Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing: Reality vs. Romance in Margaret Drabble's The Realms of Gold

Drabble, Margaret. The Realms of Gold. New York: Popular Library, 1975.

Margaret Drabble's novel The Realms of Gold raises the most frustrating questions for my self-actualization study: Can we self-actualize while participating in a long-standing, physical, loving partnership. But is that the same as participating in a romance with all of its fantasy, flirtations, and frivolity? Think Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City. Or must we choose between falling in love and self-actualizing?

Let me briefly review what I consider to be the three characteristics of self-actualizers as gleaned from my reading of Abraham Maslow:

1. self-knowledge and self-acceptance;
2. rebellion against unhealthy acculturation; and
   
3. committing to something/one beyond one's self.

Fulfilling these criteria requires balancing the time we devote to living the examined life, rebelling against the unexamined life, and improving our world through relationships. The Realms of Gold explores the tension between loving another—as lover, wife or mother—and loving yourself—as a follower of one's passions. When we first meet Frances, she projects herself as a woman operating at the height of her career, having divorced her husband, disconnected from her lover, and traveled apart from her five children to attend a conference in some remote African town. Eating voraciously, drinking even more, socializing heartily, and networking skillfully, Frances is aware of exactly how talented yet lucky she is.

From this lofty perch, she quickly begins to sway. As we'd expect, the roles of being an archaeologist, an ex-wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a colleague, and a lover conflict and, in Frances' case, trying to excel at all of those roles depresses her. She laments: Why, oh why, did she send Karel—the love of her life—away? After all, Karel (though married and intent to remain married) was obsessed with Frances. Frances, though divorced, had relished his obsession to the extent that she voluntarily limited her social and professional associations and interactions. Unlike most romances, which become boring because the people are dull to begin with, their romance flourished—despite Karel's limited availability. So what went wrong for France and inspire her to reject him? Is she spoiled? Or is she rebelling against an unhealthy relationship as all self-actualizers must do. Mulling over the past six months since the break-up, Frances settles on the latter reason: her self-actualization had suffered because she had abdicated control of her life—refusing friends and career opportunities. Without these venues, she loses too much control over her life and in its place, depression seizes its own control.

But there is more than the failure of romance that contributes to Frances' depression. According to the novel, all human understanding requires excavating the past. We are all (to some extent) “to the manor born,” products of our landscapes, doomed to repeat our parents' mistakes, and programmed to carry on our family's temperaments. As an archeologist, Frances returns to the origins of her first marriage. Like Janet Bird, her second cousin, Frances knew she married the wrong man for the wrong reasons. Readers will find no illusions of romance in this novel's first marriages. These blushing brides have a bad feeling at the altar, stemming from a social compulsion to marry, which leads to a poor choice of mate. Boredom quickly sets in, followed by tension, hostility, and violence. The reality of hostile marriages replaces the typical cinematic view of romance. Even Karel, for all his saintliness, regularly beats his wife, who, according to our narrator provokes him into a physical fight every time. The novel, it seems, approves. At least it does not disapprove. Amidst this violence, wives' and husbands' hearts harden. Isolated, raising children, counting coins, tolerating inexpert sex partners, young wives wish that their mothers had warned them before they'd married and reluctantly seek help from their clergymen and doctors, who spew Stoic platitudes. No wonder their thoughts turn violent. Without a husband's love and support, a wife becomes insecure, bitter, mean-spirited, and grasping. She becomes a type of petty woman, much like those Moliere mocks, like the one Janet Bird is likely to become. Such unloved wives pathetically attempt to salvage control and esteem by competing with other unloved wives in the arena of illusive domestic perfection. Amidst this boredom and violence, the romance fantasy has been replaced with the dream of rejecting the unloved from one's bed and sleeping alone. Solitude becomes the lure of divorce. Such are the dreams of these unloved wives.

