Female Gender Roles in "Beowulf" (through Fitt 23)

        Last time on “Words About Words”, we discussed how Grendel’s appearance and behavior within “Beowulf” compared to the various ways in which his character has been adapted for public audiences over the years. In this post, I would like to touch upon how the female characters in “Beowulf” are described and depicted in the text, and I would like for us to utilize our findings in order to interpret what their roles are in the poem and the historical background. 

        Out of the seventy-five named persons who are mentioned in our thousand year old copy of the “Beowulf” poem, only five of those persons are female. Consequentially, there is a lot of textual evidence supporting how kings, warriors, and men in general are expected to act within this ancient Anglo-Saxon society. It is because there are so few women in this poem, and even fewer women with names, that it is difficult to generalize or at the very least definitively analyze their functional purposes in this tale. With these difficulties in mind, let us try our best to understand how women are perceived by others, and how they behave independently, within this Anglo-Saxon text. 

Women Gender Roles Through Fitt 23 of Beowulf 

        Beowulf is a lengthy Anglo-Saxon poem that survives copied down in a single Old English manuscript, similarly named. And while there are many characters functioning within the multiple layers of narrative throughout the poem, the roles of female characters are discussed specifically here. Because there are a lot fewer women than men in Beowulf, and even fewer of those are granted individual names, how they are expected to behave in the world this poem creates is complicated when compared to how they actually behave within the narrative. 

        In Beowulf up through Fitt 23, only two of the women who are mentioned are actually mentioned by name. One of these is “Wealtheow” (line 612), “Hrothgar’s queen” (line 613), whose naming may indicate her importance as a speaking character within the predominating timeline of action in the poem. The other is “Hildeburh” (line 1071), Hnaef’s sister and Finn’s queen (lines 1152 - 1153), who functions as a sympathetic character in what is commonly known as ‘the Finn episode’: a story told within the main narrative during the interlude between Grendel’s defeat and his mother’s revenge. 

        The other women mentioned through Fitt 23 are not given individual names, but are simply referred to by their primary titles, such as “Ecgtheow’s wife” (line ), “Onela’s queen” (line 62), and “Grendel’s mother” (line 1258). This lack of individualization forces the audience to associate these characters primarily through their relationship with the male closest to them in their lives. This can either be as wife, mother, or even daughter when Hrothgar introduces Beowulf’s mother as the “only daughter” (line 375) of Hrethel. Sometimes, men are also similarly associated with those men closest to them, such as Hrothgar being described as “lord of the Scyldings” (line 147) and Beowulf being “a good man among the Geats” (line 195), but these titles are secondary to—not substitutes for—their individual names. 

        Men of high position are often praised with the phrase, “That was a good king!” (line 11), such as “Scyld Sheifing” (line 4), “Hrothgar” (line 61), or later on even “Beowulf” (line 343) himself, and groups of peoples such as “the Danes” (line 170) and “the Geats” (line 603) can be defined by the phrase, “that was a good troop” (line 1250). In contrast, however, when women such as Hildeburh are described using a similar sentence structure, they are defined with phrases like, “she was a sad lady” (line 1075). By characterizing Hildeburh in this way, is the poem saying that she is a sad woman instead of being a good woman, or that to be a sad woman is to be a good woman? Either way, this seems to be the most important aspect of Hildeburh’s character, which is justified as “not without cause did she mourn fate’s decrees” (line 1076); torn between a feud with her brother on one side and her son on the other, she therefore is unable to avenge their deaths because she is technically bound to and against both sides. 

        If expressions of grief are imperative to what it means to be a good woman in the world of Beowulf, then how do we reconcile these notions of womanhood when men grieve intensely? Hrethel, a king discussed later on in the poem and who was Beowulf’s foster-father, is consumed by his sorrow when his son Herebeald is shot dead in a hunting accident, and the kind king retreats into himself. “Then with the sorrow which befell him too sorely,/[Hrethel] gave up man’s joys” (lines 2468 - 2469), and as a consequence “there is no harp-music,/no laughter in the court, as there long had been before” (lines 2458 - 2459). The poem here appears to judge Hrethel’s leadership negatively because he lets his overwhelming grief disrupt his kingly duties, so much so that very soon after his own passing terrible “strife between Swedes and Geats” (line 2472) takes place. If grief and mourning is a stereotypically womanly role in the world of Beowulf—but one that can impair a man’s ability to behave properly—then what does this say about Hrothgar’s intense mourning over his men who are taken by Grendel and then Grendel’s mother? The poem’s hero offers advise on the matter when he says, “It is always better to avenge one’s friend than to mourn overmuch” (lines 1384 - 1385). Could this ‘grieving overmuch’ be a criticism of Hrothgar’s kingship, if he weeps womanly instead of fighting the creatures that have been threatening his hall? Beowulf shows more sympathy with Hrethel's case because he could not seek retribution for his son’s death, whereas Hrothgar seems to be choosing to mourn instead to trying to seek out Grendel’s mother in revenge. 

        While the men in Beowulf typically act as rulers, warriors, protectors of their people, and distributors of treasure, women primarily function as wives or mothers. But there are some instances where they can also become cup-bearers at feasts and treasure-givers to successful warriors. Does Wealtheow take on a more kingly role when she distributes treasure to Beowulf and his men, or is Hrothgar more womanly by not fighting his own battles? If each of their functional shifts in character is equal within the Beowulf society, then perhaps they are made equals by these shifts. In other words, if Wealtheow increases in masculinity to the same extent as Hrothgar decreases in masculinity, then they would stabilize onto the same level of leadership. 

        However, Hrothgar engages in a lot more inaction than Wealtheow does in giving treasure. Hrothgar retires from his fighting career, builds Heorot, does not fight Grendel himself for twelve years, and then weeps over his dead men who are ripped apart by these monsters he has been unable to either appease or eradicate. And although technically Wealtheow could have been giving treasure to previous men during those twelve years before Beowulf arrives, within the narrative of the poem we only see her up through Fitt 23 distributing treasure during one feast when she awards Beowulf and his men for their defeat of Grendel. 

        As far as we can tell, Wealtheow decides to give out the treasure by herself, and thus expresses her own agency, an act which branches away from previously established gender norms. This is a shift from her prior function as cup-bearer during earlier feasts. In contrast, if this is instead Hrothgar outsourcing his duties as treasure-giver to his wife, as we have seen him do when outsourcing his fighting duties to foreign Geats, then this could be a further criticism of his rule. But because we have no contextual evidence of Hrothgar ordering Wealtheow to give out the treasure that he previously would have awarded, we must assume that she freely chooses to engage in such activities on her own. 

        And although none of the other characters object to her actions, it may be significant that this change occurs after Hrothgar’s authority is usurped not only by Grendel but then by Grendel’s mother as well. Wealtheow could be in a way essentially taking control of Heorot herself by taking on more of Hrothgar’s usual duties, or perhaps this could be Wealtheow recognizing Beowulf’s hold on Heorot as an heir as a result of his success against ‘the monsters’. 

        It is difficult to pinpoint Wealtheow’s exact role in the Beowulf society because we do not get many opinions regarding her bahavior from the other characters or even the poet himself. Whenever Hrothgar makes a speech, either Beowulf or another retainer always responds, even if they have nothing new to particularly add to the conversation aside from agreeing with what Hrothgar has already professed. And yet, whenever Wealtheow makes speeches before the hall, no one replies, not even once. Is this silence an indication that Wealtheow’s speeches are ignored, or are they taken more seriously than the other speeches? Because there is no commentary by either the poet or from other historical sources on whether or not subjects were allowed to speak directly to their lord’s wife, we cannot know exactly what their lack of responses is supposed to be interpreted. 

        While whether or not she is taken seriously as an orator is still under debate, it is clear by how Wealtheow’s person is described that her appearance is objectified more than those of her male counterparts are. She is imagined as being more “gold-adorned” (line 640) as opposed to wearing objects that happen to be gold. Although Beowulf and his men wear helmets decorated with gold and boar designs, they nonetheless seem more fluid in their outfits. Beowulf chooses to take off his armor when fighting Grendel, and then puts on more armor when going to fight Grendel’s mother. When preparing for bed on the night that Grendel’s mother attacks Heorot, the men have their armor, helmets, and weapons nearby, but they are not wearing them constantly. In contrast, Wealtheow is always clothed and “ring-adorned” (line 623). Her character as a result is associated more closely to her garments, and they thus seem to define her more so than armor does the men of the poem. Wealtheow is more objectified the more she is associated with the inanimate treasure within Hrothgar’s possession than any of the men are to their spoils of war. While it may be a stretch to conclude that she is objectified because she is a woman, these aspects of her character cannot be ignored. Because there are so few women in Beowulf, and even fewer that are named by or speak within the main narrative, every aspect of how these women appear and function here is imperative to our understanding of Anglo-Saxon femininity. 

        This is not to say that an individual’s importance is necessarily tied to the specificity by which one is named, however. Far from it, because although Grendel’s mother is not awarded an individual name, she is a key figure within the narrative, so much so that some would say she is even more important to Beowulf than the dragon our hero perishes by in the end. 

        Even though she is not named, she is a more formidable opponent for Beowulf than Grendel ever was. Instead of being caught in the hall (though Beowulf’s absence from said hall at the time of her attack may have had something to do with that), she escapes from Heorot unharmed, thus forcing our hero to leave Hrothgar’s community to travel into the terrifying mere in order to fight her. In addition to having the home field advantage when encountering the Geat, she also seems to be stronger than Grendel because of how she is able to drag Beowulf further into her lair swiftly enough in order to prevent him from using his weapons properly. And even in close combat, we the audience get the sense that if the giant-sword among her treasure horde had not been within reach of Beowulf’s arm, he would have been done for and the subsequent Beowulf poem would have been a lot shorter. 

