Spark's Symposium: a postmodernist critique.

Abstract

Muriel Spark's Symposium (1990) focuses on the problems of perception of truth about persons by creating multiple layers of meaning. Narrative voices, time and incidents are juxtaposed by Spark to create simultaneity of perception of different fragmentary episodes in the novel. In teaching this novel the unconventional plot-structure and characterization should be examined to study the change in the idea and function of character and plot in postmodernist novels.

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The complex relationship between fiction and reality has been a persistent concern of Muriel Spark (1918-), the contemporary Scottish writer. The opacity of human nature, the human tendency to deform reality through imagination and fantasy, are the issues Spark explores by means of innovative narrative techniques in her novels. Reality is seen to be extremely deceptive and this idea is brought out through the plot structure and characters in her fiction. The concern with ontological issues is the chief characteristic of postmodernist fiction; as Marguerite Alexander states, "postmodernist texts pose questions about the nature of reality, modernist texts about how we can know a reality whose existence is not ultimately in doubt"(Alexander 1990, 22). Postmodernist writings present reality not as a static entity, but as a complex phenomenon that undergoes a transition as new facts come to light. In the fiction of the late twentieth century, the search for reality becomes an ongoing process, a continuous quest that is never completed.

Muriel Spark's novel Symposium (1990) is an interesting novel to teach in class as it is concerned with the process of understanding people in their wholeness and with the difficulties encountered in evaluating people fairly. The narrative technique persuades the general reader to agree with the idea of the protagonist being a witch who means harm to everyone. Students, by focusing on the narrative strategies and through the insightful guidance of the teacher come an awakening of the 'truth' about Margaret's character. In this novel Spark presents the extremely difficult task of knowing the other person. In social encounters, several problems of egoism, vanity and unconsciously realized motives create veils and barriers between people causing them to formulate opinions about others. These opinions created about other persons are gradually realized to be incomplete and may even become destructive. They sometimes take the shape of myths that compel the 'other' to conform to these images consciously or unconsciously.

In teaching Symposium, students should be assigned the task of identifying the complex narrative strategies employed by the writer to highlight the complexity of interpersonal relationships, which is the principal theme of the novel. Marguerite Alexander states that late twentieth-century fiction deals with "the treacherous nature of appearance" and continues: "for baffled readers that treachery is not always held within the frame of the novel, but something of which they are themselves victims" (Ibid., 3). The protagonist Margaret Damien is presented from multiple perspectives and is constructed as an evil character. Different characters perceive her as one who has been secretly involved in criminal acts and malign her social reputation. Spark's technique of narration deludes the reader and the critic into accepting the views formulated by the other characters about Margaret. Gabriele Annan in a review titled "Sociable Murder" describes Margaret as a young Scottish witch of the middle class who has an evil eye, and goes on to discuss her crimes thereby failing to pick up the clues offered by the narrator throughout the novel about Margaret's innocence (Annan 1990).

Margaret is shown to the reader at specific critical junctures in her life, when these crimes are committed. Yet her participation or her non-participation in these happenings is not explicitly shown or commented upon. On the first reading the novel appears to be the story of an evildoer being frustrated in her efforts to perpetrate more evil. But within the narrative, scattered statements of Margaret herself or those of the narrator indicate that the protagonist is hardly to blame for the mishaps that are associated with her. Students should be instructed to pick out specific statements from the text, which suggest the narrator's point of view. They should be asked to brainstorm the reasons why the protagonist is portrayed negatively. They may then debate whether Margaret is deliberately represented as an evil character or as a victim of circumstances.

The novel opens with two epigrams; the first, from Lucian's Symposium from The Carousal, states: "... the affair even ended in wounds and the party was finally broken up by the shedding of blood" (5) [2]. In The Carousal, Lucian attacks the hypocrisy of intellectuals by describing "an imaginary wedding feast given by a patron of the arts" in which the guests represent different philosophical schools. At the end of the feast those guests start behaving in an uncultured manner and fight among themselves over the delicacies to take home ("Lucian" 1991, 541). With this quotation from a classical work, Spark underlines the issue of the duplicity and pretence of individuals, which she takes up in her novel.

The central focus of the novel is a dinner party, which becomes an occasion for the coming together and the interaction of these characters, including Margaret. The party is described in the present tense and forms an important part of the narrative. Most of the narrative uses the present tense, emphasizing different characters' perception of Margaret. Through the party Spark shows how these characters appear to be sophisticated and refined, while in their hearts lurks their fear and dislike for Margaret. The party allows the feelings of malice, jealously and ill will to come to the forefront.

