Episode 101 - Was Poe Abused?
This episode is a cursory examination of some of the abusive conditions at English boarding schools when the young Poe attended Stoke Newington.
While Poe never wrote a great deal about those experiences, much can be learned by examining OTHER similar individuals in similar circumstances.
Episode 101 - Was Poe Abused?
This episode is a cursory examination of some of the abusive conditions at English boarding schools when the young Poe attended Stoke Newington.
While Poe never wrote a great deal about those experiences, much can be learned by examining OTHER similar individuals in similar circumstances.
COME REST IN THIS BOSOM INRO
00:01 Introduction
My name is George Bartley, and this is episode number 101 of Celebrate Poe.
00:19 “Orientation” as Mild Torture
When I attended undergraduate school - a religious college in Tennessee - the school had a form of hazing called “orientation’ for both men and women. We had to get up at 4:00 every morning - which to me is a form of torture in and of itself - and we had to wear yellow beanies everywhere - and heaven help anyone who was caught without their beanie - If an upperclassman gave us an order - such as shine my shoes, get my meal in the cafeteria, or turn on the television - we had to obey. I wore my beanie a few days before I realized I had had enough - and was instantly categorized as “one of those losers.”
We were later told that the purpose of orientation was to establish unity among all students because we all had to go through the same experiences. This was their excuse. In my opinion, about the only thing orientation DID was rob you of some precious sleep and establish unity among the so-called “losers.” The other reason given from upperclassmen was that “this is traditional - I HAD TO DO IT, so you do too!
In writing this, I can’t believe that I lasted as long in orientation as I did. Guess I thought I was going to hell if I didn’t obey the orders from this religious college.
Fortunately, orientation is no longer practiced at the school.
My attempt at orientation took place for a few weeks several years ago,, but Edgar Poe lived at a time when an established form of intense orientation occurred at even the finest English boarding schools all year - and there is no reason to believe that this was NOT true of the English boarding school that Poe attended - Stoke Newington.
02:30 Fagging
Part of “orientation” - and that is putting it kindly - at English boarding schools included a practice known as fagging. Now this doesn’t have anything to do with a sexual orientation. Nor does it have anything to do with something to smoke - such as Englishman wanting a cigarette, and asking for a fag. No, this kind of fagging was a practice at English boarding schools during the period in which younger boys were expected to run errands and do minor chores for the older ones; in effect, to be their servants. And sometimes, older students carried fagging to an extreme where younger students were to do ANYTHING that the older student wanted.
03:15 Sir Richard Branson’s perceptions
Now businessman Sir Richard Branson attended boarding school in the 20th century, and wrote in his autobiography Losing My Virginity about his time at boarding school:
Fagging was still in place: Bullying was rife. Your reputation – and ability to avoid being picked on – was helped enormously by being able to score a goal or hit a six. But I couldn’t play any games as my knee buckled whenever I tried to run. Since I was also unable to cope with the academic work, I was very quickly sidelined. Being out of the sports teams and bottom of the class was an unenviable position.
If fagging still took place when Sir Branson attended boarding school at Scaitcliffe School in the second half of the 20th century, imagine how MORE widespread the practice was when Edgar Poe attended boarding school at Stoke Newington less than 30 miles to the south. And Poe attended boarding school in the early 1900s.
Even my “orientation” at a conservative college could be considered a kind of “fagging” - for a few weeks you were to obey whatever the upper classman ordered - although it pales in comparison. The “fagging” that was characteristic of many English boarding schools could theoretically last during the school year as long as there was another student older or bigger than you. Potentially an older or bigger student could order you around and demand that you satisfy their wishes - whether it be to wash their clothes, delight in being tortured, or stimulate that person sexually. Graduates might say that such fagging could be justified because it made an individual stronger - I’d call it institutional cruelty.
05:33 Dickens and Nicholas Nickelby
Hundreds of factual pages have been written about abuse at boarding schools - but perhaps one of the most articulate is this fictional account from Charles Dicken’s third novel, Nicolas Nickleby. This account is one of those pieces of literature that deals with abuse in English boarding schools by using fiction to illustrate a very real social problem - or as Stephen King might say - telling a lie that points at the truth. In this section, Nicholas Nickleby has obtained a very low-paying job as assistant to Wackford Squeers, a very unpleasant man who is the schoolmaster at Dotheboys Hall. Nicolas becomes friends with Smike - a young man who today we might call mentally challenged. Squeers is a cruel man with little patience, and begins to beat Smike more and more until Smike runs away. In this section, Smike has just been caught and brought back to the school. Squeers prepares to beat him. The following is a riveting passage, and has a part that makes you want to stand up and cheer.
