Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

ST. DOMINIC'S PARSONAGE:

2012; Penn State University Press; Volume: 32; Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/shaw.32.1.0143

1529-1480

Tony Jason Stafford,

Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics

The setting of Candida, in spite of the title of the play, clearly belongs to the Reverend James Mavor Morell. It is not the kitchen, the scullery, the world of paraffin lamps and slicing onions, nor the world of the nursery or the bedroom, all domains that belong to Candida. (As Virginia Woolf reminds us in A Room of One's Own, women's rooms are the kitchen, the nursery, and the bedroom.) The world of the play belongs to Morell, the offstage settings being the parish he serves and the parsonage (their habitat by virtue of his position as parish priest), and, onstage, his library. Shaw's use of a particular part of London, Victoria Park, and its implications, as well as the onstage setting of Morell's library (an extension of the offstage setting), clearly point to and help define James Morell.In the opening stage descriptions, Shaw gives us three pages of highly detailed, almost poetical, description, an indicator, knowing Shaw's habits, that extremely close scrutiny must be given to what he has meticulously described for the reader. It is important because Shaw makes it important. Another curious feature is that he devotes an entire page to describing the offstage world that the audience never sees. What is Shaw's purpose in describing at such great length a setting that only the reader is aware of? It is a question to be pondered.We note in the first sentence that, as is so often the case with Shaw, it is “A fine morning … the sun is shining cheerfully; there is no fog.”1 Shaw's predilection for “fine” weather is operative again, but in this case the implication is that Morell, at least at the beginning of the play, is in his heaven and that all is right with his world, his “kingdom of Heaven on earth.” The location of the play is “in the north east quarter of London, a vast district miles away from the London of Mayfair and St James's, and much less narrow, squalid, fetid and airless in its slums. It is strong in unfashionable middle class life” (39). In other words, it is the working class area of the East End, the seedbed of socialist thought. Shaw also notes that along the “main thoroughfares” there exists the “luxury of grass-grown ‘front gardens’ untrodden by the foot of man save as to the path from the gate to the hall doors (ibid.). These small patches of grass serve as a parallel to Morell's own garden. Shaw also emphasizes the fact that the setting is composed of “endured monotony of miles and miles of unlovely brick houses” where nothing seems able “to break the monotony” (ibid.). In the midst of this bleak environment stands the parsonage of St. Dominic, obviously unlike and in contrast to the working-class world around it. “This desert of unattractiveness,” as Shaw calls it, has as an oasis, “a park of 217 acres, fenced in, not by railings, but by a wooden paling, and containing plenty of greensward, trees, a lake for bathers, flower beds which are triumphs of the admired cockney art of carpet gardening, and a sandpit…. Wherever the prospect is bounded by trees or rising green grounds, it is a pleasant place.”2 Very much to the point is the fact that in the latter half of the nineteenth century, Victoria Park was largely patronized by the working classes of the East End, Morell's parishoners, and for most children it was the only large expanse of uninterrupted greenery they ever experienced.Shaw also points out that where the ground stretches flat “to the grey palings, with bricks and mortar, sky signs, crowded chimneys and smoke beyond, the prospect makes it desolate and sordid.”3 Several things are noteworthy here. At one end of this green space, commanding the “best view of Victoria Park” (39) sits St. Dominic's Parsonage, the abode of the Reverend James Mavor Morell. It is as though this vast, lovely swath of nature in the middle of a large area of squalor is Morell's own personal garden, for, as Shaw points out, the best view of it all is from the “glass window” in Morell's study, before which sits his chair. Shaw also makes it a point to observe that the garden is enclosed not by a railing, which anyone would be able to climb over, but by a “paling” (ibid.), evidently tall enough to force people to enter only at the gates and thereby controlling access to the park. Unlike the paling in Mrs Warren's Profession, designed to keep people, such as Vivie, in, the purpose of this one is to keep people out. We note also that the park closes at nighttime (its daily hours being from 6 a.m. to dusk), for when Marchbanks threatens to take a walk in the park in Act III, Candida responds with, “nonsense: it's closed long ago” (ibid.), making it even less busy for Morell's enjoyment in the evenings. We know also that while the skyline all around the park is dotted with “bricks and mortar, sky signs, crowded chimneys and smoke beyond,” from St. Dominic's Parsonage “not a