Wednesday 16 January 2013
Thursday 28 April 2011
Helen Garner: Monkey Grip
HELEN GARNER (1942- )
Key Study: Monkey Grip
Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip plunges into the chaotic bohemia of 1970s Melbourne, where the melting pot of artists, actors and musicians experiments with new ways of living and loving. Single mother Nora falls hard for actor Javo, but their relationship is fraught with problems from the beginning. Javo is a heroin addict; Nora is no less hooked on love, and neither of them can escape the trap that they have willingly walked into.
Javo is described initially as a bludger with scars on his face, who has just ‘got off’ heroin.[1] Nora describes his life as ‘a messy holiday of living off his friends’.[2] She is attracted to his face, ‘crooked, wrecked and wild’ and the boyish flow of his movements[3]; already it appears that Nora’s preference for Javo is an act of adolescent-like rebellion. She rationalises, ‘People like Javo need people like me, steadier, to circle around for a while’[4], which emphasises her naivety and childlike approach to relationships.
Javo is restless and idle, never making an active effort to steer his life’s course, but rather waits ‘for the tide to lift and carry him’.[5] Sometimes he shows Nora a deeper, more reflective side to his character, but only in private[6]; again, this is a childish pattern of behaviour: Nora and Javo are both children where their relationship is concerned, although Nora is more responsible and adult in other aspects of her life, such as caring for her daughter Gracie and supporting her friends in times of need. She at least recognises that Javo cannot stay off heroin permanently: ‘He’ll always do it again’, she states baldly, realising it is useless to argue with Javo about it.[7]
Nora is wholeheartedly committed to her relationship with Javo, but their love is not enough for him without heroin.[8] When he comes down off the junk, he is troubled and moody, and does not acknowledge Nora except in his bouts of anxiety, which are the only times that he needs her, for reassurance purposes.[9] ‘He became my sick child,’ Nora says of a particularly bad episode[10], where Javo takes so much heroin that his skin becomes infected and he ends up in hospital with septicæmia.[11] Javo leaves hospital before he is cured and expects Nora to care for him and administer his penicillin shots.[12] Soon afterward, he travels to Bangkok and is arrested for stealing a pair of sunglasses; he writes to Nora that he needs ‘strong love’ but when she complies with fervent daily letters he does not respond.[13] At his best, Javo is charming but weak and selfish nonetheless; at his worst he becomes the ‘king of beasts’, as Nora disgustedly describes him one day when he jokes about wanting to give heroin to a non-junkie acquaintance.[14] ‘Javo the monster. I don’t know him when he’s like this. I wish he would go away,’ Nora says desperately, wanting the ‘old’ Javo back but knowing it is unlikely to happen.[15] As he descends further into his junk-crusted oubliette, Javo becomes ‘filthy and neglected’ in appearance[16]; and it becomes correspondingly clearer that Nora’s love for him is as dangerous, destructive, and addicting as the heroin. Why doesn’t she leave? She does confront him at one point: ‘I told him he was living a sordid life, which he tried to make dramatic by saying things like “I might as well go out and shoot myself”; that he was cutting off his options, one after another...’[17] but Javo turns the tables on her, insisting that his life is not sordid and that he uses less heroin and his life seems simpler when he is away from Nora.[18] Things come to [19]a head when Javo steals eighty dollars from Nora’s housemate; they have an altercation and Javo takes off for Hobart, where his mother lives, and where he goes to get clean. Upon his return, Nora sees immediately that he is back on the heroin, but the time off it has made him ‘alive’ again, and she rejoices.[20] It’s a vicious cycle. And they do finally break up, but Nora’s addiction proves to be hardest to shake; Javo begins a relationship with Claire but Nora feels jealous and lost, and is unable to finally let go until she takes a trip down to a nearby coastal town, where she is soothed and healed by the solitude of the beach.