The news that Smike had been caught and brought back in triumph, ran
like wild-fire through the school, and expectation was on
tiptoe all the morning. On tiptoe it was destined to remain, however,
until afternoon; when Squeers, having refreshed himself with his dinner,
and further strengthened himself by an extra libation or so, made his
appearance (accompanied by his amiable partner) with a countenance of
portentous import, and a fearful instrument of flagellation, strong,
supple, wax-ended, and new,--in short, purchased that morning, expressly
for the occasion.
‘Is every boy here?’ asked Squeers, in a tremendous voice.
Every boy was there, but every boy was afraid to speak, so Squeers
glared along the lines to assure himself; and every eye drooped, and
every head cowered down, as he did so.
‘Each boy keep his place,’ said Squeers, administering his favourite
blow to the desk, and regarding with gloomy satisfaction the universal
start which it never failed to occasion. ‘Nickleby! to your desk, sir.’
It was remarked by more than one small observer, that there was a very
curious and unusual expression in the usher’s face; but he took his
seat, without opening his lips in reply. Squeers, casting a triumphant
glance at his assistant and a look of most comprehensive despotism on
the boys, left the room, and shortly afterwards returned, dragging
Smike by the collar. In any other place, the appearance of the wretched, jaded, spiritless object would have occasioned a murmur of compassion and remonstrance. It had some effect, even there; for the lookers-on moved uneasily in their seats; and a few of the boldest ventured to steal looks at each other, expressive of indignation and pity.
They were lost on Squeers, however, whose gaze was fastened on the
luckless Smike, as he inquired, according to custom in such cases,
whether he had anything to say for himself.
‘Nothing, I suppose?’ said Squeers, with a diabolical laugh.
Smike glanced round, and his eye rested, for an instant, on Nicholas,
as if he had expected him to intercede; but his look was riveted on his
desk.
‘Have you anything to say?’ demanded Squeers again: giving his right arm
two or three flourishes to try its power and suppleness. ‘Stand a little
out of the way, Mrs. Squeers, my dear; I’ve hardly got room enough.’
‘Spare me, sir!’ cried Smike.
‘Oh! that’s all, is it?’ said Squeers. ‘Yes, I’ll flog you within an
inch of your life, and spare you that.’
‘Ha, ha, ha,’ laughed Mrs. Squeers, ‘that’s a good ‘un!’
‘I was driven to do it,’ said Smike faintly; and casting another
imploring look about him.
‘Driven to do it, were you?’ said Squeers. ‘Oh! it wasn’t your fault; it
was mine, I suppose--eh?’
‘A nasty, ungrateful, pig-headed, brutish, obstinate, sneaking
dog,’ exclaimed Mrs. Squeers, taking Smike’s head under her arm, and
administering a cuff at every epithet; ‘what does he mean by that?’
Stand aside, my dear,’ replied Squeers. ‘We’ll try and find out.’
Mrs. Squeers, being out of breath with her exertions, complied. Squeers
caught the boy firmly in his grip; one desperate cut had fallen on his
body--he was wincing from the lash and uttering a scream of pain--it was
raised again, and again about to fall--when Nicholas Nickleby, suddenly
starting up, cried ‘Stop!’ in a voice that made the rafters ring.
‘Who cried stop?’ said Squeers, turning savagely round.
‘I,’ said Nicholas, stepping forward. ‘This must not go on.’
‘Must not go on!’ cried Squeers, almost in a shriek.
‘No!’ thundered Nicholas.
Aghast and stupefied by the boldness of the interference, Squeers
released his hold of Smike, and, falling back a pace or two, gazed upon
Nicholas with looks that were positively frightful.
‘I say must not,’ repeated Nicholas, nothing daunted; ‘shall not. I will
prevent it.’
Squeers continued to gaze upon him, with his eyes starting out of his
head; but astonishment had actually, for the moment, bereft him of
speech.
‘Sit down, beggar!’ screamed Squeers, almost beside himself with rage,
and seizing Smike as he spoke.
‘Wretch,’ rejoined Nicholas, fiercely, ‘touch him at your peril! I will
not stand by, and see it done. My blood is up, and I have the strength
of ten such men as you. Look to yourself, for by Heaven I will not spare
you, if you drive me on!’
