Filth's Unconventional Relationships

I admit I identify a lot with Vanessa in my judgments about elderly people. The assumptions (frequently, but not always, accurate) usually regard the conservatism of old people. As conservative often signifies traditional, I assume that older individuals live their lives in strict tradition. When hearing about Filth's wife, Vanessa thinks of “the imagined Betty: the marmalade-maker, Bridge-player, no doubt church-flower arranger, and the grandchildren in the holidays” (183). The picturesque vision of traditional family that Vanessa depicts aligns with my own. However, in reality, Old Filth’s familial relationships were anything but traditional.

The first and only relationship in which Old Filth cites that he was loved is his relationship with Auntie May and Ada. The two take him in as an infant and young child and raise him. While this may have been commonplace for Raj orphans, it does not fit the archetypal English family structure of the 1920s. Neither of the two are English, and neither of the two are blood relatives of his. Additionally, both are female; thus, Old Filth has no male role models. The strong devotion little Eddie has for Auntie May and Ada is exhibited when he is forced to leave them for foster parents in Wales. He is described as sobbing in a way that illustrates his devastation in leaving his nontraditional family (46).

The second nontraditional relationship Old Filth has is with his friend Pat. On numerous occasions, other minor characters question the strength of the friendship between the two young men. When the Headmaster asks about it, Pat explains, “We've been brought up as brothers…We’re a sort of subfamily” (98-99). With resolve, the Headmaster must later explain to others, “There seems no physicality about it” (99). The Headmaster’s response to Pat and Eddie’s relationship demonstrates its unconventional nature. When thinking about Pat’s family, Eddie describes, “They’re mine. Blood of my blood and bone of my bone” (100). Despite the fact that the family is not truly Eddie’s kin, he nonetheless experiences a bond with them that transcends this reality.

The third unconventional familial relationship Old Filth experiences is his relationship with his wife, Betty. Typically, traditional marriages are a mixture of friendship and sexual partnership. In the case of Old Filth and Betty, the second component is lacking. “He had not shared a bed with Betty for over thirty years…Sex had never been a great success. They had never discussed it” (133). Despite their marriage, Old Filth and Betty did not have much of a sexual relationship. Despite this, Old Filth did feel a strong connection to Betty: “She made him safe and confident. She had eased old childhood nightmares” (133). Thus, despite the absence of a traditional sexual relationship between spouses, Old Filth and Betty retain their marriage through the security they find in each other’s company.

The Long-Term Effects of a Turbulent Childhood

In her novel Old Filth, Jane Gardam gives readers a glimpse of the life of Edward Feathers, a judge known by his contemporaries as “Old Filth” for his successful career in Hong Kong. Despite his decorated career, Filth and other thriving characters in Gardam’s novel are deeply shaped by their turbulent childhoods.

Because Filth is the novel’s protagonist, the effects his childhood on his adult life are most the most apparent to readers. When Filth visits the inner temple in the early stages of the novel, one of his contemporaries makes the ironic remark that he has had a “pretty easy life. Nothing ever seems to have happened to [Filth]” (50). Such a comment could not be farther from the truth. When he was young his mother died and he was taken from his father in Malaya to be raised in England as if he were an orphan (44-45). As Filth grows up in England without his father, their relationship is almost non-existent. “From Malaya, there was silence, except for another cheque” (69). Filth’s childhood is clearly detrimental to his emotional wellbeing, and even his younger caretaker Auntie May recognizes the flawed concept of sending children with English roots back home to be raised. She states, “Some children forgot their parents, clung to their adoptive families who later often forgot them. There were bad tales” (41).

Aside from Filth, another character that is deeply disturbed by her childhood is Edward’s cousin Claire. When he goes to visit her after the death of his wife, Filth remembers “[b]eing told that she had ruled her children by a mysterious silence, her adoration of them never expressed…she believed that marriage and motherhood meant pain” (64). Gardam blatantly expresses that like Filth, Claire is scarred by the separation from her parents that they both experienced as children.

While there are many interpretations of what Gardam could be saying through the character development of both Filth and Claire, it seems to me that the central focus is the negative effects of the British Empire. Both Claire and Filth were separated because of the “tradition” to raise English children in their homeland. However, if they had stayed in the colonies they were born in and been raised by their real parents, their lives may have been drastically better in the long term.

