“You are not afraid of a woman

who has never seen the sun

since you were born?”: who is

Miss Havisham?

Recently (by “recently” I mean within the last 40 years or so), there have been

great advances occurring in disparate fields due to a focus by scholars in those

fields on energy and thermodynamics, physical laws and conditions that underpin

the material world, of which humans are one part. In the field of economics, the

seminal work is The Entropy law and the Economic Process (1971) by Nicholas

Georgescu-Roegen develops the thesis “that the basic nature of the economic

process is entropic and that the Entropy Law rules supreme over this process and

its evolution”. (Georgescu-Roegen, 283) In the field of History/Archaeology, Joseph

Tainter’s ground-breaking scientific study, The Collapse of Complex Societies

(1989), took as one of its basic starting concepts “sociopolitical systems require

energy for their maintenance”. (Tainter, 194) In 2005, Into the Cool: Energy Flow,

Thermodynamics and Life, partly written by a scientist at the United States

Environmental Protection Agency, took a broad look at the way Second Law of

Thermodynamics (aka the Entropy Law) underpins disparate activities such as the

weather, cell activity in the human body and economics, and claims “life’s

purposeful nature, broadly understood, has thermodynamic origins” (Sagan and

Schneider, 298), a claim which the authors admit “may have profound

philosophical implications”. (Sagan and Schneider, 298)

All of this investigation into root causes and fundamental generative inputs is

interesting and instructive, of course, and the scientists, economists and social

scientists involved have opened people’s eyes to new and refreshing ways of seeing

the world. However, in this paper, I would like to make the claim that some of the

basic concepts that have been developed in these books have been available in

somewhat coded forms in literature, among other works of art1, for hundreds of years.

It may seem obvious to point out that artists in prehistoric times painted, on the walls

of caves, pictures of the sun or animals that were hunted for food, but indeed artists

may be considered to contribute in very sophisticated and circumspect ways to a

1 I think it’s possible to also include painting and sculpture and music.

society’s thinking about the energy it uses and needs. Though societies grew more

complex as they evolved, artists’ concerns with fundamental physical relationships

have continued to be expressed in myriad, sometimes hidden, ways. The secretive,

obliquely-expressed quality of the messages makes them exciting to uncover, bringing

to mind: Lear ‘s line “And take upon’s the mystery of things/As if we were God’s spies”

(V.3.26). For what is at stake is the way we can understand literature and how it

functions. For example, it has often been said that popular fiction is “plot driven” while

literary fiction is not. But what if literary fiction (some of it, at least) is also “plot

driven”, with the plot a subtle and artful mimicry of our own experience with the

Entropy Law and the planet? The artistic plot is then difficult to spot---and the story

then gets labeled “character-driven”--- because it resembles and reflects so closely

the real experience we have gone through on Earth. By this, I don’t mean that literary

fiction should be classed or ranked somehow with popular fiction. What I mean is that

authors’ excellent and deep understanding of basic natural processes intrinsic to

human life has gone unappreciated. For example, it is easy to find the comment

“Shakespeare’s works mimic nature”, but it would be better to understand how and

why, exactly, that is so.

Of course, authors have often concealed their fundamental understandings of things,

especially where energy use is concerned, and there are good reasons for this. Simply,

energy usage and availability, usually manifested in core economic phenomena, is such a

delicate and emotional topic. If a resource presents itself, hardly anyone, facing

competition and high hopes, is in a position to refuse to use it categorically. Yet when fuel

prices rise, tempers flare, arguments break out, and there is common distress that soon

spills over into the political sphere and causes disruption all around. Adding to the

confusion is the fact that some fuels are available on a renewable basis while others

disappear with use and, to our dismay, never return. A story exists because there is

drama, a knotty situation or a predicament that is natural and fundamental to our

material natures, one that ties us, through every energy-consuming cell in our bodies, to

the cosmos. Art creatively can creatively use an imaginative terrain to explore such

eternal issues at a safe remove. However, in this paper I shall examine not Romeo and

Juliet2, which I think conceals a historical time-line describing the past, present and future

relationship between man and the sun, but instead, for the sake of historical variety, two

other famous literary works.