‘Stand back,’ cried Squeers, brandishing his weapon. ‘I have a long series of insults to avenge,’ said Nicholas, flushed with passion; ‘and my indignation is aggravated by the dastardly cruelties practised on helpless infancy in this foul den. Have a care; for if you do raise the devil within me, the consequences shall fall heavily upon your own head!’
He had scarcely spoken, when Squeers, in a violent outbreak of wrath,
and with a cry like the howl of a wild beast, spat upon him, and struck
him a blow across the face with his instrument of torture, which raised
up a bar of livid flesh as it was inflicted. Smarting with the agony
of the blow, and concentrating into that one moment all his feelings
of rage, scorn, and indignation, Nicholas sprang upon him, wrested the
weapon from his hand, and pinning him by the throat, beat the ruffian
till he roared for mercy.
Nicholas, in the full torrent of his violence, felt the blows no more
than if they had been dealt with feathers; but, becoming tired of the
noise and uproar, and feeling that his arm grew weak besides, he threw
all his remaining strength into half-a-dozen finishing cuts, and flung
Squeers from him with all the force he could muster. Squeers lay at his full
length on the ground, stunned and motionless.
TRANSITION
14:53 E.L. Hartley and boarding school
It seems that the best way of learning about conditions of Poe’s school days in England is to looks at other authors who attended boarding schools - especially those in the same geographical area.
The conditions of English boarding schools often had long term effects -
20th century novelist E.L. Hartley has written that as a result of boarding school he developed an irrational fear in later life of falling asleep on the train from Rome to Venice. This was not because he was seriously afraid of missing his stop - he was far too familar with the route - but he had aconstant fear of being late for morning roll call at boarding school. Hartley has said that as a result of boarding school, he had a fear that he was going to break one of the rules. He said his fear of teachers, rules, and bullying students remained with him in adulthood all his life - even though he knew those fears were irrational.
16:12 Gathorne-Hardy and boarding school
Here Gathorne-Hardy, a prominent British conservative politician,
describes the horrible conditions in a dormintory sleeping area.
This was during the same period that Poe attended Stoke Newington. This room is in Eton - often considered the most prestigious boarding school in England.
This barn-like room where 52 scholars slept, was 172 feet long and 15 feet high, it was unheated [until] 1784 when two fireplaces were put in; the windows were broken and, in winter, snow drifted in and covered their beds. It was filthy, stinking of corrupting rats corpses, ordure and urine … There were not enough of the large oaken beds four feet six inches across, in which the boys slept together for sex or huddled close for warmth and some had to sleep on the floor … In 1834 a report stated “that the inmates of a workhouse or a jail are better fed and lodged than the scholars of Eton” … But it is at night that the accounts read like descriptions of hell.
17:48 Alex Renton and boarding school
Now skip ahead to recent boarding house conditions:
In a recent article for the English newspaper the Guardian, columnist Alex Renton wrote about his memories of Ashdown - a boarding school approximately less than 30 miles to the north of Stoke Newington -
After boarding school, I never really trusted an adult again, not until I was one myself.’ Today, 40 years since I last saw the school, and we step through the columned porch as though entitled. Nothing can touch us: we're parents. Ruth, my wife, grips my hand. A friend who works in post-traumatic stress disorder warned us, quite gravely, of the risks when people visit scenes of past troubles; of hyper-arousal – sweats, nausea, high heart-rate. Or the opposite, hypo-arousal: a state of lethargy, a feeling of unreality. But I'm fine. Pulse steady. People hurt you, not places.
There were no ghosts, no shocks as we toured the corridors and classrooms. I have not been looking forward to the smell. I could summon the brew: disinfectant, boy sweat, meat stew, chalk dust. An incense of misery. But it is gone. There is no chalk these days. It is the details from other senses that clamour. The give of a floorboard in a corridor, the sunlight through a window, the shape of a wooden refectory bench, an echo of children's voices. We enter headmaster "Billy" Williamson's study. I'd scrutinised the bricks, the way they sat upon each other, many times over those five years. Waiting for his flap-jowled face to stop shouting and get to business: detail the punishment or the beating.
Just down the corridor, two worn wooden steps led to the tiny dormitory where I slept in my first term at the school. I and the other eight-year-olds would turn our faces into our mattresses, pull pillows over our heads. If you wept out loud, the 10-year-old dormitory captain and his deputy threatened to whip you with a belt. That was their prerogative, they told us on the first night, a few hours after our mothers had extracted promises from them to look after their little ones.