Motherhood breeds its own set of disappointments and hostilities. We recall from the novel's beginning that the female octopus invariably dies after giving birth. In the human species, full-term and postpartum mothers are labeled moody at best and hysterical at worst. When the babies arrive, mothers (and fathers like Stephen) become consumed with anxiety over the possibilities of sicknesses, accidents, and arrested developments. Frances' mother's solution is planned parenthood. She spews sterile views about sex while flirting with Frances' beaus. Unable to act her age, her mother suffers her new role of being a great-grandmother as a stigma. Frances speculates that her mother secretly abhors sex and wonders if frigidity and gynecology is not a particularly dangerous combination for a feminist. It's hard to argue with that. As a young woman Frances parroted her mother's predatory nature until she saw herself as distorted version of her mother's coquettishness. Rejecting her mother's behavior and views, Frances comes to believe in single-parenthood. For her, women can love either a man or their children. But not both. What she seems to assume is that being in love with a man is like having another child: he affords her no reciprocity and assistance. And without a man's love and support (which this novel illustrates is unlikely), a woman can either serve the role of good wife or good mother. Otherwise, she is a “goodenoughmother.” Frances recalls Bernard Malinowski's theories of families, which run counter to British practices of her day. Worst of all for Frances is the parent who sacrifices for the children because, ironically, the children will grow independent very fast and disconnect from their needy parents.

With marriage and parenting being so problematic, it's no wonder that the novel wonders who's to blame. Focusing so extensively on whether we are merely culturally constructed and/or independently charged, The Realms of Gold wonders if we are only projections of our past patterns and present stereotypes. For Frances, the past imposes family tendencies toward depression and suicides. Considering that, it is interesting that she pursues a career in archeology. Does she hope to restore a more pleasant buried happy family memory? If so, archeology fails her. She finds no restorative for her depression while rediscovering an African city or lecturing about tribal burial rituals. However, Frances has developed some successful coping mechanisms for her depression amidst her family members' depressions. One of her strategies involves activity. Unlike Janet, who accepts the criticism of her male art teacher and allows her own creativity to be stifled, Frances keeps herself whirlwind busy—traveling, lecturing, digging up stuff, rediscovering cities, eating, drinking, and conversing. Although she claims to have become a self-imposed recluse during her affair with Karel, this is not the Frances we ever see. We witness a Frances, who among her colleagues, is toasting, swimming, joking, and adventuring with the most energetic of the group. She is an accomplished flirt, like her mother, but unlike her mother, knows when to quit, reigning herself in before she's damaged her professional retribution. Clingy, horny men pose no real threat to her, so adept is she at channeling their unwelcome attention to a more receptive female candidate. Without guilt, she leaves her children with her ex and his wife. Although Karel holds this against her (and likely, others judged her a negligent mother), why shouldn't she leave the children with their father? (Do we see any of the fathers at this African conference with their children in tow? Do we hear any judgments of them?) In addition to activity, another strategy she uses to ward off depression is to accept its cyclic nature. This is a huge self-awareness and self-acceptance step for Frances' self-actualization. It will pass, she reassures herself. In addition, Frances has learned to harness her neurosis. For example her vanity, she realizes, will eventually offset her boredom. Participating in existential questioning regarding the order/disorder of the universe with her father and regarding justice issues with Stephen, Frances genuinely struggles with the meaning of life while suspecting that it just human nature to be dissatisfied. But unlike her father—who, after ascending beyond his family's social class eventually succumbs to depression—and unlike her brother—who dedicates himself to “the end of things,” ultimately committing suicide and infanticide—Frances musters some “acts of faith” and accepts that all human effort is banal. This turns out to be a good thing. For Frances, like all self-actualizers, there must be a balance between on the one hand looking our for yourself—pursuing your happiness, hardening your heart against unhealthy influences and practices, and minding your own business even if, like Karel, that involves disassociating yourself from unhealthy relationships, and on the other hand, being socially responsible and being grateful that you are one of the lucky ones in this world. Frances, despite her wallowing in rejected love, aching tooth, dysfunctional family relationships, and insecure body image, knows that she is both talented and fortunate. She appreciates that she lives more happily than the young wives stifled by their inept husbands and the adults she knows who still compete for their parents' attention. The stone she feels in her chest, which she finally identifies as her boredom and desire to escape to the past, dissolves as she accepts that every woman needs a man and every man needs a woman.