Because of the nature of her addiction, Nora’s character is more nurturing and generous than Javo’s. She is grounded by a streak of realism that prevents her from romanticising too much about Javo when she knows that the heroin will always come first; it doesn’t change her love for him, but she feels compelled to try and save him, and she warns herself constantly against needing him too much or becoming dependent emotionally on him. She cannot stop herself from fantasising, though, and feeds her addiction with dangerous dreams such as the one where she gets her loop removed secretly so she can deceive Javo into knocking her up, giving her a ‘piece of him’ that she can love unconditionally.[21] She treasures even the smallest instances of trust Javo shows in her; when he goes to deny that he is stoned and then admits ‘Yes’, she feels that their relationship has progressed.[22] When they are apart, Nora only remembers the good things about him.[23] When they reunite after a separation, Nora feels complete and tells him that she never wants to stop loving him.[24] Nora cries and rages over the futility of Javo’s heroin habit, but when she and Javo look at or touch each other, everything falls ‘simply and momentarily into place’.[25] She tells herself she is strong, to justify her love for a junkie; she rationalises her behaviour by insisting that ‘Women are nicer than men. Kinder, more open, less suspicious, more eager to love.’[26] When Javo tells her he’s going to quit, she wants desperately to have faith in him despite what her common sense tells her. Yet when she allows herself to feel hopeful, Javo betrays her trust again and again. They break up and continue as friends, but Nora still fantasises about him and every time they meet, it ends in lovemaking.[27] Like any addiction, Nora’s recovery begins only when she admits that her love for Javo is destroying her and that if she is to survive, she must learn to get over loving him.[28]
Garner captures Nora and Javo’s mutual and separate struggles excruciatingly well. Their story is a tragedy, in that both eventually recover from their addictions but in doing so, must reforge their lives apart from one another. The concept of love as a drug is especially potent amidst the tumultuous mixture of music, drugs and free love that is bohemian Carlton in the mid-1970s, where everyone searches for their individual high in order to be part of the collective high. However, the book’s greatest triumph is in keeping Nora a sympathetic and likeable character, despite her persistent inability to break away from Javo and her willingness to join with him in spite of her awareness that his promises to her are hollow, his commitment faltering, against the lure of drugs. Or maybe it’s just that we’re more sympathetic to the idea of being addicted to love – traditionally represented as an emotion of purity – than something so sordid as heroin? Certainly something to consider, anyway.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Garner, Helen. Monkey Grip. Ringwood: Penguin, 1978. First published in 1977.
[1] H. Garner, Monkey Grip (Ringwood: Penguin, 1978), p. 1
[2] Garner, p. 2
[3] Garner, p. 4
[4] Garner, p. 7
[5] Garner, p. 8
[6] Garner, p. 12
[7] Garner, p. 21
[8] Garner, p. 70
[9] Garner, p. 27
[10] Garner, p. 30
[11] Garner, p. 38
[12] Garner, p. 40
[13] Garner, p. 53
[14] Garner, p. 170
[15] Garner, p. 78
[16] Garner, p. 85
[17] Garner, p. 113
[18] Garner, p. 119
[19] Garner, p. 244
[20] Garner, p. 198
[21] Garner, p. 23
[22] Garner, p. 32
[23] Garner, p. 55
[24] Garner, p. 65
[25] Garner, p. 67
[26] Garner, p. 82
[27] Garner, p. 132
[28] Garner, p. 138
Barbara Baynton: Bush Studies
BARBARA BAYNTON (1857-1929)
Key Study: Bush Studies (1902)
Barbara Baynton, though a contemporary of Henry Lawson and A. B. Paterson, does not belong in the same category. The characteristics of the ‘Australian bush’ legend – which dominated Australian literature in the late 19th century – are not to be found in her work. There is no mateship and no love of the bush; no pride in Australian national identity. Those of Baynton’s characters that do manage to adapt and assimilate into the bush, do so generally by leaving behind any qualities of kindness or sympathy, to be replaced by a mercenary hardness and a bitter humour that is no humour at all.
There are seven stories in Bush Studies and all of them present the same bleak world, albeit from different angles. There is a Gothic quality to Baynton’s writing, visible most clearly in ‘A Dreamer’, with its recurring ghostly wind music and motifs of death, as well as the image of the train as a supernatural beast, with ‘rain spitting viciously at its red mouth.’[1] Later in the story, the female protagonist has a vision of a horseman ‘galloping furiously towards her.’[2] ‘The Chosen Vessel’ is another story that has distinct Gothic elements: the crow, the carrion bird as a symbol of death, and the religious/superstitious visions of Peter Hennessey, which lead him into believing that a woman crying for help is actually the Virgin Mary, and subsequently costs the woman her life.[3]
