culture, subculture and counterculture - Facultatea de Litere

MIHAELA CULEA
interference of women in political matters and firmly hangs on to the
conservative principles dictated by his rank: the supremacy of blood, no mixture
between social classes, a strong sense of class identity, a clear bordering of his
wealth, and a strict separation of women’s and men’s rights, liberties and duties.
A perfect example of the decadent nobleman, Western’s discourse is built upon
elements referring to his limited daily interests: listening to music, hunting,
blaspheming the political Whig ministry (and thus a liberalist, anti-aristocratic
order), drinking, eating, and cursing in the presence of the parish priest. The
squire speaks of Sophia as if she were a material possession granted by any law
on Earth, insisting to brutally assert his fatherly rights. (1985: 665) He pretends
that there is one universal law which teaches him what his possession is. In fact,
though unconsciously, he avows the old supremacy of the landowning nobility,
the same right of pure blood. (1985: 665)
His sister regularly attacks countryside principles, opposing rural
narrowness and bluntness to “the world”, her experience convincing her that the
countryside habitation teaches a young damsel “romantic notions of love and
nonsense” (1985: 261), whereas squire Western reproves that all husbands in
London are “cuckolds” and that women there are whores (1985: 274). The squire
is also mocked at as being nothing but a “country booby squire” (1985: 650).
Squire Western is the opposite of Allworthy, though both of them share
the same status: they are country squires, JPs, great land owners. In fact,
Western is the embodiment of the negative image of the eighteenth-century
English gentry: he is fond of drinking, gossiping, swearing, hunting, and doing
nothing effective for his country. Tom quickly earns his affection not due to
some intellectual or moral qualities but due to his “acts of sportsmanship” like
“leaping over five-barred gates” (1985: 118). His superficial preferences can be
noticed in the case of the music he prefers, too. For example, he stubbornly
favours ballads instead of listening to the music of one of the best composers of
the eighteenth-century England, Mr. Handel (1985: 133).
Squire Western’s greatest fear is that of eventually losing his fortune – or
at least part of it. He exaggeratingly generalizes always blaming the government
for an interest in taking country squires’ lands, even with his sister’s help: “This
Presbyterian Hannoverian b— to come into my house! She may ‘dite me of a
plot for anything I know, and give my estate to the Government” (1985: 276).
This great fear of sharing his fortune is also associated with another terrible
thought: that his daughter would marry a bastard, a poor man, or some London
lord, with whom he finds no connection except for wealth. When he meets a
London lord, he is not impressed by his fortune; on the contrary, he rejects the
very idea of marrying his daughter with a member of a class whom he is not
familiar with. (1985: 661)
Aunt Western is the gentlewoman that had lived at the Court, had seen the
rich polite circles and had read books appropriate for these circles. She is highly
independent, an erudite, a ‘feminist’ even, hoping that one day women would
have political influence, showing stubbornness in clinging to the nobility of her
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