The Double Voice of Metaphor: A. S.

Byatt's "Morpho Eugenia" Author(s): Heidi Hansson Reviewed work(s): Source: Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Winter, 1999), pp. 452-466 Published by: Hofstra University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/441947 . Accessed: 05/12/2012 13:03
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The DoubleVoiceofMetaphor: A. S. Byatt's "Morpho Eugenia"

HEIDI HANSSON

tool. Analogyis a slippery double voice of fiction a

-A. S. Byatt(100) because it

but also literature as a whole.' This doubleness is postmodernliterature in noticeable works that withgeparticularly openlydisplaytheiraffiliation nericconventions or older works, such asJ. M. Coetzee's Foe (1986), which rewrites Robinson PeterAckroyd's Hawksmoor Crusoe, (1985), whichis structuredlikea detective or A. S. Possession (1990), LindsayClarke's story, Byatt's The Chymical The Fowles's French Lieutenant's Woman (1989), John Wedding and Susan The Volcano Lover which all build on ro(1969), (1992), Sontag's mance conventions. Such doublenessresembles insofar as allegory, allegory defines the momentwhen one text is read throughthe lens of another withprevioustextsin their (Owens pt. 1, 68). By thus allyingthemselves and conventional and genres by fusing postmodernnarrative strategies, these literary destabilize our of traditional works, hybrids interpretations and, at least in the case of the postmodernromances,manage both to reread theirtradition and revitalize its twentieth-century appearance.2Thus the multiplenarrative and the consistent voices,the open contradictions, resistance to totalizing in a postmodern answers romancelikePossession can be seen as continuingthe allegoricalmode of the "high"romancesof the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance,as questioningthe apparentuniforthose complex and mityof women's popular romances,and as restoring characterizedthe romance but seem sophisticated qualities thatformerly to have disappearedfromitstwentieth-century manifestations. 452

postmodern presents challenge The requires that we question the way we read and interpretnot only

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BYATT'S "MORPHO EUGENIA" in itsparodies of scholarsinfluencedbyFrench Even thoughPossession feminism and Lacanian psychoanalysis containsa fairamountof critiqueof itsignalsitsown postmodernity and attitudes, poststructuralist postmodern devices like narrative paradox,ambiguity, through fluctuating perspectives, and self-reflexivity. The shortstoriesin Byatt'sTheDjinn in the Nightingale's Eye (1994) can also be categorized as postmodern fictions,especially in apparently realstructures throughthe inclusionof magic and fairy-tale Babel is another istictales,and thedisjunctive narrative of Tower (1996) style interest in postmodernliterary example of Byatt's techniques.Workslike these,whichopenlydisplaytheirpostmodern links,need to be approached in a waythatcan acknowledgethemultiple that meaningsproduced.Works narratives at least on the surfacelook like straightforward mightappear to be anothermatter. But are they?Consider the novella "Morpho Eugenia" in Byatt's In contrast and Insects. to Possession, "Morpho Eugenia" is Angels in set the there is no and visible firmly twentieth-century past, perspective in the telling. The story is mainlytold byan omniscient and even narrator, it is fictional texts written the variwith interspersed by though ostensibly in the novella,these do not represent ous characters different voices and to the extentthey do in Possession. perspectives shifting romance and con"Morpho Eugenia" opens like a women's historical tinues like a Victoriannovel about love, marriage,society'sexpectations, social injustices,Darwin, and religion.Benineteenth-century hypocrisy, in Angels cause thestories andInsects are setin the 1860sand 1870s and deal with Victorian have describedthediptych as "resolutely concerns,reviewers in tone and content" (Hughes 49), and A. S. Byattas "a mid-Victorian Victorianist Iris Murdoch" (Butler). The postmodernconnectionis consesees continuities betweenthe however, quentlyoverlooked.One reviewer, Victoriannoveland postmodernism to Byatt when he refers as a "postmodwho findsthe groundsof her postmodernity in "an earnest ern Victorian" to get back beforethe modernsand revive a Victorianprojectthat attempt has neverbeen allowed to come to completion" (Levenson 41). Like the is a storyteller who continuesthe novelists, greatnineteenth-century Byatt Victoriantradition of describingthe individualin society, but it does not followthatshe exercisesher storywriter's to present automatically authority totalworldvisions.3 "MorphoEugenia" appears to be double-voicedonlyin itsextensive use of analogyin comparingtheworldof theVictorianhousehold withthatofinsects, buteventhoughthenarrative seemsstableenough, a struggle is going on withinthe textitself, so thatat timesnarrative and To read thenovellaas a postmodern language seem to be at cross-purposes. as a postmodern Victoriannovel,ifsuch a hybrid can existromance---or to account for the thisgivesriseto. helps ambiguities 453

