Gulliver's Travels

HAIR 1 7 3

Hair

This theme mainly covers long hair, other distinctive hair styles, and hair

colour. Many of the allusions derive from visual rather than literary

sources, being drawn from cinema, painting, and cartoons. •See also

Baldness.

Alice Alice, the heroine of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), is depicted in John Tenniel's illustrations with long blonde hair. In Through the Looking-Glass (1871), the illustrations show her hair held back with a wide hairband, now known as an Alice band. • See special entry • ALICE

IN WONDERLAND 0/7 p. 10.

What would they make of the wedding photos stuck in the back of his bureau drawer? Of Vic, with her Alice-in-Wonderland hair and pale, innocent face.

DEBORAH CROMBIE All Shall Be Well, 1995

Byron George Gordon, Lord Byron (i788-1824) was an English romantic poet, famous for his passionate love affairs as much as for his poetry. His major works include Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-18) and Don Juan (1819-24). One of the best-known portraits of the poet, by Richard Westall, shows Byron

in profile with thick, curly, slightly tousled black hair.

Head on, his widow's peak and the longish wavy blond hair that flowed back from it still looked . . . well, Byronic . . . rather than a bit lonely on the dome of his skull.

TOM WOLFE The Bonfire of the Vanities, 1987

Mark Underhill looked Byronic in his oversized white shirt, his dark hair curling about the collar.

SHARYN MCCRUMB The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, 1996

Esau In the Bible, Esau, the son of Isaac, is described as a red, hairy man (Gen. 25: 25). He sold his birthright to his younger twin, Jacob, for pottage (lentil stew). Esau was the ancestor of the Edomites.

Jane Fonda Jane Fonda (b. 1937) is a US film actress who won an Oscar for her performance in Klute (19 71). She has abundant tawny hair and is known not only for her films but also for her successful fitness videos.

At that time she assumed a long-legged, supple, Jane Fonda look; hair plentiful and curly about the head.

FAY WELDON Darcy's Utopia, 1990

Greta Carbo Greta Garbo (1905-90) was a fair-haired Swedish-born US actress, born Greta Gustafsson. She had a haunting beauty and a compelling screen presence. Her films include Queen Christina (1933), Anna Karenina (1935), and Ninotchka (1939). After her early retirement, she also became famous for her reclusiveness.

'How long will it take it to grow long?' 'Really long?' 'No, I mean to thy shoulders. It

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is thus I would have thee wear it.' As Carbo in the cinema?' 'Yes,' he said thickly. ERNEST HEMINGWAY For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1941

Lady Codiva Lady Godiva (d. 1080) was an English noblewoman, wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. According to a 13th-century legend, she rode naked through the market-place of Coventry, clothed only in her long, golden hair, to persuade her husband to reduce the heavy taxes he had imposed on the people. All the townspeople stayed indoors and shut up their windows, except for Tom the Tailor, who looked at her through a window as she rode past and was thereafter known as Peeping Tom.

Goldilocks Goldilocks is the name of a little girl in a traditional fairy story, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and the name can be applied to any person with light blonde hair. In the story, Goldilocks visits the bears' house, eats the little bear's porridge, and is eventually found by the bears asleep in his bed.

You just potter about . . . while I repair to the kitchen with young Goldilocks here and show him how to cook a sausage,

p. c. woDEHousE Laughing Cas, 1936

'Fish,' he said to the beard, 'this is Goldilocks! I smiled rigidly. I am not a blonde. MARGARET ATWOOD The Edible Woman, 1969

Betty Crable Betty Grable (1916-73) was a US film actress and dancer whose 'million-dollar legs' made her the most popular pin-up of the Second World War. She was a curly-haired blonde with a peaches-and-cream appeal.

She wore her usual Betty Grable hairdo.

MARGARET ATWOOD The Edible Woman, 1969

Heathcliff Heathcliff is the passionate gypsy hero of Emily Bronte's romantic novel Wuthering Heights (1847). He has long dark hair and a brooding presence.

It was Vivaldo. He was wearing a black raincoat and his hair was wild and dripping from the rain. His eyes seemed blacker than ever, and his face paler. 'Heathcliff!' she cried, 'How nice you could come!'

JAMES BALDWIN Another Country, 1963

He seemed much younger than her, had Heathcliff-type hair and wore jeans.

The Independent, 1997

Judas Judas Iscariot was the disciple who betrayed Jesus to the Jewish authorities in return for thirty pieces of silver. He is traditionally depicted in art as red-headed.

Veronica Lake Veronica Lake (1919-73) was a petite US film actress who often played slinky femmes fatales in 1940s thrillers. She had a distinctive peek-a-boo hairstyle, her long blonde hair draped over one eye, a style much imitated by film-goers of the time.

I noticed that, when he remembered to, he clipped his words; he's learned that from Ronald Colman, I thought, and felt a little less impressed—it puts him on the same level as the millhand with the Alan Ladd deadpan and the millgirl with the Veronica Lake hair style.

