Something about Rachel Ferguson and The Brontës Went to Woolworths

I first heard about Rachel Ferguson's novel with the intriguing title some years ago, but only recently got around to reading it.

The title is a little misleading: the Brontës appear only briefly in the book and then only in ghost form. 

I found The Brontës Went to Woolworths to be of interest more for the connections and coincidences than for the characters and story.   

The book, which was first published in 1931 and is set in the London of the time, features a bohemian, eccentric family consisting of a widowed woman and her three daughters. They all participate in an ongoing game in which they make up stories about and have imaginary relationships and conversations with real people they have never met. 

This game and the effect that it has on their lives will be covered in a future article; first comes some miscellaneous material of interest.

The Celtic connection 
The last name of the family in The Brontës Went to Woolworths is Carne. The three daughters are Deirdre, Katrine and Sheil.

All of these names have Celtic connections.

Carne is a name of Gaelic origin; it means a pile of stones or a cairn.

Deirdre is an Irish name; Katrine and Sheil are Scottish place names. The girls' father was born on the Isle of Skye.

The Celtic heritage might explain why the girls can see ghosts and their father could see nature spirits.

Ferguson is also a name of Gaelic origin, and ghosts appear in some of Rachel Ferguson's other books.

Brontë connections and the Carne coincidence 
Like many other writers featured on here, May Sinclair for example, Rachel Ferguson was very interested in the Brontës and produced works about and/or inspired by them. She probably got the idea of siblings who share an imaginary world from Brontë biographies. 

Jean Rhys: is psychology enough to explain everything?

The previous two articles in the series inspired by Carole Angier's biography Jean Rhys: Life and Work were created to answer one big question and one small one. One article gave some good reasons for reading such a depressing book; the other looked into the possibility that Diana Wynne Jones had used material from the biography in her book Black Maria. 

The time has now come to attempt to answer the question of questions: does Carole Angier's psychological interpretation of Jean Rhys's personality, behaviour and experiences cover and provide an explanation for everything? 

The connections and familiar metaphysical features and elements covered in previous articles support the idea that certain unseen influences were at work in Jean Rhys's life, but it is good practice to start with the most obvious explanations and move on and widen the enquiry only if these are found to be unsatisfactory.

Just as Aunt Maria operates on three levels, Jean Rhys and her life can be looked at from three viewpoints: the psychological, what might be called the occult, and something in between the two.

Carole Angier's psychological viewpoint is the first to be considered.

Jean Rhys's infantile personality
Carole Angier makes many insightful remarks about Jean Rhys and provides much biographical material to support her ideas. 

She makes the point that Jean Rhys never grew up. This is very obvious: we do not need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that one! 

Cults and the cutting of personal connections: Part IV

As mentioned in Part III, the cutting of personal connections between cult members and non-members works both ways: it is not always the members who do the dropping.  

This breaking of bonds can cause problems and dilemmas no matter which side does it. This article covers a few more aspects of this painful subject.

Problems on the cult side
The most obvious problem here is that cult members who are forbidden from associating with their families and friends will not be able to get financial or other forms of support for the cause or movement from them.

One way round this is for the cult to arrange supervised phone calls or meetings. Selected members are told what to say and ask for, and another member listens in or is present to ensure that they follow instructions and stick to the script. This may work, at least for a while, if the family wants contact on any terms.

A compromise solution is to apply the strictest rules and the tightest controls only to hard-core members, the upper levels or the inner circle, with less-dedicated members, supporters and other 'inferiors' free to associate with anyone they want to.

Public relations are another problem. I used to wonder why a particular cult-like organisation would order many of its senior members to stop seeing their families when this would entail making enemies out of former friends, give ammunition to opponents and result in bad publicity that might alienate potential supporters and damage the cause. 

One tactic cults use here is denial. They may insist for example that it isn't true that members are forced to cut all outside relationships. Such blatant lying may work for a while – I fell for some of it myself in the early days – but people now have access to social media, defectors' stories and the Internet so are more educated and less likely to be fooled.

The mystery of Jean Rhys, Aunt Maria, and Diana Wynne Jones

The article about Carole Angier's doubly-depressing biography of the novelist Jean Rhys includes an attempt to answer a big question the book raises: if it has such a bad effect, why read it and why comment on it? 

I said something relevant to this question a long time ago in the first article about Diana Wynne Jones's witch Aunt Maria: I persevere with some infuriating and/or depressing books because there are lessons to be learned and points and connections to be made from them. 

This article attempts to answer a small question that arose recently when I noticed a few similarities between Jean Rhys as described in Carole Angier's biography and the fictional Aunt Maria: could Diana Wynne Jones have been influenced by Jean Rhys: Life and Work when she was writing Black Maria aka Aunt Maria? 

After dealing with some of the more significant topics connected with Jean Rhys, I decided to investigate the possibility that Diana Wynne Jones had read Carole Angier's biography and, consciously or unconsciously, copied a little of the material for her children's book. 

