Mystery

2 7 4 MYSTERY

She motioned frantically to him not to make a noise. .. . 'My dear, why all this Fall- of-the-House-of-Usher stuff?'

STELLA GIBBONS Cold Comfort Farm, 1932

My hair is hanging along my cheeks, my skirt is swaddling about me. I can feel the cold damp of my brow. I must look like something out of 'The Fall of the House of Usher.'

DOROTHY PARKER The Waltz, 1944

Mona Lisa Mona Lisa is the title of a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps the most famous painting in the world. The painting is also known as La Gioconda because the sitter was the wife of Francesco di Bartolommeo del Giocondo di Zandi. Her enigmatic smile has become one of the most famous images in Western art.

She declined to express an opinion, answering only with a Mona Lisa smile. A. s. BYATT Possession, 1990

Sphinx In Greek mythology, the Sphinx was a winged monster with a woman's head and a lion's body. It lay outside Thebes and asked travellers a riddle, killing anyone who failed to solve it. When Oedipus gave the right answer, the Sphinx killed itself. The sphinx asked what animal walked on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening. Oedipus correctly answered that man crawls on all fours as a child, walks on two legs

enigmatic or mysterious person can be described as a sphinx or as sphinxlike.

This human mind wrote history, and this must read it. The Sphynx must solve her own riddle.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON 'History' in Essays, 1841

Ian persevered, hauling the rib cage up and down, trying to get air into the lungs mechanically. Stephen and I watched in silence for what seemed a very long time. I

Udolpho Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) is a gothic novel set at the end of the 16th century. Most of the action takes place in the sinister castle of Udolpho in which the sliding panels, secret passages, and apparently supernatural occurrences are all typical of the genre.

Was there a 'secret' at Bly—a mystery of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable

relative kept in unsuspected confinement?

HENRY JAMES The Turn of the Screw, 1898

Veil of Isis Isis was an ancient Egyptian nature and fertility goddess, wife and sister of Osiris and mother of Horus. She is usually depicted as a woman with cow's horns, between which was the disc of the sun. Statues of her often carried the inscription: 'I am all that is, has been, and shall be, and none

2 7 6 NAIVETY

majority of her books were published in the 1940s and 1950s, and they can now be alluded to as depicting an era of idealized childhood innocence.

Candide Candide is the naive young hero of Voltaire's satire Candide, published in 1759. Accompanied by his tutor, Pangloss, who assures him repeatedly that 'all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds', Candide has many adventures and suffers many mishaps, often as a result of his ingenuous and trusting nature. Candide has become synonymous with youthful innocence and naivety.

He plunged into the heart of Mayfair. The mist thickened, not so much to obscure all but sufficiently to give what he passed a slightly dreamlike quality; as if he was a visitor from another world, a Candide who could see nothing but obvious explanations.

JOHN FOWLES The French Lieutenant's Woman, 1969

Dickensian The novels of Charles Dickens contain many young heroines whose kind, sweet, open nature contrasts with the harshness and wickedness of the world around them.

Hilda kept up all the appearance of Dickensian young-girlishness, but contrived at the same time to make all the advances, create all the opportunités and lead the conversation into all the properly amorous channels.

ALDOUS. HUXLEY Point Counter Point, 1928

Happy Hooligan The Happy Hooligan was an American comic strip character who appeared from 1900 to 1932, an Irish tramp with a red nose and a tin can for a hat. He was an innocent and an unconquerable optimist despite the fact that his attempts to help himself and others often ended with his falling into the hands of the law.

Never tol' you 'bout him. Looked like Happy Hooligan. Harmless kinda fella. Always was gonna make a break. Fellas all called him Hooligan.

JOHN STEINBECK The Crapes of Wrath, 1939

Daisy Miller Daisy Miller is the heroine of a short novel with the same name by Henry James, published in 1879. She is a naive young American woman who is touring Europe with her mother and brother and finds herself in compromising situations because of her trusting nature and ignorance of social conventions. When she is found viewing the Colosseum one evening with a young Italian and no chaperone, she is criticized for her lack of social decorum. She returns hurt to her hotel, where she contracts malaria and is dead within a week.

Miranda Miranda is the beautiful and innocent daughter of Prospero in Shakespeare's play The Tempest (1623). Brought up on a deserted island with only her father for company, Miranda has never seen the deceit, wickedness, and corruption of the world, and on becoming acquainted with men who have been shipwrecked on the island she utters the famous lines:

'How beauteous mankind is! 0 brave new world, That has such people in't!'

Ironically, the people she is speaking of are the very ones who deposed and exiled Prospero many years before. Miranda's name can suggest a young innocent unaware of the darker side of human nature and full of wonder and joy at the world and human society.

interest that she had never yet bestowed on a mortal. THOMAS HARDY A Pair of Blue Eyes, 1873

He escorted them to their box with a sort of pompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands, and talking at the top of his voice. Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever. He felt as if he had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban.

OSCAR WILDE The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

noble savage • See ROUSSEAU.

Arthur Rackham Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) was a British illustrator. Because he is best remembered for his illustrations of well-known children's books, his name has become associated with the idea of childhood innocence and simplicity.

How could this Arthur Rackham nymph, his English Alice, be Pete Curtis's 'very good lay?

CHRISTOPHER j . KOCH The Year of Living Dangerously, 1978

Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) was a French philosopher and writer, born in Switzerland. His belief in the fundamental goodness of human nature and the corrupting influence of modern society is most clearly expressed in his descriptions of the 'noble savage', an idealized man living a natural life, free from the influences of civilization.

She was all loving to me at first, but then she got sarcastic and said she couldn't stand the sight of me. 'Here comes the noble savage,' she called out when I came home, and used longer words I didn't know the meaning of when I asked her where my tea was.

ALAN siLLiTOE The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, 1959

Shirley Temple Shirley Temple (b. 1928) was an American child star, appearing in a succession offilmsin the 1930s, in which she sang and danced. She is remembered for her sweet, innocent good looks, especially her mop of golden curls.

He made a chirping noise and patted his knee invitingly, and Hortense immediately leapt on his lap and starting rubbing her head against his chest, purring like mad. He tickled her under the chin, murmuring idiotic blandishments into her black velvet ears. 'Don't be fooled by the Shirley Temple routine,' I said sourly. That cat is four kilos of cunning in a black fur coat!

MICHÈLE BAILEY Haycastle's Cricket, 1996

Beside McConnachie's massive bulk, Fizz looked like a kitten smiling up at a Rottweiler. Sun-bleached tendrils of hair framed a face that made Shirley Temple look depraved and her denim-blue eyes rested on Duncan with absolute faith and affection.

JOYCE HELM Foreign Body, 1997

Waltons The Waltons was the title of an American television series (1972-81). It portrayed the life and problems of a family living in the rural Appalachian mountains at the time of the Great Depression. Although they were poor and suffered hardships, the Waltons remained a close, devoutly religious family, supportive of each other, and their name has come to represent an idealized