Impermanence of human conditions in Madame Tussaud, Washing-Day, Enquiry and Close of Spring - Essay Example

8 October Impermanence of human conditions in Madame Tussaud, “Washing-Day,” Enquiry and “Close of Spring” Nothing lasts forever, especially human injustices. Several works of literature expose the transitory nature of power, authority and social norms. Michelle Moran’s Madame Tussaud explores the French Revolution and the downfall of the French monarchy, as well as several revolutionaries. William Godwin dissects several political and social themes in Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. Anna L?titia Barbauld describes the shaveows of gender lines in “Washing-Day.” Charlotte Smith understands that the cycle of life ensures death and renewal in “Sonnet Written at the Close of Spring.” Madame Tussaud informs these literary works because they stress the impermanence of human societies and conditions, particularly gender, social and political lines and question the existence of injustices and discriminations. Madam Tussaud shows that human society is in a constant flux of changes, including its monarchy and revolutions, which is apparent in Smith’s “Sonnet Written at the Close of Spring” and “Washing-Day.” The poem’s first two lines state the withering conditions of nature: “The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove, / Each simple flower which she has nurs’d in dew” (Smith 45). The same also goes for the monarchy. King Louis XVI thinks that he remains as beautiful as garlands to his people. He is unaware that his flowers of leniency to his people and enemies have made it easier for some politicians, especially the Duc d’ Orleans, to malign him and his wife through inaccurate stories and media machinations. The “Washing-Day” begins with a mournful tone too. Madam Tussaud supports the decline to melancholy of what has been the happy days of the monarchy. In “Washing-Day,” the Muses have lost their gayness: “The Muses are turned gossips; they have lost/The buskin'd step and clear high-sounding phrase” (Barbauld 30, lines 1-2). Instead of inspiring song and praises, the Muses are gossiping. Their bustling steps and high-sounding phrases are ominous. Madam Tussaud reveals that the media can be a muse for anyone with political goals and interests. Even before and more so after, the Estates-General, the papers ravenously fed on Marie Antoinette, depicting her as a devil temptress with no morals and conscience. Political activists wrote untrue stories of her promiscuity and extravagance. They told the masses that the royal family only used their taxes to continue a lavish lifestyle that the Third Estate could no longer uphold. The masses, easily affected, blamed her for everything, including their wretched lives. Robespierre expresses these lies in his social circles too. He talks about Marie Antoinette’s jewelry when he says: “Vanity! And while our countrymen are starving, she is decorating herself with diamond aigrettes!” (Moran 36). These are signs of the turning of the tide, when the malicious energy around one unsuspecting family generates waves of terror and fear. They represent the coming of chaos, as reversals of powers and authority are in the process of becoming. Human conditions are precarious because people desire freedom from their unjust social positions. Madam Tussaud reveals women’s demands for independence, which was so hard to strive for during these times, and which can also be exemplified in “Washing-Day.” This poem explores the gender lines that cut into the lives of married women: “Ye who beneath the yoke of wedlock bend,/With bowed soul, full well ye ken the day/ Which week, smooth sliding after week, brings on/ Too soon; for to that day nor peace belongs” (Barbauld 30, 9-12). The woman is “beneath” the wedding. Wedlock becomes a lock around her neck, the chains of her existence. Her soul is “bowed” throughout the full day because of her day-long duties and responsibilities. The weeks just slide for her without finding any “peace” of her own. This means that she cannot find a space for growth and recognition. Women serve as slaves to men. Marie Grosholtz is painfully aware of the restrictions on her gender. This is why even if she loves Henri Charles, she cannot marry him. She does not want to be tied down to household and marital duties and obligations. She wants to be free, so that one day, she will not ask herself where her life has gone. She will not be similar to her mother who marries “for convenience.” Like Rose Bertin, Marie Grosholtz wants to be complete person, not a complete traditional woman like what society wants her to be. Revolutions are tyrannical human conditions that ebb and flow too. Madam Tussaud affects the sentiments of Godwin in Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, where Marie Grosholtz understands that revolutionaries are not pure people and some are tyrannical too. In Book 4, Chapter 2, Godwin states: “Revolution is instigated by a horror against tyranny, yet its own tyranny is not without peculiar aggravations” (70). Indeed, in the case of the French Revolution, the revolutionaries, though generally guided with noble ideas and values, do not possess open-mindedness and honesty in their dealings. Because Marie acts as tutor to Madame Elisabeth, she learns morsels of truth about the royal