A bald pretender.
Dear Tara and Anthony,
At the close of Chapter 16 Vera entered Miss MacIntosh’s bedroom late at night, perceiving by the light of two moonbeams that her nursemaid was not asleep in bed, but instead standing by the tall, open window. Now we move to Chapter 17 at just that point when Vera’s eyesight is adjusting to that dimly lit room.
Young writes “moon” and “bald” again and again in this brief, six page chapter. Both words are vital. You see, the bedroom is barely illuminated, the only light is that of moon. This circumstance makes Vera uncertain, causes her to doubt that she is actually seeing what she believes she is seeing—that is, a bald figure who more resembles a man than Miss MacIntosh.
As we have grown accustomed, Young employs a variety of descriptions in depicting this person’s head:
“some enormous ivory ball”
“that great dome, that sphere devoid of being,”
“bald as an egg,”
“bald and shorn,”
“coldly, stonily bald,”
“bald and bare as the naked rock lashed by waves,”
“polished glossy, sudden baldness.”
Twice Vera refers to the dimly lit figure before her as “the bald pretender.” But who is pretending here? Is this an imposter posing as Miss MacIntosh? Or instead, has Miss MacIntosh all this time been pretending to be a female nursemaid? Vera’s bewilderment is palpable and heightens our own.
Apart from baldness, the “pretender” possesses other masculine characteristics: angular, muscles, flat breasts, amazing biceps, all causing Vera to shout, “Miss MacIntosh, you are a man!
Vera recalls the dream that she had previously, in which Mr. Spitzer and Miss MacIntosh swapped genders and were married. “It was the realization of a dream, and like all realizations, it had brought with it both that which was expected and the unforeseen.”
The “pretender” and Vera have a physical altercation, and now something even weirder happens within the text. At the chapter’s midpoint, Young begins to use the pronouns “he” and “it” in reference to the “pretender” instead of “she.”
We empathize with Vera’s questioning of reality versus illusion, our constant query throughout the novel:
“What shall we do when, fleeing from illusion, we are confronted by illusion? When falling from illusion, we fall into illusion? Have we not deceived ourselves? Where was the real world?” But perhaps, the answer to these questions is not binary. As we’ve posited in previous posts, maybe all is illusion and reality, simultaneously.
In my June 12 post, I wrote on Young’s use of opposition and slippage. About the “pretender,” Vera observes “[s]he seemed so frail,” and on the next page shares surprise of “his strength.” Suppose the “pretender” / “Miss MacIntosh” is not exclusively male or female, and instead, someone who inhabits physical traits and an identity between? So often in this novel reality slips through our fingers when we clench our fist to grasp it. And further to Tara’s point, would the “bald pretender” recognize themself in Vera’s memories? Would any of the novel’s characters see their “real” selves in another’s memory? Would we?
Questioningly,
Lori
Interesting food for thought as always 😊