Investigating the Use of Ancient Fertility Themes in Malcolm Bradbury’s Eating People Is Wrong

Noureddine Friji

Abstract


Employing James George Frazer’s anthropological book The Golden Bough (1890) as a theoretical background, this paper examines the ways in which Malcolm Bradbury’s academic novel Eating People Is Wrong (1959) builds on ancient fertility rituals to delineate the divide between past and present moods and modes of thought and to illuminate the emotional and intellectual sterility afflicting the modern academy and its population. It will be clear that although their names and conduct resonate with echoes of the celebrations and rites of savage tribes and subsequent societies, Bradbury’s characters fail to enact the roles of ancient fertility divinities and to maintain the essential flavour of remote antiquity’s culture. This is best illustrated by the vain attempts of a number of ardent suitors to marry the leading but misleading character Emma Fielding, a latter-day fertility goddess who heartlessly hurts their hearts. While ancient fertility goddesses’ suitors or consorts were concerned about the welfare of the community on the whole, alongside their own welfare, their modern counterparts merely seek to enhance their narrow interests. Predictably, all the characters in the novel finish up helpless and hopeless. Finally, grounded on the premise that scholarly disciplines tend to crisscross in a mutually enriching manner, this investigation aims to prove how helpful it is for Bradbury to explore the academic soul and soil through the employment of studies from other fields and how interesting it is for the researcher to spot out this cultural trend and to bring it to the attention of the reader.

Keywords


Academic Novel, Malcolm Bradbury, James George Frazer, Fertility Goddess, Fertility Rituals, Imitative Magic, Intellectual Sterility

Full Text:

PDF

References


Baigent, Michael, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. 1982. Arrow, 1996.

“Bishop.” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed., Oxford UP, 2018.

Bradbury, Malcolm. Eating People Is Wrong. 1959. Acad. Chicago, 2005.

Eberstadt, Mary. Adam and Eve after the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution. Ignatius, 2012.

Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Abr. ed. 1890. Simon, 1996.

Gransden, K. W. “New Novels.” Rev. of Eating People Is Wrong, by Malcolm Bradbury. Encounter, May 1960, pp. 78-79.

Lodge, David. “Interview with David Lodge.” Interview by Raymond H. Thompson. 15 May 1989. Taliesin’s Successors: Interviews with Authors of Modem Arthurian Literature. N. pag.

---. How Far Can You Go? 1980. Penguin, 1981.

---. The Picturegoers. 1960. Penguin, 1993.

Loomis, Roger Sherman. Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance. 1927. Acad. Chicago, 1997.

Lyons, John O. The College Novel in America. Southern Illinois UP, 1962.

Pater, Walter. Greek Studies: A Series of Essays. 1903. U P of the Pacific, 2002.

Price, Martin. “Some Novels from Abroad.” Rev. of Eating People Is Wrong, by Malcolm Bradbury. Yale Review 49, 1960, pp. 618-27.

Proctor, Mortimer. R. The English University Novel. New York: Arno, 1977.

Roth, Philip. The Professor of Desire. 1977. Vintage, 1994.

Shelley, Persse Bysse. “A Defense of Poetry.” A Defense of Poetry, and Other Essays. By Shelley, edited by J. M. Beach. West by Southwest, 2012, pp. 31-54.

Showalter, Elaine. Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and Its Discontents. U of Pennsylvania P, 2005.

Snow, C. P. “No Faculty for Finding Love.” Rev. of Eating People Is Wrong, by Malcolm Bradbury. Saturday Review, 9 April 1960, p. 29.

Tucker, Martin. “You Must Expect to Be Depressed.” Rev. of Eating People Is Wrong, by Malcolm Bradbury. New Republic 2 May 1960.

Weston, Jessie L. From Ritual to Romance. 1920. Cosimo, 2005.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.10n.2p.1

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.




Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2010-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Advances in Language and Literary Studies

You may require to add the 'aiac.org.au' domain to your e-mail 'safe list’ If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox'. Otherwise, you may check your 'Spam mail' or 'junk mail' folders.