JOHN BRAINE Room at the Top, 1957

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grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws' (Dan. 4: 29-33). There is a famous drawing by William Blake depicting the king in this condition. • See special entry • DANIEL on p. 86.

You have a 'faux air' of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË Jane Eyre, 1847

Peter Pan Peter Pan, subtitled The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up (1904), is J. M. Barrie's play for children about a boy with magical powers who, with the fairy Tinker Bell, takes the Darling children to Never-Never Land. Peter is traditionally played on stage by an actress, and so a 'Peter Pan haircut' is a short boyish one worn by a woman or girl.

I could see why my mother was fascinated by the music. It was being pounded out by a little Chinese girl, about nine years old, with a Peter Pan haircut. The girl had the sauciness of a Shirley Temple.

AMY TAN Two Kinds, 1989

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English 19thcentury artists founded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and Holman Hunt. Their aim was to emulate the vivid use of colour and meticulously detailed fidelity to nature of Italian painting from before the time of Raphael. The term 'Pre-Raphaelite' is often applied to a woman who resembles the models painted by this school, especially in having wavy auburn hair and a pale complexion. The faces of these models, notably Elizabeth Siddal, Fanny Cornforth, and Jane Morris, appear in a great many of the paintings.

Some would say her hair is her finest feature, though Robyn herself secretly hankers after something more muted and malleable, hair that could be groomed and styled according to mood—drawn back in a severe bun like Simone de Beauvoir's, or allowed to fall to the shoulders in a Pre-Raphaelite cloud.

DAVID LODGE Nice Work, 1988

Beneath the wide, full mouth, the arrogant stare of the eyes, the dark, crimped, PreRaphaelite hair streaming in the wind,

p. D. JAMES Devices and Desires, 1989

She has narrow sloping shoulders, and in those days a soulful pre-Raphaelite look. FAY WELDON Life Force, 1992

Rapunzel In the fairy story, Rapunzel is a beautiful long-haired girl who is locked at the top of a tall tower by a witch. The witch, and subsequently a handsome prince, are able to climb up to her after calling out 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair'.

As I understand it, a gazebo is an open structure. I spent fifteen minutes searching for something resembling a park bandstand before coming upon a round building made of piled rock, like an old New England stone fence gone berserk. The rocks rose high, into a miniature fairy-tale tower, complete with turret. Huddled by the shore of a dark lake, it looked like an illustration from a children's book. If I waited till sunrise perhaps Rapunzel would cast down hair even longer than Marissa's.

LINDA BARNES Cold Case, 1997

Vicky had the hair for it, yards of beautiful Rapunzel tresses curled and heaped and framing her delicate features like a baroque picture frame carved of chestnut.

JUSTIN SCOTT Frostline, 1997

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Samson In the Bible, Samson was an Israelite leader (probably nth century BC) whose famed strength lay in his long hair (Judg. 13-16). His lover, Delilah, discovered this and had it cut off while he slept, after which she delivered him up to his enemies, the Philistines. Samson is sometimes mentioned as an example of a big, strong, long-haired man. • See special entry • SAMSON on p.

336.

He ran a hand through his black Samson hair.

PHILIP ROTH The Conversion of the Jews, 1959

And Richard, who had had some bad haircuts in his time, found himself thinking: Samson and Delilah. Oh, what a haircut was that!

MARTIN AMIS 777e Information, 1995

Satan Satan is traditionally depicted with sharp features and a V-shaped hairline in the middle of his forehead.

The V motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down—from high flat temples—in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond Satan.

DASHIELL HAMMETT The Maltese Falcon, 1930

Shirley Temple Blonde and curly-headed, Shirley Temple (b.1928) was a US child star of the 1930s. She appeared in such films as Curly Top (1935) and

Dimples (1936).

Topsy Topsy is the mischievous little black slave girl in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), whose 'woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which stuck out in every direction'. She says that she had neither a father nor a mother, and when she is asked if she knows who made her, Topsy replies 'I 'spect I grow'd. Don't think nobody never made me.'

Black women in terrycloth robes with their faces greased and their straightened hair done in small tight plaits like Topsy.

CHESTER HIMES Blind Man with a Pistol, 1969

Venus de Milo The Venus de Milo is a classical marble statue of the goddess Aphrodite (c.ioo BC), now in the Louvre in Paris. The statue, missing its arms, was discovered on the Greek island of Melos in 1820. Aphrodite's short wavy hair is tied back with a ribbon.

She had crisp white hair which she wore like the Venus of Milo.

w. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Cakes and Ale, 1930

Woody Woodpecker Woody Woodpecker is a cartoon character with a tall comb of red hair.

He has red hair that stands up at the top like Woody Woodpecker's.

MARCARET ATWOOD Cat's Eye, 1988