Barbara Pym Excellent Women

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~1+_1q g4 bered with Much Serving:

bara Pym's "Excellent Women"

would anyone want to marry anyone?" asks the narrator of Barbarasixth novel, No Fond Return of Love (1961).1 Why indeed. Why notspinster or bachelor, widow or widower, than suffer all the botherentails?One consideration assuredly is that singlenesshas historically

led deprivation and been seen as a negative state, more so for womenfor men. Why marry at all? Perhaps just to escape the stigma of the

. .The attitude that singleness equals deviation i~~Videntthroughout history,

~,,:cordingto sociologist Jessie Bernard, who relates the increase in the .-nomenon to industrialization-when the shift from cottage crafts to

production left unmarried women at home, dependent and under-••lued. Devaluation of spinsters, moreover, is similar inWestern and Easterntultures, even though the latter assumes greater familial or community

...tesponsibility for never-married women. In Women in the Muslim Worlddemographer Nadia Youssef observes marriage to be virtually the only

life for women in Muslim societies and notes that "severe com-censure of spinsterhood is the norm." Similarly, even pre-industrialhave displayed chronic displeasure with~ingle women. W()rking

"the history of British emigration patterns, Julia Spruill in .Wo1J1 en sLifeWork in the Southern Colonies records outrageous maltreatment of

in the eighteenth century. Ne~spapersfrequently characterized

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142 Robert J. Graham Barbara Pym's Fiction 143

them as homely, nit-picking, bad-tempered, greedy, misanthropic,wives and hell-bent on finding a husband. Always disrespectfultimes vicious, these attacks mirrored society's generalunmarried and the belief that everyone had responsibility forpopulation. Finally, Spruill declares, such prejudice exposed thea spinster "was often a dependent and unwanted guest in themarried brother or sister,'?

Despite such attitudes, the most frequently used words describinghave not always had negative connotations; in fact, the OEDcurious etymological history for the terms bachelor and spinster andrevealing examples of their uneven valuation. Baccalaria, aroot word for bachelor, refers to an area of plowed land. Theprobably alluded to a field laborer, as in parallel fashion spnamed someone who spun yarn. In time the male noun tookonmeaning until, by the thirteenth century, it indicated a knight toomerit his own banner. A century later bachelor meant anyone ofunmarried although of marriageable age.

The word spinster, however, fared less well. At first the term siznifieor a woman regularly engaged in spinning. But by the fourteenthster was "appended to names of women .. _to denote theirthe seventeenth century was added "as the proper legal designation ofunmarried." Statute, it appears, codified the word as a sign ofit remained for society to establish derogatory connotations. That itevident in custom and verified by the ample literary and historicalthe OED suppl ies: Dickens writing of a Pickwick Cl ub member that'and the spinster aunt established a joint-stock company of fish andhistorian T. H. S. Escott identifying England as a countryenough of leisure, idleness, and spinsterdom"; and the popularsensation-novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon promising,"Providence is wonderful kind to plain, little spinsters, with a knack ofthemselves useful."

To be sure, many more powerful examples exist. In fiction fromthrough Sterne, Austen and beyond, singleness is suspect. InPrejudice (1813), Mrs. Bennet finds the prospect of spinsterunnerving, while the gloomy, tyrannical Miss Murdstone of David .(1850) emerges as a severe caricature of the single woman, andMelville in "The Paradise of Bachelors" and "The Tartarus ofcontrasts revelling single men with dispirited, unsexed maidenspaper mill.

Then and to a great extent ever since, the spinster has led a hardfictional life. Writers have drawn her as helpful though benign-ever at home waiting to serve. Rarely is the single womansingleness-as vigorous, independent, resourceful as Anna Vorontosovof Sylvia Ashton-Warner's electric novel Spinster (1958) Of asDoris Lessing's enigmatic poet in "Our Friend Judith." All

becomes the baleful former-nanny of Joyce's "Clay," an anachron-whom "nice" is enough; or the arcane esthete of Virginia Woolf's

of Being"; or the morbid eccentric of Faulkner's Light in AugustAbsalom!; or the dotty expatriate of Olivia Manning's The

Tree.fish, flattery or gloom for Barbara Pym's spinster, however; more likelyin the oven and a bemused, ironic ruminating about life's quirkyes. Daughter of a Shropshire solicitor, Pym received an Honors

from St. Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1934, served as a WREN in Englandfrom 1943 to 1946, and as an assistant editor of Africa from 1958

her retirement in 1974. Pym published her first novel in 1950; over thethirty-two years nine more were issued, the last two posthumously.

literary career is not a story of continued success, however, butone of initial productivity and popularity (five novels from 1950-61)by a sixteen-year hiatus and then a spectacular come-back-signalled

eloquent assessments of her work by Philip Larkin and David Cecil inLiterary Supplement in 1977 and culminating in Anna Shapiro's

Saturday Review observation that "Today something like Pym-maniathe literary world,"! My concern in this essay is to account for this

through a consideration of the subject matter of Pym's fiction, onone hand, and of changing cultural attitudes toward the singleness-

issue, on the other,"

vagaries of heterosexual relationships, a prismatic examination of love,singleness and the correlations linking each to happiness, constitute

major theme. Focus narrows in her early novels to an evaluation ofand singleness as inherently positive or negative states or to an

.••.•••ment of marriage as an imperative to experiencing life fully. Here, witht, delicious humor and engaging warmth, Pym sets in motion a

on marriage idyll and spinster myth. In the later novels herextends to contemporary social dilemmas: the welfare of those

alone, the responsibility of traditional institutions toward the elderly,of marriage and singleness on personality and character.

through her treatment of the never-married woman as she evolvesstages in her spinsterhood, Pym presents a far-reaching portrayal of abut ignored by researchers in sociology, psychology and gerontology,"

Church of England-high or low- central to all of Pym's novels butfertile ground for development of her narratives: parish politics,

or amatory intrigue, churchly custom, peculiar parishioners withright names like Fabian Driver, Sir Denbigh Grote, Mary Beamish,

S~rubsole and Daphne DagneU- all contribute to effects, realisticThe vicarage, a pivotal setting, sponsors jumble sales, garden

whist parties, harvest festivals to complement the spiritual sustenance

144 Robert J. Graham Barbara Pym 'sFiction 145

drawn from formal church services. Life centers in the parish forheroines because their devotion is real and the church communtheir social needs. Furthermore, vicarages harbor eligible males--or hesitant bachelors, eager or skeptical widowers. Littlethe excitement beginning and ending Pym's first novel, Some(1950), is generated by the arrival of new curates, causing Belremark that her sister Harriet is "especially given toClergymen" (p. 7).

