University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Characterization In The Novels Of Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

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Characterization In The Novels Of Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

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Content CHARACTERIZATION IN THE NOVELS OP
SAMUEL BUTLER (1835-1902)
by
Howard Jay Seller
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(English)
January 1966
UNIVERSITY O F SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
.........H o » f A i : d . . I a y . . S f i J L l e j : .........
under the direction of hXs Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the Graduate
School, in partial fulfillment of requirements
for the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Dean
Date January.,. .1. 9, 66
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
. . ' I .
-y. Chairman
Twtf1 Cl! * * * * '
..
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION ........................................ 1
Chapter
I. EREWHON ....... ........................ 21
II. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH ( I ) ................. ... 51
III. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH (II).................. 96
IV. EREWHON REVISITED............................ 139
CONCLUSION......................... 182
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................ 190
INTRODUCTION
Samuel Butler was considered an intellectual and lit
erary pariah by the majority of his contemporaries. His
unorthodox treatment of the sacred Victorian beliefs of
home, country, and God alienated many of both the critics
and the reading public. Butler is reported to have paid
for the publishing of all his books? and every book pub
lished, with the exception of his first novel Erewhon. was
a financial loss.'*'
Butler was not only at odds with many traditional be
liefs but also took strong issue with the leading contem
porary scientific doctrines beginning with Darwin's theory
of evolution. A substantial amount of Butler's writing
propounds his own views, particularly in the lives of his
characters. Unfortunately for Butler, the content of his
fiction frequently numbed his readers and prevented them
lara G. Stillman, Samuel ButlerP A Mid-Victorian
Modern (New York, 1932), p. 83.
1
2
from forming a critical evaluation of him as a literary
figure. Samuel Butler
. . . could write; he was master of a brilliant style,
a multiple magic of knowledge, imagination and wit, and
a rapier irony, flexible, soft-gleaming and deadly; and
had more and newer things to say than any other man of
his generation. But his views were unorthodox and un
popular, and the more he wrote the more he shocked an
increasing number of people in an increasing number of
groups. . . . (pp. 83-84)
Perhaps the extent of the shock to which Miss Stillman
refers was responsible for the small amount of interest
which was initially displayed by critics and scholars in
anything other than Butler's ideas. Even mid-twentieth
century criticism and scholarship often view Butler's con
tributions in a somewhat uncomplimentary lightf Lee E. Holt
offers a clear summary of critical remarks on Butler by
calling attention to three trends that have become apparent
2
in the evaluations of Butler's fiction.
The first trend, according to Holt, is shown by a
group of critics who state that Samuel Butler's fiction was
important at one time, but has lost all life and value for
the post-Victorian reader. Holt cites the complimentary
2"Samuel Butler Up to Date," English Fiction in Transi
tion. III. No. 1 (1960), 17-21.
3
discussion of Butler which appeared in the original edition
of The Cambridge History of EnalishLiterature (Vol. XIII,
The Nineteenth Century, II, Cambridge, 1914) and contrasts
its favorable comments with those in The Concise Cambridge
History of English Literature, which describe The Way. ftf-All
Flesh as a "revolting" novel. The Concise History appraises
the novel by declaring that "the book has been highly
praised by certain writers and it has influenced some of
them, not altogether for the good"; yet "it has never taken
3
a place in the affection or esteem of the common reader."
It is somewhat difficult to accept the validity of the be
lief that the novel has never endeared itself to the ordi
nary reader, for large numbers of copies of The Way of All
Flesh continue to be sold, and, according to Harkness's
4
bibliography, there have been thirty-seven editions, not
including reprints, of The Way of All Flesh, thirteen of
which have been published since 1940. Butler's first novel
Erewhon has had even more editions. Harkness lists thirty-
nine through 1945.
3(New York, 1955), pp. 806-808.
4Stanley B. Harkness, The Career of Samuel Butler.
1835-1902! A Bibliography (London, 1955), pp. 32-34, 50-
52.
A second group to which Holt refers manifest their
distaste for Butler simply by paying little, if any, atten
tion to his work. Some of the typical members of this
group are the essayists in The Reinterpretation of Victor-
5
ian Literature, whose only reference to Butler labels him
as an eccentric. In 1949, according to Holt^ no mention
was made of Samuel Butler on the BBC Third Program Broad
casts on "Ideas and Beliefs of the Victorians." The com
ments of this second group are, in short, brief and usually
uncomplimentary.
The final group discussed by Holt are those who "flatly
damn Butler." Perhaps the most typical representative of
this trend is Jerome Hamilton Buckley, who wrote in his book
The Victorian Temper that "the average English child of the
fifties and sixties was actually accorded a deeper sympa
thetic understanding than childhood had known at any earlier
time in the history of modern civilization," and proceeded
g
to call Samuel Butler a "liar" for writing otherwise.
Holt's analysis and illustration of the three trends
in modern Butler criticism indicate that the trends share
5Ed. Joseph E. Baker (Princeton, 1950), p. 27.
6 (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), pp. 117-118.
5
one common characteristic: they are all negative in tone.
The statements coming from the members of each group appear
colored in some way by the individual writer ',s scorn or
disdain for Butler's ideas. The trends noted in Holt's
article are representative of a notable part of Butler
criticism, but to say that they are comprehensive would be
far from true. Holt himself concludes the article by list
ing examples of critical essays and books which do not fit
into any of his three categories.
During the past thirty years much has been written
about the characters in Butler's fiction, and the greatest
interest in these characters is directed toward their auto
biographical significance. Much has been composed to show
the similarities among his characters and certain real
people, such as Yram and Miss Savage, Ernest's Aunt Alethea
and one of Butler's aunts, the Pontifex parents and family
and the Butler parents and family, and even among minor
figures such as Towneley and Pryer in The Way of All Flesh
and actual young men whom Butler knew in college. Mrs. R.
S. Garnett in her book Samuel Butler and His Family Rela-
7
tions provides an extensive comparison of the figures in
7London, 1926.
6
the Pontifex family and those in the Butler family by de
voting entire chapters to "The Parents," "The Sisters," and
"The Actual Family Relations." More recent studies of
Butler indicate that critics and scholars often view a
close analysis of characters to be preliminary in any rele
vant interpretation of the novels. Two of the most signi
ficant books published about Butler since the war, Philip
N. Furbank's Samuel Butler (1835-1902)8 and Philip Hender-
9
son's Samuel Butler, the Incarnate Bachelor, emphasize the
importance of biography in attempting to determine the
rationale and motivation behind Butler's characterizations.
A strong emphasis on resemblances among individuals as
they appear in letters and subsequently as they are fic
tionalized in the novels is made by the editors of the
several volumes of collected family letters.^-0 One of the
most important letters in these volumes is that written by
Fanny Butler to her sons, in which she reveals her personal
8Cambridge, England, 1948. ^London, 1953.
10TheCorresnondance of Samuel Butler with His Sister
May, ed. Daniel F. Howard (Berkeley, 1962), pp. 11, 14, 19,
20, 23, 24, 59; The Family Letters of Samuel Butler. 1841-
1886. ed. Arnold Silver (London, 1962), pp. 39-90; Letters
Between Samuel Butler and Miss E. M. A. Savage. 1871-1885,
eds. Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill (London, 1935), pp. 10-
11.
feelings about their future conduct and spiritual develop
ment. This letter is reproduced almost exactly in Chapter
XXV of The Wav of AllFIesh as one sent to Ernest Pontifex
by his mother Christina.
The critical writings, scholarship, and collected let
ters provide no small amount of information for the study
of Butler's characters; they fail, however, to provide any
close or penetrating analysis of Butler's ability to create
and utilize characterizations. The purpose of this study is
to present such an analysis. The focus of the subsequent
chapters will be essentially two-fold. First, attention
will be devoted to a study of the author's increasing skill
at characterizations during the course of his career as a
novelist. A large part of this study will be comparative,
placing characters from the different novels side by side,
especially from the first and. final novels: Erewhon and
Erewhon Revisited. Secondly, concern will be shown for the
examination and illustration of the ways in which Butler
employs characters, often for satirical purposes. This
second phase of the study will indicate how Butler's early
presentation of flat characters as exponents of his own
ideas gave way to presentation of well-developed characters,
who became "real" and stimulating because they seemed to
8
think and feel for themselves. The basic thesis of this
study, in short, is essentially that as Butler's ability to
characterize improves, he proceeds to place more responsi
bility on the role of characters in his fiction.
The novels are treated chronologically. The discussion
of Erewhon emphasizes the extent to which Butler used char
acters simply as masks for his own ideas. The subordination
of characters to ideas in Butler's first novel is related by
Stillman to the author's main concern for ideas over and
above anything else.
It is a significant thing that ideas should be so
dominant in this first book, to the almost complete
exclusion of character, for if Butler cared more for
men than for women he cared more for ideas than for
either. Ideas were capable of becoming for him a wish
fulfilment and an actual self-fulfilment with a vast
ness of scope and power far beyond the capacity of any
individual. They were a medium far more subtle and
pliant than could be supplied by the most congenial
docile person in the world. Among them he could move
with zest and freedom, selecting, developing, setting
up and casting down, and feel himself gloriously grow
in skill and dominance. All the great adventures in
his life were adventures among ideas, all his romances
were romances of the mind and the spirit. To these
he gave his most genuine and intense emotions. And
he understood this perfectly when he wrote: "My books
are to me the most important things in life. They are
in fact 'me' much more than anything else."H
Ustiliman, p. 8 8.
9
Characterization, in short, is not one of Butler's
major interests in Erewhon. Butler's tendency either to
satirize strongly or to idealize his characters is, at
times, far more obvious in this first novel than in the
other two books. There is often much sentimentality in the
characterizations, particularly with such idealistic figures
as Yram. The behavior of the characters in the Erewhon
novel manifests itself in their parroting the author's key
ideas or attitudes with respect to the leading political,
social, and religious questions of the day.
Two valuable critical comments on Butler's second
novel, The Wav of All Flesh, are offered by Walter Allen
and Morton Dauwen Zabel. In his book The English Novel; A
Short Critical History. Allen considers Butler to be a mem
ber of the group including Meredith and Hardy, all of whom,
Allen contends, were writing "against their age." The Wav
of All Flesh, according to Allen, was a delayed action bomb,
from the debris of whose explosion emerged a new kind of
novel with a new subject— self-determination— and a new
hero— the young man in revolt. Butler's novel becomes a
prototype of such books as Clavhanaer. Sons and Lovers. ££
ffamatl Bondage, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Allen calls attention to a defect in The Way of All Flesh
10
in that it presents a special case— Ernest Pontifex and his
family— "masquerading as the representative." Allen also
feels that the novel forces the reader into the position of
defending Theobald and Christina Pontifex against the dis
proportionate, neurotic, and uncharitable hatred of the
author. Allen implies that the novel no longer has power
for the modern reader; however, he states that it had great
"therapeutic value for the generation that read it at its
first appearance . . . and for them it must have been . . .
exhilarating." Allen, in essence, seems to agree with the
first group of critics discussed by Holt; namely, those who
feel that Butler was important at one time, but has lost all
value for the post-Victorian reader.
Allen has some severe criticisms of the main character,
Ernest Pontifex. He finds Ernest a "thin and dim character"
for whom it is difficult to be concerned, and "the freedom
he achieves . . . a pretty dingy affair." The overwhelming
force of the novel, Allen suggests, comes from Theobald and
12
Christina as the objects of the author's scorn.
An essay on Samuel Butler by Zabel, first written in
12(London, 1954), pp. 154, 354, 359-360, 361, 360,
361.
11
1950 and revised in 1957, remarks that with one exception
Butler's work will remain known only to specialists. The
one exception is the novel The Wav of All Flesh, which pro
vides for the author a place in the history of English lit
erature, for the novel is "among the forces that have shaped
the modern novel and the twentieth-century mind." Zabel
sees Butler's method as having been developed from a line
which includes "Dickens, Thackeray, Gilbert, Mill, Spencer,
and Eliot"; and remarks that his "lineage as a satirist
reaches back to Fielding, Sterne, Byron and Austen." The
Pontifex family is akin, Zabel says, to the Pecksniffs,
Chuzzlewits, Chadbands, Smallweeds, and Gradgrinds of
Dickens. Butler "fixed and isolated the virus of Victorian
fatuity and the special organism of its most fruitful
growth, the Victorian family." The Way of All Flesh, in
Zabel's opinion, is most significant as an example of the
modern novel pf initiation and education in life. Zabel
agrees with Allen in stating that Ernest Pontifex is "un
fortunately the weakest part of the story." The minor
characters— and here one immediately thinks of Mrs. Jupp,
Towneley, and Dr. Skinner— are strongly praised by Zabel.
The character of Overton, according to Zabel, is effective
because his commentary "sums up the wisdom that Butler
12
wrested from his personal history and . . . makes the book
. . . a point of definition in the experience of its cen-
„ 13
tury."
These comments made by Allen and Zabel suggest that
Butler began to take greater cognizance of the significance
of fully-developed characters when he wrote The Way of All
Flesh. There are still some shortcomings in characteriza
tions in the novel, as mentioned by the critics, but the
superb portrayal of Theobald and Christina Pontifex and the
attention to the details of some of the minor characters
represent a notable advance in Butler's ability to create
and sustain characters. A balance exists in The Way of All
Flesh between ideas and people; and although the figures
often support or represent the author's opinions, they never
become so completely subordinated to ideas as did the Ere-
whonians. Butler provides more characterization in the
second novel and allows for some internal glances at the
characters. Furthermore, information about a character is
no longer limited to merely what the narrator tells about
him, for much is learned about an individual from his or her
13Morton Dauwen Zabel, Craft and Character in Modern
Fiction (New York, 1957), pp. 97, 99, 100, 110, 113.
13
own actions and statements. Introspection, particularly in
relation to the members of the Pontifex family, aids in
revealing many aspects of personality and temperament. In
essence, Butler has far greater facility working with char
acterization in The Way of All Flesh than he had in Erewhon.
The final novel, Erewhon Revisited, has received praise
as an illustration of Butler's highest achievement in the
area of character creation. In the preface to the revised
edition of Erewhon Revisited, published in 1901, Butler
makes the following statement in comparing Erewhon with
Erewhon Revisited:
There is no central idea underlying Erewhon. whereas
the attempt to realize the effect of a single supposed
great miracle dominates the whole of its successor.
In Erewhon there was hardly any story, and little at
tempt to give life and individuality to the characters.
I hope that in Erewhon Revisited both these defects
have been in great measure avoided. Erewhon was not
an organic whole, Erewhon Revisited may fairly claim
to be one.
Stillman attributes Butler's success in his final novel to
his ability to synthesize people and ideas in the novel.
She remarks that the novel
14Samuel Butler, Erewhon. or Over the Range, and Ere
whon Revisited Twenty Years Later (New York, 1927), p. xv.
14
is far more than a summing up of ideas already ex
pressed. In the portrayal of Higgs, George, Yram and
the Mayor, and the relations between them all, Butler
was doing something he had never done before. He was
portraying real people in close personal relationships
full of the beauty of affection combined with intelli
gence and tolerance.^
These key figures of the last novel— Higgs, Yram, George,
and Professors Hanky and Panky— are, because of their su
perb characterizations, not easily forgotten.
Although critics such as Stillman believe that Butler's
highest achievement in characterization came with Erewhon
Revisited, the popularity and the importance of The Wav of
All Flesh continue to rank uppermost as objects of critical
and scholarly investigation and evaluation.
The above generalizations about characters and charac
terizations in the three Butler novels are representative of
the comments of most critics and scholars. A good part of
the content of each chapter in this study will be devoted
to support and illustration of the generalizations.
Before the discussion of the three novels some mention
should be made of Butler's non-fiction, non-character writ
ings. A brief examination of these works can be justified
!5stiliman, p. 291.
15
for two reasons. First, many of the ideas, especially those
concerning human evolution, which are apparent in the nov
els, appear initially in Butler's non-fiction books. An
understanding of these ideas is necessary,, for example, if
one is to comprehend the rationale behind the treatment of
the minor Pontifex characters in the first chapters of The
Way of All Flesh. Secondly, a major part of this study, as
indicated, is concerned with Butler's development of his
ability to create, sustain, and employ characters. In order
to obtain an accurate perspective for such a study, one
should place the three novels in the total context of But
ler's writings.
The four books expressing Butler's key ideas on evo
lution were completed and published between 1878 and 1887.
They are (1) Life and Habit; An Essav After a Completer
View of Evolution. 1878; (2) Evolution Old and New (a com
parison of the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and
Lamarck, with the theory of Charles Darwin), 1879; (3) 12a-
conscious Memory (a comparison between the theory of Dr.
Ewald Hering, Professor of Physiology at the University of
Prague, and the theory of The Philosophy of the Unconscious,
by Dr. Edward von Hartmann; with translations from these
authors, and preliminary chapters bearing on Life and Habit.
16
Evolution Old and New.and Mr. Charles Darwin's edition of
Dr. Krause's Erasmus Darwin). I88O7 and (4) Luck, or Cun
ning, as the Main Means of Drctanic Modification? (an attempt
to throw additional light upon Darwin's theory of natural
selection), 1887.
Butler's interest in evolution increased in direct
proportion to his differences with the theories of Charles
Darwin. Darwin's theory explained the process of evolution
as being prompted by a series of chance variations in spe
cies. These variations, Darwin contended, were brought
about, and survived or were eliminated, simply on the basis
of natural selection. According to Darwin, the given spe
cies concerned had no role in the direction of evolution
and merely evolved in a manner determined by "nature"— that
is, by chance or luck. It was this aspect of Darwin's
theory— fortuitous development— which provoked Butler to
enter into the evolution controversy of the day, for he
would not accept an interpretation that the causes and
direction of evolution had been developed haphazardly.
Butler, unlike Darwin, felt that evolution was purpo
sive; and he also theorized that it involved the constant
activity of some force or intelligence, not always explic
able in materialistic terms. This intelligence, Butler
17
stated repeatedly in his works on evolution, was directed
to some consciously or unconsciously apprehended end. But
ler was adamant about man's function in the process of evo
lution; and in all of his non-fiction works, especially in
Life and Habit, he stressed the point that the design and
purpose of evolution were embodied in the organisms them
selves. The designer, Butler wrote, was man himself; per
haps not the individual man of any given generations, but
generic man in "the entirety of his existence from the dawn
of life onward to the present moment."
From such reasoning Samuel Butler derived four general
principles with respect to the process of evolution. Leo
J. Henkin summarizes these:
1. There exists an essential oneness of personality
between parents and offspring.
2. There exists a memory on the part of the offspring
of what it did in the person of its forefathers.
3. This memory on the part of the offspring remains
latent until it is rekindled by a recurrence of
some associated ideas.
4. Habitual actions eventually come to be performed
unconsciously.^
Butler was, of course, not the first to suppose that there
existed a oneness of personality in parents and offspring.
16Pflr.w.iiusm in the EtaaU j a h . . Np. v . e . 3 , , 1.350-19 IQ (New York,
1940), pp. 210-211.
18
He found in the writings of Erasmus Darwin much evidence
that the offspring may retain some of the habits of the
parent system. Butler himself felt that since the offspring
is essentially formed from the matter, physical and mental,
of the parents, a oneness of personality was obvious.
The concept of memory results, in essence, from the
basic identity possessed by parents and offspring. Butler
frequently used the example of chickens in illustrating his
idea of memory. Chickens, he would say, behave much more
like chickens than they do like dogs, for they remember
what they did when they were in the "person of their fore
fathers." This inheritance of parental characteristics,
which results in what Butler termed racial habits, is also
called unconscious memory. Such memory, according to But
ler, is the essence of life. He states in Unconscious Mem
ory that "life is the being possessed of a memory— the life
of a thing at any moment is the memories which at that mo
ment it retains" (p. 175). Those memories which exist at
any given moment are those which have been called into play
by the associations present during that moment.
The last of Butler's four key principles emphasizes
the unconscious nature of repeated past actions. Butler
believed that such actions as the circulation of the blood
19
and the growth of hair, both of which occur unconsciously,
1 were initially the results of conscious actions. Any such
action becomes unconscious on the basis of the inter-action
of the four general principles, for if the first principle
is assumed to be true, then the same organism, be it a
i'
chicken or a Pontifex, is actually performing the same act
over and over until it becomes habitual and unconscious.
A ^
Butler had great respect for unconscious action. He
believed that as a species became more advanced, it could
perform more and more functions unconsciously. Indeed,
Butler felt that an individual did not have real hold of
his knowledge until he could perform without conscious ef-
17
fort. Perfect memory and perfect forgetfulness, Butler's
theories imply, were extremes which met and became indis
tinguishable from one another.
Biologically speaking, Butler's theories hold little
significance. From a literary point of view, however, his
ideas on evolution served to motivate him in creating and
-^Early in The Way of All Flesh, Ernest's paternal
grandfather, George Pontifex, is said to have been possessed
"perhaps of a trifle too great readiness at book learning"
(p. 6 ). This is a shortcoming in his character, according
to Butler's theories, for knowledge obtained from the study
of books had an obviously conscious origin.
20
sustaining his characterizations. In the subsequent chap
ters of this study dealing with Butler's three novels the
above-mentioned material from his evolutionary writings will
be of no small importance in the analysis of characters,
many of whom are illustrative of the unconscious-memory
hypothesis.
CHAPTER I
EREWHON
Butler's first attempt to produce a work of fiction
resulted in Erewhon. which appeared in 1862. Erewhon. Mrs.
Stillman relates in her book,
is the story of one Thomas Higgs, who sailed to a far,
unnamed colony to take up sheep farming and who, ven
turing farther and farther into the mountains in search
of land, and pressed by a conviction of "something lost
■behind the ranges" that it is his destiny to find, dis
covers the country of Erewhon and its handsome and
strange inhabitants, whose ways are to the ways of Eng
land like an imaige, distorted yet clarifying, that a
dream holds up to nature . . . Thomas Higgs had many
strange adventures and learned much about the customs
and the ideology of Erewhon. The musical banks, the
Erewhonian trials, the strange criminal code which
viewed illness and misfortune as crime and crime as a
disease, the Colleges of Unreason where the Hypotheti
cal Language was the chief study, the Book of the Ma
chines, the Country of the Unborn— the content of his
adventures forms a sparkling and mordant comment on the
stupidities, the insincerities and cruelties of the
England Butler knew.^
In his important critical work on Erewhon.
Istiliman, pp. 86-87.
21
of Erewhon; Samuel Butler in New Zealand (Austin, Texas,
1959), Joseph Jay Jones remarks that the novel "contains few
convincing characters; its emphasis lies almost solely on
ideas" (p. 94). Mrs. Stillman's comments on Butler's char
acterizations in his first novel are even less complimentary
than Jones's, for she states that in Erewhon "there is no
characterization" and that "the characters exist only to
illustrate the varieties of protest with which Butler was
bursting" (p. 87).
The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the charac
ters in Erewhon. Butler is indeed teeming with ideas and
protests which are directed essentially to the seeming pre
tension and hypocrisy of Erewhonian social and religious
institutions. So long as the characters in the novel func
tion as exponents for given ideas, Butler can model them
fairly well? however, when Butler attempts to create emo
tional situations and interrelationships between people, his
scenes are underdeveloped and insipid.
Before one begins a discussion of specific characters
in the novel, some attention should be directed toward the
description of the general Erewhonian character in the
novel. Despite Butler's numerous negative responses to much
in Erewhon, he is filled only with admiration (through the
23
voice of the narrator, of course) for the physical appear
ance and condition of the Erewhonians. It is known that
throughout his life Butler expressed a great respect for
physical excellence. His Notebooks abound in statements
about the human body, and one remark, in particular, sug
gests the Erewhonian connection between good health and
morality. Butler writes of a course of conduct that "if it
does no harm to the body we ought to be very chary of call
ing it immoral, while if it tends towards physical excel-
p
lence there should be no hesitation in calling it moral."
Petronella Jacoba de Lange summarizes Butler's attitudes
toward the Erewhonians by saying that he "shows us the Ere
whonians as human beings whom he admires for their physical
qualities, their beauty, their health, and their grace, but
in whom he has found extraordinary perverseness in their
3
moral and intellectual outlook." The initial description
of the Erewhonians offered by the narrator clearly substan
tiates the statement by Lange.
2Samuel Butler, Notebooks of Samuel Butler, ed. Henry
Festing Jones (London, 1930), p. 26.
3Samuel Butler:__Critic and Philosopher (Zutphen,
1925), p. 18.
24
I
Lastly, I should say that the people were of a.
physical beauty which was simply amazing. I never
saw anything in the least comparable to them. The
women were vigorous, and had a most majestic gait,
their heads being set upon their shoulders with grace
beyond all power of expression. Each feature was
finished, eyelids, eyelashes, and ears being almost
invariably perfect. Their color was equal to that of
the finest Italian paintings; being of the clearest
olive, and yet ruddy with a glow of perfect health.
Their expression was divine . . .
The men were as handsome as the women beautiful.
I have always delighted in and reverenced beauty; but
I felt simply abashed in the presence of such a splen
did type— a compound of all that is best in Egyptian,
Greek and Italian . . . I could fill many pages with
a description of their dress and the ornaments which
they wore, and a hundred details which struck me with
all the force of novelty; but I must not stay to do
so. (pp. 56-57)
This description is indicative of the admiration held by
the narrator throughout the entire novel for the Erewhonian
people. Butler, however, rarely shows how these qualities
influence the actions of the characters. His tendency is
to tell about the people rather than to show how they act
and react in specific situations. The single purpose of
the statements about the Erewhonians is to illustrate the
concept of physical fitness and appeal. With the exception
of these physical features most of the Erewhonian physical
appearance remains vague.
Butler's treatment of individual characters is similar
to that of the general Erewhonian character; that is, often
25
flat with an emphasis upon only one dominant aspect of the
personality. The narrator of the novel has the important
responsibility of representing and expressing the key ideas
and attitudes of Butler himself. Stillman calls the narra
tor a typical "nineteenth-century Englishman, and as such
both pious and practical" (p. 87). Stillman also points
out a basic inconsistency in the narrator's characterization
by remarking that he
is sometimes a mean bigot like Theobald, with an eye
to the main chance in this world and the next, and
somewhat given to vainglorious reveries in the manner
of Christina; sometimes a self-possessed young travel
ler in an alien, potentially dangerous scene, with an
eye for beauty and a good news sense, such as Butler
himself might have been in his youth, and quite often
Butler again in his most serious vein.4
Stillman's comment suggests the differing aspects of the
narrator's character. The narrator could envision a noble
purpose for himself (to convert the Erewhonians, who, he
presumed, were the lost ten tribes of Israel); he could
evaluate, often quite logically, the customs and beliefs of
the strange country; he could not, however, be convincing
about his professed love for a lady. His strengths and his
shortcomings imply a certain width to the description of
4stiliman, pp. 87-88.
26
the narrator, hut the characterization, nevertheless, lacks
depth.
