The Demise of Patriarchy in A Simple Story

O you kind gods!
Cure this breach in his abused nature.
King Lear, Act IV, scene vii

        The consensus among scholars seems to be that Elizabeth Inchbald’s A Simple Story is at heart a derivation of the eighteenth-century power play: all relationships, all actions, and all consequences are defined primarily within the circle of influence of a family patriarch. George E. Haggerty calls it a “novel about the abjection of the female in patriarchal culture,” and adds, “[P]atriarchy itself has made any other relation to power utterly pointless” (51, 48). Terry Castle notes, “A Simple Story is a story of law and its violation [. . .] the law is masculine, the will that opposes feminine” (294). Both tend to view patriarchy as an immutable force, an innate characteristic of the paterfamilias, to be challenged subversively, but never lost or overthrown entirely. Perhaps there is more at stake than this.

        A Simple Story begins with the central male character, Dorriforth, expressing uncertainty over his new charge, Miss Milner: “[H]e feared he had undertaken a task he was too weak to execute--the protection of a young woman of fashion” (Inchbald 6). The story concludes with the same degree of doubt for the future of Matilda, the daughter of both Dorriforth (now Lord Elmwood) and the deceased Milner. In between these bookends of incertitude, the Dorriforth/Elmood (hereafter “Dorriforth”) character distances himself from both Milner and Matilda, abandoning them to their own devices, or to the care of surrogates. The ending, in which Matilda is unwittingly pledged to her inept first cousin Harry Rushbrook, is anything but satisfactory for author or reader. A Simple Story is more accurately the story of patriarchal blunder and nonfeasance, and the fate that consequently befalls a ward, a nephew, and a daughter. More importantly, it is a model of the abdication of patriarchy and its attendant consequences on a future generation of Britons.

         A problem with most critical reviews of A Simple Story stems from the cavalier acceptance of Dorriforth as a patriarch by virtue of his status as a male at the head of his household. Anthony Fletcher, taking this modern perspective, defines “patriarchy” as “the institutionalized male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of that subordination to women in society in general” (Fletcher in Pollock 15). This is the vague social context in which A Simple Story is appraised by contemporary scholars and readers. However, closer to Inchbald’s time and milieu, patriarchy takes on a slightly different definition, one that requires something in addition to status and gender. Political theorist Sir Robert Filmer wrote in Patriarcha, published posthumously in 1680: “As the father over one family, so the king, as father over many families, extends his care to preserve, feed, clothe, instruct and defend the whole commonwealth [. . .] to preserve and distribute [. . .] their rights and privileges, so that all the duties of a king are summed up in an universal fatherly care of his people” (12). Filmer’s patriarchy is much more than a status-oriented model of male dominance. In Filmer’s definition, drawn from the nucleus of the royal Briton’s perspective, patriarchy implies certain responsibilities: to provide, to teach, and to defend; in other words, to take “fatherly care” of one’s wards. A comprehensive evaluation of patriarchy as it pertains to Inchbald’s narrative must involve duties in addition to power and relationships; a responsibility to secure and to educate, to guide and to provide for one’s offspring. A Simple Story is about the failure of those essential duties.

        An ancillary argument can be made that the neglect which Dorriforth shows his daughter Matilda, a form of parental isolation that Haggerty labels “abjection,” is not a mere sexual game, but a dysfunctional act that supports the notion of an absentee patriarch. Dorriforth’s essential weakness is portrayed early in the story in the example of Harry Rushbrook. In describing Dorriforth’s previous alienation of young Rushbrook and his mother, Inchbald writes, “Although Dorriforth was that good man that has been described, there was in his nature shades of evil--there was an obstinacy; such as he himself, and his friends termed firmness of mind; but had not religion and some opposite virtues weighed heavy in the balance, it would frequently have degenerated into implacable stubbornness” (34). Rushbrook, at the start of the story, is Dorriforth’s three-year-old nephew--an orphan, and a reminder of his (Dorriforth’s) deceased sister having married against Dorriforth’s consent. Rushbrook is kept in a farm house outside of town, surviving on Dorriforth’s “generosity,” but banished from his uncle’s sight (34). There is a foreshadowing moment when Dorriforth is unwittingly united with Rushbrook, and informed of the child’s identity mid-embrace: “Dorriforth was holding him fondly round the waist as he stood with his feet upon his knees; and at this reply he did not throw him from him--but he removed his hands, which supported him, so suddenly, that the child to prevent falling on the floor, threw himself about his uncle’s neck” (36). Years later, Dorriforth repeats this scene on a stairway with his seventeen-year-old daughter, Matilda, nearly dropping to the floor when she faints in his arms. With regards his nephew, Dorriforth ultimately relents and allows Harry to live with him--and even comes to declare him as his heir, bestowing the benefits of a son upon him. Matilda, too, returns to Dorriforth’s favor by story’s end.