family. She discovers that the Duc d’ Orleans does not tell anyone that the King’s family gives to the poor, as he speaks with Camille and Robespierre. Marie thinks about this and is angered: “I think of his self-satisfied grin when Robespierre and Camille rage against the monarchy and how he sits back and swirls his brandy when Marat asks him what should be done about our king” (Moran 63). The Duc sells out the royal family through magnificent lies. He uses the public’s fears to incite anger- anger that does not have any basis and logic, only passions and emotions. Godwin understands how many people, even the revolutionaries, will suspend critical thinking because of their passions and goals: “During a period of revolution, enquiry and all those patient speculations to which mankind are indebted for their greatest improvements, are suspended,” and “Add to this, what has been already stated, respecting the tendency of revolution, to restrain the declaration of our thoughts and put fetters upon the license of investigation” (Godwin 71). People no longer investigated the truth about the rumors regarding the Queen. It is easier to believe than to confront and challenge what the revolutionaries tell them. They are like empty vessels, taking in water that comes into them, whether they are polluted or pure. A coachman explains to Marie Grosholtz of how fear extinguishes people’s discretion: “…[they will not believe you that the political prisoners are not tortured]. They want to believe in the king’s cruelty. It’s better than believing that God and Nature are starving them to death” (Moran 176). The masses will rather munch on lies than know more about truth about what the King and Queen truly know about the state of France. Hence, the revolution has its tyrannical dimension too. Moral and social norms become absurd when people want to change their conditions. The essence of life is its cycle, it ups and downs, its weaknesses and strengths. Madam Tussaud reveals the dreary nature of human civilization. It is based on nature too, a nature that is constantly participating in the cycle of death and renewal, which can be interpreted from these lines from Smith: Ah, poor humanity! so frail, so fair, And the fond visions of thy early day, Till tyrant passion and corrosive care Bid all thy fairy colours flee away! Another May new birds and flowers shall bring; Ah! why has happiness no second spring? (45, lines 9-14). Madam Tussaud agrees that people are frail. Indeed, their morality is frail too. Power is the frailest of all: “The people live in fear of these lettres, which allow anyone to be arrested, so long as the king has signed the document” (Moran 39). People want to escape these powers that usurp their autonomy, at all costs. For Smith, this is equal to the colors fleeing away. They are running away from what used to be; they want something more. They demand something more. The Duc calls the King as “imposter” for knowing something about Rousseau. He knows that people want an ignorant king that they can trample on and he gives them that. What about social norms and morality? Godwin says that people are made equal: “We are partakers of a common nature and the same causes that contribute to the benefit of one will contribute to the benefit of another,” and “Our senses and faculties are of the same denomination. Our pleasures and pains will therefore be alike. We are, all of us, endowed with reason, able to compare, to judge and to infer” (77). In this case, reason should guide moral actions; but not before the French revolution because tyranny tramples reason. Madam Tussaud explains that reason is undermined through fears. These are fears that are either made up or real. However real they may be, they are manipulated, until the capacity for reason is no more. Smith says: “Ah! why has happiness no second spring?” (45 line 14). Indeed, it has no second spring because since the French Revolution broke out, chaos remains in France for a long time. Without reason, the society constantly shifts and turns, with human bodies falling along the way. Madam Tussaud explores the fleeting nature of human structures in Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, “Washing-Day,” and “Sonnet Written at the Close of Spring.” Moran’s novel reveals connections among these three works of literature. Together, they comment on the same society and its impermanence. They also talk about human injustice because of gender and social class differences. Most of all, they question people’s morality and rationality. In the light of their passions, they are in the danger of foregoing that one thing that makes them different from animals: their reasonable sense of morality. Works Cited Barbauld, Anna L?titia. “Washing-Day.” 1797. English Romantic Writers. Ed. David Perkins New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967. 30. Print. Godwin, William. “Enquiry Concerning Political Justice.” English Romantic Writers. Ed. David Perkins. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967. 57-84. Print. Moran, Michelle. Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution. New York: Random House, 2011. Kindle Edition. Print. Smith, Charlotte. “Sonnet Written at the Close of Spring.” 1921. English Romantic Writers. Ed. David Perkins. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967. 45. Print. Read More