The significance of locale, criminality and sexuality in So I Am Glad by A.L. Kennedy The WritePass Journal

The significance of locale, criminality and sexuality in So I Am Glad by A.L. Kennedy Introduction The significance of locale, criminality and sexuality in So I Am Glad by A.L. Kennedy Introduction Certain themes prevail throughout much of Gothic literature. These include sexuality, the notion of the ‘other’, the uncanny, and the exploration of the ‘haunted house’. In AL Kennedy’s So I Am Glad, many of these themes are present. This paper will examine sexuality, criminality and locale in Kennedy’s novel.   It will argue that Jennifer, the protagonist, is an example of the ‘dangerous woman’ found throughout literature; that her sexuality is inextricably bound with notions of transgression and criminality. Finally, it will argue that locale, and particularly the notion of ‘home’ plays an integral role in the fabric of Kennedy’s text. Science fiction as a genre tends to be androcentric; within this framework female heroines with a more masculine persona are generally juxtaposed with ‘alien’ characters (Leitch, et. al. (Eds.), 2010: 81). The otherness of the alien symbolises the outsider, one who is cut off from heteronormative, white, male, middle-class society (Germana, 2010: 61). Jennifer is similarly removed from what is ‘normal’. In fact her vocation is that of a disembodied voice.   This removal is manifested when she is detached and absent from herself during masturbation, seeing own body as a sort of ‘other’ or alien presence: ‘I am a partner, I am one half of a larger, insane thing that flails and twists and flops itself together in ways far too ridiculous for daylight’ (Kennedy, 2000: 4).   In pleasuring herself, she is the ‘other’; she is ‘insane’ and ‘ridiculous’. This otherness points to something beyond hers elf that cannot be rationalised or understood; it illuminates an unsolved mystery that is a perpetual theme in Gothic literature (Khair, 2009: 31; Maturin and LeFanu in Punter (Ed.), 2001: 88). Jennifer is cut off from her body and her sexuality in acts of onanism, but she is most present when she assumes the violent, sadistic male persona of Captain Bligh, her male alter ego. The actual alien or other in the novel is Savinien, yet it is Jennifer who is an outsider through her sexual proclivities with her sexual partner, Steve.   Jennifer’s sexuality is that of the unnatural, masculinised woman. This resonates with a long tradition in Scottish culture and literature surrounding the ‘dangerous’ woman (Germana, 2010: 63).   Like Lady Macbeth, the quintessential dark feminine in literature, Jennifer unsexes herself to become something that is subversive to the traditional notion of womanhood. Instead of nurture or femininity, she personifies extreme aggression a nd violence through Captain Bligh.   A feminist interpretation would suggest that Kennedy here portrays the Female Gothic perspective, in overturning any preconceived notions of gender roles that the reader might possess; the complexity of Jennifer’s sexuality and draw to domination is appropriate for the Gothic genre, as it seeks to portray intricate concepts (Smith, 2007: 8). In literature the witch, or what Germana calls the ‘mad, bad and dangerous’ woman does not represent a hybrid sexuality. Rather, her female sexuality is subversive; it is portrayed as being monstrous.   This representation is closely connected to a fear of male castration. (Germana, 2010: 66)   The female is no longer passive and subject to the control of patriarchal domination and control; her body is terrifying and ‘monstrous’ now not because she herself is castrated, as Freud posited, but because she has the power to castrate a man.   It has been asserted that this vision of the ‘monstrous’ woman is a common theme throughout the literary canon as well as in modern literature, film and art (Seigneuret, (Ed.), 1988: 183). In So Am I Glad, Jennifer ultimately takes on the role of castrator with Steven in their sexual activities. He is bound to the table with his male genitalia removed from sight and rendered irrelevant. He assumes a female position and she stands over him with his own belt. The belt and the hard metal clasp are the relentless phallus that inflicts pain on Stevens exposed buttocks.   It is notable that pain itself is a recurring Gothic theme; like the Romantics, Gothic authors are fascinated with pain (Bruhm, 1994: xvi). As Jennifer represents the witch, or madwoman, Savinien, as a revenant, links themes of sexuality and death.   