Thacker books

Edwin Drood - Antichrist in the Cathedral

3   A Little Fantasy

Anyone who approaches The Mystery of Edwin Drood with the conviction that the fragment contains some of Dickens's finest writing and craftsmanship, and is therefore worth study as an example of his art, must at some stage use conjecture as to the book's ultimate development. Most of the astonishing volume of work produced on this half-novel (particularly up to the 1930s) has been concerned with 'finishing' the book, explaining the manner of the murder, clarifying Jasper's motives (sometimes exculpating him altogether) or travelling down fascinating side-roads like the identification of Datchery or the children of the Princess Puffer. Modern criticism, however, has rightly been more concerned with what the author intended to achieve over and above the mere narrative, and has been more appreciative of the closely-packed writing and, in many places, fine prose-poetry of its style. Even for the appreciation of these, however, it is still necessary to use a little guesswork. I have ventured to infer, for example, from the manner in which it is treated in the first half that the Cathedral was to dominate the whole book; but I readily concede that this is only an inference, incapable of proof.
   So with the character of Jasper. Any attempt to appreciate the manner of his presentation in the first half of the novel must be accompanied by some guesswork on the nature of the full portrait. But such guesswork is best informed by an attempt to go back to the beginning; to trace the author's conception of the character and to search for the reasons behind the environment selected for him. Now there was no need, in the plot outlined to Forster, for Jasper to have been

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choirmaster. The emotional situation described could have been carried equally well by a man in any other profession or in no profession at all. Obviously, therefore, Dickens made certain decisions at the outset: to use the topography of Rochester; to concentrate the Rochester action in and about the Cathedral; and to make his criminal a cathedral official. The order in which these decisions were taken no one, perhaps not even Dickens himself, could say; but it is only necessary to glance back at his major earlier works (from Bleak House on, say) to realize the profound significance of environment on their construction, and to conclude that the choice of Cathedral and choirmaster were quite deliberately made and were to be an integral part of the structure of the finished book.
  The most complex, detailed and carefully thought out theory of Jasper's origins and background that I have so far met is outlined by Aylmer in The Drood Case (1). Unfortunately it is marred by an untenable position, that Jasper is innocent of murder. While not following him in this, Charles Forsyte, in The Decoding of 'Edwin Drood' (2) adopts his theory more or less, which is that the elder Drood had first married a Muslim wife in Egypt, of which marriage John Jasper was born; after which a second and English marriage makes Edwin Jasper's half-brother. This conjecture is supposed to go to the heart of Jasper's character and provide the psychological basis of his behaviour. There is some reason perhaps in going to Egypt in search of the roots of Jasper's personality: the Drood firm is in Egypt; Edwin is going there to take up his father's partnership; Rosa knows this and talks of Belzoni and 'you Egyptian boys'; Edwin tells Neville Landless of it. But these few references to Egypt are all we have, and only one of them can be shown to have any bearing on the plot or construction - that in which Rosa refers to the 'burial' of Belzoni - a probably ironic reference to Edwin's own ultimate burial in a tomb. And throughout Dickens's notes there is no mention of Egypt whatever. This seems rather a sparse foundation on which to base a theory concerning the root causes of the behaviour of the leading character in the book, and which affects its whole structure. There is I believe another reason for the Egyptian connection, which I shall show later. But Aylmer's conjecture

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seems to me un-Dickensian not only in subject-matter but in its implications for construction purposes; for the subject-matter of a great part of the second half of the book would concem the manners, customs and religion of a country and people of which the author had no direct knowledge and which to his readers was far more foreign and distant than it is today. Dickens read extensively in books of travel himself and his characters often travel; but it was not his habit (except in A Tale of Two Cities) to lay the roots of a novel out of England. It seems to me also that this would throw the construction of the book out of balance and divide it effectively into two parts without any real unifying force between them, like one of those Sherlock Holmes stories in which we are shown the great detective wrestling with mystery in the familiar environment of foggy London and then suddenly transported to a North American desert for its elucidation.
  But there is a further consideration: Dickens was a domestic novelist writing for a domestically oriented public. That most domestic of novels, David Copperfield, had been a great popular success. His writings are so full of references to hearth and home, household, family and so on that it is a truism to say that one of his strongest holds upon his public was his appeal to their domestic instincts. His own early appraisal of The Moonstone - 'wild, yet domestic' - shows his appreciation of the importance of this. It seems far more likely that Dickens, writing an English novel about an English Cathedral Town, and having certain artistic objectives in view, would choose to set the roots of that novel in the Cathedral Town itself rather than in a distant middle-eastem country and that he would be more likely to lay the foundations of the action in an ordinary domestic situation such as might be well within the experience of his readers. And if his objectives could be reached equally well using either background, it would seem to be creating unnecessary difficulties to take a substantial part of his story abroad. He knew the atmosphere of Rochester; he could not know the atmosphere of Cairo half so well.
   It is quite possible to suggest a synopsis for the early part of Jasper's career (to be revealed in the second half of the book) which will give a raison d'etre for his character as it appears to be at the beginning and as it is presented and developed