        Grendel’s mother seeks revenge, thereby engaging in the societal conventions of a feud, which places herself on the same level as Hrothgar, and Grendel on the same level as Hrothgar’s man Aeschere. This, in addition to her possession of treasure and a weapon when fighting Beowulf, humanizes her more than Grendel ever is. We do not know what she has been doing for the past twelve years, but this is not saying much because we also do not know what Hrothgar has been doing for the past twelve years (apart from not fighting Grendel himself, that is). Presumably, Grendel’s mother has been living in her lair in the mere, ruling over the sea monsters living around her, and only engages in the feud when the Danes mortally injure Grendel. Indeed, the Danes appear to completely forget her existence until she attacks Heorot, and only then do they deem her important enough to mention to Beowulf. 

        When our hero succeeds in killing Grendel’s mother by chopping off her head in one fell swoop, he seems more enraged by the presence of Grendel’s corpse than by the presence of Grendel’s mother’s corpse. Although Grendel’s mother was more of an immediate threat to his life, Beowulf is more preoccupied with getting Grendel’s head back to Heorot. Is this due to the fact that Grendel was the monster to get away from his grasp, and returning his severed head to the hall completes his previous boast? Or is Grendel’s mother so unimportant and overlooked by him as an adversary, that as soon as she is eliminated, she is forgotten? 

        Grendel’s mother is not only forgotten by Beowulf, but by the poet as well by not being mentioned ever again after her death. This could be a slight against her monstrosity, her gender, or perhaps even her lineage, for whenever Cain’s sires are described, they are said to have been born “forth by him”. However, his sexual partners are never mentioned. And so, either Cain begins his damned line through asexual reproduction such as fission or budding, or his sexual partners are not worth mentioning. Although Grendel’s mother appears to be human, or at least more obviously a humanoid female than not to the men in Heorot, we do not know the type of creatures Cain and his heirs bred with to give rise to giants, ogres, Grendel’s mother, and Grendel. 

        The roles that women play in the Beowulf poem and Anglo-Saxon society at large has only begun to be studied. With each new case, the functions women have in this Anglo-Saxon poem grows increasingly complicated. Because women are few and far between, although they are important characters within the narrative of the poem, it is difficult to generalize how they are expected to behave in this society in comparison with how they actually behave within the poem. They continue to be a fascinating aspect of Beowulf’s character arch and the world of Beowulf. 

References: 

Black, J. et al. (Editors). 2009. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, Volume I: The Medieval Period, Second Edition. Broadview Press. Print.

Fulk, R. D. et al. (Editors). 2008. Klaeber’s Beowulf: Fourth Edition. University of Toronto Press. Print. 

        Because the original assignment for this piece was to study women gender roles in “Beowulf” through only Fitt 23, I have not analyzed how women function throughout the poem’s entirety. If any of you are interested in reading what I discover about the other women featured in the text, just let me know, and I will write a follow-up post. 

        Next time, we will discuss how perhaps “Beowulf”’s hero is not as great as his poem professes, and then later on we will think about who we should praise and who we should blame for the events that occur within the narrative. Until then, keep reading & writing! 

"Beowulf"'s Grendel: Adapting Through the Ages

        Aside from Beowulf himself, the second most recognized name in the “Beowulf” poem is Grendel, the first of three “monsters” that our hero defeats during the span of his tale. Grendel is introduced even before Beowulf is, and in fact his terrorization of Heorot is what brings Beowulf into the action of the poem. And so, Grendel is the initial conflict that initiates the plot line, and that which first tests Beowulf’s character for us audiences. 

        In this blog post, I would like to focus on how the poem describes Grendel (in translation; I do not expect anyone to be fluent in Old English here), and then compare those descriptions to how he has been depicted in artistic and pop culture adaptations. How has Grendel’s public image shifted over time? Do varying adaptations take away from the character of Grendel, or do they add to his importance within the poem simply because we have been putting a face to his figure for so long? Let’s take a look… 

Beowulf (lines 1 – 189): Describing Grendel 

        In Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf: A Verse Translation, the beast known as Grendel is first described as “a powerful demon, a prowler through the dark” (line 86). Later on, other ways in which he is characterized include “a fiend out of hell” (line 100), “this grim demon” (line 102), “the God-cursed brute” (line 121), “the hall-watcher” (line 142), “that dark death-shadow” (line 160), and one of “these reavers from hell” (line 163). Although there is not a lot of physical clues as to how tall he is, what his skin color is, or whether or not he has hair, etc. there is actually some key information we can interpret from the deeds he is able to accomplish. 

        He is able to hear Hrothgar’s celebration all the way from the distant moors, so perhaps he has sensitive hearing. Also, when he attacks Heorot “he grabbed thirty men… and rushed to his lair… blundering back with the butchered corpses” (lines 122 – 125). Assuming this is true, Grendel needs to have hands or claws to grab people with, large and strong enough arms to carry thirty men, legs to walk back to the marshes on, and a quiet enough mode of behaving to not wake everyone else in the community that night. More light is shed later on as people “were hunted down by that dark death-shadow/who lurked and swooped in the long nights” (lines 160 – 161). Whether he is a naturally nocturnal creature or not we do not know, but his revenge only occurs at night, which may be just the hours during which he is usually active or he is intelligent enough to realize that it is safer to attack Hrothgar’s men when they are sleeping. In order to be a “dark death-shadow” (line 160), perhaps Grendel is dark skinned, and in order to “swoop in the long nights” (line 161), perhaps he is surprisingly swift paced for a beast of his inevitable size. 

        Therefore, although the actual words describing Grendel’s appearance are vague, we can still deduce important information regarding his physique through how he behaves and what he is able to achieve. The Beowulf poet gives us a lot of clues as to how he should look like, but because there are no direct descriptors about his particular physique, there is a lot of room for interpretation that artists and enthusiasts alike seem to have taken to heart down through the ages. 

Beowulf’s Grendel & Our Grendel: Adaptations through the Ages 

FIGURES 1 - 6: Grendel in Film  

        Figure 1: Here is a screenshot from the movie Beowulf (1999) by Graham Baker. Vincent Hammond portrayed Grendel, who in this adaptation is a post-apocalyptic demon. We can see his claws and gaping, almost smiling, mouth. He is somewhat humanoid, but seems to be covered in scales, with a ridged forehead and bald skull. His blurred approach adds to the sci-fi spooky intentions of this film adaptation. 

        Figure 2: This is a screenshot of Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson as a giant troll-like Grendel in the movie Beowulf & Grendel (2005). His hairy limbs, lolling jaw, and protruding brow suggest a primitive existence outside the normative postures of civilization, and yet his form and attire are distinctly human. The Grendel in this film seeks revenge because he has been wronged against due to his ‘outsider’ appearances; he is not an outcast because he has done bad things.  

        Figure 3: Here we get a completely CGI Grendel as portrayed by Crispin Glover in Robert Zemeckis’s movie, Beowulf (2007). Again, we have mostly-human formed Grendel who is larger than any human present in the story, but this time he is missing most of his flesh. This adaptation also attempts to explain why the Grendel character can hear the goings-on of Heorot from far away in the mere by giving him external and highly sensitive ear-drums, making this depiction more of a giant upset child throwing a tantrum each night simply because he wants some peace and  quiet. 

        Figure 4: This is an animated adaptation of Grendel, from the Grendel Grendel Grendel (1981) animated film based on the John Gardner novel, Grendel (1971). Grendel is voiced by Peter Ustinov, and like the Gardner novel, this film is from Grendel’s perspective. Because Grendel is the protagonist here, and because an animated film is by genre (especially during the decade in which it was made) geared towards a younger audience, he is not scary. We sympathize with this version more readily because, although he is large and green with a long toothed snout, he has a small mouth and expressive eyes and a sad slump to his design.  

        Figure 5: In The13th Warrior (1999) film, the Grendel antagonist figure is a part of a fictional enemy race called “The Wendol”, and a chief of that race is pictured here. While clearly human in basic appearance, the Grendel counterparts in this film are separated from the protagonists by wearing furs, horns and teeth of other animals, warrior paint, and brandishing clubs. While the Grendel of Figure 2 engaged in a Neanderthal impression that is not offensive because the last real-life comparative died out thousands of years ago, this depiction could interpreted as racist because this “monstrous” figure from an ancient tale is portrayed as a member of a tribal culture, indeed a “race” within the very movie, that is deemed other simply because it is from an alternative culture that is seen in the film as primitive, dangerous, and deserving of elimination. There are social issues with this interpretation of what it is to be a monster, because there are similar cultures to this day that include items such as animal skins, horns, bear teeth, and body paint as vital indicators of identity. And yet, it is nonetheless important to be included as an example of how Beowulf’s Grendel has changed through our portrayals of him in popular media throughout time and via different mediums. 

        Figure 6: This is a screenshot of ‘the Morwen' from the film Outlander (2009). This four-legged Grendel depiction is less like the Grendel from the original poem, and more of what a hybrid between Beowulf’s dragon and Grendel, with a dash of Godzilla thrown in, may look like. With his scales, flared nostrils, drooping maw, and flames trickling his lumbering form, this creature seems more akin to the stock of Satan, or at least a Balrog of Morgoth (I am thinking of Peter Jackson’s adaptation as featured in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring film here) than to any somewhat-human Grendel being. It is important to note that Grendel adaptations appear more monstrous the more a particular adaptor seems to want to make him more  monstrous. It is the man who makes the monster, and not the other way around. 

