Investigating Rebellion in Christopher Isherwood's Novel "A Single Man"

ABSTRACT

The present study deals with Christopher Isherwood’s manipulation of the concept of rebellion in his most prominent novel: A Single Man (1964).

The Isherwoodian novel depicts various stages of rebellion against the chaos of values, the middle-class conventions and against the authoritative moral standards that make certain forms of conduct appear right. There is a quest for spiritual growth and self-development in Isherwood’s novel; therefore, the spirit of rebellion becomes milder as the novelist becomes older and more mature.

The aim of this research is to trace Isherwood’s experimentation with the concept of rebellion. As the hypothesis of this research goes by, the forms he introduces into it change the conventional understanding of rebellion from a punishable law-breaking act into an instrument to deal with the difficult problems then to raise man to the occasion. Isherwood proves that rebellion is a constructive, not destructive, act whose role necessitates the improvement of the state and the individual.

A Single Man, presents a single day in the life of a lonely aged man who refuses life and locks himself in a small room thinking that the smallness of the room may protect him from the outside world.

The conclusions end the study with Isherwood’s success in creating art works that suggest the possibility to change rebellion from a retributive act of disobedience into a positive act against tyranny, calling for the renovation of the modern society through a return to the way of God.

Section One

1.1 Introduction

A Single Man (1964)

Having a general view about the Isherwoodian novel, it depicts various stages of rebellion against the chaos of values, the middle-class conventions and against the authoritative moral standards that make certain forms of conduct appear right. There is a quest for spiritual growth and self-development in Isherwood’s novel. Therefore, the spirit of rebellion becomes milder as the novelist becomes older and more mature

The aim of this research, however, is to trace Isherwood’s experimentation with the concept of rebellion. As for the hypotheses of this paper, the forms he introduces into his novel change the conventional understanding of rebellion from a punishable law-breaking act into an instrument to deal with the difficult problems then to raise man to the occasion. Thus, the problem of this study might be formed in terms of the following questions:

1. How does Isherwood deal with the concept of rebellion in his novel ' A Single Man'?
2. What kind of rebellion does he use in his novel?
3. Why does his novel depict various levels of rebellion?

The significance of the current paper is to analyze the novel and explore the theme of rebellion. It may also be useful for those students who have a lack of understanding of this theme to find a simple summary that will benefit them in their studies similar to this topic. As for the limits, this study is limited to deal only with Christopher Isherwood's novel 'A Single Man' (1964) to dig up deeply and find out what the theme of rebellion exactly is.

1.2 The Definition of Rebellion

Rebellion is best defined as an armed resistance for political purposes conducted by nationalists against the government, resulting in a revolution or a civil war. In law, rebellion is considered an act of someone who engages in an act of resistance against the authority and is therefore subject to prosecution for treason, such as the Boxer Rebellion (1900) against the Western commercial and political influence in China, the French Resistance (1944-1945), the English Civil War or the Great Rebellion (1642-1649), and so on (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1966). From this definition one can deduce that whenever violence increases rebellion escalates into a civil war or a revolution. The two terms “rebellion” and “revolution” are not synonymous.

Daniel Aaron alludes to the fact that the critic Arthur Koestler differentiates rebellion from revolution, saying that rebellion is liable to change its cause, whereas revolution is directed against only one object; and that the rebel may turn his protest against injustice or against any other form of evil but the revolutionary is viewed as a “fanatic,” “constant hater” who conducts all his protest against the tyrannical authority (Aaron, 1961: 218). The spirit of rebellion seems to be flexible as far as its cause concerned , while the cause of revolution is almost always inflexible . Then George Watson affirms that revolution is usually based on the assumption that the only means to end the death—pang of the old society and the birth—pang of the new society is “revolutionary terror.”

Hence , revolution implies a radical change in the sense that it uproots the existing system and gives birth to a new system . Watson’s assumption opposes George Orwell’s remark that revolution is not a means to change the society but to keep it the same; that revolution helps dictators to seize power through anarchy; and that it starts with big hopes such as liberty then it gives a chance to the governing class to dominate and enjoy its privileges. Orwell differentiates revolution from reform saying that revolution only conserves, while reform means change and novelty (Hoggart, 1977: 43)

The researcher disapproves of Orwell’s opinion , saying that both rebellion and revolution lead to change . In the case of revolution , the change happens radically . But , in the case of rebellion the change can be viewed as a peaceful and gradual process in the sense that rebellion doesn't necessarily eradicate the existing system but it may readjust them or reconciles the old values and the new ones.