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throughout the first half, without the slightest necessity of invoking Egyptian or Indian religions, blood feuds, half-brothers or illegitimacy. It certainly involves a conjecture, but a far simpler one than that outlined above, and can be very briefly stated thus: that Jasper was to be shown as having deeply loved his sister, the mother of Edwin Drood.
   That his sister was the mother of Edwin is of course hardly conjecture at all, and that she must have been considerably older than Jasper, to account for the difference of only six years in the respective ages of uncle and nephew, is obvious. I have ventured to assume the relationship between them for reasons founded on the author's previous work and known methods of construction. A plot or sub-plot founded on a sibling or assumed sibling relationship is the rule rather than the exception in Dickens, occurring in nearly all the novels and in all the Christmas Books; and it would account for much that is present in the fragment, besides giving the work a further unifying theme.
   For convenience in working out a synopsis based on the above, in detail, I have suggested a date for the story which is to some extent arbitrary and need not necessarily be accepted. Dickens seldom if ever worked out a precise time-table of dates for his novels; indeed, in this very book there are one or two slips: the timing of the Datchery appearance is questionable; and while there can be no doubt that he intended (as in Esther's Narrative in Bleak House) the story to be taking place some twenty-five years or so before the date of writing, he has allowed Fildes, as he allowed Browne, to illustrate the characters in contemporary dress. Percy Carden, in The Murder of Edwin Drood (Cecil Palmer, 1920) has, in a theory which fixes the date of the action in the year 1842, usefully listed the indications pointing to that date or thereabouts:

Chapter VI: 'In those days there was no railway to Cloisterham, and Mr. Sapsea said there never would be. ...' Given that Cloisterham is Rochester, this must be an allusion to the line to Strood, built before 1853.

Chapter XI: 'In the days when Cloisterham took offence at the existence of a railroad afar off. ..no neighbouring

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architecture of lofty proportions had arisen to overshadow Staple Inn.' An allusion to the Patent Office building of the mid 1840s.

Chapter XVII: Six months or so after the murder, Mr . Crisparkle and Neville 'dined together [in London] and parted at the yet unfinished and undeveloped railway station; Mr. Crisparkle to get home [to Rochester]' .This must refer (British Almanac 1842) to the building of the London Bridge Station in that year .

   Carden goes further than this and by means of almanacs and dates of Christmas Day 'proves' the time and the year of the murder (1842). It is indeed 'a year which accords in a quite remarkable fashion with a number of hints contained in the book', to use his phrase; but I claim no more here than that I may accept that Dickens has set the genesis of his story in the previous quarter-century , and use the date as a point of reference, like 1066 or 1485, from which to indicate a possible sequence of events.
   Let us posit, then, that Dickens intended Jasper's parents to be English people living in or near Cloisterham about the turn of the century and that to them was born in, say, 1802, a girl. Whether there were any other children before 1816 is irrelevant to the purpose; I assume that none lived until, in 1816, John Jasper was born (which makes him 26 in 1842). At the time of his birth his sister is 14. Suppose that both parents had died within a short time of this, producing a situation in which the girl and boy, aged 16 and 2 respectively, were left as orphans. Other relatives mayor may not have come to their assistance or they may have been well or badly off . I am not attempting to re-write the novel and I make no guess, only wishing to suggest that, the girl having finished whatever schooling she may have had by that time, they were enabled to live together, she combining the roles of sister and mother, and that in those very early years a deep and loving relationship was created between them. Its exclusive nature and its utter security in the mind of the young child would be to some extent broken when in 1821, she being 19 and he 5, she met and married Drood. The following year she has her