Never does the narrator attain any significant degree
of individuality? indeed, it is not until Erewhon Revisited
that Butler reveals the name of the narrator as Thomas
Higgs. It is also not until the sequel novel that any de
velopment occurs in the character of Higgs, for he remains
essentially unchanged throughout Erewhon. In spite of the
relative immediacy of Higgs to almost every scene in Ere
whon there is a certain mystery that hovers about his char
acter. The initial lines of the novel, for example, are an
appeal by the narrator asking to be relieved of the respon
sibility of providing any historical data about himself.
If the reader will excuse me, I will say nothing of
my antecedents, nor of the circumstances which led me
to leave my native country? the narrative would be
tedious to him and painful to myself, (p. 1)
Rarely does the narrator reveal any backgrouhd or moti
vation for his actions. He falls in love with Arowhena be
cause she is "beautiful," but it is difficult to accept
mere beauty as the sole sustaining element for a lasting
love. Even when Higgs first sees the Erewhonian men and
women and becomes almost overwhelmed by their charm, Butler
does not allow him to dwell on the topic? and one is left
27
with the impression that Butler could not adequately devel
op and sustain the powerful feelings of the narrator.
Numerous times in the novel weakness or abruptness is appar
ent in the responses of Thomas Higgs.
When Higgs is present in the narrative, he functions
to lend a basic unity and point of view to the story in
addition to serving as the leading spokesman in the novel.
There are times, however, when Butler almost drops the nar
rator from the story. The chapters comprising the lengthy
"Book of Machines," for example, eliminate completely the
voice of Higgs. When the discussion of ideas in these
chapters is terminated and characters reappear, Higgs is
present again to continue his expression of the concern,
perplexity, and enthusiasm that one would expect from a
stranger in a foreign land for the first time.
The first character introduced aside from the narrator
is Chowbok. He has two specific roles: first, he is the
non-Christian or heathen, and second, he is a partner to
the narrator, yet fearful and suspicious of the narrator's
plan. Butler immediately points out Chowbok's great fond
ness for grog.
At last shearing came; and with the shearers there
was an old native, whom they had nicknamed Chowbok—
though, I believe, his real name was Kahabuka. He was
28
a sort of chief of the natives, could speak a little
English, and was a great favorite with the missionaries.
He did not do any regular work with the shearers, but
pretended to help in the yards, his real aim being to
get the grog, which is always more freely circulated
at shearing-timei he did not get much, for he was apt
to be dangerous when drunk; and very little would make
him so: still he did get it occasionally, and if one
wanted to get anything out of him, it was the best bribe
to offer him. (p. 9)
Chowbok is extremely unattractive, particularly when he be
comes unhappy or frightened, and Higgs mentions that even
"at the best of times Chowbok was very ugly . . ." (p. 12).
One significant aspect of the relationship between Higgs
and Chowbok concerns the former's attempts to convert the
heathen to Christianity. "Indeed, on one occasion," Higgs
relates,
I had even gone so far as to baptize him, as well as
I could, having ascertained that he had certainly not
been both christened and baptized, and gathering (from
his telling me that he had received the name William
from the missionary) that it was probably the first-
mentioned rite to which he had been subjected, (p. 36)
Ironically, however, Higgs remarks that "on the evening of
the same day that I baptized him he tried for the twentieth
time to steal the brandy, which made me rather unhappy as
to whether I could have baptized him rightly" (pp. 36-37).
Here Chowbok directs the satire to the effect of the bap
tismal ceremony. Butler is employing the device of irony
29
of character; that is, Chowbok's concern for the grog comes
at a time when his spiritual strength should forestall such
weaknesses.
Chowbok acts to increase the suspense surrounding the
impending travels of Higgs. The very mention of the distant
mountain ranges over which Higgs plans to adventure results
in Chowbok's strange behavior.
As long as I kept to questions about the nearer ranges,
he was easy, to get on with . . . but when 1 came to the
main range, his manner changed at once. He became un
easy, and began to prevaricate and shuffle. In a very
few minutes I could see that of this too there existed
traditions in his tribe; but no efforts or coaxing could
get a word from him about them. (p. 10)
At one point Chowbok displays unusually strong doubts about
the mountains:
Chowbok . . . stood before me shuddering as in great
fear; horror was written upon his face— this time quite
unvoluntarily— as though the natural panic of one who
had committed an awful crime against unknown and super
human agencies. He nodded his head and gibbered, and
pointed repeatedly to the mountains. He would not
touch the grog, but, after a few seconds he made a run
through the wool-shed door into the moonlight? nor did
he reappear till next day at dinner-time, when he turned
up, looking very sheepish and abject in his civility
towards myself. (p. 13)
The subsequent effect of Chowbok's actions is, of course,
to swell the imagination of Higgs with respect to the terri
tory beyond the mountains. "Of his meaning I had no
30
conception," he states; "I knew not what the great snowy
ranges might conceal, but I could no longer doubt that it
would be something well worth discovering" (p. 13).
As soon as Higgs embarks upon his walk to Erewhon,
Chowbok's responsibility to the narrative has been satis
fied. He is no longer necessary as a character in the
story; consequently, he is dropped from the novel. Even
his departure tends to heighten interest in the impending
adventures of Higgs, for Chowbok leaves only after the
explorations have created an "intensity of delight" in
Higgs and the latter‘s "blood was all on fire with hope and
elation" (p. 21). Aside from utilizing Chowbok in the two
roles outlined above, Butler does little to make the charac
ter realistic or even remotely convincing. Butler, no
doubt, wanted a reasonable amount of mystery and intrigue to
be connected with the native's response to the mention of
the mountains; but there seems to be little motivation for
any of Chowbok's activities. When compared with Melville's
Queequeg, who possesses numerous memorable and unique char
acteristics, as well as an intimate attachment to Ishmael,
Chowbok seems no more than an impersonal collection of
fears and doubts.
One occasionally feels that Butler hovers high above
31
his characters without ever trying to inspect them closely
and determine whether or not they are complete individuals.
The initial picture of Yram is essentially a catalogue of
traits which show her to be a most attractive young girl of
twenty.
She was not more than twenty, rather above the middle
height, active and strong, but yet most delicately
featured; her lips were full and sweet; her eyes were
of a deep hazel, and fringed with long and springing
eyelashes; her hair was neatly braided from off her
forehead; her complexion was simply exquisite; her
figure as robust as was consistent with the most per
fect female beauty, yet not more so; her hands and
feet might have served as models to a sculptor. (p. 65)
One is reminded of the conventional catalogue of female
charms which was characteristic of much medieval and renais
sance poetry. The great shortcoming of this kind of de
scription is that it does not provide the character with
distinguishing traits. Soon after her introduction Yram is
called a "beautiful creature" (p. 6 6) for whom the narrator
had a warm feeling. The trite epithet "beautiful creature"
does little to further the characterization of Yram, and
the noun "creature" awkwardly interrupts the complimentary
tone of the passage.
Butler attempts to give Yram some particular emotional
qualities by indicating that she was inclined to be jealous.
32
At one point Higgs details the kindness which was extended
to him by the members of the Erewhonian community, and he
mentions that the women had to be extremely cautious in
their attentions, for "they had to beware of Yram, who was
a young lady of a jealous temperament, and kept a sharp eye
both on me and on my lady visitors" (p. 68). This state
ment about Yram's jealousy is indicative of Butler's limi
tations in characterization in that it tells the reader
something about a character without providing a situation
to reveal such information through action. We see little
of Yram's actual behavior7 what we know of her we learn
from the narrator.
Before one discusses Yram's function in supporting one
of the key ideas in the novel, some attention should be
directed toward another shortcoming in her characterization.
At times her actions suggest sentimentality. Higgs recalls
when he would sing to Yram (she was the jailer's daughter),
and she would react quite noticeably. "I could at any
time," Higgs comments, "make Yram's eyes swim with tears by
singing 'Wilkins and His Dinah,' 'Billy Taylor,' 'The Rat
catcher's Daughter,' or as much of them as I could remem
ber" (p. 69). When Yram learns that Higgs must leave the
Erewhonian town in which she and her father live, she is
33
miserable, for, as Higgs indicates, "she had made up her
mind that I was to remain always in the town . . (p. 77).
The parting scene between Higgs and Yram goes well beyond
the emotional limits for which the reader has been prepared.
Higgs relates the experience.
On awaking next morning I was much better. It was
settled that I was to make my start in a conveyance
which was to be in waiting for me at about eleven o'
clock; and the anticipation of change put me in good
spirits, which even the tearful face of Yram could
hardly altogether derange. I kissed her again and
again, assured her that we should meet hereafter, and
that in the meanwhile I should be ever mindful of her
kindness. I gave her two of the buttons off my coat
and a lock of my hair as a keepsake, taking a goodly
curl from her own beautiful head in return; and so,
having said good-by a hundred times, till I was fairly
overcome with her great sweetness and her sorrow, I
tore myself away from her and got downstairs to the
caleche which was in waiting. (pp. 77-78)
There has been very little obvious motivation for the depth
of emotion displayed by Yram. Her association with Higgs
has been essentially perfunctory, and it is difficult to
credit her feeling toward him as anything other than the
strong attachment of a young impressionable girl for an
older man whom she considers heroic.
Even though Butler attempts to create an emotional
situation centered about the strong feelings of Yram toward
Higgs, the character of Yram, like the character of Chowbok,
34
is important primarily for the idea she comes to support:
the moral significance of good health to the Erewhonians.
The Erewhonians revered a healthy body free from all physi
cal ailments. At one point during his term in jail, Higgs
becomes afflicted with a severe cold. When he complains of
his condition to Yram, she displays the first anger toward
him that he experienced in Erewhon.
Being little used even to the lightest ailments, and
thinking that it would be rather nice to be petted and
cossetted by Yram, I certainly did not make myself out
to be any better than I was? in fact, I remember that
I made the worst of things, and took it into my head
to consider myself upon the sick list. When Yram brought
me my breakfast X complained somewhat dolefully of my
indisposition, expecting the sympathy ahd humoring which
I should have received from my mother and sisters at
home. Not a bit of it. She fired up in an instant,
and asked me what I meant by it, and how I dared to
presume to mention such a thing, especially when I con
sidered in what place I was. She had the best mind to
tell her father, only that she was afraid the consequen
ces would be so very serious for me. Her manner was so
injured and decided, and her anger so evidently unfeigned,
that I forgot my cold upon the spot. . . . (pp. 70-71)
Yram then proceeds to explain to Higgs the immoral implica
tions of poor health. The general structure of this scene
and many similar ones clearly shows how Butler's early con
cept of characterization operated, emphasizing only one
trait in a specific scene. The individuals involved would
be engaged in some provocative situation, usually emotional,
35
which would lead to a lengthy discussion of Erewhonian cus
toms or beliefs. Most often the statements made by the
characters would be subsequent to the emotional situation;
for example, the comments Yram makes to Higgs about ill
health after she expresses anger toward him for being sick,
would be devoid of ostensible emotion and spoken in the form
of essays on the subject matter. One is often left with
the impression that Butler created relationships between
characters in Erewhon merely to justify his inclusion of
extended, expository statements in the dialogue of the peo
ple involved. Most of the dialogue spoken by the characters
comes after the emotional confrontation. In the scene in
jail in which Higgs relates his condition to Yram the in
formation is related to the reader through narrative rather
than by the actual dialogue of the two characters. The long
dialogues are spoken only after the characters have com
menced discussion of ideas. Butler, in short, seems to be
more concerned with providing an interaction between ideas
rather than between characters.
The other main female character in Erewhon is Arowhena
Nosnibor. Butler tends to idealize her characterization as
he did that of Yram, and Stillman regards Arowhena as "a
36
5
young female in the best Victorian tradition.H Immediately
Arowhena is set apart from the rest of her family when the
narrator remarks that "though the Nosnibors showed me every
attention, I could not cordially like them, with the excep
tion of Arowhena, who was quite different from the rest"
(p. 153). Higgs then emphasizes Arowhena's goodness by
making her appear almost as if she were the Cinderella of
the Nosnibor family.
She it was who ran all the little errands for her
mother and Mr. Nosnibor and Zulora, and gave those
thousand proofs of sweetness and unselfishness which
some one member of a family is generally required to
give. All day long it was Arowhena this, and Arowhena
that; but she never seemed to know that she was being
put upon, and was always bright and willing from morn
ing till evening, (p. 153)
But Arowhena serves less as a representative of ideas in the
novel and more as a love interest for the narrator. She is
the only character in the novel whose relationship with
Higgs is more emotional than intellectual. Although there
was a suggestion of love between Higgs and Yram, their inti-
macy grew only from the periods of instruction during which
the jailer's daughter taught the narrator about the language
and customs of the country. When Higgs moves on to reside
^Stillman, p. 88. * '
37
with the Nosnibor family, Yram is dropped from the narra
tive. Even though Butler attempts to create the one signi
ficant love relation in the novel between Arowhena and
Higgs, their affair remains shallow and insipid. Butler
was inexperienced in this area of human affairs,
And whenever he tried to portray a woman in a love
relation, he was so bored and incompetent that he could
not do the job properly. As for Arowhena, though he
lingered lovingly in the description of the Erewhonian
men and women in general, their fine stature, their
rich colouring, their full and restful lips, when he
came to her he merely remarked that she was the ne plus
ultra of youth and beauty, that he could not do her jus
tice, and that the reader must fill out the picture for
himself. Having thus shifted the burden he passed on
to matters of interest.^
Higgs says to the reader in regard to Arowhena's beauty that
he should "think of the very loveliest that he can imagine,
and he will still be below the truth" (p. 154). He then
remarks that "having said this much, I need hardly say that
I had fallen in love with her" {p. 154). There is absolute
ly no development of this emotion. Butler seems little con
cerned with providing any adequate motivation for Higgs's
feeling other than his loving her because she was extra-
t
ordinarily beautiful. It is difficult for a reader to
^Stillman, pp. 90-91.
38
accept this relationship seriously, since Butler himself
devotes little time and attention to their love.
Following the initial mention of the love between
Higgs and Arowhena there are several chapters in which there
is virtually no interaction between characters. Butler de
votes these sections to discussion of numerous Erewhonian
attitudes toward religion, birth, and education. He next
mentions Higgs and Arowhena as facing a crisis in their
relationship. Although the affair between these lovers is
unnoticed after the brief statement made by the narrator
asserting his love for the beautiful Arowhena, a crisis re
sults from the problems of their possible marriage. Be
cause Arowhena has an older, unmarried sister, Zulora Nos
nibor, it was not socially correct for the younger sister to
be courted. Even more serious was the alien character of
Higgs, for Erewhonian girls were encouraged, of course, to
marry Erewhonian boys. There is a brief comment about the
nature of the discussion in which the lovers attempted to
solve their problems; yet they were unable to resolve the
matter satisfactorily, thus eliminating the possibility for
immediate marriage. As Higgs recalls this meeting with
Arowhena he reminds the reader that
I write coldly now, but I suffered keenly at the time,
39
and should probably retain a much more vivid recollec
tion of what I felt, had not all ended so happily.
(p. 201)
Again Butler forces a character to tell what effects a par
ticular situation had upon him instead of showing how the
character acted and reacted in the midst of the experience.
Butler, however, does not delete the love relationship from
the novel even after it is learned that Higgs and Arowhena
cannot marry in Erewhon. The lovers now plan to escape to
England and marry in that country. In the scene where Higgs
first suggests the plan of escape to Arowhena, Butler illus
trates a sentimentality in the characterization closely re
sembling that of Yram earlier in the novel. Higgs arranges
for an interview with Arowhena, telling the reader that
then I gave myself the loose rein, and told her how
passionately and devotedly I loved her. She said little
in return, but her tears (which I could not refrain from
answering with my own) and the little she did say were
quite enough to show me that I should meet with no ob
stacle from her. (p. 202)
When the decision to escape together has been made, Butler
illustrates a dedication and devotion between the lovers
that further idealizes the character of Arowhena as one who
is willing to die in order to remain with Higgs.
I was not mistaken in her; she said that she believed
I loved her as much as she loved me, and that she would
40
brave anything if I could only assure her that what I
proposed would not be thought dishonorable in England;
she could not live without me, and would rather die
with me than alone; that death was perhaps the best
for us both; that I must plan, and that when the hour
came I was to send for her, and trust her not to fail
me; and so after many tears and embraces, we tore our
selves away. (p. 203)
It is difficult to accept the character of Arowhena as
anything other than a feminine fagade. Her constant sub
mission to the demands and wishes of others occasionally
prompts one to regard Arowhena as being without a will of
her own. Her only question to Higgs about the escape per
tains to the morality of the marriage in England. She ap
pears totally unconcerned about the precariousness of the
excursion itself. Stillman remarks that Arowhena "risks
her life to marry her lover, but that was the one form of
daring the Victorian heroine was permitted. She never as-
7
similates or even understands his ideas." After the plans
for escape have been formulated, Arowhena is dropped from
the narrative while numerous other minor characters appear
in lengthy discussions about Erewhonian beliefs, Their
conversations range from the characteristics of the "Col
leges of Unreason" to the rights of animals and vegetables.
^Stillman, p. 88.
41
The three chapters in the novels dealing with "The Book of
the Machines" also fall in the interval between the lovers'
plans to escape and the actual escape. In the final chapter
"Escape" Butler picks up the narrative of Arowhena and
Higgs's departure from Erewhon as if there had been no in
tervening material, but few readers— so soon after having
been exposed to a multitude of ideas— are ready to renew
interest in the lovers' plight. Their escape, however, is
successful.
In spite of the obvious shortcomings in the character
izations of Yram and Arowhena, these women are the best
developed figures in the novel. The remaining characters,
most of whom are minor, are slight and rarely distinguish
ing. The initial statement about Mrs. Nosnibor is essenti
ally a perfunctory description of her physical appearance.
Higgs mentions that she "was about forty years old, and
still handsome, but she had grown very stout . . ." (p. 85).
No more attention is given to acquaint the reader with Mrs.
Nosnibor. Her importance to the story is only functional:
she escorts the narrator to the Musical Banks for the first
time. Indeed, Mrs. Nosnibor comes to represent the supposed
Erewhonian attitude toward the Musical Banks. When Higgs
becomes involved with her in a discussion of religion in
42
Erewhon, Mrs. Nosnibor commences a long commentary on the
subject.
Mrs. Nosnibor went on to say that I must not think
there was any want of confidence in the bank because
I had seen so few people there? the heart of the country
was thoroughly devoted to these establishments, and any
sign of their being in danger would bring in support
from the most unexpected quarters. It was only because
people knew them to be so very safe, that in some cases
(as she lamented to say in Mr. Nosnibor's) they felt
that their support was unnecessary. Moreover these
institutions never departed from the safest and most
approved banking principles. . . . (p. 143)
Higgs continues to report the long dialogue delivered by
Mrs. Nosnibor, and it reads as if it were an extended essay.
The reader must be reminded from time to time by short par
enthetical pauses— "Let a person's intellect (she continued)
be ever so sound . . ." (p. 144)— that a character is actu
ally speaking. After she has terminated her statements on
the religious banks, Mrs. Nosnibor is no longer referred to
in the novel.
Mr. Senoj Nosnibor, a character whom the narrator de
scribes as "a venerable old man," never rises to the level
of significance; yet he is represented as an example of the
Erewhonian who is undergoing so-called "moral" care. Mr.
Nosnibor's ailment developed because
he had been on the Stock Exchange of the city for many
43
years and had amassed enormous wealth, without exceed
ing the limits of what was generally considered justi
fiable, or at any rate, permissible dealing; but at
length on several occasions he had become aware of a
desire to make money by fraudulent representations, and
had actually dealt with two or three sums in a way
which had made him rather uncomfortable. He had unfor
tunately made light of it and pooh-poohed the ailment,
until circumstances eventually presented themselves
which enabled him to cheat upon a very considerable
scale;— he told me what they were, and they were about
as bad as anything could be, but I need not detail them;
— he seized the opportunity, and became aware, when it
was too late, that he must be seriously out of order.
He had neglected himself too long. (p. 96)
Nosnibor's moral problem is treated as if it were a medical
need, for when his family are informed of his condition,
they call "one of the most celebrated straighteners of the
kingdom to a consultation with the family practitioner, for
the case was plainly serious" (p. 97). When the discussion
of the treatment of Mr. Nosnibor's problem has terminated,
Butler drops the character from the novel, for he is no
longer essential to the story. Nosnibor does not even ap
pear in the affairs surrounding the relationship between
his daughter Arowhena and the narrator Higgs. Mr. Nosnibor,
in short, has served his function, and Butler dispenses with
him.
The Nosnibor problem has served to introduce the char
acter of the straightener. Butler satirizes the straight
eners when Higgs relates the requirements necessary to
44
become a member of the profession. Butler implies that
there is perhaps some irony in the character of the typical
straightener.
It is hardly necessary to say that the office of
straightener is one which requires long and special
training. It stands to reason that he who would cure
a moral ailment must be practically acquainted with
it in all its bearings. The student for the profes
sion of straightener is required to set apart certain
seasons for the practice of each vice in turn, as a
religious duty. These seasons are called "fasts". . .
Those who intend to be specialists, rather than
general practitioners> devote themselves more parti
cularly to the branch in which their practice will
mainly lie. Some students have been obliged to con
tinue their exercises during their whole lives, and
some devoted men have actually died as martyrs to the
drink, or gluttony, or whatever branch of vice they
may have chosen for their especial study. The greater
number, however, take no harm by the excursions into
the various departments of vice which it is incumbent
upon them to study, (pp. 100-101)
The straightener exerts an extraordinary influence
over the average Erewhonian citizen. There is never the
slightest question as to the wisdom behind the straighten-
er's commands. The sacredness attached to Mr. Nosnibor's
straightener is strongly suggested when Higgs reports that
during his first meal with the Nosnibor family he
noticed that my host was uneasy during the whole meal,
and that he ate nothing but a little bread and milk;
towards the end of dinner there came a tall, lean man
with a black beard, to whom Mr. Nosnibor and the whole
family paid great attention; he was the family
45
straightener. With this gentleman Mr. Nosnibor retired
into another room, from which there presently proceeded
a sound of weeping and wailing. I could hardly believe
my ears, but in a few minutes I got to know for a cer
tainty that they came from Mr. Nosnibor himself, (p. 86)
By including in his description of the straightener the
mention of such characteristics as "a tall, lean man with a
black beard," Butler suggests the resemblance between this
particular Erewhonian profession and the English physician
of the nineteenth century. The satire which Butler directs
toward the Erewhonian straightener ultimately includes by
analogy the English medical doctors. Indeed the single
reason for the characterization of the family straightener
is to call attention to the general similarity of the above
professions in the two countries, for the character de
scription is superficial and neglects to show the individual
practitioner with any particular or unique traits.
Butler's method of discussing straighteners suggests
the method he uses with the group of Erewhonians known as
the Ydgrunites. Harris refers to these Ydgrunites as
a curious and typically Erewhonian group of people . . .
who worshipped the goddess of Ydgrun and had in many
ways lost faith in the religion of the country. Con
formity, unless absolutely intolerable, was, however,
one of their principles. They did not talk much of
the goddess whom they worshipped, but would do nothing
contrary to her teaching. Possessing "a high standard
of courage, generosity, honour and every good and
46
manly quality," they were naturally the most consider
able and influential body of people in Erewhon.®
Butler treats the Ydgrunites collectively in order to pre
sent a particular Erewhonian philosophy, but never is one
removed from the group and described or developed individ
ually.
Before concluding this discussion of characterization
in Erewhon one should make some mention of several minor
figures, for they add further illustration of Butler’s early
methods of character creation. One of these people is
Mahaina, a female friend of the women in the Nosnibor fami
ly. In some respects Mahaina serves as a companion charac
ter for Mr. Nosnibor, for whereas he is an illustration of
the Erewhonian who is being treated for a so-called moral
ailment, Mahaina is an illustration of a citizen who has a
physical condition indicative of some significant weakness
es. Because of the supposed criminal nature of any illness
in Erewhon, every effort is taken to downgrade the cause and
seriousness of Mahaina's problem. Upon arriving at the
Nosnibor household, Mahaina is questioned about her "poor
8John Frederick Harris, Samuel Butlerf Author of "Ere
whon"! The Man and His Work (New York, 1916), p. 87.
47
dipsomania" by Arowhena's sister Zulora. Mahaina's answer
is ironic, for she replies "that it was just as bad as
ever? she was a perfect martyr to it, and her excellent
health was the only thing which consoled her under her
affliction" (p. 131). The ladies are quick to conclude in
Mahaina's presence that her condition results not so much
from any inherent physical weakness as from her fondness
for alcoholic beverages. When Mahaina departs from the
Nosnibor residence, the ladies continue
bandying about the question as to how far their late
visitor's intemperance was real or no. Every now and
then they would join in some charitable commonplace,
and would pretend to be all of one mind that Mahaina
was a person whose bodily health would be excellent
if it were not for her unfortunate inability to re
frain from excessive drinking; but as soon as they
appeared to be fairly settled they began to be uncom
fortable until they had undone their work and left
some serious imputation upon her constitution. (pp.
133-134)
Mahaina's departure from the Nosnibor home signals her de
parture from the novel. She has served less as a character
than as an example of the danger of being ill in Erewhon.
Her presence allows the other characters to illustrate how
the polite Erewhonians would attempt to excuse physical
ailments by assigning them to a cause other than mere body
weakness or malfunction. The important thing about Mahai-
48
na's characterization, then, is the restrictedness of its
single emphasis on one element of her condition, making her
a shallow and uninteresting figure.
The remaining minor characters simply act to present
explanations of numerous ideas pertaining to Erewhonian
laws and educational procedure. In one chapter a young
citizen is on trial for "having just lost a wife to whom he
had been tenderly attached, and who had left him with three
little children, of whom the eldest was only three years
old" (p. 102). We learn nothing of the man other than his
immediate plight. He is important to the novel only because
he presents a typical situation which will allow certain
Erewhonian laws to be discussed. The judge who delivers
numerous lengthy passages on the philosophy of Erewhonian
legality and concludes by reminding the young man "that no
man should be allowed to be unlucky to more than a very
moderate extent" (p. 103), is also nondescript. His func
tion in the chapter is merely to explain laws to several
Erewhonian offenders.
When Butler comes to the chapters dealing with the
Erewhonian "Colleges of Unreason," he provides a "venerable
Professor of Worldly Wisdom" as a spokesman for the struc
ture and philosophies of the schools. Again like the judge
49
the professor repeats a number of long passages to Higgs.
The tone of the statements is satirical, and the satire is
directed' almost exclusively to the colleges.
On the basis of the chapter in which the professor
speaks, one can make an interesting comparison between
Butler's early and later characterizations. In this first
novel Butler directs satire at a given institution not by
directing attention to the individual representative of the
institution who may be speaking, but by having the satire
result from the statements made by the speaker. Butler
tells us nothing about the Professor except that he is
"venerable," and the Professor tells us little of himself,
but focuses his attention on the educational system. In
The Wav of All Flesh and Erewhon Revisited Butler satirizes
education by directing attention to those individuals— Dr.
