Expressing Social Norms through Gossip

The previous section highlighted the significance of community in the construction of a nostalgic village. In this section, it is my aim to demonstrate how the novel seeks to express idealised social norms through a literary technique that mimics gossip. These social norms are consistent with traditional Christian values about marriage and sexual relationships, as well as conservative notions of the English social structure.

I would argue that the novel’s use of gossip is a stealthily contrived form of restorative nostalgia. Boym states that restorative nostalgia “manifests itself in total reconstructions of monuments of the past” (Boym 41); I contend that Christianity can be understood as a

“monument” of the past, since active participation has been in decline and many of its core ideals, particularly regarding marriage and sexual relationships, are increasingly deemed outmoded by contemporary society. The fact that the Church of England has recently changed its position on homosexuality is an example of the pressure it has been under to adapt to changing moral norms. The novel seeks to reconstruct the social norms that are perceived as having been ubiquitous in English society; and I consider the use of gossip as a covert method to express the Christian ideals because throughout the novel, neither Christianity, nor aspects of religion, are ever expressed by any character to convey behaviour as desirable or undesirable. However, Christianity is maintained as a feature of the village through various cultural practices and imagery, for example, the main street of Badger’s Drift is called Church Lane, and the funeral of Miss Simpson takes place in the village church.

Thus, we have the restorative aspects of Christianity: the imagery is embedded in the village landscape and culture, and Christian ideals are expressed separately through the narrative technique of gossip, as well as the model behaviour of Chief Inspector Barnaby and the idealised imagery of Miss Simpson.

In the novel, a changing morality is often noted. On the one hand it is described as a change in time, while on the other it is framed as a contrast between urban and rural sensibilities. The rural sense of morality is described as archaic, and therefore synonymous with the past, allowing the village to be understood as a proxy for the past. Barnaby articulates this dichotomy when examining Mrs Rainbird’s notes on the people she had been blackmailing: “Poor old devil, thought the chief inspector, wondering what peccadillo the old man had been guilty of. Probably nothing too terrible. Ideas of right and wrong in a small

village, particularly among the older inhabitants, often seemed archaic to more modern minds” (Graham 206). In this passage, Barnaby infers village morality as a dichotomy on two axes, namely place and time. Seeming “archaic to more modern minds” entails an other to “a small village” (place) and “older inhabitants” (time), which would be dichotomous with larger urban areas and a younger generation. Importantly, Barnaby’s use of the verb “seem”

allows him to be neutral toward both moral positions, which is consistent with my contention that he bridges the rural and urban divide.

However, this ambiguous acceptance for both modern and archaic morality is less evident in the chapter revealing Barbara Lessiter’s backstory, which I will argue mimics gossip as a narrative strategy. Gossip, which is broadly defined as “communication about the behaviour of others” (Peters, Jetten and Radova 1610), is mentioned on numerous occasions throughout the novel; it is my contention that while gossip is posited as a feature of living in a small village, perhaps even a necessary component of the village grapevine, it is used as a means of highlighting transgressive behaviour and thereby articulating and reinforcing the social norms. This assertion stems from research that found “people who engage in deviant acts make an important contribution to the functioning of societies by drawing people’s attention to, and clarifying their understanding of, the existing social norms”

(Peters, Jetten and Radova 1618). In turn, these articulated social norms result in a better sense of social cohesion, although that is not to say that there is no tension in gossiping as clearly there are differences in opinion concerning moral and socially acceptable behaviour.

However, I will take the perspective that the novel itself engages in gossip; there is a whole chapter dedicated to the backstory of Barbara Lessiter, which is noteworthy because she is the only character about whom so much detail is revealed, as even Barnaby’s backstory is thin on detail and uncovered only as side notes to the narrative. The reason I shall classify this as gossip is because it is the only chapter that does not progress the plot and instead

discusses salacious details about Barbara Lessiter’s relationships and secret desires. But more importantly, it discusses her numerous acts which can be labelled as socially transgressive behaviour, as they do not conform to Christian ideals of marriage and sexual relationships and nor do they conform to conservative ideals of social structure. The persistent unhappiness that Barbara Lessiter experiences throughout the novel can be interpreted as the penalty for transgressive behaviour.

Gossiping about Barbara Lessiter can be viewed as a mechanism for social bonding with the reader which reinforces the expectations for social behaviour. However, the unidirectional nature of this gossip allows it to go unchallenged by the reader, in the sense that the words on the page do not change no matter how much the reader disagrees, and thereby the novel is equipped to exert moral authority over its passive audience.