Spark moves away from the conventional chronological development of the story and builds up spatial patterns. Instead of narrating the episodes of Margaret's past sequentially, Spark creates a spatial form by juxtaposing the present, the past and the future. The entire story of Margaret's life is bound by the single thread of the dinner party, which recurs as a refrain in the beginning, at the end and at several other points in the narrative. The story does not move forward in time except by a few hours, starting with a description of the party being in progress, and ending with the abrupt disruption of the party, with the announcement by the police officers of Hilda's brutal murder.

She focuses on the variety of perspectives of the other characters, which reveal different aspects of the subject of observation, Margaret. She presents diverse perspectives upon the same subject, perspectives that might be complementary or contradictory to one another. Sharon Spenser observes that "ultimate, or absolute, perception can be achieved only by linking up endlessly individual points of view until a complete panorama is attained" (Spenser 1971, xviii). The character of Margaret is delineated through this complex, yet interesting narrative technique.

Spark's innovative technique of characterization is evident here as Margaret is strictly portrayed from the outside. Her inner thoughts are not shared with the reader, and only her speech and actions are presented. Furthermore, there is a deliberate gap in the narrative about the earlier crimes, which occurred during Margaret's childhood, and only her statements of denial in any involvement in those mishaps are recorded (137-38). Even at the end of the novel, the narrator does not elaborate upon the earlier deaths, which creates the false impression that Margaret is indeed guilty. In many of Spark's novels, the characterization is highly unconventional which reflects the change in the idea and function of character as is evident in the fiction of the late twentieth century.

In the innovative fiction of the present times, the focus of the narrative has shifted from the delineation of character to the process of the creation of fiction and the artificiality of the text. As a result, the conventional method of characterization with its emphasis on the 'realistic' portrayal of character has become obsolete. Robert S. Ryf points out, "the traditional concept of character is no longer viable and ... character as such, once generally accepted as a staple of the novel, is no longer of primary importance as a vehicle of meaning" (Ryf 1974, 317). In the postmodernist novels, the focus is not on the flow of the characters' thoughts to explore their inner reality. Instead, these novels present the superficial behaviour of the characters to suggest the opacity of the minds of individuals. For the postmodernists, reality is not a specific whole, but that which has innumerable facets, each of which add to the original picture. The thoughts and motives of a given individual can never be fully understood and therefore the writers of the latter half of the twentieth century attempt to portray the complexity of human nature by focusing only on the external demeanour of the characters.

In Spark's Symposium, the different characters tell the story in bits and the author provides no links. The reader is expected to piece the different parts of the story together to form a clear picture. The reconstruction of the narrative from the information offered by the various characters places a question mark on the substantiality of the story. The prejudices, whims and fancies of all these individuals portrayed have to be taken into account before accepting the story to be true. It emerges at the end of the novel that the different characters are circulating a fictional account that they have created to give vent to their suppressed fears, and to the evil latent within their hearts.

In this process, while imagining connections and attributing causes where there are none, these characters imagine and construct a new Margaret who is full of evil and superimpose this image on the real girl. Ideas, impulses and fears are shared and exchanged quickly by these characters through a process of networking, and in the course of the narrative an expectation for impending disaster is rapidly built up.

The author uses multiple perspectives in the novel to focus on the enigmatic in character of Margaret. The different characters as they think about, discuss or investigate more about Margaret gradually condition the thinking of the reader. Hurley thinks about Margaret: "What is wrong with her ...?" (34), while Hilda states about her, "I don't trust her. There's something odd" (171). The complex instincts and motives which constitute Margaret's personality are never examined by others, instead she is labelled as a type--a person from the middle class who has married into the upper class for financial gains and who might resort to criminal acts in order to acquire more money. The prejudiced opinions of the other characters presented in the narrative bias the viewpoint of the reader as well unless he/she makes a conscious effort to uncover the truth about Margaret.

In the novel, scenes of the lives of other characters alternate with that of Margaret, so that the false accusations and the reality underneath them can be examined side by side by the reader. Regarding the death of her best friend at school, who had drowned in a lake in the school grounds, Margaret says that "she saw her friend struggle, having been drawn to the spot by her cries, but was too far away to help" (137-38). The narrative shifts to the past when the next mishap occurred--the disappearance of the schoolteacher. Margaret responds to the queries of the police, "She ordered the tea and then she went to the bathroom.... Then I asked the teashop lady to look in the ladies' room as it seemed a long time" (138) thereby pleading that she is not guilty.