Skinner, Hanky, and Panky— who are closely associated with
the institution. Butler's concern in the later novels in
cludes the description of the representative of the insti
tution or system as well as of the given institution being
satirized.
Butler's shortcomings in characterization in E rew h o n
can be reviewed briefly in conclusion. His primary interest
in characters was to make them work for him in presenting
50
his ideas. He took too little time in attempting to deter
mine how he could decrease their flatness and weakness.
There is virtually no character development; the character
descriptions are usually perfunctory and brief; the motiva
tion, particularly in love and emotional relationships, is
inadequate; and the statements about a character outnumber
the actions performed by the character. In addition to
these shortcomings, the long lapses between the treatments
A
of character relations, especially in the love affair be
tween Arowhena and Higgs, also work to make the characteri
zations far less effective in Erewhon than those in the
subsequent novels. The reader leaves Erewhon with a mind
full of ideas— some interesting, some ridiculous, a few
seemingly practical— but the characters, namely Yram,
Arowhena, Higgs, and the other Erewhonians— make few lasting
impressions.
CHAPTER II
THE WAY OF ALL FLESH (I)
Samuel Butler's best-known novel, The Wav of All Flesh,
was written over a period of eleven years (1873-1884) and
subsequently published in 1903. Royal A. Gettman states
that although Samuel Butler began
The Wav of All Flesh in 1873, he dropped it in 1874 to
begin Life and Habit (1878), the most interesting and
most important of his five books on science. He re
sumed work on the novel in 1878 but again stopped to
write about Darwin, toward whom he was now openly an
tagonistic. In short, the composition of The Wav of
All Flesh, completed in 1884, was coupled with Butler's
writing on science. The importance of this connection
was hinted at by Butler's literary executor in a note
to the first edition, but only within the last few
years have scholars discovered how closely Butler inter
wove his theory of heredity with the characters and the
action of the novel.^
Indeed the very essence of the novel has often been declared
to be its application of Butler's theoretical beliefs about
^■Introduction to the Rinehart edition of The Way of
All Flesh (New York, 1958), pp. vii-viii.
51
52
- 2
evolution. The theories are related, in part, to the acti
vities of the Pontifex family, whose history and membership
closely resemble those of the Butler family. This auto
biographical significance of the novel provides additional
appeal to the work, for, as Mrs. Stillman suggests in her
appraisal of The Way of All Flesh, its writing "traversed
the period of Butler's most vital creative activity. . . .
Its richness consists in its having absorbed the essence of
every phase through which he passed while writing it, and
of adding that distillation to the synthesis of remembered
„ 3
experience.
The purpose of the two chapters on The Way of All Flesh
is to examine the characters of the novel in an attempt to
see how they represent modifications and improvements in
Butler's ability to characterize. This initial chapter will
deal primarily with those characters or specific aspects of
characters which serve to suggest Butler's ideas concerning
unconscious memory in the process of evolution as well as
his ideas about parental control and family relations. The
following chapter will concern the characters who.illustrate
2Harris, pp. 220-221.
3Stillman, p. 190.
53
or represent Butler's feelings with respect to education
i
and religion; and also characters such as Mrs. Jupp and
Towneley who are significant to the novel because they are
we11-described figures having little concern for the major
ideas or concepts involved in the novel.
Unlike the discussion of characterization in Erewhon.
a discussion of characterization in The Wav of All Flesh
requires emphasis on the techniques employed by the author,
for in his second novel Butler commences to take a greater
interest in the reality of his characters. Irony of manner
and irony of character as well as burlesque are important
tools for satirical characterizations, particularly in the
descriptions and development of Theobald and Christina
Pontifex and of Dr. Skinner. Consequently, many of the
discussions relating a specific character to some satiric
theme or idea in the novel will also make mention of the
techniques of characterization employed in the creation of
the figure.
The earlier discussion of Thomas Higgs, the narrator of
Erewhon. pointed out a close intellectual similarity between
the narrator and Samuel Butler. Higgs's thoughts and atti
tudes were considered to be reasonable facsimiles of those
of the author. In The Way of All Flesh. Butler, according
to Mrs. Stillman, creates two figures who represent him in
some way.
The story is told by Overton, Ernest's godfather,
who represents the mature Butler looking at his life
just as Ernest represents him in the process of living
it. This device makes it easy to tell more about
Ernest than would otherwise be possible, for Overton
had been a playmate of Ernest's father though he did
not like him, for Theobald was dull and mean even as
a child, and of his Aunt Alethea whom he liked very
much, and he remembered Ernest's grandparents and great-
grandparents, and the social environment of Ernest's
youth had been his own. He thus knew a great many
things about Ernest that Ernest could not know and
greatly enriches the picture by his contacts with Er
nest's prenatal and early existence, just as he affords
a certain background and balance for Ernest's later
life by being its sole link with the past, representing
the best things in it which can emerge only when Ernest
is free. Nevertheless Overton is so unobtrusive that
one forgets him whenever he is not indispensable, and
a good deal of the story is told in Ernest's own words
or in a paraphrase of such words as Ernest might have
used in telling Overton about it long afterward.4
Unlike Higgs in Erewhon. who represented Butler only in
thought, Ernest and Overton come to illustrate some of But
ler's actual experiences with family and friends. These
characters come to represent important physical, emotional
and psychological aspects of the author. They resemble
Higgs in purpose, but in scope they are complex variations
of the character of Thomas Higgs.
4Stiliman, pp. 191-192.
55
A recent article by William H. Marshall underlines the
5
importance of the character of Overton to the novel. Mar
shall considers Overton to be significant to the novel in
an intellectual and philosophical as well as in an emotional
way. In Edward Overton,
Samuel Butler integrated the objective and subjective
viewpoints by creating a narrator of the experiences
of the protagonist, Ernest Pontifex. The structure of
the novel emerging from this method is at least super
ficially apparent. Edward Overton, the narrator, is
quite clearly the antithesis of Ernest's father, Theo
bald. Born the same year and growing up in the same
village, they assume in maturity opposite philosophic
positions, from one to the other of which Ernest passes
in his own development. In the story of this passage
Ernest himself is of course the "hero," as Overton calls
him, but the point of view remains Overton's in the
book that he is writing.
Marshall then proceeds to specify those differences in
philosophy which exist between Overton and the elder Ponti-
fexes, and how Overton functions to bring these differences
to the attention of the reader.
Overton's function . . . is to put the elements in
the story of Ernest Pontifex in proper perspective,
which, described one way, reveals the protagonist's
reaction to the opposition between two views of life.
5"The Way of All Flesh: The Dual Function of Edward
Overton," Texas Studies in Literature and Language. IV
(Winter 1963), 583-590. The quotations are from pp. 583,
585, 589, and 590.
56
Theobald and Christina, secure in their ignorance, held
and represented the absolutist's view, from which Ernest
falteringly departed.
Ernest evolves during the course of the novel, accord
ing to Marshall, to a relativistic position almost similar
to the philosophical position of Overton. Marshall sees
Overton as "a relativist recording a younger man's struggle
to break from.the absolutist view of life," and indicates
that Overton "establishes himself personally as the embodi
ment of the ideal relativistic position."
On the emotional level Marshall characterizes the nar
rator as one who details his own personal relationships with
Ernest and describes "with some intensity his reaction to
incidents and phases in Ernest's development." Overton, in
short, "becomes therefore a character in the narrative, a
representative of a personal as well as an intellectual
position, and for Ernest from early childhood an unvarying
emotional reality." The conclusion of Marshall's article
summarizes the main point.
In developing the character of Edward Overton, as
both narrator of and participant in the story of the
maturation of Ernest Pontifex, to the point at which
the intellectual view in the novel achieved aesthetic
integration, Samuel Butler necessarily produced a com
plex personality, in which the inconsistency between
the intellectual and emotional aspects of his being
becomes the basis for a gentle and sustained irony in
the novel. It is this which Overton, knowingly or not,
suggests as he continues that assertion, already men
tioned, that every man's work reflects its author's
personality. "I may very likely be condemning myself,
all the time that I am writing this book, for I know
that whether I like it or no I am portraying myself more
surely than I sun portraying any of the characters whom
I set before the reader," Overton writes. "I am sorry
that it is so, but I cannot help it."
One of the first functions of Overton is to recall as
much as he can of the early members of the Pontifex family.
His recollections occupy the first chapters of The Way of
All Flesh. The characters discussed in these initial chap
ters of the novel are essentially functional in that they
call attention to the importance of heredity and uncon
scious memory in the development of the family character
istics . Butler does not attempt to characterize them fully
he merely emphasizes those traits which were most signifi
cant about each individual. Before commencing a discussion
of these characters, one might do well to refer briefly to
g
a chart of Ernest's immediate paternal ancestors:
^Harris, p. 221.
58
THE PONTIFEXES
Old John Pontifex + 1812
George Pontifex, b. 1765 or 1766
;hristii
Allaby
i -----------1 ----------1 -----------[ -------------------------------- 1
Eliza Maria John Theobald= Christina Alethea
Ernest'Ponti fex Joseph Charlotte
b. 1835
The characterization of Old John Pontifex calls atten
tion to his many favorable attributes. He is introduced as
a healthy and kindly village carpenter who taught himself
how to draw quite well. Mention is also made of the fact
that John built two fine organs, and that he learned to
play some Handel. John is shown to be a man who had numer
ous hereditary resources which he did not employ well.
These resources, however, become of use two generations
later, when his great-grandson Ernest employs them to free
himself from his immediate background in order to achieve
a harmony similar to that of Old John. The principle of
unconscious memory is clearly applied in this transmission
of traits over several generations.
The general characterization of old John Pontifex re
minds one of Butler's habit of strongly idealizing or sati
rizing a character. There is little in the chapter on Old
59
John that would suggest that he was anything but an out
standing individual. Even his wife's tendency to be domi
neering fails to annoy John, for his "temper was easy and
he soon learned to bow before his wife's more stormy moods"
(P. 1).
The second chapter of The Wav of All Flesh begins the
treatment of George Pontifex, Ernest's paternal grandfather
Butler's treatment of George is satirical. Although George
is sturdy, intelligent, and quick, he is possessed "perhaps
of a trifle too great readiness at book learning." This
last quality, according to Butler's philosophy, is an ob
vious fault, for Butler felt that the best knowledge was
unconscious; and that knowledge obtained from the study of
books had to be conscious. The most obvious flaw in George
Pontifex's character, however, proves to be his miserliness
Butler calls attention to George's fondness for money
in several scenes early in the novel. When Theobald is en
rolled in one of the smaller colleges at Cambridge
Mr. Pontifex, senior, was really pleased, and told his
son he would present him with the works of any standard
writer whom he might select. The young man chose the
works of Bacon, and Bacon accordingly made his appear
ance in ten nicely bound volumes. A little inspection,
however, showed that the copy was a second hand one.
(pp. 31-32)
Butler satirizes George primarily by accentuating the irony
of his behavior. Although he proudly pledges to forward an
entire set of books to his son, and he implies that the
volumes will be new, he subsequently sends copies which have
been repaired and made to look like new. This book incident
is not the only occasion in which Theobald feels slighted
by his father. When George Pontifex dies, it is found,
upon opening his will, that
an original bequest of 20,000 to Theobald himself
(over and above the sum that had been settled upon him
and Christina at the time of his marriage) had been
cut down to 17,500 when Mr. Pontifex left 1 1 something"
to Ernest. The "something" proved to b e 2,500, which
was to accumulate in the hands of trustees. The rest
of the property went to John Pontifex, except that each
of the daughters was left with about 15,000 over and
above 5,000 a piece which they inherited from their
mother. (p. 78)
The chief result of the portrayal of George Pontifex as a
man most conservative in matters of finance is the explana
tion it gives of the appearance of the conservative trait
in his son Theobald. In numerous scenes in the novel, the
animosity which occurs between Theobald and Ernest is moti
vated solely because of money difficulties, and there exists
an obvious resemblance between the miserliness of George and
that of Theobald. George, then, like his father Old John
Pontifex, is used in the novel essentially to illustrate
61
the persistence of a given trait or attitude in the racial
memory of the family.
Butler devotes little attention to any of the children
of George Pontifex except Theobald, Ernest's father, and
Alethea, Ernest's aunt. She is the most idealized of all
of Butler's characters in The Wav of All Flesh and, accord
ing to some critics, including Stillman and Harris, perhaps
the most idealized character in all of Samuel Butler's fic
tion. Stillman refers to Aunt Alethea as being both "wise
and charming" and "perfect." Her characterization profits
because she was modelled in part on Butler's friend Miss
Savage.
In Alethea, Ernest's wise and charming aunt who
leaves him a fortune, Butler presented his idea of what
Miss Savage would have been like if she had been beau
tiful and wealthy. Butler intended Alethea as a tribute
to Miss Savage . . . She is not a portrait of Miss Sav
age, except for her wit which is actually Miss Savage's
own, but neither is she a creation in her own right.
She is a charming wraith who comes to life only in re
lation to Ernest, just as Miss Savage was permitted to
exist in Butler's life only in relation to his needs.
She is perhaps, in part, a tenderly retrospective fan
tasy of the kind of adult sympathy that would have been
so precious to Butler's own youth, of which his Aunt
Bather\ whose small kindnesses he never forgot, was but
the faintest shadow. (p. 192)
Alethea is a contrast to the other members of the Pon
tifex family in that she illustrates the friendly relations
62
which can and, according to Butler, should exist between
members of the same family. Although Alethea was also some
what money-conscious, she was never the miser her father
and brother were. Alethea's interest in money was motivated
only by the desire to live a comfortable life. At one point
in the novel Alethea formulates a plan for spending and in
vesting her money, and she remarks laughingly after having
completed her speculations that
"If I do this . . . I shall probably just succeed in
living comfortably within my income." In accordance
with this scheme she took unfurnished apartments in a
house in Gower Street, of which the lower floors were
let out as offices. John Pontifex tries to get her to
take a house to herself, but Alethea told him to mind
his own business so plainly that he had to beat a re
treat. She had never liked him, and from that time
dropped him almost entirely. (p. 130)
Generally Alethea differed quite strongly from the other
members of the Pontifex family. She had few attachments to
her family, and with those members with whom she maintained
some rapport her contacts were very infrequent. "Though
scarcely on terms with her brother John," the reader is in
formed, Alethea "had kept up closer relations with Theobald
and his family, and had paid a few days' visit to Battersby
once in every two years or so" (p. 131).
Alethea, then, is a kind of bete noir as far as the
63
majority of the Pontifex family is concerned. Butler, on
the other hand, considers her to be the finest member of
the family, and he devotes much discussion to what he con
siders to be Alethea's most positive qualities.
Without going much into society she yet became
acquainted with most of the men and women who had
attained a position in the literary, artistic and
scientific worlds, and it was singular how highly
her opinion was valued in spite of her never having
attempted in any way to distinguish herself. She
could have written if she had chosen, but she enjoyed
seeing others write and encouraging them better than
taking a more active part herself. Perhaps literary
people liked her all the better because she did not
write. (p. 130)
Alethea was, in essence, more interested in inspiring others
than in utilizing her talents for personal creativity. In
this respect one is- reminded of her grandfather, Old John
Pontifex, who made little use of his wide range of talents.
In a subtle way, perhaps, Alethea's character also under
lines the importance of Butler's theory of memory.
Alethea differed quite distinctly from the other Ponti-
fexes when it came to concepts of religion, for as Overton
remarks, "in religion she was, I should think, as nearly a
freethinker as anyone could be whose mind seldom turned upon
the subject. She went to church, but disliked equally those
who aired either religion or irreligion" (pp. 130-131).
64
When one considers the fervor which characterizes the so-
called religious devotion of Christina and Theobald, it is
not difficult to see the absence of rapport that would occur
between Ernest's parents and his Aunt Alethea on matters
pertaining to God and church.
It seems possible that a close relationship would de
velop between Alethea and Ernest, for he, in short, becomes
the bete noir of his family. Even as a child Ernest ad
mired the calming influence that Alethea had upon his par
ents whenever she visited Battersby.
When Miss Pontifex had come down to Battersby in
old times the children had not been beaten, and their
lessons had been made lighter. She easily saw that
they were overworked and unhappy, but she could hardly
guess how all-reaching was the regime under which they
lived. She knew she could not interfere effectually
then, and wisely forebore to make too many enquiries.
Her time, if ever it was to come, would be when the
children were no longer living under the same roof as
their parents. It ended in her making up her mind to
have nothing to do with either Joey or Charlotte, but
to see so much of Ernest as should enable her to form
an opinion about his disposition and abilities. (p. 131)
Alethea becomes the one inspiring human force in Er
nest's life, both psychologically and financially, for she
constantly encourages him to cultivate those areas in which
his greatest interest lies and she leaves him a large sum
of money. Alethea first takes a house at Roughborough in
65
order to be close to her nephew while he is enrolled at Dr.
Skinner's school. She then befriends many of Ernest's close
friends at Roughborough. Finally, it is Alethea who spon
sors Ernest's project to construct an organ. Whenever she
feels that she can be of any assistance to her nephew,
Alethea makes herself available.
It is difficult not to admire Alethea as an individual,
for Butler places her almost in the pure light of perfec
tion. As a literary characterization, however, she has some
obvious shortcomings. The most noticeable limitation of
Alethea's characterization is that she reveals little of
herself by her actions. Most of the information about Ale
thea is told to the reader, and only on infrequent occasions
does the reader hear Alethea speaking or see Alethea acting.
Butler tells the reader that "Alethea could have written if
she had chosen," and that in religion "she was nearly a
freethinker," and that when she "came down to Battersby the
children were not beaten," but the narrative never includes
scenes in which Alethea1s actual behavior in a given situa
tion is being described. Her character is created as if
under glass, and the reader is never able to see through
this glass and search into her mind to study the more subtle
aspects of a personality. Indeed, Alethea herself rarely
66
searches her own mind, and she is never seen making deci
sions or formulating plans. Consequently, there is lacking
any real development in her character, for Alethea remains
essentially the same person from the moment of her first
description until her death.
In comparing Alethea with Yram and Arowhena one imme
diately notices a degree of maturity in the former which is
not present in the Erewhonian women. Alethea is devoid of
sentimentality, and she is capable of maintaining individual
ideas, many of .which are very much in opposition to the
thinking of the rest of her family. However, like each
female character in Erewhon. Alethea fails, even though to
a lesser degree, to become a complete personality. She is
seen only in relation to Ernest, and one thinks of her more
as a source for good in his life than as an individual woman
with needs and hopes of her own.
Stillman refers to the restrained love that supposedly
existed between Overton and Alethea; however, this love is
merely hinted at; Butler does nothing about describing or
developing it except to have Overton remark at one point:
"It is impossible for me to explain how it was that
she and I never married. We two knew exceedingly well,
and that must suffice for the reader. There was the
most perfect sympathy and understanding between us;
67
we knew that neither of us would marry any one else.
I had asked her to marry me a dozen times over; having
said this much I will say no more upon a point which
is in no way necessary for the development of the
story."7
Alethea, then, functions only in her associations with
Ernest; any other associations she might have had are omit
ted from the novel or mentioned only fleetingly. After she
has provided Ernest with some money and much encouragement,
Alethea dies. It is noteworthy that Alethea dies from a
sudden attack of typhoid fever after never having had a
serious illness in her life. Like many of Butler's charac
ters, Alethea is removed from the story when she has served
her specific purpose, for she has done all she can for her
nephew Ernest; and her continued presence in the novel
would be superfluous.
The characterizations of Theobald and Christina are
considered to be Butler's outstanding achievements in the
area of character description and development. Even with
them, however, Butler tends to focus upon one aspect of
behavior; namely, their reactions to their son. But, as
Mrs. Stillman stresses, the Pontifex parents acquire a
7Stillman, p. 193.
degree of completeness of characterization not possessed by
most of Butler's other men and women.
Ernest's parents, Theobald and Christina, are done in
the round. Although we see them also predominantly in
relation to Ernest, we have a clear conception of what
they are like in other relations, and in whatever di
rection they function they do so in a manner consistent
with what we know of them and psychologically accept
able. Butler had an instinctive understanding and
sympathy for his parents, too deep to depend on assent
or to be invalidated by resentment. It was biological,
part of his knowledge of himself and as such uncon
scious, like that part of his life that he had lived
in them. They were the kind of subject that came un
bidden and would not be denied, the kind that Butler
considered alone legitimate. In his case the subjects
that were most irresistible and with which he succeeded
most brilliantly were those which aroused in him a
sense of wrong that compelled him to opposition.8
Because Ernest reacted most strongly to the so-called
"wrong-doings" of his parents, Theobald and Christina become
subjects of great satire in the novel. The reader is intro
duced to both Theobald and Christina before they are intro
duced to one another, but the best satirical pictures of
these characters come after their marriage. The circum
stances of the marriage allow some satire to be directed at
the Allabys, who are trying desperately to marry off Chris
tina, one of five remaining daughters who are unmarried.
8Stiliman, pp. 193-194.
69
Much of the hypocrisy and cunning that seem to be integral
aspects of Mrs. Allaby's character will come to light again
in the behavior of Christina, and Butler perhaps presents
the brief scenes in which Mrs. Allaby appears in order to
illustrate one of the main sources of unconscious memory
for Christina Pontifex. Mrs. Allaby's pretense is implied
when one learns that she
talked about having married two of her daughters as
though it had been the easiest thing in the world.
She talked in this way because she heard other mothers
do so, but in her heart of hearts she did not know how
she had done it, nor indeed, if it had been her doing
at all . . . She had indeed repeated it once, and might
perhaps with good luck repeat it yet once again— but
five times over! It was awful: why she would rather
have three confinements than go through the wear and
tear of marrying a single daughter. (pp. 36-37)
Mention of Theobald Pontifex is made to Mrs. Allaby by her
friend Mrs. Cowey, of whom it is said that "if the marriage
of a young Bachelor of Arts was not made in Heaven, it was
probably made, or at any rate attempted, in Mrs. Cowey's
drawing-room" (p. 38). Theobald is presumably hinted at as
a possible helper for Mr. Allaby in his clerical duties, but
the women survey him with reference to somewhat different
objectives. The irony of the following dialogue stems from
the knowledge that the ladies talk about Theobald as a pos
sible employee, but they think of him as a candidate for
70
marriage with one of the Allaby daughters.
"I don't know that he's a particularly fascinating
young man, my dear," said Mrs*. Cowey, "and he's only a
second son, but then he’s got his fellowship, and even
the second son of such a man as Mr. Pontifex, the pub
lisher, should have something very comfortable."
"Why, yes, my dear," rejoined Mrs. Allaby compla
cently, "that's what one rather feels." (p. 38)
There is much descriptive power lodged within the under-
9
statement of Mrs. Allaby's final sentence. She is a solid
opportunist, and she views (with a keenly shrewd eye) the
entire situation of capturing Theobald as a groom for one of
her girls.
Theobald's initial appearance at the Allaby Rectory
occurs on a Sunday morning, several weeks after he has been
ordained. He delivers a sermon on the topic of geology, and
he subsequently wins the approval of both the elder Allabys
and their five daughters. Butler impresses the reader with
the negative quality of Theobald's stubbornness when he re
lates the latter's reactions to the wild admiration felt for
9It is noteworthy that these are almost the only words
spoken by Mrs. Allaby in the entire novel. Whatever else is
learned about her is told to the reader by Butler. Like the
majority of his characterizations, Mrs. Allaby's is largely
narrative; and the reader must piece together a personality
from the information given by the narrator about the charac
ter rather than from actual confrontation with the character
in specific scenes of the novel.
71
him by the Allaby girls.
Theobald knew nothing about women. The only women
he had been thrown in contact with were his sisters,
two of whom were always correcting him, and a few
school friends whom these had got their father to ask
to Elmhurst. These young ladies had either been so
shy that they and Theobald had never amalgamated, or
they had been supposed to be clever and had said smart
things to him. He did not say smart things himself and
did not want other people to say them. Besides, they
talked about music— and he hated music— or pictures—
and he hated pictures— or books— and except for the
classics he hated books. And then sometimes he was
wanted to dance with them, and he did not know how to
dance, and did not want to know. (p. 40)
Nevertheless, the presence of Theobald prompted some strong
changes in the Allaby household, and as soon as he left
the harmony of the establishment was broken by a storm
which arose upon the question of which of them it should
be who should become Mrs. Pontifex. "My dears," said
their father, when he saw that they did not seem likely
to settle the matter among themselves, "wait till to
morrow, and then play at cards for him." (pp. 41-42)
Christina, needless to say, is the victor in the card game
and wins the right to campaign for Theobald's affections.
It is not long before he is "softened by Christina's winning
manners" and "the high moral tone of everything she said"
(p. 43). One of the satirical highlights of the novel is
the letter of proposal which Theobald addresses to Christina.
The overstatement of the letter illustrated by his remark to
Christina that he loves her "ardently, devotedly ..."
72
attests to the glamour with which Theobald views all of his
pursuits. In the midst of his supposedly strong feelings
toward Christina lingers a weakness of confidence in his
ability to impress her with the fervor of his personality?
consequently, he finds it necessary to invent a story of a
previous unhappy romantic attachment. The events of this
story occupy the second paragraph of the proposal letter.
I cannot pretend to offer you a heart which has
never known either love or disappointment. I have
loved already, and my heart was years in recovering
from the grief I felt at seeing her become another's.
This, however, is over, and having seen yourself I
rejoice over a disappointment which I thought at one
time would have been fatal to me. It has left me a
less ardent lover than I should perhaps otherwise
have been, but it has increased tenfold my power of
appreciating your many charms and my desire that you
should become my wife. Please let me have a few lines
of answer by the bearer to let me know whether or not
my suit is accepted. If you accept me I will at once
come and talk the matter over with Mr. and Mrs. Allaby,
whom I shall hope one day to be allowed to call father
and mother. (pp. 45-46)
There seems to be a mock sincerity to much of the letter,
particularly when Theobald requests the honor of calling
Christina's parents father and mother? yet Butler shows in
this and other subsequent scenes that these sentiments,
overblown as they might be, are a part of the real Theobald.
There was, nevertheless, a forced quality to the relation
ship between the lovers, and Butler satirizes some of their
73
behavior which is a prelude to the sham and hypocrisy that
will pervade their later association with their son Ernest.
