Sexuality and Identity: Sarah Waters Adaptation of Oliver Twist in a Twentieth Century Novel, Fingersmith
Adaptation is a means by which an author or director reinterprets an original work to critique the original message or reinvent the work for a new audience. Sarah Waters explores the effect of adapting Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens, in her novel Fingersmith. Each of these works is set in the nineteenth century Victorian Era and incorporates social issues of this time into the plots. By closely examining these works and the dichotomies each of these portrays, an enhanced understanding of the time period and works will be gained. In this essay, close scrutiny regarding the issues of sex and sexuality, and the importance of identity, or lack thereof, will be examined. Obvious details within Fingersmith lead the reader to conclude this is an adaptation of Oliver Twist. The challenge is supporting the adaptation theory within the dichotomies represented in Oliver Twist and Fingersmith. These dichotomies create a social critique of the Victorian Era. Waters understands the expectations of the contemporary reader and inverts these ideas to force the reader to question whether these expectations are truthfully represented.
While Fingersmith is set during the Victorian Era, it is more than 20 years after the first publication of Oliver Twist. If Fingersmith is to be considered as an adaptation, one must consider the similarities and dichotomies within each work and determine how these enhance the original work. Examples of differences within these novels are the representation of sexuality, gender and circumstances of identity. One theory of adaptation, raw material, takes the essence of the original work and reintroduces it to a new audience. Due to the new elements, this work remains an original with subtle nuances of a past work, in this case Oliver Twist. This reminds the reader of the setting and context of the time period and also brings into discussion the social climate, yet presents a new interpretation, or reinterpretation. In “’Faux-Victorian Melodrama’ in the New Millennium: The Case of Sarah Waters,” Mariaconcetta Costantini states, “It is only by merging them [past and present] together that we get a better sense of the ‘reality’ of past ages and, in so doing, detect affinities with the present, which help us rethink our role and identity” (19). As a twentieth century Victorian novel, Fingersmith offers an unconventional view of Victorian life forcing the reader to question the representation of the time. These juxtapositions also ask the reader to focus on preconceived ideas of the past and ask if these ideas are consistent with the reality of that past.
An obvious example of originality portrayed by Waters is the lesbian relationship between the two main characters, Sue and Maud. Considering this is a twentieth century novel set in the nineteenth century Victorian Era, the fact that Sue and Maud have a sexual relationship which is described in explicit detail indicates Waters is writing this for a contemporary audience. In a twentieth century contemporary audience there is an expectation and interest in sexuality. Waters succeeds in providing scintillating sexual scenes within this lesbian relationship in the following passage, “I had touched her before, to wash and dress her, but never like this. So smooth she was! So warm! It was like I was calling the heat and shape of her out of the darkness” (150). The author takes liberty with the sexual content within this contemporary work and portrays a scene which would not have been acceptable in Victorian print, and presents it in a respectable manner.
Intricate sexual details such as this
are not expressed by Charles Dickens. The most suggestive character in
Oliver Twist
is
This culture, though hidden, is found in nineteenth century documentation which was not readily available for the general public in the Victorian Era. Waters presents this idea in her representation of Mr. Lily, Maud’s uncle and curator of written pornographic material. Through this character, the contemporary reader understands this secret society. The full corruption of Maud by her uncle is realized when she states “now he has me stand for them and read…and the gentlemen…watch me strangely. I grow used to that. When I have finished, at my uncles instruction I curtsey…The gentlemen clap, then come to shake or stroke my hand” (207) creating an inescapable image in which Maud has been trapped. As a result, this experience begins to form an identity which she abhors, but is unable to detach herself from. Costantini indicates “What she [Waters] finds in Victorian culture and literature is the matrix of a series of controversial discourses which were produced by the clash of contending forces” (21). The basis for the secret society Waters has created is based on documents of the Victorian Era.
