Playing and Reality in Sylvia Cassedy's Novels (1990)

Playing and Reality In Sylvia Cassedy's Novels by Virginia Wolf The dichotomy implied in my title, like all dichotomies, including that of work and play, reflects one means by which we classify and define, that being by opposition. Like all abstraction, such dichotomies simplify, reduce, and ignore the multiplicitous and indivisible nature they address and allow us to examine, comprehend, and control that nature. In the case of "playing and reality," the two terms that will occupy me here, most theorists, for example, Millar, Huizinga, and Stewart, do not oppose them, but, rather, see playing as one form of reality. D.W. Winnicott, who chose these terms as the title of his 1971 book, defines "playing" as the potential space between the baby and the mother (41), in which, he explains, 'the child gathers objects or phenomena from external reality and uses these in the service of some sample derived from inner or personal reality" (51). The necessary condition for the child's playing, in Winnicott's opinion, is the trust in and reliability of external reality experienced as a result of "good-enough mothering" (13). Clearly, the middle ground between the formless reality outside us (and yet including us) and the desired reality inside us is not only the territory of play but also, as Stewart points out in Nonsense: Aspects of IntertextualitY in Folklore and Literature, the territory of fiction and, as Huizinga points out in Homo Ludens: A Study of the Plav Element in Culture, territory of culture and, as Miller points out in Gods and Games: Toward a Theology of Play, the territory of myth. Indeed, Winnicott believes that "on the basis of playing is built the whole of man's experiential existence. ... We experience life in the . . . exciting interweave of subjectivity and objective observation, and in an area that is intermediate between the inner reality of the individual and the shared reality of the world that is external to individuals" (64). Those who have never had "good-enough mothering," are, by way of contrast, dead to life. Winnicott points out that they either fearfully comply with external demands or withdraw into themselves (65-66). In either case, they are isolated. All of this theory provides an illuminating context for looking at the connection between playing and reality in Sylvia Cassedy's three novels: Behind the Attic Wall (1983), M.E. and Morton (1987), and Jjjcy Babbidge's House (1989). All three are about troubled, préadolescent girls who, as a result of playing, find a way out of their isolation and despair. Their being able to play, of course, implies their having experienced "good-enough mothering," just as their isolation reflects its current absence. Maggie Ann Turner in Behind the Attic Wall is an orphan, as is Lucy Babbidge. Mary Ella (M.E.) is also—in a psychological sense; her parents are emotionally unavailable. The way in which playing allows the three literally to transform reality is certainly one interesting feature of the novels, but so is the way in which Cassedy herself as author plays with the connection between playing and reality. Behind the Attic Wall is a fantasy. Maggie believes that dolls are alive, and Cassedy, for the most part, supports this belief. M.E. and Morton, quite differently, is Mary Ella's first-person and fairly conscious and realistic account of how by playing she's like her brother, she comes to identify with and love him and to free her parents' love. Finally, Cassedy's third person narrative, limited to Lucy Babbidge's viewpoint, blurs the distinction between playing and reality until Lucy must defend her playing against the onslaught of external reality and in the process learn once again to share her inner reality with others. Clearly, in both the content of the novels and in her narrative technique, Cassedy has much to say about playing and reality. Maggie Ann Turner is in need of a home. Shuffled from place to place after her parents' death because she is difficult and ugly, she arrives at the home of her Aunts Lillian and Harriet, brought from the station by her Uncle Morris, hoping to find a house like her home...