Sam Plasencia on Volume 1 of *Barsetshire Towers*

In the “Trollopian Form” cluster Lauren Goodlad builds off John Carlos Rowe’s work to suggest that “‘Finediscriminations’ offers an interesting perspective on Trollope in formal as well as characterological terms” (851). For example, Carolyn Dever’s “Trollope,Seriality, and the ‘Dullness’ of Form” suggests that fine discriminations are “embedded in the narration of contingencies” (Goodlad 852). She argues that Trollope utilizes “narratively-fascinating, counterfactural, ‘embryo’ plots” to create suspense by “situating narrative tension within individual psyches that are tested by the uncertain expectations of social modernity” (863). I’d like to suggest that another formal fine discrimination is Trollope’s revised mock-up of the omniscient narrator.

Unlike readers and the characters they recount, omniscient narrators are not subject to the rules of time. While species and languages are “fundamentally temporal processes, capable only of retrospective” analysis, if omniscient narrators so wish they may foreshadow the coming events in the narrative, or explicitly reference them (Grosz 27). For example, in detailing one of Mr. Slope and Eleanor’s first meetings Trollope’s narrator notes that although at first Slope genuinely “ingratiated himself” to Mrs. Bold to win favor with the ladies of the town and not to woo her, “He subsequently amended his error; but it was not till after the interview between him and Mr. Harding” (124). Such “prospective” details make sense within the generic conventions of realism, which tend to narrate a fictive story that took place in the recent past (Grosz 27). From this perspective it is not surprising that Trollope’s narrator could disclose the ending of the Eleanor-Slope-Stanhope “embryo” plot from its very conception, asserting that he “would not for the value of this chapter have it believed by a single reader that my Eleanor could bring herself to marry” either man (144).

But such a reading of Barchester Towers’ narratorial realism depends on Trollope’s narrator chronicling the events from outside the narrative world, an omniscient perspective entirely free from the restrictions of time, place, and the insulated human mind, which his POV is not. Although for the most part the speaker appears omniscient, there are consistent narratorial ruptures that call attention to his corporeality and as such, his temporal and informational limits.

Some of these textual moments expose the limits of the narrator’s contextual and characterological knowledge. Unlike the narrator of the Palliser novels, who details the intricacies of Parliament, this narrator admits that he does “not precisely understand [the] nature” of the religious ceremonies for Dr. Proudie’s ascension to bishop, and therefore “will not describe the ceremony” (18). Of Mr. Slope’s parentage’s he admits “I am not able to say much,” and begins what short background he provides with “I have heard it asserted that…” (25). When describing the bishop’s participation in a Sunday school society, the narrator can’t seem to recall his exact role and explains that he was “a patron, or president, or director” (36). At other moments he qualifies the details of the narrative, as when he says “Mr. Slope ought to have been gratified. I have reason to think that he was gratified” (48 emphasis mine). 

Other moments contradict his omniscience by drawing attention to his temporal limits. He establishes a pattern of a present tense perspective early in the narrative when he explains that “of Mr. Slope’s conduct much cannot be said, as his grand career is yet to commence; but it may be premised that his tastes will be very different from those of the archdeacon” (31). Unlike his definitive disclosure of Eleanor’s ill-fated love affairs, this is a proposition about future narrative events based on a present temporality that necessarily excludes prospective analysis (Grosz). The narrator reinforces this POV in reference to the leading clergy’s debate, saying “such a meeting as that we have just recorded is not held in such a city as Barchester unknown and untold of” (59 emphasis mine). Later, at the opening of Chapter IX, the narrator locates himself in the present-tense of the narrative world, explaining “It is now three months since Dr. Proudie began his reign” (69). In these moments the narrator positions himself in the present tense, relating events as they are happening instead of recounting them from an already materialized future. In one instance the narrator is so present that he decides, “while [Eleanor is out of the room adjusting her cap] we will briefly go back and state what had been hitherto the results of Mr. Slope’s meditations on his scheme of matrimony” (146). And yet he uses the reader’s understanding of his omniscience to bait their continued investment in the narrative, as when he explains that Mrs. Bold’s father and sister falsely believe her to be interested in Mr. Slope, and writes “Poor Eleanor! But time will show” (132). As readers of a realist novel, we inherently trust that time will show, and implicitly agree to keep reading.