An example of this hidden society is discussed in The Other Victorians by Steven Marcus, a detailed historical overview of the history of pornography. In Chapter 3 entitled “The Secret Life” Marcus quotes Ralph Ginzburg’s description of a book in the same name as follows, “an eleven volume encyclopedia of sexual knowledge of which only one copy is known to exist in the United States...printed in 1888 in an edition of just six copies, it describes every known form of sexual perversion, from lesbianism, pederasty and flagellomania to sodomy, incest and bestiality” (77). Marcus continues by stating “The author of My Secret Life was genuinely, though not entirely, concerned to maintain his identity in secret” (82). This reminds one of the anonymity of which Mr. Lily remains. The material Maud is reciting contains literary elements which are considered taboo during the Victorian Era. Through Waters, the reader is witness to a love affair seldom discussed in context to the Victorian Era. Costantini states, “What she [Waters] finds in Victorian culture and literature is the matrix of a series of controversial discourses which were produced by the clash of contending forces” (21). On the one hand, historical documents of the Victorian Era catalog all forms of sexuality, including pornography and lesbian relationships; yet, the literature of this era, which represents cultural and societal issues, fails to provide a voice on these subjects. By providing a new interpretation of this subject, Maud becomes a character that is not oppressed by the subject matter, but finds an avenue by which she can eventually claim an identity.
The issue of identity within Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, becomes one of the main themes in the characters Oliver and Pip. In Oliver Twist, the reader is aware that Oliver believes himself to be in circumstances of which he does not belong. He is searching for his identity while sensing he is from an upper class. Pip, on the other hand, believes his identity is achieved when his secret benefactor provides an upward social movement, which is destroyed when he realizes his benefactor is a criminal. Elichi Hara states, “Under the firmament of gleaming eyes, then, a Dickens hero is born and he is to search for his identity” (19). Waters maintains the issue of identity within the Victorian Era when she creates Sue and Maud under false pretenses. At birth, these two characters future lives are interchanged when Mrs. Sucksby gives her birth daughter to the Lily family in hopes she will be raised up in class socially. The theme of identity which runs through Dickens’s novel echoes within Waters’ work as well. Waters maintains the issue of identity within the Victorian Era when she creates Sue and Maud under false pretenses with false identities. Oliver Twist and Pip are raised under false pretenses with identities that are not true. The true circumstances of Oliver’s birth keep him from his birth right. Pip’s benefactor is also a mystery and when the true benefactor is revealed Pip cannot accept the fate which has been determined for him. Hara states, “He [Pip] can no longer expect to be a gentleman; yet it is impossible for him to recover his past self as a blacksmith’s apprentice” (33). In the process of becoming a gentleman, Pip has turned his back on his past. Once his benefactor is revealed, Pip must come to terms with this turn of events, and the fact that he no longer belongs in the world in which he was raised.
This concept is obvious as well in the characters of Sue and Maud. When Sue learns the history of her birth her sense of identity is lost. This is evident when Sue states, “’my name, in those days, was Susan Trinder. Now those days all came to an end’” (540). Sue finds that she can no longer relate to the past or her previous identity. Although her name is Sue Trinder, her past has been rewritten and is unfamiliar. Maud is also struggling with her identity due to the lies and deceit which surrounds her life. Sue and Maud’s identity has been reversed and they have no idea how to right the injustice done to them. Waters is exploring the concept of identity with these two characters who have, in essence, switched places. Once the truth of the circumstances of their [Sue and Maud] identities is revealed, there is no turning back to correct the circumstances of their past. Cheryl A. Wilson indicates, “For middle and upper-class Victorian women, feminine identity was directly connected to proficiency in a variety of ‘domestic ‘accomplishments’’ that were designed to attract and fill hours of genteel leisure” (286). In this regard, Maud and Sue are not characterized by the values Victorian society demanded of the women in their society. By this representation, Waters transforms these characters and slowly empowers them to step out of society’s expectations and create their own ending. Each of these characters must achieve their own individual identities and embrace, or at least accept their histories. Once this had been accomplished each character can move forward and create a world in which they can reside. In Oliver Twist, Oliver finds his identity by the end of the novel, a place in society he has always believed was within reach. Sue and Maud, in Fingersmith, lose their identities and must rewrite not only their past history, but their future as well. This is an example of how Waters creates Fingersmith as an adaptation of Oliver Twist. Waters presents the theme of identity, as Dickens has Oliver Twist, but adapts it to create a new story for a new, contemporary audience.