Relationships in Old Filth

In the novel Old Filth by Jane Gardam, the main character, Filth, has issues connecting with others. He cannot express his feelings and has trouble getting closer with the people in his life. The reason he has this emotional incapacity is because of the lack of relationship he has with his father, and because he was torn away from the only truly loving relationships he had in his life when he was young.

Filth's father suffered from PTSD from fighting in the war, and because of this, is emotionally stunted himself. He cannot express his feelings and turns to alcohol for relief. When Filth's mother dies in childbirth, his father becomes even more withdrawn. Filth is raised by two women from the village where his father is District Officer. He rarely sees his father when he is growing up and when he finally meets him he refuses to believe that he is actually his father. "'I am your father.' 'You can't be,' said Edward… 'And why not?' 'Because you've been here all the time without me'" (45). To young Filth, a father has to be someone present in your life that loves you, and he does not recognize this in his own father. Later in the novel, Filth's father's situation is more openly explained and he becomes a sympathetic character. Though his inabilities to express his emotions affected Filth, he did all he could to provide Edward with a good education and to keep him out of the army. In his own way, Filth's Father loves him, but because of his past, he is unable to be a father figure in Filth's life.

Filth's inability to express his emotions is also connected to the fact that he was taken away from the only people that truly loved him when he was a child. After his mother dies in childbirth, Edward is placed in the care of his wet-nurse and her daughter Ada. Both women live in the village when Edward's father is District Officer, and so Edward grows up among the villagers. "Because of the memory of the child's kind mother, the Long House respected him and accepted him, an ivory child in their warm dun dust, and he was passed about, rocked to sleep, talked to and sung to and understood only Malay. By the time he was one he rolled and tottered and waddled in the village compound with the other children" (39). Filth grew up in a poor Malaysian village without attention from his father, yet he had a happy childhood because the villagers, and Ada and her mother, truly loved him. When he was separated from them and taken to Wales, he resisted, wanting to stay with the people who raised him. "As the trees on either winding bank blotted out the landing stage, Edward, who had been struck dumb by the sight of Ada left alone on the tottering platform, began to scream 'Ada, Ada, Ada!' and to point back up the river" (45). Edward was torn away from the only people who loved him, despite his pleas to stay. This separation traumatizes him in itself, but then he is taken to Wales where he is abused by the family who houses him. He is moved from a situation in which he is loved to a situation in which he is abused. This transition, combined with the fact that his father never openly expresses his love for him, causes Filth to be unable to express or fully understand his emotions.

Filth's Forgetting

Old Filth grew up under numerous unfortunate circumstances.  His father never interacted with him as a father should—in fact, they had little to no communication on the whole.  Filth was forced to live in a rather uncaring home and was subject to ridicule because of his stammer; he was called “Monkey” because of the way he talked.  At one point, he was even beaten.  When he was in his late teens, his schoolmasters accused him of being homosexual because of his brotherly bond with his good friend Pat.

Page 21 provides an insightful glimpse into Filth’s defense mechanism that has helped him put these terrible memories aside for his entire life.  Gardam writes, “Filth had always said—of his Cases—‘I am trained to forget.’ ‘Otherwise,’ he said, ‘how could I function?’  Facts, memories, the pain of life—of lives in chaos—have to be forgotten” (21).  Granted, as Gardam explains, Filth is a lawyer who has consistently used this purposeful forgetting when dealing with cases in which he sends innocent men to be executed.  The guilt would be too much for anyone to bear, and Filth—who has a very high reputation in society and cannot risk distorting his respectable image—is no exception.

However, not only does Filth’s intentional repression of memory apply to his law career, but it is a defense mechanism he employs to wash away the horrible memories from his youth as well.  Of course, anyone who has suffered under the same circumstances as Filth may do the same if he or she does not have the gumption to embrace his or her past.  As mentioned, the other element riding on Filth’s shoulders is his position in society.  People hold Filth in a very high regard.  Gardam’s novel begins by describing how others view filth, and page 17 tells of how “his eyes and mind alert, he was a delightful man.  He had always been thought so.  A man whose distinguished life had run steadily and happily” (17-18).  With such an untarnished reputation at stake, Filth would be mortified if anyone knew about his shameful past.  Thus, he attempts to bury every depressing memory from existence.

Filth and His Relationships

                Although we discussed in class how the inability for Filth to express his emotions is largely to do with the way that he was raised and his experiences with this father, I believe that it was more than just his father that affected him. Also, I think he is rather aware of his inability to connect by the end, rather than being oblivious to truly knowing himself.

