ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH MODERNIST ... - DRUM

induce me” (277). Fanny, then, refuses to convert vision into knowledge. But it is
crucial that, particularly, this is an inner vision. The suggestion is that thought and
contemplation lead to sight that is truer than that available through observation and
even focalization. Fanny comes to this vision by contemplating Maggie—and
Maggie’s thoughts first of all. She then leads herself through Maggie’s actions
throughout the evening. And here, again, what might have been a crucial action to fill
the novel’s absent middle is narrated before the end of Part First: Fanny recalls that
Maggie, unusual for her, drove Fanny home—that is, left her father’s before she was
accustomed to. This thought, in turn, leads Fanny to contemplate the possibility that
Charlotte and Amerigo would not return home that evening. With one chapter
remaining in Part First, Fanny has already informed the reader that Maggie has
behaved unusually, and traces this action back to a further reminder of the unnarrated,
but perfectly obvious, action Charlotte and Amerigo have taken. Both of these actions
are, before the middle, distinctly in the past, and the site of little if any
epistemological uncertainty. Epistemological uncertainty, and narrative suspense, is
moved from Charlotte and Amerigo’s actions to Maggie’s thoughts.
Chapter XXIV continues to prepare the reader for a transition to Maggie as
the novel’s sole focalizer, with thoughts rather than actions the crucial elements of the
drama. Fanny analyzes Maggie’s manner, slowly growing more confident that
Maggie has begun to undergo a change. While R. B. J. Wilson’s argument that
Maggie’s role as focalizer in Part Second does not reduce the reader’s interest in the
three other principals is admirable, Fanny seems to be preparing us for more than a
change in the novel’s point of view: “She’ll carry the whole weight of us” (279).
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