Both Bede sisters are spinsters in their fifties and neither hasthe idea of marriage. Ever optimistic, Harriet boisterously, brisklymarket but still prefers young curates. In contrast Belindathirty-year love for her pastor, Archdeacon Hoccleve, to a "firebrightly" (p. 189); but since he is long married, she consciouslyexpectations to fantasies about his becoming a widower. For Belindaelse will do.

Although the phrase "excellent women" does not appear untilbook by that title, Barbara Pym places Belinda at the beginningthose admirable women who clearly reap less than they sow.plain, flat figures-even to their unlilting names, Mildred, Jane,Mary, Dulcie=- excellent women are the type a woman's magazineimprove. They are workers, not in terms of job or professionmodest private incomes), but because, like the Biblical Martha, theythe mundane, freeing others for more important tasks. Likeexcellence resides in reluctant usefulness and with her they"cumbered" with "much serving" (Luke 10:30). Rhoda, a spinsLess Than Angels (1955), finds satisfaction in comparing herself tobut Mildred Lathbury of Excellent Women (1952) recognizes "the,spinster in me, the Martha, who could not comfortably sit andconversation when she knew that yesterday's unwashed dishes werethe sink" (p. 150).8

Ready to clean up if necessary, to lend a sympathetic ear, willingfor the neighbor's moving van, to serve tea during crisis, to fill in aexcellent women prove pleasant, unthreatening company. Friendstheir willingness to be inconvenienced; the church counts on theselfless work; new acquaintances forget their names or fail to recallmet them. Nor do they deserve such treatment, for excellentoften intelligent, educated, sensitive, loyal, eminently capable oflife's vagaries with but one exception: their relationships with menpositive qualities aplenty, myriad personal and domestic talents,and spirited independence, despite cooking and housekeepingskiIl,.women are not sought as wives. Outsiders, they are the observers,incidental to love and marriage.

Counterpointing these "excellent women" are Pym's "formidableInitially distinctive, troublesome figures who reap more thanformidable women later emerge in her writing as more positive

and strong-willed. Their very names awaken curiosity: Agatha,. Allegra, Jessica, Avice. Throughout the novels such women are setsocially; they are physically attractive, volatile, alternately sharp-

or sullen-and cunning. Indifferent housekeepers and cooks, theyat getting others to do more than a fair share. Overwrought, fickle,

rited, frivolous they may be, yet formidable women - inept or capablemaster one constant anomaly: men. And they are sought after as

What they do or do not do in the novels forces things to happen, forfull participants in life's joys, particularly those of love and marriage.

the surface not much seems to happen in Pym's novels; characteristic-her plots are deceivingly simple. For example Some Tame Gazelle beginsthe arrival of a new curate and ends with a glimpse at his replacement.

story line follows two threads: the subtle, even tenor of Belinda's~u\)mllip with the man she has loved for thirty years and the comic liasons

sister Harriet with an odd assortment of pseudosuitors. With visits byold friends, an Oxford University librarian and a missionary bishop,

brings together in high comic fashion two of her chief interests, mattersal and academic.

But the true matter of Pyrn's novels is neither theological nor academic: itubial. What her protagonists think deeply about is the serious matter

marriage and singleness. With the caricature, the raillery, the satire andthe apt or devastating quote from English poetry (excellent women are

anthologies) comes an introspective realism edged with hard wit.gathered about the nature of male-female relationships brush painfully.

to things as they are, too close to the everyday lives of bachelors,",' rs and couples to be merely entertaining. Yet, observing the mating>i8d near-mating going on around them, excellent women still manage tokar the brunt of introspection and insight with bemused detachment."';iounderscoreMildred Lathbury's role in Excellent Women, Pym fashionsa\)mbolic scene in which a former boyfriend recommends that Mildred never.marIf. Here the ooncepts of excellent woman and singleness-as·reservoir-of·" libt>f'tal'powers come together. William Caldicote bolsters his advice by

uding: "I always think of you as being so very balanced and sensible,;Ch an excellent woman. I do pope you're not thinking of getting married? ...•. e. my dear Mildred, are the observers of life. Let other people get married

all means, the more the merrier .... Let Dora marry if she likes. She hasn'ttalent for observation" (p. 67). Others corroborate Mildred's "talent";

consciously sets herself tasks of dispassionate scrutiny.gh the depth and variety of Mildred's discernments and those of

heroines in the early novels, Pym broadens treatment of her theme, forClCellf'nt women do, characteristically, come to see themselves more as close

of life than as participants. What such characters observe permitsf author to consider the social, psychological, physical and spiritual aspectsih n:ale·female attitudes toward marriage and singleness. And in large measure

• err Observations affirm spinsterhood~while casting doubt upon marriage.

146 Robert J. GrahamBarbara Pym's Fiction 147

Collectively, the numerous facets of the married-singlenessto this conclusion fall into two areas: the value of mutuality andences necessary to a full life. In the first instance, Pym's j ~

shouldn't marriage offer the mutual joy of being with and lookingother? Bu t in the experience of inany Pym protagonists men seemthe more looking after. Further, in Less Than Angelsfinds one suitor to be no more than a child and another needingmen ... a woman stronger than himself, for behind ... [his 1 fathe small boy, uncertain of himself" (p. 242). The problem iswashing up, the expected deference, the ego-boosting: in Pym'sare inherently inferior. In No Fond Return of Love, for exaMainwaring suffers abiding disappointment from what she believesnatural weakness of men. With Pym's earlier excellent women, shemen to be fickle, childish, "thornless," fearful of competition,communicate; in short, freighted with imperfections glossed overby willing women.

