VLVL2 (14) Dreams he could not control, 274-280

[Paul Nightingale]

The brief account of the Madwoman in the Attic--dreams in which Brock
features as a servant "to people so rich and powerful he'd never even seen
them" (274-275)--interrupts, or disturbs, his otherwise irresistible career
rise. Then, continuing where it left off, the narrative insists that Brock,
"[out] in the waking world", is impossible to dislike; he "[projects] a
charm that appeared to transcend politics". This "charm" includes his
success with women, although in his dreams it seems wasted on the
Madwoman-as-nemesis. When Brock is given "the Basic Little Chat" (279) one
might be tempted to conclude that Frenesi has become a 'real-life' Madwoman.
However, his dream-fate is the result of, and the reward for, simply doing
his job within the dream; "in the waking world" his interest in, and
involvement with, Frenesi remains at best 'unofficial', extra-curricular
risk-taking.

Brock's "uneasy anima" (274) is itself a Jungian alternative scenario, a
parallel narrative; and within modernism Jungian thought is itself an
alternative to Freudianism. The form it takes here, ie "the Madwoman in the
Attic"--in the text, "notably"--invokes contemporary feminist criticism and
the post-1960s attempt to rewrite the canon of nineteenth-century
literature.

In the text the dream/nightmare, classically the return of the repressed, is
itself repressed, superseded by the narrative account of his glorious
lifestyle: however, it transpires that this isn't enough, given his "naked
itch to be a gentleman". His ambition is dependent on "a stubborn denial [ie
repression once more] of what everyone else knew" (276). It is the "fatal
glimpse"--"fatal" because he can never undo the knowledge that he only wants
what he can't have, precisely because he can't have it--of a social milieu
forever out of reach, in relation to which he must remain in servitude. What
he can never 'unknow' is the reality of a closed society, one in which his
efforts are doomed to failure.

It furthermore transpires that Brock's "charm" is something he is allowed--a
concession "that appeared to transcend politics"--by way of compensation for
that which he'll always be denied.