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Y LITERATURE TWENTIETHCENTUR The prominenceof comparisons, analogies,and metaphorsplaces the a quintessentially medievalor novellain the tradition ofallegoricalwriting, of postmodernism Renaissance genre. But allegoryis also characteristic at (Owens pt. 2, 64). In Deborah Madsen's words,"[a]llegory flourishes textsof when the most authoritative timesof intense culturaldisruption, and reassessment" the cultureare subject to revaluation (135). Such reassessmenttakes place when a photographerlike SherrieLevine takes picor whenCoetzee's Foe,MarinaWarner's turesoffamousphotographs Indigo The Crusoe, (1992), and PeterCarey'sJack Maggs(1998) reappraiseRobinson in an relaGreat like these stand and Works allegorical Tempest, Expectations. to thesubjectsthey butitis notaltogether clearwhich tionship appropriate, meanof theworksinvolvedrepresents the literaland whichthe figurative is the texts of an The hierarchical relation between unstable, ing allegory. of since it is equallypossible to read the modernworksthroughthe filters as the reverse. theirpredecessors of the late twentieth as well as of postmodern A characteristic century, is thatcertainties are continuously called intoquestion,and thus literature, becomes a suitableform forexpression.The model is certainly not allegory on the contrary, is a alien to postmodernism: classic allegory example of double discourse,as well as a textualmode that-like postmodernliterature-avoids establishing a centerwithinthe text,because in allegorythe of the work is there.This thatis not explicitly unity providedbysomething lastpointis wherepostmodern from differ traditional ones, howallegories ever,because mostallegoriesdepend on the existenceof a recognizedand more or less universally accepted frameof referenceoutside the text.But likeJohnBunyancould presupwhere,forexample,a Protestant allegorist his reader's of the the can take Bible, pose knowledge postmodern allegorist no referent forgranted.As a consequence, postmodernallegoryis notoriof a worklike ouslyunstable,and a conventional allegoricalinterpretation becomes no because "MorphoEugenia" impossible, singlekeycan explain the meaningof the analogies. The question is: who is in chargeof decoding the allegory? In contrast to symbols, which are generallytaken to transcendthe sign and express universal dividethesign,exposingitsarbitruths, allegoriesand metaphors trariness litera(Smith106). Thus the allegoricalimpulsein contemporary turecan be seen as a reflection of the postmodernemphasison the reader as coproducer,since it invites the reader's activeparticipation in meaning of authorialpower: remaking.But allegories can also be manifestations didacticworksthatresolutely directthe reader's interpretations. lentlessly Viewed in thisway, (Smith 120). If allegoryrequires allegoryis reactionary thepresenceofa fixed,culture-specific, author-controlled the noreferent, 454

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BYATT'S "MORPHO EUGENIA" tion of a postmodernallegoricalformis contradictory indeed. If, on the other hand, allegoriesserve to destabilizethe relationbetweenword and meaning,betweenformand essence, such textsbecome verysuitableexIn "Morof accurate representation. pressionsof the postmoderndistrust in the reader can discover several pho Eugenia" meanings dialogue with each other,and the hierarchicalrelationbetweena monologic "message" and theallegoricalform thatobscuresitcollapses.This is precisely themark of postmodern allegory. The comparisonsbetween,forinstance,people and insectsin Byatt's accuses Byattof novella are quite explicit,so much so that one reviewer a the with trowel" and another (Lesser), sighsthat"she "applying message him in and follows the readeraround witha cowhorn, instructing thought an action and lettingthe reader enjoy the reaction,ratherthan rendering illusion of freedomin his engagementwiththe text" (Tate 60). The descriptionof the clash betweenan aristocratic societyand a new,work-oriented one seems to invitea politicalreading,and the feminization of the insectmetaphorssuggestsa reading in termsof gender struggle. But the of the comparisonsis illusory, and the meaningsof apparenttransparency the analogies remainunsteady. uses even trite, common, metaphors, Byatt but she uses the same metaphorin severaldifferent whichdrawsatways, tentionto language itselfand means that readerswill have to reevaluate theirinterpretation of the textoverand overagain. Both thefigurative-or the hackneyed-meaningsand theliteralmeaningsare presentat the same and analogies become more thanembellishments: time,and so metaphors become toolsforemphasizingthe double voice thatis an integral they part of language. devices,because Metaphorsare indeed highly appropriatepostmodern A livingmetaphoralwayscarries theyare obvious vehiclesfor ambiguity. dual meanings,the literalor sentencemeaningand the conveyedor utterance meaning.In "MorphoEugenia" the strain betweenthe figurative and the literalmeaningis constantly since antsand butterflies underscored, apand as metaphors forhumanbehavior. As BrianMcHale pear bothas insects puts it, the hesitation between literal and conveyed meaning typifies postmodernmetaphorical writing: Postmodernist seeks to foreground of the ontologicalduality writing itsparticipation in twoframes of reference withdifferent metaphor, This it accomplishesbyaggravating ontologicalstatuses. metaphor's inherentontological tensions,thereby the alslowingstillfurther betweenpresenceand absence. All metaphorhesireadyslowflicker tates betweena literalfunction(in a secondaryframeof reference)