Research into the attitudes of never-married women towardPym's characterization of male frailty. Russell Ward has shownto be better adjusted than single men; studies by Elmer ~jJl'-'H~'

Lawrence E. Riley-and others+ indicate single men are inferior inoccupation and income to their female counterparts and not nearlyas women at creating a fulfilling lifestyle for themselves. Internever-married women suggest that many have found men lackingperception. One feisty British spinster surveyed by sociologist Jeremyclaimed: "She does not respect men much - the evidence of theirtheir dependence on women,"?

Nor does Pym ascribe to the commonly held notion thatcompanionship is another mutual advantage married couples maysingle persons. Few men in Pym's novels are truly intellectual, anddisplaying modest abilities are not attracted to thinking women. Demonstrthe most imaginative and creative men in Pyrn's fiction - as well asinteresting intellectually- are homosexuals. Heterosexual or not,pologists and other academic men repeatedly patronize women-o~them-so that none of the literate and articulate protagonists isher mind. No man sees there an advantage, nor does a single malematch excellent women's passion for literature. For instance, inReturn of Love, when a forty-seven-year-old literary scholarintention to remarry, Dulcie foresees his unnamed love to be sorucouhis own age.someone with "similar academic and literary interests..:like herself .. ." (p. 219). He then declares his fondness for Dulcie'sguished nineteen-year-old niece, whom he expects to marry. Sointellectual companionship. '

If women cannot be regarded as intellectual equals, they can atin men'swork, work tacitly acknowledged by excellent womenimportant than their own. Again and again, however, the assistaru

in mind begins with typing and ends with proofreading. Attracted to aten years his junior, Tom Mallow in Less Than Angels wonders ifcan type his thesis since the woman he is living with seems too bus y.

those excellent women whose training extends beyond kitchen andassign priority to the work of their men.,given a modicum of companionship and freedom, could not one find

opportunity for growth, enrichment, a range of experienceto single women? Observation proves otherwise: when Jane

the protagonist of Jane and Prudence (1953), cannot manageand a literary career; when Catherine Oliphant feels stifled by just a

weeks of family life; when Wilmet, the well-married heroine of A Glass. :s (1958), suffers from "desire unformulated" (p. 145) and yearns to

Thus despite the attitude typified by the widow in Less Thanwho snaps at her spinster sister, "You don't know what it is to losey you love" (p. 238), mostPym protagonists perceive marriage to beThe foremost horror, Belinda Bede remarks, would be a union

erodes a woman's individuality. Marriage, she has noticed, makesand wives "grow to be like each other" (p. 68). ,

this respect Belinda suggests recurring social and psychological atti-closely allied to an ancient Yiddish folk-saying: "when a husband andsleep on one pillow, finally they have one head.?" That head, claims

Heilbrun in Reinventing Womanhood, is invariably male, a condi-evolving from woman's role as secondary in marriage, as sustainer of

husband whose primary orientation is with the larger world. Quoting E. M.phrase, "abandonment of personality," Heilbrun cites male domin-

throughout society and within conventional marriage structures, awhich encourages women to abandon personal inclinations "as the

of wifehood."!' The only solution, she argues, is shared responsibility.Ironically, it is not the presence of marital tension that Pym's heroines

but the absence, the tendency toward a one-sided acquiescence orwhich neutralizes personalities and sends excellent women

refuge in singleness."';iYAccommodation is not, initially, what Mildred Lathbury has in mind: she

,c,>liet~Sa full life. Pym's archetypal spinster, the most fully-delineated charac-l~ .the author's ten hovels, lives alone, has "no apparent ties" (p. 7), is

nuntster's daughter, .which, she discovers, coupled with her unmarried, makes certain her involvement in others' lives. Mildred thinks of her-as "mousy and rather plain" (p. 8), unassertive, sometimes "spinsterishuseless" (p. 28). Women like her, she thinks, expect "very little - nothing,t" (p, 36). Faithful attendance at church, part-time charity work for

poverished gentlewomen" (p. 13), and the comfort of the daily round incosy apartment frame her life, which she feels to be a duplicate ofthe onehad lived with her parents in a country rectory. .

this excellent woman is too hard on herself. Just past thirty, she is notand acts intelligently, with effect, throughout the novel.

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148 Robert J. Graham Barbara Pym 's Fiction 149

Furthermore, Mildred possesses numerous admirable qualities: sheand displays independence and dignity; she is loyal and judiciousconsoler of many and much put-upon in the excellent woman tradition;candid, not over-sympathetic, in fact she responds bluntly to theGiven to laconic self-deprecation, she conceals a wry wittiness byher sharpest comments to herself. Although Pym lets Mildred tellstory, she retains a strong authorial control, withholding informationfinds tedious or inappropriate to the topic of marriage versus single

In the first of two narrative strands, Mildred's placid domesticshaken by the arrival of new neighbors. The wife, a formidablesuccessful anthropologist just back from field work in Africa andwith her husband, home from World War II naval service.Helena, who is vivacious, outspoken, strong-willed, capable-thougha conventional wife or housekeeper-soon fall out and separate.becomes a reluctant intermediary.

In the second narrative sequence, Mildred's church-life-andsocial center-suffers disruption through another female catalyst, awho is as manipulative as formidable women get in Pym's fiction.Grey entraps the bachelor vicar of St. Mary's; all does not go well, andtoo Mildred is sought as mediator. Again the machinations ofmarriage shape the testing ground for a spinster's speculations abourelative merits of matrimony and singleness. At one point Mildred isabout singleness as "a positive rather than a negative state" (p. 176).other Pym heroines she values independence and acts to preserve it; butthough excellent women often enjoy living alone and emphasizefeatures of single life they find pleasing, they also admit the pleasureto maintain. In a complex world, they reason, arguments exist for silife by remaining unmarried. Furthermore, they conclude, much of ","rrl~~2:~\seems drab routine and the superiority society assigns it overappears decidedly unfounded.