Theobald posed as the most ardent lover imaginable, but,
to use the vulgarism for the moment in fashion, it was
all "side." Christina was in love, as indeed she had
been twenty times already. But then Christina was im
pressionable and could not even hear the name "Misso-
longhi" mentioned without bursting into tears. When
Theobald accidentally left his sermon case behind him
one Sunday, she slept with it in her bosom and was for
lorn when she had as it were to disgorge it on the fol
lowing Sunday; but I do not think Theobald ever took so
much as an old toothbrush of Christina's to bed with
him. (p. 46)
The remaining comments about Theobald and Christina in
this chapter will be centered about three important episodes
in the novel which are relevant to the characters of these
figures. These include the episode prior to the arrival of
the newly married couple at the inn on the first evening of
their marriage; second, the episode which occurs in the
carriage as the parents return after having deposited Ernest
at Dr. Skinner's school in Roughborough; and, finally, the
events relating to the securing of information from Ernest
regarding some improper behavior of the boys at school.
Harris discusses the skillful characterization of the
parents, particularly of Christina, and he implies that much
of what we learn about them comes from the sections of the
story outlined above. Indeed Harris's comments about
74
Theobald and Christina are strongly substantiated by those
sections.
Of those characters who live on to the end of the story
almost the best is Christina, Ernest's mother. Castles
in the air were her chief dissipation; she indulged
herself in this habit until it became almost a vice—
if indeed so pious a woman as Christina could be de
scribed as vicious in any sense of the word— and trans
mitted it, though in a very modified form and one which
only troubled his earlier years, to her son Ernest.
Nothing in the book, perhaps, is so well presented as
the prying, pious, suspicious nature of Christina. The
very fact of Theobald having not only proposed, but
even married her, seems to have thrown her off her bal
ance. She was convinced that he was the best husband
and consequently the best father in the whole world.
In the offensive and defensive alliance against Ernest,
therefore, she was an indispensable partner: Theobald
and Christina formed an unassailable combination. In
respect of Ernest and his affairs she was as an insati
able young cuckoo; she was ready both in season and out
to pump and molest him on the drawing-room sofa till
the most hidden secrets of his heart were wrung from
him.10
The traits most closely associated with Theobald and
Christina are the pretension of the former and the extreme
vanity of the latter. As the newly married pair encounter
the responsibility of preparing for and ordering their first
meals, these personality traits become obvious. Theobald's
thoughts on the first day of his marriage constantly pause
on the idea, as he phrases it, that "I have done it, and I
10Harris, pp. 221-222.
75
do not see how I can possibly live much longer . . (p.
54). After much consideration of the matter, however,
Theobald concludes that since "he and Christina were mar
ried, the sooner they fell into their future mutual rela
tions the better" (p. 53), Theobald then determines that
their "first joint entry into the duties and pleasures of
married life" would be Christina's obligation to order his
meal, and his obligation to consume it and pay for it.
The arguments leading to this conclusion, and the
conclusion itself, flashed upon Theobald about three
and a half miles after he had left Crampsford on the
road to Newmarket, He had breakfasted early, but his
usual appetite had failed him. They had left the
vicarage at noon without staying for the wedding break
fast. Theobald liked an early dinner; it dawned upon
him that he was beginning to be hungry; from this to
the conclusion . . . the steps had been easy. After
a few minutes' further reflection he broached the mat
ter to his bride, and thus the ice was broken, (p. 55)
There is a grandeur with which Theobald formulates these
plans, and one immediately recognizes it as the same quality
that Butler used in Theobald's letter of proposal to Chris
tina. In numerous scenes throughout the novel Theobald is
viewed as one who calls into play a fairly"extensive dia
lectic in order to treat some mundane or prosaic topic such
as the preparation of specific meals.
The attitude with which Christina, referred to by
76
Butler as "Mrs. Theobald," regards her husband's order is
filled with illustrations of her vanity. After Theobald
speaks to her the reader is informed that Christina
was not prepared for so sudden an assumption of impor
tance. Her nerves, never of the strongest, had been
strung to their highest tension by the event of the
morning. She wanted to escape observation; she was
conscious of looking a little older than she quite
liked to look as a bride who had been married that
morning; she feared the landlady, the chambermaid, the
waiter— everybody and everything; her heart beat so
fast that she could hardly speak, much less go through
the ordeal of ordering dinner in a strange hotel with
a strange landlady. She begged and prayed to be let
off. If Theobald would only order dinner this once,
she would order it any day and every day in future.
(p. 55)
Theobald, however, is not to be put off, for he was now
Christina's master; and he reminds his new wife while
stamping his foot on the floor of the carriage that "it is
a wife's duty to order her husband's dinner; you are my
wife, and I shall expect you to order mine" (p. 56). The
remark is then made that "Theobald was nothing if he was
not logical" (p. 56).
The result of all the above is to characterize Theobald
and Christina as somewhat less than perfect beings and to
portray their marriage and personal relations as essentially
unbalanced and uncomfortable. Butler's purpose in drawing
these characters was to illustrate and satirize the
77
. . . ,
unnatural qualities of many Victorian marriages. The ac
tions and responses of the married couple to each other are
motivated very often by a kind of impersonal strategy, and
* ■
rarely does love or honest devotion enter into their behav
ior. Christina displays some dedication to Theobald, but it
is the dedication she thinks a wife must possess toward her
husband, rather than a feeling she manifests with sincerity
and warmth. Butler satirizes this mock dedication of wife
to husband by relating Christina's apologies to Theobald
after she has created some animosity over the ordering of
the dinner.
. . . the bride sat crying in one corner of the carriage;
and the bridegroom sulked in the other, and he feared
her as only a bridegroom can fear.
Presently, however, a feeble voice was heard from the
bride's corner saying:
"Dearest Theobald— dearest Theobald, forgive me; I
have been very, very wrong. Please do not be angry with
me. I will order the— the— " but the word "dinner" was
checked by rising sobs.
When Theobald heard these words a load began to be
lifted from his heart, but he only looked towards her,
and that not too pleasantly.
"Please tell me," continued the voice,"what you think
you would like, and I will tell the landlady when we get
to Newmar " but another burst of sobs checked the com
pletion of the word.
The load on Theobald's heart grew lighter and light
er. . . . (pp. 56-57)
From this point on throughout the remaining years of their
life Christina becomes totally subservient to Theobald. She
78
regards him as her "Dearest Theobald" and conceives of him
as being an angel. "The end of the honeymoon," the reader
is told, "saw Mrs. Theobald the most devotedly obsequious
wife in all England" (pp. ST-'SS) . Theobald, on the other
hand, envisions himself as one who must maintain absolute
power over his wife. Theobald, in short,
had killed the cat at the beginning. It had been a very
little cat, a mere kitten in fact, or he might have been
afraid to face it, but such as it had been he had chal
lenged it to mortal combat, and had held up its dripping
head defiantly before his wife's face. The rest had
been easy. (p. 58)
Butler employs a method of character satire which was
not even hinted at in Erewhonr namely, mock heroism. He
utilizes this technique particularly in the description of
Theobald, for it is consistent with this character's tenden
cy to approach all activities and responsibilities, no mat
ter how insignificant, with grandness and over-zealousness.
Consequently, Theobald's victory over Christina in the din
ner episode is spoken of as the result of great mortal com
bat.
One of the outstanding chapters of the novel is that
which details the meditations of Theobald, Christina, and
Ernest, respectively, after the latter has been enrolled at
Dr. Skinner's school. The specific thoughts of these three
79
individuals function most effectively as characterizing
devices.
Theobald's meditations, as usual, are disagreeable;
Christina is snobbish and rather feminine, wondering
what sort of an impression she has made on Dr. Skinner.
But Ernest at school sits by the fire in the matron's
room and is completely puzzled and troubled about him
self. All sorts of questions, of the most far-reaching
character, present themselves. (Harris, p. 223)
Theobald, as indicated, ponders the lack of congeni
ality in his relationship with his son. Butler is concerned
about making Theobald a father whose concept of himself is
one of undeniable perfection. In all of his seemingly ill-
fated affairs with Ernest, Theobald manages to place the
total blame upon the youth.
He is not fond of me, I'm sure he is not. He ought to
be after all the trouble I have taken with him, but he
is ungrateful and selfish. It is an unnatural thing
for a boy not to be fond of his own father. If he was
fond of me I should be fond of him, but I cannot like
a son who, I am sure, dislikes me . . . I am sure he
will grow up extravagant. I should have given him more
pocket-money if I had not known this— but what is the
good of giving him pocket-money? It is all gone di
rectly . . . I wish he was not so fond of music; it
will interfere with his Latin and Greek. I will stop
it as much as I can . . . If I had shown half as many
dangerous tendencies when I was a boy, my father would
have apprenticed me to a greengrocer, of that I'm very
sure, etc. etc. (pp. 119-120)
Theobald continues frowning about Ernest, and he subsequent
ly relates his individual plight, as he often does, to some
80
grand historical event.
Then his thoughts turned to Egypt and the tenth
plague. It seemed to him that if the little Egyptians
had been anything like Ernest, the plague must have
been something very like a blessing in disguise. If
the Israelites were to come to England now he should
be greatly tempted not to let them go. (p. 120)
The personal meditations of Christina provide an in
teresting contrast to those of her husband, and her desire
to climb socially is strongly underlined by her reverie.
Her reverie, however, is a shrewd calculation as to how she
can entice one of Ernest's wealthy and prominent classmates
to meet and, if all goes well, subsequently marry her
daughter Charlotte. Much of the satire is directed toward
her motives for sending her son to Dr. Skinner's school,
and the reader learns that her actual objectives were some
thing more than a mere education for Ernest. The young man
in whom Christina is most interested as a possible suitor
for her daughter is a certain Lord Lonsford's grandson, and
she remarks to herself about the boy that
. . . it's a pity his name is Figgins; however, blood
is blood as much through the female line as the male;
indeed, perhaps even more so if the truth were known.
I wonder who Mr. Figgins was. I think Mrs. Skinner
said hecwas dead; however, I must find out all about
him. It would be delightful if young Figgifts'were to
ask Ernest home for the holidays. Who knows but he
might meet Lord Lonsford himself, or at any rate some
81
of Lord Lonsford's other descendants? (p. 120)
One point should be made about Christina's meditation: it
alludes to Butler's basic theory of evolution and racial
memory. Her statement that "blood is blood as much through
the female line as the male ..." substantiates, in brief,
the ideas Butler taught in reference to heredity. It is
significant to note that Butler still utilizes his charac
ters, at least in part, as exponents for his own ideas.
Unlike the figures in Erewhon. Christina comes to stand for
much more than an idea, but her numerous references to con
cepts of Butler's theories frequently remind the reader of
such people as Mrs. Nosnibor, Yram, and the "venerable old
professor" of the author's first novel.
The concluding section of Christina's meditation is a
superb display of her ability to construct fabulous "castles
in the sky."
Perhaps it would be best to get young Figgins on a
visit to ourselves first. That would be charming. Theo
bald would not like it, for he does not like children;
I must see how I can manage for it, for it would be so
nice to have young Figgins— or stay! Ernest shall go
and stay with Figgins and meet the future Lord Lonsford,
who I should think must be about Ernest's age, and then
if he and Ernest were to become friends Ernest might ask
him to Battersby, and he might fall in love with Char
lotte. I think we have done most wisely in sending
Ernest to Dr. Skinner's. (p. 120)
82
Christina's attention then focuses on her satisfaction at
having created a very favorable impression on Dr. Skinner.
I think he seemed much struck with Theobald and myself— ■
indeed, Theobald's intellectual power must impress any
one, and I was showing, I do believe, to my best advan
tage. When I smiled at him and said I left my boy in
his hands with the most entire confidence that he would
be as well cared for as if he were at my own house, I
am sure he was greatly pleased . . . My smile is sweet
when I desire to make it so. I never was perhaps exact
ly pretty, but I was always admitted to be fascinating.
Dr. Skinner is a very handsome man— too good on the whole
I should say for Mrs. Skinner. Theobald says he is not
handsome, but men are no judges, and he has such a
pleasant, bright face. I think my bonnet becomes me.
As soon as I get home I will tell Chambers to trim my
blue and yellow merino with etc., etc. (p. 121)
Her reverie ultimately fades away into trivialities.
Immediately following Christina's meditation there is
a full description of the thoughts running through Ernest's
mind as he sits alone in a room at Dr. Skinner's school.
The content of Ernest's musings acts to illustrate a dis
tinct irony of character inherent in his parents, for he is
seen to possess an impression of his mother and father quite
unlike that which has been presented in their reveries.
Ernest is convinced that "grown-up people . . . when they
were ladies and gentlemen, never did naughty things, but he
was always doing them" (p. 121). Ernest then continues to
think that "he had heard that some grown-up people were
M ttW H W W W iM
83
worldly," yet he is certain that
His own papa and mamma were not even worldly; they had
often explained to him that they were exceptionally
unworldly; he well knew that they had never done any
thing naughty since they had been children, and that
even as children they had been nearly faultless.
(p. 121)
Ernest is disconcerted because he seems so far removed from
his parents' seemingly strong moral rectitude, and he seems
even more distressed by his lack of any significant fond
feelings for Christina and Theobald.
Ob', how different from himself'. When should he learn
to love his papa and mamma as they had loved theirs?
How could he hope ever to grow up to be as good and
wise as they, or even tolerably good and wise? Alasl
never. It could not be. He did not love his papa and
mamma, in spite of all their goodness both in themselves
and to him. He hated papa, and did not like mamma, and
this was what none but a bad and ungrateful boy would
do after all that had been done for him. (pp. 121-122)
Butler accomplishes much in the way of characterization
in this chapter on personal reveries. The characters them
selves serve to illustrate the inadequacy of the Pontifex
family relationship. There is, moreover, something new
about the manner in which Butler develops the situation in
the chapter; namely, by revealing the innermost thoughts of
the people involved. The reader learns something of Chris
tina's desires and motivations and Ernest's overwhelming
"tfarmaifraniiii-nTitMTrt
84
dissatisfactions, and he learns from the characters them
selves. Butler has abandoned, at least momentarily, his
tendency to tell the reader about the characters: he allows
them to reveal necessary information in an actual situation,
the ride home to Battersby from Roughborough. When one
considers that every glimpse of character in Erewhon was
almost totally external, Butler's use of individual intro
spection in The Wav of All Flesh represents a notable
achievement in characterization.
The third section of the novel which will be treated
for its relevance to the topic of family relations and
parental control indicates the extent to which Butler was
beginning to place importance on dialogue as a means of
characterization. The section deals with the episode at
Battersby during which Christina prompts Ernest into re
vealing some of the less than honorable behavior of his
classmates at Roughborough. The diction of the dialogue,
particularly the repetition of the phrase "my dearest,
dearest boy," indicates the insidious quality of Christina's
strategy. There is apparent in the following scene the hint
of a mock battle scene between mother and son.
"Come here, my poor, pale-faced, heavy-eyed boy," she
said to him one day in her kindest manner; "come and sit
85
down by me, and we will have a little quiet confiden
tial talk together, will we not?"
The boy went mechanically to the sofa. Whenever
his mother wanted what she called a confidential talk
with him she always selected the sofa as the most
suitable ground on which to open her campaign. . . .
In the present case the sofa was particularly well
adapted for a strategic purpose, being an old-fashioned
one with a high back, mattress, bolsters and cushions.
Once safely penned into one of its deep corners, it was
like a dentist's chair, not too easy to get out of
again. Here she could get at him better to pull him
about, if this should seem desirable, or if she thought
fit to cry she could bury her head in the sofa cushion
and abandon herself to an agony of grief which seldom
failed of its effect. . . .
"My dearest boy," began his mother, taking hold of
his hand and placing it within her own, "promise me
never to be afraid either of your dear papa or of me;
promise me this, my dear, as you love me, promise it
to me," and she kissed him again and again and stroked
his hair. But with her other hand she still kept hold
of his; she had got him and she meant to keep him.
(pp. 166-167)
Ernest seems to be under the complete control of his
mother. Indeed she further softens up her son by telling
him that "there is no one dear, dear Ernest, who loves you
so much as your papa and I do . . . but, my dearest boy, it
grieves me to think sometimes that you have not that perfect
love for and confidence in us which you ought to have" (p.
167). Subsequently, Ernest reveals to Theobald and Chris
tina the extent to which he and his fellows have been smok
ing, drinking, and swearing while at Roughborough. The
irony of manner which characterizes Christina's behavior is
86
obvious, for she has no intention of ever keeping secret
the information relayed to her by Ernest during the course
of their "little quiet confidential talk together." In
stead, Christina announces all she learns from her son to
Theobald, and the latter initiates what he considers to be
appropriate punitive actions. Butler, in short, shows how
the elder Pontifexes are poisoning their relationship with
Ernest; and he does this skillfully by relating to the
reader the kind of inter-personal struggles which exist be
tween the two generations. There is also a kind of reality
in the behavior of the characters; and when Christina forces
Ernest to sit by her on the sofa, the reader is reminded
that "all mothers do this; the sofa is to them what the
dining-room is to fathers" (p. 166). Butler seems much more
at ease in The Wav of All Flesh when he is faced with emo
tional situations between characters, for the details of the
relations among Theobald, Christina, and Ernest, as illus
trated in the above scene, are far superior, for example,
to the insipid description of the love between Arowhena and
Higgs or Yram and Higgs in Erewhon.
Before dispensing with the discussion of the character
izations of Theobald and Christina, some mention should be
made concerning Butler's development of these figures.
■ ■ ----
87
There is, in fact, little ostensible change in Ernest's
parents from the beginning of the story until their deaths.
Throughout the novel they look upon themselves with the same
self-glorification, and regard Ernest with an almost power
ful disdain. Theobald's resentment, in particular, swells
when he greets his son after Ernest arrives at Battersby to
see his ailing mother. In an earlier letter to Ernest,
Theobald offered to send him "an amount not exceeding eight
or nine pounds" (p. 357) for clothes. Ernest, however, was
in no need of such money, for he had come into his aunt's
fortune. After seeing his son, Theobald is almost stunned
by the apparent success of Ernest.
This was not what he had bargained for. He wanted
Ernest to return, but he was to return as any respect
able, well-regulated prodigal ought to return— abject,
broken-hearted, asking forgiveness from the tenderest
and most long-suffering father in the whole world, if
he should have shoes and stockings and whole clothes
at all, it should be only because absolute rags and
tatters had been graciously dispensed with, whereas
here he was swaggering in a grey ulster and a blue and
white necktie, and looking better than Theobald had
ever seen him in his life. It was unprincipled. Was
it for this that he had been generous enough to offer
to provide Ernest with decent clothes in which to come
and visit his mother's death-bed? Could any advantage
be meaner than the one which Ernest had taken? Well,
he would not go a penny beyond the eight or nine pounds
which he had promised. It was fortunate he had given
a limit. Why, he, Theobald, had never been able to
afford such a portmanteau in his life. He was still
using an old one which his father had turned over to
88
him when he went up to Cambridge. Besides, he had said
clothes, not a portmanteau, (pp. 359-360)
Shortly before her death, Christina is engaged in
formulating some extremely impressive positions for her two
sons, Ernest and Joey. She calculates.in a manner similar
to that which she had formerly used to persuade her son to
bring young Figgins home from Dr. Skinner's school. On her
death-bed, however, Christina's objectives also include a
respectable memory of her own importance. She begins by
saying of her son Ernests
He might even go into Parliament. He had very fair
abilities, nothing indeed approaching such genius as
Dr. Skinner's, nor even as Theobald's, still he was
not deficient and if he got into Parliament— so young
too— there was nothing to hinder his being Prime Min
ister before he died, and if so, of course, he would
become a peer. Oh I why did he not set about it all
at once, so that she might live to hear people call
her son "my lord"— Lord Battersby she thought would
do very nicely, and if she was well enough to sit he
must certainly have her portrait painted at full length
for one end of his large dining hall. It should be
exhibited at the Royal Academy: "Portrait of Lord
Battersby's mother," she said to herself, and her heart
fluttered with all its wonted vivacity . . . She saw
it all now— it was Joey who would become Archbishop of
Canterbury and Ernest who would remain a layman and
become Prime Minister . . . and so on till her daughter
told her it was time to take her medicine. (pp. 364-365)
There is little difference in both Theobald and Christina
after many years: she still views her husband as an almost
89
perfect being, and Theobald never successfully forms any
affectionate attachment to his wife. Even at Christina's
funeral Theobald is emotionally dry.
"She had been the comfort and mainstay of my life
for more than thirty years," said Theobald as soon as
all was over, "but one could not wish it prolonged,"
and he buried his face in his handkerchief to conceal
his want of emotion. (p. 375)
No substantial changes occur in the attitudes and
feelings of Ernest's parents? yet Butler in one way does
develop the elder Pontifexes. He skillfully transposes to
the temperaments of Christina and Theobald many of the
characteristics of their parents and grandparents. They
are developed as examples of Butler's theory of racial mem
ory, and the end of the novel sees Christina almost a car
bon copy of Mrs. Allaby, and Theobald very similar, especi
ally with reference to money matters, to George Pontifex.11
One of Butler's key objectives in developing Theobald and
Christina seems to be the substantiation of his evolutionary
theory. Although Ernest's mother and father become notable
character creations, they remain, in large part, exponents-
of Butler's ideas. One is reminded of the characters in
1Barnett, Samuel Butler and His Family Relations, p.
188.
- -
90
Erewhon who are invented for the same purpose, but who lack
the personal and psychological power of Theobald and Chris
tina . The latter represent another advance in the author's
ability to utilize characters to support thematic material,
and also to make the figures interesting and convincing in
themselves.
No discussion of the treatment of family relations in
The Way of All Flesh would be complete without some mention
of Ernest's brother and sister, Joey and Charlotte. Butler
says little of these two people, and what is said is usually
uncomplimentary. Early in the story Ernest remarks that he
is not fond, of his sister, and "he thought her one of the
most disagreeable young women in the whole circle of his
acquaintance" (p. 209). The information which is revealed
about Charlotte's personality and abilities tends to create
a similarity between this girl and her parents, for she also
seems to feign some talents in the midst of an obvious lack
of mental and physical strength.
She was supposed to be very clever. All young ladies
are either very pretty or very clever or very sweety
they may take their choice as to which category they
will go in for, but go in for one of the three they
must. It was hopeless to try and pass Charlotte off
as either pretty or sweet. So she became clever as
the only remaining alternative. Ernest never knew
what particular branch of study it was in which she
91
showed her talent, for she could neither play nor sing
nor draw, but so astute are women that his mother and
Charlotte really did persuade him into thinking that
she, Charlotte, had something more akin to true genius
than any other member of the family. (p. 209)
Joey and Charlotte also lack the ability, as does their
mother, to keep a secret. Ernest remarks that he
could never trust Joey and Charlotte; they would go a
good way with me and then turn back, or even the whole
way and then their consciences would compel them to
tell papa and mamma. They liked running with the hare
up to a certain point, but their instinct was towards
the hounds. (p. 99)
When Ernest returns to Battersby in order to be with Chris
tina before her death, he again must confront his sister and
brother. There is an obvious lack of rapport among the
younger generation of the family, and there seems to be an
obvious affinity among Joey and Charlotte and the elder
Pontifexes which Ernest does not share.
His sister presented her cheek to him to be kissed.
How he hated it; he had been dreading it for the last
three hours. She, too, was distant and reproachful in
her manner, as such a superior person was sure to be.
She had a grievance against him inasmuch as she was
still unmarried. She laid the blame of this at Ernest's
door; it was his misconduct, she maintained in secret,
which had prevented young men from making offers to her,
and she ran him up a heavy bill for consequential dam
ages. She and Joey had from the first developed an in
stinct for hunting with the hounds, and now these two
had fairly identified themselves with the older genera
tion— that is to say as against Ernest. On this head
there was an offensive and defensive alliance between
them, but between themselves there was subdued but
internecine warfare. (p. 362)
With the exception of the mention of a few more disagree
able interactions between Joey, Charlotte, and Ernest, But
ler says nothing more of Ernest's brother and sister. They
are not extensively described or developed, and Butler dis
cusses only those characteristics of Joey and Charlotte
which conflict with Ernest's. Whatever is said about them,
however, usually supports the application of Butler's
theory of racial memory by establishing a close similarity
between Joey and Charlotte and their immediate hereditary
background. After Christina's funeral there is no meeting
between Ernest and his family, and at one point Ernest even
remarks that when he has a bad nightmare, he dreams that he
must go and stay with his sister Charlotte.
Ellen remains a significant figure in a discussion of
family relations. Ernest's first association with this
woman dates back to her service as a maid at Battersby.
She was expelled from Theobald's residence when it was
learned that she was pregnant with an illegitimate child.
On the day of her departure Ernest chased after her coach
in order to present her with his watch. He does not see
Ellen again until he meets her shortly after his release
93
from a London prison. Ellen seems reluctant to face Ernest
during this meeting, and he fears that she is aware of his
disgrace. When he informs Ellen of his past, it is men
tioned that
Ellen did not believe him, but she looked at him
with a. "Lor'I Master Ernest," and dried her eyes at
once. The ice was broken between them, for as a mat
ter of fact Ellen had been in prison several times,
and though she did not believe Ernest, his merely say
ing he had been in prison made her feel more at ease
with him. For her there were two classes of people,
those who had been in prison and those who had not.
(p. 304)
\
Butler tells little more about Ellen's past, and she
is discussed only in her relationship to Ernest. This re
lationship subsequently evolves into marriage. Ellen has
several children; however, the marriage is ultimately dis
solved because her previous marriage was still registered.
Butler includes Ellen in the novel to illustrate an
other unhappy domestic situation for Ernest. Ellen proves
to be dishonest, unpleasant, and alcoholic. Perhaps the
most outstanding characterization of Ernest's temporary
wife is found in her own statement about her feelings at the
termination of her affair with Ernest.
"This life," she continued, "don't suit me. Ernest
is too good for me; he wants a woman as shall be a bit
better than me, and I want a man that shall be a bit
- r m — i— trjr*.»-nra,iir r i" rr r rir m i i . . . i iYimi>mitiTfinrtn-rn-in— t-nr-tftt
94
worse than him. We should have got on all very well
if we had not lived together as married folks, but I've
been used to have a little place of my own, however
small, for a many years, and I don't want Ernest, or
any other man, always hanging about it. Besides, he
is too steady: his being, in prison hasn't done him a
bit of good— he's just as grave as those as have never
been in prison at all, and he never swears nor curses,
come what may; it makes me afeared of him, and there
fore I drink the worse. What us poor girls wants is
not to be jumped up all of a sudden and made honest
women of; this is too much for us and throws us off
our perch; what we wants is a regular friend or two,
who'll just keep us from starving, and force us to be
good for a bit together now and again. That's about
as much as we can stand. He may have the children;
he can do better for them than I can; and as for his
money, he may give it or keep it as he likes; he's
never done me any harm, and I shall let him alone; but
if he means me to have it, I suppose I'd better have
it." (pp. 334-335)
It is noteworthy that we learn about Ellen through her
own speech. Much of the relevant information about specific
characters, particularly other women such as Yram and Arow-
hena in Erewhon. had simply been given to the reader by the
narrator. Butler distinguishes Ellen's diction and grammar
from the language of the other figures in The Way of All
Flesh by making her statement sound very much like that of
a lower class woman.