FIGURES 7 & 8: Grendel in Television 

        Figure 7: In the television series Once Upon A Time in Wonderland, Grendel is a man who has been disfigured by the Red Queen and has been reduced to function as a henchmen figure. While taller and stronger than many other men, he is still a man, albeit with a quizzical confused expression and the exaggerated brow that stereotypically is supposed to convey primitive simpleness. While the Grendel of Figure 5 may be construed as offensive to peoples deriving from tribal civilizations, this depiction could be interpreted as offensive to persons discriminated against due to mental disabilities. The Grendel figure we find here appears more like a Fezzik from The Princess Bride (1987) or a Hodor from the Game of Thrones television series character, rather than one deserving of the fright and revenge found in Beowulf’s Heorot.  

        Figure 8: Beowulf interacts with the world of science fiction when a holographic version of the tale comes to life and a photonic version of Grendel holds crew members hostage in the television series Star Trek Voyager. We see that instead of embodying the deepest darkness in the middle of the night, as in the original poem, here Grendel is a dynamic globular form of light. The show attempts to explain these inconsistencies by having its Hrothgar character say that no one had seen the original battle because Beowulf insisted on facing the intruder alone. While Beowulf did fight Grendel alone in the  poem, his accompanying kinsmen were in Heorot at the same time and thus acting as witnesses to the battle, but nonetheless we have an interesting adaptation here. 

FIGURES 9 - 13: Grendel in Comics 

        

        Figure 9: Grendel here is a masked identity that allows the protagonist from Matt Wagner’s Grendel comics to take on New York City’s organized crime. Rather than an individual character, ‘Grendel’ is reduced to a title, a symbol of systematic revenge, ensuring the hero’s enemies that he will come after them night after night until Heorot (which is the streets of NYC here) is purged of its wrongdoers. While the figure called Grendel is the protagonist in this adaptation, this comic book series uses the dichotomy of good versus evil as found in the Beowulf poem to individualize its plot line from similar version found in a number of other superhero comics (especially those also place in the New York metropolitan area).  

        

        Figure 10: Here is Grendel and Beowulf fighting in Garith Hinds’s Beowulf comic books. Grendel is humanoid in shape, but he is the closest resemblance of what perhaps a goblin- or ogre-based depiction that we have encountered thus far. He is larger than the average man, has a protruding stomach—perhaps engorged with the Geats’ flesh—and a humped back which our hero is utilizing to his advantage in order to gain leverage. While perhaps he does not look big nor strong enough to carry off thirty thanes, when compared to some of the other adaptations, this Grendel interpretation is pretty good. 

        

        Figure 11: Here is the battle between Beowulf and Grendel as adapted in the 1984 Beowulf comic book by Jerry Bingham. I am not sure what the swirling tendrils of blackness are that curl away from his body, but this is also an improvement on some of the Grendel adaptations we have thus far encountered. This tall, strong, bipedal figure engages with the tones of ambiguous darkness as Grendel travels through the night back and forth from the mere to Heorot in the Beowulf poem. 

        Figure 12: This is the cover art for Issue 1: The Curse of Hrothgar from the DC comic Beowulf: Dragon Slayer (1975). The colors included here are bright, perhaps to reflect the flashy genre of the comic art form, but nonetheless it results in an unrealistic and unfounded coloring of our Grendel character. However, we can still analyze how this Grendel is portrayed by how it interacts with the other elements on the cover. The blues and greens of the humans’ outfits, their exposed skin, and their flowing hair make them more similar to one another than to Grendel, thus isolating our subject from the human social structure of this image. It is also noteworthy that Grendel’s coloring more similarly reflects the title of the story than anything else a part of the artwork found here, thus making our Grendel character inseparable from the story from hence he came. 

        Figure 13: Here is a frame-shot of ‘Grendell' as he appears in a few  issues of Marvel Comics’ Thor series. As in the original poem, he is larger than our hero and is indeed missing an arm, but he is still very much alive, wields a giant battle-hammer, and is wearing armor. His pointy ears and square head give him a goblin-like appearance, but instead of an animalistic effect such as in Figure 9, the forward lunging of his stance, the narrowing white eyes, the barring teeth, and the dark reds and shadows of his figure all combine to lend this Grendell a demonic, malicious advance. 

FIGURES 14 - 21: Grendel in Video Games 

        Figure 14: Adaptations of Beowulf’s Grendel character have also made their way into the video game industry. For instance, in the artificial life program Creatures, one of the breeds is called ‘Grendels’. Here, although this depiction has sharp teeth and claws and red eyes, he is not very scary, due to his unrealistic proportions, stocky body, short limbs, drooping puppy-like ears, and oversized head and facial features. In addition, the light colored hair sprouting from his head contributes to the innocent, infantile impression of this creature. It is  important to keep in mind that those adaptations that are supposed to be frightening very rarely have hair or fur of any kind on them. After all, why would you be afraid of a Grendel you can cuddle, or at least groom? 

        

        Figure 15: The Monster Sprite ‘Grendels’ of the video game Dragon Quest have a more comical villain tone, as though a warthog, Bowser, and the Sultan’s guards from Aladdin got sucked up and spat out by Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life’s cheese maker machine. The brighter the colors, the less scary these adaptations seem to be. And although this depiction sports armor and weaponry of a vaguely Oriental nature, there is no fear evoked in an audience viewing this image. We should keep in mind that the less-scary versions of the Grendel character may be designed as such due to the intention to be consumed by younger audiences.  

        Figure 16: This is an image of the Grendel creature featured in the Vision of Zosimos: Chaos Omen video game. On the mooring.com website, this foe is described as “a fierce opponent, not to be crossed lightly”. Although this style of video game design makes this Grendel more deserving of the Word of Warcraft universe than an ancient Anglo-Saxon society, I appreciate the effort to engage in Grendel’s physical disability after one arm is ripped from his side in the original poem, by having this depiction bear an uneven limb distribution. 

        Figure 17 a.: This image is of a lower level Grendel character from the online Wizards 101 video game. Again, this Grendel cannot be take too seriously because it was created for a children’s online gaming community. In addition, this initial appearance clearly takes more inspiration from the Cornish Pixies or House Elves creatures found in the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) film than any of the evidence from the original Beowulf text. 

        Figure 17 b.: “Grendels" in Wizards 101 are unique from other adaptations, because they can change over the course of the game. Featured here is a Witch Doctor level evolution. There is a hint that this depiction may have some sort of satchel hanging at the side of his waist, a pouch that the Beowulf Grendel may or may not have  had (the jury is still out on that one, as there are inconsistencies in different accounts of Grendel’s fight with Beowulf given within the poem), but other than that and its vaguely humanoid basis, I see no resemblance between this adaptation and the original. 

        I do find it interesting, however, that there are multiple evolutions to this Grendel. Like how Figure 6 seems to combine multiple creatures (Grendel and the dragon) from the poem into one being in order to make the adaptation more engaging, this “layering” of opponents here within the same identity could be building upon the storytelling archetypal trope of having the hero encounter three challenges of increasing difficulty. But instead, as the player character increases his own skill set of abilities, stamina, and armor, so too does his adversary grow into a more formidable opponent. It truly is evolution at play, albeit on a highly accelerated scale and through a short-living medium. 

        Figure 18: This video game Grendel is a four legged monster opponent from Final Fantasy VIII. In the game, this Grendel was originally a boss monster, which could reflect how in Beowulf, Grendel is a figure renown for his deeds and Beowulf must travel to and prepare for their one-on-one battle. When his function within the game shifts to an incidental opponent, however, this may reflect the Grendel character’s more animal and innocent nature, perhaps what he was like before the feud with Heorot began. Regardless of how we interpret his function as an adversary within the video game and how it could mirror his standing within the poem, the Grendel here is a four-legged lizard type of creature with a pointy powerful tail, scrapping talons, long blue tongue, narrow skull, and horns sprouting from the sides of his head.  

        Figure 19: In the video game Skies of Arcadia, we see here a looming, lanky, round-edged, two-legged and slime green Grendel boss opponent. This adaptation takes on the humanoid implications of the Beowulf text, while embracing his otherworldly effects in giving his hands less fingers and unrealistic proportions to his limbs. The most noticeable difference here is the lack of a defined head, as instead there are two knobs at either end of a gapping whole where a human comparative model’s neck would begin.  

        Figure 20: This lumbering bear-shaped type of machine Grendel figure (called “GRNDL-1” within the world of the game) from Too Human alternates between four-legged and two-legged advances as it attacks the player. While this adversary would be best suited among the rocks of Mars in the video game Destiny than associating with our Anglo-Saxon tale, it is noteworthy as an example of the many ways in which our Grendel character has been changed and re-appropriated over time. 

        Figure 21 a.: Gren (short for Grendel) is a character from The Wolf Among Us by Telltale  Games. In this adaptation, he can magically disguise himself as a normal human, featured here. Until he turns into his alternative monstrous identity, no one knows that he can do so, and so he freely moves undetected amongst his prey during daylight hours. Reasons for why Grendel only attacks Heorot at night in Beowulf have long been disputed, and this game brings up an interesting possibility that perhaps Grendel only attacks at night because he is only a monster at night. There are accounts of men turning into beasts in old tales, such as in the Old Norse poems where Fafnir is cursed by his greed for hoarded treasure and turns into a dragon (which is then mimicked by C.S. Lewis in his Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader), but at the time of Beowulf’s construction there are no accounts of beasts transforming back into their original human forms. While this is an interesting notion to keep in mind, Grendel is mentioned to be an ancient being who has dwelled in the mere long before Heorot was built, and there are no accounts in Beowulf of a man disappearing without a trace after Grendel is killed. And so, Beowulf’s Grendel has most likely existed as a single identity throughout his lifetime.  

        Figure 21 b.: Gren can transform himself at will into a giant white figure known as Grendel in The Wolf Among Us. Here, we see that the monster version is a large Tim Burton’s Boogeyman meets an albino Slenderman type of being. The fact that he chooses to be in this form and to attack certain individuals emphasizes tones of premeditated intent to harm. This function ignores the implications of animalistic innocence and justifications to his systematic behavior of attack as represented in the Beowulf poem. 