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baby (Edwin). Jasper is now 6, and it must be remembered that he was to have the inborn sensitivity of an artist. Comparison may be made here with the effect on David Copperfield of his mother's marriage to Edward Murdstone. It may be taken even a little further by recollecting that young David shows no jealousy of the child of this marriage and indeed weeps when he hears that the baby is dead. It would not be in the least straining probabilities to assume that in this sort of situation Dickens could well indicate an affection on the part of the child-uncle, protective (perhaps even' moddley-coddley'?) towards his nephew, if only for his sister's sake .
   I do not seek to equate the elder Drood with Murdstone in any way. The sympathy he is said to have shown to Rosa's father (Ch. IX, p. 63) in the latter's year of grief at the loss of his young wife makes any such comparison improbable. It can be said with reasonable certainty that part of his work must have lain in Egypt, and whether he would take his wife, son and brother-in-law with him or leave them at home would be pure guesswork and need not be attempted. I suggest only that from this time until he was about 12 or 13 John Jasper lived with his sister, her husband and their young child and that during those seven formative years a conflict grew up within himself of which he became increasingly conscious, centred on the life and personality of his nephew Edwin. I suggest that in, this period, although outwardly his affection for Edwin might appear undiminished and even to grow, he would become increasingly aware of the anomaly of his own position. Their relationship within the household would be virtually indistinguishable from that of brothers with a six-year age gap, but Jasper as the elder brother would only be playing a role. Edwin was the real son; his would be the patrimony; Jasper is only a relative with claims. And at about this time it seems probable that the discovery of his outstanding musical talent would be made, to the relief of Mr. and Mrs. Drood, who would see in this a career for their young relative independent of the Drood Firm. (Not too affluent, according to Edwin: 'My small patrimony. ..'.) He would enter the Cathedral choir as a soprano at an early age, and I suggest that he was reluctant

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to do so but concealed his reluctance from his sister and others partly because of their delight in his having 'found his niche in life' and partly because his nature was reserved md secret. I suggest also that from this time his dislike of the cathedral and all its works, which later ripened into hatred, was born.
   Again using the date 1842 as a reference point, we come at the end of this seven-year period to the year 1829. Jasper's sister is 27, Jasper is 13 and Edwin Drood is 7. Rosa Bud is about 4, assuming her to be 16 or 17 at the time of the story. According to the text, her mother died when Rosa was 6 and there is a strong indication (Ch. IX, p. 63) that Mrs. Drood, rasper's sister, died before this. I suggest that she was to die in or about this year, 1829, and that the blow to Jasper was to be devastating, both in practical and psychological terms. While his affection for .the boy Edwin could well be intensified by a sense of duty and gratitude to the memory of his sister,
to the extent that he could even become a surrogate mother, expending all his love and care on the boy-' dear old Jack' and Jack's sister might well have been the main agencies in Edwin's spoiling-at the same time he would become more and more aware that at the centre of his own deep discontent would be the very same boy on whom he was lavishing all this affection. And as we have seen from an examination of the character of Edwin Drood (based not on conjecture but on the text) the boy was making anything but a satisfactory return. I suggest that from this time, Jasper's fourteenth or fifteenth year, his attitude towards his nephew could begin to be described as ambivalent or, in today's jargon, a love-hate relationship .
   There would now follow another period of about seven years, by the end of which Jasper's twenty-first birthday would have been reached and a further psychological blow would have fallen on him. At some time in this period - probably towards its end and certainly at the death of the elder Drood, when he became Edwin's guardian - he would make the discovery that Rosa Bud, now about 12 or 13 and with whom he is by this time secretly in love, has been left by Will, as it were, to young Edwin and that both of them are accepting the situation, with Edwin, as usual, taking all for granted

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COMPARATIVE AGE OF CHARACTERS
(Based on 1842 as the year of the narrative)

  JASPER JASPER'S SISTER EDWIN ROSA ROSA'S MOTHER ROSA'S FATHER EDWIN'S
FATHER
1816 Birth 14          
1817 1 15          
1818 2 16          
1819 3 17          
1820 4 18          
1821 5 19 (married)       (married)
1822 6 20 Birth        
1823 7 21 1        
1824 8 22 2        
1825 9 23 3 Birth      
1826 10 24 4 1      
1827 11 25 5 2      
1828 12 26 6 3      
1829 13 27 (death) 7 4      
1830 14   8 5      
1831 15   9 6 (death)    
1832 16   10 7   (death)  
1833 17   11 8      
1834 18   12 9      
1835 19   13 10      
1836 20   14 11      
1837 21   15 12     (death by now)
1838 22   16 13      
1839 23   17 14      
1840 24   18 15      
1841 25   19 16      
1842 26   20 (death) 17      


and showing little appreciation of his priceless bequest. Jasper's already ambivalent mind is now divided further by the oldest and most powerful jealousy of all-sexual exclusiveness and possession; and anyone who doubts that a young Victorian musician could be attracted, innocently or otherwise, to a little girl nine years his junior had better read Nabokov's Lolita or the life of 'Lewis Caroll', to say nothing of the works of Dickens, whose well-remembered knowledge