        This is the attraction-repulsion between characters that is the essence of Haggerty’s literary abjection: father and child are united, separated, and united again. However, as is the case with Matilda, there does not seem to be a reciprocation--that mutual repulsion that Haggerty, applying Julia Kristeva’s definition, describes as a “synchronic push-pull” of both parties, subject and object (38, 40). Indeed, neither Matilda nor Rushbrook ever seem to repel Dorriforth (Rushbrook’s reaction is to throw his arms “about his uncle’s neck” and Matilda cries out for help [“Save me”] and falls into his arms [35, 274). It is Dorriforth who unilaterally repels each of these parties, using a supposed transgression as his excuse. Further, the very idea that this “abjection,” such as it is, might be portrayed through both genders would seem to undermine any assertion that abjection in A Simple Story has a gender-specific agenda--as Haggerty termed it, a “collapse of the father/lover” into a “carefully eroticized”paternal figure who is the “object” of his daughter’s masochistic “desire” (Haggerty 664, 665). When we consider Milner’s similar predicament, it is then clear that all three--nephew, daughter and ward--fall victim to Dorriforth’s abandonment and neglect at some point in the story. Finally, the suggestion that this story is about mutual repulsion ignores the desire for family unity that is manifested repeatedly by each of the oppressed individuals, and pays no heed to the fact that Milner, Matilda and Rushbrook have ultimately achieved a momentary dominion of Dorriforth at some point in the story, only to find the victory hollow at best. Ultimately, this theory of literary abjection has at least as many examples against it as would support it. The locus of power that would give rise to Haggerty and Kristeva’s subject-object relation is fluid and uncertain; patriarchy in A Simple Story has no fixed position: it wavers, wanes and is ultimately snuffed out, as we see with Sandford, Dorriforth and even with Milner’s tentative grasp of it. Sandford’s demise is most notable, as he begins the story as the patriarch’s patriarch.

        Sandford is immediately presented in A Simple Story as a man of learning, steadfastness, wisdom and ingenuity, a jesuit priest of the order before it was “compelled to take another name” (Inchbald 39). Ever-present at Dorriforth’s side for the first half of the story, Sandford’s influence over his former pupil is complete: “This Preceptor, held with a magisterial power the government of his pupil’s passions; nay, governed them so entirely, no one could perceive (nor did the young lord know) that he had any” (38). Sandford scolds his pupil for striking, then dueling with Lord Lawnley. Sandford, with Dorriforth’s acquiescence, badgers and berates Milner with the emotional zeal of one doing a job he knows he does well. Frequently, Milner is reduced to tears from Sandford’s expert invective and bullying instinct. From early in the story, Milner recognizes Sandford’s control: “What do you mean, madam [. . .] am I the master here?” Sandford asks Milner. “‘Your servants,’ replied she looking at the company, ‘will not tell you so, but I do’” (44).Throughout the first part of A Simple Story, Sandford is Dorriforth’s loco parentis, super-ego and moral conscience. He is a much-needed guide who helps his pupil navigate the new experiences of guardian, suitor, husband, and lord. At the end of the first book, he commands both Milner and Dorriforth into the marital union.

        However, Sandford takes a much different turn in the second book. Reduced to a “humiliating and degraded state,” he must resort to servile tactics and pleas to dissuade Dorriforth from wrathful measures, falling to his knees to ask mercy for Matilda (319, 322). In one scene, Dorriforth brings his former mentor to tears and menaces him to silence when discussing Matilda. When a loyal family servant of twenty years asks Sandford to help him get his job back, a job he lost when he dared to mention Milner’s name, Sandford concedes he lacks the influence to save the man and his “wretched family” (271). In a moment of reflection, Sandford cries tears of shame, but refuses to speak his mind to Dorriforth, for fear “the doors most probably would be shut to him forever” (322). By the novel’s end, Sandford is mutely following orders that are snapped at him, and is truly a shadow of his former self.