Spark juxtaposes the different narrative voices, times and incidents to create simultaneity of perception of different aspects in the novel. When an escaped lunatic murders her grandmother, her parents fear that Margaret and her mad Uncle Magnus have engineered it together. Her father says to her mother, "'And if Margaret was mixed up in this, I'm stunned'", while her mother replies, "'I'm not. And there's no "if" about it'" (75). Later, when Margaret joins a convent as a novice and a nun is murdered there, her family members are convinced that Margaret has played a role in this crime too. One of her sisters, Eunice says to her, "'It looks very fishy, Margaret. You were mixed up with Granny's murder and now you're mixed up with the murder of the nun'"(135). But it is stated specifically by the narrator that Margaret "had been on a visit to her sister Eunice in Dulwich that night 'to see her new nephew'" (119). The Mother Superior in the convent, who has been ill in bed for a long time, confesses to having murdered the nun and dies of a cardiac arrest. Yet Margaret is thought to have plotted the murder. Margaret says to her father, "'What did I have to do with Sister Rose's murder? I wasn't there. Nowhere near'" (135) and thus tries to prove her innocence.

At one point in the narrative the authorial voice intrudes to express her support for Margaret. She states for Margaret's parents: "If they had been able to see ... that there was absolutely no link of any rational, physical or psychological nature between Margaret's personal activities and what went on around her, Dan and Greta might have felt a certain consolation" (142). Through this statement Spark indicates the falsity of the accusations that are being attached to Margaret by other characters. But the comment made in passing by the narrator does not make a sufficient impact in the narrative.

Spark parodies the detective novel in Symposium by destroying the element of suspense early in the novel. The omniscient narrator disregards the convention of the chronological resolution of the crisis, and by means of this technique, draws the reader's attention to the fact that the novel in hand is a constructed piece of art. At one point in the narrative, when the dinner party is coming to an end and the guests are waiting for Hilda to join them, Spark intrudes to predict the future: "But Hilda Damien will not come in after dinner. She is dying, now, as they speak" (45). Later when Margaret discusses with Magnus how Hilda could be murdered, the authorial voice intrudes again and states, "in the destiny of the event Margaret could have saved herself the trouble, the plotting. It was the random gang ... of which Margaret knew nothing, who were to kill Hilda Damien for her Monet" (176). The reader is told beforehand how the murder will take place. Spark subverts the importance of plot construction in this novel where suspense cannot be built up.

Through the postmodernist technique of intertextuality Spark refers to the myth of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde while building up the theme of the duplicity of human beings. One of the guests in the dinner party, Annabel Treece, has made enquiries about Margaret's past and thinks about Margaret during the party, "A female Jekyll and Hyde.... And she wonders. What were precisely the crimes of Mr Hyde? One is never really told" (187). Muriel Spark transforms this nineteenth-century myth to present an entirely new aspect of the human personality in Symposium. In the original novella, Robert Louis Stevenson presented the actual schizophrenic duality of human beings: "the thorough and primitive duality of man" (Stevenson 1886, 644), suggesting thereby the layers of hidden inner selves in the individuals . Spark reconstructs the myth and uses it to suggest the imposed masks and selves, which are not a part of the real self, but have been thrust upon the individual to hide the real person. Margaret is made a scapegoat in the novel as other characters thrust their evil tendencies on her and bring out the worst in her.

Symposium is a modern tragedy of character for it reflects how a morally good person is led to self-doubts about her own goodness. People around Margaret create a myth about her and thrust it upon her. Margaret, in turn is affected by this image that has been floated about her. She states towards the end of the novel: "All those suspicions have fallen on me. Why shouldn't I really do it? I'm tired of being made to feel guilty for no reason" (160). She plots to get rid of her mother-in-law Hilda Damien by persuading her eccentric uncle Magnus to kill her. The elaborate myth, which has been created by the others, approximates reality and forces Margaret to conform to it in her thoughts as well as actions.

Thus the main focus of the teacher during the discussion of Symposium should be the technique of character portrayal, the plot construction, the disruption of chronology and the subversion of reader expectation. Students should be assigned short papers on these topics after a close reading of the text followed by group discussion. This will enable them to grasp the basic principles concerning postmodern thought through a specific focus on this novel.

References

Alexander, Marguerite. Flights from Realism: Themes and Strategies in Postmodernist British and American Fiction. London: Edward Arnold, 1990.

Annan, Gabriele. "Sociable Murder.'" The New York Review of Books 37.20 (20 Dec. 1990). Online. Internet. 29 May 2004.

Barthes, Roland. Writing Degree Zero. [1953]. Prefaced by Susan Sontag and translated by Annette Lavers and Colin Smith. New York: Hill and Wang, 1968.

"Lucian." The New Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1991 ed.

Ryf, Robert S. "Character and Imagination in the Experimental Novel," Modern Fiction Studies 20.3 (1974): 317-27.

Spark, Muriel. Symposium. London: Constable, 1990.

Spenser, Sharon. Space, Time and Structure in the Modern Novel. New York: New York UP, 1971.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. [1886]. In Tim Haydock, Ed. The Giant Book of Classic Chillers, 608-55.London: Magpie Books, 1992.

Preeti Bhatt, Ph.D. is a Lecturer in English at Sant Jayacharya College, Jaipur, India. Her area of specialization is Contemporary British Fiction.