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of infant sex-attraction dwelt so often on youthful romance. But Jasper at 21 or so knows well enough that his jealousy must be kept secret for he is now an adult and a responsible man, while Rosa is a mere child, in years as well as nature; if the secret of his love for her should come out he will quite certainly be removed from her. The Dean will make short work of him (as with Neville Landless later) at the least hint of scandal.
   We can now be said to be at or within a very short time of the opening of the book. At that opening, an inner conflict is clearly present in Jasper's mind. I have offered a possible background for its creation and growth which is consistent with what is known of Dickens's intentions, his methods and his previous work. It can also be used as a working hypothesis for testing against the later development of events, characters and themes in the fragment as we have it. Strict adherence to dates is quite unnecessary; they are used for convenience only, to indicate a time-relationship based on existing situations in the book. I have called the section' A Little Fantasy' ; but examined in conjunction with the text of the novel it will be found to be based solidly on facts as stated or as may be reasonably inferred from the writing. Jasper must have had a sister, considerably older than himself; she must have met and married Drood and borne him a child (I refuse to adopt in the absence of any indication whatever in the text any theory about anyone's illegitimacy). The sister and her husband are dead before the book opens. Jasper hates his work in the Cathedral and desires Rosa Bud, who has been given posthumously to his nephew. All I have really done is to fit a time-sequence to these given data and make one radical assumption, that there existed between Jasper and his sister a strong and deep affection, and to base a psy:hological progression on that assumption. If the boy Jasper were completely dependent on his sister-mother in infancy, the loss of her exclusive affection to a lover, later a husband, and then to a baby might be traumatic childhood experiences which Dickens could well use as a base for later development. In the following period, the boy's still undiminished affection or his sister is extended to his sister's child; then comes the great blow of her early death and the gradual realization

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over the following seven years of the anomalous nature of his position in relation to that child, who has appeared to be a younger brother but who has an elder brother's rights. Approaching manhood, he finds, possibly without acknowledging it to himself, that his watchful and devoted affection towards that nephew is losing some of its spontaneity and is turning into something like a resolute determination to love him for his mother's sake. Then comes the sexual complication in the shape of Rosa. It is now even more necessary that his love for his nephew shall shine before all men, and for a twofold purpose: to remove any possibility of suspicion of his own passion for the girl, and to assist in the desperate battle which is now going on in his own head between the Jasper who indulges in the secret lust-gratification of murdering his nephew in imagination and the Jasper who fights to resist the temptation and insists, even to himself, that his love and devotion are as strong as ever. He has paraded that love before the whole of Cloisterham, from the Dean to the Verger's wife and the local shopkeepers; but to no one has he insisted on it more than to himself. It is this internal struggle that lies behind the 'look' on his face in that first scene between them:

Once for all, a look of intentness and intensity - a look of hungry, exacting, watchful, and yet devoted affection - is always, now and ever afterwards, on the Jasper face whenever the Jasper face is addressed in this direction. And whenever it is so addressed, it is never, on this occasion or on any other, dividedly addressed; it is always concentrated. (Ch. ll, p. 7)

   This is Dickens at his most ambiguous and cryptic, 'laying the ground', hinting twice that the look is only on the face, does not mirror the soul, and leaving room for a possible later interpretation of the words differing widely from their face value, which appears to indicate devoted affection for the nephew. The word' dividedly' is I feel sure deliberately used here. Whatever division the author may have designed to take place in Jasper's mind later, he means to indicate here that it is singly and completely concentrated on Edwin Drood. I have suggested that in one sense it is a divided mind; but only in the sense that anyone's mind may be so,

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like Macbeth's between allegiance and ambition or Othello's between love and jealousy. There is no question here, in this first scene, of either angel or devil being in sole charge of Jasper. The struggle to love his nephew is going on within himself; and I repeat here the speech of Edwin just before the crisis of that scene to show, in the light of the suggestions .made above, the deadly irony with which the young fellow congratulates his uncle:

'...Yes, Jack, it's all very well for you. You can take it easily. Your life is not laid down to scale, and lined and dotted out for you, like a surveyor's plan. You have no uncomfortable suspicion that you are forced upon anybody, nor has anybody an uncomfortable suspicion that she is forced upon you, or that you are forced upon her. You can choose for yourself. Life, for you, is a plum with the natural bloom on; it hasn't . been over-carefully wiped off for you-'
'Don't stop, dear fellow, Go on.'
'Can I anyhow have hurt your feelings, Jack?' (Ch. II, p. 10)

   But Jack's life is indeed lined and dotted out, not on. a surveyor's plan but a musical score; and from what follows in the next page or so of the novel it is difficult to believe that he has not been forced on the Cathedral, or that his life has not had the bloom taken off some time before. This speech of Edwin's, the climax of a carefully built-up scene, brings Jasper to near murder. But the nephew and the young girl are not the only forces driving him; another - and this is the novel's essential and supreme irony - is the Christian Cathedral itself .



NOTES
1. Felix Aylmer, The Drood Case (Hart-Davis, 1964).
2. Charles Forsyte, The Decoding of 'Edwin Drood' (Gollancz, 1980).

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