            Filth is not just abandoned emotionally by his father but rather by several figures that he tries to form an emotional connection with. The Ingoldbys are a notable and impactful example. He felt close to them, almost as if they had adopted him as part of the family. However, when Pat fell ill he was shunned from their family so easily and was left questioning “have I the right to be their living Eddie” (107). Past this example, there is his aunts, who admitted that they had put their plans on hold for him, due to his father’s generosity. But, as soon as he is old enough to care for himself, they pack up, get married, and seem to be more distant to him. Later in the novel we also see the brief relationship that he has with Queen Mary, but this too seems to be inconsequential and belittled the longer he lives because no one is aware of her. Then probably one of the hardest withdraws of emotion was Betty’s affair and knowing that no matter how much he loved her she had strayed.

            Even though there are these instances where others seemed to be the one pulling back the affection from the relationship, Eddie himself refuses closeness in relationships at times. For example there is the girl in his youth that he sleeps with and leaves without a second thought. When he is with Isobel she confesses her love for him and he just continues his preoccupation with getting back simply saying “I have a bad reputation already” (252).  These examples show that even though Eddie did get emotion withdrawn from him, he can also consciously make the decision to do that to other people.

            However, all these actions seem to make sense in the end of the novel when he admits that “he has lost desire. Not sexual desire, that had been a poor part of his nature always” (257-258). He is somewhat aware that the habitual withdraw of emotion, by people he became close to in his life, is one of the factors that has caused him to lose his desire to live, but he is also aware that sexual desire is what has kept him going. In a way, being the one that withdraws the connection, in these sexual relationships, is his way to deal with the fact that others have left him. That is, it is the one that that satisfies his needs, but also makes him feel like he has some power again and thus gives him reason to continue.

The Search for Power in Cloud Atlas

Each unique story in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas offers a perspective on society.  The reader may have a hard time understanding the novel if he or she tries to understand how the six different stories are all connected.  Certainly the protagonist does not play the exact same role in the different stories in the novel, despite a number of distinct characteristics some of them share.  Dismissing the complexity of the intertwining stories, a main theme that Mitchell presents throughout the novel is the natural hierarchy of society.  He uses the various characters, settings, and time periods to convey the effects this hierarchy has on people.

Throughout the novel, Mitchell presents the craving for power as a driving force behind the motives of most people.  Some people are willing to do anything to move up in society, or to stay at the top.  Perhaps that is the reason behind a lot of the corruption that goes on in the world.  Deception is a trick used by a lot of the characters to gain or maintain their power.  In Half Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery, characters like Alberto Grimaldi, Fay Li, and Bill Smoke are behind a scheme to gain money and fame through the deception of others.  Rufus Sixsmith is the only scientist to disapprove of the company’s new billion-dollar invention, and he knows their intentions to eliminate him and his scientific proof of their flaws.  In the opening of the story he ponders suicide and adds, “Besides, a quiet accident is precisely what Grimaldi, Napier, and those sharp-suited hoodlums are praying for,” (Mitchell 89).  Eventually, Bill Smoke murders Sixsmith to prevent him from releasing his information to the public, and runs Luisa’s car off of a bridge (141).  The higher-ups of the company go to lengths to conceal this secret in return for, as Isaach Sachs puts it, “Money, power, usual suspects” (132).  Grimaldi himself ponders his strong desire for power and money, thinking, “how is it some men attain mastery over others while the vast majority live and die as minions, as livestock?...the will to power” (129).  Through this story Mitchell wants to convey the natural desire that people have to attain power, and the nasty and deceitful things people will to do attain it.

Mitchell also attempts to show how slavery is a result of such hunger for power in a society.  The Orison of Sonmi, Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, and Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’Ev’rythin’ After all contain elements of slavery or confinement.  The “xecs” in the Orison of Sonmi deceive an entire race of fabricants into slavery.  The society doesn’t even have a word for slavery, but Sonmi still tells Archivist “Corpocracy is built on slavery, whether or not the word is sanctioned” (Mitchell).  Throughout the novel the theme of slavery is repeated, and Mitchell attempts to show the different ways that slavery happens in society.  It mainly all leads back to power, and the desire to be on the top of the hierarchy.  At the end of the day, humans will do almost anything to get there, including kill, deceive, and enslave entire races of people. 