2 Please see my paper “’Juliet is the sun’: the secret anti-coal play and the cosmic heliocentrism of Giordano Bruno in Romeo and Juliet” in Tsukuba Area Studies Journal, March 31, 2012.

It is particularly in times when a new energy source is ramped up and its usage

undergoes dramatic increases that we notice literature that obliquely, circumspectly takes

a stab to characterize the situation. Thus Shakespeare was alive when Britain changed

over (the change was complete by 1603) from a country that used primarily the sun

(driving wood fuel production) to one that relied mainly on coal. John Updike, with a story3

about a swimming pool that goes from exciting and sexy suburban status symbol to

useless entropic waste product, and Alice Munro, with a story4 about suburban residents

concerned about their property values, were present in the 1960s and 1970s to chronicle

rapid suburban growth and the crowning of the automobile as the reigning transportation

power (a way to use the energy in oil) in North America.

For the sake of historical variety I would like to look at two works of literature

produced in the late 1800s, a time when coal production underpinned the Industrial

Revolution then spreading all over Europe. There are many literary works out there which

I think obliquely but concretely address mankind’s energy predicament (I mean the fossil

fuel one, which is the one that arguably defines the modern era), but for this paper, I

select Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens and “Man in a Case” (1898), by

Anton Chekhov.

3 “The Orphaned Swimming Pool” (1969) by John Updike4 “The Shining Houses” (1969) by Alice Munro

Charles Dickens’ role as a campaigner against the British Industrial Revolution, which

coincided with his lifetime, probably needs no more coverage here, since it is well known.

Anton Chekhov was born in 1861 and died in 1904, and his life coincided similarly with a

burst of industrialization, with notable increases (1200 %) in coal consumption:

Industrial growth was significant, although unsteady, and in

absolute terms it was not extensive. Russia's industrial regions

included Moscow, the central regions of European Russia, St.

Petersburg, the Baltic cities, Russian Poland, some areas along

the lower Don and Dnepr rivers, and the southern Ural

Mountains. By 1890 Russia had about 32,000 kilometers of

railroads and 1.4 million factory workers, most of whom

worked in the textile industry. Between 1860 and 1890, annual

coal production had grown about 1,200 percent to over 6.6

million tons, and iron and steel production had more than

doubled to 2 million tons per year.5

Miss Havisham and Great Expectations

5 http://countrystudies.us/russia/6.htm. Retrieved February 17, 2014.

Although Charles Dickens expressed his dislike of the Industrial Revolution, and tried

to mitigate its effects with his work, it is likely, from his novel Great Expectations, that he

understood the underlying reasons for it were largely beyond human control. Thus the

novel presents, like Romeo and Juliet, an allegorical and hidden but basic time line about

man and the sun extending from the past to the future.

The most compelling, vivid character in the allegory is Miss Havisham. A covert

expression of the coal economy, Miss Havisham, living in a dark room, has been closed off

from the sun for a long time:

“Look at me”, said Miss Havisham, “You are not afraid of a

woman who has never seen the sun since before you were

born?” (Dickens, 58)

Miss Havisham has all about her the trappings of wealth, privilege and power;

satin shoes, jewels, an estate, and so forth, not just the wealth associated with a

modern society that has left the sun economy behind it, but also complex material

items of industrial production; the fine material items that Pip sees in Miss

Havisham’s room stand out from the items in his more modest house at the forge,

which is situated closer to nature and not in the town. Miss Havisham, as a locus,

inhabits a realm of higher complexity; she is separated also from the outdoors; as a

social artifact her lifestyle depends on coal and the wealth and prosperity it brought.