Much of what Samuel Butler indicates about the topics
of racial memory and family relations comes in connection
with the characters discussed in this chapter. In the
subsequent chapter on The Way of All Flesh the characteriza
tions of some of these same figures and others will be con
sidered through the analysis of their relation to education
and religion.
CHAPTER III
THE WAY OF ALL FHESH (II)
The purpose of this second chapter on The Wav of All
Flesh is to treat Butler's characterization of those charac
ters who are connected in some way with the religious and
educational aspects of the novel. A brief section at the
conclusion of this chapter will deal with several characters
in the book who are not specifically related to a particular
theme or idea in the work, but who exist primarily as in
teresting figures, adding verisimilitude and charm to the
novel.
Samuel Butler was keenly interested in the religious
and educational problems of his day. His Notebooks include
numerous comments on religion and Christianity? many of
these are strongly critical. At one point in his Notebooks.
Butler makes a comment on religion and education which is a
brief summary of some of the leading views he expresses in
The Wav of All Flesh.
Christianity is only seriously pretended by some
among the idle, bourgeois middle-classes. The working
classes and the most cultured intelligence of the time
reach by short cuts what the highways of our schools
and universities mislead us from by many a winding
bout, if they do not prevent our ever reaching it.
(Notebooks, p. 335)
A discussion of the characters who are significant as
illustrations or representations of Butler's ideas on reli
gion and education must deal much with Theobald and Chris
tina and Theobald's father, George Pontifex. The latter
person is instrumental for providing one of the early epi
sodes of the novel which directs some satire at religious
practices; namely, the use of water from the Jordan River
for the baptism of Ernest Pontifex. George's behavior in
the matter of the water from the Jordan illustrates a ten
dency to approach religion as more of an outward practice
than as a feeling of the heart. George feels that the sig
nificance of the source of the baptismal water will auto
matically insure the religious strength of his new grandson.
Prior to the ceremony George and his butler Gelstrap descend
into the Pontifex cellar to obtain the water which had been
preserved carefully for many years. After having taken the
bottle into his own hands old George is the victim of cata
strophe, for he stumbles over an empty hamper, and the
98
bottle of holy water from the Jordan is smashed. George
immediately rebukes the butler for the disaster.
With his usual presence of mind Mr. Pontifex gasped
out a month's warning to Gelstrap. Then he got up,
and stamped as Theobald had done when Christina had
wanted not to order his dinner.
"It's water from the Jordan," he exclaimed furious
ly, "which I have been saving for the baptism of my
eldest grandson. Damn you, Gelstrap, how dare you be
so infernally careless as to leave that hamper litter
ing about the cellar?" (p. 72)
Butler indicates some irony in the character of George
Pontifex through the dialogue of the latter. His curse on
the butler— "Damn you, Gelstrap"— seems entirely out of
order when he is standing in a puddle of baptismal water
from the Jordan River. Indeed, there is a strain of irony
underlying the entire episode, for George is never moved by
the meaning or importance of the baptismal rite, but rather,
he is excited about being able to inject something novel,
such as the Jordan water, into the ceremony.
George loses much of his enthusiasm for the religious
rite after the water is spilled. Although he is able to
save up to half a pint by blotting up the liquid from the
floor of the cellar, he still goes about preparing for his
visit to Battersby with little excitement.
. . . he selected a goodly hamper of choice drinkables.
I say choice and not choicest, for although in his first
99
exaltation he had selected some of his very best wine,
yet on reflection he had felt that there was modera
tion in all things, and as he was parting with his best
water from the Jordan, he would only send some of his
second best wine. (p. 73)
t
&
George, in short, appears to mistake the means of the bap
tism for the end objectives of the rite.
There seems apparent in the naming of Ernest a similar
confusion of means and ends. George convinces Ernest's
father that the name of his son will influence the boy
toward good ends. After Ernest had been christened one
learns that
Theobald had proposed to call him George after old Mr.
Pontifex, but strange to say, Mr. Pontifex overruled
him in favour of the name Ernest. The word "earnest"
was just beginning to come into fashion, and he thought
the possession of such a name might, like his having
been baptised in water from the Jordan, have a perma
nent effect upon the boy's character, and influence him
for good during the more critical periods of his life.
(P. 75)
There are a large number of illustrations in the novel
which serve to point out how Theobald and Christina act in
their religious duties. Harris indicates in his chapter on
The Way of All Flesh that Ernest's parents employed religion
as a kind of mask behind which they could hide from their
earthly responsibilities.
100
Poor people 1 They had tried to keep their ignorance
of the world from themselves by calling it the pursuit
of heavenly things, and then shutting their eyes to
anything that might give them trouble. A son having
been born to them, they had shut his eyes also as far
as was practicable. Who could blame them? They had
chapter and verse for everything they had either done
or left undone; there is no better thumbed precedent ^
than that for being a clergyman and a clergyman's wife.
Butler shows that as a clergyman and a clergyman's
wife, Theobald and Christina fell far short of being ade
quate. An early scene in the novel deals with Christina's
dream that she and her husband might become famous martyrs
through their association with the church; whereas Theo
bald attempts to temper her fervor by assuring her that
they will please God by leading quiet, simple lives. In
the dialogue that takes place after Christina's initial
reverie in the scene, there is almost a complete absence of
consideration of what the Pontifexes might be able to do
for others in their religious life, and the emphasis is
upon what their religious association can offer them in the
way of fame and glory. Christina commences her meditation
by considering the
unspeakable happiness it would be to her to be the wife
of a missionary, and to share his dangers; she and
Harris, p. 222.
101
Theobald might even be martyred; of course they would
be martyred simultaneously, and martyrdom many years
hence as regarded from the arbour in the Rectory garden
was not painful; it would ensure them a glorious future
in the next world, and at any rate posthumous renown in
this— even if they were not miraculously restored to
life again— and such things had happened ere now in the
case of martyrs. (pp. 50-51)
Christina then exclaims to Theobald:
"We, dearest Theobald . . . will be ever faithful.
We will stand firm and support one another even in the
hour of death itself. God in His mercy may spare us
from being burnt alive. He may or may not do so. 0
Lord" (and she turned her eyes prayerfully to Heaven),
"spare my Theobald, or grant that he may be beheaded."
(p. 51)
When Theobald cautions his wife against agitating herself
and advises her to lead a serene life, Christina responds
by agreeing and repeating, "... let us be self-denying,
pure, upright, truthful in word and deed" (p. 51) . All the
time she is speaking, Butler informs the reader, Christina
is clasping her hands and looking up to the Heavens. She
goes through all the motions of being a devout woman, but
as Butler subsequently illustrates, Christina's devotion is
a matter more of outward appearance than of sincere feeling.
During the course of the same discussion Theobald re
minds his wife that "we have not been worldly people; let
us watch and pray that we may so continue to the end" (p.
102
51). The irony in this statement is clear when Theobald is
shown to be the kind of clergyman who often becomes impa
tient and bored with his religious obligations.
Early in his career Theobald is called upon to provide
religious consolation for an ill woman who is frightened
because she has not been a very good person. She inquires
repeatedly of Theobald as to whether or not her sins will
be forgiven.
"But they are forgiven you, Mrs. Thompson," says
Theobald with some sternness, for the same ground has
been gone over a good many times already, and he has
borne the unhappy woman's misgivings now for a full
quarter of an hour. Then he puts a stop to the con
versation by repeating prayers taken from the "Visita
tion of the Sick," and overawes the poor wretch from
e^qpressing further anxiety as to her condition. (p. 64)
Needless to say, Theobald is most eager to remove himself
from the unpleasant surroundings of an ill, complaining
woman; and when the latter again questions him about her
fears, he reaches the point where he must leave.
"Mrs. Thompson," says Theobald, with his hand on the
door, "compose yourself, be calm; you must please to
take my word for it that at the Day of Judgement your
sins will be all washed white in the blood of the Lamb,
Mrs. Thompson. Yea," he exclaims frantically. . . .
and he makes off as fast as he can from the fetid atmos
phere of the cottage to the pure air outside. Oh, how
thankful he is when the interview is over I
He returns home, conscious that he has done his duty,
and administered the comforts of religion to a dying
103
sinner. His admiring wife awaits him at the Rectory,
and assures him that never yet was clergyman so devoted
to the welfare of his flock. He believes her; he has
a natural tendency to believe anything that is told
him, and who should know the facts of the case better
than his wife? (pp. 64-65)
Butler, in short, shows how distasteful Theobald finds some
of his duties. In one breath Theobald tells his wife that
they are far removed from the worldly life? but in the next
he sighs relief at being finished with the ill Mrs. Thompson
and returning to fresh air and a hearty meal. The compas
sionate quality— so important a characteristic of a clergy
man— is almost totally absent in Theobald. The reader is
informed that Theobald "does not like this branch of his
profession— indeed he hates it— but will not admit it to
himself" (p. 65). Theobald, then, lacks the ability and
desire to achieve any kind of spiritual rapport with those
who may be in need of him.
There are numerous other scenes in the novel in which
Theobald seems at odds with his profession. It would seem
that Sunday would be Theobald's favorite day, seeing that he
was most in evidence as a clergyman on that day; yet the
opposite seems to be true.
Theobald was always in a bad temper on Sunday evening.
Whether it is that they are as much bored with the day
as their neighbours, or whether they are tired, or
104
whatever the cause may be, clergymen are seldom at their
best on Sunday evening; I had already seen signs that
evening that my host was cross . . . (p. 93)
Butler directs a comment toward all clergymen; how
ever, he uses Theobald as the center of focus. This method
of satirizing and criticizing a group of people or a given
institution is used in the treatment of schoolmasters and
educational institutions when Butler directs attention to
Dr. Skinner at Roughborough.
Much of what is mentioned about Theobald in reference
to his religious behavior indicates a strong irony in the
character of the man. In the episode in which Christina
reveals the details of the smoking, drinking, and swearing
among the boys at Roughborough to her husband, Theobald
questions Ernest for some specific information.
He was examined, re-examined, cross-examined, sent to
the retirement of his own bedroom and cross-examined
again; the smoking in Mrs. Jones' kitchen all came out;
which boys smoked and which did not; which boys owed
money and, roughly, how much and where; which boys
swore and used bad language. Theobald was resolved
that this time Ernest should, as he called it, take
him into his confidence without reserve, so the school
list which went with Dr. Skinner's half-yearly bills
was brought out, and the most secret character of each
boy was gone through seriatim by Mr. and Mrs. Pontifex,
so far as it was in Ernest's power to give information
concerning it, and yet Theobald had on the preceding
Sunday preached a less feeble sermon than he commonly
preached, upon the horrors of the Inquisition, (p. 180)
105
The irony of character is obvious in the above situation.
It serves to strengthen Butler's theme that Theobald Ponti
fex is a clergyman only of outward appearance, and his ser
mons and attitudes are motivated less by sincere feelings
and more by assumptions of what he should be preaching to
his followers.
A strong hypocrisy seems to pervade the entire charac
ter of Theobald. At one point he sees Ernest looking at
him in a manner "which told of an almost incessant conflict
within . . ." (p. 187).
Doubtless Theobald saw these looks and knew how to
interpret them, but it was his profession to know how
to shut his eyes to things that were inconvenient— no
clergyman could keep his benefice for a month if he
could not do this? besides he had allowed himself for
so many years to say things he ought not to have said,
and not to say the things he ought to have said, that
he was little likely to see anything that he thought
it more convenient not to see unless he was made to do
so. (p. 187)
Butler again, in the above passage, directs a comment
against clergymen in general by stressing a negative quality
in Theobald's character.
There is a similar quality of hypocrisy in the behavior
of Christina. In an early conversation with Overton, Mrs.
Pontifex reveals herself to be interested more in a Rectory
where she and her husband will be visited by the Bishop than
106
in a location where Theobald is most needed. Her religious
affiliation, Christina seems to imply, is only another
opportunity for her to advance socially.
"What can there be in common between Theobald and
his parishioners?" said Christina to me, in the course
of the evening, when her husband was for a few moments
absent. "Of course one must not complain, but I assure
you it grieves me to see a man of Theobald's ability
thrown away upon such a place as this. If we had only
been at Gaysbury, where there are the A's, the B's,
the C's, and Lord D's place, as you know, quite close,
I should not then have felt that we were living in such
a desert; but I suppose it is for the best," she added
more cheerfully; "and then of course the Bishop will
come to us whenever he is in the neighbourhood, and if
we were at Gaysbury he might have gone to Lord D's."
(p. 63)
Butler characterizes the triviality of Christina's social
objectives by abbreviating the names of those families with
whom she would desire to associate to the A's, the B's, the
C's, and Lord D's.
In addition to the important social relations that her
husband's religious position might guarantee her, Christina
also envisions a title for herself. In one of her many
reveries on this possibility, she commences by assuring her
self that the Church of England was firmly resting in the
light of perfection. She shows herself in the course of the
meditation to be lacking any imagination or spirit for
improving or even examining the practice of religion.
107
Religion, she was deeply convinced, had long since at
tained its final development, nor could it enter into
the heart of reasonable man to conceive any faith more
perfect than was inculcated by the Church of England.
She could imagine no position more honourable than that
of a clergyman's wife unless indeed it were a bishop's.
Considering his father's influence it was not at all
impossible that Theobald might be a bishop some day—
and then— then would occur to her that one little flaw
in the practice of the Church of England— a flaw not
indeed in its doctrine, but in its policy, which she
believed on the whole to be a mistaken one in this
respect. I mean the fact that a bishop's wife does
not take the rank of her husband. (p. 69)
Christina continues her meditation by firmly placing
the blame on Queen Elizabeth for the fact that bishops'
wives do not take an equivalent rank with their husbands.
That Queen, Christina insists, "had been a bad woman, of
exceedingly doubtful moral character, and at heart a Papist
to the last" (p. 69). Christina concludes her meditation
by hypothesizing the situation in which Theobald becomes
the Bishop of Winchester.
Her influence as plain Mrs. Pontifex, wife, we will say,
of the Bishop of Winchester, would no doubt be consid
erable. Such a character as hers could not fail to car
ry weight if she were ever in a sufficiently conspicuous
sphere for its influence to be widely felt? but as Lady
Winchester— or the Bishopess— which would sound quite
nicely— who could doubt that her power for good would
be enhanced? And it would be all the nicer because if
she had a daughter, the daughter would not be a Bishop
ess unless indeed she were to marry a Bishop too, which
would not be likely. (pp. 69-70)
108
Christina shares a trait in common with her father-in-
law George Pontifex; namely, a tendency to confuse means
with ends. George assumed that baptism with water from the
Jordan along with the name of Ernest would assure his
grandson of spiritual and moral strength. Christina, in a
similar fashion, believes that by abstaining from all things
strangled and from blood, she will benefit spiritually. No
sooner had she acted upon this personal belief than "she
had felt stronger, purer in heart, and in all respects more
spiritually minded than she had ever felt hitherto" (p. 70).
Christina's method of preparing Ellen for confirmation
is similar to her method of purifying herself spiritually
by omitting strangled fowls and blood from her diet. Chris
tina took a great interest in Ellen's spiritual condition
and used to have her into the dining-room twice a week,
and prepare her for confirmation (for by some accident
she had never been confirmed) by explaining to her the
geography of Palestine and the routes taken by St. Paul
on his various journeys in Asia Minor. (p. 158)
The absence of any significant spiritual training in Ellen's
program for confirmation is obvious, and the shallowness of
Christina's plan— attempting to inculcate religious values
by discussing geographical information— is consistent with
her character. Ironically, not long after Christina sees
109
Ellen confirmed the latter becomes pregnant with an ille
gitimate child.
Christina, however, does not allow the circumstances
of the child's birth to deter her from engaging in a glori
ous reverie of his future. Through a strange logical pro
cess Christina convinces herself that Ellen's partner in
the matter was none other than Ernest Pontifex. She then
dreams
that the baby must be either boy or girl— this much,
at any rate, was clear. No less clear was it that the
child, if a boy, would resemble Theobald, and if a girl,
herself. Resemblance, whether of body or mind, general
ly leaped over a generation. The guilt of the parents
must not be shared by the innocent offspring of shame—
oh I no— and such a child as this would be. . . . She
was off in one of her reveries at once.
The child was in the act of being consecrated Arch
bishop of Canterbury when Theobald came in from a visit
in the parish, and was told of the shocking discovery.
(p. 160)
Religion, then, offers the new child the opportunity for
fame and success. Any child remotely involved with the
Pontifex family possessed, according to Christina, a good
potential for becoming an archbishop or some similar high
official in the church. Mrs. Pontifex is constantly show
ing herself to be interested in and fascinated by the titles
of different church figures; however, she rarely is inter
ested in the necessary spiritual and personal traits for
110
fulfilling such high clerical positions. The chief requi
site, in her opinion, for church advancement seemed to be
some affiliation with the Pontifex family.
Christina, in short, loves to indulge herself by con
ferring great clerical positions on her own family. In a
similar fashion she enjoys putting herself and the members
of her family into important Biblical situations. She is
most often motivated to do the latter when she engages in
meditations about children. Her reverie in which Ellen's
infant was so important led her to place him in a signifi
cant clerical position; whereas an earlier reverie about her
own son Ernest prompted her once again to think about the
possibilities for her own martyrdom by putting herself in
the position of Abraham-and finding it necessary to sacri
fice her own little son.
. . . there was to be a millennium shortly, certainly
not later than 1866, when Ernest would be just about
the right age for it, and a modern Elias would be wanted
to herald its approach. Heaven would bear her witness
that she had never shrunk from the idea of martyrdom
for herself and Theobald, nor would she avoid it for
her boy, if his life was required of her in her Redeem
er's service. Oh, nol If God told her to offer up her
first-born, as He had told Abraham, she would take him
up to Pigbury Beacon and plunge the— no, that she could
not do, but it would be unnecessary— some one else might
do that. . . . (p. 87)
Butler's satire of Christina develops often from the strong
Ill
irony of her character. She is willing to sacrifice Ernest
as Abraham did Isaac; however, she anticipates finding some
one else to complete the most trying task in the ceremony;
namely, plunging the sword into her son. Equally amusing
is Christina's explanation as to why Ernest will be called
upon to fulfill such a significant religious destiny.
It was not for nothing that Ernest had been baptized
in water from the Jordan. It had not been her doing,
nor yet Theobald's. They had not sought it. When water
from the sacred stream was wanted for a sacred infant,
the channel had been found through which it was to flow
from far Palestine over land and sea to the door of the
house where the child was lying. Why, it was a miracle 1
It was 1 It was I She saw it all now. The Jordan had
left its bed and flowed into her own house. It was idle
to say that this was not a miracle. (pp. 87-88)
While discussing Theobald and Christina's religious
activities, Butler says almost nothing about religion in
general or Christianity in particular. He does not deny the
intrinsic values of religious life, but rather he implies
the absence of any intrinsic values in the manner in which
Theobald and Christina regard and practice their given reli
gious creed. Rarely, if ever, do the Pontifexes become in
volved in matters pertaining to the values of doctrine or
of practice. On the one occasion during which Christina is
battling Theobald's conservatism about refraining from
chanting the psalms during the service, Butler satirizes
112
Theobald's response by stating that
he felt the waters of chanting rising higher" and higher
upon him inch by inch; but he felt also, he knew not
why, that he had better yield than fight. So he ordered
the "Glory be to the Father" to be chanted in future,
but he did not like it. (p. 372)
Theobald's tendency to regard something essentially trivial
as an impending heroic struggle is clearly in evidence dur
ing his battle against chanting. He subsequently gives in
to the pressure, but he holds firm on another issue, for
his daughter Charlotte "tried to make him say 'Alleluia'
instead of 'Hallelujah,1 but this was going too far, and
Theobald turned, and she got frightened and ran away" (p.
373) .
All in all Theobald and Christina come to represent a
kind of superficial attempt to live the religious life.
Yet, according to Butler, they were but one pair of repre
sentatives of an entire class of people. The reader is told
that
this worthy couple jogged on from month to month and
from year to year. The reader, if he has passed middle
life and has a clerical connection, will probably re
member scores and scores of rectors and rectors' wives
who differed in no material respect from Theobald and
Christina. (p. 70)
The point is then made by the narrator that he "had drawn
113
the better rather than the worse side of the life of an
English country parson . . (p. 71).
The effects of his parents' particular practice of and
attitude toward religion are seen most clearly in the char
acter of Ernest Pontifex. It was difficult for Ernest to
achieve any sense of security from religion, and the sham
and hypocrisy of his parents' behavior had detrimental ef
fects on the boy. Perhaps one of the most revealing scenes
in which Ernest's feelings are emphasized concerns the day
of his confirmation.
It so happened that the bishop had held a confirma
tion at the school on the fifth of November . . . Ernest
was among those who had to be confirmed, and was deeply
impressed with the solemn importance of the ceremony.
When he felt the huge old bishop drawing down upon him
as he knelt in the chapel he could hardly breathe, and
when the apparition paused before him and laid its hands
upon his head he was frightened almost out of his wits.
He felt that he had arrived at one of the great turning
points of his life, and that the Ernest of the future
could resemble only very faintly the Ernest of the past.
This happened at about noon, but by the one o'clock
dinner-hour the effect of the confirmation had worn off,
and he saw no reason why he should forego his annual
amusement with the bonfire . . . (p. 184)
One is reminded of Chowbok's day of baptism in Erewhon. for
on that very day the native tried to steal some brandy.
Throughout the novel Butler portrays Ernest as one
whose feelings about religion tend to be somewhat impulsive.
114
At a given moment Ernest may be greatly enthusiastic about
some religious obligation, only to backslide shortly after
ward, His determination to give up all for Christ illus
trates this aspect of his character.
Ernest felt now that the turning point of his life had
come. He would give up all for Christ— even his tobacco.
So he gathered together his pipes and pouches, and
locked them up in his portmanteau under his bed where
they should be out of sight, and as much out of mind as
possible. He did not burn them, because someone might
come in who wanted to smoke, and though he might abridge
his own liberty, yet as smoking was not a sin, there was
no reason why he should be hard on other people. (p.
218)
Shortly after this sacrifice Ernest becomes "determined to
look at the matter from a common sense point of view" (p.
220). He reflects that
Tobacco had nowhere been forbidden in the Bible, but
then it had not yet been discovered, and had probably
only escaped proscription for this reason. We can con
ceive of St. Paul or even our Lord Himself as drinking
a cup of tea, but we cannot imagine either of them as
smoking a cigarette or a churchwarden. Ernest could not
deny this, and admitted that Paul would almost certainly
have condemned tobacco in good round terms if he had
known of its existence. Was it not then taking rather
a mean advantage of the Apostle to stand on his not hav
ing actually forbidden it? On the other hand, it was
possible that God knew Paul would have forbidden smoking,
and had purposely arranged the discovery of tobacco for
a period at which Paul should be no longer living. This
might seem rather hard on Paul, considering all he had
done for Christianity, but it would be made up to him in
other ways. (p. 220)
115
There is a strong similarity between the reasoning of Ernest
and that of Theobald and Christina on matters of religion
and religious practice in that they inevitably justify their
shortcomings to themselves. After his reflections Ernest
was essentially satisfied
?
that on the whole he had better smoke, so he sneaked
to his portmanteau and brought out his pipes and tobac
co again. There should be moderation, he felt, in all
things, even in virtue; so for that night he smoked im
moderately. (p. 220)
The same impulsiveness of character provokes Ernest on
several occasions to involve himself in questionable situa
tions. One such situation concerns the College of Spiritual
Pathology which Pryer, one of Ernest's classmates at col
lege, convinces him to be an important institution. Ernest
is unable to resist Pryer1s plans, for the former, as Petro-
nella Jacoba de Lange mentions,
. . . finds himself bound to a creed of which he feels
so little sure that anybody with a plausible argument
can talk him over to his own particular sect, until he
comes to see the unimportance of these differences and
is content to accept Christianity as a whole without
insisting on details.2
As Pryer and Ernest envisioned it, the College of Spiritual
2Samuel Butler: Critic and Philosopher, p. 39.
tai nirii n u c iiFifttftnfi iia m i h „
116
Pathology would be an association in which young men "may
study the nature and treatment of the sins of the soul as
medical students study those of the bodies of their pa
tients" (p. 233). Ernest volunteers to donate a sizable
sum of money to the project, and Pryer manages to abscond
with the funds.
In addition to Pryer, Ernest meets a number of men
connected with the Simeonite movement. These characters
are generally satirized quite severely by Butler. Badcock,
one of Ernest's Simeonite classmates, is said to have been
one of the "most notorious of all the Simeonites" (p. 212);
then Butler calls attention to some of Badcock's physical
deformities:
Not only was he ugly, dirty, ill-dressed, bumptious,
and in every way objectionable, but he was deformed
and waddled when he walked so that he had won a nick
name which I can only reproduce by calling it "Here's
my back, and there's my back," because the lower parts
of his back emphasized themselves demonstratively as
though about to fly off in different directions like
the two extreme notes in the chord of the augmented
sixth, with every step he took. (p. 212)
Although little is said about Badcock throughout the rest
of the novel, one remembers him as somewhat of a unique
figure because of his physical traits. He functions as a
satirical representative of a particular religious movement;
•'MBiTifriiffff nfffi-naiirn-raaim nffTiiyH M ii
117
however, he also becomes an interesting human being for a
brief period in the story. This type of characterization
represents another advancement in Butler's ability, for in
Erewhon minor characters were not provided with any charac
teristics or attitudes not necessary to the given idea or
institution they represented.
The total effect of such individuals as Pryer and Bad
cock on Ernest Pontifex is to diminish additionally his
fervor for religion. Ernest, however, does not give up the
goal of becoming a clergyman, and he is ultimately ordained.
Butler's presentation of Ernest indicates that the latter
was essentially ineffectual in his religious responsibili
ties. Ernest commences to tour the slums of London in an
effort to convert the needy and provide spiritual aid for
all. On one of his first trials— a discussion with Mr.
Shaw— the latter requests that Ernest give him "the story
of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as told in St. John's
gospel" (p. 254). The narrator remarks that he is
sorry to say that Ernest mixed up the four accounts in
a deplorable manner; he even made the angel come down
and roll away the stone and sit upon it. He was covered
with confusion when the tinker first told him without
the book of some of his many inaccuracies, and then
verified his criticisms by referring to the New Testa
ment itself. (p. 254)
118
Ernest's life as a clergyman was constantly in jeopardy
of becoming contaminated by other creeds and temptations.
In Mrs. Jupp's house alone
Mr. Holt had put him in bodily fear; Mr. and Mrs. Bax
ter had nearly made a Methodist of him; Mr. Shaw had
undermined his faith in the Resurrection; Miss Snow's
charms had ruined— or would have done so but for an
accident— his moral character. As for Miss Maitland,
he had done his best to ruin hers, and had damaged
himself gravely and irretrievably in consequence.