That society may be mistaken is the conclusion of P. 1. Stein'srather positive study which discovers that many unmarrieds havesatisfying lifestyles free of the limits marriage places on independell~mobility and cross-sexual friendships. 12 Similarly, considering the altemativto marriage available to women since the 1960s,Jessie Bernard observesin the 1980s non-marriage is more respectable than it was formerly.the less, she cautions, "Even in a world that offered such a variety, thepreferred type of relationship [in a 1978 study 1was the egalitarian .

A less-cluttered existence and increased freedom notwithstanding,Lathbury still questions the viability of spinsterhood. As evidenceagainst marriage builds, Mildred-feeling alone, empty, useltoward compromise. She recognizes that excellent women, mostspinsters, are ever forced to be on the defensive: presumed in crises totea-makers and dish-washers; presumed busybodies 'becausepresumed to have been unable to attract a man. They endure the

strutiny for the ring on the left hand. Scanning her classmates at an alumni\\-eekend, Mildred acknowledges that what counts is having a husband be he

,t\-er so dull, "and somehow I do not think we ever imagined the husbands to:I\ :.be quite so uninteresting as they probably were" (p. 106).Moreover, she fears

..that the aging unmarried can become the unwanted.Although research within the social sciences has given little attention to

-'--"J never-married women, British studies verify that "single older persons'i.re more isolated than those who are married"; because society has not,,., provided institutional or ideological support "being single becomes less,..Jiable in later life.?" Furthermore, retirement brings more adjustment problems;to the never-married than to the married; not unexpectedly, therefore,

Ieremy Tunstall has found older never-marrieds to be a vulnerable group intish communities."At heart, however, Mildred is a romantic. She is sorry to miss the experiencemarriage or even that of a lost love. Unlike Belinda she has not sufferedrequited love; she just has not loved deeply nor been loved and longs to

, ' at least, the intensity of loss. For her, there is the suspicion that lifecannot be realized fully without romance. Yet, when reviewing the inherentlimitations of a serious relationship with a scholarly man to whom she isJllildly attracted, Mildred becomes unexpectedly practical. With him, thepresumptive chores she sees accruing to her include indexing and proofreading,cooking and cleaning-presumed services, marriage or not, and links in anendless chain. "Was any man worth this burden?" she asks at the novel's end(p. 237). Since Mildred accepts the editing tasks, knowing they will lead to thedomestic ones, the answer would seem to be yes, even though independence,fOmfort, personal growth may be sacrificed.

Finding advantages in spinsterhood becomes increasingly difficult forD~!Cie Mainwaring. She values but does not cherish her independence; sheenJoys her work but feels most useful when aiding men with their work.HaVing recently suffered a broken engagement-someone younger than shebad found himself unworthy of so excellent a woman -'-Dulcie moves beyond

Pym heroines in a negative direction: she is closer to shutting out lifethan to finding shelter in spinsterhood. No mere observer, Dulcie-unlikeother Pym protagonists-researches, meddles, spies, follows, eavesdrops.Her voyeurism becomesa reliance on vicarious sensation, a tendency towardan uYimate detachment. It is, she says, "so much safer and more comfortable

live in the lives of other people ... " (p.1OS). This inclination towardleads her to regard change as dangerous; accepting spinsterhood,

thinks, insulates one from hurt and humiliation. .what of romance, love, family, children as the only certain route forato contentment and a full experience of life? Presumably, Catherine

Tom in Less Than Angels are sharing more than her flat; however, notThe Sweet Dove Died (1978), in the second stage of her publication

will Pym include physical sex and its consequences in her narrative.heroines without family-are attracted to marriage as a means of

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establishing one; nevertheless, in all the novels only one heroine is .With a possible demurral from Catherine who mentions wanting'excellent women appear to endure rather than enjoy children.i]Wilmet's friend in A Glass of Blessings promises not to "inflict"on her, an appropriate verb for a common attitude.

What remains for Pym's women is a longing for love and -~- -- ~:;precious little of the latter exists in the male-femaledramatizes. Much thought about and desired by excellent womenbecomes more a theoretical matter than an actuality, one part ofsingleness colloquy which holds infinite mystery. Jane Clevelandman who would appreciate poetry; Wilmet envies "really wicked(p. 146) because they at least have something to dream about; evenan attractive, lively single woman, finds that romantic eveningsher anticipation of them. Mildred Lathbury would agree.

In a revealing scene well into Excellent Women, Mildredchases a bunch of mimosa from a street barrow. A male friendtransitory nature and Mildred replies: "I know the fluffinessbut it's so lovely while it does" (p. 69). Ultimately, however, shethat "Mimosa does lose its first freshness too quickly to be worthI must not allow myself to have feelings, but must only observeother people's" (p. 73). Linking the blossoms and her romanticshe determines that neither has any permanence; like a sensitiveinfolds to protect herself and withdraws to become a detachedDetachment, she concludes, is the less painful approach to humanships that may go nowhere.