FIGURES 22 & 23: Grendel in (non-Beowulf) Literature 

        Figure 22: This is the cover design for John Gardner’s acclaimed novel adaptation of the tale, here titled Grendel and featuring its protagonist expressing his wailing woe. In what looks to be a barren field in front of a burning Heorot, the squirrel-eared and chipmunk-cheeked Grendel dwells in solitude. While he appears to have black lips, and certainly has rows of sharp teeth, his closed eyelids and round nose—those features which in our  image are closest upwards towards the sky—are those which are distinctly human. Gardner’s Grendel has potential to be scary and vengeful in certain situations and at certain angles, but also in just as many situations and at just as many angles, this creature can be sympathized. Gardner truly has earned the awards his novel has received, I must say. 

        Figure 23: This is a photograph I took of the cover art accompanying my copy of Robert Nye’s young adult novella adaptation, Beowulf: A New Telling. Although Grendel is in the foreground, the riches-adorned hero is that which is shrouded in light as he rides his white horse into Grendel’s mere. Bats (creatures which are not mentioned anywhere in the original Anglo-Saxon poem) are Grendel’s companions here as he slumps lazily within his blood-infused aquatic abode. While the lack of horns or spikes coupled with his rounded features may allow him to appear more sympathetic, his pointed ears, scaly hide, exposed nostrils, and jagged teeth beg otherwise. The over-simplification of the original tale as told by Nye aside, the cover art for this edition as accomplished Grendel’s duality quite nicely. 

FIGURES 24 & 25: Grendel in Fan Art 

        Figure 24: I found this example of fan art on www.kaaziel.deviantart.com, and it is titled “Grendel” by Kaaziel. This is a pointy-eared, horned and spiked, toothy, drooling, and green-scaled Grendel adaptation. Although we do not receive a full-body view of this depiction, from the large head versus its comparatively narrower shoulders, we can assume that this adaptation is most likely much slimmer than some of the others we have seen. This is a hint at the numerous fans of interpreting Beowulf’s Grendel that currently exist, and emphasizes how I have barely begun to study the numerous ways in which his ambiguous nature can be perceived. 

        Figure 25: And last, but hopefully not least, we include a photograph of my fan art adaptation of Beowulf’s Grendel, also titled “Grendel” and which was last modified on January 20, 2015. I included him chowing down on some danes in order to portray a concept of scale, as he must be large enough to carry off thirty members of his prey as well as nimble enough to wedge his way through the front doors of Heorot. I was going for something closer to the Cave Trolls of Moria than to the Balrogs of Morgoth on a spectrum of evil, both ends of which can be seen in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) film. I included a loincloth for modesty’s sake, as there is still debate whether or not Grendel would actually have worn any clothes at all. The spots and splashes on green scattered about his body, and especially adorning his back and shoulders, is meant to represent possibilities of swampy slime or growing moss sticking to his hide as he lives a semi-aquatic lifestyle in the mere. 

Beowulf’s Grendel vs. Our Grendel: Which is Better, and Why? 

        How the original audiences of the Beowulf tale imagined the Grendel character and how we may imagine him today may be very different, and yet they might not. From evidence found within the poem, we know that Grendel should be dark, tall, good at hearing, with lumbering steps, claws, and swift yet stealthy. He is either a nocturnal being or one who chooses to attack sleeping thanes by night, he probably has sharp teeth with which to devour his meals, and he might carry a pouch tied around his waist. If we take this into account, and glance back through our examples above, we may notice that a majority of these adaptations adhere to the descriptions given by the Beowulf text. 

        It is not surprising that the closest interpretations (see Figures 2, 3, 10, 11, 22, 23, & 25) are those which profess to be either adapting the entire story, or taking inspiration from the poem itself. This does not mean that we should disregard those Grendel characters which are not derived from the original text, for all ‘Grendels’ contribute in their own way to the longevity of Beowulf’s tale and its relevance to our daily lives. It is only by recognizing and understanding how Grendel has changed in the past that we may fully embrace how he continues to change as we move into the future. 

        How do you imagine Beowulf’s Grendel while you are reading the poem, and does it differ from how you typically imagine him when you are alone? How similar is your adaptation to—or how much does it deviate from—the other examples we have touched upon above? Has this blog post changed the ways in which you usually perceive this dynamic and renown creature? 

        As always, any questions and/or comments regarding the content of this literary blog are welcome. While I look forward to watching Outlander (2009), playing The Wolf Among Us, and re-reading John Gardner’s Grendel someday, I have not experienced all of the examples that I have used above, and as such I ask forgiveness for any mistakes I may have made in describing them to you. If mistakes are pointed out to me and verified, however, I shall gladly amend them as soon as possible. 

Keep Reading & Writing! 

Why should we continue reading "Beowulf"?

        Welcome back to "Words About Words". We continue our literary travels by looking back to "Beowulf", the thousand year old manuscript and even older tale. We look here at some of the reasons why should continue to study and enjoy this dynamic epic that encompasses heroism, history, exaggerations, inconsistencies, monsters, battles, men (and some women), and the causes that lead to the fall of nations. And so, without further ado... 

Why should we continue reading Beowulf? 

        Beowulf the manuscript, Beowulf the poem, and Beowulf the character have been studied for hundreds of years both in its original Old English and in translations. Beowulf’s story is even available to a wider audience through loose adaptations created for alternative media forms, such as children’s books, art, film, blogs, websites, twitter stories, and even video games. But why is this thousand-year old (and possibly even older) tale of Anglo-Saxon heroism still applicable to our daily lives, and why should it be? The Beowulf manuscript continues to aid medieval manuscript studies, while its original text continues to teach us about the history of the Anglo-Saxons and the intricacies of the Old English language. But perhaps there is something more Beowulf has to offer to modern readers, even if we are not all academic medieval scholars. 

        Only one manuscript copy of the poem that critics have titled Beowulf, when in fact the manuscript itself is untitled, has survived and that survival was most likely an accident. The Beowulf manuscript includes a few other texts in addition to the Beowulf poem itself: “a poetic treatment of the Old Testament story of Judith, a prose life of St. Christopher, and two treatises of fantastical geography known as The Wonders of the East and Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle” (Black, pp. 44). Two scribes copied this manuscript down, probably in the decade following 1000 AD, and in a monastery somewhere in the south of England. Lying disregarded for centuries, the vellum (animal skin) pages narrowly escaped destruction by fire in 1731 and are now preserved in The British Library under the shelf-mark Cotton Vitellius A.xv. 

        And so, by studying the history of the Beowulf manuscript, we gain valuable information for medieval and manuscript studies. The fire burns, bookworm holes, and century-old ink bleeding through the animal skin pages allow scholars to analyze how these elements degrade a physical text such as the Beowulf manuscript and how we might continue to preserve similar finds for another thousand years to come. 

        The longest surviving poem in the Old English language, Beowulf consists of 3,182 alliterative verse lines divided into forty-five sections called “Fitts”. Although its language style is embellished and allusive, and its narrative winding and complex, its relatively straightforward plot touches upon familiar folkloric tropes: when “a young hero who fights in isolation from friends and family engages in fabulous battles against monstrous foes, faces three challenges in ascending order of difficulty, and in the end wins glory and fame” (Black, pp. 44). However, despite the poem’s interests in historical events, we cannot study Beowulf with modern expectations of historical accuracy. Like many examples of medieval literature, Beowulf is difficultly ambiguous: not exactly mythical enough to read separate from the history is proclaims to contain, and yet not historical enough to offer concrete evidence for the ancient past it poetically represents. 

        Through studying Beowulf, from context clues we can learn about the Danes, Geats, and their culture through the objects, animals, foods, and technologies they posses. If we itemize the creatures and material possessions inhabiting the world of the text, we can deduce that the scribes, poets, and perhaps historical figures mentioned in the narrative also had access to these as well. For instance, the presence of ships, horses, battle gear, and mead convey information that these were sea-faring, horse-riding peoples with either access to the processes to make armor and mead or the means to trade for such prevalent items. The names of places that still exist to this day, such as Dane, Frank, and the North Sea, help to geographically place the narrative in reality. However, we must still take the more fantastical elements with a grain of salt; just because Beowulf fights Grendel, then Grendel’s mother, and finally a dragon does not mean that these figures exist in real life. Similarly, we can perhaps imagine certain elements of Beowulf’s story—such as how long he swam for when competing against Brecca or how much armor he can carry at one time—as being exaggerated by the poet and/or scribes for audiences in order emphasize how “There was no one else like him [Beowulf] alive./In his day, he was the mightiest man on earth,/highborn and powerful” (Heaney, pp. 8; lines 196 – 198). 

        Even though there are numerous translations and editions of the Beowulf text, there are still ongoing debates surrounding how we are to understand and justify amending differences between what the scribes have written and what scholars argue they meant to have written. The Beowulf poem continues to teach us the intricacies of the Old English language by demanding appreciation of its complexities whenever any individual attempts to translate and understand that translation. There is no perfect translation because every translator must choose their own narrative (comparable to those “choose your own adventure” books) with each decision between a variety of word definitions available, and with every line translation they must battle with the difficulty with attempting to replicate a similar alliterative verse style in a separate language. Because these aspects continue to be debated, we must continue to analyze and contribute to these debates in order to more fully understand the text holistically. Perhaps the only way to truly comprehend multitude of possibilities is to read a collection of comprehensive editions, such as Klaeber’s Beowulf, 4th Edition, Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf: A Verse Translation, and George Jack’s Beowulf: A Student Edition, side by side. Understanding the Old English constructing Beowulf is far from a “closed case”, and should not be treated as such. 