The only lodger who had done him no harm was the bel
lows' mender, whom he had not visited. (p. 260)
Ernest finally leaves the clergy, marries Ellen, and settles
in London. Butler implies clearly that religion was not the
source for any happiness for Ernest. He was never able to
feel comfortable as a cleric, and he could never sincerely
believe the ideas he was called upon to preach.
Ernest Pontifex is the one character in all of Butler's
fiction who undergoes a great development. Indeed, the
basic subject matter of The Way of All Flesh is the study of
an individual's change, and Butler handles this character
modification quite skillfully. Ernest operates— at the end
of the novel— almost in the manner of a free spirit. He
seems happy, confident, and independent. He is removed
from the powerful and fearful grasp of home and church.
One indication of his development into a free man is pro-
119
vided by the tone of the essays he writes and publishes
after entering the field of publishing.
They were all written vigorously and fearlessly as
though by people used to authority; all granted that
the Church professed to enjoin belief in much which no
one could accept who had been accustomed to weigh evi
dence; but it was contended that so much valuable truth
had got so closely mixed up with these mistakes that
the mistakes had better not be meddled with. (p. 383)
The concluding paragraphs of the novel call attention
to the fact that Ernest "has formed no alliances, and has
made enemies not only of the religious world but of the
literary and scientific brotherhood as well" (p. 398).
Ernest is a far different man from the one he had been ear
lier in the novel, and he is a far different man from the
one to be expected after a survey of his parental and edu
cational background. Overton summarizes Ernest's new char
acter at the conclusion of the story by emphasizing that
Ernest "would not . , . run much chance at present of try
ing to found a College of Spiritual Pathology . . ." (p.
399). In other areas Overton says of Ernest that
In politics he is a Conservative so far as his vote and
interest are concerned. In all other respects he is an
advanced Radical. His father and grandfather could
probably no more understand his state of mind than they
could understand Chinese, but those who know him inti
mately do not know that they wish him greatly different
from what he actually is. (p. 399)
120
All of this creates a strong vitality in the characteriza
tion of Ernest Pontifex and distinguishes him quite notice
ably from Samuel Butler's other characters. There may be
numerous reasons as to why Ernest's development is so ade
quately presented, but the most obvious explanation seems to
be that he functions as a mirror of Butler's own growth and
liberalization from a rigid and stifling past.
Another of the important aspects of this past is edu
cation. There are obvious parallels between the education
al and the religious training of Ernest Pontifex; namely,
both were directed in an insensitive and inflexible manner
by individuals who took little heed of the real needs of the
individual and who appeared, for the most part, to be
strongly hypocritical and artificial. In his criticism and
satire of education Butler assumes an attitude similar to
his attitude toward religion; that is, he never questions
the intrinsic values of education, but he examines the
character and methods of those who are given the responsi
bility of educating others. His satire of educational
training, therefore, is directed towards parents and school
masters, and one must look again to Theobald and Christina
Pontifex as well as to Dr. Skinner for illustrations of his
technique.
121
The same narrow-minded, stubborn attitudes that direct
most of Theobald's behavior are present in the educational
activities he outlines for his son. Theobald was not one
to "spare the rod"i
Before Ernest could well crawl he was taught to
kneel; before he could well speak he was taught to lisp
the Lord's prayer, and the general confession. How was
it possible that these things could be taught too early?
If his attention flagged or his memory failed him, here
was an ill weed which would grow apace, unless it were
plucked out immediately, and the only way to pluck it
out was to whip him, or shut him up in a cupboard, or
dock him of some of the small pleasures of childhood.
Before he was three years old he could read and, after
a fashion, write. Before he was four he was learning
Latin, and could do rule of three sums. (p. 86)
Christina is seen to be no less severe in her adminis
tration of the education of her son, for she
did not remonstrate with Theobald concerning the severi
ty of the tasks imposed upon their boy, nor yet as to
the continual whippings that were found necessary at
lesson times. Indeed, when during any absence of Theo
bald's the lessons were entrusted to her, she found to
her sorrow that it was the only thing to do, and she
did it no less effectually than Theobald himself; never
theless she was fond of her boy, which Theobald never
was, and it was long before she could destroy all affec
tion for herself in the mind of her first-born. But she
persevered. (pp. 86-87)
An important effect of Ernest's home education comes to be
his subsequent alienation from his parents. Robert P. Rat
tray calls attention to a passage in Butler's book The Fair
Haven in which the author remarks:
122
All children love their fathers and mothers, if these
last will only let them? it is not a little unkindness
that will kill so hardy a plant as the love of a child
for its parents. Nature has allowed ample margin for
many blunders, provided there be a genuine desire on the
parent's part to make the child feel that he is loved,
and that his natural feelings are respected. This is
all the religious education that a child should have.3
This perceptive statement continues by detailing a response
of the child who is not provided with the proper "religious
education." The results are almost identical with the
course of Ernest Pontifex's development.
As he grows older, he will then naturally turn to the
waters of life, and thirst after them of his own accord,
by reason of the spiritual refreshment which they and
they only can afford. Otherwise he will shrink from
them, on account of the way in which he was led down to
drink against his will, and perhaps with harshness, when
all the analogies with which he was acquainted pointed
in the direction of their being unpleasant and unwhole
some. So soul-satisfying is family affection to a child
that he who has once enjoyed it cannot bear to be de
prived of the hope that he is possessed in Heaven of a
parent who is like his earthly father— of a friend and
counsellor who will never, never fail him.4
Christina and Theobald, needless to say, are far removed
from the kind of "friend and counsellor" outlined above.
3Samuel Butler:__A Chronicle and An Introduction (Lon
don, 1935), pp. 16-17.
^Rattray, pp. 16-17.
123
Butler repeatedly shows the stupidity which pervades all of
the Pontifex educational theories. The reader is informed
that "when Ernest was in his second year, Theobald . . .
began to teach him to read," but "he began to whip him two
days after he had begun to teach him" (p. 89).
One of the primary objectives of Ernest's home educa
tion was to inculcate strong moral values in the boy. Per
haps the most mature device that either parent develops for
this task is the letter Christina addresses to both her sons
in which she cautions them to be true to God and to them
selves .
. . . if God is the Lord follow Him; only be strong and
of a good courage, and He will never leave you nor for
sake you. Remember, there is not in the Bible one law
for the rich, and one for the poor— one for the educated
and one for the ignorant. To all there is but one thing
needful. All are to be living to God and their fellow-
creatures, and not to themselves. All must seek first
the Kingdom of God and His righteousness— must deny
themselves, be pure and chaste and charitable in the
fullest and widest sense— all, "forgetting those things
that are behind," must "press forward towards the mark,
for the prize of the high calling of God." (p. 103)
Despite the fact that this letter is the "topmost point that
Christina reached in creating that moral spectacle which
seems to have been one of the chief businesses of her
5
life," one cannot but be impressed by the ironic disparity
which exists between the idealism of the letter and the
actuality of Christina's behavior throughout her lifetime.
Ernest, too, must have noticed the shallow influence that
these remarks had upon his mother; and the educational value
of the letter seems to be hampered by this fact.
Ernest's parents are responsible only for his initial
introduction to education. His first contact with an edu
cational institution comes when he is enrolled at Dr. Skin
ner's school at Roughborough. A good deal of satire is
directed toward Dr. Skinner, who, according to Harris, is
based upon Dr. Benjamin Hall Kennedy of Shrewsbury School,
with whom Butler himself had come into contact. Dr. Skinner
is shown to be essentially vain, self-centered, proud, and,
at times, stupid.
The physical description of Dr. Skinner is similar in
tone to that of the Simeonite Badcock, for both men posses
sed certain obvious defects. Dr. Skinner's personal appear
ance
was not particularly pre-possessing. He was about the
middle height, portly, and had a couple of fierce grey
5Harris, p. 238.
125
eyes, that flashed fire from beneath a pair of great,
bushy, beetling eyebrows and overawed all who came
near him. It was in respect of his personal appear
ance, however, that, if he was vulnerable at all, his
weak place was to be found. His hair when he was a
young man was red, but after he had taken his degree
he had a brain fever which caused him to have his head
shaved; when he reappeared he did so wearing a wig, and
one which was a good deal further off red than his own
hair had been. He not only had never discarded his
wig, but year by year it had edged itself a little more
and a little more off red, till by the time he was for
ty, there was not a trace of red remaining, and his wig
was brown. (p. 108)
Part of the satire of Skinner lies in the understatement
that "after he had taken his degree he had a brain fever.
. . ." The subsequent remarks made about Skinner imply that
the results of this fever were considerably more than a bald
head.
Students who had attended Roughborough Grammar School
are said to have distinguished themselves, for Dr. Skinner
"moulded their minds after the model of his own, and stamped
an impression upon them which was indelible in after-life
. . ." (p. 108). The use of the verbs "moulded" and
"stamped" suggests the rigidity and pressure inherent in
the Roughborough technique. There is nothing approaching
rapport at the school between Skinner and his pupils, for
His hand was against them, and theirs against him during
the whole time of the connection between them. They not
only disliked him, but they hated all that he more
126
especially embodied, and throughout their lives disliked
all that reminded them of him. (pp. 108-109)
In the presence of the above student reaction the majority
of the pupils were "decidedly Skinnerian," compelled to
follow the dictates of their master.
There is a great deal of pretension built into the
character of Dr. Skinner. At one point the schoolmaster is
severely criticized when the narrator asks:
Could it be expected to enter into the head of such
a man as this that in reality he was making his money
by corrupting youth; that it was his paid profession to
make the worse appear the better reason in the eyes of
those who were too young and inexperienced to be able
to find him out; that he kept out of the sight of those
whom he professed to teach material points of the argu
ment, for the production of which they had a right to
rely upon the honour of anyone who made professions of
sincerity; that he was a passionate, half-turkey-cock,
half-gander of a man whose sallow, bilious face and
hobble-gobble voice could scare the timid, but who would
take to his heels readily enough if he were met firmly;
that his "Meditations on St. Jude," such as they were,
were cribbed without acknowledgment, and would have been
beneath contempt if so many people did not believe them
to have been written honestly? (p. 112)
Dr. Skinner practices a kind of self-glorification that one
notices when studying the characters of Theobald and Chris
tina. In his library at Roughborough, Skinner has hung a
portrait of himself, and this painting is the only one in
the library. The walls of the library "were covered with
book shelves from floor to ceiling . . . Prominent among
the most prominent upon the most prominent shelf were a
series of splendidly bound volumes entitled 'Skinner's
Works'" (p. 115).
Dr. Skinner's pretense is apparent in his appraisal of
people. On one occasion
He called Ernest "an audacious reptile" and said he
wondered the earth did not open and swallow him up
because he pronounced Thalia with a short i. "And
this to me," he thundered,"who never made a false
quantity in my life." (p. 124)
Ernest and Dr. Skinner have an association which lacks any
warmth and dedication, qualities necessary to a healthy
learning situation. Even when Ernest leaves Roughborough,
he is received by Dr. Skinner in the latter's library, where
the student is presented with a book De comitiis Atheniensi-
bus. "written in Latin by a German— Schomann" (p. 188).
Within the book, in Skinnerian fashion, the schoolmaster
has inscribed a brief message in Greek, which Ernest is not
able to understand, but assumes it to mean "with all kind
wishes from the donor." The fact that Dr. Skinner prepared
the statement in a language foreign to Ernest attests again
to a kind of intellectual vanity peculiar to the man.
A similar incident occurs late in the novel when Ernest
128
has dropped in to see Dr. Skinner, who had long left Rough
borough to become Dean of a cathedral in one of the Midland
counties. The conversation which ensues between the two
men indicates that Skinner still possesses the pretense and
conceit of his earlier years.
His voice and manner were unchanged, and when Ernest,
remarking upon a plan of Rome which hung in the hall,
spoke inadvertently of the Quirinal,^he replied with
all his wonted pomp: "Yes, the Quirinal— or as I myself
prefer to call it, the Quirinal." After this triumph
he inhaled a long breath through the corners of his
mouth, and flung it back again into the face of Heaven,
as in his finest form during his head-mastership. At
lunch he did indeed once say, "next to impossible to
think of anything else," but he immediately corrected
himself and substituted the words, "next to impossible
to entertain irrelevant ideas," after which he seemed
to feel a good deal more comfortable. Ernest saw the
familiar volumes of Dr. Skinner's works upon the book
shelves in the Deanery dining-room . . . (p. 396)
Several days after the visit Ernest receives a letter from
Dr. Skinner in which the old Dean discusses, in brief, the
young man's critics. The comments made about the critics,
however, are written in Greek; and Ernest is faced with the
problem of guessing at the meaning of the letter.
There is no apparent development in the characteriza
tion of Dr. Skinner, but there is an obvious reason for
this lack of character modification. In Erewhon one gets
the notion that Butler did not develop the characters
129
because he did not possess the ability to arrange for such
a process. In The Wav of All Flesh Butler can handle this
development process, for there is the outstanding example
of Ernest as a character development. Dr. Skinner remains
the same in order to support the thematic concept that all
too frequently the disciples of Victorian education were
unsympathetic and completely inflexible. Like Theobald and
Christina Pontifex, Dr. Skinner becomes a character repre
sentative of an institution being satirized. Indeed, Skin
ner himself often almost appears the victim of burlesque,
particularly when he exaggerates his knowledge of Greek and
overemphasizes his accomplishment in the preparation of a
work which is essentially a plagiarism.
Before the end of the discussion of The Way of All
Flesh some attention should be directed to several minor
characters who do not readily fit into the primary thematic
aspects of the novel, such as parental control, religion,
and education. These characters become the Nosnibors and
the Mahainas of The Way of All Flesh, but unlike the figures
in Erewhon. those in the second novel become captivating
personalities far removed from the responsibility of merely
illustrating a specific idea or custom.
Early in the novel Mrs. Cowey is introduced as the
130
woman who is instrumental in obtaining a husband for Chris
tina Allaby. In a brief paragraph Butler tells much about
this character, and at the conclusion of. the paragraph in
dicates a certain irony in Mrs. Cowey's attitude toward her
success in marrying off her daughters.
Mrs. Allaby had a great friend— a certain Mrs. Cowey,
wife of the celebrated Professor Cowey. She was what
was called a truly spiritually minded woman, a trifle
portly, with an incipient beard, and an extensive con
nection among undergraduates, more especially among
those who were inclined to take part in the great evan
gelical movement which was then at its height. She
gave evening parties once a fortnight at which prayer
was part of the entertainment. She was not only spiri
tually minded, but, as enthusiastic Mrs. Allaby used
to exclaim, she was a thorough woman of the world at
the same time and had such a fund of strong masculine
good sense. She too had daughters, but, as she used
to say to Mrs. Allaby, she had been less fortunate than
Mrs. Allaby herself, for one by one they had married
and left her, so that her old age would have been deso
late indeed if her Professor had not been spared to her.
(p. 38)
Butler draws a fairly skillful portrait of this woman by
referring to small features such as her "incipient beard"
and "strong masculine good sense." These phrases prompt
the reader to see the irony of the woman's character and to
realize that her evening parties may have been less designed
to build spiritual enthusiasm and more inclined to provide
her with an ample supply of eligible young men for her un
married girls. At any rate there is something special
131
about the character of Mrs. Cowey and she is not so easily
forgotten as, for example, Mrs. Nosnibor in Erewhon.
Another woman in the novel who is a notable creation
is Mrs. Jupp. Harris comments that of the characters in
The Way of All Flesh "who may be said to enter the domain
of actual fact, Mrs. Jupp is unquestionably the most engag-
g
ing, inimitable in talk and behavior." Mrs. Jupp runs the
house in which Ernest resides during his stay in the slums
of London. Although she "called herself 'Mrs.' she wore no
wedding ring, and spoke of the person who should have been
Mr. Jupp as 'my poor dear boy's father,' not as 'my hus
band"1 (p. 238). As Harris points out, Mrs. Jupp has a dic
tion and speech pattern which sets her apart from many of
Butler's other characters, most of whom are indistinguish
able by their dialogue. Her language is similar to that of
Ellen's, for Mrs. Jupp also suggests a lower class back
ground devoid of any specific religious or educational
training. After Ernest's arrest for presumably insulting
Miss Maitland, one of Mrs. Jupp's other tenants, Mrs. Jupp
tells Overton her impressions of Ernest and Pryer.
6Harris, p. 232.
132
"It's not Mr. Pontifex," she continued, "that's so
bad; he's good at heart. He never says nothing unkind.
And then there's his dear eyes— but when I speak about
that to my Rose she calls me an old fool and says I
ought to be poleaxed. It's that Pryer as I can't abide.
Oh, he! He likes to wound a woman's feelings, he do,
and to chuck anything in her face, he do— he likes to
wind a woman up and to wound her down." (Mrs. Jupp
pronounced "wound" as though it rhymed to "sound.")
"It's a gentleman's place to soothe a woman, but he.,
he'd like to tear her hair out by handfuls. Why, he
told me to my face that I was a-getting old; old, in
deed 1 there's not a woman in London knows my age ex
cept Mrs. Davis down in the Old Kent Road, and beyond
a haricot vein in one of my legs I'm as young as ever
I was. Old, indeedI There's many a good tune played
on an old fiddle. I hate his nasty insinuendos." (pp.
262-263)
In spite of her grammatical shortcomings and malapropisms
Mrs. Jupp's language seems to show her basic honesty and
sincerity, qualities lacking almost completely, for example,
in the character of Christina Pontifex. Mrs. Jupp "is a
triumphant reality, and shows Butler's love of whatever is
genuine and unaffected, no matter how Rabelaisian it may
Mrs. Jupp possesses a number of child-like qualities,
the most obvious being her honest responses to numerous
experiences, which would be taken for granted by the major
ity of Butler's other characters. When she learns that
^Harris, p. 232.
133
Ernest is going to marry and will have to take his piano
with him, she laments:
"And so the piano's to go . . . what beautiful tunes
Mr. Pontifex did play upon it, to be sure; and there
was one I liked better than any I ever heard. I was in
the room when he played it once and when I said, 'Oh,
Mr. Pontifex, that's the kind of woman I am,' he said,
'No, Mrs. Jupp, it isn't, for this tune is old, but no
one can say you are old.' But, bless you, he meant
nothing by it, it was only his mucky flattery." (p. 314)
Although she is not entirely in favor of Ernest's marriage,
she concludes to Overton that "it ain't you and it ain't me,
and it ain't him and it ain't her. It's what you must call
the fortunes of Matterimony, for there ain't no other word
for it" (p. 314).
Finally, there is a brief encounter between Mrs. Jupp
and Ernest after the latter has married in which the old
woman again displays her childish enthusiasm. Ernest shows
her a heap of paper comprising the manuscript of his latest
book, and Mrs. Jupp exclaims, "Well now . . . dear, dear me,
and is that manuscript? I've often heard talk about manu
scripts, but I never thought I should live to see some my
self. Well I well'. So that is really manuscript?" (p.
387).
T
Every statement uttered by Mrs. Jupp seems to substan
tiate Harris's appraisal of her when he writes:
134
Mrs. Jupp always said what she had to say in her own
way, illuminating every subject with her vivid person
ality. . . . To the very end of the story, when she was
quite an old woman, she remained the same gay, irrespon
sible creature, direct and graphic in everything she
said, a picturesque, un-repentant ex-member of the oldest
profession in the world.®
Mrs. Jupp lives on to the end of the story, and no one
worries about her, for she continues in a pattern which in
dicates that all goes well with her. This pattern consists
of pawning her flat iron every Monday morning and rescuing
it on Saturday after she has received her allowance for the
week. "If the flat iron were to go beyond redemption," it
is said, "we should know that it was time to interfere" (p.
389). Mrs. Jupp, in short, keeps the story going, "giving
as she does insight into a kind of life which Ernest as a
parson knew only from the outside" (pp. 233-234).
One of the most interesting of the minor characters in
the novel is Towneley. There is no doubt about the fact
that, according to Butler, Towneley was an ideal young man;
but his characterization is extremely weak and all that is
learned about him must be taken from statements made about
him. Unlike Mrs. Jupp and other somewhat subordinate
®Harris, pp. 232-233.
135
figures, Towneley possesses no language or personality
traits peculiar to him. Like the characters of Erewhon.
Towneley seems to be the exponent or example of a particu
lar concept. He is, in short, Butler's idea of a man who
approaches perfection.
Towneley belonged to one of the most exclusive sets
in Cambridge, and was perhaps the most popular man among
the whole number of undergraduates. He was big and very
handsome— as it seemed to Ernest the handsomest man whom
he ever had seen or ever could see, for it was impossible
to imagine a more lively and agreeable countenance. He
was good at cricket and boating, very good-natured, sin
gularly free from conceit, not clever but very sensible,
and, lastly, his father and mother had been drowned by
the overturning of a boat when he was only two years old
and had left him as their only child and heir to one of
the finest estates in the South of England. Fortune
every now and then does things handsomely by a man all
round? f Towneley was one of those to whom she had taken
a fancy, and the universal verdict in this case was that
she had chosen wisely. (pp. 209-210)
G. D. H. Cole relates Towneley to several of Butler's
other characters, including George in Erewhon Revisited,
stating that
These are the people Butler most admired, and would
most have wished to be like. They are happy, healthy,
good-looking, and well-to-do. They understand the
world, not from having learnt about it, but by instinct.
They have no money troubles, no uncertainties about
themselves. They are amiable without cost, because
nothing thwarts them. They get what they want without
meanness and without trampling upon others. They are
kind, because they are kindly by nature; but they do
not vex themselves about other people's troubles unless
136
they are obtruded upon them. They do good works when
the doing comes their way; but "good works," done of
set moral purpose, they have no use for.®
Cole then proceeds to correlate Towneley's character with
the love of God, for attention is drawn to one of Butler's
statements in his Notebooks. that emphasizing that "to love
God is to have good health, good looks, good sense, experi
ence, a kindly nature and a fair balance of cash in hand."
Indeed, Towneley seems to embody a one-to-one correspon
dence to Butler's list, and it is in this sense that he
becomes interesting as a character.
With few exceptions, most notable of which is Towneley,
the characterizations of The Way of All Flesh represent a
significant advancement in Butler's art. Even the mere
mention of figures who are seen only in passing is made with
some attention to creating a kind of uniqueness, setting
one person apart from another. Butler has become somewhat
efficient in implying something relevant about each person
even if he has to do it in a single sentence. The less
important residents of Mrs. Jupp's household, for example,
come to life on the basis of the brief descriptive phrases
®Samuel Butler (London, 1952), p. 40.
137
used in their creation. An old woman by the name of Gover
is said to be "blind and bed-ridden, who munched and munched
her feeble old toothless jaws as Ernest spoke or read to
her, but who could do little more . . (p. 240). Little
more is said Qf this character, but the reader is able to
understand her pathetic condition merely from the above
statement. The same effect is achieved in Butler's de
scription of Mr. Brookes, "a rag and bottle merchant in
Birdsey's Rents, in the last stage of dropsy . . ." (p.
240). Later the comment is made that poor Mr. Brookes
"suffered very much, terribly indeed; he was not in want of
money; he wanted to die and couldn't, just as we sometimes
want to go to sleep and cannot" (p. 241). Butler attempts
to indicate something about the mental and emotional as
well as the physical condition of the character. These
characterizations of the individuals living in Mrs. Jupp's
house indicate that Butler had come to realize the impor
tance of creating interest in the figures of a novel beyond
their function simply as spokesmen for his own ideas.
It is difficult to believe that the characters in the
novels Erewhon and The Way of All Flesh were created by the
same author. Those in the latter book seem to have much
more life and purpose than those in Erewhon. The second
138
novel also includes a larger variety of characters from
different social, cultural, and geographical areas, many of
whom exist for no other reason than to maintain interest in
the story. Harris evaluates Butler's ability to produce
characters in The Wav of All Flesh in a brief but perceptive
passage: . .
He had an eye for character; he entered tremendously
into the lives of his best characters, so that they
appear in his pages as living realities who move through
the story of their own accord and not at the bidding of
the author; and further, he could recognise a distinc
tively English figure and present it so that it lost
none of its unique flavour in the process.10
l^Harris, p. 243.
CHAPTER IV
EREWHON REVISITED
Erewhon Revisited, published in 1901, was Samuel But
ler's final work of fiction, and the novel presents his
best achievement in character creation. Butler's characters
in this novel are strengthened because they are products of
his own imagination and are not modeled upon people with
whom he had had close personal contact during his life.
Christina and Ernest Pontifex, Aunt Alethea, and Dr. Skinner
--remarkable though they are as characterizations— are,‘
nevertheless, only reflections of persons among Butler's
family and associates. Higgs, Yram, Hanky, and Panky, on
the other hand, were born in Butler's mind. This chapter
will examine the characterizations in Erewhon Revisited in
order to illustrate Butler's notable advance in characteri
zation over the course of his writing career. Perhaps the
most effective method for conducting this examination is a
comparison of the characters in Erewhon Revisited with their
139
140
counterparts in Butler's first novel, Erewhon.
Erewhon Revisited is a sequel to the earlier work Ere
whon j and deals with the return of Thomas Higgs to the
country of Erewhon twenty years after he had escaped from
the area in a balloon. Since Higgs is capable of speaking
the Erewhonian language and is familiar with the basic cus
toms of the land, he is able to communicate adequately with
the inhabitants. He learns that the population follows a
new religion called Sunchildism. Higgs subsequently learns
that he is the famous Sunchild, and that his departure with
Arowhena in the balloon has been interpreted as the basic
myth of the new religion. Although the major part of the
novel deals with Higgs's confrontation with the leaders of
the religion, there are scenes in the novel in which he
meets Yram and his Erewhonian son George.
Much of the satire of the novel is directed toward the
religion of Sunchildism and the characters who function to
perpetuate the fundamental beliefs of the religion. Butler
approaches the treatment of a specific character with either
a strongly satirical or a highly complimentary attitude.
The characters of Erewhon Revisited, however, manage to
come to life in spite of this latter tendency of the author,
for they are presented in numerous situations in which many
141
sides of the individual personalities have an opportunity to
be examined. In Erewhon the reader saw only that part of
the character which functioned as an exponent for a specific
idea or attitude. In Erewhon Revisited, unlike Erewhon.
the readers see characters reaching far beyond the realm of
ideas and partaking in a number of interpersonal, relation
ships. Mrs. Stillman calls attention to the vast changes
in characterization which distinguish Erewhon Revisited
from the earlier novel.
Erewhon Revisited . . . is far more than a summing up
of ideas already expressed. In the portrayal of Higgs,
George, Yram and the Mayor, and the relations between
them all, Butler was doing something he had never done
before. He was portraying real people in close person
al relationships full of the beauty of affection com
bined with intelligence and tolerance. Higgs has be
come quite a different person from the Higgs of Erewhon.
that "typical middle-class Englishman, deeply tainted
with priggishness in his earlier years," as Butler de
scribed him. He now exhibits that combination of up
rightness, kindliness, affection, and shrewdness in
dealing with the unexpected that Butler most admired,
and these traits are repeated in his son, and in Yram
and her husband.