According to these opinions, one can deduce that any revolution may lose its real purpose of reform and may turn into terrorism whenever it is combined with severe violence. Thus, the two terms “rebellion” and “terrorism” must be treated with caution. Sometimes the two terms are equated to each other because they are based on methods of violence. Nevertheless, a rebel can’t be called a terrorist because the former aims to achieve a positive change, while the latter can be viewed as an instrument for the destruction of peace and for the service of Fascism.

Rebellion is also defined as an attempt within the society to redistribute its powers and resources by using force, by showing disagreement with the existing system, and by behaving differently from the normal ways of behavior. Its synonyms include: revolt, insurgency, mutiny, insurrection, uprising, resistance, subversion and counter-culture (Brainy Encyclopedia, 2005).

Besides, rebellion is described as a counter-cultural act that encompasses a range of behaviors, extending from a mild flouting of the social norms to a severely violent act (Wikipedia). Alan Swingewood refers to what Albert Camus says that rebellion “in its exalted tragic forms is only, and only can be a prolonged protest against death, a violent accusation against the universal death penalty'' (Swingewood, 1975: 176)

Whatever forms rebellion shapes itself with, it remains a protest against death and injustice. Swingewood believes that contradiction is an important factor to reinforce the authenticity of rebellion because there is no rebellion without disinterestedness (ibid). On this basis, rebellion conveys an attempt to get rid of the state of disinterestedness in the hope of improving the imperfect conditions.

In addition to the factor of contradiction, D. W. Brogan remarks that to carry out a rebellion there is no need for a certain social class. This means that rebellion is not associated with the proletariat only or with the bourgeoisie only (Brogan, 1968: 71). The novel in hand sees that the intellectuals represent the most suitable social stratum to conduct rebellion because they possess good understanding and constructive maneuverability.

All Isherwood’s rebels are intellectual characters; that is, they are private tutors, novelists and professors. William Bradshaw is a tutor, Chris or ‘Christopher’ is a novelist and George is a college professor. Their revolt is not always seen as an angry outburst conducted against politics. Rebellion, thus, will be studied in the following sections from psychological, moral, social and spiritual perspectives.

1.3 The European Socio-Political Scene in the Thirties

The decline of the Western civilisation in the thirties became an aspiring vision for the young writers, providing them with suitable subjects for their works of art. The thirties was called the “red decade” or the “pink decade”. This term might be derived from the widespread revolutionary enthusiasm among the anti-Fascist intellectuals. Such a revolutionary zeal was promoted by the Russian Red Army and its inclination to Communism.The thirties was the time of the flourished left wing and the Communist ideologies among the young intellectuals who complained angrily against the Fascist terror. It was a time of mass unemployment, desolation, war, and of the defeat of democracy at the hands of Fascism.

G. S. Fraser alluded to what T. S. Eliot remarked that the interwar period could be described as a “no man’s years between the wars” (Fraser, 1953: 267). During the red decade, Europe witnessed a preparation for the outbreak of another war which was renewed with the ruinous violence of Adolf Hitler, General Franco and Benito Mussolini. The thirties became a period of political polarisation and of moral crises. A dangerous social cleavage occurred because of the overlapping international events: the ascendancy of Fascism which was considered, as Jean Edward Smith put it, the highest degree of the disintegration of man (Smith, 1966: 349-50).

As for André Malraux, he regarded Fascism as the politics of assassination and associated it with the myth of the destructive leader.Fascism was an international threat in the sense that it made a counter-revolutionary alliance with the state, the church and the army in order to carry out a permanent war. It exalted inequality through the instigation of racism and nationalism. As a reaction against Fascism, anti-Fascism emerged in an attempt to create a revolutionary civilisation. The young writers were inclined to anti-Fascism so as to eliminate the class or racial antagonism, and to restore man to his human wholeness (Fisher, 1978: 291).

In 1939 Auden and Isherwood departed to America. Cyril Connolly stated that “the departure of Auden and Isherwood to America … is the most important literary event of the decade'' (Connolly, 1973: 52). With their departure, the decade of the revolutionary writers came to its end. The miserable conditions of life in the thirties encouraged the young writers to adopt a social revolt in order to carry out radical reform of the individual as well as of the society. Instead of lamenting the calamities of life, the Isherwood generation proved their literary genius by changing their deadly catastrophes to revolutionary art.

1.4 The Political Involvement and Rebellious Tendency

It is of great significance to give an idea about the political attitudes and the rebellious mood of the young writers in the thirties. Literature, as Walter Allen puts it, can’t be studied as a literary accumulation of “self-contained blocks of ten years’ duration” (Allen, 1974: 245) ; that is to say, the literary productions of the thirties exist harmoniously with the literary productions of the other decades.