It may be said that all of Baynton’s women are victims in some aspect. Her harsh reconstructions of the Australian bush are unsuitable for human existence in general, but women in particular, for they are at the mercy of the unforgiving landscape as much as of their unsympathetic husbands, employers, or vagrants looking for sexual gratification. The woman in ‘The Chosen Vessel’ is triply a victim; she is raped by a swagman, then becomes a victim of Hennessey’s superstition (she calls out to him for help but he does not save her, and she is murdered by the swagman), and indeed of her own belief that horsemen are ‘good’, swagmen are not.[4] The fact that Peter Hennessey rides a horse is certainly no proof of his ‘goodness’ or, as it happens, his rational thinking. The swagman violates her but it is the horseman that ultimately fails her. In ‘Billy Skywonkie’, the half-Chinese housekeeper becomes a victim through not only her sex but also the stigma of being a half-caste. Even the station rouseabout is at liberty to treat her like a piece of meat and talk about her, while in her presence, as if she is a slave or a concubine.[5] Later, he makes sexual advances towards her; upon rejection he launches into a diatribe summed up with the declaration, ‘I ken get as many w’ite gins as I wanter, an’ I’d as soon tackle a gin as a chow any day!’ [6] The slatternly Mag, who operates an illicit ‘wine shanty’, also takes the notion that she is superior to the housekeeper because she is white.[7] The owner of the station, where she has been deployed, is furious when he sees her, and rants about her temerity in accepting the housekeeper’s position at all.[8] Finally, and perhaps most tellingly in Baynton’s white-supremacist society, the Chinese cook looks down on her because of her Anglo blood; half-castes have ‘too muchee longa jlaw’ for him ever to consider marrying one.[9]
There are several women in Bush Studies with a marginal amount of power: the ‘rabbit-ketcher’ (midwife) Jyne from ‘Bush Church’, whose domineering nature coupled with her midwifery skills ensures her reign over her placid husband and her neighbours[10]; also, Lizer from ‘Billy Skywonkie’, the half-Aboriginal mistress of Billy the rouseabout, of whom Billy is quite frightened.[11] Yet in their way they are also victims of life and circumstance; their characters, honed and hardened by years of bush life, are not likeable, and alienate them from other women.
Baynton’s cruellest depiction of woman as victim, however, is found in ‘Squeaker’s Mate’. Squeaker’s mate, though she is the dominant one of the pairing of her and ‘Squeaker’, and does the majority of the work while her ‘mate’ lies idle, is not dignified with a name until the very end of the story. She is stoic and uncomplaining and has adapted well to the hardship of the bush; yet still the bush betrays her, when her back is broken by a falling tree.[12] Her resilience even in the face of this tragedy is a contrast to the timidity of Baynton’s other women, but it does not give her an advantage or lessen the grimness of her fate. Her only, and bitter, triumph comes at the end of the story, when she asserts her strength of body and mind over Squeaker’s ‘new mate’, then refuses to call her dog off the traitorous Squeaker, with whom her patience has run out at last. Finally, when he is at her mercy, he calls her by name for the first time in the story.[13]
The dog in ‘Squeaker’s Mate’ is interesting because its allegiance is solely to Squeaker’s mate, rather than to the man, which adds weight to Squeaker’s mate’s status as the dominant of the two, despite her sex. The loyal friendship between a dog and his master is one frequently recognised in Lawson’s stories, but in Bush Studies it takes on a sinister additional significance. ‘Squeaker’s Mate’ aside, Baynton’s stories emphasise that a dog’s loyalty is to man; in ‘The Chosen Vessel’ this relationship serves as another reminder of the oppression of women. The story concludes with the rapist washing his cap in the creek, and the statement, ‘But the dog also was guilty’.[14] Instead of protecting the woman from her attacker, the dog joins in. ‘Scrammy ’And’ depicts a more heartwarming relationship between dog and master, with the dog seemingly gifted with human intelligence, as illustrated by the ‘answers’ he gives in response to his shepherd master’s conversation.[15] However, the brutal ending of the story – the shepherd’s death of fright, the ‘broken-ribbed dog’s fight’, an act of futility to keep the flies off his dead master – is an image that will last longer with the reader than the goodwill generated by the bond between man and dog.[16]
That being said, there is a notable absence of goodwill in most of Bush Studies. Baynton mocks the traditional ‘bush hospitality’ ideal in the first line of ‘Bush Church’: ‘The hospitality of the bush never extends to the loan of a good horse to an inexperienced rider.’[17] The people, who have gathered for the parson’s sermon, simmer in a stew of bitterness, illiteracy, ignorance, violence and dry, contemptuous humour. A potent image is that of a girl poking a billy-goat with a stick; she deliberately allows him to get close to the bucket of water so that she can poke him, taking pleasure in his thwarting.[18] The girl, Jinny, is later fleshed out as a person of intelligence and cunning, who has little regard for adult authority; the other children are just as unpleasant in a duller way. The parson has travelled to the remote station to bring the word of God, yet the whole exercise is a farce; these people, hardened and dehumanised by the bush, are so far removed from Christianity that religion means nothing to them; they are less in awe of the Lord than of Keogh, the local squatter, upon whom their livelihood depends.[19] The story ends with the unrepentant children having eaten the parson’s dinner, knowing that there will be no repercussions because in their world he has no power.[20]
