Lesbianism is Not a Necessary Part of the Suffragette Movement

Friday, August 29, 2008

We started the day off at Trafalgar Square and walked down Whitehall to Westminster Abbey. Walking along Whitehall was more of a tour of military and political monuments than government buildings, which is what I thought Whitehall was mostly famous for. I remember passing the Departments for Scotland and Wales, but we didn’t stop to talk about them. Interesting, though, was Prof. Rudalevige’s little talk about Charles I’s and Oliver Cromwell’s statues, one at each end of Whitehall road, having a starring contest. It’s funny, the hidden significance the positioning of monuments can have. I guess that’s like our discussion of who gets into the National Portrait Gallery. I figure that money decides who has his portrait painted, but who decides which portraits actually make it into the gallery, and who decides where each one will hang? What if you put two people next to each other who hated each other in life? Does this emphasize the relationship for the viewer? Does it disregard it?

Not being one for military history, not many of the monuments interested me. I did appreciate the monument to the women who fought in WWII, the only monument to a female on the whole of Whitehall. Sadly, it was only erected in the last five years. I guess we know one more important condition for having a statue. You have to be male. I also liked the monument to “The Glorious Dead,” and the fact that the UK actually celebrates Veteran’s Day. I’d love to come back for that, but I think it would be a madhouse.

After our walk down Whitehall, we toured Westminster Abbey. Even though I’ve been to London twice before, this was the first time I’ve ever been inside the Abbey. It is spectacular to see something that old and that significant. And what other place do you get to see the tombs of famous monarchs, politicians, scientists, and authors? It was incredible. I can’t even remember how many tombs and memorials I saw. Certainly the memorial to Newton, one to Shakespeare, and a bust of my beloved Milton. I saw the tombs of Edward the Confessor, Henry III, Edward I, Edward III, Richard II, Henry V, Edward V, Henry VII, Edward VI, Bloody Mary and Queen Elizabeth I (who are buried one on top of the other, strangely), James I, Charles II, Mary II, William III, Queen Anne, George II, Anne of Cleves (Henry VIII’s fourth wife), Mary Queen of Scots…and those are just the monarchs! Let’s see…who else? Sir Robert Peel, prime minister who created the police, or Peelers. Apparently, that’s where we get the phrase “keep your eyes peeled” for the police. I saw the tomb of Charles Darwin. Then there’s Poet’s Corner: Robert Browning, Rudyard Kipling, William Congreve, Thomas Hardy, Dr. Samuel Johnson (!),Edmund Spenser, Charles Dickens, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and even Laurence Olivier. I got to spend a heartfelt moment with Geoffrey Chaucer (the first poet to be buried there around 1400).

It was a long tour, and we were asked to stop twice during our tour, on the hour, for a prayer. Someone would get on the PA system, ask us all to take a moment, remind us that Westminster Abbey is still a place of Christian worship, not just a tourist attraction, and read a prayer. I forget the first one, but the second prayer was curiously by St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits. Our tour guide expressed how the Church of England sees itself as a very cosmopolitan, inclusive religion. When we were outside the abbey he had us look up at the west façade, a newly added feature. Above the door were ten statues of modern martyrs of different faiths, nationalities, and ethnicities. In the middle was Martin Luther King.
I find it strange that the Anglican Church proclaims to be a universal faith when it used to persecute Catholics. I suppose that’s the beauty of modernization and secular society. Seeing all these churches and cathedrals still in operation makes me wonder how so many of them survived the secularization of British society, seeing as such a small percentage of citizens is actually practicing. I wonder if the percentage is so much higher in the U.S. because we began with Puritanism, instead of the religious instability that England has experienced. And then we have so many immigrants who come to the U.S. seeking religious freedom (the Puritans themselves), that, since they are free to practice their religion, they do so often.


I was starving after we finished the tour of Westminster Abbey, and I think I nearly killed Leah and Chad dragging them around Oxford Street, trying to find The Marlborough Head, the pub Bonnie took me to last time I was in London. Just as we were about to give up, we found it and had lunch. I still really like it. Good atmosphere, nice décor, and it is bigger than other pubs I’ve been to.
We came back to the Arran House to work on journals. No matter how much time I allot to work on them, I never seem to catch up. I IMed a couple of friends and was bitched at by Chris for not going out. Well, je m’enfiche, Chris. I’m happy.
Leah and I made the rest of the pasta we had and ate dinner.
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At 7:30, we dressed up and went to the National Theatre to see the play Her Naked Skin, a play about the British suffragette movement written by the first woman to ever premiere at the National Theatre. A historic moment in the history of theatre. Too bad the play was awful. The acting, music, and sets were good. Even the dialogue was good in places, witty and lively. But the plot was fragmented and too ambitious. The story of the suffragette movement was overshadowed by a completely unnecessary lesbian love affair between the two main characters, the relationship between who was never truly established until their affair began half way through the first act. There was a lot of gratuitous lesbian making-out and sex. In fact, far too much sex in general. It really distracted from the history of the suffragette movement and it trivialized the idea of female solidarity. There were also several subplots that really never led anywhere. The main character, Lady Celia, would repeatedly say how she didn’t want to talk about her children, even though one was getting married. That never played out into anything. There was a doctor training under another doctor who gave the forced feedings, and this younger doctor would always express misgivings about the “procedure.” I thought that perhaps he would become part of the suffragette movement, or at least the movement to stop forced feedings, but nothing happened with that, either. Nor with the nervous nurse who seemed so stocked after her first forced feeding. I thought she would join the movement, but no.
I didn’t really learn anything about the specifics of the British suffragette movement versus the American one, either, except perhaps the role it played (or didn’t play, as the case was) in Parliament. Other than that, the scenes of forced feedings, prison life, and picketing were pretty much the same things I’ve seen before in my American History classes. The force feeding was disturbing, though. I would never have imagined seeing that on stage.

We all exited the theatre and, at least among the people I talked to, there was a general sense of disappointment. I’m glad I saw it, but I can’t imagine it going very far. The Russian acrobats performing outside the theatre were far more entertaining.