I started by re-reading Black Maria in the light of what I had recently learned about Jean Rhys; some of the common elements I found this time around seemed worth highlighting - and more than just coincidence.

Wheelchairs and walking
Both Jean Rhys and Aunt Maria pretended to be more disabled than they really were. 

The first article about Aunt Maria mentions a scene in which the horrible old witch, who is supposedly can barely walk and spends much of her time in a wheelchair, is quite able to get up and go to the window when she sees something that angers her. 

When I first read this, I was immediately reminded of something I had read many years earlier about Jean Rhys while looking into the Jane Eyre connection: when she became angry with her assistant, she left her wheelchair in a flash to run to the door and lock it. 

The doubly-depressing biography of Jean Rhys

The depressing effect that reading some biographies can have on impressionable readers has been mentioned in several articles, in this one about balancing the books for example. 

Too much reading about people whose lives were mostly one long nightmare scenario and who seemed to be under a curse or evil spell can make us feel that we too are trapped in hell with no way out. 

Carole Angier's Jean Rhys: Life and Work is the worst of the depressing biographies that I have read to date.

Something that the novelist Rebecca West said about Jean Rhys's autobiographical book After Leaving Mr Mackenzie (1931) also applies to Jean Rhys's other books and to Carole Angier's biography - not to mention many other biographies and fictional works mentioned on here:

“It is doubtful if one ought to open this volume unless one is happily married, immensely rich, and in robust health; for if one is not entirely free from misery when one opens the book one will be at the suicide point long before one closes it.” 

This is exactly what I am talking about. Some books have an effect similar to that of the Dementors in Harry Potter! 

In addition to being overwhelmed by a general miasma of misery, readers may find some of the material acutely distressing: the details of the suffering that Jean Rhys's actions and lack of coping ability caused to others are very painful to read. The death from pneumonia of the tiny baby she put near a balcony door in the heart of winter, her physical violence against her husbands and the neglect of her dying third husband, who went unwashed and unfed, are some of the worst examples.

An important point here is that it may be even worse for readers for whom some of it comes very close to home. 

Cults and the cutting of personal connections: Part III

The previous article gives examples of members of cult-like organisations who were ordered to cut their personal connections so that they could dedicate themselves to the cause. There is another angle to broken relationships between members and non-members: sometimes it is the non-members who cut the ties. They may feel that enough is enough when it comes to being treated badly; they may do it to protect themselves. 

From another old post of mine:

“There is another side to this. It could be that it is the family and friends who do the avoiding – or dropping. They may come to hate the pressure to accept the ideology, the recruitment attempts, the lectures and the preaching; they may get tired of being pestered for money while at the same time being told how inferior they are. There may be nothing in in for them.”

They may also not appreciate being frequently stood up or let down by unreliable people: cult members are not their own bosses and are often given errands or sent away somewhere with little notice. 

Someone who has been involved with a cult member may come to understand that they have been cheated, lied to and made a fool of: misrepresentation is common cult practice.

They may feel resentful when they realise that they have been exploited and angry when they discover that they have been tricked and used. For example, they may have been invited somewhere under false pretences just to get the numbers up and make it look as though there are many supporters. 

The cult members know very well that people wouldn't go if they knew the true purpose of and ulterior motive behind an invitation, so they bait the hook with something attractive.

I remember an occasion when people were lured to a venue by the prospect of hearing good music; they got political speeches instead! Some of them got up and walked out in disgust.  

Just as some members decide to leave a cult after a last straw moment, some people decide to stop seeing their member friends after experiencing the final straw. 

Cults and the cutting of personal connections: Part II

The previous article described in general terms the cutting of personal connections by cult members. 

This specific example, which speaks for itself, comes from an ex-member of a religious cult:

“When my sister got married I was not allowed to go to the wedding. My biological family did not matter anymore; it was all merged into a greater unity. Secretly I thought it was terrible not to be able to attend the wedding. I found out later that my sister had also been deeply wounded by my absence.

It was even worse when my grandmother died. On her deathbed, she had specially asked for me. But Lella, who was  to bring me there, delayed everything so long that, when we eventually reached the hospital, my grandmother had already passed away. Other family members had been there on time—only I was too late. I felt an intense anger and pain inside. But I immediately knew to put a smile on my face, because my feelings did not matter. I knew that, didn’t I?”

https://web.archive.org/web/20200618084714/https://www.icsahome.com/articles/i-really-believed-that-this-way-of-living-was-right-goudsmit-it-2-3

'Lella' obviously delayed everything deliberately. Subtle sabotage and undermining are common practices in cults.

I said this on the old forum:

“It is a very sad subject. The members who cut connections with their families might have a terrible awakening one day when they realise how much suffering they have caused and that it was all for nothing.”

I might add that it is just as excruciatingly painful when they realise how much of the suffering that they have endured was all for nothing.