FICTIONS OF POWER IN ENGLISH LITERATURE: 1900-1950 Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature Series Editor: Stan Smith, Professor of English, University of Dundee Published Titles: Rainer Emig Modernism in Poetry: Motivation, Structures and Limits Lee Horsley Fictions of Power in English Literature: 1900—1950 Fictions of Power in English Literature: 1900-1950 Lee Horsley |J Routledge l \ Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1995 by Pearson Education Limited Published in 2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 1995, Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notices Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. ISBN 978-0582-0-9095-8 (pbk) British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data­ Set by 5 in 10/12 pt Bembo For Tony v This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Introduction: The Cult of Power 1 1. Heroic Action: Narratives of Imperialism 18 Heroic action in The Rescue 28 The hero ironised: Lord Jim and Nostromo 39 Jesters and heroes: Chesterton, Shaw and Napoleon 49 2. Superhuman Arts: Narratives of Nationalistic Faith 64 Martyred prophets: Buchan’s Prester John and Shaw’s St Joan 73 ‘Some queer dark god’: Lawrence’s ‘leadership’ novels of the twenties 82 Demonic enchantments: The Magician, Mephisto and the rise of fascism 96 3. Sexual Dominance: Leaders and Lovers in Fiction Between the Wars 107 Lawless sheiks and living Quetzalcoatls 116 Sex symbols satirised: Huxley’s Point Counter Point and Lewis’s Revenge for Love 130 Unsubmissive women 140 4. Violence: The Thirties Thriller and ‘the Gathering Storm9 155 Household’s Rogue Male: ‘a beast in its den’ 161 Eric Ambler and the ‘infernal machine’ 166 Graham Greene: ‘the house infected’ 174 vii 5. Law: The Liberal Critique and the Totalitarian Nightmare 196 The critique of liberal justice: A Passage to India and It's a Battlefield 204 The totalitarian nightmare: Trial of a Judge and Darkness at Noon 222 6. Technopower: ‘Leviathan on Wheels’ in Dystopian Science Fiction 236 Man/machine • 246 Individual/mass 259 Energy/entropy 268 Bibliography 283 Index 297 viii Preface This book is about fictional representations of political power in the first half of the twentieth century. Although British domestic politics did not provide much scope for romantic conceptions of political action, Britain nevertheless, given its imperial role and the pressures of continental totalitarianism, was closely involved with compelling and disruptive myths of power. Two forms of romantic power in particular left their impress on the early twentieth-century political imagination. The adventure hero could still, at the turn of the century, be thought of as flourishing, unchecked by conventional political methods and constraints, in the ‘action territory’ of Empire. Then, in the decades following the First World War, the messianic figure of the self-deified charismatic leader, fascinating but also deeply worrying, came increasingly into public consciousness with the rise of European totalitarianism, serving collective rather than individualistic ideals and challenging the whole ethos of secular-libertarian political life. Both kinds of political power excite strong and ambivalent reactions, and the first four chapters of this study survey some of the contradictory responses to highly personalised, masculine and aggressive exercises in domination. Amongst the central themes explored are the problematic nature of imperial adventure and of the hopes for renewal engendered by nationalistic cults of power, the stereotypical assumption of male mastery and female submission in the political movements of the time, and the dilemmas faced by Britain in responding in totalitarian aggression. Impersonal modes of political control can be seen as a safeguard against the excesses and irrationalism of charismatic leaders. But, as became all too apparent in the decades between the wars, dictatorial regimes can be secured and even vested with a spurious impartiality by an ostensible maintenance of legal forms, just as they can by an appearance of technological rationality. My last two chapters deal with law and technopower, and the texts chosen for discussion explore abuses of impersonal power structures under both liberal and ix