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WHAT OF THE NIGHT: ASPECTS OF MODERNISM IN DJUNA BARNES NIGHTWOOD

Djuna Barnes famous novel Nightwood (1936) presents us with a range of eccentric characters who are not afraid to go beyond the limits of what we would call the ordinary. The centre of the story is the expression of loss and suffering provoked by a person Robin Vote no one can completely understand. The narrative randomly connects characters involved with her in a story of tragic love, dissected and analyzed in dialogical scenes and especially in the monologues of Doctor OConnor. T. S. Eliot warns in his introduction that Nightwood is not a psychopathic study, probably because it might seem to the reader that the characters are unconventional to the point of the absurd and that in this way they represent the pathological minority. Eliot wants to suggest instead that we all possess some of those quaint and bizarre thoughts and feelings, although we keep them well hidden. As Doctor O'Connor puts it: Isnt everyone in the world peculiarly swung, and me the craziest of the lot... (139). The author does not obtain any advantage over the reader, s/he is making progress along with the reader through the wood of the night of inexplicable motifs and consequences. Yet the power of expression which the author obtains through the characters

makes the rational and intellectual side prevail. Nightwood is perhaps a slightly peculiar name for a novel that is set in decaying urban centres mostly in Paris, but later also in Vienna, Berlin, and New York. However, night is one of the most frequent motifs, used literally and metaphorically by the modernist artists from the symbolists to Joyce, as the opposite side of a supposedly serene and rational day. Barnes novel has been compared to Ulysses for showing the sensual, linguistic, and social disorientation in their depictions of night worlds (Whitley, 83). Those night worlds represent the unknown, and that is what the reader will be trying to understand. The character of Nora, through whom the reader has access to Robins story, represents the day, while Robin represents the night. In their conversations about the night, the Doctor tries to make Nora understand that it is necessary to accept both sides of the opposition, which is something she has been refusing to do by refusing to accept Robins night life. This principle of integration is at work throughout the novel, through uniting the form and plot and blurring the male and female gender boundaries, among other things, all of which is a strong evidence of the novels modernity. If night represents the secret, the unknown, then the wood of night multiplies this by the implied horror it is in the woods that people get lost, it is in the woods that horrid scenes happen. It is in the city park that Jenny Pertheridge first sets her hands on la somnambule, Robin, and it is in the dark of the garden that Nora sees them together for the first time. The streets of Paris through which Robin roams, half-consciously seeking escape and anonymity are the metaphorical woods. Those same night streets are the backdrop filled with fear and horror for Nora, who is looking for Robin, afraid of what she might find. In her night wanderings the streets of Paris possess the same horror as the woods. Yet, the night in Nightwood does not represent only the unknown and escape, for the night of Nightwood is a profoundly intellectual night (Kaup, 103).

When Nora seeks for advice she approaches the doctor with words Tell me everything you know about the night (71). She does not ignore it, but searches it for answers; she tries to rationalize her pain, not to deny it. By making night the place of rationalization Barnes breaks the usual dichotomy of night and day, where night represents the unconscious and the irrational, and day the conscious and the rational. This is not the only dichotomy she succeeds in breaking down in the novel. The gender division into male and female also loses its clear boundaries. One manifestation of this is the Duchess of Broadback or Frau Mann. Here the Duchess (a woman) has a broad back something usually said of a man, and is called Frau Mann or Mrs Man. Moreover, she is described as being unsexed as a doll. The whole description of her bodice ingrown, as if connected with her body symbolizes a costume, a mask, denoting fraud and falsification, which cannot be differentiated from her self. The ingeniousness and innocence of a doll are contrasted with the falsification of a mask. Her name, which denotes both genders, means neither, and because she is unsexed as a doll, she is the property of no man. In the character of Frau Mann there are allusions to Robin who is described almost as two-gendered, and who is said to be the property of no man. Robins gender identity is blurred by descriptions that make her almost androgynous. She is called a female trapped in a body of a boy (54), and her name is also appropriate for both sexes. But it is the doctor who is probably the most mixed up gender-wise. He is introduced as having shaggy eyebrows, an obvious characteristic of a man, but also a terrific widows peak, which feminizes him. His voice is irritable and possessive as a maddened womans (14). When Nora comes to his room at 3 a.m., he is wearing a womans nightgown and make-up, and also says of himself that he is the last woman on earth that God has forgotten (81). His sexual orientation is nowhere specifically stated, but it is hinted that he prefers men. By erasing the gender boundaries the

