Monday 11 August 2014

Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

The critic William Malcolm suggests that in choosing a female protagonist for Sunset Song, Gibbon was ‘deliberately challenging the status quo’. This brief article explores this proposition.

Before assessing the validity of Malcolm’s statement, it’s important to consider what he, or we, might mean by the status quo, at least as far as this relates to writing. It seems reasonable to look at the work of some earlier Scottish novelists to identify any broad themes that emanate from their work, and which define Scottish writing. Certainly it’s easy to associate writers such as Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson with tales of male heroics and adventure, though neither of these authors wrote exclusively about Scotland. Many of their most remembered novels do have gothic overtones but that tends to be borne out of the evil that dwells within the hearts of men; the bleakness of the setting is used more to reinforce that theme – it’s not there to illustrate the harshness of Scottish life. Of Gibbon’s peers the two most worthy of mention in this context are Ian Maclaren and George Douglas Brown – since Gibbon makes reference to both of their work. Maclaren’s collection of short stories, Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush (1894), is an example of the kailyard novel. Kailyard novels emerged at the end of the nineteenth century and are notable for their sentimental depiction of rural life in Scotland, and their avoidance of the reality of the harshness faced by some Scots. In a way they are the latter-day equivalent of today’s classic shortbread tin illustration. Brown’s The House with the Green Shutters (1901) is at the other end of the spectrum and was a far more truthful depiction of the reality of Scottish rural life. In these stories the protagonist was a male character. In the final paragraph of the first chapter of Sunset Song Gibbon gives us a clue that he sees the novel representing life somewhere between these two extremes: ‘…fathered between a kailyard and a bonny brier bush in the lee of a house with green shutters.’


So, on the simple measure that Scottish novels tended to have a male as the central character, Gibbon was challenging the status quo. My own view is that making the main protagonist a woman isn’t really challenging the status quo. It’s worth remembering that female protagonists weren’t new to literature generally. Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennett are two obvious examples. Female protagonists created by male authors – such as Medea and Tess – are also in evidence, though they are fundamentally tragic characters. But to suggest that he selected Chris as his central character just to challenge the status quo would be to trivialise his motive for doing so. There’s more to it than simply ‘cocking a snook’ at his contemporaries. I think the challenge to the status quo is in the way the female protagonists thinks and acts. In Sunset Song, Gibbon wanted to make some clear points about the reality of rural life in Scotland and some wider statements about social structures. In his contribution to the Writers’ International Controversy in 1935 he described himself as a revolutionary writer and stated that, ‘…all my books are explicit or implicit propaganda’. Sunset Song falls into the implicit category. It’s reasonable to conclude that he didn’t want Sunset Song to be seen as an overtly political novel, and didn’t allow Chris’ character to be distorted by any political bias. I think that having a female protagonist was instrumental in helping him to achieve this. In fact, it’s arguable that Gibbon wanted his book to reach as wide an audience as possible – a not unnatural aspiration among authors – and chose to write in a style that blended traditional Scots and standard English, thus making it accessible to many more readers. In the remainder of this essay I’d like to explore some reasons why I believe a female protagonist was essential to get across at least some of the essential points that Gibbon wanted to make.

Sex, and the treatment and description of sex is one of the most controversial features of this novel. There are a number of scenes where sex is examined in detail and implicitly. These include instances where Chris examines her body in the mirror, when she stripped to help her mother wash the blankets (and was admonished by her father), her first kiss with her classmate Margaret, and where a casual labourer offers to ‘deflower’ her. These are all fairly minor incidents and on their own wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. The suggestions of incest though really do challenge the status quo of Scottish writing, and indeed western societies, at that time. The first of these instances occurs when Chris snuggles up to her brother Will in bed after John Guthrie had beaten him. There is no suggestion that anything other than a snuggle took place but it is undoubtedly unusual behaviour for teenage siblings of any generation. Later in the story, after the death of Chris’s mother, her father John Guthrie is on his deathbed and asks Chris to lie with him – ‘You’re my flesh and blood, I can do with you what I will…’. One of the most poignant sexual moments occurs on the evening of Ewan’s return from military training. After arriving late and drunk, he verbally abuses Chris and his own son, before making love to her in a rough and uncaring manner. The narrative describing this event is brief but illustrates the horror felt by Chris – ‘…memory of the foulness something cold and vile…’, ‘…his beast-like mauling…’, ‘…burned and danced on that mirror that wheeled and wheeled in her brain.’. Chris again sees herself in the mirror, but this time she’s being ‘raped’ by her husband. I use inverted commas here only because I’m not sure it would be considered rape in these times. The simple point is that these sexual references would have less meaning and impact if seen through the eyes of a male. In our society, sex is not a threat to men. They are the predators and women the victims. (Ewan had already kissed her violently before they were properly introduced and would have done more if she hadn’t escaped his clutches.) Gibbon wouldn’t have been able to explore this aspect of sexual relationships if the story was focused on a male character. These incidents would simply not be able to be described with the same level of emotion. By choosing a female protagonist Gibbon can critique male domination and male domestic and sexual violence in a graphic and shocking way — undermining the masculine hegemony of society.

