The Middle Ground is considered by many critics to belong to a second phase of Margaret Drabble’s writings which has a social focus, differing from her five novels from the 1960s that have a subjective focus. The form is also a notable difference between the two groups of novels (Stovel, 56).
According to Rubenstein (139), the intrusive narrator who calls attention to the fictional aspect of the narrative is one of the signs of the tension between the mimetic plot and the narrative strategy of these novels, especially The Middle Ground. As pointed out by Bromberg, the novel was criticized by its “clumsy style and lack of evident form, as well as the proliferation of points of view and corresponding lack of character development” (464). Bromberg argues that it is necessary to question why Drabble chose this narrative strategy before condemning it, she believes that it makes the reader stop and take note while expressing the novel’s “profound uncertainty about conventional narrative strategy” (467). Another point that should be highlighted is that the narrative form resembles the internal turmoil of its characters, as Greene calls attention to, "Drabble suggests parallels between Kate's crisis and problems of narrative construction." (294)
In this paper I intend to discuss how the narrative structure strategy used by Drabble in The Middle Ground resembles the inner turmoil faced by the characters, especially Kate, in their mid-life crises. As Rose argues, the way the characters deal with the “discovery that life is fragmented and inherently without pattern translate into alternative narrative strategies.” (80) This topic is relevant for the understanding of the complexity of the novel’s narrative when, at first glance, the reader could tend to side with the critics that point out its lack of form without considering that the form could be intentionally like this, fragments that replace conventional expectations for the “likelihoods of reality”. (Bromberg, 466)
The Middle Ground begins with a discussion between Kate Armstrong and her friend Hugo Mainwaring about what he termed her “mid-life crisis”. The narrator then interferes and speaks directly to the reader: “Here is an account of Kate’s past history, some, if not all, of which must have led her to wherever she now is” (17) Here the narrator indicates the idea that torments Kate during the present time in her life: that where her life is now should be explained by her past and predict her future, but she has difficult visualizing these links. As Greene remarks, Kate loses the connection between past and present (294): “the past no longer seems to make sense, for if it did, how would it have left her here, in this peculiarly draughty space?” (16) The narrative follows the same path and does not hold to a linear passage of time. Starting in the present moment of Kate’s life the narrator goes back and offers the reader a brief account of her life and then it returns to the point it had left and the novel begins: “And that is Kate’s history, up to date” (79); “ […] two new elements have entered Kate’s life. One is a new job. […] The other new element is the Iraqi.” (81-2) As discussed by Rose, these two new elements will have an important part in solving Kate’s mid-life crisis (71).
From this moment on, the novel has a multiplication of perspectives, the narrator changes abruptly from Kate to other characters. According to Pickering it is not only the points of view that change, "but other ways of representing reality" are introduced (481). These switches show how Kate is perceived differently by herself and each person in her life, including the narrator. The multiplicity is part of her past and her present, as Bromberg points out, and to know her we would have to know all these different perceptions (471-2).
These two elements are linked to each other and Kate’s perception of herself and the lack of patterns that she has been seeking to visualize in her life’s history.
Bibliography
Bromberg, Pamela S. "Margaret Drabble's ‘The Radiant Way’: Feminist Metafiction". NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 24.1 (1990): 5-25. Web. 06 Dec. 2012.
Bromberg, Pamela S. “Narrative in Drabble's ‘The Middle Ground’: Relativity versus Teleology”. Contemporary Literature 24.4 (1983): 463-479. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.
Drabble, Margaret. The Middle Ground. Penguin Books: Harmondsworth. 1981. Print.
Greene, Gayle. "Feminist Fiction and the Uses of Memory". Signs 16.2 (1991): 290-321. Web. 22 Nov. 2012.
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