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TWENTIETHCENTURY LITERATURE and a metaphoricalfunction(in a "real" frameof reference);postmodernist texts often prolong this hesitation as a means of foregrounding ontologicalstructure. (McHale 134) to the "real"world,and as the metaphor'sreference Using analogydisplays a consequence, Byatt's of in technique offering metaphoricaldescriptions the formof analogies ensuresthatthe postmodernvacillation betweenliteral and figurative meaningsis constantly presentin "Morpho Eugenia." But metaphors hoverbetweentwoframes are unstablenotonlybecause they of reference: A metaphorinduces are also theirfigurative meanings shaky. but not since the of are forever comparison, grounds similarity given,metato freedom of reader as serve the the phors emphasize opposed to the auof the clear in writer. This becomes thority "MorphoEugenia." particularly Because ants and butterflies are presentboth literally and metaphorically, the reader is forcedto takea closerlook at whatis embedded in the familiar comparisons ofwomenwithbutterflies or humansocietieswithant communities.Metaphorsinvitethoughtbecause theyenforcethe understanding thatthereare at least twosides to everything. "MorphoEugenia" mayat timesseem overloaded withmetaphors,but since the interplay between and literal the both destabilizes novella and the metaphorical meaning this is one of the of clearest its metaphorsthemselves, signs postmodernity. "ThingsAre Not WhatTheySeem"

-A. S. Byatt(119)

metaphors belong to the worlds of ants, bees, and butterflies. WilliamAdamson,a naturalist back from theAmazon,is welcomed recently into theAlabasterhousehold at BredelyHall. At the beginningof his visit, theyoungladies presentat a ball appear to him as butterflies, shimmering in "shell-pink and sky-blue, silver and citron"(3). Verysoon his interest focuses on one of them,Eugenia, who,like all the othermembersof theAlabasterfamily, is a "pale-goldand ivory" creature,almostalwaysdressed in white(4). Bycontrast, Williamhimself is "sultry-skinned, with jaundice-gold mixedintosun-toasting" so easilyinterpreted (3), and Eugenia's whiteness, as betokeninginnocence, temptshim by its difference fromthe "oliveskinnedand velvet-brown ladies of doubtful virtueand no virtue" he knew in Pari and Manios (5). After a period of silentlonging,Williamproposes to Eugenia among a cloud ofbutterflies he has raisedforher in the conserand they and settleat BredelyHall. vatory, marry