brick is visible” (40). Finally, Shaw also points out that the “semi-detached” parsonage has a “front garden and a porch” (ibid.). In other words, while others in his neighborhood must content themselves with one small patch of lawn as their garden, Morell has two gardens, one consisting of a 217-acre park and one in front of his porch.There exists yet another way in which Victoria Park is relevant to Morell. In addition to being one of “the finest parks in the East End,”4 Victoria Park is also known as the “People's Park” because it has always been a center for political meetings and rallies of all persuasions, in this regard surpassing even Hyde Park. The area in which it is located is known as Tower Hamlets, while Hackney abuts it on the north side. Although the name derives from the presence of the Tower of London in its borough, this part of the city makes up the core of the “East End,” a term that began to be used pejoratively in the nineteenth century in response to both overcrowding and the concentration of poor people and immigrants that made up the local population and that had attracted the attention of social reformers as early as the eighteenth century. Tower Hamlets has a tradition of left-wing parties, including some Communist ones, and the radicalism of the East End contributed to the formation of the Labour Party. Morell's social message would be a part of the very fabric of such an area.On the other side of the park sits Hackney, which has a “centuries-old legacy of religious dissent and non-conformism.”5 The scene at the numerous “Speaker's Corners” has always been a lively one. The largest attractions in the nineteenth century were usually “star socialist speakers such as William Morris and Annie Besant.”6 On one occasion an eyewitness correspondent for Harper's Magazine declared that “almost all the religious sects of England and all the political and social parties are preaching their ideas and disputing…. On this lawn the listener, as his fancy prompts him, may assist [sic] on Malthusianism, atheism, agnosticism, secularism, Calvinism, socialism, anarchism, Salvationism, Darwinism.”7 While the tradition of public speaking in the park continued well into the twentieth century, today visitors are more likely to see and hear politically oriented rock concerts. Morell's socialist ideas coincide with his environment and may even be a necessary part of survival in such a milieu.Shaw describes Morell as “a Christian Socialist clergyman of the Church of England, and an active member of the Guild of St Matthew and the Christian Social Union.”8 The Guild of St. Matthew, sometimes referred to as the “shock troops” of Christian Socialism, published The Church Reformer, which Morell is reading in the opening scene. This Christian Socialist journal was published from 1845 to 1895 under the editorship of Stewart Headlam, who incidentally also founded the Guild of St. Matthew and who, as an ordained Anglican priest, regularly attacked the gap between rich and poor and in his sermons presented Jesus Christ as a revolutionary.9 The Christian Social Union was an organization within the Church of England devoted to the study of social conditions and the remedying of social injustice, and that found its origins in the writings of F. D. Maurice and the work of “slum priests,”10 a term that might also describe Morell.Shaw goes on to describe Morell physically as “a vigorous, genial, popular man of forty, robust and goodlooking, full of energy, with pleasant, hearty, considerate manners, and a sound unaffected voice, which he uses with a wide range and perfect command of expression. He is a first rate clergyman…. Withal, a great baby, pardonably vain of his powers and unconsciously pleased with himself.”11 But this overt description of Morell is supplemented and refined by the nuances suggested by Shaw's use of an urban London setting.When describing the onstage setting, Shaw adds more dimensions to Morell's character. For example, the drawing room—as Shaw calls it, but which is in fact Morell's space and a library—has a “large plate glass window looking out on the park.”12 Furthermore, when the scene opens, Morell is sitting in his chair at his table, from which, according to Shaw, he “can cheer himself with a view of the park over his left shoulder.”13 In all this vast area of monotony and squalor, only one person has “the best view” (Shaw's words) of this 217-acre park. Furthermore, Morell is not to be disturbed; there are two outside flights of stairs, one leading up to his study, the other going down to the basement used only by “tradesmen and members of the family” (ibid.). Another significant detail is that Morell sits in a “strong round backed revolving chair,” so he can easily turn to look out at the park whenever he wishes, and his work space is a “long table” (ibid.), obviously the largest piece of furniture in the room. By contrast, Miss Proserpine Garnett, his typist, sits at a “little table only half as wide as the other,” and she sits “with her back to the window” (ibid.). In addition, inside “his room” Morell is “spared from the children” and