Ghosts inhabit a liminal space between the two worlds of life and death; they represent the desire to return to embodied state along with a pull towards self-annihilation. Jennifer’s disembodied voice and Savinien’s ghost mirror the dualistic nature of the text itself. Writing is itself a kind of wound, of damage, as well as an elegy of loss and mourning. Jennifer is, in the text, forming an elegy for Savinien, driven by loss and desire. The text itself echoes this desire and seduction; Kennedy establishes an intimacy with the reader through her use of the word ‘you’; barriers are brought down and reestablished, must as characters in the book appear and disappear, as an echo of the transience of the text, and of life itself (Germana, 2010: 142-3). Savinien’s embodiment of both desire and death act as an integral component within the text.   When he speaks of the connection between ‘la mort’, and ‘l’amour’, he indicates a tension between the immediacy of the body, or of a text, and the simultaneous separation and absence, the removal of the reader from the text, as the lover must inevitably be separated from the beloved (Hunter, 1984: 23). This is acknowledged when Jennifer notes, ‘†¦I knew the love he meant, the one that included darkness and loving on alone.’ (Kennedy, 2000: 232). There is also a close and integral connection between sexuality and criminality in So I Am Glad. This is in keeping with what Andrew Smith terms the ‘demands’ that modern literature, and particularly the Gothic genre, makes of readers. The reader must embark on a voyage through the complexities of refurbished mythologies. These mythologies highlight the moral ambiguity and vacu ity of modern existence (Ellis, 2001: 6). Gothic literature examines the erosion of values and expresses concerns about contemporary amorality. In contrast to modernism, which complemented the motif of the disintegrated self common to Gothic texts, post-modernism is even more appropriate within a Gothic framework; it questions the idea that the world is in any way coherent or rational. (Smith, 2007: 141). It is by transcending the limits of rational logic that the subtle nuances of human existence can be broached and deciphered. This amorality is demonstrated in Jennifer’s actions towards Steve. She is acutely aware that her actions are criminal, yet this crime is bound up in her own concept of the nature of love itself: Naturally, if you beat a man, you will eventually be looking not at him, but at what you have made of him.   But looking at him before you have caused enough change on that body, in that body, this may be a problem.   What will solve the problem beautifully and for ever will be the handcuffs –love, as I understand it.   Fix your man securely   and you need only look at him when you wish, you will already know where to strike (Kennedy, 2000: 94). Jennifer’s perpetration of a crime with Steven is an echo of an earlier crime; that of her parents towards her, when she is forced to act as unwilling sexual voyeur. Botting notes that ‘The child does not watch the primal scene by accident; s/he watches it as an effect of the parents’ letting it be seen. It is a making-see, an exhibition’ (Punter and Bronfen in Botting, F. (Ed.), 2001: 9-10).   The passive aggression of the parents is later made manifest in the adult child.   There is a violation here, and a violence that is a recurring motif in the modern Gothic. Contemporary Gothic literature cannot be separated from the idea of violation; it is concern with reconstituting a message or idea that has already been stained, spoiled or rendered impure.   The child’s perspective, as shown in So I Am Glad, is a frequent motif within the Gothic; it is also an example of the subject that has been violated yet is not conscious of the seductive trauma that has been absorbed (Elliott, 2004: 66). Sadism is the primary form of criminality and violation in the novel and is a recurring theme; Jennifer must submit to the violation of watching her parents’ intercourse; Steve is dominated by Jennifer; and Savinien exerts domination over two different dogs, and ultimately over James. It could additionally be argued that Savinien ultimately dominates Jennifer, in that she is unable to maintain her objective detachment and ‘calmness’ in the face of her experience of him.   Sadism and masochism are psychological readings of relationships in both the political and personal realms, and the theme of power and mastery is particularly resonant in Gothic literature.   Elements of submission, domination and power are essential factors in the ultimate Gothic tale (Thomson, Voller and Frank (Eds.), 2001: 369). Those elements are represented in a completely unrationalised manner, transcending the constraints of materiality which are part and parcel of modern literature. Gothic literature has a long tradition of an established relationship between a ghost and the space in which it haunts.   Scottish literature in particular is suited to this symbiosis; the ‘uncanny’ is inextricably linked to Scotland’s identity as the ‘other’, that place that is beyond the borders of the normative, that exists in a liminal space.   The sweeping, fluid geography of the Scottish Isles is indicative of the unbroken seam between the material and spiritual worlds; Scottish Gothic texts exhibit a similar continuity between the identity of the ghost character and the world in which they move (Germana, 2010: 135-6).   