        One of the themes of Sunset Song is change, and that means changes to the land, to society and to people. All of this change is shown through the perspective of Chris. We learn through the narrative that there are two sides to Chris; the Scottish Chris experiences a strong physical connection to the land and this aspect of her character eventually triumphs. We meet Chris as a young teenager torn between her two selves, her education and ability helps her to develop a keener sense of herself, she begins to discover the physical side of herself. When her parents die she becomes, through necessity, first stronger (she’s able to stand up to her father better) then more independent (after his death she decides to remain at Blawearie). Eventually she gets married and gives birth and experiences the pain of the death of someone she loved. In the novel Gibbon sets these changes in Chris with different phases of the agricultural cycle, with each chapter representing a different phase of Chris’s life. For example in Seed-Time she marries Ewan and falls pregnant, and in Harvest she gives birth to her son. At the same time we see changes in the land beyond the agricultural cycle: the cutting down of the trees for the war industry, the violent death of the horses, and the motor car ‘pushing’ the people off the road − and John Guthrie being evicted from his home after an incident with a motorist. The way events unfold creates a strong link between what happens to Chris and what happens to the land. In this way their fates are bound together. And like the land, a woman’s body is capable of producing new life. It’s hard to see that this parallel would work with a male protagonist.

Some commentators, including film director Terence Davies, see Chris as an allegorical figure for Scotland. Douglas Gifford, former Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, endorses this view and attributes this to Gibbon being influenced by nineteenth-century European novels where women were seen as, ‘carriers of the identity and soul of their country’. As mentioned earlier, some writers had put a female figure at the centre of their novel, though in none of these examples was that character in any way representing her nation. Chris is decidedly different as she clearly has a strong physical connection with the land. Her independence means she stands apart from the traditional female character, and certainly the other females in Sunset Song, and at times occupies a space traditionally held by men – for example when she takes over the lease of Blawearie on her father’s death. What’s more, her dual identity mirrors the conflict over the cultural identity of Scotland. The fact that she chose to become Scots Chris rather than English Chris serves to reinforce her position as a symbolic figure for the country. Without thinking too hard it seems that a male could easily represent the land, but the idea of a female character had already been well established in history and in art in that role. Britannia is a name which dates back to Roman Britain. It is depicted as a woman carrying a shield and a trident and has come to personify the British Isles. Similarly in France it’s a female figure, Marianne, who represents the state and the values of the country. Interestingly, in Cloud Howe, the sequel to Sunset Song, Chris’ husband calls her Chris Caledonia.

Finally, we’re left with the question, ‘Would Gibbon have better achieved his aims if the protagonist had been male?’ If we take the broadest theme of the novel to be change, which of the current male characters would best represent that? Certainly not John Guthrie, he’s there to portray the longstanding chauvinistic attitudes of males in the north-east. Chae is already a more rounded likeable character, while Long Rob, while equally likeable, is a man who goes back on his principles even though he knows they have merit. Ewan is the only other main character who undergoes any sort of personal change: he goes from loving Chris to abusing her, and finally realising the error of his ways and loving her again. However, his personal tale is a bleak message.

        In this paper I’ve tried to identify some reasons why Gibbon chose a female protagonist for Sunset Song, beyond the simple act of challenging the status quo. The female character works well in exposing a female perspective on sex and how it could be a violent experience for women; a far cry from the romantic Scotland of the kailyard novels. We also considered the idea of change in the land being mirrored by the changes in a woman’s development and how a female figure has artistically been more relevant as being representative of the land. No doubt it was within Gibbon’s ability to write this story with a male protagonist but I suspect it would be a very different novel than Sunset Song.