{"id":46,"date":"2019-05-16T12:53:28","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T16:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/?post_type=chapter&p=46"},"modified":"2019-05-16T13:46:37","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T17:46:37","slug":"chapter-8-loss-longing-and-the-optative-mode-in-marilynne-robinsons-housekeeping","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/chapter\/chapter-8-loss-longing-and-the-optative-mode-in-marilynne-robinsons-housekeeping\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter 8: Paul Tyndall and Fred Ribkoff, \"Lss, Longing and the Optative Mode in Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping\"","rendered":"Chapter 8: Paul Tyndall and Fred Ribkoff, “Lss, Longing and the Optative Mode in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping”"},"content":{"raw":"In the final selection in this volume, entitled \u201cLoss, Longing, and the Optative Mode in Marilynne Robinson\u2019s Housekeeping,<\/em>\u201d my colleague Fred Ribkoff and I examine Robinson\u2019s use of a stylistic and rhetorical device that we refer to as the optative mode. This term is used by Andrew H. Miller to describe a \u201cmode of constrastive and counterfactual self-reflection\u201d that that may be discerned in many modern and contemporary novels and poems, ranging from Henry James\u2019 The Ambassadors<\/em> and Robert Frost\u2019s \u201cThe Road Not Taken\u201d to T.S. Eliot\u2019s \u201cBurnt Norton\u201d and Virginia Woolf\u2019s Mrs. Dalloway<\/em>. We liken the device to the optative mood in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit, which is a specific verb tense that was reserved in these languages for the expression of dreams and desires. In Housekeeping,<\/em> however, the optative mode \u201cis less a grammatical function than a narrative and stylistic device . . . , [which] frequently takes the form of a hypothetical or conjectural statement, often beginning with the phrase \u2018Say that,\u201d as in \u201cSay that my mother was as tall as a man,\u201d or with the verb \u2018imagine,\u2019 as in \u2018Imagine a Carthage sown with salt\u2019\u201d (88). Drawing upon trauma theory and psychoanalytic approaches to the novel, we examine Robinson\u2019s use of this inherently speculative mode of discourse, arguing that it is through her use of the optative mode that Ruth is able not simply to narrate her story of loss and mourning, but to understand it, and to come to terms with grief and loneliness . . . \u201c(88).\u00a0 We follow Burke and others in seeing Sylvie as Ruth\u2019s spiritual guide in this process, and we also agree with Caver that Housekeeping<\/em> is among other things a trauma narrative. However, we challenge the notion that the novel\u2019s conclusion describes Ruth and Sylvie\u2019s \u201csocial death.\u201d In burning down the family home and crossing the bridge that spans Lake Fingerbone, the pair are turning away from the middle-class comforts and values of their neighbours and embarking instead upon a life of wandering and rootlessness. The novel\u2019s final pages suggest that through her continued use of what we are calling the optative mode Ruth will remain attached to the past and to her estranged sister Lucille even though she may never see her again. In the final optative passages in her narrative, Ruth has no choice but to imagine her estranged sister\u2019s life, first in Fingerbone, then in Boston, while admitting that she and Sylvie have no place in that life. \u201cWe are nowhere in Boston,\u201d she observes, \u201cand the perimeters of our wandering are nowhere\u201d (218-9). Yet it is clear that just as Lucille\u2019s absence makes her a vital presence in Ruth\u2019s thoughts and feelings, so too will Ruth and Sylvie remain a living presence in her own life, regardless of their absence. \u201cRuth resorts to the optative mode,\u201d we argue, \u201cnot simply to explain<\/em> her experiences but to understand<\/em> them. And it is by imagining what might have been that she comes to terms with what has happened\u201d (101-2).\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n ","rendered":"

In the final selection in this volume, entitled \u201cLoss, Longing, and the Optative Mode in Marilynne Robinson\u2019s Housekeeping,<\/em>\u201d my colleague Fred Ribkoff and I examine Robinson\u2019s use of a stylistic and rhetorical device that we refer to as the optative mode. This term is used by Andrew H. Miller to describe a \u201cmode of constrastive and counterfactual self-reflection\u201d that that may be discerned in many modern and contemporary novels and poems, ranging from Henry James\u2019 The Ambassadors<\/em> and Robert Frost\u2019s \u201cThe Road Not Taken\u201d to T.S. Eliot\u2019s \u201cBurnt Norton\u201d and Virginia Woolf\u2019s Mrs. Dalloway<\/em>. We liken the device to the optative mood in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit, which is a specific verb tense that was reserved in these languages for the expression of dreams and desires. In Housekeeping,<\/em> however, the optative mode \u201cis less a grammatical function than a narrative and stylistic device . . . , [which] frequently takes the form of a hypothetical or conjectural statement, often beginning with the phrase \u2018Say that,\u201d as in \u201cSay that my mother was as tall as a man,\u201d or with the verb \u2018imagine,\u2019 as in \u2018Imagine a Carthage sown with salt\u2019\u201d (88). Drawing upon trauma theory and psychoanalytic approaches to the novel, we examine Robinson\u2019s use of this inherently speculative mode of discourse, arguing that it is through her use of the optative mode that Ruth is able not simply to narrate her story of loss and mourning, but to understand it, and to come to terms with grief and loneliness . . . \u201c(88).\u00a0 We follow Burke and others in seeing Sylvie as Ruth\u2019s spiritual guide in this process, and we also agree with Caver that Housekeeping<\/em> is among other things a trauma narrative. However, we challenge the notion that the novel\u2019s conclusion describes Ruth and Sylvie\u2019s \u201csocial death.\u201d In burning down the family home and crossing the bridge that spans Lake Fingerbone, the pair are turning away from the middle-class comforts and values of their neighbours and embarking instead upon a life of wandering and rootlessness. The novel\u2019s final pages suggest that through her continued use of what we are calling the optative mode Ruth will remain attached to the past and to her estranged sister Lucille even though she may never see her again. In the final optative passages in her narrative, Ruth has no choice but to imagine her estranged sister\u2019s life, first in Fingerbone, then in Boston, while admitting that she and Sylvie have no place in that life. \u201cWe are nowhere in Boston,\u201d she observes, \u201cand the perimeters of our wandering are nowhere\u201d (218-9). Yet it is clear that just as Lucille\u2019s absence makes her a vital presence in Ruth\u2019s thoughts and feelings, so too will Ruth and Sylvie remain a living presence in her own life, regardless of their absence. \u201cRuth resorts to the optative mode,\u201d we argue, \u201cnot simply to explain<\/em> her experiences but to understand<\/em> them. And it is by imagining what might have been that she comes to terms with what has happened\u201d (101-2).<\/p>\n

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