Her ward is Estella, whose name subtly indicates “the sun”, which is also a star

(“stella” in Latin is “star”). Dickens’ vision is here of the sun as just a young girl,

powerless and incipient, under the control of the powerful coal economy/era. Pip, of

course, is humanity, being and becoming, a seed or a pip, a little boy with a future

ahead, but also a past that includes being orphaned and growing up poor; our

evolution always included scarcity.

Very simply, Pip eventually wants to be with Estella, but Miss Havisham, like the

powerful fossil fuel economy, has other plans. Pip is under the misconception that

Miss Havisham has made him wealthy, but his wealth is due to his own kindness

and hopefulness; it is Magwitch (a kind of magician figure (“witch”) or shaman

character, mirroring Dickens, an artist, himself, who perhaps wishes one day to be

known as our “anonymous benefactor” through his strange and educational gift to

us, this artful novel) who has supplied Pip with wealth and education, not Miss

Havisham.

Near the end of the novel, Miss Havisham burns up and eventually dies from her

wounds, after lingering a while. The last we see of her---a very significant scene---is

a mystical and artistic vision where she is consumed ‘in an iron furnace’, like coals

themselves. In a delirious fever, Pip imagines:

,,,whether there had been a closed iron furnace in

a dark corner of the room, and a voice had called out

over and over again that Miss Havisham was

consuming within it; these were things I tried to settle

with myself and get into some order, as I lay that

morning on my bed. (Dickens, 461)

“Settle with myself and get into some order” are a coded invitation to reflect on

the broad pattern of the novel, and the vision of Miss Havisham being consumed

becomes a very strong clue placed directly before this invitation.

With the coal economy gone, consumed in its own fire (in reality this could take

decades, centuries or millennia), the famous final scene of the novel shows Dickens’

own secret “great expectations”. Pip gets together with Estella; it is an artistic vision

of man getting back together with the sun as the main energy source; the scene is a

place outside in nature, almost primal, with the sky visible, a “broad expanse of

tranquil light”. In Dickens vision, the steps towards reconnecting with the sun are

tentative initially, as Pip says, “Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a

painful thing. To me, remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and

painful” (Dickens 484), but this conversation ends anyway in a natural

togetherness:

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined

place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first

left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all

the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me I saw the

shadow of no parting from her. (Dickens, 484)

The paragraph contains many words that recall the sun: “light”, “evening”,

“morning”, “rising”. “expanse” and “shadow”; and the scene takes place in the

garden of Satis House, so the location is the same one where Miss Havisham once

presided, but now she is gone and it seems that all her trappings of wealth, the

satin shoes, the house, the jewels, are gone without regret.

The conversation between Pip and Estella, about parting and/or not parting, is

eerily reminiscent of the conversation between Romeo and Juliet as Romeo leaves

to live in “exile” from Juliet in Act III, scene 5: “O, think’st thou we shall ever meet

again?”/”I doubt it not and all these woes shall serve for sweet discourses in our

times to come”. Was it particularly England, with its massive coal reserves, beautiful

green nature and complex economy that could support literature and drama, that

put artists such as Dickens and Shakespeare into subversive reveries about the

‘vanished’ sun economy and its return one day far in the future? Behind the poetic

vision, there is the science: indeed, the sun is a star; the retreat, or decline, of fossil

fuel energy would necessitate much more use of renewable energy driven by the

sun. (Energy is the only way to get something else: an apple, a piece of paper, a

computer, an egg, a pair of socks, or whatever item is desired; this idea is what lies

behind the statement “the basic nature of the economic process is entropic and that

the Entropy Law rules supreme over this process and its evolution”. (Georgescu-

Roegen, 283))

My point is to explain that the source of artistic drama, the movement of the

dialogue and the plot, even, in Great Expectations and Romeo and Juliet is based on

the artists’ own passion for a certain way of life (or their vision of this way of life);

they are constrained by the “plot” that was handed to them by man’s own evolution

over time, yet they have found inspiration in the pattern.

