December 11, 2005
Glamorous Indigo Eye: Fuchsia's Sexuality Revealed in "The Frivolous Cake"
Fuchsia Groan, older sister of the title character of Titus Groan (first of the three incomparable Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake), is a character who cannot truly be understood and sympathized with without an understanding of her psychological make-up. As the neglected eldest daughter of the 76th Earl of the House of Groan, Lord of the ponderous, sprawling, and decaying Gormenghast Castle, Fuchsia is presented as somewhat of a tragic heroine (bearing more than a slight resemblance to Ophelia, when all is said and done) when we first meet her at the age of about fifteen.
She is a lonely and reclusive girl, neglected all her life, but now even less important as a result of the birth of a male heir, Titus. Her love for her father, Lord Sepulchrave, is rivaled in intensity only by her hatred for her mother, Gertrude. Both, however, are equally indifferent to her existence. Fuchsia, the perpetual child who never really grows up despite her physical age, has a very clear Electra Complex. Meanwhile, the only two people who seem to care for her at all are her mousy nurse, Nanny Slagg, and the effeminate Doctor Prunesquallor (unmarried and living with his spinster sister, Irma).
Prunesquallor, however, is (as our story begins) totally absorbed with the birthing of baby Titus, and Nanny Slagg, who will take charge of the new baby, is equally preoccupied. Fuchsia's fury at the arrival of a baby brother is boundless. She responds to the news by throwing a tantrum and retreating to her sanctuary, the existence of which is unknown to anyone but Nanny Slagg.
Behind her bed, a door in the wall leads up steep and rickety stairs into a series of attics which lead finally to a window to the outside world. In this sanctum, Fuchsia has comfortable furniture, food, and all of her favorite things about her. These things include pictures, costumes, and books of all kinds. Nanny cannot climb the stairs to reach her here, and when she is inside this place, it is almost as though she has retreated into her own mind. In her sanctuary, she is untouchable and safe.
Among the many books she keeps in this room there is a book of poetry, and her favorite of all the poems in the book is a nonsense piece called "The Frivolous Cake" (Peake 64-65) This poem, reproduced in its entirety beneath the fold, provides a fascinating summary of Fuchsia's psychological state and subtly foreshadows the course of her fateful romance with the conniving and evil Steerpike, who will soon invade her world.
The poem is about a cake (a fruitcake, no less) which sails "on a pointless sea" (line 2) beneath a strangely-colored sky, amidst flying fish and enchanted islands populated with fantastic creatures. This cake, all unsuspecting, is pursued by an amorous knife which, when it finally catches up to her, proceeds to devour her in a fit of passion.
The life and environment of this "frivolous cake" parallel Fuchsia's own activities and picture of her surroundings. She has neither duties nor cares, and may come and go as she pleases. This she does, "in a manner emphatic and free" (line 4), floating about in a world which she can make no sense of and over which she has no control.
Soon, a new figure enters the scene where the frivolous cake has cavorted so carelessly, "filled to the brim/With the fun of her curranty crew" (lines 19-20). This figure is, of course, the knife, swiftly pursuing the cake through the water, and winking "his glamorous indigo eye/In the wake of his future wife" (lines 31-32). This tension within the poem refers directly to the imminent sexual pursuit of Fuchsia by Steerpike, who relentlessly worms his way into Fuchsia's affections in order to take advantage of her connections. Steerpike carries a swordstick about with him wherever he goes. In the poem, the imagery of the phallic knife pursuing the fruit-filled cake is unmistakably sexual within the poem.
In the end, the knife reaches the cake, and crumbs begin to fly in all directions as the "tropical air vibrates to the drone/Of a cake in the throes of love" (lines 39-40). The phallic knife, burying itself in the cake, satisfies its own lusts but destroys the fragile cake in the process (even though the cake doesn't seem to realize that it is being devoured). Meanwhile, Steerpike grows closer and closer to Fuchsia, and she remains oblivious of what his true purpose is until it is almost too late.
When she does realize what he has been up to, a part of her dies and she sinks into deep melancholia. "Her need for love had never been fulfilled; her love for others had never been suspected, or wanted . . . a girl who was, in spite of her title and all it implied, of little consequence in the eyes of the castle" (760). The combination of events drives her to the very brink of suicide, and she ultimately drowns in a flood, a sea just as pointless as that which the frivolous cake of her favorite poem sailed on.
"The Frivolous Cake" by Mervyn Peake
A freckled and frivolous cake there was
That sailed on a pointless sea,
Or any lugubrious lake there was
In a manner emphatic and free.
How jointlessly, and how jointlessly
The frivolous cake sailed by
On the waves of the ocean that pointlessly
Threw fish to the lilac sky.
Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was
Of a glory beyond compare,
And every conceivable make there was
Was tossed through the lilac air.
Up the smooth billows and over the crests
Of the cumbersome combers flew
The frivolous cake with a knife in the wake
Of herself and her curranty crew.
Like a swordfish grim it would bounce and skim
(This dinner knife fierce and blue),
And the frivolous cake was filled to the brim
With the fun of her curranty crew.
Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was
Of a glory beyond compare -
And every conceivable make there was
Was tossed through the lilac air.
Around the shores of the Elegant Isles
Where the cat-fish bask and purr
And lick their paws with adhesive smiles
And wriggle their fins of fur,
They fly and fly 'neath the lilac sky -
The frivolous cake, and the knife
Who winketh his glamorous indigo eye
In the wake of his future wife.
The crumbs blow free down the pointless sea
To the beat of a cakey heart
And the sensitive steel of the knife can feel
That love is a race apart
In the speed of the lingering light are blown
The crumbs to the hake above,
And the tropical air vibrates to the drone
Of a cake in the throes of love.