The first aspect of her background I will explore is her desire to escape her working class urban upbringing:

Her father was a ganger on the railway, her mother a household drudge. They had five other children. Only Barbara was beautiful. They were packed into a terraced house flush to the pavement, with a concrete backyard. (Graham 60)

Barbara describes this as “a slummish and ugly environment” (Graham 60) and particularly noteworthy is the lack of greenery from her living environment as her house was flush to the pavement and had a concrete backyard. This was a notable consideration in the surveys on national well-being which found that “the majority of comments about [the environment] were focussed on the importance of access to good quality green spaces rather than wider environmental issues” (Office for National Statistics 6). In fact, Barbara envisions middle-class life as “A world where you didn’t have to go to a park filled with screaming kids and snapping dogs to enjoy grass and trees but had them actually belonging to you, in

your own garden” (Graham 60). Thus, we can see how Doctor Lessiter’s Victorian villa with its lawns, trees, and flowerbeds is idealised compared to the “slummish” concrete suburbs, and we can understand her desire for social mobility.

While Barbara’s desire for middle-class life might construct her as the “aspirant working class”, a term Tony Blair uses to contrast against the “traditional working class organisations” who “constantly pulled towards a socialism” (Blair), her story insinuates that this is a transgressive practice. When she was just fifteen years old, She started stealing creams, perfumes and lotions because she “scorned” (Graham 60) the cheap clothes and cosmetics that her sisters had. Such delinquency provides an easy way to associate her criminal behaviour with immoral behaviour, so that the reader is more easily swayed to rebuke other social transgressions because she has been associated with criminality. There is an inference that she believes her beauty is the asset that will allow her to escape her working class status, and she is prepared to steal in order to enhance this asset. However, she also held her virginity “mostly because she had some vague extravagant idea that to be able to offer virginity to a serious suitor might cancel out the debit of her shabby beginnings”

(Graham 61). The fact that Barbara saw chastity as a “vague extravagant idea” and an asset offerable to a “serious suitor”, indicates that she is not a practicing Christian, or at least she does not maintain the ideals of the Christian faith, because the Church states that “God's perfect will for married people is chastity before marriage, and then a lifelong relationship of fidelity and mutual sharing at all levels” (The House of Bishops 22). This means that virginity is a commitment to God’s will and not an offerable asset as Barbara considers it to be.

Barbara attracted the attention of Alan Carter, a young wealthy man at the solicitor’s office where she worked as a filing clerk. She succumbs to his sexual advancements and displays her naivety in their first encounter, imagining their marriage: “Barbara saw them

framed in the doorway of an old country church, herself in white of course, Alan in morning suit. There would be champagne afterwards and a three-tier cake, with some kept back for the christening” (Graham 62). Sometime later she discovers she is pregnant and her chastening comes in the form of the contemptuous reaction of Alan Carter when she asks what his parents will say: “He had looked disbelieving, incredulous and then amused for a moment, then given her a casual hug before saying ‘Don’t worry, we’ll sort something out’”

(Graham 63). She is subsequently paid a large sum of money and given the address of an abortion clinic by the head of the firm. She carries out the abortion which, from a Christian point of view, would be considered an unacceptable act. And in taking the money, she declares that “If she couldn’t get their respect or admiration or love she’d make bloody sure she got their money” (Graham 63). This sentiment is then carried further when a friend of Alan Carter turns up at her front door hinting at her availability for sex. Her initial disgust is

“redirected at Alan and his kind” (Graham 63), but when he offers her the equivalent of a month’s wage, her acceptance leads her to a career in prostitution, which further violates the Christian ideals of sexual relationships. Her penance for prostitution was that “She would never again let herself feel that sweeping golden rush of pleasure” (Graham 64) that she had felt with Alan Carter, which is a token acceptance of the Christian ideal that true pleasure from sex is only to be had with one partner.

I have suggested that the novel regards Christianity and a clearly defined social structure as ideals of Englishness, therefore, I would argue that Barbara’s path into prostitution can be interpreted as an allegory that cautions against the transgression of those ideals. Notably, in Barbara’s story, it is not the wealthy middle-class Alan Carter who is punished for failing to live up to Christian ideals, but rather, it is the working-class Barbara Lessiter who suffers an unfulfilled love life and a later miserable marriage to Dr Lessiter as a consequence of her “selling” her virginity in the pursuit of upward social mobility. To

some extent, this deems her to be the “guilty” party, because Alan Carter’s assumed lack of

“punishment” (as none is mentioned) is an exoneration, and even a tacit acceptance of the expendable attitude towards the transgressive working class.

Barbara lies about her background to Doctor Lessiter when they meet, and she falls in love with his middle-class livelihood. Their courtship leads to marriage, but their relationship is strained by her lack of willingness to have sex with her husband. It is revealed that she is having an affair with the village stud, David Whitely, and thus we can include infidelity among her violations of Christian ideals for sexual relations. Ultimately, Barbara is incapable of love as Barnaby notes when questioning her about her meetings with David Whitely: “There was nothing amative in the description. She did not even use that consoling euphemism ‘making love’. Love, as Barnaby understood the word, probably didn’t enter into the arrangement at all” (Graham 239). This passage highlights the contrast between Barnaby, who understands the word “love” by conforming to the Christian ideals of marriage and sexual relationships, compared to Barbara Lessiter whose transgression of Christian ideals has led her to an unhappy life of loveless sex, and a miserable marriage, despite fulfilling her middle-class dream by marrying Dr Lessiter.