the family meals so that he may do his work (94). Morell and his ego sit at the center of a private kingdom comprised of a study and library and offering a unique view onto an enormous park and garden.The interior of Morell's library reflects the exterior world of Victoria Park and Tower Hamlets. Shaw tells us that “the wall behind him [Morell] is fitted with bookshelves, on which an adept eye can measure the parson's casuistry and divinity by Maurice's Theological Essays and a complete set of Browning's poems, and the reformer's politics by a yellow backed Progress and Poverty, Fabian Essays, A Dream of John Ball, Marx's Capital, and half a dozen other literary landmarks in Socialism.”14 Of course a bookshelf is a reflection of its owner's intellectual propensities, and, in this case, of East End London and late Victorian England's interest in Socialism. Morell's bookshelf is at one with the area in which he lives and with some portion of the population of the age. The Reverend Frederick Denison Maurice first published his collection of essays in 1853; this was followed by a number of reissues, the one in 1871 being dedicated to Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Maurice's theological position, which appealed to the liberal wing of the English Church, is presumably admired by Morell. A copy of Robert Browning's poetry may be a bit of irony on Shaw's part, for Browning, in his dramatic monologues, was one of the most astute portrayers of the human psyche, of the human ego, and especially of egomania, wherein Morell may well be able to see himself, were he so inclined. Browning is also noted for his positive, optimistic, often sunny outlook on the world (“God's in his Heaven, all's right with the world!”), which would certainly harmonize with Morell's energetic, enthusiastic temperament. That Henry George's Progress and Poverty (1879) is “yellow backed” may suggest that its owner has read it many times over, which would coincide with the book's phenomenal popularity as the most widely read book on economics of its time, with only the Bible outselling it. George theorized that poverty is caused by overtaxation, that land is common property, and that all taxes could be abolished, with the exception of a single tax on land. Shaw himself confessed that George had awakened his social conscience and changed his way of looking at the economic/social structure of society. By mentioning this text, Shaw lets us know that Morell is in the vanguard of current, liberal thought. A Dream of John Ball (1888) is William Morris's fictional account of the English Peasant's Revolt in 1381. Morris, a man very much of his own time, viewed the medieval world as a brief golden age, where peasants were prosperous and happy and protected by guilds, and workers, expressing themselves through their crafts, created complete, individual, and self-expressive artistic products—in contrast to the cheap, monotonous products of the unfulfilled workers on the modern assembly lines of Morris's day. Last but by no means least, Karl Marx's Das Kapital (1867) stands as a monument to socialist thought.On the surface, Morell's library of “literary landmarks in Socialism,” including the Fabian Society publications, appears to be a collection with whose owner Shaw would feel a great deal of sympathy and comradeship.15 The real question, of course, is What is Morell's underlying motivation for his socialistic leanings? What we do not know about the Reverend Morell is whether he has turned to Socialism because of his residency in Tower Hamlets amid crushing poverty, or whether he requested such an appointment because of his Socialism. Either way, his economic beliefs fit comfortably with his East End London environment, enhance his popularity, and benefit him by feeding his ego—and perhaps enrich his bank account. His library, as it turns out, reflects the political and social views of most of the inhabitants of Tower Hamlets; as for Morell's motives, we shall give him the benefit of the doubt.James Morell is an extremely popular preacher and speaker and is in great demand. In point of fact, the opening tableau and the first business of the play, both dramatically emphatic positions, reveal Morell and his secretary Proserpine Garnett trying to find a place in his busy schedule for yet another speaking engagement, the list of which reflects his far-reaching popularity in some London pockets of progressive thought. After Morell silently opens his last letter and lets out a “comic groan of despair,” the first words of the play come from Proserpine: “Another lecture?”16 “The Hoxton Freedom Group want me to address them on Sunday morning,” Morell says, and asks, “What are they?” “Communist anarchists,” says Proserpine. “Just like Anarchists not to know that they cant have a parson on Sunday,” comments Morell, who nevertheless becomes intent on accommodating them. As he asks about certain days of the week, Proserpine rattles off a brief tour of London and finally makes it clear that he has no time for the Anarchists: “Guild of St Matthew on Monday. Independent Labor Party, Greenwich Branch, on