Love is more problematical. It is, of course, acknowledged asfull life, and most heroines without men are able to find one ortive outlets for their affection. Church, a woman friend, a few- all meet the reciprocal need and offer satisfaction of some sort.Mildred and Belinda have their parish duties and a spinster indotes excessively on her cat, overt love-displacement in Pym'smore actively linked to home and garden than to causes or pets.research into the importance of home for never-married womenPym's sense of the spinster's attachment to place has authenticcorollaries. To single people living alone, J. Horowitz and J.found, "home has varying environmental and pyschological mffit;!l;)'

and does not seem to depend upon traditional family structure foring.?" Rather, when home becomes clearly something beyonddwelling, it contributes to a sense of controlling one's environmentoften associated with psychological change. For Mildred and 0

women who value intensely their homes and domesticsometimes react to emotional upsets with a flurry of householdritualization provides affirmation. At times the fondness theyhome-rituals functions as a substitute for social exchange and'

the central question for Pym's spinsters remains the necessityloved by a man. Most recognize such love to be an ideal and in time

that it is mutual love rather than the formal institution of marriage that. Other heroines wish to be loved just to know what it is like to bein an undefined special way by men. Like Mildred Lathbury theywant to be first in someone's eyes. However, few men in the novels act

toward women -wives or not-and none expresses love in thethoughtful ways these women desire. Jane finds this irritating; Dulcieizes that her own acts of love are important even when love is not

frequently in the novels is another nagging question: is it betterloved and lost than never ... as the saying goes. Pyrn's spinsters are

serious about this matter and their responses range from Belinda'sher loss, to Prudence's collecting lost loves as if they were trophies,

U!LL_..l'n feeling the absence of lost love to be in itself a deprivation.most excellent women value even the unreciprocated experience as

a full life.Heroines from Pym's first novel to her last find compensations for the

that would ordinarily come from lover or husband but does not., as has been shown, settles for "something to love" - whether turtle

or gazelle. However, beyond taking her cue from Thomas Bayley's~.she also draws warmth from her long unrequited love. Others, without

oflostlove-and mindful of the Ovaltine and water-bottle rituals everfor Pym spinsters- migh t agree with Belinda who, finding she is "now

lcontented spinster," equates love with "a warm comfortable garment, bed-perhaps, or even woolen combinations, certainly something without

or romance" (p. 158).

all novels written in the first stage of Barbara Pym's career contributecolloquy, three novels-lane and prudence, Less Than Angels and

UnsuitableAttachment-gain an additional dimension through variationsthe author's usual mode of characterization. IS Jane Cleveland, Catherine

and Ianthe Broome, the major figures in these works, are indeedC'l.cell"nt women; each in her way exhibits the identifying traits, endures the

affronts, serves while others stand and wait. But, instead ofand ending the narrative without a male companion, these

Ilmtagonists do experience intimate relationships, however unsatisfactory,men. Through each variation portrayed, Pym is then able to pursue her

debate from a different perspective.and Prudence the heroine has been married over twenty years and is

i].\Jllterpointedin the narrative by the Prudence of the title, a woman just turn-Corner into spinsterdom. Juxtaposing two characters, one single andpermits the author a close comparative study of the issues involved.

152 Robert J. Graham Barbara Pym's Fiction 153

stcreotypes spinsters. In this regard she is further moved by a friend whoiftsists "it's difficult to imagine you fallingin love with anybody .... You're so1XI01 and collected and I'm sure a man would have to be almost perfect tocome up to your standards" (p. 169).Nevertheless, it is atlastlove, romance,

,<, ..• surgeof passion that prompt Ianthe to marry-the only protagonist to do",._"'. ;:10 in a Pym novel. Ultimately, this excellent woman agrees with a more

enlightenedfriend who, commenting onwhat constitutes a suitable marriage,s.:t)'S that "it doesn't concern anybody but the woman herself She is theonewhomust know in her heart whether he is suitable or not " (p. 171).

Inevitably, there appears to be more romance, excitement, indepenaence,beauty in the spinster's life than in Jane's=-despite the latter's marriag~a congenial man. To Jane marriage means loving a man even thoughfinds him "boring and irritating" (p. 193)and she hopes Prudencebetter than she. In contrast, Prudence finds her life to be "rich andpromise" (p. 83); and although neither woman has achieved a full lifenovel ends, the promise remains with the spinster.

In Less Than Angels Pym depicts a live-in arrangement between aman and a free-lance writer slightly older than he, an approach whichher to probe one of the many kinds of behavior her other"unsuitable." Her intention, no doubt, is to determine whether thelove, fulfillment missing in conventional relationships might notan unconventional setting. Further, might not the advantagesindependent single woman and those of the married state accrue to athrough such an alliance? If ever a woman deserves to have it allCatherine Oliphant does: she is a feisty, perceptive, resourceful exce~~m~'jlwoman larger by far than her circumstances. That this liaison do ...prosper is due, once more, to the man's lack of maturity and insight,less significant than Catherine's recognizing how closely theirresembles a dull marriage.More directly linked tothe recurrent concern Pym's heroines ex

what is unquestionably "suitable" is her seventh novel, An UnsuAttachment (completed in 1963 but not published till 1982). Inevery book the adjective-with or without its negative prefix-rl"o..-riMl"·eligible men, social groups; domestic events or, most importantly, marues-prospects. Ianthe Broome extends the accommodation expectedexcellent women into new realms when she seeks a quite impropercompromise frowned upon in earlier novels. SinceJohn Challow, thequestion, is neither her social nor her financial equal, and is fivejunior, the well-bred librarian makes a choice clearly uncharacteristicmildly risky.

To depict Ianthe challenging social and pyschologicalmarrying a man society considers unsuitable, Pym-consciously orabrogated the usual course. Evidence exists, especially in the works ofBernard, Elmer Spreitzer and Lawrence Riley, that superioreducation, social position or income often operate to preventwomen from considering blue-collar workers or laborers as husintriguing counterbalance to these findings is the suggestion by Leoand associates that women with superior traits are rejected on themarket because "many males in their active courting roles tend towife who enhances their culturally conditioned self-image or mdominance." 19

Finally, however, motivation for Ianthe's actions is grounded inagainst singleness dramatized throughout Pym's fiction, as therecognizes her need to surmount loneliness and to overcome the way