Now when I meet men who were at the school I tend to check details obsessively – He was called what? That happened when? – as if without reaffirmation what was real might slip into the darkness. Old Ashdownians sometimes tell me things that make my jaw drop
It would stand to reason that Poe would be terrified to tell his parents about any abuse at school or any emotional trauma he recieved. I can just see John Allan telling him to be a man.
Ashdown House, along with several other English boarding schools, was later taken to court for claims of physical and sexual abuse. While the school claims that it has made significant reforms, at the time of the court case it was commonly referred to as that Dickensian school.
The young Edgar Poe later attended several day schools in Richmond when his family returned to the states, but the threat of extreme punishment might have been quite different than that of an English boarding school. Perhaps Edgar Poe had become more skilled at avoiding beatings from his experiences at Stoke Newington. Or maybe a huge difference is that Poe LIVED at Stoke Newington, and brutal treatment could take place without his parents knowing about it. And there was a common attitude in England that boarding schools were a training ground, and that going through tramatic experiences would make you a stronger person.
22:40 Boarding School Syndrome
Recently, psychotherapist Dr. Joy Schaverian has written a book called Boarding School Syndrome. She begins her study with a brief description
A man of 63 lies on my couch and tells me with huge emotion of how he was sent to a school run by Jesuit brothers in the 1950s. He was 13 years of age. He was horrified on his first night when, after some talking took place after lights out, a monk came in the room and beat every one of the boys in the dormitory. This was a terrifying shock. However, it became a regular occurrence to which he soon became accustomed. Very little provocation was needed to merit a beating.
She then goes on to describe boarding school conditions in their sometimes gory detail - that if you leave a lot of boys to their own devices, and those boys were brutalized by their surroundings, then those boys would become violent. The boys would become fiendish bullys - and their teachers would prey on weaker students. I gave an example of this earlier in this podcast with the section by Dickens Dotheboys Hall in Nicholas Nickleby.
To quote from Alex Renton’s article about boarding school - I do know that after the half-term break that first autumn we came back to a terrifying dressing-down, delivered under those low beams in the headmaster's study. One of us new boys – I still don't know who – had complained about the regime in Dormitory V to his parents. This was the cardinal sin. What happened in school stayed in school. Billy punished us all. We didn't tell tales again.
22:01 Conclusion
Now I am not saying that the young Poe DEFINITELY was abused or physically molested at Stoke Newington - we just don’t know. But the opportunity was certainly there - circumstances where abusers could tell themselves “we’re just making them stronger” or “I had to go through the same thing.” And who knows how someone who was probably viewed as an outsider like Poe- came to view the closed environment of a boarding school. We need to remember that during his years at Stoke Newington, young Edgar Poe was an extremely intelligent and sensitive young boy who was forming his views of the world. In summary, without many concrete works about Poe’s life outside the classroom, we have to depend on the descriptions of others to understand the traumas that Edgar Poe
may have experienced at Stoke Newington. Poe was certainly affected - if not the target - of abusive actions that no young person should have to experience.
I have quoted from the Alex Renton’s article Abuse in Britain’s Boarding Schools: Why I Decided to Confront My Demons. Was part of Poe’s later work an unconcious attempt to confront demons, not only regarding death and lost loves, but about boarding school?
26:01 Future Episodes
In the next episode, The Two Faces of William, Celebrate Poe will take a closer look at William Wilson, the uncanny motif in the story, and the themes of the doppleganger, double, and multiple personality or dissociative identity disorder. I am hoping to have an episode or two finished in two weeks with the return of Mr. Poe and the introduction of Mr. Shakespeare as they discuss classical rhetorical devices and how such rhetorical devices became central to their writing. This might be totally unfamiliar to you now, but, with the help of Mr. Poe and Mr. Shakespeare, I hope that you will be able to look at Poe and Shakespeare in a whole new way. And if those episodes take a little bit more time than I anticipated, then that information is certainly germane to almost ANY educational endeavors of the time - such as the classical studies that Poe undertook when he returned to the United States.
27:19 Sources
Sources for this episode include Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson, Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography by Arthur Hobson Quinn, The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Dwight Thomas and David K. Jackson, The Reason for the Darkness of the Night. by John Tresch, Poe and Place by Phillip Edward Phillips, the Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Thomas Alive Mabbott, and Abuse in Britain’s Boarding Schools: Why I Decided to Confront My Demons in the Guardian of May 4, 1914.
Thank you for listening to Celebrate Poe.