Thursday. Monday, Social-Democratic Federation, Mile End Branch” (96).Ironically, Shaw even pokes a little fun at himself and his own group. When Morell asks about “the 25th,” Proserpine tells him that it is already taken by the Fabian Society. “Bother the Fabian Society,”17 says Morell, perhaps revealing a slight disdain for them. One wonders if Shaw is suggesting that the Fabian Society is more committed to Socialism than Morell is, or that its members are not idealists like himself, or even perhaps that Morell is not completely sincere in his espousal of Socialism. In any event, Morell does exhibit some disdain for Shaw's beloved Fabians.The point of the foregoing dialogue is to illustrate Morell's popularity with those groups having a progressive, socialistic agenda and the congruence between the interior of Morell's study and the exterior neighborhood of late nineteenth-century London. In the scene, it is clear that, even though he is in great demand, Morell tries to accommodate all those groups, presumably because he does not want to pass up an opportunity to be gazed upon by audiences who listen adoringly to his every word. The subtleties of Morell's character begin to emerge: he delights in all the attention he gets and luxuriates in his popularity, and his ego feeds on being at the center of his public's eye. His wife Candida, who understands him better than anyone, confronts him with the truth about himself and his preaching: “Besides, James dear, you preach so splendidly that it's as good as a play for them. Why do you think the women are so enthusiastic?”18 He pretends to be shocked, but she continues: “you think it's your Socialism and your religion; but if it were that, they'd do what you tell them instead of only coming to look at you.” She concludes with a revelatory remark, telling him that “you're spoiled with love and worship: you get far more than is good for you” (135).Morell's message, based in large part on the books in his library, is at one with his neighborhood and, to a degree, with certain parts of London. It would be hard to imagine that he would enjoy such tremendous popularity were he espousing capitalism and defending the British class system.There may perhaps also be another reason for his progressive, socialist message. In his stage directions, Shaw points out that “there is nothing useless or pretentious in the room, money being too scarce in the house of an east end parson to be wasted on snobbish trimmings.”19 With his lectures, Morell supplements his meager parson's salary, and the more he lectures, the more money he makes. We know also that he is paid via the church collection plate, so the more he assuages the misery of his impoverished London audiences with his message of socialistic hope, the fuller his collection plate might become. How do we know this? In Act III, when Candida asks him if he spoke well, he replies by saying, “I have never spoken better in my life.” She responds by saying, in her very next question to him after his entrance, “How much was the collection?” to which he replies, “I forgot to ask.” She then turns to Eugene and says, “He must have spoken splendidly, or he would never have forgotten that” (144). This brief exchange tells us several things: first, it is the practice at his meetings to pass a collection plate (and we can only assume that he does so after each lecture); second, he is in love with his own preaching; and third, the amount of money he collects is important to him (“he would never have forgotten that”). It may be objected to that the money goes to the organization Morell is addressing, but that seems unlikely, for many reasons. First, we do not know that for a fact; second, if his audience is composed of the group who is sponsoring him, why could they not just contribute directly to their cause and forego the lecture? And third, why is it so important to him (according to Candida) how much money is collected if there were not some personal benefit in it for him? And why would Candida, perhaps in charge of the household budget, be so interested in knowing how much the collection was? As a matter of fact, while helping Morell find a place in his schedule for the Hoxton Freedom Group, Proserpine points out that “theyre only half a dozen ignorant and conceited costermongers without five shillings between them,” inferring unsubtly that they may not be worth his time because the collection plate would be rather light. The socialist message in this deprived environment may be of some financial benefit, and Morell is certainly fully booked.Shaw is an extremely thorough dramatist. Everything he puts into a play has a reason and a purpose for being there. In Candida, Shaw uses Victoria Park and the surrounding area of Tower Hamlets, and East End London generally, as an extension of the Reverend James Mavor Morell in order to give readers an important insight into his character. In addition, Shaw also evokes, to a degree, late nineteenth-century Victorian London and the popularity of progressive and socialist thought among that segment of the population wanting Morell's services as a lecturer.