All About Tyranny: A Study of Ivy Compton-

ALL ABOUT TYRANNY: A STUDY OF

IVY COMPTON-BURNETT’S NOVELS

“Either the father or the mother is usually a tyrant, and the parent who is not a tyrant is usually a weakling or a fool”¹ so observes G. S. Fraser in his textual criticism of the novels of Ivy Compton - Burnett. Even the unmarried aunts, owing to their age and position in the family, and with active support from the parents, tend to exercise oppressive power over the children.

The novelist presents, in succession, powerful tyrants like Sophia Stace (Brothers and Sisters). Harriet Haslam (Men and Wives). Josephine Napier (More Women than Men), Duncan Edgeworth (A House and its Head), Sabine Ponsonby and Hetta Ponsonby (Daughters and Sons), Matilda Seaton (A Family and a Fortune), Anna Donne (Elders and Betters) and Horace Lamb (Menservant and Maidservant). Except for an aged, worn-out tyrant in Parents and Children, this Phenomenon of bloody tyrants is seen in her third novel through to the eleventh. After the total disappearance of tyrants in the next two novels, Two Worlds and their ways and Darkness and Day, a milder version of tyrants, Aunt Sukey (Elders and Betters), Cassius Clare (The Present and the Past). Miles Mowbray (A Father and His Fate), Simon Challoner (A Heritage and its History), Ninian Middleton (The Mighty and their Fall and Hereward Egerton (A God and His Gifts) reappear. However, as an exception, Miranda Hume (Mother and Son) rightly belongs to the bunch of malignant tyrants of the earlier novels. In her last novel, (The last and the First), a powerful but benevolent tyrant is portrayed in Hermia, for a change in the company of two others of milder type.

The tyrants’ domineering grip on the family is depicted in one sentence by Sarkar thus:

In a Compton - Burnett family the tyrant head has displaced God and dictated rules to others forgetting that he has anything or anyone above him to owe allegiance to².

Among the tyrants, women outnumber men; of the powerful ten or so of them, all but two are women and they include the deadliest three, namely Anna Donne, Josephine Napier and Matilda. Elaborating this point, Pamela Hansford Johnson Writes:

Most of her males are eaten by their women. Her villainesses commit crimes of power: her villains, for the most part, crimes of weakness…The spider analogy might, indeed, be carried further; her men are like insects in the process of being devoured who, seeing that the female has omitted a leg obligingly turn around and present the remaining limb in order to make the, meal easier³.

Though these tyrants are generally wicked and malicious, there are among them a few who possess positive qualities and who are inclined to be good. Matilda Seaton is generous to her friend Maria Sloane. She is at times very sensitive, sympathetic and full of understanding. Josephine and Sophia are intelligent. Harriet and Sophia keep their families’ interest foremost and work for it even if they have to he ruthless in their dealings. Duncan is considered a veritable God by his family members. Hetta and Sabina appear to be living for others. Horace Lamb becomes a loving and sympathetic father and a model husband. Their positive qualities are recognised even by their victims. That is why the victims are strangely disillusioned when they are suddenly released from the clutches of a tyrant. And when the tyrant dies, all including the harassed feel sad.

The novelist does not agree with those who condemn her tyrants as detestable monsters. She speaks of them as:

They don’t seem to me such monsters as they do to other people. I think….that a good many of us, if subjected to a strong and sudden temptation, without any risk of being found out, would yield to it ⁴.

She urges Robert Liddell to stress the goodness of her characters and more particularly that of her tyrants^5.

In an interview with John Bowen, Ivy Compton-Burnett says, “I think there was a tendency for parents to misuse power……Nothing’s more corrupting than power⁶”. After about two years, speaking to Michael Millgate, Ivy Compton­ Burnett says that tyranny does not corrupt people.

I don’t think it corrupts people. I think their dislike of it, if anything, would send them the other way….I’ve seen people who were tyrannised ones as children being careful not to be tyrants themselves, and people who were indulged too much as children rather tyrannical in their own families. It may be the natural reaction working ⁷.

It tends to contradict her own opinion expressed to John Bowen earlier. She seems to think that the persons who grab power or are given power, may be corrupted by that very power and they tend to misuse it. But the others, who are victimised, do not want to retaliate by becoming tyrants. In other words, power corrupts only those who are invested with it and not those victimised by it.

However, it cannot categorically be gain said that tyranny breeds tyranny. Traces of tyranny in seed form are discernible in some children like Chilton (Daughters and Sons) Nevin (Parents and Children), Lavinia (The Mighty and their Fall), Verena (A Father and His Fate), and Justine (A Family and a Fortune). It can further be argued that victims, when they gain power in due course of time, may not like to persecute and wield power over others. One may hope that the formidable parental tyranny will not recur and persist. What is certain is that tyranny distorts and warps innocence and leads to unnatural reactions. The victims are inevitably corroded by the misuse of power. So it has to be conceded that power is corrupting and that her characters suffer a kind of moral corruption. Even if it is natural, tyrannising is repugnant and therefore condemnable.