        Both the origins of Beowulf’s content and manuscript publication are largely unknown, although scholars have made educated guesses down through the ages. Most assume that the single surviving manuscript, Cotton Vitellius A.xv, was written around 1000 – 1020 AD and is a copy of an earlier text that in turn was probably the last in a long chain of copies. Because we only have this latest copy, it is impossible to determine both when the chain of Beowulf texts began or what cultural and/or literary inspirations gave birth to the poem; various scholars have argued for dates ranging from 700 – 1000 AD, and most years in between. “The poem seems to arise from a world in which such stories were common, and it presupposes our own position in this world” (Black, pp. 44). 

So, how we reconcile the complexities of the original context in which our surviving Beowulf manuscript exists with modern re-printings of this Old English text? The fourth edition of Frederick Klaeber’s Beowulf was published in 2014, over a thousand years after the poem it acclaims was constructed, and yet Andy Orchard of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto claims it to be, “A monstrous endeavor, heroically achieved”. Mark Amodio with the Department of English at Vassar College asserts that, “Klaeber’s Beowulf will immediately eclipse all the other fine editions of the poem that are in print and… it will remain the critical edition of the poem for many years to come”. Beowulf is not going anywhere, and over the hundreds of years since the manuscript survived Cotton’s library fire, just as many printed copies of the poem have been made. 

        In retrospect, even if an individual seeks to refute the importance of Beowulf as a work justified being given critical in-depth study, they would first have to read and analyze the text themselves in order to make a sound argument. One has to know their adversary’s location and weaknesses in order to properly take them on. Like how Unferth needed to know aspects of Beowulf’s contest against Brecca in order to criticize him about it, and even how Beowulf needed to know that Grendel was going to come to Heorot that night in order to prepare for their battle, so too does a Beowulf critic need to study Beowulf in order to accurately criticize. 

        And as cultural and social priorities shift over time, readers can find newfound importance in certain aspects of the poem that may have been overlooked or under-analyzed in past years. J. R. R. Tolkien’s well known argument in his lecture, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”, for instance, is essentially that scholarly work focusing on the historical information regarding Anglo-Saxon peoples and cultures is off-point because “the monsters… are essential, fundamentally allied to the underlying ideas of the poem, which give it its lofty tone and high seriousness” (Heaney, pp. 115). Similarly, those preoccupied in gender studies could analyze the female’s role both in the poem and in Anglo-Saxon society as represented in the poem, the ambiguous gender nature of Grendel’s mother, or even the possibility of Beowulf as homosexual due to the lack of women present in his kingdom until his death. 

        We can continue consulting Beowulf for its physical manuscript’s properties, its Old English language, and what it teaches us about the historical past. We must study Beowulf if we are to refute its own importance. And lastly, we should continue to analyze Beowulf because as the times change, we find new meanings and importance in previously unexplored regions of this thousand year old tale. I look forward to discovering how we understand this greatest and longest of Old English poems in the next ten, fifty, and hundred years. 

References:  

Black, J. et al. (Editors). 2009. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, Volume I: The Medieval Period, Second Edition. Broadview Press. Print.

Heaney, Seamus (Translator), and Daniel Donoghue (Editor). 2002. Beowulf: A Verse Translation. A Norton Critical Edition. W. W. Norton & Company. Print. 

Jack, George (Editor). 1995. Beowulf: A Student Edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Print. 

Klaeber, Frederick. 2014. Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg. Fulk, R. D., Bjork, R. E., and Niles, J. D. (Editors). Fourth Edition. University of Toronto Press. Print.  

Tolkien, J. R. R. 1936. “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture, Proceedings of the British Academy, pp. 245 – 295. Harper Collins. Print. 

        Now that we know why we can and should continue reading and engaging with the "Beowulf" poem, we can look over the next few posts to different aspects throughout this grand and deep Old English tale for literary analysis and points of interest. 

        In the meantime, do you agree with these reasons to read "Beowulf"? If not, then what are some of the reasons explaining why we should not continue reading this story? Are there other Old English texts that deserve the serious attention that has hitherto been awarded "Beowulf"? 

Keep Reading, and Writing! 

WORDS WITHIN WORDS: 

HOW WRITTEN CORRESPONDENCES EMBODY INDIVIDUAL RELATIONS

Dear Readers, 

         Let me tell you a story; one that is kind of about "Voyage in the Dark" by Jean Rhys, and kind of about "Small Island" by Andrea Levy, but mostly it is about how we write, read, and interpret letters written between individuals in fiction literature, and by extension, the literature of the self. 

I. How To Open All The Letters 

      Written letter discourse between individuals are prevalent and functionally diverse in both Small Island by Andrea Levy and Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys. Through analyzing these correspondences by categorizing how letters are working differently in these novels, we acknowledge the need to come to terms with how to understand these interpretations cohesively. This letter-essay strives for a thread of logic through which these applications of written correspondence in literature can be enveloped by a comprehensive strategy of analysis. They reveal social conventions, participate in world building of the novel’s landscape and narrative voice, are utilized as plot devices, and embody relations between those individuals discussing and being discussed. 

      Written correspondences between individuals can include much more than just letters, however. In Letter Writing as a Social Practice, David Barton and Nigel Hall explain, for instance, how letters can occur, “in many forms, letters, postcards, memos, electronic mail, dialogue journals, fax, etc., and while most people have an intuitive idea of what counts as letter writing, it is in fact a particularly difficult text object to define; after all, almost anything can be put in the form of a letter” (pp. 1). When analyzing Small Island and Voyage in the Dark, we are looking specifically here at the written correspondences between characters of these novels. While written letters are the most obvious examples, we also consider here a variety of other texts. These include written addresses and instructions, government mandated forms, and telegrams. All are constructed and/or written by characters within the novels, with the intention that other characters will recognize and respond to what has been written. 

      Eve Tavor Bannet describes the function of letters, which we apply here to our larger notion of what written correspondences can entail, in her Empire of Letter: Letter Manuals and Transatlantic Correspondence, 1680 – 1820 by describing how, “Eightenth-century British and American letter manuals taught codes, conventions and practices of letter-writing and letter reading that have now largely been forgotten, together with the proper conduct of conversation and of familial, social, sexual, professional, and commercial life. They were masterpieces of Enlightenment taxonomy that combined, in little space, examples of polite domestic, social, professional and commercial correspondence, instruction in Standard English and proper forms, and conduct book teaching in manners and morals” (pp. ix). Whereas Bannet focuses on the functionality of literal manuals on letter-writing conventions, letters themselves can represent expectations of letter-writing practices when we analyze how either intended recipients or the narrative itself perceives them. Both Small Island and Voyage in the Dark take place at a much later time period and are included without the inclusion of ‘proper’ writing manual techniques, but readers can nonetheless interpret some of the expectations and rules regarding letters and letter-writing as they are presented within the world of these two novels. 

      For example, the brevity of Anna’s postcard to her Uncle Bo, even by modern standards, is 

sparse and unrevealing. This seems to be abnormal and not something that one should do, even in a short form like the postcard. This reveals that there is something unsatisfying in the way Anna behaves and expresses herself, to the extent that her own family does not seem to understand her or know how to ‘reach her’ on a personal or emotional level. 

      When Bernard does not send letters to Queenie or seem to really even try until he is locked in an Indian prison with a bunch of “coolies”, this is a red flag to readers. It highlights how separated Bernard and Queenie are as husband and wife and on a personal level because they cannot even communicate with one another about important, effective events happening in Bernard’s life. And so we know the structural and social conventions expected of Small Island and Voyage in the Dark inhabitants as they write correspondences to one another through the examples when characters fail to meet those standards as represented in the novels. 

      These social convention expectations is a form of world building, which Special Delivery: Epistolary Modes in Modern Fiction touches upon. On page x, “Kauffman… asks us to revel in the complexity these books share, their invitation to readers to enter into a restless, unstable, dramatic world”. This is probably the most obvious and endearing effect the inclusion of written correspondences between characters in literature can have upon readers. They make the characters more real because they have this interiority and agency to write and want to write letters to one another. This practice implies a higher sophistication than simple dialogue or prose descriptions of other characters. Kaufman and Stimpson show that it enlarges the world of the work because it implies the postal system and operational structure necessary in order for the exchange of these correspondences to be carried out successfully. It also internalizes his expansive world to within the literature separate from reader intervention because when characters are corresponding with one another in written form separate from the narrative prose, the reader is in a sense unnecessary in order for these exchanges to take place; these characters are behaving and interacting with one another on their own, and the reader is simply a looker-on, an intruder intercepting their mail. 

      Regardless of how much world building these letters accomplish, however, they are also working in many more ways. As Laura Rotunno points out in her Postal Plots in British Fiction, 1840 – 1898: Readdressing Correspondence in Victorian Culture, “The luckless lover and frustrated write, Edwin Reardon of New Grub Street, the entire population of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford, Thomas Hardy’s downtrodden Father Time as well as his bold Valentine writer: all compose letters upon which plots turn” (pp. 1). I want to focus on the latter part of this sentence, which is the main point: “all compose letters upon which plots turn”. Not only is this true for the Victorian writers Rotunno discusses, but applicable to 20th – Century work as found in Small Island and Voyage in the Dark, because the letters within that transverse between characters are essential to how they interact with one another and how the plot changes. The letters Gilbert sends Queenie after they are separated may have helped him get the room in Queenie’s home after the war, while the address Queenie writes down for Arthur to return home is what allows Queenie and Gilbert to meet in the first place. Written correspondences in Voyage in the Dark allow Walter and Anna to perpetuate their relationship by organizing when to meet and where, etc. Letter writing allows Vincent (upon Walter’s behalf, apparently) to break up the relationship between Anna and Walter without having to speak to Anna in person. All of these events are key moments in the novels’ respective plots, moments which would have not been possible in the same way without the aid of such written correspondences. 