At the heart of such limits is the narrator’s corporeal presence in Barchester and his familiarity with its residents. This is most clearly seen when—eliding the difference between character/narrator and past/present—the narrator speaks from the temporal moment of the incendiary sermon and embodies the Grantly party perspective in a direct internal address to Mr. Slope,

With what complacency will a young parson deduce false conclusions from misunderstood texts, and then threaten us with all the penalties of hades if we neglect to comply with the injunctions he has given us! Yes, my too self-confident juvenile friend, I do believe in those mysteries, which are so common in your mouth; I do believe in the unadulterated word which you hold there in your hand; but you must pardon me if, in some things, I doubt your interpretation. (53)

We know the narrator is personally familiar with Mr. Slope because he exclaims “I myself do not like Mr. Slope” (62), and admits “I never could endure to shake hands with Mr. Slope. A cold, clammy perspiration always exudes from him, the small drops are ever to be seen standing on his brow, and his friendly grasp is unpleasant” (29). These are first-hand accounts that push on the boundaries of omniscient narration.

The narrator also locates himself in Barchester’s past by displaying a long established familiarity with residents. For example he claims that Madeline Stanhope’s “nose and mouth and teeth and chin and neck and bust were perfect, much more so at twenty-eight than they had been at eighteen,” suggesting that he has known her for at least ten years (74). In another moment he explains that “there was a depth of dark clear brightness in [Eleanor’s] eyes which was lost upon a quick observer,” implying he had been an attentive observer (145). While such descriptions might not raise eyebrows in the context of omniscient narration, because the narrator has already established himself as a corporeal person in this narrative world—for certain intents and purposes, as a character in this story—such moments carry more weight, and provide a glimpse at the narrator’s interiority and past.

Given his contingent status as character, perhaps it is understandable that the narrator differentiates himself from “the author” (72). At times they appear as co-writers of this narrative, such as when he writes “we need not say had been, she was never more beautiful” (74). At other times they’re united in perspective, like when the narrator explains that Mr. Harding “did not hate the chaplain as the archdeacon did, and as we do” (171). In yet other instances the narrator seems to speak on the author’s behalf, informing the reader that “here the author must beg it to be remembered” (136).

But in a very significant instance the two come together as the reader’s friendly counsel and guide through this narrative, a perspective that self-consciously defines the purpose of reading realism. In the last pages of Chapter 15 “The Widow’s Suitors,” the narrator asks if “it may be allowed to the novelist to explain his views on a very important point in the art of telling tales” (144). Speaking on their behalf, the narrator directs plot-invested readers to the novel’s “last chapter” to “learn from its pages all the results of our troubled story,” maintaining that

…the story shall have lost none of its interest, if indeed there by any interest in it to lose. Our doctrine is, that the author and reader should move along together in full confidence with each other. Let the personages of the drama undergo ever so complete a comedy of errors among themselves, but let the spectator never mistake the Syracusan for the Ephesian; otherwise he is one of the dupes, and the part of a dupe is never dignified. (144)

By aligning the novel reader with the privileged perspective of a spectator at a performance of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, the narrator argues that to get caught up in the individual [love] plots is as foolish as inhabiting the limited perspective of the dramatic characters who “mistake the [twin] Syracusan for the Ephesian.” The interest in reading this novel, he suggests, is in observing the plot—a comedy of errors—from the removed (ad)vantage of a theatergoer, one who can appreciate the whole precisely because one's perspective is not narrowly invested in the parts.

And yet such a definition of how and why to read realism implies an already complete, teleological text that’s narrated from the whole—the comedy’s—perspective; an insular POV that’s necessarily retrospective or omniscient. Neither of these perspectives correlates with the friendly embodied narrator-guide whom the reader “move[s] along” with in the present, a temporality from which “full confidence” necessarily excludes the future, and thus the whole. In publishing terms, to read (the comedy) like a theatergoer necessitates a complete novel, to “move along” the story “together” with the “author” necessitates a serial publication.

The author/narrator in Barchester Towers is at once the omniscient speaker and the corporeal, present character, a temporal marriage of novel and serial that like the embryo plots, is Trollope “hav[ing] his cake and eat[ing] it too” (Dever 864). Like an omniscient narrator, he is (mostly) all knowing and can jump from scene to scene, allowing us (mostly) full access to character thoughts and motivations. His realistic attributes (like his hatred of Slope) resonates with readers, investing us in his continued development. The narrator, with his perspectival limitations and personal biases, becomes our narrative guide with whom we “move along together in full confidence.” This narratorial “fine discrimination” “teach[es] us how to read culture” in two ways: as an author/narrator he cultivates and as a character he models an interpretive empathy “capable of understanding and interpreting the different and often overlapping ‘interests’” in social discourse (Rowe as quoted in Goodlad 851).