* * *year after Pym's first novel appeared, Winston Churchill returned to

office to usher in what one historian calls the quiet epilogue years, a time.• ten "the main concern seemed to be to lift restrictions for the worker andthe burdened housewife, and to keep the ship of state on an even keel"; in1952,the year Elizabeth succeeded her father, Churchill presided at thecoronation and helped foster a nostalgic hope for a new Elizabethan Era"vihich might preserve the exalted tradition of British pre-eminence'?'During the years of Churchill's final administration, Pym had publishedSome Tame Gazelle, Excellent Women, Jane and Prudence, novels steepedin fradition and notable for the very Englishness found appealing under thenewmonarch.'Stability and pre-eminence were short-lived, however, for the second halfof the decade brought the Suez conflict and the Hungarian national revolt..FcUowingAnthony Eden's year at Downing Street - the time Pym publishedLess Than Angels-Harold Macmillan, unruffled and able, began in 1956the longest continuous tenure achieved by a Prime Minister since before~\'orldWar 1.His early attempts to resolve Cold War tensions, bring BritainInto the Common Market, and retain newly independent African countriesasmembersof the Commonwealth -added to hisdomestic successes-meritedMacmillan'sre-election in 1959under the campaign slogan "You never had itSO good." During the calming years of his government, A Glass of BlessingsandNo Fond Return of Love appeared..\~ith the crumbling of Britain's fortunes in the early 1960s-the sterling

enS1S, climbing unemployment and taxes, a weak trade balance, the 1963Profumo scandal, racial unrest, further de-colonization pressures- came~ntraditional solutions and changing attitudes. When Harold Wilson's 1964bour administration brought the end to a thirteen-year Tory rule, readersother concerns than parish politics, the dalliance of librarians, BelindaHarriet Bede grown old. PerhapsAn Unsuitable Attachment was merely

.~UItablefor the times.",Miss Pym was nearing fifty in 1963when she completed An Unsuitabletiachrnent, the manuscript that would be rejected by Jonathan Cape,

Causingthe affront which .....contributed to her remaining unpublished for so

154 Robert}. GrahamBarbara Pym sFiction 155

long. With the revival of her work has come speculation about theSurrounding her withdrawal. Philip Larkin has revealed hiswith Pym and various editors regarding the matter; herreconstructed the history of the refusal; readers' reports haveUndoubtedly, Larkin, closest to the situation, accurately sumsreaction: "It was the blank rejection, the implication that allpreviously written stood for nothing, that hurt,'?' Occasionally,have found weaknesses in the novel- a slight plot, an overly estheticout-dated theme. The last point is nearest the mark.

If it had not vanished fully by 1963, a world where subtletyjumble sales matter, where women worry about marrying benstations, was soon to wane, submerged in an enlarged politicalarena. Cape had received Pym's manuscript nine monthsKennedy's death, a symbolic event in a decade edging toward cproblems, Vietnam, armament controversy, colonial unrest; awhen women increasingly adopted a wider range of lifestylescommonly portrayed in Pym's fiction.Ironically, in 1955 Pym had been ahead of her time in creating -

Oliphant, a free-spirit who loves her "bohemian" flat, defiesliving openly, unmarried, with a younger man whom she appears toDaring, for 1955; commonplace by the mid-sixties, when Pym was stillto publish An Unsuitable Attachment and had soon to contend'rejection of The Sweet Dove Died. The decade that beganUpdike's Rabbit, Run (1960) and ended with Philip Roth's Portnoy s(1969) may not have been the time for spinsters to make tea duringcrises; nor, if London publishers were correct, for readers to caresuitability of a marriage match.It follows then that the same factors leading to Pym's lack of appeal

1960s would attract readers in the late seventies. As Martha Duffy"The Swinging Sixties, which got their early momentum in London,her out of style." Just as fortuitously, it seems, the quieter post-Vieyears, a return to traditional values, and a yearning for a simpler _addition to some exceptionally fine writing that will hold its own inera-have placed BarbaraPym "triumphantly back in the mainstream

Further, reaction to explicit sex, often gratuitous in contemporarynovels and films, may also have aided Pym's revival. More importarreaders could simply be attracted to a writer who offers an escapedisorder, from chronic mean-spirited self-absorption, into the civiliorder which always undergird Pym's narratives. What interests Pymbattles we have with ourselves, with job, church, obtuse relatives andsalespeople, struggles that result in small victories, tiny defeats,a: ..successive accommodations that comprise daily life. Instead of L"'!

ponderous pseudo-events, she locates the inane and Iucommonplace, in the everyday detritus that fills up the spaces betweenpublic acts. In so doing she illuminates the quirks which renderhuman and make each life a stOry all its own.

one suspects Miss Pym regained attention and entered thephase of her career because her novels are anchored by tradition,

goodness, unshakable optimism-all clothed in a monumentalbespeaking wit, eccentricity and the unfailing good sense toto laugh at oneself.

suffered an extended period without publication, then rediscoveryyear, Barbara Pym inaugurated the second phase of her

career with Quartet in Autumn (1977), her most notable accomplish-The Sweet Dove Died appeared the following year and, shortly after

,A Few Green Leaves (1980).three last novels, written after a traumatic rejection of her seventh,

replicate and extend Pym's earlier treatment of the married-singlenessIn The Sweet Dove Died a spinster nearing fifty meets Humphrey, a

antiques dealer nearing sixty, and his nephew James, age twenty-and the two men value the beautiful, the artful, of which antiques

one symbolization. To make one's life a thing of beauty-the novel'sfrom Keats-is Leonora's philosophy. With her considerable indepen-

means, she is able to live well: grace and taste surround her every act.it is soon apparent that for her as for Humphrey, youth is the genuine

this end Leonora considersJ ames a prized possession, not unlike a rarefigurine. She becomes his companion, confidante, advisor, and sheto think of him as her creation. In time James's homosexual tendencies

attraction to a young girl interfere; he also comes to regard Leonora asfact, as antique Victoriana. Losing James, Leonora settles for a

to "the pleasure of being alone which she had enjoyed before she met(p.181).

this novel Pym ventures into Bond Street and Kensington-a worldperfect flowers, gracious luncheons and Siamese cat shows. Here she

ft.plores the beautiful life as compensation for spinsterhood, ultimately.tfirrning singleness and praising self-sufficiency. Such a resolution providesII1arp counterpoint to the starkness mirrored in Quartet in Autumn where~re are few compensations for her lonely protagonists...~ In numerous ways Quartet in Autumn signifies the winding down of Pym'sIttlgleness theme as if time has run out on excellent women. Furthermore,

,,,,~re is the heightened intensity of a new-found realism, a tragic level not\:~;%~ent in her first-stage work. Since marriage is no longer a viable option for

elderly protagonists, the foremost question becomes how to survivewhile aging. Shall I marry? has been replaced by should I have married?

didn't I marry? would it now be different if I had ... ? This onslaught ofr""~iminations is further complicated by the inhospitable nature of con-

life: faceless bureaucracies, meddling social workers, congestedracial tension, the uncaring young, the demanding elderly.