      And so, we can keep the multi-layered complexities of letter functions in literature in mind as we continue to delve deeper into this field through the aid of Small Island and Voyage in the Dark’s evidence. First, we begin by examining the most obvious instances of written correspondences, specifically when letters are reproduced in literature in the context that they were written to the other characters present in the world of the novel. 

II. Creating Physical Realism Through Presence 

      Letters included in both Small Island and Voyage in the Dark possess physical presence within the very text itself. They can be quoted directly by the prose perspective narrative, separated by line spaces, or italicized in either parts or as a whole within the text. 

      On pp. 178 of Andrea Levy’s Small Island, Gilbert finds the paper with Queenie’s address found in Arthur’s pocket. This is Arthur’s only remaining ability to communicate with strangers, since he has been so traumatized from serving during World War I. First, Gilbert reads the London address, but since they are so far away from the city, he must turn over the paper to discover his closer dwelling of residence. These are the only places in which Arthur lives, and it is important that he is no longer primarily associated with Bernard’s house, but rather wherever Queenie abides. This closeness with Queenie is emphasized when he is able to speak with her, if only for a moment. Here, written words bring characters together that play important roles in each other’s lives later on. These written words, and their placement within the text itself, allows Arthur to communicate with other characters and the readers as well, even though a perspective chapter and dialogue speech have been denied him. The physical presence of written correspondences can lend voices to those who otherwise would be unable to express themselves. 

      Unlike in Small Island, when written correspondences are physically inserted throughout Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark, sometimes they are italicized. When this happens, letters are not spoken between characters through dialogue, nor are they spoken to the readers directly by the narrative prose voice. By presenting us with the contents of the letter, it is apparently uncensored especially in the instances where we are given letters in full from Dear Anna (pp. 91) to Sincerely, Vincent (pp. 94). In these instances, we are allowed to make our own interpretations, judgments, and conclusions about the letter’s author, its contents, and what it thus means for the narrative and other characters through whose hands this letter has passed. 

      Without other characters and narratives to ‘read’ these letters for us, we are put into the position of letter-writer and letter-reader and thus the letter is simply able to speak for itself. By giving readers minimal to no introduction before placing the letters within the novel, it is as though Anna from pp. 91 – 94 is thrusting the physical letter into our hands. She could just as easily addressed the readers, breaking the fourth wall, and said, “Here. Go ahead, read it. Read it for yourself. I’m through with it.” By characterizing Anna as dealing with trauma surrounding this particular letter by specifically not analyzing it for us, Anna’s behavior builds the world of her perspective through which we must experience the world of her novel. Anna distances herself from the letter’s contents, as though the narration itself cannot think about it any longer. We are denied a filter or interpretation, are not spoon-fed the letters’ meanings but must decide how important they are for ourselves. 

      The slanting, slightly curling fancier font style of italicized letter-insertions represents the visual nature of a real letter’s accompanying handwriting. By mimicking the physicality of real letters, it thus makes the letter seem more real, more credible evidence than dialogue between characters and certainly more so than the first person prose narration. This technique adds to the world building of the text, like how referencing real places, events, and time periods grounds the story in a reality we can recognize and relate to. 

      Also, the implied physicality of the letter separates it from the text of the narrative. It specializes it and isolates it from the other forms of inter-character communications present within the text. Letters are “text and”, more than just the text, something other than the text itself. 

      Since songs, book titles, and dream sequences are also italicized in Voyage in the Dark, this automatically invites a comparison to be made between these and the similarly italicized letters. Dreams in italics are when Anna is furthest within her own mind, but in expressing her dreams for us she is at once furthest and closest to the reader. We are privy to things that Anna experiences over and over in her mind and with us readers but that we can be essentially certain she has not shared with any of the other characters within the novel. 

      These italicized portions of the text are easy to locate when flipping through the physical book. And in associating the letters, songs, book titles, etc. together also separates them from the rest of the text. In their “otherness”, these references take on an almost otherworldly quality like there is a source material separate from the novel itself that is being quoted. Through songs, hawking calls on a lonely night, other literature, and even dreams, we journey into character minds, memory or somewhere else in the universe of dreams. There is a supernatural element to this more direct stream of consciousness, thus fleshing out the perception through which we engage the world around us while inhabiting the words and spaces the novels create. 

      Although the mention and repetition of Maillotte Boyd’s name and description as listed in the Constance Estate ledger (pp. 52 – 53) is not directly written between two characters in Voyage of the Dark’s primary timeline of events, nonetheless it has been originally written into the ledger by an implied ancestor of Anna’s. And Anna’s obsession with this Boyd’s immortalization of identity through the handwritten ledger assigns this information important meaning. The very existence of this instance of the written word within Anna’s mode of expressing her own narrative deems this name importance. Anna “writes” Boyd’s importance over and over in her mind, sometimes so much so that she seems more physically visible to the reader than some of the other “presently” written words. The physically re-imagining of Maillotte Boyd’s existence gives a look into Anna’s mind because she is thinking about the ledger just as much as we are when we read those words reproduced on the page. The importance of writing Boyd’s existence into the novel represents Anna’s relationship to her past and her desires for the future. 

      The letter Vincent sends Anna on pp. 91 – 94 is probably one of the most important letters with a physical presence within Voyage in the Dark because it takes up so much narrative space. Anna is denied direct communication with the intended speaker because Vincent professes to be writing on Walter’s behalf; she gets Walter’s apparent opinions from Vincent’s hand instead, like a child being talked down to. 

      Readers are shocked by its presence as well when we are denied any sort of narrative framing device other than the “false teeth” reductive memory beforehand. This denial could also reflect Anna’s inability or lack of desire to express her initial reactions to reading this inserted letter for the first time. We get Anna noticing Vincent’s unfamiliar handwriting, and then after the letter is interjected we get her re-reading the letter for the third time. What has she been doing or thinking before/during/after those previous reads? The gap in the narrative implies a suppression of those events, and because this is from her narrative voice, she decides what we get to see and what we do not get to see. 

      Instead of retelling letters to us through a character’s voice (such as on pp. 60 – 61 or pp. 26), when they are reproduced in novels they are thrust at the readers as a whole to interpret and digest as we will on our own. It is as though this is some information we need and should know, but it is not something our narrator Anna wants to tell us, explain, or analyze. 

      When Anna is particularly pressed, she deviates from the normative mode of writing to Walter, such as on pp. 95 when she sends him a telegram. This first usage of the telegram in a novel where letter correspondences largely govern character interactions helps to make the readers notice the sense of urgency underlying such a message. The very form itself conveys to its recipient the need for an immediate reply. It is short, direct, and to the point. It aims for a specific goal and expects a certain result in return. It is a step above sending a letter by messenger in its swiftness of delivery, and urgency of intention. By physically placing this telegram within the narrative instead of simply referencing it, the differences in form between letter-writing and telegram-constructing is emphasized because readers are able to compare it to other reproduced written correspondences throughout the text. 

      And so, there are many ways in which we can interpret even the instances where letters are inserted in their ‘original context’ within these works. It is of course not really an original context because these written correspondences between individuals are constructed and fictional, despite the more realistic presentation through the italicized form. These letter-insertions are doing more than building the world of the novel, however: they can allow mute characters to communicate, traumatized characters to communicate pertinent information to readers, and comparisons to be made through different forms of the structure of various written correspondences. 

III. The Implied Blank Spaces 

      In this section, I will discuss the instances in which letters are referenced or clearly written by/between key characters, but they are not physically represented in the text nor quoted by the characters mentioning them. There seems to be two ways in which the absence of letters is working: either the content conveyed in the letter is so mundane and straightforward that it is not worth including in its ‘original format’, or the act of withholding such letters could indicate either character suppression of trauma or the narrative itself saving the reveal of similar information for a later point. With the first reason why letters may be absent from the text, the reference to said letter already accomplishes the communication of the information which interjecting the letter itself amongst the text would perform just as well. With the second reason for keeping letters from the text, however, there seems to be an active role enacted by either the narrative or characters themselves where the withholder wishes to avoid more telling information either temporarily or indefinitely. 

      Firstly, written correspondences can be left out of the novel because simply referencing to 

them or mentioning their existence is completing the work that inserting these words would also accomplish. And yet, they must be mentioned here because they are still working as instances of letter-writing in these novels in significant ways. With writers such as Jean Rhys who obsess over word choice and are celebrated for their brevity, including letters that do not need to be included could take away from the overall intentional tone or message of these works of literature. And in projects such as Andrea Levy’s Small Island where character viewpoints are so essential to reflecting upon the events and themes of the work, including written correspondences which do not contribute to a particular character’s perspectives deters from the intentions of the work as a whole. 

      For instance, on pp. 232 of Small Island, Queenie writes instructions for bombed out citizens because they cannot hear or understand her when she tries to convey the same information through dialogue. Queenie uses words to guide them through the city in order to acquire what they need when the spoken word fails them, but because we just finish reading the dialogue through which she first tries to convey that information, it would be redundant for the novel to include the same words in letter format as well directly afterwards. These bombed out citizens require written instructions to guide them through a city that in many ways seems no longer their own. Written words give them understanding here where dialogue fails. 

      And as Queenie continues working with the community center, on pp. 233 we see Queenie directing others to fill out forms in order to prove where they used to live and what they lost due to the war. Forms are used here to replace possessions lost in response to a need to prove one’s existence as a citizen of London deserving compensation. This is also so the state can keep tabs on survivor whereabouts for relocation purposes as it begins to reestablish its role as a governing body over the people. When homes and infrastructure are blown away, society is reduced to written certificates of belonging. This hardship can resonate with individuals such as Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables or black American freedmen requiring passports within their own country. The papers here in Small Island are serving similar functions of proving the citizens’ identities as citizens during times of traumatic turmoil, and reproducing those forms would add little to this idea and may in fact distract readers from the main narrative. 