She needs Karel and Karel needs her. And now we're back to my self-actualization dilemma involving the place of romance. Or are we? Far removed from any “Reader, I married him” ending, Drabble reunites Karel and Frances without any romance—no fantasy, flirtatiousness, or frivolity. Anticipating their reunion from the beginning, readers may be disappointed that Karel can barely walk and talk—so sick is he. He doesn't look good and probably smells worse. Drabble not only removes all romantic trappings but also, intrudes on the couple's intimacy after having withstood a long hiatus and a series of misunderstandings as Karel returns with a companion. David, Frances' second cousin, has escorted the withering Karel back from Africa where he has flown after finally receiving Frances' vague apology. Unfortunately, she has just departed for home. Someone's been reading her Dickens. With David in tow and Karel out of commission, readers must become satisfied with an unromantic ending. In this same realistic vein, Karel and Frances see each others' foibles and their own, more clearly. Karel, for his part, comes to terms with his neediness and attempts to play God—trying to appease everyone, including a wife who once divorced pursues life as a lesbian. Frances, for her part, stops scoffing at the simple life and acknowledges that the simple life brings happiness—a nice home with nice people acting hospitably. Lest that sound banal, Frances suspects that the hostess whom she admires has the power to give sex and get exactly what she wants. She is no June Cleaver.

The novel ends with Karel and his children living with Frances and her children in a simple country cottage inherited by her father after his sister starved to death and bought by France. No romantic acquisition there. Reminding us of Frances' wisdom tooth decay, Karel's lost bridge hidden in Frances' bra, and Janet's baby's teething, Karel loses another tooth. Again, no romance. The couple receives the most unassuming of wedding gifts from David—a “pale-yellow [yellow dominates the novel, as the title would suggest] silica glass that he had picked up himself n the dessert; scooped, pitted, smoothly irregular, carved and weathered by the desert wind, apparently translucent but finally opaque.” Our narrator proclaims this to be “an appropriate gift” (348). Again, Drabble goes out of her way to eschew a fantasy ending. In fact, our narrator twice invites us to challenge the ending: “So there you are. Invent a more suitable ending if you can” followed by “[s]he will not care: she is not listening. A happy ending, you may say” (246-247). Not just Frances this time, but both she and Karel minimize their professional responsibilities and cobble their family commitments with their couple commitments. Gone is Frances' assertion that it's either marriage or parenting.

What exactly has transformed her conviction that being a wife impairs being a mother? Is it that she's with a man she loves who loves her? “Ain't nothin' like the real thing”? Is it that they've both lowered their expectations, detouring from romance toward social responsibility and simple living? Have they matured enough to discover that the lucky living owe the dead their attempts to salvage life's moments? Reflecting upon Stephen's suicide and infanticide, Frances ponders:

“[I]f one can salvage one moment from the sentence of death let us do so,

let us catch at it, for we owe it to the dead, to the others, and it is all the

living and the lucky can do for the dead, all they can do, given the chance,

is to rejoice: overcome with joy she lay there, with joy she lay awake and

thought of the gold baroque of Prague, and Kafka the mad Jew, and of

those perilous gravestones, gravestones, her profession, her trade, her

living, on account of which (account, account) she lay her with Karel in

this double bed” (345).

Many years after this epiphany, Frances is gazing into a quartz at David's apartment and notes that “it was dense and translucent within, streaked by refraction, like a petrified forest.” Lest you miss the novel's meaning, our narrator explains: “Human nature is truly impenetrable, she said to herself” (348). Seeing David's pied-à-terre for the first time becomes “one of the biggest surprises of Frances' life.” Frances is surprised that this is no “shabby neglected hovel or bedsitter” (348). Just as she has misprisioned the field clearers and stereotyped the Janets of this world, Frances misjudges David's private life. But Karel is not surprised at all, which is the novel's last line. It seems that in the final analysis, they make a comfortable and complimentary pair. Human nature may be “impenetrable” but that's all the more reason that we need our soul mates to keep our Othering in check and our minds open to surprises.

At Mrs. Lippincote's: Elizabeth Taylor (the novelist) begins her journey of female self-actualization

     R&E has finished reading the twelve novels of Elizabeth Taylor, a 20th century British writer. R&E has decided to reread each through the lens of female self-actualization. That lens esteems another’s life vis-à-vis three of Abraham Maslow’s criteria: 1. self-reflection and self-acceptance; 2. resistance to forced and debilitating cultural assimilation; and 3. care for and cultivation of the world.


Let’s start at the very beginning...

Taylor, Elizabeth. 1945. At Mrs Lippincote’s. London: Virago Press, 1988.