and the controlling N44 orpho Eugenia" takesitstitlefroma butterfly,

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BYATT'S "MORPHO EUGENIA" thatshares her name, the shimEugenia is compared to the butterfly The mering satiny-white butterfly imageis quite automatiMorphoEugenia. as a for femininebeautyand understood common rather cally metaphor but as William it is the male butterflies who exhibit out, flightiness, points colors and whirl about in the whereas the females are drabbright sunlight, colored and timid.Obviously in the butterfly metaphor "MorphoEugenia" cannotbe read traditionally, and the titleof the novellagivesa clue: morpho is the Greekwordfor"form," thatthe titlecould be read as whichsuggests about the formof a butter"theformof Eugenia." Whatis mostsignificant is that it it that and thisis indeed fly changes, undergoes metamorphosis, what Eugenia-and William's conception of her-does. As the story Williamrealizes thatEugenia's whiteness is not a reflection of progresses, her purity and innocence but insteadsignalsdegenerationand the impuof incest. "Morpho Eugenia" becomes a story about a fall frominnority cence to experience and knowledge,where William has to realize that "thingsare not what theyseem." Beneath the orderlysurface of life at and a sectionof society-the counBredelyHall are a dysfunctional family has lost its of sense directionand purpose.Williambetry aristocracy-that comes like Psychein the insetPsycheand Cupid story, where Psychecan her husband if she "never to to see him"(42). If Willkeep only promises try iam is allowed to see Eugenia and herworldforwhatthey are, his marriage, like Psyche's, willdisintegrate.4 This seems to identify but the unEugenia as the villainof the story, stablenatureof thebutterfly a counteracts singleinterpretation. metaphor At BredelyHall, butterfly laid out in display cases, specimensare beautifully whichemphasizestheirstatus as objects,and in many waysEugenia and her sisters are objects too, withno otheraspirationin lifethan to make themselvesbeautiful fora prospective husband. In the worldof insects,the use of beautyas a wayof attracting the othersex is reserved forthemale, but as theAlabasterrelative "thisappears to be the opMatty Cromptonobserves, to human societies, when it is the woman whose success in thatkind posite of performance determines theirlives"(40). Eugenia is a victim of a society thathas no use forher exceptas thebreederof thenextgeneration, and to secure her place in thissociety she has to make herself the object of men's admiration. a fractionof a societythat,according to the BredelyHall represents books, was male dominated. In "Morpho Eugenia" Byattsuggests, history thatat least thatsociety's domesticlifewas controlledbywomen: however,

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TWENTIETHCENTURYLITERATURE Houses such as thiswere run forand by women. Harald Alabaster of domesticclocksand was master, but he was,as faras thewhirring wheelswent,a deusabsconditus, who set it all in motion,and might at a pinch stopit,but had littleto do withitsuse of energy. (76) That women have been relegatedto the domesticsphere and as a result is no revoluhave been able to exerttheirpower over household matters the observation new life are the What tionary analogies with insight. gives bee and ant societies.One reviewer withthe dehis disaffection expresses vice thus:one "mustendure theelaboratecomparisonofinsectand human an idea thatI mightnot be alone in finding societies, hackneyed"(Tate 60This in comment fails to that the novella,as in nature, 61). acknowledge ant and bee communities is run by are predominantly Everything female.5 and determined down the sex of the The male to ants byfemales, embryos. and thedronesare sex objects,just likethemale butterflies thatflaunt their brilliant colors to attract of the femalesis the the females,and fertilization solejustification such a male-domifortheir existence. When Byatt describes nated societyas the nineteenth-century throughresoEnglish aristocracy of and one butterflies, of the results lutely gendered metaphors bees, ants, is to challenge the conventional of this picture society. In mostVictorianfiction, marriage"means the end of sexual adventuresbut thebeginningof social responsibility" (Belsey120), and thisprinto be down to its essence at ciple appears BredelyHall." But marriage pared seems to mean nothingmore than a sociallyacceptable wayto secure the propagationofthespecies,and once conceptionhas occurred,thepretense of love is not required.The men at BredelyHall lead the livesof male ants or droneswhose existenceis directedsolelyto "the nuptialdance and the fertilization of the Queens" (103), and the women become "egg-laying machines, gross and glistening,endlesslylicked, caressed, soothed and smoothed--veritablePrisonersof Love" (102). Their abilityto produce young gives them theirvalue, and in such a societylove becomes "an instinctual of societieswhich [gives] even responseleading to the formation more restricted and functional identities to theirmembers"(116). Pregnancyand motherhoodmetamorphosewomen's lives,but sometimes this metamorphosisis of a Kafkaesque kind. Eugenia experiences as a period of cocooning,but she emergesfromher cocoon not pregnancy rebornas a butterfly but as something an ant queen. Witheach resembling she becomes more and more like the pregnancy Queen of the Wood Ants: She was swollenand glossy, unlike the mattworkers, and appeared to be stripedred and white.The striping was in factthe resultof the