What is really interesting is that the two couples, Dickens’ Pip and Estella and

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, where the male figures are “man” and the women

figures are the “sun”, are inherently lovers, which is to say the cosmic relationship

is erotic and passionate. It almost seems as if a hieros gamos function, the religious

and sexual union, before the other worshippers, of two radical opposites (here man

and a representative of the cosmos) was retained in disguise, in a fictive form,

slightly fugitive, where it could and did escape every possible censor.

Belikov and “Man in a Case”

“Man in a Case” was written only a few years before Chekhov died at the age of

44, in 1904. The “man in a case” is the central figure, a gloomy pedagogue named

Belikov who is already dead----surely a bad sign---- when we first hear about him:

---take a certain Belikov, for example, who died two months

ago in my home town. He taught Greek at the same high school.

Of course, you must have heard of him. His great claim to fame

was going around in galoshes, carrying an umbrella even when it

was terribly warm, and he invariably wore a thick, padded

overcoat. He kept his umbrella in a holder and his watch in a gray

chamois leather pouch. And the penknife he used for sharpening

pencils had its own little case.His face seemed to have its own

cover as well, as he always kept it hidden inside his upturned

collar…..Briefly this man had a compulsive, persistent longing for

self-encapsulation, to isolate himself from all external influences.

(Chekhov, 61)

The many items that Belikov owns are similar to the fine material possessions

that Miss Havisham keeps about her. Her beautiful things become dangerous relics

that catch fire and burn her. In Belikov’s case, his cases, covers, galoshes, etc.,

don’t protect him when he falls down the stairs, or rather, when he is pushed down

the stairs by a man named Kovalenko after Belikov annoys him.

All of the items that Belikov and Miss Havisham keep about them can be seen as

the symbols of flourishing, but not necessarily harmless, complexity. In The Collapse

of Complex Societies, Joseph Tainter reminds us that “complexity is a problem-

solving strategy” (Tainter 195) and that “human societies are problem-solving

organizations”. (Tainter 194) Complexity is generated as societies respond to

problems by solving them and “the problems with which the universe can confront

any society are, for practical purposes, infinite in number and endless in variety”.

(195) This “infinite number” or ‘bottomless pit’ of problems a society may dwell on

and respond to (if it has the energy to do so) becomes symbolized by Belikov’s

constant worries about propriety (“the least infringement, deviation, violation of the

rules reduced him to despair” (Chekhov, 62)) and Belikov expresses his infinity of

worries with the line, “That’s all very well, of course, but there could be trouble!”

(Chekhov, 62)

Belikov’s collection of protective items are a microcosmic presentation of

complexity developed to a pathological level, no longer beneficial, but absurd and

fragile. Moreover, none of the other teachers at the school like Belikov, yet, among

the faculty, it is Belikov’s views which prevail (“yet that miserable specimen, with

that eternal umbrella and galoshes, kept the whole school under his thumb for

fifteen whole years! And not only the school, but the whole town!” (Chekhov, 63)) In

The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Georgescu-Roegen describes the

‘problem of problem solving’ in social terms as “featherbedding” by “the elites”:

“where services do not produce a palpable result featherbedding grows by itself

simply because it cannot be demonstrated in any objective manner”. (Georgescu-

Rogen, 311) Chekhov’s story, then is a microcosm of the issue of abusive power by

the elite class who can “extol the value of its services” (Georgescu-Roegen 311)

through its political power; and the issue is linked to Tainter’s concept of “problem

solving” since these “services” they would wish to undertake would be, of course,

described (accurately or not) as responses to problems facing the whole group, not

just the elites themselves. Belikov, in other words, always expresses concern about

“trouble” that could affect the school or the town, not him personally.

Amusingly, but with tragic results, some faculty members encourage a romance

to develop between Belikov and Barbara, the sister of Kovalenko. The first

appearance of Barbara in the story is really notable for its imagery of pure and

strong nature.