At the end, after a long enough period of time, there is always a revolution that changes a society.  It just depends on how long it takes for people to see past the deception, the slavery, and the hunger for power.  Revolution happens when enough people have a will for it.  In the final portion of Adam Ewing’s journal, Ewing and Mitchell come to a conclusion on how this happens.  Ewing states that “no state of tyranny rains forever” (Mitchell 500) and pledges to join the Abolitionist cause because every ocean is just a “multitude of drops” (509).  In other words, Mitchell is suggesting that it is human nature to eventually rebel against wrong.  And, people should not overlook or underestimate the influence they have on change.

A common philosophical question debates the reality of free will versus destined fate, and if both can exist simultaneously. Cloud Atlas delves into this topic by presenting us with multiple stories, varying in time periods and people.  There seems an existence of two souls, two entities that keep being brought back together, in various forms, genders, and relationships. Although these souls keep resurfacing and debatably have destined, dictated lives, they also have the ability to make choices, thus exercising free will in a destined path.

            One story accounts of Timothy Cavendish; a man tricked by his brothers into checking into a nursery home.  One day while playing a card game called “Patience”, Cavendish realizes, “the outcome is decided not during the course of the play but when the cards are shuffled, before the game even begins” (368). This realization reflects the ideal that everything in the course of a life is dictated by a plan and a destiny. This idea argues everything is predetermined, and although people may feel as though they are making decisions, the outcome has already been decided.

            This ideal is explicitly opposed in the incidence of Luisa Rey and Joe Napier. Joe decides to escape after retiring from the controversy at Seaboard. Knowing that Luisa Rey is in trouble, he comes bank to help and save her from her death in the bombing of Third Bank in California. Luisa tells Joe, ‘”I feel […] that I-no, that you-broke some sort of decree back there. As if Buenas Yerbas had decided I was to die today. But here I am” (428). Here there is a suspicious notion that Luisa Rey should not (according to her fate), be alive at this point, but because Joe Napier made the decision to come back to save her, she remained alive.

 Joe Napier had had a guilty conscious leaving Luisa Rey in danger because he had known Luisa Rey’s father from earlier on in his career. They had both been cops called to duty in a shootout. Luisa Rey’s father had been running by Joe when a grenade had been thrown in Joe’s general vicinity. Joe account’s Luisa Rey’s father kicking the grenade away, saving Joe’s life, but taking his own. Towards the end of the novel, Luisa Rey and Joe Napier find themselves in the face of death when Bill Smokes finds and points his gun towards them on the Starfish. Smoke kills Joe, but before he can get to Luisa, Joe, in return, kills Smokes.

Both Luisa Rey's father’s and Joe Napier’s act changed the fate of people in the novel.  Luisa Rey’s affecting Napier’s fate, while Napier affecting Luisa Rey’s. This goes to show that although there may be a destiny, that isn’t to say it cannot be changed.

Cavendish believed that the game had been determined when the cards had been shuffled, before the game had even begun. But this isn’t to say you have no say in the way you play your cards. This novel argues that both free will and predetermined destiny can coexist and regularly effect and regulate each other.

Evolution of Words

During “An Orison of Sonmi-451”, Mitchell introduces us to a futuristic, corporate, fast-paced culture and language that at first seems unfamiliar, but as the chapter progresses it becomes increasingly apparent many of the nuances are not so different from today.  Sonmi-451 works at a popular fast food chain, Papa Song’s, and there are multiple references to how Sonmi “saw Papa Song’s golden arches recede into a hundred other corp logos” (201).  During the orison, she talks about purebloods wearing “Nikes” and “Rolexes” that are just what they seem: shoes and watches.  When she watches The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, the reader gains some insight of one of the words evolution in the past; “Disneys were called ‘movies’ in those days” (233).

In Sonmi’s Korea, this evolved language and culture is the norm to fabricants and purebloods alike, but there are still people, like Sonmi, who see that the control business has over language is more serious than simply changing names of words; “Corporacy is built on slavery, whether or not the word is sanctioned” (189).  An interesting note is that the word slavery itself is banned, which suggests that attempting to ignore or eradicate an idea or action can start at the most base level: not being allowed to talk about it. Sonmi is clearly one of the few who has both experienced this enslavement to Corporacy and learned enough through her studies to identify it, both through her experiences and the usage of language.

While the evolution of language is natural and expected, Mitchell seems to predict the language of the future will become bogged down by consumerism and materialism, just as many accuse popular culture of being affected by today.  The glimpse into Sonmi-451’s world suggests that humans will sacrifice the individuality of language, and consequently the individuality of each person, for the flashiness and ease of consumer culture and allow it to permeate our means of communication.