Book review: The Canterville Ghost, by Oscar Wilde

I have no idea why the Victorian era gave so much credence to the supernatural but can imagine they were more aware of death and its mysteries than we are, since child mortality rates and adult life expectancy of the time make for hard contemplation. I think they also liked reading creepy fear stories that make societies who muscle around controlling humanity have sudden doubt about their capability in controlling natural forces, or indeed supernatural forces (see: The Ash Tree, 1904; The Monkey’s Paw, 1902; The Beetle, 1897; The Modern Prometheus, 1818; Dracula, 1897; H.G. Wells’ collected works). British Victorians enjoyed peril very much and sought it out, even if they had to paddle to the ends of the Earth looking for it. I read one book where a man who described himself as a path-finder went all the way to Africa to cross a stream by stepping on crocodiles. Nowadays we call these people by a different term, idiots. This was the age of adventure, where crossing a broken bridge was more fun than building a perfect iron structure — but they did both, so couldn’t have been idiots. In contrast, British people in the 21st century don’t take physical risks at all as society has designed-out anything that might pose any kind of risk to them in case that leads to a compensation claim. By that rationale, people were completely alive in Victorian times and people are not alive now, at least not to raw experiences, just soft bodies, spoon-fed, wrapped up in allergy-free wool and placed safely into storage until they expire. As Churchill said in The River Wars, “Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.” We are in an endless tight plantation now, where everyone is protected from the wind but no one is allowed to develop. Loo roll trees.

The Canterville Ghost was published in 1887, which I can imagine was an interregnum before accelerated social-structure thawing forced on by World War I (see Brideshead Revisted, by Evelyn Waugh, to feel the full shake of this transition) and break-out into a general acceptance of relaxed standards during the 1920s Jazz Age. Canterville, flippant as it is, represents the first hairline crack in the facade that medieval society was sustainable. Humour respects nothing.

It took advantage of an opportunity this time of flux presented and pushed a boundary of what it was possible to comment about directly, or insinuate. Do you catch my drift with this or should I continue snowing? What I’m getting at is that only a decade before this date an author could not criticise the Church or upper class institutions like the House of Lords unless they wanted to risk a court appearance (with judges drawn from the upper classes) and be made an example of with fines or prison. Social cohesion was strictly guarded in many countries, until a fully inflexible structure became unsustainable and reform took place, one way or another. Socialism dated from 1789 but that apparently French disease had been resisted rather sternly in England because the murder of kings and queens was considered to be a bit awkward. It wasn’t so much the person they were protecting but the whole civil structure built around that person which ensured and regulated public safety. Even for people who did not benefit from the old system, change represented the unknown. Newspapers were deferential in this period and withdrew from criticising the high and mighty although, contrastingly, cartoonists were allowed to be outrageously rude and brutal as part of the ‘Punch and Judy’ tradition of satire. Humour is and has always been a critical form. Wilde’s story, The Canterville Ghost, would have been considered insolent by old people at the time but its cheeky observations would have appealed to the younger generation who yearned to crack away the fossilised crust and ask questions, like the new educated scientist class which was popping up everywhere. The USA exemplified that attitude of a fresh start an shaking things up, not just to Wilde but to the world, as demonstrated by characters in the story not accepting old thinking as gospel until it passes modern examination. They check to see if the permanent blood stain horror (derived from Macbeth) could be scoured off with modern chemicals; and keep repeating the test until the ghost runs out of liquids the same colour as blood and we reach the absurdity of it going green. Any magic it had holding us in fear doesn’t work anymore. The ghost is an allegory for the old social format that had been controlling England for too long. Change is a stressor and humans are shown in this tale as being capable of swift adaptation, which is an imposing task for a ghost to match when they have never experienced any social evolution and are finally being destruct-tested.

This short story only operates as a comedy because of a contrast between the attitude of the British characters (historical, entitled, complacently unwilling to end traditions, ‘stuck in the mud’ and fainting on cue) and that of the new Northern American culture (respecting no legacy or hierarchy, welcoming new inventions, ‘can do’, ‘know-how’ and reality). At the point in history when this is set, thinking of criteria like industry, commerce, patents and gross domestic product, Britain was at the height of empire but stagnating and what the reader can pick up on quite clearly is that the British characters sense their US cousins are swiftly accelerating and will soon forge past them. US money, the ability to buy other nations’ artefacts to display at home, bigger, brasher, new knowledge, expecting deference… and that’s a worrying reversal for the Brits because previously it had only been the deep pocketed Englishman taking the Grand Tour of ancient civilisations that had this sort of buying power (or the occasional Maharaja). This is a forewarning that the old is making way for the new and threadbare rugs are being pulled from under feet. Empires have a 250 year cycle as they collapse into decadence (see: The Fate of Empires, by John Bagot Glubb) and history is predictable in that long-term way, so watch out.

The writing style is witty by inverting observations. Wilde leads the reader down one line of thought and then swaps it around to make the joke. The ultimate line of this kind is the one where the narrator observes that people from the UK and US have just about everything in common nowadays except, of course, language. A joke loses all its power if you explain it, but the language is the first thing some would say the two cultures have in common — yet Wilde’s observation is that, from a British perspective, the dialects, spellings and grammar have diverged so far that it is taken by them to be a different language. This exaggeration tells us quite a lot about the British characters and how up-tight the author is telling us they can appear to him, an Irishman. On an even more realistic level, this is just Wilde’s sense of absurdity timed to make you laugh (not stop and think — because no one really believed that, so don’t take it literally).

This theme of inversion happens on the small scale (isolated lines) but also on the grand scale, where the ghost is petrified of living with the American interlopers and wonders what he has done to deserve this abominable curse. Eventually, his plight is resolved by a young person’s bravery and compassion, which tells us that human virtues will always shine through and love is stronger than evil or death. Wilde also resolves the separation of nations theme with a charming marriage and hope for the future. This is a warming toward young people taking their chance but also infers confidence and a blessing for the relationship between two cultures.

The Canterville Ghost is an old blue-chip story but its sense of fun and gentle criticism still makes easy reading and passes the test of time. Once considered to be an anti-establishment menace, like Punk Rock, the story and the writer have been transformed by time into something they would have been rather reluctant to join — the establishment.