The sister wasn’t what you might call young, though, about thirty, I’d

say---and like her brother, she was tall, with the same figure, dark

eyebrows and red cheeks---in short, not the spinsterish type, but a real

beauty, always bright and jolly, singing Ukrainian songs and roaring with

laughter. The least thing sent her into fits of loud laughter. I remember

now, the first time we really got to know the Kovalenkos was the Head’s

name-day party. Among all those stiff, intensely boring pedagogues

(they only went to parties because they had to) we suddenly saw this

new Aphrodite rising from the foam. She walked hands on hips,

laughing, singing, dancing. She sang “Breezes of the South are Softly

Blowing” with great feeling and followed one song with another,

enchanting all of us----even Belikov. “Ukrainian is like classical Greek in

its softness and agreeable sonority, “ he said with a sugary smile as he

sat down next to her.

She was flattered and she gave him a stirring lecture about life on her

farm down in Gadyach, where Mama lived, where they grew such

marvelous pears and melons and pubkins: Ukrainians like calling

pumpkins “pubkins”---that’s the way they talk there. And they made

borsch with sweet little red beets. “O so delicious---frightfully tasty!”

“We listened, and listened, and suddenly the same thought dawned

on all present. “They’d make a nice couple,” the Head’s wife told me

quietly. (Chekhov, 65)

“Breezes”, “South”, “blowing”, “Aphrodite”, “pumpkins” and “pubkins”,

“melons”, “pears”---the words clustered around Barbara when we first see her at

the party invest her with an aura of nature, even, possibly, with the identity of a

true nature goddess (similar to Aphrodite).

Barbara’s brother, Kovalenko, (a stand-in for Chekhov, most likely) is a man who

carries books around on his bicycle, talks about returning to his farm (“I’m hanging

on just a bit longer, then it’s off to the farm to catch crayfish and teach peasants”

(Chekhov, 68) and especially hates Belikov, referring to him as a “Judas, blast his

guts!” (Chekhov, 68) and comparing him to a “viper” (Chekhov, 68). Kovalenko

criticizes the meekness of the other teachers in the face of Belikov’s behavior, and

eventually loses patience with Belikov when Belikov arrives at Kovalenko’s rooms to

warn him not to ride a bicycle or allow Barbara to ride one either, since riding one

“is utterly improper”. (Chekhov, 70) Kovalenko loses his temper with Belikov and

grabs “him by the collar from behind” (Chekhov, 70) and pushes him; the collar, one

of Belikov’s many complex and case-like objects is directly implicated in the action

and its outcome. Belikov slips down the stairs and is not physically hurt, but just

then, Barbara and two friends happen to enter in the door at the bottom of the stair

landing. Barbara bursts into laughter when as Belikov gets back on his feet (he is

now extremely worried about becoming a “laughing-stock” (Chekhov, 71)) and she

recognizes his foolishness; “his ridiculous expression, his crumpled coat”. (Chekhov,

71) The romance is over; Belikov goes home, takes to his bed, and dies a month

later; not from any physical injuries it seems.

The very natural-seeming story has a moral: the artist has a role to point to a

systemic social issue like elites using the endless solving of (what they have

decided are) problems for their own ends because the artist (in Chekhov’s opinion)

has a role, a bit transgressive, to be closely aligned with nature (Barbara is

Kovalenko’s sister, symbolizing this closeness). It is an artist, a slightly rebellious

figure, a shaman mediating halfway between the cosmos and people, who sees the

positive side of nature’s slightly harsh laughter.

References

Chekhov, Anton “Man in a Case” in The Lady with the Little Dog and Other Stories,

1896-1904. Translation by Ronald Wilks. London: Penguin Classics. 2002.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. First published 1861. London: Penguin

Classics. 1996.

Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas. The Entropy Law and the Economic Process.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1971.

Schneider, Eric D. and Dorian Sagan. Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics,

and Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2005

Tainter, Joseph. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. 1988.