Woolfian Boundaries - Clemson University

134 WOOLFIAN BOUNDARIES
Mrs. Grundy, then, stands apart from the other personalities in Kapp’s book. She stands
apart because of her gender and as a literary abstraction rather than an actual person. She also
stands apart physically, as the last caricature in the book. Depicted as a fragmentary white presence
against a black background, she is situated by a vertical line that suggests a doorway or
window. She is a borderline personality. An observer rather than a participant, she appears
to be attentive, to be contemplating and listening to the life that is taking place around her.
Her inclusion is an ingenious touch on the part of Kapp, and in the context of his book, we
might understand her on a number of diff erent levels. Firstly, she helps to suggest the range
of Kapp’s interests and skills, as he goes about giving form to a non-existent fi gure, rather
than distorting an existing one. Bracketing his book with diff erences of gender and race,
Kapp places his last caricature, Mrs. Grundy, in relationship to his fi rst, which depicts his only
non-western subject, the Japanese
poet, Yone Neguchi. Kapp captions
the work “Th e Seer of Visions,” but
it is not until his depiction of Mrs.
Grundy that he seems to stake an
obvious claim on this mystical title
for himself. It is only here that he
truly catches a phantom personality
in his artistic net.
Associated with issues of decorum
and (self-)censorship, Mrs.
Grundy is partly a fi gure Kapp
must fi ght against, or ignore, as
he goes about his business of poking
fun at the great, the good, and
the powerful. For this reason, her
presence draws our attention to
questions of taste and to editorial
issues, to acts of selection and arrangement.
“Art is essentially selection,”
wrote Henry James in “Th e
Art of Fiction,” “but it is a selection
whose main care is to be typical,
to be inclusive. For many people
art means rose-coloured window-
Figure 7
panes, and selection means picking
a bouquet for Mrs. Grundy” (58).
How, we might ask, is Mrs. Grundy placed within the bouquet of Kapp’s book? We
have already noted that she is the last of his personalities, but also of signifi cance is the
fact that she is immediately preceded by “Th e Anti-Suff ragist: Mr Reginald McKenna”
(see Figure 7). Th is sequence inevitably brings to mind the pre-war years, when the suffragette
campaign of militancy was at its height (Kapp’s Mrs. Grundy even bears the date
1914 alongside his signature). Known to be a staunch opponent of women’s suff rage,
McKenna was Asquith’s Home Secretary between 1911 and 1915, and the politician most