In So I Am Glad, the primary locale is structured around the notion of ‘home’. Notably, in discussing the uncanny, Freud argued that alienation and dispossession are integrally connected to notions of home, and that which is homely (Royle, 2003: 6). Therefore, a domestic locale is well suited to accommodate th e ghostly. Ratmoko points out that the etymology of the verb ‘to haunt’ is ‘to inhabit’.   Home is a place where one might find safety in which to capitalise on sensation, and to be in complete control of one’s environment (Ratmoko,  2005: 77). Kennedy explores this by underlining the notion of ‘home’ as going hand in hand with the development of Jennifer’s love for Savinien.   Early in the book Savinien recalls witnessing an eclipse as he walks home; the experience gives him a sense of his own corporeality and the terror of his existence. When Arthur manages to shake Savinien out of his deep depression, Jennifer finishes the account with ‘We went home then.’ (Kennedy, 2000: 195).   In this instance, home is resolution, shelter. As Savinien and Jennifer move into a full-blown relationship, home becomes a domestic place, or in Arthur’s words, ‘home sweet home’, full of Arthur’s baking and Savinien’s gardening (both traditionally feminine pursuits, which act as a foil to Jennifer’s more ‘masculine’ detachment) (Kennedy, 2000: 205).   Jennifer asks Savinien to plant a ‘Paradise Garden for little old us’, the ultimate home and refuge. Immediately afterwards, they make love: ‘We will be here again, at that first time in again, at that starting of being home, and rolling home, and finding home again.’ (Kennedy, 2000: 212). ‘Home’ is, of course, a house haunted by the revenant of Cyrano de Bergerac; yet for Jennifer that hauntedness is a being ‘in’, a living inside her ghostly lover (Mighall, 2003: 83). The surety of this ‘home’ is juxtaposed with constant uncertainty; the novel is full of people leaving home, disappearing, coming back again: Liz, Paul, Savinien, even Jennifer herself. She appears and disappears repeatedly; this is echoed by Arthur at the end of the novel when he comments that it will be nice to have her not ‘disappearing at all hours’.   Spirits or ghosts are spectres and illusions; the living are not permitted to keep hold of them, to possess or control them; the relationship between Savinien and Jennifer seems like â⠂¬Ëœhome’, but actually highlights the impossibility of true knowledge (Kennedy, 2000: 138). Ultimately, the ‘home’ or haunted house of their love is disrupted when Savinien goes to another ‘home’, the place of his death, Sannois. In conclusion, it can be stated that the author portrays the sexuality of the main character in an unconventional manner.   Jennifer’s female-oriented description of sexual acts as well as the use of her male alter ego are indicative of her willingness to transgress the boundaries imposed by the control mechanisms of patriarchal domination and control. The main character takes control of her sexuality through the element of monstrousness and her ability to be a castrator of men.   Her sexuality is neither masculine nor androgynous. Instead, it is the consummate representation of female power, embodied in Jennifer’s capacity to command the emotional and physical resources in order to carry out sadomasochistic practices. The depiction of desensitised sexual practices is linked to the criminality manifested in the amoral nature of modern existence. The individualistic complexities of the character underline the importance of moral ambiguity in the value system of the c haracter and society at large. Gothic literature has become a significant medium for the analysis of the erosion of values which give rise to the context of contemporary amorality. . Gothic literature differentiates itself from modernist tendencies by discarding altogether the idea that the modern world is rational in any way whatsoever. The practices described by the author are therefore indicative of a willingness on the part of the main character to disengage from the world and to apply her own distorted system of values to her existence and interaction with others. In the uncanny concept of locale, home is a way of resolving the seemingly unsolvable complexities of existence.   It is a place where mundane activities offset the unconventionality of Jennifer’s sexual practices. In that context, it become as space for domestication as well as a geography of desire and mystery that elevates the main character. Home is the locale which juxtaposes the emptiness of sudden and continual departures and a place haunted by the ghosts of her own making. Bibliography Bruhm, S. (1994) Gothic Bodies: The Politics of Pain in Romantic Fiction, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA Elliott, A. (2004) Social Theory Since Freud: Traversing Social Imaginaries, Routledge, London Ellis, M. 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