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BYATT'S "MORPHO EUGENIA" bloatingof her body by the eggs inside it,whichpushed apart her red-brown more elastic,whitarmour-plating, showingmore fragile, ish skinin the interstices. (39) Like the ant communitiesit is compared with,the aristocratic societyto which the Alabastersbelong has no other purpose than to guarantee its own perpetuation. That thisinvolves by the inbreedingis also highlighted As soon as William is shut out of her bedcomparison. Eugenia is pregnant, room to be let in again onlywhenit is timeto produce anotherbaby.Quite soon it is clear to the reader thatEugenia has an incestuousrelationship withher half-brother, and thatWilliam's who are so "trueto typechildren, veritable at all not be William's Alabasters," may (106).7 In an ant or bee incest is the of because there are no other insectsin rule, course, society, the neststhanthoseproduced bythe queen. Williamfindsout about Edgar's and Eugenia's relationship by a mesto admits sent: sage nobody having "And someone sent forme to come back to the house, today, when I was notwanted.When I was anything butwanted." "I didn't send foryou,"she said. "If thatis whatyou are thinking. There are people in a house, you know,who knoweverything thatgoes on-the invisible simpeople, and now and then thehouse ply decides that somethingmust happen-I thinkyour message came to you aftera series of misunderstandings thatat some level werequite deliberate." (154-55) wantsto put a stop to the inMatty Cromptonimpliesthatthe house itself cestuousrelationship, thatthe invisible people at BredelyHall workin contoward what believe is the household,as well junction they Certainly right. as the rest of nineteenth-century would society, agree on Edgar's and but of as well: offers side Eugenia's guilt, Byatt Eugenia's things "I know it was bad," said Eugenia. "I knowit was bad, but you must understandit didn'tfeelbad-it grewlittlebylittle, out of perfectly innocent,natural,playful things-which no one thoughtwrong--I have never been able to speak to any other livingsoul of it, you mustforgive me forspeakingto you-I can see I have made you anI gry, though triedto make you love me-if I could have spoken to anyone,I mighthave been broughtto see how wrongit was. Buthethoughtit wasn't-he said-people like makingrules and others like breakingthem-he made me believeit was all perfectly natural and so it was, it was natural, nothing in us rose up and said-it was-unnatural." (158-59)

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TWENTIETHCENTURYLITERATURE as a self-indulgent breeding machine, but Eugenia may appear primarily she is also thevictim of a hypocritical wheresex is not talkedabout, society and where women are not encouraged to acknowledgetheirsexual feelwithher brother ings.To a certainextent, Eugenia's incestuousrelationship is an act ofrebellion, a wayofeludingtheconstrictions of hersociety. There are twosides to everything, and whatmakesit impossibleto come to a final conclusion about how to interpret incestin the novella is thatthe union betweenEdgar and Eugenia produces children,whereas theirsister, who marries"outsidethe nest,"remainschildless. To fillhis days,WilliamAdamson agrees to help Matty Cromptonand thegirlsin her chargeto make a study of the "social insects." Togetherthey set up a glass bee hive and a glass tank for ants in the schoolroom. The becomes a miniature reflection oflifeat BredelyHall. The Victoformicary rian household is filledwithservants who occupy the place of the worker ants: The servants werealways and mostly silent.Theywhiskedaway busy, behind theirown doors into mysterious areas into which he had never penetrated,though he met them at everyturningin those places in whichhis own lifewas led. ... Theywere as fullof urgent of it. (74) purpose as the childrenof the house were empty Harald Alabasterbelievesthatthe social insectsexerciseboth altruism and virtues these the lives his of servants as self-sacrifice; byimplication govern well.Williamslowly arrives at anotherconclusion,both about the ants and the household: "mostsocial systems workby mutual aggression,exploitathe sacrifice of the not for thewhole,but forthe few"(Butler). tion, many He is gradually to realize that his situation at BredelyHall in many brought that the of Wood Ants are who enslaved waysequals bythe Blood-redAnts. The slaves lose all sense of theirorigin and identify withthe completely inhabitants oftheirnewnest,to thepointwherethey takepartin slaveraids and against membersof theirown species. "Men are not ants,"however, Williamdoes not have to be trappedin the analogy (106). Disenchanted withEugenia, and suppliedwiththeproceeds fromthebook about antshe has written withMatty he finally breaksout and leaves together Crompton, fortheAmazon withMatty as his companion. Ultimately the development and choices of the individualmatter, and as a consequence a reading that triesto explain the analogies in universal terms collapses.

