Subversion And Containment In A.S.Byatt’s Angels And Insects

A.S.Byatt is an English novelist and literary critic.Angels and Insects is one of Byatt’s works,including “Morpho Eugenia” and “The Conjugial Angel”.This thesis adopts the three key words: subversion,containment and negotiation given by Greenblatt in his essay “Invisible Bullets” to analyze the crisis of faith in Victorian era and explore solutions to cultural dilemma for modern man.Chapter one aims to illustrate the subversion of the religious orthodoxy by the marginalized people in Victorian era.In “Morpho Eugenia”,William and Matty are the representatives of new intellectuals.They are in the state of half-employment and belong to the marginalized group in Alabaster family.In the process of debating with Harald,William rejects his idea of natural theology many times;at the same time,with Matty’s help,William expresses his idea of Darwinism through creating natural history of insects in order to show rebellion to natural theology.In “The Conjugial Angel”,as a woman,Emily is discriminated and marginalized in Victorian society,but she bravely subverts the conjugial angel in spiritualism and marries Jesse.Another woman who is similar to Matty,Papagay,also shows rebellion to spiritualism.On the one hand,she declines Hawke’s courtship;on the other hand,she furthers her understanding of the material world through paying attention to the spiritual world,thus subverting spiritualism.Chapter two presents the defending for Victorian orthodoxy in order to contain the subversive forces mentioned in chapter one.In “Morpho Eugenia”,Harald is a firm believer in natural theology and he cannot accept the challenge from Darwinism.Therefore,he regards William as his antagonist,and maintains and consolidates the status of natural theology as well as the old world order.Through collecting specimens,Harald also tries to seek for the traces of God’s design in order to overthrow Darwinism.In “The Conjugial Angel”,as a member of the Church of New Jerusalem,Hawke has been explaining the concept of conjugial angel and obeys the rules in Swedenborgian system.He criticizes Emily’s behavior of marrying Jesse based on these theories.He also stresses his discrimination of body and appreciation of spirit.As an embedded text running through “The Conjugial Angel”,In Memoriam blames Emily’s marriage and presents Tennyson’s belief in the immortality of souls.Chapter three analyzes the result of the interaction between forces of subversion and containment,that is,reaching the state of negotiation.In “Morpho Eugenia”,neither Darwinism nor natural theology wins finally,but William reconstructs Darwinism through observation and consideration of insects.He abandons the analogy in Darwinism and believes that human beings,different from insects,are the combination of instinct and intellect.Leaving Alabaster family proves that he is lucky since other Victorian people represented by Harald are still in anxiety and confusion but William has a new understanding of the essence of life and gets a second life.In “The Conjugial Angel”,through ceaseless struggle and consideration,Emily does not deny the existence of spirits,but she thinks that the most important thing is to value people alive,which is a balance between the material world and the spiritual world.The principal characters’ state of negotiation is the final purpose of Byatt’s creation: finding solution to the cultural dilemma in contemporary time.She links history with present,which is also the requirement of new historicism.