Sarah Waters adapts her novel Fingersmith from Dickens’s Oliver Twist using the raw material model of adaptation. She offers elements of Oliver Twist and inverts these ideas to present an entirely new work. This creative upheaval of character, plot and narration in the text allows the reader to make the connection to Oliver Twist while at the same time reaching an entirely different audience. Fingersmith’s character Sue is comparable to Oliver Twist’s Oliver in many ways. Both Sue and Oliver are portrayed as orphans. As a result of this social stigma, they are both on a quest for their true identity which has been kept secret from each of them. Sue and Oliver are both inherently good; although Sue’s self-perception is tainted by the belief her birth mother was a criminal. Sue and Oliver are both very sensitive about their dead mothers. In Fingersmith, Sue attacks John Vroom and holds a pair of kitchen shears to his throat because he is making fun of her dead mother and how she “fizzed” when she was hung (84). This scene is reminiscent of a similar scene in Oliver Twist when Noah Claypool tells Oliver, “but yer must know, work’us, your mother was a regular right down bad’un. . .’and it’s a great deal better, work’us that she died when she did, or else she’d have been hard laboring in Bridewell, or transported, or hung, which is more likely than either, isn’t it?” (47). Oliver reacts violently to this comment, striking Noah. This scene demonstrates a definite connection between the two novels and is another example of adaptation by the use raw material. Waters introduces female characters switched at birth to adapt the idea of identity within Oliver Twist and changes it to suit a contemporary audience. Creating female protagonists is one way Waters connects the nineteenth century Victorian Era to contemporary twentieth century readers.
In each of these novels, the authors approach narration quite differently. Oliver Twist is a third-person narrative. Fingersmith is a first-person narrative which fluctuates between Sue and Maud creating a change in perspective within the novel. Waters uses a narrative technique which is also present in Oliver Twist when Dickens uses the narrator to speak to the reader in order to create momentum within the plot. This is demonstrated in Oliver Twist when the narrator states, “And now I come to a very important passage in Oliver’s history, for I have to record an act, slight and unimportant perhaps in appearance, but which indirectly produced a most material challenge in all his future prospects and proceedings” (46). This passage is directly addressed to the reader in order to defend the plot or propel it forward. A similar technique is used by Waters in Fingersmith. The narrator [Sue] says, “You are waiting for me to start my story. Perhaps I was waiting, then. But my story has already started-I was like you, and didn’t know it” (14). Waters changes the narration within the novel several times. In the beginning Sue it the narrator, it then shifts to Maud and shifts back to Sue at the end of the novel. This allows the reader the perspective of both characters intensifying the motives which drive them to react. Although the narrative approach is different, each text speaks to the reader at pivotal moments within the plot. These details connect the novels and demonstrate differences do not take away from the adaptation, but enhance the adaptation.
There are definite connections between Oliver Twist and Fingersmith. Waters makes the connections to the original text of Oliver Twist though they are skewed, twisted, reversed and manipulated in order to create a completely new and original work that stands on its own merit. Those who have read Oliver Twist will see the connections clearly and will recognize that Fingersmith is an adaptation of Oliver Twist. Waters reaches out to a new, twentieth century contemporary audience, an audience that may have never read Oliver Twist. Costantini indicates, “On the literary scene, young writers have joined the ranks of the earlier postmodern revivalists. These writers have contributed to keeping alive the interest in the Victorian past, but they have also introduced some thematic and formal innovations which require critical attention” (17). Waters makes Fingersmith relevant to our time as she explores the themes of identity, as in Oliver Twist.
Through gender and characterization, Waters creates women characters that evolve and reach an acceptance of their identity once they come to accept the injustice which has surrounded their past. Waters portrays pornography and lesbianism and creates a genuine and legitimate representation in this novel. It would be challenging to find references of pornography and lesbianism in a Dickens novel, although documents prove these were elements of Victorian culture, albeit hidden. Waters introduces these themes and juxtaposes these with female protagonists to create a commentary on similar themes of sexuality and identity with Oliver Twist. This creates an adaptation written for a contemporary twentieth century audience which questions the basis of the representation of sexuality and identity in nineteenth century Victorian England.