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BYATT'S "MORPHO EUGENIA" are a wayof weavingtheworldtogether, Names,you know, byrelatthe to and a kind of creatures other creatures you ing metamorphosis, whichis a figureof speech forcarrying mightsay,out of a metaphor one idea into another. --A. S. Byatt(131-32) her story "ThingsAre Not What They Seem" withWilliam, a fear contain"too much message" thatit might (141). Matty expresses In certain is the same of one sometrue "MorphoEugenia":as a reader, ways timesfeelsthatthereisjust too much message,or too manymessages.The and resists it. The frequentanalogies novella both begs forinterpretation invite of an allegoricalreadingthatis continually thwarted bytheinstability the novella'sabundantmetaphorsand symbols. At times, the politicaldrift of thenarrative thatplaces fromtherole reversal appears to be antifeminist, WilliamAdamson in the Cinderellaposition,throughthe misogynistic deof women and final of his William's wife scriptions pregnant repudiation and his lifeat BredelyHall. The accentuationon ant and bee communities as femalesocietiesdoes not counteract such a reading,because the emphasis on thiscould also be takento implythatit is the women who tie themand men to fixedgender roles. selves,each other, On the otherhand, the insectanalogies are used to describea society ofas completely male dominated,whichis a challengewith usuallythought feminist rather An important overtones. feminist projecthas been to reveal thatlanguage and linguistic are not innocent,and in "Morpho expression that shows this is true of Eugenia" Byatt metaphor as well. Discussing demonstrates that,forinstance,hyphen"gynocentric writing," MaryDaly ation mayoperate as a means of exposingtheveiled meaningsin words,to dis-cover of hyphenscan language, as it were (24). Judiciousinstallation revealhidden meaningsin wordsand invites the reader to look at common wordsin new ways, as in the examples "his-tory, and "re-mem""mis-take," ber."Similarly, revitalization of common Byatt's metaphors pointsto a feminizationof language,so thatwhen the ant hillis presentedas a society run and perpetuatedbythefemaleof the species,an overlookedcomponentin the familiarmetaphoricalconnection of human and ant societies is laid an internalstruggle bare. As a result, occurs in the story betweenthe level of narrative and the level of language. This instability createsa tensionin the novella thatrendersanysinglepoliticalinterpretation difficult. and like often are Metaphors analogies, proverbs, givenuniversalsigand largely What makes nificance, go unquestioned. metaphoricalexpressions interesting, is thattheyare double signs.The discrepancy however, betweentheliteralmeaningof thewordsand theutterance meaningof the

Discussing

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TWENTIETHCENTURYLITERATURE thatis, whatis being conveyed, As a statement, giveslifeto the metaphor. their value utterance die or lose when the meanconsequence, metaphors ing is so automaticit no longercarriesdual meaning,and thisis when they need to be reetymologized.8 used metaphors double meaning--presumCommonly mayretaintheir take the are when would ants" ablynobody "people metaphorliterally---but theirfigurative demand have become rethese, too, meanings hackneyed, examination.What exactly are the groundsof similarity? In whichwaysdo people resembleants? Female gendered, the metaphorobtains new life, but theanalogy'smore conventional The meanmeaningsare also present. of and in and attenare draws flux, ings metaphors analogies always Byatt tion to thisin "Morpho Eugenia" when she uses identicallinguistic figures in quite divergent ways. The main metaphorsin "Morpho Eugenia" are all inherently contraThe are butterflies" contains dictory. "people metaphor meanings like and as the observation well as thatthe fickleness, beauty, metamorphosis, similarities between women and butterflies are perceived actuallyillusory, because onlymale butterflies flaunttheirbeautiful colors.The "people are ants" metaphoris questioned in the same way:ants are insignificant, they form but they are also predominantly female, specialize,they rigidsocieties, unlike the human societyto which theyare compared. By genderingthe has enhanced theirinstability. Does thismean thatthese metaphors, Byatt should be taken as as homonyms, words that words, expressions separate sound the same but mean different I I not think do so. would things? sugis thereto provokethoughtand to offer gest thatthe ambiguity questions without theanswers. use ofmetaphor draws Thus,thelavish finally providing attentionto the extentto whichwe are unaware of the attitudes we perThe "people are ants" metaphor,forinpetuate throughlanguage itself. as a provocationand questionsthe male-dominated socistance,functions it describes. It also the kind of that feminism advoety questions separatist cates single-sex in thatit describesa femininesociety thatis communities, both thoroughly hierarchical and extremely More it rigid. conventionally, functionsas a means of "forcingthe thoughtthat seen from a height, watchedacross centuries, we humans creep and crawl,scratchand burrow like any other low creature moving close to the surface of the planet" (Levenson 42). The ratherblatantclue givenin the name "Alabaster" emphasizesthe significance of references to color, "white" in particular,in "Morpho an innocence tiedup Eugenia." To William, Eugenia's whiteness symbolizes withhis dreamsofEngland and preciousbyitscontrast to the browncolors of theAmazon.The "white lilies"and the "snowy bedspread" (8) in his bed462