With the characters assuming greater importance and
individuality in the novel, almost all that the reader
learns about them comes by way of their conversations or
^-Stillman, p. 291.
142
through scenes in which they are taking part. In Erewhon
and, to some extent, in The Way of All Flesh the reader was
told about the characters and only on a few occasions was
he permitted to see them in action. Since there is greater
reliance upon the characters to tell the story in Erewhon
Revisited, the function of the narrator becomes less impor
tant. He interjects himself into the story in several in
stances, but unlike the narrators of the other novels, he
is basically detached from the events, most of which occur
red many years prior to the time of his narration.
The narrator, John Higgs, the London-born son of
Thomas, is the only under-developed important character in
the novel. Little information is revealed about him except
for statements he makes early in the novel and in the con
cluding chapter of the work. In the first chapter he re
ports of himself that he was as fluent with his mother's
language (he was the son of Higgs and his wife Arowhena,
who had escaped in the balloon from Erewhon) as he was with
that of his father. John remarks that "in this respect she
often told me I could pass myself off anywhere in Erewhon as
a native; I shared also her personal appearance . . . in
mind, if I may venture to say so, I believe I was more like
my father" (pp. 319-320). John says little more about
143
himself for the remainder of the novel. On several occa
sions he intrudes momentarily to make a statement about his
father or to comment on the difficulty of transcribing the
details of the work from the notes taken by Thomas Higgs,
but John does not take part in the actual story as did Higgs
and Overton in the previous novels.
Only at the end of the novel, after his father has died
and following his own visit to Erewhon in order to deliver
some gold to George, does John Higgs make a significant
appearance in the book. Most of what uohn says at that time
is in praise of his half-brother George, and the dialogue
between the two men is essentially stiff and bland. The
reader feels only a light response to the narrator.
The characterization of John Higgs, however, remains
apart from that of the other characters in the novel. His
father, Thomas Higgs, for example, becomes, as Stillman
writes, "quite a different person from the Higgs of Ere-
2
whon.1 1 Although there was little, if any, development m
Higgs during the course of Erewhon. one notices remarkable
changes in his character in the sequel novel. At one point
even John mentions of his father that he doubts "not the
^Stiliman, p. 291.
144
reader will see that the twenty years between his first and
second visit had modified him even more than so long an
interval might be expected to do" (p. 324).
Early in the novel Higgs manifests the results of the
strong psychological impact that his experiences have-had
upon him. For him, Erewhon had been the source of numerous
poignant memories, not the least of which was that of his
first wife Arowhena, with whom he had fled to England.
Early in the novel when Higgs is preparing to relate some
of his recent experiences to his sort, the mention of Arow
hena provokes a strongly sentimental response.
"I will begin to tell you about it," he said, "after
breakfast. Where is your dear mother? How was it
that I have ..."
Then of a sudden his memory returned, and he burst
into tears. (p. 327)
After this scene John remarks that his father's mind was
gone. Even when Higgs recovers from the momentary emotional
collapse, he remarks of his condition that "at times . . .
I am a blank, and every week am more and more so. I daresay
I shall be sensible now for several hours" (p. 327).
As Higgs recounts his second trip to Erewhon, attention
is repeatedly called to his disapproval of the extent to
which Sunchildism has taken root. He above all others
145
senses the fraudulent nature of the beliefs and those who
perpetuate the Sunchild myths. Early in the course of his
revisit to Erewhon, Higgs encounters Professor Hanky and
Professor Panky, the former being the Royal Professor of
Worldly Wisdom, at Bridgeford, seat of learning and city of
the people who are above suspicion, and the latter being
the Royal Professor of Unworldly Wisdom at Bridgeford.
The two professors are the most highly satirized fig
ures in the novel. In numerous respects Hanky and Panky
become burlesque figures. Their Erewhonian names are actu
ally "Sukoh" and "Sukop," that is, Hokus and Pokus. Their
dress is equally amusing, for Higgs notes that
. . . the dress of these two men . . . was far more
disconcerting. They were not in the Erewhonian cos
tume. The one was dressed like an Englishman or
would-be Englishman, while the other was wearing the
same kind of clothes but turned the wrong way round,
so that when his face was towards my father his body
seemed to have its back towards him, and vice versa.
The man's head, in fact, appeared to have been screwed
right round? and yet it was plain that if he were
stripped he would be found built like other people.
(p. 341)
Their dress is supposed to approximate that of the Sunchild.
Since there has been great dispute as to whether the origi
nal Sunchild wore clothes with buttons in front or back,
various individuals tend to advocate one or the other of
146
the two alternatives. Hanky and Panky represent the oppos
ing factions of this particular controversy.
Higgs's first confrontation with the professors occurs
soon after he has arrived in Erewhon from England. Hanky
and Panky are travelling to Sunchildston, a town in which a
new temple is scheduled to be dedicated to the Sunchild on
the following Sunday. Hanky is to be the featured speaker
on the program to deliver a lengthy sermon on the validity
of the Sunchild religion. This first meeting between Higgs
and the professors allows Butler to indicate the shrewdness
inherent in all three characters. Higgs has found it nec
essary to kill some quails for food in spite of the fact
that this shooting of birds was in strong violation of Ere
whonian laws against poaching. When Hanky and Panky dis
cover the birds, they inquire as to the reason for their
having been killed, and Higgs responds that he is returning
the quails to the King of Erewhon in preparation for a feast
honoring the dedication of the new Sunchild temple. Hanky
and Panky, both under the dictation of a strong appetite,
encourage Higgs to present them with two of the birds which
were already plucked. After agreeing that the two plucked
birds are landrails, not quails, although each of the three
men knows the birds to be quails, Hanky and Panky obtain
147
the birds by paying Higgs a sum in Erewhonian money equiva
lent to five shillings.
Despite the humor of the circumstances surrounding the
exchange of the quails there is great honesty in the por
trayal of realistic human psychology. The three men, in
essence, rationalize what they know to be improper behavior.
Throughout the novel stress is placed on the quality of
"humbugging" in the character of both the professors. Hum
bug and fraud seem to be closely related elements in the
personalities of Hanky and Panky.
It was Panky, not Hanky, who had given him [i.e.,
Higgs] the Musical Bank money. Panky was the greater
humbug of the two, for he would humbug even himself—
a thing, by the way, not very hard to do; and yet he
was the less successful humbug, for he could humbug
no one who was worth humbugging— not for long. Hanky's
occasional frankness put people off their guard. He
was the mere common, superficial, perfunctory Profes
sor, who, being a Professor, would of course profess,
but would not lie more than was in the bond; he was
log-rolled and log-rolling, but still, in a robust
wolfish fashion, human. (pp. 350-351)
After indicating something of the characteristics of
Hanky and Panky by means of a brief prose description Butler
allows the men to engage in a dialogue which clearly sub
stantiates Higgs's early appraisal of the professors.
Throughout the talk in which the men are discussing Sun
childism and its effect upon the population of Erewhon,
148
there are strong implications that Hanky and Panky are pri
marily concerned with the progress of their quail dinner
and the possibility of obtaining more of the birds. The
dialogue commences shortly after the professors have started
to eat the first of the birds.
"What a delicious bird a quail is," said Hanky.
"Landrail, Hanky, landrail," said the other reproach
fully.
Having finished the first birds in a very few minutes,
they returned to the statues.
"Old Mrs. Nosnibor," said Panky, "says the Sunchild
told her they were symbolic of ten tribes who had in
curred the displeasure of the sun, his father." (p. 352)
At this point in the conversation the narrator remarks that
he restrains himself from making a "comment on my father's
feelings." Later in the discussion Higgs is seen to be in
wardly revolted by the superficiality of the professors'
beliefs and their attempts to perpetuate what they know to
be a false religion. The dialogue between Hanky and Panky
continues with the former answering Panky's comments on Mrs.
Nosnibor1s contentions.
"Of the suni his fiddlesticks' ends," retorted
Hanky. "He never called the sun his father. Besides,
from all I have heard about him, I take it he was a
precious idiot."
"0 Hanky, Hankyi you will wreck the whole thing if
you ever allow yourself to talk in that way."
"You are more likely to wreck it yourself, Panky,
by never doing so. People like being deceived, but
149
they like also to have an inkling of their own decep
tion and you never inkle them."
"The Queen," said Panky, returning to the statues,
"sticks to it that ..."
"Here comes another bird," interrupted Hanky; "never
mind about the Queen."
The bird was soon eaten, whereupon Panky again took
up his parable about the Queen. (pp. 352-353)
Hanky concludes the extended conversation by indicating to
Panky something of the content of his impending sermon at
the dedication of the temple. The summary which Hanky pro
vides indicates something of his perfunctory attitude toward
the Sunchild religion. Of the sermon Hanky remarks that
I shall keep it much on the usual lines. I shall dwell
upon the benighted state from which the Sunchild res
cued us, and shall show how the Musical Banks, by at
once taking up the movement, have been the blessed means
of its now almost universal success. I shall talk about
the immortal glory shed upon Sunch’ston by the Sunchild's
residence in the prison, and wind up with the Sunchild
Evidence Society, and an earnest appeal for funds to en
dow the canonries required for the due service of the
temple. (pp. 353-354)
Professor Hanky obviously operates on the assumption that he
can fool his audience into worshipping the Sunchild by ap
pealing to their emotions. All of his statements are heavi
ly peppered with highly connotative phrases such as "the
benighted state" and "the immortal glory."
The method of attacking the essence of Sunchildism in
Erewhon Revisited is far different from those methods of
150
attack on the Musical Banks in Erewhon. In the earlier
novel Butler simply placed lengthy monologues, often in the
form of essays, in the mouths of his characters. These
speeches generally detailed the characteristics of the par
ticular belief or institution under discussion* but failed,
for the most part, to indicate the relationship between the
speaker and the given institution. When Mrs. Nosnibor in
formed Thomas Higgs about the functions of the Musical Banks
in one chapter of the first novel, she seemed personally
detached from them, for her message was one of basic expo
sition. In Erewhon Revisited, however, Butler reveals the
characteristics of a particular institution with far greater
skill. Hanky and Panky do not talk about Sunchildism as if
it were some type of far-removed belief, but rather, Hanky
and Panky embody in their own personality those very quali
ties of sham, hypocrisy, and dishonesty which Butler hopes
to associate with Sunchildism. Butler also makes quite
clear the relationship between the professors and the reli
gion: namely, that their prestige and livelihood are based
on their success in strengthening the people's belief in
Sunchildism. Sunchildism is, in short, a product of their
intellect, and, consequently, the religion manifests the
same shortcomings as the professors' so-called intellectual
151
traits.
Higgs's response to the entire matter of Sunchildism
represents a further improvement in Butler's ability to
characterize. There is something human in the way Higgs
reacts to the discussion between Professors Hanky and Panky.
On frequent occasions he is said to have "groaned inwardly."
Higgs seems to restrain himself from indicating the extent
to which he is dumbfounded by the Sunchild religion. He is
fully aware that he is responsible for the entire Sunchild
matter, but he realizes the dangers involved in revealing
himself to be the so-called Sunchild. He would be doubted,
questioned, and possibly even harmed by the Erewhonians if
he were to attempt such an action. Although Higgs decides
to withhold self-identification for the time being, he re
fuses to allow the professors to persuade him of the slight
est amount of validity in the religion; yet he appears, on
the surface, to agree with their beliefs.
At one point shortly before Higgs takes leave of the
professors the three men engage in some exchange of small
material items. When the negotiations have been completed,
Higgs reportedly says to Hanky and Panky; "If you have
dealt unfairly by me, I forgive you" (p. 361). He then
proceeds to explain that his motto is, "Forgive us our
152
trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us"
(p. 361). Immediately upon hearing these words the profes
sors request that Higgs repeat the statement. Hanky and
Panky then conclude that Higgs must be a true Erewhonian,
for he has the same "corrupt reading of the Sunchild's
prayer" common to many people in the country. Panky ex
plains that the prayer, as Higgs recited it, was incorrect
and should read, "Forgive us our trespasses, but do not
forgive them that trespass against us" (p. 362).
Higgs allows himself to acknowledge the supposed credi
bility behind Panky's explanation, but not for long. As the
professors depart from Higgs, he expresses an honest feeling
in language totally incomprehensible to Hanky and Panky.
Panky shouts:
"Mind you do not forget the true reading of the Sun-
chiId's prayer."
"You are an old fool," shouted my father in English,
knowing that he could hardly be heard, still less under
stood, and thankful to relieve his feelings. (p. 364)
There is a directness about Higgs1s statement to the profes
sors, a directness almost totally absent from his language
in Erewhon.
Butler allows for some of his characters in Erewhon
Revisited to engage in a good deal of personal introspection.
153
Higgs1s inner feelings are constantly being discussed as he
realizes the power of the religion for which he is supposed
ly responsible. At one point, while passing the new temple
scheduled to be dedicated, Higgs could
see that it was a vast fane, and must have cost an un
told amount of money. At every turn he found himself
more and more shocked, as he realised more and more
fully the mischief he had already occasioned, and the
certainty that this was small as compared with that
which would grow up hereafter. (p. 389)
In the face of this great myth Higgs is torn between two
alternatives, whether to declare the fact that he is the
Sunchild or to remain anonymous. Butler records Higgs's
dilemma with attention to the perplexing questions that are
passing through his mind.
Should I not speak out, come what may, when I see a
whole people being led astray by those who are merely
exploiting them for their own ends? Though I could
do but little, ought I not to do that little? What
did that good fellow's instinct— so straight from
heaven, so true, so healthy— tell him? What did my
own instinct answer? What would the conscience of
any honourable man answer? Who can doubt? (p. 390)
Throughout his conflict Higgs prays for guidance. He re
marks that "instinct tore me one way and reason another" (p.
391). Instinct dictated that he refrain from revealing his
true identity as protection against the harm which would
naturally follow from such a statement; while reason
154
insisted that he declare himself to be the so-called Sun
child and denounce the entire religion as false. But Higgs
goes on to tell that
there was no answer . . . Whereon I settled that I
would obey the reason with which God had endowed me,
unless the instinct He had also given me should thrash
it out of me. I could get no further than this, that
the Lord hath mercy on whom He will have mercy, and
whom He willeth He hardeneth; and again I prayed that
I might be among those on whom He would show His mercy.
(p. 391)
Higgs concludes his remarks on his mental debate by remark
ing to the narrator that "this was the strongest internal
conflict that I ever remember to have felt ..." (p. 391).
Unfortunately, Higgs reaches no conclusion on the mat
ter until he is in attendance at the dedication services at
the temple. Professor Hanky delivers a sermon in which he
avows repeatedly his overwhelming love and awe for the Sun
child. Higgs becomes furious as he listens to the speech,
but holds off the declaration of his identity until re
straint becomes impossible. There is great irony in the
circumstances surrounding Higgs1s statement. Hanky is in
forming his audience that several Erewhonians
have recently had visions informing them that the Sun
child will again shortly visit us. We know not when he
will come, but when he comes, my friends, let him not
find us unmindful of, nor ungrateful for, the inestimable
155
services he has rendered us. (p. 505)
Professor Hanky continues his sermon, reaffirming the immi
nent arrival of the Sunchild, and speaking in a style con
sistent with his pretentiousness.
For come he surely will. Either in winter, what time
icicles hang by the wall and milk comes frozen home in
the pail— or in summer when days are at their longest
and the mowing grass is about— there will be an hour,
either at morn, or eve, or in the middle day, when he
will again surely come. May it be mine to be among
those who are then present to receive him.
Here he again glared at my father, whose blood was
boiling. George had not positively forbidden him to
speak out; he therefore sprang to his feet, "You lying
hound," he cried, "I am the Sunchild, and you know it."
(p. 505)
Professor Hanky's response is one long roar, during which
he articulates the statement; "Tear him in pieces— leave
not a single limb on his body. Take him out and burn him
alive" (p. 506). Higgs is ultimately removed to prison and
subsequently released and aided in his return to England.
Before and after Higgs's dramatic statement of identi
ty, he interacted with a number of characters with whom he
had associated during his previous sojourn in Erewhon. All
of the social or interpersonal contacts Higgs experienced in
the first novel were treated briefly and, for the most part,
sentimentally. Human relationships in Erewhon were always
156
subordinate to the ideas of the novel. In Erewhon Revisited
these same personal associations take precedence over the
ideas, and the sentimentality of the first novel gives way
to maturity and directness.
Not long after Higgs arrives in Erewhon he meets his
Erewhonian son, George, the son of Yram. George is Head
Ranger of the desolate area through which Higgs must pass in
order to arrive in Sunch'ston for the dedication of the
temple. Higgs and George meet shortly after Higgs's conver
sations with Professors Hanky and Panky, and Higgs masquer
ades as one of the professors. Their initial confrontation
results in a conversation with strong ironic undertones.
George is chastising the Bridgeford Professors for perpetu
ating the Sunchild religion, which they, according to
George, know to be completely devoid of truth.
"How can you Bridgeford Professors pretend to believe
about these horses, and about the Sunchild's being son
to the sun ..."
"My son— for considering the difference in our ages
I may be allowed to call you so— we at Bridgeford are
much like you at Sunch'ston; we dare not always say
what we think. Nor would it be wise to do so, when we
should not be listened to. This fire must burn itself
out, for it has got such hold that nothing can either
stay or turn it. Even though Higgs himself were to
return and tell it from the house-tops that he was a
mortal— ay, and a very common one— he would be killed,
but not believed."
"Let him come; let him show himself, speak out and
die, if the people choose to kill him. In that case I
would forgive him, accept him for my father, as silly
people sometimes say he is, and honour him to my dying
day."
"Would that be a bargain?" said my father, smiling
in spite of emotion so strong that he could hardly
bring the words out of his mouth.
"Yes, it would," said the youth doggedly. (pp.
375-376)
This dialogue illustrates a number of developments in But
ler's ability to characterize and in his use of character
ization. Unlike his tendency in Erewhon to tell about the
characters in descriptive passages, Butler, for the most
part, allows character development to arise from the actual
dialogue between George and Higgs. Butler still uses his
characters to expound given ideas, as is the case in the
conversation between Higgs and George in which Sunchildism
is harshly criticized; yet the discussion between the two
men is only one aspect of their total relationship in the
novel. They are first father and son, or professor and
ranger, and only in a secondary way are they critics of a
given belief.
In Erewhon such a meeting as occurs between George and
Higgs in the sequel novel would most likely have been ter
minated after they had concluded their discussion on the
belief (i.e., Sunchildism) in question. It is significant
158
that in Erewhon Revisited the conversation continues long
after the religious question has been dropped. Higgs him
self is eager to guide the conversation to a more personal
subject. After inquiring of George as to the name and
location of his mother, Higgs remarks that
"You remind me . . . of a son who was stolen from
me when he was a child. I searched for him during
many years, and at last fell in with him by accident,
to find him all the heart of a father could wish. But
alas1 , he did not take kindly to me as I to him, and
after two days he left me; nor shall I ever again see
him."
"Then, sir, had I not better leave you?"
"No, stay with me till your road takes you else
where? for though I cannot see my son, you are so like
him that I could almost fancy he is with me ..."
(p. 377)
Higgs's remarks about George suggest something about But
ler 's idealism in creating character. Such an ideal charac
ter as George is certainly "all the heart . . . could wish."
Although there is generally greater variety of characteri
zation in this last novel, several of the characters are
obvious examples of Butler's tendency to either strongly
satirize or highly idealize his figures. Hanky and Panky,
I have suggested, are greatly satirized? whereas George, in
the tradition of such characters as Arowhena, Aunt Alethea,
and Towneley, rises into the realm of the ideal.
One of the concluding statements in the novel is a
159
report of the narrator's first impressions upon meeting with
his half-brother. He remarks that
I had never seen, and felt as though I never could see,
George's equal. His absolute unconsciousness of self,
the unhesitating way in which he took me to his heart,
his fearless frankness, the happy genial expression
that played on his face, and the extreme sweetness of
his smile . . . these were the things that made me say
to myself that the "blazon of beauty's best" could tell
me nothing better than what I had found and lost within
the last three hours. How small,, too, I felt by com
parison'. (p. 616)
George's mother Yram, according to Mrs. Stillman, is
3
"perhaps the most fully realized person in the book."
When we
compare her with Arowhena, the main female character of
Erewhon. one sees how far Butler had developed in emo
tional perception since that time. Arowhena has died
in the meanwhile and one gathers that she remained a
perpetual child-wife, rather lachrymose and tiresome,
for whom Higgs had however retained a tender, protective
affection. She never adapted herself to English life
and never learned to speak English properly, which is
just what one would expect of her. Yram, of course,
would have learned English at once, and have speedily
become an influence in her new environment, with just
that dash of foreign charm to add piquancy to her
effectiveness.4
Mrs. Stillman adds that the character is, in part, the cul
mination of the author's extended effort to develop a
^Stillman, p. 291. ^Stillman, pp. 291-292.
160
successful female characterization. Yram, Stillman empha
sizes, is
the successful realization of what Butler had failed to
do with Alethea. She is charming and convincing and
sufficiently rounded to be imaginable in any of the
ordinary situations of life. The very fact that she is
portrayed in the most usual status of woman is signifi
cant. She is a wife and mother and a social being, all
the things that had to be abstracted from Alethea before
she could be permitted to exist, because at that time
Butler could feel no creative sympathy with woman as
wife, mother or sweetheart.^
Mrs. Stillman praises Yram because she succeeds as a female
who is involved completely in the ordinary feminine pursuits
of life. I quote at length the concluding remarks made by
Stillman on Yram, for they further contrast her character
with that of Alethea and emphasize, quite clearly, the
reasons for the generally laudatory criticism of Yram's
characterization.
Alethea could only be an aunt, beautiful, witty, finan
cially helpful and docilely removable by typhoid when
she had served her purpose, but Yram's personality ex
presses itself largely in those normal personal rela
tions which had been so distorted for him (Butler) by
early experience that until now he had not been able to
portray them as beautiful. Yram is the fine flower of
Butler's imaginings about human character. She has both
instinctive and civilized excellence. She knows how to
keep the law and how to break it. She can be unprincipled
^Stillman, p. 292.
161
for the sake of principle, she is honourable and tact
ful, strong and astute, kind by nature, ruthless when
necessary. She has intelligence, a sense of propor
tion, devotion, loyalty and commonsense. She is a per
son, a woman and a lady. She hates finesse but knows
that truth has sometimes to be helped along a bit by
something less than truth. She achieves what Butler
thought the main though largely unattainable object of
life, the reconciliation of the service of God and
Mammon, the ideal and commonsense. She is one of those
whom God loves, for with her all things have worked
together for good. There is something triumphant about
her as there is about all human beings who are well
adjusted and at the same time sensitive and charming,
a combination rarely met with.6
All of these qualities make themselves apparent in Yram's
behavior in Erewhon Revisited and contrast strongly with
the weakness and sentimentality of her character in the
first novel.
Something of Yram's shrewdness is obvious in her ac
tions when she first sees Higgs during the dedication ser
vices at the temple. The narrator writes that
Yram had already taken her seat; my father knew her in
a moment, though he pretended not to do so when George
pointed her out to him. Their eyes met for a second;
Yram turned hers quickly away, and my father could not
see a trace of recognition in her face. At no time
during the whole ceremony did he catch her looking at
him again, (p. 487)
Later in the day, however, she remarks to Higgs with a
®Stiliman, p. 292.
162
"quick, kindly smile,"
"Why, you stupid man . . . I was looking at you all
the time. As soon as the President or Hanky began
to talk about you I knew you would stare at him, and
then I could look. As soon as they left off talking
about you I knew you would be looking at me, unless
you went to sleep--and as I did not know which you
might be doing, I waited till they began to talk about
you again." (pp. 487-488)
Yram's statement would suggest that she knows something
about human behavior and employs a considerable degree of
common sense in dealing with her associates. The tone of
her comment to Higgs indicates that she has become far less
sentimental than she was in Erewhon. and phrases such as
"you stupid man" imply that her personality has become
somewhat more candid and spontaneous over the twenty-year
time span between the two novels. In general, as Mrs.
Stillman seems to indicate, Yram is a character whose
thoughts and actions appear to have some substance and pur
pose because they are motivated by a kind of intuitive
"intelligence and commonsense."
Before Yram makes her initial appearance in the novel,
her son George delineates several significant characteris
tics of her personality when he discusses her interpreta
tion of the Sunchild matter in a conversation with Higgs.
When asked to relate his mother's opinion on the Sunchild,
163
George responds with the following analysis of his mother's
beliefs.
"She liked him well enough in spite of his being a
little silly. She does not believe he ever called him
self child of the sun. He used to say he had a father
in heaven to whom he prayed, and who could hear him;
but he said that all of us, my mother as much as he,
have this unseen father. My mother does not believe
he meant doing us any harm, but only that he wanted to
get himself and Mrs. Nosnibor's younger daughter out
of the country. As for there having been anything
supernatural about the balloon, she will have none of
it; she says that it was some machine which he knew
how to make, but which we have lost the art of making,
as we have of many another.
"This is what she says amongst ourselves, but in
public she confirms all that the Musical Bank Managers
say about him. She is afraid of them. You know, per
haps, that Professor Hanky, whose name I see on your
permit, tried to burn her alive?" (p. 378)
Here Butler uses the technique of revealing information
about one character through the speech of another character.
As basic as this technique may be in literature, Butler
does not employ it frequently in any novel prior to Erewhon
Revisited. George's dialogue reveals much about Yram. She
is no longer the completely idealized figure of the first
novel in which her purity of mind would most likely have
prohibited her from engaging in any subterfuge. She is in
the same position as that of any individual who opposes an
ideal or belief held sacred by the majority of people. She
is reluctant to make a public statement of her dissension
164
from the common attitudes? yet she feels a responsibility
to inform her family of her true feelings. Although it may
be difficult to respect Yram for her honesty, because of
some hypocrisy in her character, one would have to respect
her characterization for embodying common human weaknesses.
Another obvious achievement in the presentation of
Yram's character is Butler's indication of her mind in ac
tion. One is reminded of the introspective passages in The
Wav of All Flesh which occur when Theobald and Christina
are returning home after having deposited Ernest at Dr.
Skinner's school. These scenes are not common in Butler's
novel, for he rarely peeks inside his characters. With
Yram, however, Butler indicates the trend of thought, the
consideration of alternatives, and the attainment of con
clusions . In one episode Professors Hanky and Panky are
relating the circumstances surrounding their meeting with
Higgs prior to his arrival at Sunch'ston. After they ar
dently deny eating any of the quails captured by Higgs and
remind Yram that they "never even allowed a thought of
eating one of them to cross" their minds, Yram engages in
the following reverie.