narrator points out the modernist premise that nothing can be taken for granted, not even something as seemingly natural as ones gender. Traditional and Modern Although Nora is a character opposed to Felix Volkbein in almost every sense, what she wants from Robin is not so different from his desires. She wants peace and tranquillity, and concludes that only in death she will be peaceful, she will stop moving (52). It is not unusual to wish for stability and security in a love relationship, but it is interesting that Felix desires the same, although in his own terms. To Felix, Robin represents the security of fitting in, of being appropriate. One of the reasons why she is perfect is because she is American, and with an American anything can be done (35). The Americans, who are too clean (you wash yourself too clean for identification (90)) and who wash themselves metaphorically too, trying to obtain a clean history, are the perfect counterpart to Felixs history, which is soiled and burdened, not only by his belonging to the wrong nation, but also by his lying about his family background. In fact, the novel starts with the narration of Guido Volkbeins family, and their false genealogy. By going into their past, Barnes accentuates Felixs feelings of not belonging and his persistent racial memory. Guido, his father, is denoted as the embarrassed from the beginning and this name is enhanced by the description of his race as hot, incautious, damned (9). To wash himself clean of this legacy he wishes to become part of the mainstream by marrying an American. The narrator aims to express Nora Floods misunderstanding of her partner and the pain derived from it, but what she also tries to do is to move it beyond the personal sphere and make Noras story the symbol or metaphor for the much wider search for understanding the unknown. The doctor draws a parallel between the Catholic and the Protestant church (in which the Catholic Church is the girl you love so much she can lie to you (18)). In that passage he states that the

personal story is the most effective when told together with a legend and that is what the Catholic Church is based on. But turn to the Catholic church, go into mass at any momentwhat do you walk in upon? Something thats already in your blood... Why? Because you are sitting there with your own meditations and a legend [...] and mingling them both with the Holy Spoon. (19) Barnes does something similar by making the personal story of a few people a story of loss and misunderstanding which can happen to anyone. Robin, for whom Barnes uses all sorts of names la somnabule (the sleepwalker), the woman-beast, a boy trapped in a womans body, the innocent child who plays with dolls is the personification of the unknown. Different images of her do not complement each other, but rather produce the opposite effect, preventing us from forming a clear and complete picture of her. Although she is the central character of a novel, the one around which the story revolves, there is something elusive in the portrayal of her. That is what Nora Flood along with the reader tries to capture. Nora represents tradition, she is the character we can easily identify with: a strong, great American woman, who is filled with love for all people, and were she in court, it would have been impossible; no one would have been hanged, reproached or forgiven, because no one would have been 'acused'(48). Noras character is the embodied wish for a clear representation of the kind we get in realistic literary forms, she is guided by economic principles she has virtues and expects Robin to appreciate that she is objectively more valuable than Jenny Pertherige, the squatter. But to consider something valuable, or appropriate, it is necessary to confine oneself to a particular set of rules, to define oneself according to a certain category (Nora is loving, American, etc.). Robin does not confine herself to any set of rules; she does not have a category to put herself in. The denotation of her as la somnabule defines her as someone who roams around

without a will of her own. Robin metaphorically represents the desire for anonymity, an instance that is the author who has no voice we can hear, who remains undefined. Perhaps a modernist author who loses his personality, just as Robin has none, an author who does not have a home, or a past, just like Robin. An author who does not exists outside the text, just as we do not know anything about Robins life prior to her showing up in the novel as the lady who fainted in the hotel. If Nora is a metaphor for the traditional way of writing, and Robin for the modernist one, it would be expected that the author takes Robins side. But the division is not as clear cut as that, since it is Nora who focalizes the story, and since the story is about Noras suffering and loss, the reader sympathizes with Nora, even though she represents the less progressive view, along with Felix and Jenny. Nevertheless, by using the modernist style of writing, the author obviously shows that s/he favours Robin as a metaphor. This overlapping tendencies show that the author is guided by Eliots principles of modernism in which the modern is essentially conjoined with tradition.

Time and Space In Barnes novel the form cannot be divided from the content. The exuberant language of the decor is not lartpourlartism, it serves to enhance the feeling of chaos, of the need to communicate, to express pain and to find ones identity. The temporality of relationships represents a source of suffering. But as Nora rightly realizes in regards to her relationship with Robin, the only eternity she can get is with Robin dead. The time in which nothing lasts forever is what Nora tries to defeat in long conversations with the Doctor. That is what Barnes formally succeeds in doing by defying the rules of standard linear form of common-style storytelling. Instead of that she employs a spatial form, that takes in everything at the same time. As T.S. Eliot points out, Barnes language is so

