The Divine And The Marginal Essay Research — страница 2

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fresh with the dew of heaven.. . (76). In thisworld view, [c]childhood was. . .a special time of life in which gender was no longerstressed as an attribute; rather it was the childlike quality of the child which needed to bepreserved (75). The increased tensions of a newly industrialized society created in adultsa longing for the freedom and fantasy of childhood, which developed into a socializednostalgia for a return to childhood and nature [,] which was central to the romanticvision (74). In this social system, there are no absolute distinctions between the goodchild and the bad child; the poor child, like Oliver Twist, is to be pitied (74), the bad childis to be encouraged to be good. An idealization of childhood does not mean that childrenwere removed from the boundary of the

marginal; if anything, they became more so as thelink between pure divinity and childish innocence began to be explored: Mighty prophet!Seer blest,/ On whom all truths do rest/ Which we are toiling all our lives to find (Wordsworth, qtd. in Cunningham 78). Children hold the voice of the divine in theirinnocence; only by relating to the keener perceptions (73) of children can adults hope toavoid becoming dried up and embittered (73) as the experience and toil of life degradesand corrupts them. However, the keener perceptions (73) of children made them more susceptibleto crossing the line between society and the divine and marginal: Little hearts are to betaken (76). God values these little hearts, steals them away from society to preservetheir purity, but at the same time removing

that which society needs to maintain and regainits innocence and purity. The act of death frees and maintains the purity of the souls ofchildren, leaving society to cope with and grow from the reality of mortality. The littlewatercress girl discussed in London Labour and The London Poor who . . .had entirelylost all of [her] childish ways. . . (64) symbolizes the duality between experience andinnocence. Despite her age and appearance, the girl . . .was, indeed, in all thoughts andmanner, a woman (64), a being trapped between childhood and adulthood, unable tostand on either side of the line. Instead of representing the evils of society, the marginality of this child-woman defines her as the essence of adult experience: at eight,she has endured poverty, the responsibilities of

motherhood, physical abuse, hunger, andlabor (66-67). Her declaration of I ain t a child (68) inspires pity, Christian charity,and a renewed sense of social responsibility. The children in The Turn of The Screw form a bridge between the socialexpectation of goodness stemming from beauty and the innate corruption of the soul. Inthe beginning of this tale of delicious (James 2) horror, the governess is encouraged tobelieve that the physical beauty of both Flora and Miles is a reflection of theirtranscendence above ordinary mortals: See him, miss, first. Then believe it. . . .Youmight as well believe it of the little lady. Bless her. . . look at her (10). Mrs. Grose sconnection of physical beauty to the marginal is no accident; these children are so perfectlyformed that they exist

outside the normal boundaries of right and wrong. The governessmistakenly equates their beauty with goodness when she assumes that Mrs. Grose has never known [Miles] (11) to do wrong, following social patterns that demand thatbeauty and ugliness be equated with their obvious characteristics. The divinity of Milesand Flora is not a radiance of peace and innocence, as in the Romantic vision of childhood;it is, rather, a reflection of the duality between human and divine, society and marginality,that is generally and conveniently ignored. Other evidence of the otherworldly qualities exists in the children s ability toentrance, to mystify, those around them; they become partly symbolic of the corruptiveelement of the universe, although not of man. They have the ability to corrupt but

are notnecessarily corrupted themselves. The governess, blinded by . . .the vision of . . .angelicbeauty (7-8) that was Flora and the passion of tenderness (13) she felt for Miles, wasthrown off [her] guard (14) into a trap . . .to [her] imagination, to [her] delicacy,perhaps to [her] vanity; to whatever. . .was most excitable (14) that the childrenengineered. She feels charm[ed] (14) by Miles and sees the childish light (11) radiatedby Flora even as she recognizes the possibility that they have the ability To contaminate.. . [and]. . . [t]o corrupt (12). The marginal status of Flora and Miles is further supported by their ability toremain untouched, unstained, despite their actions. They seem to have no center ofmorality, no ruler by which to judge their actions: They were like