. in this milieu, two spinsters, Marcia and Letty, and Norman and,EdWlll, a bachelor and widower-all working in the same unidentifiable.:,...:

156 Roberti. GrahamBarbara Pym's Fictioll 157

office-face retirement with outward calm but inner misgiving. At aretirement ceremony for the women, a company representative""nobody knows exactly or has ever known exactly, what it is they do"After they retire, it seems, their office and jobs will be eliminated,symbolic of their lives, fruitless and expendable. Not only is theoffice work never revealed but the firm is not named, co-workersprotagonists remain vague, ambiguities of time abound, the surfaceship of the quartet is never penetrated. With all personal matters heldexcept as those awesome levelers retirement and death intervene, itthese lives, specks in a continuum, have no fixed locus in humanretirement, Letty questions the value of a life that has left no mark.

All this Pym renders with remarkable objectivity wrought byflawless tone and a precise measuring of intensity. Here, the authoris how bad things can get. For excellent women the retirees'constitutes the final horror: after a life of encumbrance and service-

And yet, though readers have found Quartet in Autumn anovel, Pym ends on a hopeful note. Weathering the initial trauma ofment, Letty-in the tradition of the excellent women before her-because it still holds "infinite possibilities for change" (p. 176).

That retiremen t creates particular problems for the elderlybeen documented, as we have seen in studies by 1. Tunstall andWard. How closely Pym's Quartet in Autumn characterizations mirroris all the more striking considering recent demographic andresearch: the former reveals the importance of income level and aplace to relative adjustment at retirement time; the latter reflects'loss of status and confidence as single persons age: "The data suggestdefinite bias against the older person who is unmarried ...those qualities that involve social or interpersonal areas _.. but notaffect professional or occupational judgments,'?' Small wonder thendo single people in contemporary society, Pym's protagonists findespecially unnerving.

As an appropriate coda to Barbara Pym's writing, A Few Greenrepeats her main ideas about spinsters and marriage from a freshpoint. Emma Howick is an anthropologist squirrelled away in anvillage working on research notes. A fairly typical excellent woman

- dowdy, quick to serve, troubled about being unmarried-Emma isobserver of life, the first heroine professionally trained. She ."the necessity of being on the outside looking in" (p. 20) but soon i~interested in village life and her relationships with the inhabitants'in her research project.

The re-appearance of a former lover, Graham Pettifer, estabfor the married-singleness issue central to the narrative. Unlikeheroines, Emma has had "a brief affair," now rekindled in acasual, unimpassioned way." There are the usual attempts at _thoughtful gestureson the part of the woman, utter thoughtlessness

Emma, in her thirties but not yet a hopeless spinster, wants somethingbappen and it does. But in the excellent woman tradition she ends up

after a man who is overbearing, patronizing, ungrateful- one who is,, loutish. These weaknesses and more, Emma recognizes, asking

in fact, "Did I once love this man?" (p. 131). Still, she perseveres,through the woods with casseroles, doing his shopping, mending hisbecoming sad when he returns to his wife.

Emma, who is Pym's means of examining a profession as compensationaining unmarried, anthropology is not a life-fulfilling experience. She

f':';i!t:tllilldesires,as first priority, a relationship with a man, perhaps the "meaning-one her mother would like to arrange for her. In Emma's view her mother,

:<-l¥i'}'lllatidowedcollege teacher, had at least "fulfilled herself as a woman" that is,had married and borne Emma, and could then turn to her studies "with aconscience" (p. 8). On this score Emma's conscience is uneasy, but at

s end the characteristic optimism of an excellent woman returns",""~11 Emma foresees staying on in the village. Here, she realizes, she "could

a novel and even ... embark on a love affair which need not necessarilyan unhappy one" (p. 250) .

. "'~.•Participating in the colloquy underlying the plots of Barbara Pym's novelsthe voices of custom, emotion and reason. They are projected throughprotagonists themselves as well as other characters and groups. Theof custom, exemplifying attitudes, practices, rituals, is embodied often

the expressions and actions of the parish vicar or other friends of eachr-protagonist. In all Pym's narratives, custom is the weight of traditionsunicated by sets of assumptions about single women. For example, it is

DreSumedthat single women have abundant free time; that since they areuninvolved they enjoy mediating lovers' quarrels; that living

is always lonely and, therefore, interruption ever welcome. It is assumedsingle women of a certain age instinctively know men and their work to

be more important to society than women and their occupations. Spinstersare, it is thought, quicker to make appropriate allowances. In this vein,~nmarried women automatically qualify as Biblical Marthas, expected toute~d a hand at every church function and help every sick relative, bacheloror WIdowerin need of mended cuff or tea and cakes."The voice of emotion, the instinctual response of individual feelings about

:$elf,one's relationship to men, love, marriage and spinsterhood is projectedIhr~ugh~hecharacters of suitors, friends, domestics and, particularly, through

lntenor monologues of the protagonists themselves. Here, too, presump-abound: single women prefer to marry and are always looking, since allrs long for romance and a mate; single women feel less feminine for

.without a man and are sympathetic to men left on their own. Thus theyever ready to tidy up, prepare meals, tend plants. Again, single womenthe need to nurture men caught in crises, domestic or professional.

voice of reason, a voice founded upon detached observation as well asanalysis, belongs only to the protagonists, who in Pyrn's novels

no sane counsellors, learned mentors or wise friends. The ministers of

"--

r-

.;