"Then," said Yram to herself, "they gorged upon
them." What could she think? A man who wore the old
165
dress, and therefore who had almost certainly been in
Erewhon, but had been many years away from it; who
spoke the language well, but whose grammar was defec
tive— hence, again, one who had spent some time in Ere
whon; who knew nothing of the afforesting law now long
since enacted, for how else would he have dared to light
a fire and be seen with quails in his possession; an
adroit liar, who on gleaning information from the Pro
fessors had hazarded an excuse for immediately retracing
his steps; a man, too, with blue eyes and light eye
lashes . What did it matter about his hair being dark
and his complexion swarthy— Higgs was far too clever to
attempt a second visit to Erewhon without dying his
hair and staining his face and hands. And he had got
their permit out of the Professors before he left them;
clearly, then, he meant coming back, and coming back at
once before the permit had expired. How could she doubt?
(pp. 402-403)
There is, then, a kind of logic apparent in the thought pro
cesses of Yram. She selects the relevant details from the
story reported to her by the Professors, and on the basis
of this information she concludes that Higgs can be expected
in the city in the near future.
Evidence of logic and clear thinking appears as well
in the conversations which Yram has with other characters
in the novel. Perhaps the most crucial of these conversa
tions occurs with George. During the course of the discus
sion with her son Yram obtains from him the necessary in
formation to prove that the stranger whom he met in the
forest was his father. The final sentences of this conver
sation indicate a decided decrease of sentimentality in
166
Yram's character. George has questioned his mother:
"And who, in the name of all that we hold most
sacred, do you take him to have been— for I see you
know more than you have yet told me?"
"My son, he was Higgs the Sunchild, father to that
boy whom I love next to my husband more dearly than
any one in the whole world."
She folded her arms about him for a second, with
out kissing him, and left him. "And now," she said,
the moment she had closed the door— "and now I may cry."
She did not cry for long, and having removed all
trace of tears as far as might be, she returned to her
son outwardly composed and cheerful. (p. 413)
It is significant that Yram cries only once in the entire
novel. Whereas her crying in Erewhon appeared to be an
excessive expression of emotion with respect to a particu
lar event, her tears in Erewhon Revisited are more than
adequately motivated, for in telling her son that his father
is not her present husband, but the Englishman Sunchild,
Yram makes a difficult confession. When she proceeds to
explain the circumstances which drew her and Higgs together,
Yram speaks with a dispassionate directness. George is
told that when Higgs first arrived in Erewhon, his mother
was being courted by a man named Strong. Yram informs
George that she liked Higgs
"better than I liked Strong. I was a fool— but there'.
As for Higgs, he liked, but did not love me. If I had
let him alone he would have done the like by me; and
let each other alone we did, till the day before he was
167
taken down to the capital. On that day, whether
through his fault or mine I know not— we neither of
us meant it— it was as though Nature, my dear, was
determined that you should not slip through her fin
gers— well, on that day we took it into our heads that
we were broken-hearted lovers— the rest followed. And
how, my dearest boy, as I look upon you, can I feign
repentance?" (p. 414)
Butler handles the entire matter of the reunion between
Yram and Higgs with much skill. Never do their meetings
together become strongly sentimental. Yram possesses a
firm control over her emotions. When she visits Higgs in
prison after he has declared himself to be the so-called
Sunchild, she manifests the compassion and warmth which
Butler develops in her character throughout the novel. Yram
seems strongly maternal in her desire to comfort Higgs.
Both were agitated, but Yram betrayed less of what
she felt than my father. He could only bow his head
and cover his face with his hands. Yram said, "We are
old friends? take your hands from your face and let me
see you. There'. That is well."
She took his right hand between both hers, looked
at him with eyes full of kindness, and said softly—
"You are not much changed, but you look haggard,
worn, and ill? I am uneasy about you. Remember, you
are among friends, who will see that no harm befalls
you. There is a look in your eyes that frightens me."
As she spoke she took the wine out of her basket,
and poured him out a glass, but rather to give him
some little thing to distract his attention, than be
cause she expected him to drink it— which he could not
do. (pp. 539-540)
Throughout this meeting with Higgs in jail, Yram illustrates
168
a great intuitive grasp of human psychology. She seems to
be able to place people into a context and deal with them
in a manner appropriate to the given context. She sees
Higgs in the context of one who realizes that he is a threat
to the beliefs of an entire society. In addition Higgs and
Yram confront one another in the intense situation of two
people who once held affectionate feelings for one another,
but who have been separated for an extended period of time.
With these points in mind Yram consciously seems to direct
the conversation away from any mention of delicate matters.
She never asked him whether he found her altered,
or turned the conversation ever such a little on to
herself? all was for him? to soothe and comfort him,
not in words alone, but in look, manner, and voice.
(p. 540)
Even when Higgs asks Yram to indicate what her life has been
like since he left Erewhon, she is reluctant to dwell on the
details. What she does say, she reports with frankness and
sincerity. Her statement is a testimony of her basic hon
esty over the twenty years' duration of Higgs's absence.
Yram indicates that she never really forgot the father of
her son George, but stresses that she refused to allow her
self to spend much time thinking about her feelings for
Higgs. Yram's conversation, in short, seems to blend two
169
important elements of her character, compassion and ration
ality. She says to Higgs that
"I might have been very happy with you, but I could
not have been happier than I have been ever since
that short dreadful time was over. George must tell
you the rest. I cannot do so. All is well. I love
my husband with my whole heart and soul, and he loves
me with his. As between him and me, he knows every
thing; George is his son, not yours; we have settled
it so; though we both know otherwise; as between you
and me, for this one hour, here, there is no use in
pretending that you are not George‘s father. I have
said all I need say. Now, tell me what I asked you—
Why are you here?" (p. 541)
In the lengthy discussion that follows Higgs details
to Yram the numerous experiences he has encountered as a
result of his return to Erewhon. The conclusion of the
conversation and Yram’s exit from the jail serve to estab
lish the maturity of her character.
"Try and eat what I have brought you in this basket.
I hope you will like the wine." She put out her hand,
which my father took, and in another moment she was
gone, for she saw a look in his face as though he
would fain have asked her to let him once more press
his lips to hers. Had he done this, without thinking
about it, it is likely enough she would not have been
ill pleased. But who can say? (pp. 546-547)
There is little in the scenes between Yram and Higgs
that would suggest that the two still harbor strong feelings
for each other; however, Butler often has a character reveal
his emotional position while he is alone. Such is the case
170
when Higgs visits Yram's home for a luncheon. After the
meal he is directed to a room in which he can rest prior to
the remaining activities of the day. The narrator remarks:
My father on reaching his room went to the dressing-
table, where he saw a small unpretending box, which he
immediately opened. On the top was a paper w.‘th the
words, "Look— say nothing— forget." Beneath this was
some cotton wool, and then— the two buttons and the
lock of his own hair, that he had given Yram when he
said good-bye to her.
The ghost of the lock that Yram had then given him
rose from the dead, and smote him as with a whip across
the face. On what dust-heap had it not been thrown how
many long years ago? Then she had never forgotten him?
to have been remembered all these years by such a woman
as that, and never to have heeded it— never to have
found out what she was though he had seen her day after
day for months. (p. 565)
Higgs's behavior in this scene indicates the degree of psy
chological reality which Butler has built into his charac
terization. Higgs's guilt at having disposed of the lock of
hair given to, him by Yram prompts him to rationalize that
she was "still budding" twenty years before when she gave
him the hair. Higgs, however, cannot prevent himself from
realizing that while Yram's feelings have always been sin
cere, his have been something less than honorable.
If a lovable woman— aye, or any woman— has loved a man,
even though he cannot marry her, or even wish to do so,
at any rate let him not forget her— and he had forgotten
Yram as completely until the last few days, as though he
had never seen her. He took her little missive, and
171
under "Look," he wrote, "I have"; under "Say nothing,"
"I will"; under "forget," "never." "And I never shall,"
he said to himself, as he replaced the box upon the
table. He then lay down to rest upon the bed, but he
could get no sleep. (p. 565)
The final meeting between Higgs and Yram occurs just
prior to Higgs's final departure for England. The scene
provides an interesting comparison with the similar scene
in the first novel when Higgs and Yram were forced to part.
There are no tears shed in this final scene; yet there is
no lack of sentiment in the parting.
"And now, Mr. Higgs, about our leave-taking. Of course
we shall both of us feel much. I shall; I know you will;
George will have a few more hours with you than the rest
of us, but his time to say good-bye will come, and it
will be painful to both of you. I am glad you came— I
am glad you have seen George, and George you, and that
you took to one another. I am glad my husband has seen
you; he has spoken to me about you very warmly, for he
has taken to you much as George did. I am very, very
glad to have seen you myself, and to have learned what
became of you— and of your wife. I know you wish well
to all of us; be sure that we all of us wish most heart
ily well to you and yours. I sent for you and George,
because I could not say all this unless we were alone;
it is all I can do," she said, with a smile, "to say it
now." (p. 572)
Yram's final remarks to Higgs indicate her concern for the
proper decorum of his parting.
"Let this," continued Yram, "be our leave-taking—
for we must have nothing like a scene upstairs. Just
shake hands with us all, say the usual conventional
things, and make it as short as you can; but I could
172
not bear to send you away without a few warmer words
than I could have said when others were in the room."
(p. 573)
After this scene Yram is no longer present in the novel,
and Higgs, escorted part way by George, commences his return
to England.
The minor characters in Erewhon Revisited are created
with a skill commensurate to that involved in characterizing
the figures of Higgs, Hanky, Panky, and Yram. Butler im
proves upon a technique he had used in The Wav of All Flesh?
namely, he places a great deal of meaning— often ironic—
about a character into a short descriptive statement of the
person. This technique is used in the novel at Yram's
dinner-party when several of the guests are discussed by
the narrator on the basis of what Higgs had told him.
Mrs. Humdrum, one of the women who had remembered Higgs
from his first trip to Erewhon, is among the guests at the
dinner. Her description implies that she is primarily in
terested in appearances, in looking and acting as she thinks
■ i
she ought to look and act. The narrator remarks that Old
Mrs. Humdrum was there
with her venerable white hair and rich black satin dress,
looking the very ideal of all that a stately old dowager
ought to be. In society she was commonly known as Ydgrun,
so perfectly did she correspond with the conception of
173
this strange goddess formed by the Erewhonians. (p. 396)
Mrs. Humdrum's character reminds one of Ernest's mother
Christina. Throughout The Wav of All Flesh emphasis was
placed on Christina Pontifex's love for her husband and
family, for she thought a woman "ought to" love her inti
mates. Her devotion and affection, especially for Theobald,
were often prompted more by a sense of duty than by a warmth
of heart. Mrs. Humdrum's physical and moral appearance
seems to be motivated by a similar sense of duty. She be
comes somewhat of an ironic figure when Higgs compares her
to the "Erinyes," the so-called group of Erewhonian sinners.
The narrator remarks that when his father told him that Mrs.
Humdrum was called Ydgrun,
he said, "I am sure that the Erinyes were only Mrs.
Humdrums, and that they were delightful people when
you came to know them. I do not believe they did the
awful things we say they did. I think, but am not quite
sure, that they let Orestes off; but even though they
had not pardoned him, I doubt whether they would have
done anything more dreadful to him than issue a mot d'
ordre that he was not to be asked to any more afternoon
teas. This, however, would be down-right torture to
some people. At any rate," he continued, "be it the
Erinyes, or Mrs. Grundy, or Ydgrun, in all times and
places it is woman who decides whether society is to
condone an offence or no." (p. 396)
Mrs. Humdrum, then, is seen to be a force in society with
the power to make strong moral judgments; however, Butler
174
leaves some doubts as to her abilities for making such de
cisions wisely. Butler's tendency to direct satire at a
particular person by comparing his situation with that of
some great historical personage is evident in the above
passage when Higgs remarks to his son that Orestes was pre
vented only from partaking of tea at afternoon parties.
One is reminded of the tone of the passages in The Way of
All Flesh when Theobald approaches an argument with Ernest
or Christina as if he were a notable military hero, prepar
ing for imminent conflict.
The episode of Yram's dinner party includes another
brief, but ironically amusing, character description. It is
of a Miss La Frime, a spinster who operates a ladies' semi
nary in Erewhon. The school is famous for the large number
of girls in attendance who proceed to have successful mar
riages .
According to Erewhonian custom the successful marriages
of the pupils are inscribed yearly on the oak paneling
of the college refectory, and a reprint from these in
pamphlet form accompanies all the prospectuses that are
sent out to parents. (p. 397)
Thomas Higgs's second trip to Erewhon repeatedly brings
him face to face with a number of significant minor persons.
While wandering about randomly prior to the dedication
175
service of the Sunchild's new temple, Higgs stops at a book
stand to buy some literature which might serve to illuminate
some of the key Erewhonian beliefs with which he was not
familiar. Higgs selects a book entitled The Phvsics of
Vicarious Existence by a Dr. Gurgoyle. The volume is sup
posedly a compendium of all that had been said by the Sun-
child. Dr. Gurgoyle's personality is revealed through the
statements he makes in the book. The subject matter of
Gurgoyle's treatise, particularly his view of the Sunchild's
view of immortality, happens to be identical with that of
7
Butler. Dr. Gurgoyle, in short, appears to serve a dual
function in the hovel. He represents, in one sense, the
odd Erewhonian interpretations of all that was said and
done by Higgs on his initial trip to Erewhon. Dr. Gur-
goyle's writings, on the other hand, operate to explain
Samuel Butler's views on certain aspects of human existence.
Dr. Gurgoyle, like many of Butler's earlier characters, is
somewhat of an exponent for the author's ideas. Numerous
concepts related to Butler's theories of conscious and un
conscious acts and racial memory are treated either expli
citly or implicitly in Dr. Gurgoyle's writings. Dr.
^Stillman, p. 295.
Gurgoyle's ideas are important for what they reveal about
his character. He is seen to be unscrupulous and dishonest
in his efforts to manipulate the Sunchild's teachings, and
the satire of Dr. Gurgoyle is, of course, intended to fall
upon the entire Erewhonian system of religious and intellec
tual thought.
Prior to the dedication of the temple Higgs meets Mr.
Balmy, who is of the Erewhonian belief which dictates that
one should wear his clothes backwards in order to emulate
the Sunchild's style of dress. Balmy's description is fur
ther testimony of Butler's ability to say much about a
character in a few words. Needless to say, the comments
made about Balmy's facial appearance reveal much significant
information about the man's mental characteristics.
The expression on this man's face was much like that
of the early Christians as shown in the S. Giovanni
Laterano bas-reliefs at Rome, and again, though less
aggressively self-confident, like that on the faces of
those who have joined the Salvation Army. (pp. 464-465)
Balmy is fascinated by Higgs's knowledge of the English
language and believes that Higgs is one of the few chosen
individuals with whom the Sunchild had feigned a common
heritage. Balmy persuades Higgs to speak in English, for
he wants to interpret. Higgs, however, can think of nothing
177
to say except a meaningless couplet, and recites:
"My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills
My father feeds his flock— a frugal swain." . >
(p, 467)
After hearing these phrases Balmy exclaims that he could
interpret every word of what was said, but he prefers not
to translate, for as he remarks
". . .it would not become me to do so, for you have
conveyed to me a message more comforting than I can
bring myself to repeat even to him who has conveyed
it." (p. 467)
Butler continues to satirize Mr. Balmy throughout the scene;
however, there is a note of realism in Balmy's behavior.
Balmy involves himself in a lengthy conversation with Higgs
about the miracles of the Sunchild. Balmy monopolizes the
discussion, and whenever Higgs tries to contribute to the
conversation, Balmy addresses him flatly with remarks such
as "Hear me to the end," "Let me finish what I have to say,"
and "Alas'." Balmy, like Hanky, Panky, and Gurgoyle, is an
object of satire. Since he is a former professor of the
hypothetical language, he represents another element of the
Erewhonian intellectual scene at which to poke fun.
The final significant minor character in the novel is
Dr. Downie. Mrs. Stillman contrasts Downie to Professors
178
Hanky and Panky. She refers to Hanky as being the kind of
man whom the English would have considered "rightly or
wrongly" the typical Jesuit. Panky, on the other hand, is
what the English would have called an "extreme ritualist."
Dr. Downie, however, represents a third type, the Broad
Churchman.®
When Dr. Downie is first introduced into the novel, he
is strongly satirized. Higgs characterizes Downie when he
is present at the dinner party given by Yram:
There was Dr. Downie, Professor of Logomachy, and per
haps the most subtle dialectician in Erewhon. He could
say nothing in more words than any man of his genera
tion. His text-book on the "Art of Obscuring Issues"
had passed through ten or twelve editions, and was in
the hands of all aspirants for academic distinction.
He had earned a high reputation for sobriety of judgment
by resolutely refusing to have definite views on any
subjects; so safe a man was he considered, that while
still quite young he had been appointed to the lucrative
post of Thinker in Ordinary to the Royal Family. (pp.
395-396)
Butler's technique of satirizing a character by emphasizing
the irony of his character is obvious in the above passage.
Professor Downie's freedom from any and all ideas would seem
to negate his qualifications for being the Royal Family
Thinker.
8Stiliman, pp. 287-288.
Dr. Downie is not always the object of satire in the
novel. He is one minor character who undergoes a substan
tial degree of development in the novel. "Strangely
enough," Mrs. Stillman remarks, "it is with Dr. Downie that
9
the best interests of religion rest." He comes to repre
sent a figure genuinely interested in examining the state of
Erewhonian religion, and it is Dr. Downie, "who, as a sen
sible man of the world, is most anxious to consider what
ought to be done about Sunchildism."^ Dr. Downie's final
appearance in the novel occurs during his discussion with
Higgs concerning how to modify and improve the religious
situation of the country. Dr. Downie states during the
conversation that
"This . . . is a counsel of perfection. Things have
gone too far, and we are flesh and blood. What would
those who in your country come nearest to us Musical
Bank Managers do if they found they had made such a
mistake as we have, and dared not own it?" (p. 569)
Higgs's advice stresses the need to drop the so-called
"relics and miracles and mystery-making" associated with
Sunchildism and to stress the spirit and utility of the
9Stiliman, p. 288. 10Harris, p. 92.
180
religion.11 Dr. Downie seems to respond favorably to the
suggestions, and it seems likely that he will "effectively
preserve the religious spirit by 'living lukewarmly against'
12
supernaturalism and church politics." By the end of the
novel Butler refrains completely from satirizing Dr. Downie,
and indeed almost idealizes his characterization, for Downie
has come to represent the author's approach to religion as
stated in the preface to Erewhon Revisited, dated May 1,
1901.
If I may be allowed for a moment to speak about
myself, I would say that I have never ceased to pro
fess myself a member of the more advanced wing of the
English Broad Church. What those who belong to this
wing believe, I believe. What they reject, I reject.
No two people think absolutely alike on any subject,
but when I converse with advanced Broad Churchmen I
find myself in substantial harmony with them.^-3
Dr, Downie, in short, has become an exponent for Butler's
opinion on the matter of Erewhonian religion.
Erewhon Revisited, like Erewhon. is a novel in which
ideas play an extremely important part. Unlike the ideas
in Erewhon. however, those in the second novel do not become
11Harris, pp. 92-93. ^Stillman, p. 288.
13Erewhon Revisited, pp. 312-313.
181
the heroes of the work. People, not ideas, are the heroes
of Erewhon Revisited. The change of emphasis from ideas to
the individuals who create, sustain, and change ideas con
stitutes perhaps the greatest achievement in Butler's career
as a novelist. Even those characters in Erewhon Revisited
who exist primarily to represent key ideas are not subor
dinated to the ideas. The characters of Erewhon Revisited—
Yram, Higgs, Hanky, Panky, George, Downie— never allow the
reader to forget that they are human beings with joys, sor
rows, triumphs, and defeats of their own. There can be no
doubt of the fact that the characters of Erewhon Revisited
leave a far deeper impression in the mind of the reader
than do their counterparts in the first novel.
CONCLUSION
Butler's improvement in the area of character creation
stands out noticeably— almost dramatically— after one has
surveyed his three novels: Erewhon. The Wav of All Flesh,
and Erewhon Revisited. The close study of these three
novels illustrates many times over how Butler had attained
far greater tact and sophistication in describing and de-
i
veloping characters in The Way of All Flesh and Erewhon
Revisited than he had in his first novel, Erewhon. The
characters in Butler's first novel recall the description
made by E. M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel of so-called
"flat" characters. Forster remarks:
Flat characters were called "humours" in the seven
teenth century, and are sometimes called types, and
sometimes caricatures. In their purest form, they are
constructed round a single idea or quality: when there
is more than one factor in them, we get the beginning
of the curve towards the round. . . .
One great advantage of flat characters is that they
are easily recognized whenever they come in— recognized
by the reader's emotional eye, not by the visual eye
which merely notes the recurrence of a proper name. . . .
flat characters are very useful to him [the author],
since they never need reintroducing, never run away,
182
183
have not to be watched for development, and provide
their own atmosphere— little luminous disks of a pre
arranged size, pushed hither and thither like counters
across the void or between the stars; most satisfac
tory . 1
One thinks immediately of Yram, Arowhena, and the Nos-
nibors as manifestations of the "flat" character. They are
almost completely devoid of any development; and they are,
as indicated in Chapter I of this paper, merely exponents
for ideas. It is significant to note that the reversals in
the spelling of most of the characters1 names are the chief
means by which Butler distinguishes the characters in the
first novel from one another. Butler himself was conscious
of this elementary technique, for in his Notebooks he apol
ogizes for the names in Erewhon by calling attention to his
status as "an unpractised writer" (p. 288). In Erewhon
Revisited no new reversals in spelling are introduced for
the new character names, although Butler continues to util
ize names to direct satire at given individuals, as in the
case of Professors Hanky and Panky, whose names, we are
told, translate to Hokus and Pokus.
In addition to the "flat" characterizations in Erewhon.
•^London, 1927), pp. 103-105.
184
there is much sentimentality in some of the characteriza
tions, notably those of Yram and Arowhena. Such sentimen
tality is almost non-existent in the sequel, where Yram has
become a woman of rather admirable qualities, almost com
pletely free from any hint of her earlier sentimentality.
Finally, another interesting comparison between the
first and final novels concerns the function of the narra
tor. In Erewhon the narrator carries the burden of reveal
ing to the reader all of the relevant facts about a charac
ter; however, in the subsequent two novels, particularly in
Erewhon Revisited, this role of the narrator is substanti
ally reduced, because the characters themselves speak and
act in an attempt to present the significant details of
their personalities and beliefs.
By the time Butler commences to write The Wav of All
Flesh he appears to have had some new ideas about character
ization. The relationship that Butler probably had with the
figures in his second novel may have been similar to the
association that Anthony Trollope suggests should exist
between the novelist and his characters.
But the novelist has other aims than the elucidation of
his plot. He desires to make his readers so intimately
acquainted with his characters that the creations of his
brain should be to them speaking, moving, living, human
185
creatures. This he can never do unless he knows those
fictitious personages himself, and he can never know
them well unless he can live with them in the full
reality of established intimacy. They must be with
him as he lies down to sleep, and as he wakes from his
dreams. He must learn to hate them and to love them.
He must know of them whether they be cold-blooded or
passionate, whether true or false, and how far true,
and how far false. The depth and the breadth, and the
narrowness and the shallowness of each should be clear
to him. And as, here in our outer world, we know that
men and women change,— become worse or better as temp
tation or conscience may guide them,— so should these
creations of his change, and every change should be
noted by him. On the last day of each month recorded,
every person in his novel should be a month older than
on the first. If the would-be novelist have aptitudes
that way, all this will come to him without much strug
gling;— but if it do not come, I think he can only make
novels of wood.^
There can be little doubt that Samuel Butler knew Theobald
and Christina Pontifex in the way outlined by Trollope. In
short, somewhat of a rapport exists between Butler and al
most all of his characters in the second and third novels.
A rapport exists in the sense that Butler is aware of the
characters, perhaps for the first time in his career as a
novelist; and he takes heed of their behavior and personal
ities; and, most important of all, he seeks out the reasons
for character actions and beliefs. Again the Pontifex
family illustrates these points in Butler's development.
^Autobiography (London, 1883), p. 209.
186
The scenes in which Christina and Theobald are returning
home after having deposited Ernest in Dr. Skinner's school
include accounts of personal introspection on the part of
the parents and the son, and it is through such introspec
tion that Butler attempts to point out the "whys" behind
the behavior of various members of the family. Such intro
spection is merely one of several methods Butler employs in
the later novels to provide for greater insight into char
acter .
If the criteria for a successful characterization call
for character motivation and verisimilitude, then the char
acterizations of most of the figures in the later two novels
are, in the main, successful. Indeed, the chief purpose of
the early chapters in The Wav of All Flesh is to provide
hereditary and environmental -reasons for the behavior of
the members of the Pontifex family. The characters are
placed into a physiological and psychological context in
which they become "real," for they share the established
physical and mental characteristics of a common heritage.
Perhaps one of Butler's greatest achievements in the last
two novels is that of creating a background for the leading
traits of the characters, for in doing so he also illus
trates the powerful effects of the conduct of one character
on the lives of other characters. In Erewhon Revisited,
for example, there can be no doubt about the fact that the
actions of Professors Hanky and Panky to perpetuate certain
false beliefs have affected the fundamental beliefs of most
of the citizens of Erewhon.
Throughout his years as a novelist, then, Butler ap
pears to have become more and more cognizant of the impor
tance of adequate characterizations. The implication of
much of this paper has been that his characters have often
determined' in no small way the success or failure of But
ler's novels. For most readers the weaknesses in charac
terization in the first novel resulted in its ultimate
failure, for ideas alone could not sustain either the in
terest or the respect of the reading audience. This same
reading audience became far more enthusiastic about the
final two novels because of the strength, vitality, and
color of the characterizations. In Erewhon the characters
spend most of their time chattering, and occasionally they
experience a seemingly contrived or forced feeling, as do
Yram, Arowhena, and Higgs. In The Way of All Flesh and
Erewhon Revisited, on the other hand, the characters love,
hate, hope, despair, cheat, praise, damn, succeed, and fail
more nearly as all men and women do.
Butler's growing success in the creation of characters
seems to have been paralleled and, in no insignificant way,
prompted by his re-evaluation of the relationship between
people and ideas. When reading the early works, one often
feels that Butler saw ideas as being totally separated from
human beings? hence the early works, including the first
novel, ErewhonT presented characters as mere representations
or exponents for ideas and beliefs rather than as the crea
tors of these same ideas and beliefs. But numerous charac
ters in the later two novels, and among them particularly
Professors Hanky and Panky, as mentioned in the chapter on
Erewhon Revisited, strongly suggest that Butler clearly
recognized that the origin of ideas and beliefs lies within
men. The strong figures in the last novels are never sub
ordinate to ideas. Indeed, as Clara Stillman points out,
Butler (like Ernest Pontifex) attained happiness in his life
only after he had gained the awareness that the individual
must never allow himself to become a blind slave to the
dictates of any idea or institution, but rather must dic-
3
tate his own purpose and destiny m life.
■^Stillman, p. 304.
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Core Title Characterization In The Novels Of Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

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