A discussion of female self-actualization in Elizabeth Taylor’s first novel begins with a brief catalogue of the interesting female characters, leaving to last the protagonist and a discussion of her possible and potential self-actualization.

Eleanor, Roddy’s cousin, convalesces from a recent nervous breakdown with him, his wife, and their child at a rented house—Mrs. Lippincote’s. She adores her cousin although she lies to him about her associations with Communists, whom she romanticizes as the only people she knows who aren’t lonely. Eleanor condemns Julia’s drinking, parenting, husbandry, and wifedom. In short, Eleanor subscribes to the major female master narratives of being a good little wife, effective house manager, and devoted mother. Good for her. You will not be surprised to know that Eleanor has never walked in any of those shoes. As such, R&E sees no reason to believe that she would accomplish more than her nemesis, Julia. She’d do better to take a less self-pitying look at her own life in an attempt to discover why she suffered a nervous breakdown. Low marks for self-reflection. Low marks, also, for resisting acculturation, especially when forcing domesticity on another. In terms of improving the world, she would get right on that except for one obstacle: “’I should make a good revolutionary, if it were not for my back. I am willing to do die for my beliefs, as someone else once said, but I forget who, but not to-day. Not till my back is better’” (119). Low marks for improving the world.

Vera, far less culturally conscripted than Eleanor, also fails to impress me. Barely concealed rudeness and inflexibility exude from her. She is loyal to a few, and dismissive of the rest. Her single-focused life is more of a bohemian luxury than a badge of honor. Following her about is like reading Thoreau. One is inclined to grant her her freedom and unconventionality, but one wonders about a society populated with Thoreaus and Veras. Who’s changing the babies’ nappies? To her credit, she is hard working; but in a Chicken Little way—accounting for everyone share without flexibility, generosity, and forgiveness. In short, she’s a bohemian snob and she knows it. Temporary high marks for self-acceptance. But without self-reflection, this amounts to more of a “my way or the high way” bravado than living the examined life. Where she shines is with Maslow’s second self-actualization criteria: resisting acculturation. Except that this shouldn’t be the goal—to rebel—but the logical and unavoidable worldview in order to self-actualize. There’s a difference between “Screw you and the horse you rode in on” and thoughtful rejection of master narratives that abuse power. Finally, fair marks for cultivating a better world if we are satisfied with one or two relationships. R&E is, after all, not much of a cause promoter and more of a hospitality vigilant. (See hospitalitymorality.blogspot for that angle.)

Next, we have Miss Phyllis, who is Mrs. Lippincote’s daughter. She randomly creeps around the house without permission or notice. She’s creepy—not in a sinister way but in an unpredictable way. Basically, R&E suspects that she serves to highlight the hospitality limitations of Roddy and Eleanor, who freak out. We have to disqualify her as a self-actualizer because she has no apparent goals.

Felicity is the Wing Commander’s young daughter, a sneaky girl with a taste for adventure. She is the child he deserves and will probably cause him more trouble as she ages. But she’s too immature to determine any self-actualizing potential.

That leaves us with our protagonist. Does Julia, Roddy’s wife, self-actualize during the course of the novel? If not, does she demonstrate self-actualizing potential? No and yes. No, because she ultimately acquiesces to domesticity and a wife = appendage mindset. Yes, because she has thoughtfully reflected about the female master narratives of good wife and good mother; spoken brazenly against both, especially, the first; and attempted to cultivate a better world through a nonconventional friendship. That is, fulfilling all three criteria at one point in the novel, Julia Davenant almost self-actualizes. Almost. Let’s pursue her potential through each criteria.

First, self-awareness and self-acceptance. Julia knows herself to be lonely, frustrated, and confined. She knows that she’s living no Bronte fantasy, nor does she want to be. Second, her malaise inspires her rebellion. Mid-way through the novel, she rejects that malaise as a natural or necessary female state. To Eleanor, the Wing Commander, and Roddy, Julia emphatically blasts cultural expectations. She journeys out of her house, begins to establish a meaningful (non-Madame Bovary) relationship, and struggles to remain a responsible family member. High marks for rejecting cultural norms. Unfortunately, the military orders mandate another move; and instantly, Julia returns to being a dutiful, although resentful, wife. She is back to the female master narrative script.

