16 In addition to her statements,her novels show that Drabble is not espousing or condemning any particular political or social view.Her intent is to explore rather than to state and her method is to include rather than to exclude.She opens situations and characters and looks into them to see what she finds not to find what she wants to see.Because this is one of the characteristics of her work I most admire,I have attempted to adopt her method of writing novels as my method of reading her novels.I have tried to avoid pushing a perspective;rather I have tried to see what her perspectives have produced.What I find is that she always has sought and,in the later novels,is discovering that wholeness she speaks of in her review of Mary Gordon's novel,and Drabble is doing this also through examining "various passages of experience" (Drabble on Gordon 31).Her desire to find a whole exis- tence has resulted not only in the ambiguity most readers find,but also in paradox,most frequently the paradox of the existence of connections in apparent contradictions. The Themes Connections.Contradictions.Female vitality When Diana Cooper-Clark (69-75)asked Drabble if the contradictions in her novels were part of a whole,"like a whirlwind which brings opposites together and engenders perpetual motion,metamorphosis,and continuity"(74), Drabble replied,"Yes.Life is a constant shifting from
17 one extreme to the other.This is the dynamic movement of D.H.Lawrence;the fact that everything turns into its opposite or is both at once."She agreed with Cooper- clark that in her novels,motherhood is one of those contradictions being both "destructive and fulfilling." She explained that her feelings about motherhood are so strong she almost is embarrassed to discuss them,for,to her,motherhood is a pure form of love,unlike sex which often is a "power struggle."She believes "parental love is an image of God's love"(74).Since Drabble often writes about maternity,some critics labeled her the novelist of maternity.3 However,her statements and her work demonstrate that for her motherhood is more than a state of being;it is a metaphor for uncritical and unselfish love,and,as such,is a paradigm for what love can be. In the novel by novel analysis presented here,I propose to show that Drabble's world is enriched by the presence of contradictions,but that at some level these contradictions do make connections,ones which we may or may not understand as we proceed through life,but ones which do give a rough shape to otherwise meaningless experience.For instance,Drabble often shows that things which seem accidental and ill-fated,even willfully tragic are resolved in some greater understanding or development
18 for one character or even for several characters.These connections and contradictions do relate to Drabble's particularly female vision which she explores through the poetry of what I will call "female vitality."In Drabble's novels the female experience is a dynamic center from which the threads of life radiate outward intercon- necting with other lives like the roots of plants and trees,each stem growing away from the center but always connected to it and also connected with the other roots which form the system.The growing tree firmly rooted in nurturing soil is a recurring image in Drabble's novels. This metaphor is just one of many which emphasizes the way Drabble envisions life as organically centered in female life process.Focusing on the positive nature of women leading independent lives which nonetheless remain the core of other lives is part of the reason feminist critics have gravitated to Drabble's novels.But this emphasis also is part of the reason for the controversy about her work.The very issue of how to be a complete self and remain connected to others,particularly to members of the dominant culture,is one of the central questions in reaching a personal definition of what it is to be a fem- inist.This complex issue then becomes a complex'problem for all critics,but certainly for feminist critics. Drabble's own struggle with the issue of recognizing self
19 as well as valuing other is reconciled in the later novels,particularly in THE REALMS OF GOLD and in THE MIDDLE GROUND.These novels demonstrate that Drabble believes the only way to wholeness is to balance the needs of self and the needs of other;throughout the canon she shows that to sacrifice one for the other is no solution. Self and other must be brought firmly into the circle of love.Or,to use the tree metaphor,the roots of new lives grow from the center of love,which includes self, but there also must be those "other"branches. The Problem of Terminology "Eeminist"and "Female" Drabble then examines and answers the questions about a balance between selfishness and selflessness,and she does this from a particularly female perspective. But it would be misleading and even incorrect to say that she sees life from a feminist perspective.One of the diffi- culties in choosing precise terminology to describe Drabble's work is the multitude of meanings people find in words like "feminist."For most people,however,the term involves a political framework,whether the political position itself is considered to be positive or negative. As I see it,feminists most often work in a social,poli- tical,historical or literary context to create positive changes in human lives or in the past and present percep- tions of human lives,particularly the lives of women or
20 of members of subordinate cultures.Feminists,including men who are feminists,often also believe these changes in the patriarchal structure will benefit all people,men as well as women.However,there are many varieties of feminism,and there are even more stereotypes of femi- nists.One of the most common stereotypes is that a feminist is an angry separatist (probably also lesbian) who blames the world's problems on men.This particular definition suggests that the feminist movement would create a physical revolution in which men would become the subordinate culture.It does little good to argue that probably few feminists fit this stereotype,although some feminists adhere to some of these views some of the time. However,this definition,or some version of this basic model,shapes people's thinking about the issue.Indeed, it may very well be that some form of this model has shaped Margaret Drabble's thinking about feminism.From interviews and even from the comments of a narrator like Kate Armstrong in THE MIDDLE GROUND,who certainly is not Drabble,but who often seems to speak for Drabble,I think we can say that Drabble certainly is concerned about the alienation and the separatism that the word "feminist" often does correctly or incorrectly imply. Therefore in searching for a term to describe Drabble's vision,I decided against the term feminist both