Barring cruel and selfish tyrants, possessive tyrants like Sophia, Harriet, Sabine, Miranda and Eliza Heriot are oppressive only because of their love for their families. The nagging Bentley (Pastors and Masters), does not consider himself a tyrant and thinks that what all he does is only for the good of the family.

And now, because I try to keep a wise and firm hand over people for their own good, and to prevent them from sinking down, down, down, for their own sakes - whose, if not for theirs, I should like to know? - to be given as much to bear as in were a tyrant and a monument of selfishness, instead of…….⁸

Eliza Heriot thinks that her tyranny is for the benefit of all…..I am a tyrant, because I order the house for the good of us all ⁹. Eleanor and Harriet are highly ambitious in their concern for their children and they nag them only out of fear that their hopes may not be realised.

Though Ivy Compton - Burnett sympathises with her tyrants and endows them with some touches of goodness or fineness, readers cannot be blind to their darker side and do not therefore completely exonerate them. Still it is astonishing to see that lithe tyrants are never punished; they are feted ¹⁰”.

Readers may well look for adequate requital for their misdeeds, but nothing of the kind does happen. Josephine suffers no legal retribution for her killing of Ruth. Matty is not punished for her ruthless act driving away Miss Griffin. The callous Anna drives Jessica to suicide, marries her son and enjoys her money. Nothing distasteful is visited upon her by way of punishment. This is so because Ivy Compton - Burnett does not believe that evil is punished in this world. She says, “I…..don’t think guilty people meet punishment in life¹¹”. In an interview with her friend, M. Jourdain, she says that misbehaviour may meet with little retribution, some times it will not even be recognised.

‘The new statesmen’ wanted wickedness to be punished, but my point is that it is not punished, and that is why it is natural to be guilty of it. When it is likely to be punished most of us avoid it¹².

One of the rare cases of punishment being meted out to the guilty is that of Lady Haslam who is killed by her son, Matthew who in turn commits greater sin than his mother. His own punishment begins with not realising the very object which prompted him to matricide. Verena (A Father and His Fate) does not escape punishment for her wickedness. Ridley (Parents and Children) cannot achieve his intention of marrying Eleanor. This kind of atonement for evil-doing is, of course, rare to find in her novels.

It is observed in almost all her novels that though tyranny casts its gloomy shadows on the home, it is not triumphant in the end. The tyrants who have reigned supreme like Sophia, Harriet, Sabine, Aunt Sukey, Miranda and Caseius do become weak and ineffective before their death and Hetta even before her marriage. Other tyrant monarchs like Josephine, Matty, Horace, Duncan, Miles, Simon, Hereward and Eliza Heriot, having held for a while a tight grip over their families, progressively become meek and ineffective towards the end. And the unbearable torments of power are no more to be experienced by their victims.

Power and tyranny appear to form a vicious circle in Ivy Compton ­Burnett’s novels. Power gives rise to tyranny, the tyrants yearn for more and more of power. A vague pattern emerges in her portrayal of these twin evils in her last novel, The Last and the First striking a proper balance between them. Power is both used and abused, a perfect balance is struck between self-defence and self-sacrifice. Hermia represents this balance. Power is safe in her hands as she is endowed with intelligence and generosity. Money to her is a source of benign influence over others, and is meant to be used wisely. Following this principle, she succeeds in guiding the family’s destiny in the right direction.

If Ivy Compton-Burnett has brought home to us that misuse of tyrannical power, as in her earlier novels, is always detrimental to family interests, she has also created Hermia as her true spokes woman to reveal her mind that power and wealth need not corrupt life if handled with maturity and wisdom.

REFERENCES:

¹ G.S. Fraser, The Modern Writer and His World (Penguin, 1967) P. 151.

² Rabindra Nath Sarkar Ivy Compton - Burnett: A Trend in English Fiction (Calcutta: Firman KLM Pvt. Ltd., 1979), P. 152.

³ Pamela Hansford Johnson, Ivy Compton - Burnett (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1951) P. 23

⁴ Michael Millgate, ‘Interview with Miss Compton-Burnett’, Review of English Literature, Vol. III, No.4. (October, 1962), P. 106.

⁵ Quoted from Hilary Spurling, Secrets of a Woman’s Heart, (London: Penguin, 1984), P. 154.

⁶ John Bowen “An Interview with Ivy Compton-Burnett”, Twen­tieth Century Literature, VI. 25, No.2, (Summer 1979), P. 169.

⁷ Millgate, P. 110.

⁸ Ivy Compton-Burnett, (Pastors and Masters, (London: Victor Gollanez, Ltd., 1965) PP. 84-85.

⁹ Ivy, Compton Burnett, The Last and the First (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.,) P. 32.

¹⁰ ‘An extra Grudge Against Life’, Review of A God and His Gifts’ Time, VI. 83, (Feb. 14, 1964) P. l00.

¹¹ Millgate, P. 108.

¹² ‘Ivy Compton-Burnett and M. Jourdain; A conversation Charles-Burkhart (ed.), The Art of Ivy Compton-Burnett (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1972) P. 30.