‘Squeaker’s Mate’ is a story where good deeds reap ill will. Squeaker’s mate does most of the work and never complains of her partner’s shortcomings. When she is crippled, however, Squeaker’s main concern is that he will now have to do all of the work. His initial anxiety soon deepens into resentment, and he channels this into verbal abuse, taunting his mate to ‘double up yer ole broke back an’ bite yerself.’[21] He sells her sheep and uses the profits to buy new boots for himself.[22] As a final insult, he brings home a ‘new mate’ from the nearby township and threatens to kill his ‘old’ mate if she makes any trouble for him.[23]
Perhaps the attitudes of Baynton’s characters are a direct derivation of the bush landscape in which they make their habitat. As in Lawson’s stories, Baynton’s bush is oftenmost a bleak and desolate wasteland where even the hardiest of swagmen might lose hope. However, Lawson employs a quiet, occasionally bitter, often wry humour that counterbalances this depressing setting and alleviates, in part, the suffering of those who populate it. By comparison, humour of any kind is conspicuously absent in Bush Studies. ‘A Dreamer’ describes the ‘straggling street of the township’ complete with an ‘ownerless dog’, where the only thriving business appears to be the local mortuary.[24] In ‘Scrammy ’And’, Baynton paints a sweeping picture of a vast and lonely plain dominated by a ‘great silence’.[25] ‘The Chosen Vessel’ introduces yet another ‘dismal, drunken little township’; the grimmest depiction, however, lies in the drought-stricken setting of ‘Billy Skywonkie’, with its ‘tireless, greedy sun’, thirsty dying animals and an overall impression of an awful, careworn patience.[26] The line ‘Gaping cracks suggested yawning graves’ adds a hellish element to the sun-parched plains.[27]
Amidst this prevalent despair, there is one recurring theme in Baynton’s work that conveys hope: the power of motherhood. In ‘A Dreamer’, the female main character is with child, and braves a furious storm (including risking her life to cross an overflowing creek) to get home to her mother. Against the raging elements of rain and wind and lightning, the talisman of her mother’s love proves stronger.[28] Of course, there are no happy endings in Baynton’s bush – the woman arrives home and finds that her mother is dead – but she still carries the promise of new life within her, which provides a certain optimism if the reader allows it.[29] In ‘The Chosen Vessel’, the power of motherhood is so strong that it prevails even beyond death; the boundary rider, who discovers the corpse of the murdered mother together with her still-alive infant, is forced ‘to cut its [the child’s] gown that the dead hand held.’[30]
Overall, Barbara Baynton has delivered a dark and malevolent version of the Australian bush, and of human nature itself. While she successfully draws attention to the undoubtedly real hardships that early Australians endured, particularly in such an inhospitable environment, she lacks the iconic humour that is the saving grace of Lawson’s stories. The most unique and sophisticated element of Baynton’s work is the Gothic quality that pervades several of her stories; it is quite unlike any other author’s work of that time period, and cements her a definitive place in Australian literature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Krimmer, Sally and Lawson, Alan (eds.). Barbara Baynton. St. Lucia: University of Queensland,
1980.
[1] B. Baynton, ‘A Dreamer’ in S. Krimmer and A. Lawson (eds.), Barbara Baynton (St. Lucia: University of
Queensland, 1980), p. 5
[2] Baynton, ‘A Dreamer’, p. 6
[3] Baynton, ‘The Chosen Vessel’, p. 87
[4] Baynton, ‘The Chosen Vessel’, p. 85
[5] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 51
[6] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 56
[7] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 53
[8] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 58
[9] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 59
[10] Baynton, ‘Bush Church’, p. 68
[11] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 57
[12] Baynton, ‘Squeaker’s Mate’, p. 12
[13] Baynton, ‘Squeaker’s Mate’, p. 26
[14] Baynton, ‘The Chosen Vessel’, p. 88
[15] Baynton, ‘Scrammy ’And’, p. 29
[16] Baynton, ‘Scrammy ’And’, p. 45
[17] Baynton, ‘Bush Church’, p. 61
[18] Baynton, ‘Bush Church’, p. 62
[19] Baynton, ‘Bush Church’, p. 77
[20] Baynton, ‘Bush Church’, p. 80
[21] Baynton, ‘Squeaker’s Mate’, p. 17
[22] Baynton, ‘Squeaker’s Mate’, p. 18
[23] Baynton, ‘Squeaker’s Mate’, p. 19
[24] Baynton, ‘A Dreamer’, p. 4-5
[25] Baynton, ‘Scrammy ’And’, p. 28
[26] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 46-47
[27] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 55
[28] Baynton, ‘A Dreamer’, p. 5
[29] Baynton, ‘A Dreamer’, p. 10
[30] Baynton, ‘The Chosen Vessel’, p. 85
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