poetic that it will appeal primarily to readers of poetry (Eliot, 1) and this is no accident as the first attempts at using spatial form have been made in modern poetry. Spatial form is the unification of disparate ideas and emotions into a complex that has an instantaneous impact is the only thing which can provide liberation of time and space limits (Frank, 10). Exactly those limits are what Barnes tries to trespass. The limited duration of time is what puts her character in agony in the plot of the novel, and it is what Barnes formally manages to surpass. She does this by ignoring the naturalistic principles of storytelling, creating instead a novel which lacks a traditional, i.e. realistic, narrative structure. The first chapter may offer a narrative of Felix Volkbeins parents and his past, but then the Doctor enters the story, and in his monologues various fantastic and symbolic narratives are interwoven with many odd stories which sometimes do not have any obvious connection to the main plot. The plot does not develop in a traditional manner but is presented through ardent and enthusiastic discussions between Nora and Doctor OConnor. The details are being provided not according to the time line but introduced randomly, in the flow of conversation. That is how we find out what happened between Nora and Robin, Robin and Felix Volkbein, Robin and Jenny Pertherdige. Barnes makes references to things not only outside the novel, but within the novel as well. When describing Felix, his prolific knowledge of all kinds of things, especially the odd ones, Barnes mentions he knew tales of men who became holy and of beasts that became damned (9). This may be an allusion to his own tragic story with the woman-beast, Robin, who will bear him a child which is at various times called holy. In Noras first direct encounter with the Doctor he mentions the cure still it will not be a cure (17). This may serve as the anticipation of Nora and Robins lamentable encounter, for which he will try to provide a cure, but will not succeed in finding it.

Various critics have argued that there are many characteristics of the Baroque in this modernist novel. As Monika Kaup points out, the Baroque was the first articulation of modernity (Kaup, 88). Its dense language of the subconscious and abundance can certainly be found in Nightwood. Among the more obvious examples are different descriptions of Robin as a vision of an eland coming down the aisle of trees, as a woman-beast, or as the boy trapped in a woman's body. The imagery used makes it impossible for us to get a clear picture of Robin. As in the Baroque, overabundance of language and descriptions cloud the transparency of meaning. Furthermore, Barnes uses the Baroque concept of desengano noticeable in the flow of the Doctors monologues, which show his decaying state of mind. In the beginning of the novel his monologues are almost mocking, but as the end approaches, they get more dark and pessimistic, to finally finish with now nothing, but wrath and weeping! (149). This loss of faith, the realisation that everything is false, and that there is no cure for ones maladies is characteristic of the pessimism of the Baroque. The exaggerated language is matched by the significant place that the circus and the spectacle have in the novel. Baron Felix Volkbein is enchanted by the circus, he connects it with aristocracy since both signify wearing masks and an essential falseness. When enumerating the circus people the narrator mentions that they are gaudy, cheap cuts from beast life (20). This may be connected with Robin, as Robin is often called the beast-woman. Furthermore, they take aristocratic names, just as Felix has done, but, in contrast to his, their falseness is permitted and light which is exactly what Felix desires for himself. The circus figures looked monstrous to him but he still haunted (the author uses exactly this word, which will later be used in connection with Robin) them. He loved the emotional spiral of the circus [...] which brought him longing and disquiet because it was something he could never touch or know (11). Just like the circus,

Robin was someone he could not completely touch, know or understand. And Nora was in the same position concerning Robin. The description of the circus and the emotions it provokes contributes to the atmosphere of Baroque grotesqueness and flamboyance, but it also seems to stress that the language of the Baroque is the language of both meaning and the loss of meaning, the language of the trivial and of suffering. In Nightwood, as Kaup suggests, the suffering, which is so thoroughly dealt with, becomes the spectacle. *** There are many themes that Nightwood gives voice to, the expression of loss being just one of them. One important theme developed throughout the novel is the question of clean/dirty history in connection with ones racial and national identity. Religious questions are discussed during the whole course of the novel, and the author presents us with one of the most memorable quotes when he says that the Catholic Church is the girl you love so much that she can lie to you (18), and states that this is one of two things that men really want. (The other being the girl that loves you so much that you can lie to her, and pretend a lot that you do not feel (18)). The novel is clearly concerned with gender and sexual issues, the greatest part of it dealing with a lesbian relationship and the main character being a person we could characterize as transvestite or transsexual. Yet none of these questions takes up the leading role in the novel. It is possible to discuss the religious, historical, gender and any other aspect of Nightwood, but it is impossible to claim that the purpose of the novel is resolving religious doubts or promoting homosexual rights. Its purpose remains only that what is written.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Djuna Barnes: Nightwood (London: Faber and Faber, 1936, rpt. 2001). ************* Carolyn Allen: Following Djuna: Women Lovers and the Erotics of Loss (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996). Kenneth Burke: Version, Con-, Per-, and In- Thoughts on Djuna Barness Novel Nightwood, in Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature and Method (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), pp. 240-253. Joseph Frank: Spatial Form in Modern Literature, in The Widening Gyre (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963), pp. 3-62. Jean Gallagher: Vision and Inversion in Nightwood, Modern Fiction Studies 47(2001)2: 279305. Monika Kaup: The Neobaroque in Djuna Barnes Modernism/modernity 12(2005)1: 85-110. Laura J. Veltman: The Bible Lies the One Way, but the Night-Gown the Other: Dr. Matthew OConnor, Confession, and Gender in Djuna Barness Nightwood, Modern Fiction Studies 49(2003)2: 204-227. Catherine Whitley: Nations and the Night: Excremental History in James Joyces Finnegans Wake and Djuna Barnes Nightwood, Journal of Modern Literature 24(2000)1: 81-98.