        This change in Sandford’s character and influence would be only half as interesting if a transformation of similar proportions were not witnessed in Dorriforth as well. Once described by Milner’s father as the union of “every moral virtue,” a trustworthy person without the qualities of flattery, tyranny or indecision, we see a very different man by story’s end. When Matilda falls into his arms and cries “Save me,” Dorriforth is “unmanned” and nearly lets her fall to the ground, his response ineffective and inaffective simultaneously (274). “Will you then prove yourself a father?” Sandford asks when Matilda is kidnaped by Margrave, perhaps speaking to his own failings as well (324). When Dorriforth “rescues” Matilda, there is the feeling of anticlimax. Margrave offers no resistance, the men exchange pleasantries, and Dorriforth promises legal recourse on his way out the door. Shortly after, Dorriforth relinquishes Matilda to her cousin, a forsakening that Matilda recognizes: “[Dorriforth] has yielded to you alone, the power over my happiness and misery” (337). Misery indeed: in addition to being a blood relative, Rushbrook is also depicted at times as shallow, insincere, spoiled, scheming, drunk, and rude. He is not the “catch” we envision for our heroine.

        For all its complexity, A Simple Story never waivers from its theme of abdication and failed parental responsibility. Even when Dorriforth rushes to Matilda’s rescue, there is a hollow and unsatisfactory ring to it. He is not convincing in his brief foray as a father, and ultimately he fails in a fundamental way when he quickly abandons Matilda again, this time to the naive and the less-than-deserving Rushbrook. Sandford, once a stalwart of integrity, comes across as spineless and servile, selling out as he opts for a life of obedience over homelessness. Both men have relinquished their roles as parent-figures. This message comes at a time when Britain’s empire was also withering under the old order. Even Terry Castle concedes certain political overtones when she comments that A Simple Story is “anti-authoritarian” (292). In fact, A Simple Story is a not-so-simple subversive political commentary about the recent troubles of a once-great empire.

        In the 1770's Britain was preoccupied with the secession of the colonies. This came on the heels of the costly French-Indian War. Eventually, Spain, Holland, France, and German mercenaries joined with the colonies, and King George III was forced to sign the 1783 treaty at Versailles. The King quickly moved to normalize relations with America as a sovereign nation and valuable trading partner, even as his subjects reeled from the loss. A vast empire was humbled by a consensus nations, its future suddenly uncertain, its authority eviscerated.

        Significant credit for the growing rift between the colonies and empire is attributed to a “desacralization”--a dissonance of sorts--between patriarch and subjects. George G. Suggs writes:

        But by far the most important development was what might be called the gradual desacralization of the customary moral order that had always been the primary binding force between Britain and the colonies. This process was especially evident in the rapid spread and intensification of a generalized belief in the evil intentions of men in power in Britain and in the corruption of the central governing institutions of the empire [. . .] But [the colonists] retained a great amount of respect for the king and for the essential justice and virtue of the British people. (Suggs 68)

        In essence, the governed no longer trust the patriarchal authority to do what is best for them, but they love him and fear him just the same. This desacralization is the result of equal measures of distance and indifference, and this dynamic exists between people just as it exists between empire and colonies. Linda A. Pollack concedes, “The application of [patriarchal] power has a spatial and cultural dimension and is strongest at its center” (3). This same dysfunction surfaces again in A Simple Story, which author Elizabeth Inchbald began writing sometime after 1779 and published in 1791. Set apart from their king by distance and patriarchal disaffection and mismanagement, the colonies assumed their own authority, a lesson in assimilation that Inchbald applies to Milner, albeit briefly.

        Jaqueline Rogers argues that the absence or demise of a parent leaves a vacuum, or void, in its wake, which forces the child to take on those characteristics for herself. Rogers writes:

        Much the same purpose is served by the use of orphaned heroines. Offered protection by lovers who would fill the office of protective father, these heroines learn that their survival depends upon their developing resources like wit and determination--upon their developing inner masculine characteristics that allow them to demonstrate selfhood. While they continue to love the masculine figure whose vulnerability is revealed, they grow beyond needing him. (123)

        Milner, the stronger of the two female protagonists, comes closest to assimilating the masculine in the face of Dorriforth’s ineptitude. This metamorphosis is graphically depicted in the masquerade episode of the first half of the novel, where Milner attends the ball against Dorriforth’s consent. “‘How?’ cried [Dorriforth],” upon hearing the news that Milner may have dressed as a man for the occasion (Inchbald 159). The masquerade is Milner’s complete domination of Dorriforth, both in symbolic effect and in Milner’s dialogue prior to the event. Milner tells Woodley that she shall “put [Dorriforth] to the proof,” and will “force him to yield his love” (148, 149) She then boldly proclaims to Dorriforth, “I may have the chance of making a conquest even of you, my lord” (152). She openly voices her love for Dorriforth, thus encroaching upon the grave social proscription against a ward pining for her guardian. In addition, she serves notice that, as a “lover,” she will not obey her guardian. And she further makes it a condition precedent to marriage that Dorriforth must “submit” to be her lover first (154). Finally, Milner attends the ball against Dorriforth’s wishes, allegedly in the dress of a man; but in the morning in the guise of Diana. In this episode Dorriforth plays the prima donna--conceited, irrational and temperamental. He is left sitting at home while Milner moves proactively through social circles, dressed as a man and as a god, basking in this two-fold inversion of the social order.