      When forms are ignored or uncompleted, however, citizens’ claims cannot be believed by the larger governmental system. On pp. 234 of Small Island, a family in need of furniture request Queenie’s assistance, but she cannot give it to them because the PC54 form had not been filled out in time for processing. Here, the written word has to work within a pre-established system and abide by certain rules in order to be officially recognized by said system. The government dynamics become characters in these instances who dominate relations between human characters such as Queenie and the homeless. Communication through written correspondences has an expiration date when people are attempting to acquire something from a governmental system in return for their words. One cannot validate one’s own experience unless expressed in a constructed language and within a set timeframe. Words here only become meaningful and long lasting if written according to a temporal deadline, and in addition to its inclusion being unnecessary, the absence of the PC54 form can reflect the failure to complete said form. 

      In addition, the letters of recommendation Hortense provides for the London education system on pp. 376 of Small Island are also kept from the readers. These letters of recommendation are judged to be insufficient qualifications in order to teach in the UK by the woman Hortense speaks to. So when “she told me [Hortense], ‘Well, I’m afraid you can’t teach here,’ and passed the unopened letters back” (pp. 375), it is fitting that we do not get the letters reproduced for us. Hortense is denied acceptance by these Englishwomen, and we are denied the ability to read these letters by the novel. 

      Although written words are more permanent than those that are spoken, they only hold respective weight if their reader grants them such. Hortense’s letters of recommendation are not even worth reading to Englishwomen because they come from Jamaica. Even if written by other Englishwomen, they are apparently not recognized by the legalities of the London educational system, thus allowing these women to take advantage of such technicalities as an excuse to make fun of the Jamaican Hortense’s attempts. This instance is somewhat like in Voyage in the Dark when Anna chooses not to keep Vincent’s letter. By dismissing it, she is communicating to Vincent that it is not important to her feelings, even if readers already know it is important to the narrative plot. Anna is using the social conventions of typically keeping letters given to convey her dislike of Vincent’s character. Written correspondences must be important enough to be inserted amongst the narrative, and so the absence of certain correspondences is indicative of characters rejecting and belittling those writings. 

       When Anna rejects Vincent’s letter, she professes it unimportant; similarly on pp. 10 when Maudie and Anna see if there are any letters waiting for them at the theatre but there are none, the narrative is communicating to the readers that they are not yet important enough to receive letters. It is significant that this is the first mention of letters in Voyage in the Dark, and it is before either Maudie or Anna have romantic male companions. It suggests that there are no letters for Maudie or Anna yet at the theater because they are not yet associated with men.  If they want to be recognized by and as Londoners, they are going to have to go out and take that recognition through developing relationships with well-off pre-established male Londoners. In the gender dynamics of this novel, a young woman cannot “get on” without catching the attention of accomplished men. Here, the novel cannot reproduce letters for readers because there are no letters yet to be found, and the absence of letters thus far reflects the main characters’ lack of status. Not only must letters be important enough to be included in the narrative, but also individuals must be important enough to receive letters. 

      Secondly, written correspondences can be left out of the narrative when the narration itself is purposefully withholding information those correspondences would give away if included. Because readers, at least upon first read of the material, are experiencing these letters as the perspective characters are revealing them to us, important letters cannot be reproduced if the characters do not deem them important at the time they are referenced. As a consequence, reading these letters would reveal imperative information that would be inconsistent with the style of both Small Island and Voyage in the Dark where we are only allowed into these worlds through particular character perspectives. 

      For instance, when Gilbert writes to Hortense regularly from London towards the beginning of Small Island, being denied those letters allows us to grow with these respective characters. By simply mentioning these correspondences, the narrative establishes the development of Gilbert and Hortense’s budding relationship and Gilbert’s honorability and loyalty to that relationship. However, there is something else that these letters convey, specifically because Gilbert writes them. Because these letters discuss Gilbert’s progress in London, by reading them they may be repeating events we will experience later on through Gilbert’s closer prose narration perspective, and by experiencing those events as Gilbert tells them to us specifically we will be closer to him because he reveals emotions and fears about what it is truly like to immigrate to London as a Jamaican man than he would have admitted to Hortense. 

      In addition, the more Gilbert is allowed to construct a narrative to events or ideas, such as when describing the bee incident with his cousin or when confronting Bernard, the more his audiences tend to perceive his sincerity and intelligence. And because Gilbert’s writing style might reveal such intelligence, their absence enables us to realize gradually with Hortense over time what potential he has. Gilbert demonstrates his admirable character again on pp. 178 when he sends Quennie letters after Arthur’s death. Gilbert writes Queenie to try and create that apologizing communication denied them when they had been separated by the mob. Keeping these letters from us aids our understanding of the growth of Gilbert and Hortense’s relationship as well as Gilbert’s growth as a character. 

      Thirdly, when written correspondences are withheld from the narrative, this can also be indicative of when characters are suppressing the content of those correspondences. When we are only allowed entrance into the worlds of these novels through character perspectives, we can only be certain of events those characters accurately tell us about. And so when characters choose not to communicate with readers about their stories, we as audiences can only infer what those choices may mean. In some instances, these character choices may be inconsequential, but when analyzing works like Voyage in the Dark and Small Island where letters play such major roles, the missing letters are just as important to character development as the included ones. And so, the absence of letter content when those letters are referenced (and obviously existing in the world of the narrative, but are nonetheless kept from our eyes) in literature, such suppression occurs when characters are either unwilling or unable to communicate with readers through the written narrative form. 

      This is exemplary in Small Island when Bernard tries to write Queenie a letter from India (pp. 330), but after four pages of memories, writer’s block, and sweating (literally), he fails. Before even beginning, he writes off telling the truth. After he begins, he compares himself to his father, but cannot finish and eventually ruins his chance to. He blames the “coolies” watching him, but ultimately he buckles under his own self-judgment and awkwardness. Even from within his own mind (prose) perspective, he cannot break out of his own parentheticals. He is constantly writing and rewriting his own thought processes, and in doing so his actions (or, rather, inactions) convey to readers his inability to accurately express his experiences to his own satisfaction. Bernard’s failure to express himself through the written word reiterates and perhaps even explains his inability to communicate his inner complexities in person through dialogue. 

       Like Bernard, Anna in Voyage in the Dark also drifts when writing a particularly difficult letter to write from her perspective. When she does finally write to Walter for help on pp. 169, Anna detaches herself from the process in order to complete the task at hand. This may seem somewhat like how Bernard in Small Island is unable to write to Queenie properly, but there are also significant differences. Anna’s situation seems more desperate because she needs Walter’s help in order to have an abortion, while Bernard’s release and subsequent transfer from the RAF is already underway. Anna separates herself from the writing process as she carries through with the act, whereas Bernard is so close to the physical presence of the page that he renders it unusable, not sending anything in the end. Nonetheless, Anna’s decision to deny us a peak at the letter she writes here represents her distance or at least desired separation from its content. Perhaps if she tries her best not to think about it, then it does not exist. Like how Queenie tries to suppress her child by dragging heavy furniture around and literally decreasing its physical presence in the world by wrapping herself in tight bandages, Anna suppresses her vulnerability by hiding the words by which she calls for help. It is as though she never reads it before sending it, and so we never get to. Characters suppress letter-writing or letters received when they hide the emotional experience associated with said letters from the readers. 

      Like Irene Adler’s possession of the photograph in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Anna’s possession of the personal letters (mentioned on pp. 174) exchanged between Walter and herself binds him to her so long as she possesses them. Vincent comes to retrieve them, and they are why Walter wants to keep in touch earlier on. At the conclusion of the last correspondence she had with these cousins, in fact, Vincent wrote, “P.S. Have you kept any of the letters Walter wrote you? If so you ought to send them back” (pp. 94). In Voyage in the Dark, Vincent seeks to take away those letters between her and Walter, so that their obligation to Anna herself can be obliterated, so that their relationship can be eliminated from the records of interpersonal discourse and her existence be put behind them. She has no longer anything to give Walter that he wants, and so Anna as a threat must be neutralized. 

       Anna is not, in the end, despite her desires, as permanent in her recorded existence as her idol Maillotte Boyd. Surrendering the letters into Vincent’s care puts the power back under male control. In addition, the very existence of these letters presents readers with evidence of the false hopes and promises Walter gave her during the course of their relationship. These professions of affection are heavier and thus possibly more harmful to Anna’s psyche in the end than readers may have previously realized upon first read. These letters’ absence from previous mentions of Walter & Anna’s relationship may be indicative of remaining trauma Anna’s still dealing with: why else do we not experience those moments with Walter when these letters had been originally exchanged? 

      Finally, and perhaps in retaliation for the way Anna is treated by the men of London, on pp. 175 she professes that Vincent’s letter, unlike Walter’s, were not worth keeping. Anna gives power to the letters she keeps. By not having Vincent’s “break-up letter”, she indicates her disapproval of his character, like when she flat out tells Walter, “I hate Vincent” (pp. 98). His correspondences have less meaning for her because she deems them less important, as though her un-recognition and invalidation of the content they contain would no longer hold any meaning or importance. Keeping the break-up letter would have been in a way agreeing with, by giving truth to what Vincent writes about her and about Walter and about their relationship or lack thereof henceforth. 

      And so, in addition to when they are physically included in literature among the narrative text, written correspondences can have a variety of different interpretations when they are visibly absent from the text as well. They can be removed for practical purposes in order to maximize narrative real estate that nonetheless perform valuable functions within the novels. They can be withheld by the narrative either temporarily or indefinitely in order to help flesh out deeper characterizations of key individuals. 