Where does her self-actualization go wrong? Why does she, with such a good education, clear self-concept, and strong temperament, retreat to a worn-out path of subservience, restraint, and hypocrisy? We return to Maslow’s three criteria for the answer. So far, we’ve established high marks for self-reflection and self-acceptance. “’I love myself,’ she said lightly. … ‘And then,’ she added, ‘miles down the scale, in a vague, bewildered way, I love you.’ Then he knew she was truly drunk” (26). Yes, Julia loves herself. And we have already established her rebellions against female acculturation. But although she has high marks for the first two criteria, she has low marks for the last. She has failed to become truly acquainted with anyone else although, in fairness, she tries. Although Mr. Taylor’s death seems to truncate the genesis of an authentic relationship, readers soon realize through Julia’s conversation with his mother that much of how he has presented himself has been false. Disillusioned, Julia gives up not just because the military is manipulating her life, her husband is closer to his cousin than to his wife, and her son is peculiarly backward for his age, but because she realizes that her best efforts to eschew the female master narrative without succumbing to a romance (just try to count the Bronte references) has failed. She has been deceived into a “friendship,” which, ironically destroys her more than would the knowledge of her husband’s affair. What is so damn frustrating about this novel is the accuracy of the passive voice in the last sentence. Julia is cheated by someone else. We don’t really know why Mr. Taylor misrepresents himself. Why don’t even know why her husband has an affair (that Julia may or may not suspect). And we don’t know why Eleanor, her son, and the Wing Commander deceiver her?

Although unaware of most of these lies, Julia lives painfully aware of her disconnectedness. Julia recognizes that she is disconnected from Roddy and everyone else in her life because she has failed to others as “real people”—a lament she expresses on the penultimate page of the novel. At the novel’s end, Julia closes Mrs. Lippincote’s curtains when she sees another lying man—Mr. Aldridge—pass by. After my second reading, I’m puzzled. Why is everyone lying? Is it their fault? Is it society’s? Are we all required to live lives of “double consciousness” behind veils of deception in order to survive and acculturate? Is there no other, more honest, way? Is it simply impossible to live the examined life and improve the world?

R&E is fond of the word “authentic” when describing truthful human relationships. According to Maslow and HM concurs, we can not self-actualize without authentic human relationships. Not causes. Not dramas. Not romances. And not attempts to replicate stories, which Julia, the Wing Commander, and Oliver desperately try to do. All those substitutes for living authentically with others not only diminish our lives but prevent our self-actualizing. We cannot love with deceit, At Mrs. Lippincote’s warns us. Little acts matter. Whether it’s spying into someone’s papers when we’re her boarder, mentally criticizing those we’ve invited into our homes, or lying about our whereabouts, minor secrets and discretions enervate our integrity—and prevent our self-actualizing. To be true to ourselves and rebel against the world’s unfair expectations without standing for and with at least one other person proves a hollow life. At Mrs. Lippincote’s last exchange between husband and wife reveals Julia’s deficiency: “’If we could see one another as real people…’ she began. ‘You are inquisitive about little things, but about this.. [says Roddy].’ ‘I am a coward,’ she agreed” (214). Of course, that’s not what he said or probably meant, which is part of the problem. She misprisions his remark. However, despite their miscommunication, Julia self-assesses with acumen. Why hasn’t she been able to see one other person as a real person? Because that requires risks—exposure, honesty, trust, and disinterested self-righteousness. And although Julia knows and accepts herself well and although Julia ideologically rejects cultural assimilation power abuses, she is too cowardly to take the final step to self-actualize. She has neglect the “act” in “self-actualizing” by failing to act for the betterment of someone else. All her bravado is for naught because looking out the window at Mr. Aldridge who “should have been dead months ago,” she accepts that his deceit is the way of life. And, without the courage to authentically connect to another person, she participates in the world’s deception.

R&E doesn’t suggest that At Mrs. Lippincote’s sanctions such cowardliness. Perhaps, Julia’s confession serves as the novel’s proscription. That’s the case that R&E has tried to make. However, R&E can make no case that the novel serves its readers a prescription for cowardliness. R&E will continue to reread the remaining eleven novels in hope that better news will come. Until then, R&E wonders how we can surmount our cowardliness and “see one another as real people.”