folk song is playing. Surya is sitting on the old leather chair, looking out the window at the neighbourhood, peeling an orange. His fingers dig into the skin and I can see some of the juice spray out onto his hands. It is so lovely, this little thing, this little fruit. I watch him for a while before he notices me. He doesn’t hesitate before he extends his arm, offering me a piece. I am smiling as I walk toward him, I am smiling even as I eat it. It is sweeter than anything I have ever tasted. I feel the pulp and the skin and the juice on my tongue and it is sweeter than anything I have ever tasted. In this moment, everything is okay. In this moment, I share an orange with my brother.