IV. When We Read What Is Not For Us 

      In both Small Island and Voyage in the Dark, there are instances where letters are included, referenced to, and discussed by and between characters during which the writer of said letter is not present. During these discussions, one character reveals to the perspective character (the character that is narrating the section) the contents of a letter that was not addressed to them but nonetheless the information conveyed within is intended for their understanding. Like overhearing others gossiping about a character behind her back, this technique provides readers with an additional third person perspective outside of the usual narrative voice which lets us know what other characters think of our perspective character’s behavior. 

       For instance, in Small Island Hortense is allowed to read a letter about Michael’s MIA RAF military status (pp. 64 – 65). This letter is addressed to Hortense’s superior because she is deemed more important than Hortense and thus more worthy of receiving written correspondence from someone of their higher class. This is one of the key subtle examples the text gives us that Hortense is looked down upon even from within her own family group because of the origins of her birth. Nonetheless, her supervisor is perhaps more sympathetic to her situation when she recognizes that the information the contents of this letter conveys is meant for Hortense. She is the one that needs to know what could have happened to Michael, because they were so close as children. The formal diction implies the worst has occurred, but Hortense takes it well because any news regarding Michael is welcome news. Written correspondence of any kind about loved ones seems better than no correspondences at all. 

      In Voyage in the Dark, however, Anna is more affected by listening to letters not addressed to her because they more overtly discuss her personally. Hester mentions, for instance, how she has been writing letters to Uncle Bo in the West Indies specifically about Anna (pp. 59). Like Michael Roberts’ MIA notice, Anna has to listen to a letter that was not written to her but is nonetheless necessarily about her and so intended for her to understand. In any case, Hester provides this evidence to support her own opinions regarding Anna’s position, character, and subsequent behavior. 

       Anna is further exposed to experiencing written correspondences that she does not participate in and yet is a part of, when she must listen to Hester repeating Uncle Bo’s reply letter about Anna (pp. 60 – 61). Through Uncle Bo’s written perspective (and if we can trust that Hester is reading the correspondence without her own editions), we get a state of Dominica that is not from Anna’s perspective. It makes Dominica more real because it is not just a figment of Anna’s imagination, but we are building our own interpretations of what the West Indies represent in this novel from multiple character inputs. 

      And so, yes, we get a sense that Dominica is a beautiful place, but there are still more opportunities for Anna “to get on” in London. This helps explain to readers why Anna does not leave England to return to Dominica, even if Anna does not explain it to us herself. Dominica may represent a happier place and time for Anna in Voyage in the Dark, but it is not the same because it can no longer receive the older Anna or larger world’s problems; and we know this through how it is presented in letters that are out of Anna’s control. 

      Furthermore, Uncle Bo’s reference on pp. 61 to Anna’s postcard she sends him from Blackpool allows us to better analyze her relationship with her extended family using evidence outside of her own memories or dream sequences.  This demonstrates Anna’s inability, like Bernard in Small Island, to express the meaningful—or even the more mundane—events that are happening in her life on a daily basis. Since this is a postcard, it is naturally a more public medium and therefore less personal mode of communication. It is not surprising that she would be less revealing in a postcard than she might be in a sealed letter correspondence. 

      But is there truly nothing else that she could have said? Could it have been a cry for help or communication, albeit failed, by the very action of it being sent to Uncle Bo instead of Hester? Is there no meaning beneath the surface of “’This is a very windy place,’ which doesn’t tell us [Uncle Bo and his family] much about how she is getting on” (pp. 61)? Perhaps the very fact that Anna does not mention how she is “getting on” is indicative that she is not getting on. The postcard is a less personal or heartfelt medium, and one that as mentioned before Hester may utilize to punish Anna for her unsatisfactory lifestyle choices. 

      And so, when perspective characters read letters that are not addressed to them specifically but still are related to their existence, those characters and readers both are exposed to additional opinions within the novel regarding that character’s personality, behavior, and lifestyle. In Small Island, Hortense’s family fails to recognize her right to receive a personal letter regarding Michael’s military status by not bothering to send her one, whereas secondary discussions are used as evidence against Anna’s person and actions in Voyage in the Dark. While positive opinions being expressed through secondary correspondences cannot be overruled, in the examples provided here we are provided with negative opinions that otherwise would be unavailable to readers through the usual character perspectives. 

V. Dealing With the Collection 

      The most challenging aspect about this letter-essay is that it is neither an encyclopedia on the examples of written correspondences as represented in literature, nor is it a definitive guideline on how to understand what it means when written correspondences are represented in literature. And yet, this is more than an admission that the study of literary correspondences is a complex field that has only just begun to be delved into. 

      We have looked at how they work physically within these texts, what it can mean when they are absent from the text, and the effect of witnessing information for oneself in a letter secondhand. Within all of these instances, in its base nature, letters are communicating the act of communication through the written word. But there is something in the written word that gives this communication either different meanings or more meaning than if that same information had been expressed either through dialogue or prose. 

      Special Delivery: Epistolary Modes in Modern Fiction mentions in its introduction how, “As a feminist critic, Kauffman insisted that women’s subjectivity is not only the product of language, not only the product of material reality, not only the product of individual will and grit, but of all three” (pp. ix). This mode in which letter-writing and written correspondences in literature can be interpreted underscores the complexity of such a form. The letters are difficult to fully understand because they can mean and be taken to mean a variety of readings of the same text. Kauffman helps us engage with the possibilities of meaning by posing that they can mean all of the various meanings at once. The letters in Small Island and Voyage in the Dark, therefore, cannot be pinned down to a single interpretation, but are working on multiple levels simultaneously. 

      Especially in Voyage in the Dark, however, letter-writing exemplifies the lack of agency women have because of when they are expected to write and what they are expected to write, and how they are denied the possession of letters when having them could be detrimental to men. They also imply the physicality of the world the narrative creates or attempts to imitate in the ways in which they are structured in relation to the surrounding prose narrative of the novel. They also express agency and wit on the part of the letter’s writer in certain instances because there is an inherent foresight, education, and intention that must be put into letters as they are being constructed. Anna expresses agency when she chooses not to write to Walter even though he tells her to after they separate, and then again when she throws away Vincent’s letter, making a point that Walter is more important and thus his words are worth keeping, not Vincent’s. 

      Yes, there are key correspondences between hetero-normative characters of opposite genders, such as when Gilbert sends letters to Queenie apologizing for the events surrounding Arthur’s death or when Bernard is unable to express himself through written words to his wife Queenie back home, but the larger function of letters in Small Island seems to be functional, or at least are included for a lot more reasons than to elaborate upon gender issues. In contrast, the only strictly non-gender specific, or gender inflected, written correspondence in Voyage in the Dark is when Anna receives birthday wishes from a choir girl friend. Even the postcard sent to her Uncle Bo is only referenced within a letter from Uncle Bo to Hester as evidence of Anna’s ineptitude in “getting on” in London, which is expected of her as a young woman at this time period as represented in the world of the novel. 

      In conclusion, as expressed in Postal Plots in British Fiction, 1840 – 1898: Readdressing Correspondence in Victorian Culture, “plot movement, characterization, and the ‘reality effect’ of letters are some of the reasons why novelists created fictional correspondents. These uses explain the literary functions of the letters, and writers continue using letters (and email) for the same purposes into the present” (pp. 1). Letters exist as physical entities within the literary worlds they inhabit, and as they move around and are read by different characters, they cause key plot events to unfold. They bring together characters that otherwise may not have been easily brought together, and the absence of letter-writing (such as when Bernard fails to write Queenie from India or even after first returning to England) where the technology exists drives characters further apart. 

       Authors who convey in their literature that characters are writing to one another, above all else are communicating to readers that these characters are communicating with one another. Unless we are given specific textual cues, it is difficult to tell whether or not characters are truly speaking or listening to one another during dialogue sequences. But there is something about the time, effort, and physical presence of a written correspondence that demands attention. Written correspondences seem to offer a better sense of communication and the ability to communicate one’s thoughts and intentions to an intended recipient. 

      And so, through studying how individuals write and experience writing in Small Island, Voyage in the Dark, other literary and scholarly examples, and between ourselves, we can understand and appreciate communication on a larger scale. The ability to and practice of communicating with one another, after all, is one of the imperative descriptors by which we define ourselves as human. And so by looking to written correspondences in literature, we are looking at how we write to each other in real life, and by extension, we are communicating with ourselves. 

Sincerely, 

Catherine Puma 

P.S. - Read, and write, wisely. 

Bibliography: 

Bannet, Eve Taylor. Empire of Letter: Letter Manuals and Transatlantic Correspondence, 1680 – 

1820. Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. 

Barton, David, and Nigel Hall (Editors). Letter Writing as a Social Practice. John Benjamins Publishing, 2000. Google eBook. 

Decker, William Merrill. Epistolary Practices: Letter Writing in America Before Telecommunications. University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Print. 

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes, Volume I. Barnes & Noble Classics. Print. 

Hugo, Victor, Norman Denny (Translator), and Robert Tombs (Introduction). Les Misérables. Penguin Publishing Group, 2012. Print. 

Kaufman, Linda S., and Catherine R. Stimpson. Special Delivery: Epistolary Modes in Modern Fiction. University of Chicago Press, 1991. ProQuest. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. 

Levy, Andrea. Small Island. Second Picador Edition. Picador, 2010. Print. 

Rhys, Jean. Voyage in the Dark. Norton Paperback Fiction, 1982. Print. 

Rotunno, Laura. Postal Plots in British Fiction, 1840 – 1898: Readdressing Correspondence in Victorian Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. ProQuest. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.