158 Roberti. Graham Barbara Pym 's Fiction 159

these stories are more in need of counsel than able to supply it;friends, colleagues- in the restricted settingsdramatized - bself-centered or imperceptive. To sort out illusion from reality,well-founded or flawed, remains the task of the women themselves,only rational voices. .In this role the voice of reason counteracts traditional assu

the self-centered expectations of others. Belinda, Mildred, Catherine;work out for themselves the truths of spinsterhood as learnedobservation and experience: that romantic love is a fundamentalneed which does not lessen with age; that though there areliving alone can be satisfying, even a luxury; that society doeswomen as second-class citizens yet uses them when their very independis a community asset; that men are often weak, requiring more lookirll!than women do; that the economy as structured places a premiumwork and minimizes married or single women's; that it takes aeffort to maintain one's dignity as a single person.Hearing the coun tervailing voices, facing the assumptions, ""'5"'511115

fictional colloquy extracts varied conclusions from each of the protagoiWhile posing many questions, the narratives nevertheless arriveoverriding query significant to each excellent woman in her specificcircumstance: as, in our way,we all seek happiness, does singlenessa boon, a handicap, or something in-between? While the question isfor all, the individual responses sustain a thematic colloquy thatthroughout Pym's fiction and, more often than not, affirms singleessentially good and nominally fulfilling.Unhappily, this conclusion partly stems from the woeful dearth of

men in society at large. For the few women who, like Mildredconsider relinquishing independence for marriage, bemusedthe only attitude possible. Perhaps it is this that puts the GiocondaMildred's face at the end of Excellent Women: the prospect of lifeto Everard Bone may be better than a lifewith the vicar (symbolically,"Gas-fire ... was only one degree better than the glowing functionalwhich I had gazed with Julian" [p. 237]). Men may be flawed throughthrough, but there is the chance, the slimmest chance, in Mildred's mindin marriage she may discover the complementary side of the singleFinally, as she whispers her qualified yes, the voice of the excellent

is tinged with resignation.If all this reflects merely a crazy-quilt society where men and

marry-or not-for reasons outlandish or muddled or unknownthemselves, Pym responds so be it. But if, as a result, excellentremain overlooked or submerged, what is lost may bethose without mates and children, perhaps without family ofwithout career or distinction, face the need to love and be loved,connections with others inways that bring a sense of usefulness andis, after all, a very human problem. Where there is tragedy in Pyrn'sis linked to what might have been.

8arl>ara pym,No Fond Return of Love (London, 1979), p. 141.The original publication dateoff other pym novels will similarly be provided in the text and the editions used will be as

ws: Some Tame Gazelle (London, 1978); Excellent Women (Middlesex, 1980): JanePmde

nce(London, 1979); Less Than Angels (New York, 1980); A Glass of Blessings

',Middlesex, 1980): Quartet in Autumn (London, 1980); The Sweet Dove Died (London,1QM\, A Few Green Leaves (New York, 1980); An Unsuitable Attachment (London, 1982).

H. Youssef, "Status and Fertility Patterns," in Women in the Muslim World, ed. Loisand Nikki Keddie (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), p. 78. See also Naila Minai, Women in: Tradition and Transition in the Middle East (New York, 1981), pp. 187-94; and Jessie

- " The Female World (New York, 1981), pp. 156-59.Julia Cherry Spruill, Women:S Life and Work in the Southern Colonies (1938; New York,

1972), p. 138.~Spinster," The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, 1971 ed.

Anna Shapiro, "The Resurrection of Barbara Pym," Saturday Review, July-August 1983, p. 29.critical writing about Barbara Pyrn's work has thus far appeared in reviews. Notable

,elceptions include: Philip Larkin, "The World of Barbara Pym ," TLS, Mar. 1977, p. 260 and(sa Kapp, "Out of the Swim with Barbara Pyrn," The American Scholar, 52 (1983)' 237-42.An early appreciation of pym's writing exists in Robert Smith, "How Pleasant to Know MissPym," Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, 2, IV (1971),63-68. None of these

addresses the married-singleness issues.Russell A. Ward, "The Never-Married in Later Life," Journal of Gerontology, 34 (1979),861-69and Leonard Cargan, "Single: An Examination of Two Stereotypes," Family Relations,;t) (1981),377-85 comment upon the scarcity of research material on the unmarried despite

increases in the never-married population in Britain and the United States, 1960-75.resents this comparison. Maneuvered into tidying-up her neighbor's kitchen, she

grumbles, "Martha's back must have ached too ... " (p. 150). In Less Than Angels MabelSwan thinks of her spinster sister Rhoda as a "Martha," even when she is not fussing about

Jeremy Tunstall, Old and Alone: A Sociological Study of Old People (London, 1966)' p. 39.See also, Elmer Spreitzer and Lawrence E. Riley, "Factors Associated with Singlehood,"

Journal of Marriage and the Family, 36 (1974),533-42.l{l! Isaac Bashevis Singer, "The Unseen," in Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories (1957; New York,

1(9),p.149.11' Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Reinventing Womanhood (New York, 1979), p. 175.

IlJ Peter 1. Stein, Single (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1976).

III Bernard, p. 159.Hi Ward, pp. 861,863.J5J Tunstall, pp. 64·85.

J..~orowilz and 1. TognoJi, "The Role of Home in Adult Development: Men and WomenLIVIngAlone Describe Their Residential Histories," Family Relations, 31 (1982),335.Ann Oakley, The Sociology of Housework (Bath, 1974) contains a useful interpretation ofthe psychological and sociological factors involved when those living alone use household

as a means of structuring large expanses of time.of an anomaly in Pyrn's work, A Glass 0/ Blessings presents a variation without

much reference to singleness; it is the only novel focused entirely on a married protagonist,aWoman vaguely discontented and courting an extra-marital affair. When the object of hera.ttention leads her to his homosexual friends, the humor becomes priceless and the recogni-

tion painful. -: