[ Home > Papers > Milada Frankova ]

Divided Englishness: the North and South of the Mind

Milada Frankova teaches seminars in British literature and British Studies at Masaryk University, Brno.

*   *   *

The English North-South Divide is an old concept and one that does not want to go away. But can it or should it? In addition to its traditional life, it has its political uses in the battle of today's somewhat paradoxical forces of international integration and national devolution. It also plays a role within the multicultural Britain debate. Besides and beyond the political, economic and cultural issues, it has a life of its own. The sense of North and South differences, or rather, distinct kinds of Englishness, even if unsolicited by the politician or the sociologist, seems to lie deeply imbedded in the mind, at least in the minds of the characters of some recent English fictions. In the following, I shall touch upon the role played by the North-South Divide in the process of British devolution and multiculturalism and show how it is represented in three contemporary novels by A.S. Byatt, Barbara Trapido and Jane Gardam.

The elements of what makes up the English North-South Divide go far back into history, they have to do with the actual geography, with some 200 years of industrial development as well as with the more recent economic lay out. Mrs. Thatcher was criticised for ignoring the existence of the Divide in the 1980s.¹ The notion of the Divide is partly reinforced by contemporary theorising and partly it survives in old and undisputed local mythologies. Most parts of the world have their equivalent 'norths' and 'souths', on whatever scale - let's take North and South America or northern and southern Italy - or of whichever points of the compass - the German East and West or Czech Bohemia and Moravia. The centrifugal forces of regionalism have not quite succumbed to the globalising forces of today's world, perhaps just as paradoxically as cultural integration coexists with celebration of cultural diversity. For some, regionalism is a false consciousness (e.g. John Lucas²), for others it remains an important source of identification. Although, according to Martin Montgomery³, dialects in Britain are disappearing and regional accents are becoming more intelligible, i.e. less differentiated, they have not ceased to matter and remain potent enough markers and sometimes tools for the currently fashionable preoccupation with identity, whether national, ethnic or regional. It is a postmodern identity that does not seek harmony by blurring or disregarding differences, but rather celebrates them as if in tune with the often disparate, disharmonious tunes of twentieth century music. Nonetheless, the creation and adoption of an identity is mostly a homogenising process, although only relatively so.

There is now British Studies to look into British identities, but the very notion of Britishness is suspect for many. In Anthony Easthope's view "Britishness is a hegemonic version of Englishness designed to incorporate and subordinate Irish, Welsh and Scottish national identities."⁴ Hugh Kearney points out the dichotomies involved in the paired terms British/Scottish, British/Irish, British/Welsh and British/English and their unresolvedness. As regional differences (traditionally) and non-British ethnic differences (more recently) have become an inseparable part of the picture, Kearney prefers to think of Britain as a multicultural rather than a multinational country.⁵ Regionalised Englishness, notably that of the North and the South, and the existence of large non-English ethnic communities have served as ready arguments for both for and against devolution. On the one hand the awareness of such differences underscores and aids the recognition of national differences and the calls for greater autonomy for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. On the other hand though, with so much appreciable and appreciated difference all around, there seems little point in allowing more weight to some differences over others. Nevertheless, the reciprocal process of legitimisation will probably go on with the newly devolved national assemblies in place: the recognition of national diversity aids the recognition of regional and ethnic diversity and vice versa.

Similarly, the regional differences also play a dual role in the multicultural Britain debate. By being emphasised, they unfocus or disrupt the English - non-English, white - black dichotomy which the term 'multicultural' in Britain almost invariably carries. But, conversely, emphasis on difference also has its seamy side. Perceptions of differences tend to shift and slide towards negative comparisons, stereotyping and hierarchisation. The resulting notions of 'belonging', whether they refer to nation, ethnicity or region - all those -nesses - exist at many levels and have multiple lives, including the lives of skeletons in the cupboard for some of the time, but have the nasty habit of falling out of their cupboard with an appropriately scary noise at other times. They may work publicly - politically or privately - socially, but more often than not with a tone of confrontation. For an outsider, all this is an impenetrable mesh of cultural sensibilities that he or she can no doubt compare to something similar closer to home, but hardly really fathom.

In the 1990s the English 'north-southness' may have moved away from the political-economic centre stage position of the 1980s, but not because it has ceased to exist or matter. While on the political scene the North-South Divide has been consigned somewhat to the background by other momentous developments, the deeply entrenched sense of divided Englishness continues to dwell in the mind where it has probably always been. Recent fictions can testify to that and why not trust them if, after all, it was Mrs. Gaskell's novel written almost a hundred and fifty years ago that gave name to the phenomenon.

A great deal has been written about Englishness in its many aspects and there exists a reasonable agreement that literature has significantly contributed to creating the concept and the edifice as well as it has contributed to deconstructing them. William Wordsworth's poetry among others was instrumental in the construction of Englishness although he was essentially a poet of the north and a defender of northern rural life, nevertheless one who wanted to and was accepted to 'speak for all Englishmen'.⁶ How well he succeeded to this day, albeit with the help of the process of education, is evoked in A.S. Byatt's novel Still Life (1985). In it the heroine Frederica realises that she can only perceive Van Gogh's countryside in the south of France through the language of Wordsworth's poetic vision of English landscapes. This is also a test of Frederica's Englishness from outside, so to speak. However, in the same novel , Frederica's bereaved brother-in-law Daniel is aware of his Yorkshire "Northern brains" and his geographically and culturally dependent biological and spiritual response "to tones of black, touches of white in the dark."⁷ This somewhat pastoral kind of identification with the spirit of the region sounds like a matter of the soul, privately aloof and harmless in comparison with the potentially hostile or at least patronising 'placing' and 'labelling' of Barbara Trapido's Temples of Delight . In this 1990 novel, an entirely pleasant, and what is more, well educated young teacher is described as "complacently bigoted about the north of England":

He considered it the repository of people - good, plain, simple sorts - who had not had quite the vision or the enterprise to make something of themselves. Of course once upon a time there had been George Stephenson and the traction engine and so on, but that, unfortunately, was history. 'The North', in the present times, was full of people who expended their energies on growing leeks, on breeding pigeons, on eating faggots with mushy peas, and also on voting Labour.⁸

As nations apart, the North and the South also figure in the minds of the characters of Jane Gardam's recent novel Faith Fox (1996): "the two main tribes above and below the line from the Wash to the Severn, the language- line that is still not quite broken to this day."⁹ A.N. Wilson says about Gardam the novelist that "in her quiet way [she] gets to the meat of things."¹⁰ The deep-rootedness of regional tribalism is one of such things that emerges in this novel in its rawness as well as its comedy. 'Up North' and 'Talking North' are understood as terms of abuse: "They think we all say ee bah goom and sit on doorsteps." (p. 40) The arty young Londoner Jocasta pours all her frustrated unhappiness into distancing herself from her northern surroundings: "They're different. It's not the voices, it's the glowering looks they have, and they're so rude and they're North. My God, I hate it here."(p. 196)

'Down South' is different and although the elderly Pammie tries to reassure herself that "The South [is] only a concept, as is the North" (p. 390), she still needs to reconcile 'the North' of her imagination - the foreign country and culture - with the factual ' north' where she has agreed to transplant herself. Life 'down South' may be easier, but this is certainly no virtue to a northern mind: "She might be your age, mind you, though you'd never guess. It's being South." (p. 35) To be "South, posh and daft" (p. 398) is probably the ultimate insult of contempt. After her first ever glimpse of London and its tube crowds and the homeless, Alice Banks makes a devastatingly disparaging statement at the ticket office: "I'm from the North", she told the man behind the glass. "I can't think what I'm doing down 'ere." (p. 272)

It is fair to say that the condescension of Trapido's Southerners is amply matched and countered by the pride of Gardam's Northerners. One could then well ask: does it all matter? I have tried to show that the divided Englishness of the North-South Divide is a multifaceted phenomenon with resonances in discourses concerning the country's economy, politics, devolution, multiculturalism as well as having deep roots in the minds of individuals. I have not attempted to tackle the eternal dilemma to what extent this sort of difference, whether regional, ethnic or national, is worth nourishing and celebrating and at what point it would be better left to rest or the idea of its possible demise should be welcomed.

Footnotes:

¹ Smith, D North and South: Britain's Economic, Social and Political Divide. Harmondsworth: Penguin 1989, 1-3. [ Back to the text. ]

² Lucas, J England and Englishness . London: The Hogarth Press 1991, 134. [ Back to the text. ]

³ Montgomery, M An Introduction to Language and Society. London: Routledge 1986, 61. [ Back to the text. ]

⁴ Easthope, A"Culture and Nation: Englishness". Litteraria Pragensia/Perspectives, Prague 1997, 13-26. [ Back to the text. ]

⁵ Crick, B ed., National Identities Oxford: Blackwell 1991, 1-6. [ Back to the text. ]

⁶ Lucas, J op. cit., 105. [ Back to the text. ]

⁷ Byatt, A.S.Still Life. London: Chatto and Windus 1985, 9. [ Back to the text. ]

⁸ Trapido, B Temples of Delight . London: Michael Joseph 1990, 144. [ Back to the text. ]

⁹ Gardam, J Faith Fox . London: Sinclair Stevenson 1996, 49-50. [ Back to the text. ]

¹⁰ Wilson, A.N. "Small voice, large talent". The Spectator, 19 June 1999, 47. [ Back to the text. ]

[ Home > Papers > Milada Frankova ]