In the broad sense, the literature of the thirties is socially and politically oriented. The Auden-Isherwood generation can’t be thought of as a literary movement because of the limited number of this group members. They are: Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, George Orwell, John Lehmann, Rex Warner, Louis MacNeice, Gabriel Garritt, Geoffrey Throp, and others.

Any literary movement holds its own meetings and has its well – known principles , while the Auden-Isherwood group don’t have any special meeting (Knorr, 1997: 2). Europe becomes a place of political contradictions swinging between two extremes. It is divided into two political camps: Communism and Fascism. Writers like Isherwood find themselves trapped between the two large political powers of Communism and Fascism; therefore, they adopt a neutral position or mediocrity. They are called fellow travellers because they sympathise with the Communists without being involved in the party line (Kurzweil, 1983: 150).

Moreover, Stephen Spender admits that there are several reasons which encourage the members of the Auden-Isherwood generation to be inclined to an ultra-leftist orientation towards the Communist Party, or at least to sympathise with its cause. The Communist Party promises to solve the racial, the economic and the political anxieties; to satisfy the spiritual yearnings of the society; to break the bondage of Capitalism; and to give a remedial diagnosis for the social sickness. Nevertheless, the Communist Party proves itself to be not very different from Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany.

All these parties fail because of the contradictions between the parties’ ideal ends and the practical means employed to attain them. Most of the left-wing writers are disillusioned by Communism. Graham Greene and Malcolm Lowry renounce their Communist membership after the Hitler-Stalin Pact which Lowry describes as a “bill of divorcement between Russia and the men of Good Will in the West'' (Spender, 1951: 290).

1.5 Social Realism

Social realism is best defined as a perennial aesthetic mode employed in literature, painting, architecture and in other forms of art. It becomes a distinctive literary current throughout the thirties up to the fifties when it begins gradually to dissolve. It is also defined as a literary genre which describes a specific contemporary injustice, then tries to propose some cure which is, usually a form of socialism, neither so deterministic nor so pessimistic (Evans, 1949: 23). Rene Wellek describes social realism as an objective representation of the contemporary reality, or it is a presentation of the human values and meanings which reside in an unending and indissoluble tension between the self and society (Spender, 1978: 15). Alan Kennedy refers to Ian Watt’s opinion that social realism means the opposite of what is particular or individual. “Only the universals were true since they were the only reality,” comments Watt (Kennedy, 1974: 72). Besides, George Lukács says that social realism represents the epic of the modern world whose god is the industrial machine (Post, 1981: 367).

Social realism is usually bound to the upper-class perspective, finding a great favour among the Auden-Isherwood group. They are fellow-travellers who share a similar social background. Most of them are of bourgeois origin, having received their education in public schools and universities. That they apparently abandon their upper-class conventions for the proletariat, makes the Auden-Isherwood group romantic rebels and stubborn objectors to their class. Guilt feelings instigate them to advocate the proletarian cause. The hard conditions in which the proletariat live and the dexterous life which the bourgeoisie enjoy haunt every decent artist by a feeling of unease since his comfortable life costs the poor workers their lives. Isherwood shares the excitement that the German audience of workers feel when they watch Mr. Norris acted on the stage. Isherwood represents the collective voice of the workers’ protest:

They were listening to their own collective voice. At intervals they applauded it, with sudden, spontaneous violence. Their passion, their strength of purpose elated me. I stood outside it. One day, perhaps, I should be with it, but never of it. (Mr. Norris, 152)

As a result, social realism implies a sort of interdependence of the personal and the political levels of the artist’s life. The few lines above show that Isherwood does sympathise with the working-class and its cause of Communism, but he can’t deny his upper-class upbringing.

1.6 Summary of the Novel

A Single Man (Post, 1981: 367) is about a single day in the life of George who teaches at St. Tomas College. He is a middle-aged English refugee, at the age of fifty-nine; the same age of Isherwood when he writes the novel. His homosexuality is an allegory of the oppressed minorities. Jim, George’s intimate friend, dies in a car accident while he is taking his girlfriend Doris to Mexico. On his way to the college, George’s mind is fully absorbed in prospective daydreams. He imagines himself as a chauffeur-figure, a criminal and a college professor. In the class, he discusses Aldous Huxley’s novel After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. After having dinner with the English expatriate Charlotte, George visits the Starboard bar where he recalls his life with Jim in 1945. Kenny Potter is a college student and an admirer of the professor. Both characters establish a teacher-disciple or a father-son relationship. A spiritual transformation happens to them. The novel ends with the hypothetical death of the single man.

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