        Terry Castle argues that this social inversion--however successful in the ballroom--fails in the domestic sphere when Milner returns home to her guardian: “Dorriforth charges his lover with making herself unrecognizable, as it were, to patriarchy. Ruling that he will not see her, he also implies that he cannot; he cannot see her now in the existential sense, and cannot acknowledge either their history or their love” (313). Castle just misses the mark, here. Because Dorriforth is a failed patriarch, he is in no position to ‘recognize’ Milner. Even more revealing is that Milner, in playing the role of both god and man, for a moment assumes, at best, the guise of the patriarch--as best she knows that guise to be. This role lasts as far as the ensuing argument, and culminates when she stands toe-to-toe with her guardian and daring him to leave her. In shifting the masculine role from Dorriforth to Milner, Inchbald both hints at Dorriforth’s failure and symbolically undermines gender and social status as an essential attribute to patriarchy. Inchbald challenges the reader to rethink patriarchy from a different, more intangible angle. Milner can play the thick-headed masculine role as well her guardian; however, she is equally inept at playing his patriarch as he is at playing hers. Dorriforth’s parting proclamation that Milner’s father would not recognize her in her Diana-ish masquerade attire, or that Milner has forgotten her father’s education, comes off as a cheap shot, and only half-accurate, at best. Milner’s father may or may not recognize her, but Mr. Milner’s (her father’s) education has been taken to its logical extrapolation, since he trusted Dorriforth to conclude that education. .

        Unfortunately Rogers’ resolution to patriarchical demise--the assimilation of the masculine--never comes to pass in the second half of A Simple Story. Matilda fails to acquire a sense of self-assuredness and autonomy, and has not developed the inner resources necessary to fill the external void in her life. She remains pliant to the paper tigers that comprise the failed-patriarchal dynamic of A Simple Story: Sandford, Dorriforth, and Rushbrook; her fate entrusted, in succession, to each of these three men who have demonstrated themselves incapable of the task. It is clear from the results that Matilde’s “proper education” is still wanting, and the ending is anything but optimistic.

Conclusion

        Inchbald takes pains to show Dorriforth’s abjection meted out equally to ward, nephew and daughter; it is not, as Haggerty argues, a gender-specific game with heteroerotic overtones. Nor is it a tale of feminine/class subversion, as Castle maintains. Dorriforth’s evil has greater dimensions; it is a surrender of that duty that is placed upon him by his status as guardian and father. He fails his role as a patriarch when, without just cause, he distanced two innocent children and his ward from his reach, and thus, from his protection and education. Sandford, too, fails in the patriarchal role, when he opts for obedience over control, shelter over potential homelessness; in short, when he sells out. Dorriforth’s obstinacy and Sandford’s obsequiousness are the two evils that cause the patriarchal role to collapse. As educators from the same school, both men fail miserably in the end, and the result is Harry and Matilde, a naive and interbred couple, akin to Hansel and Gretel, living in that oblivion that ignorance provides, lacking the “proper education. ” These wayward youths are the future stewards of an uncertain house of relics. In 1791, with the British Empire in demise, both author and audience could readily identify with the issues of neglect and abdication of power. This is the breakdown of the old system; the demise of everything that is patriarchal.


Works Cited

Castle, Terry. Masquerade and Civilization: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth-Century English
         Culture and Fiction. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1986.

Filmer, Robert. Patriarcha and Other Writings. Ed. Johanne P. Sommerville. New York: Cambridge
         UP, 1991.

Haggerty, George E. Unnatural Affections: Women and Fiction in the Later 18th Century. Indiana:
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Inchbald, Elizabeth. A Simple Story. 1791. Ed. J.M.S. Tompkins. Introduction by Jane Spencer. New
         York: Oxford UP, 1967.

Pollock, Linda A. “Rethinking Patriarchy and the Family in Seventeenth-Century England.” Journal
         of Family History. vol. 123, Issue 1 (1998): 25 pp. 28 Oct. 2000 <http://www. EBSCOhostFull
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Rogers, Jaqueline McLeod. Aspects of the Female Novel. Wakefield: Longwood Academic, 1991.

Suggs, George G., ed. Perspectives on the American Revolution. Illinois: Southern Illinois University
         Press, 1977.