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BYATT'S "MORPHO EUGENIA" room suggestan Englishcleanness verydifferent from"the earth-floored he hut"thatused to be his home in thejungle (12). On his weddingnight, of smutching is "afraid her [Eugenia], as the soil smutchedthe snowin the the color brown poem" (67). Ifthe colorwhiteis seen as an image ofpurity, becomes an image of dirt,impurity, in perhaps guilt, consequence. If,on theotherhand,"brown" health and vigor, themeaningof"white" represents has to change. When Matty the darknessofher Cromptonis introducedintothestory, features is foregrounded: She stood in the shadowsin the doorway, a tall,thindarkfigure, in a musty black gown withpracticalwhitecuffs and collar. Her face was thinand unsmiling, her hair dark under a plain cap, her skin (27) duskytoo. has "a quick step" (36) and her movements are "quick and decisive" Matty both in coloringand mannerto the languid Eugenia. Her (96), a contrast to Williamwithhis "mane of dark,shininghair" (9) is obvious, similarity and as William'sfondnessforMatty of the Alabasters the whiteness grows, takeson a more sinister meaning. One ofWilliam'stasks in theAlabaster household is to organizeHarald Alabaster'scollection of insectsand other specimens,which he does, but withdiminishing because William"wantedto observelife,not enthusiasm, dead shells,he wantedto knowthe processesofliving things"(73). Bredely Hall is a dyingsociety, and Williamrealizesthisas he triesto completehis endless chore. William'sreactionas he looks at Harald Alabasapparently ter'shands illustrates that"white" standsfordeath,too: The hands were ivory-coloured, the skin finelywrinkled everywhere,like the cruston a pool of wax, and under it appeared livid tea-brown stains.Williamwatched bruises,arthritic nodes, irregular the hands fold the waveringpapers and was filled with pityfor them,as for sick and dyingcreatures.The fleshunder the horny nailswas candlewax-coloured, and bloodless. (90) "White"and "dark"are thuscontrasted witheach otherthroughout "Morpho Eugenia,"but the meaningof the contrast changes. is white,and the Amazon brown, witheverything this England,finally, mightsuggestof racism and colonialism. At the beginning,the novella seemsto takean imperialist butsuch an interpretation perspective, collapses as the reversalof the relationbetween "white" and "dark"becomes clear. as a storyabout Eden "Morpho Eugenia" could verywell be interpreted

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TWENTIETHCENTURYLITERATURE sinceWilliam'slastname is Adamson.Butwhereis and thefall,particularly Eden? In Brazil,Williamthoughtof England as paradise,but in England, the wild theAmazon is "theinnocent,the unfallenworld,thevirgin forest, of in who are as unaware the interior modern ways-modern evilspeople Amazon is unsafe-there the the other as our first On hand, parents"(30). and dangerous snakes unbridledsex,strong is uncheckedgrowth, feelings, insects-but it is alive. If the comparisonsbetweenBredelyHall and the an antifeminist thisis counfemalesocietiesofantsand bees suggest politics, teredbythe contrast withthe Amazon,a place-namewithexplicitfeminist connotations. You mayargue anything by analogy,Sir,and so consequentlynothing. -A. S. Byatt(89)

Analogy

is a precariousdevice,because it givesthe appearance of uniand ifWilliamAdamson is taken to represent"man in genversality, eral" as his last name seems to suggest,it would seem as if the reader is asked to findan authoritative answerabout man's place in societyin the text.But politicalreadingsof "Morpho Eugenia" break down because evseems to contradict else. The narrative erything everything pointsone way, an allegoricalinterpretation of the analogies another,and the fluctuating This ambivalenceis a meaningsof the metaphorsin yetother directions. featureof postmodernliterature, since postmodernart is concerned with not offering solutions. As Linda Hutcheon pointsout: problematizing, Most of the issues raised by postmodernism are actuallydoublyencoded. Most are bydefinition ambivalent, thoughit is also truethat thereare fewnotionswhichcannot be formulated in opposing politicalterms. (205) The metaphors and analogies in "MorphoEugenia" embodythese"opand thusthe politicsofthe story remainunclear.As terms," posingpolitical a postmodernallegory, does not "Morpho Eugenia" guide the reader toward the disclosureof a finalanswerbut operates on severallevelsat the same time,introducing withone another, meaningsthatconflict replacing themonologicmessageofconventional withdialogue. Postmodern allegory allegoricalwriting speaks in at least twovoices,both of which need to be heard.

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BYATT'S "MORPHO EUGENIA" NOTES

I use the termpostmodern rather than postmodernist, avoiding the association between a postmodern aesthetic and the philosophies and literaturesof whetherthisrelationis viewedas a continuationor a replace"high"modernism, ment of modernistideas. Even though I believe that "postmodernism"is best seen as a phenomenon of the late twentieth the existenceof a postmodcentury, ern allegorical formsuggestsa connection between postmodern attitudesand literaturefromthe Renaissance and before. 2 See Hansson fora more thoroughdiscussionof postmodernromances and their relationship to the chivalric,historical,and women's popular subcategories of the genre, as well as to some influentialindividual romances. 3 This is not to say that Victorian novels are necessarilyauthoritarian,or that the worldviews theypresent are absolute. One effectof Byatt'sreworking of the genre is to indicate that there is considerable ambiguity in the Victorian models. meta4 The reference to Psyche is yet another way in which the butterfly phor is expanded, since Psyche,as a personificationof the human soul, is often represented as a butterfly. 5 The observation that the societies of bees and ants are female societies is overlooked in all the reviewsquoted in this article,despite the emphasis on it in the novella. 6 The similarity between the sounds of the words "breeding" and "Bredely Hall" is certainlynot coincidental. Angelsand Insects, 7 "Morpho Eugenia" is the "insect"novella in the diptych and to a certain extent the storycan be read as an elaborate pun on "insect" and "incest." I For a discussion of dyingmetaphors,see, for instance,Traugott.

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in Western Culture. Oxford: Blackwell,1994. Belsey,Catherine. Desire:Love Stories Butler,Marilyn."The Moth and the Medium." Rev. of Angelsand Insects by A. S. Byatt.Times Oct. 22. 1992): (16 Literary Supplement A. S. Angelsand Insects. 1992. London: Vintage, 1993. Byatt, TheMetaethics Boston: Beacon, 1978. Daly, Mary.Gyn/Ecology: ofRadical Feminism. Postmodern and theTradition. Revived: Romances Hansson, Heidi. Romance Uppsala: Swedish Science P, 1998. Hughes, Kathryn."Repossession." Rev. of Angelsand Insects by A. S. Byatt.New Statesman and Society (6 Nov. 1992): 49-50. Fiction.1988. New Hutcheon, Linda. A PoeticsofPostmodernism: Theory, History, York: Routledge, 1992. and Insects Lesser,Wendy."Seance and Sensibility." Rev. of Angels byA. S. Byatt. New York Times BookReview(27June 1993): 14. Levenson, Michael. "The Religion of Fiction." Rev. of Angelsand Insects byA. S. (2 Aug. 1993): 41-44. Byatt.NewRepublic

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TWENTIETH CENTURY LITERATURE A Narrative to Genre. New York: Madsen, Deborah L. Rereading Allegory: Approach St. Martin's,1994. Fiction.1987. London: Routledge, 1994. McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Owens, Craig. "The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism." Part 1. October 12 (1979): 67-86. . "The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism."Part 2. -October 13 (1980): 59-80. Smith, Paul. "The Will to Allegory in Postmodernism."Dalhousie Review62.1 (1982): 105-22. Tate, J. O. "Dress for Success." Rev. of Angelsand Insects by A. S. Byatt.National Review(23 Aug. 1993): 60-61. Traugott,Elisabeth Closs. "'Conventional' and 'Dead' Metaphors Revisited."The in Language and Thought. Ed. Wolf Paprott6 ofMetaphor: Ubiquity Metaphor and Rene Dirven. Amsterdam:Benjamins, 1985. 17-56.

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