On Trollope's 'The Bertrams' and "understanding"

For an assignment in my 1859/60 seminar, we were to track a word throughout our reading of Trollope's The Bertrams. Wonderful novel, hardly ever read anymore. The assignment was fruitful, I think. Here are the results.

The Bertrams and “understanding”

    I chose to track some derivatives of “understanding” in The Bertrams since Trollope, it seems to me, shoos his characters through the plot primarily by means of a repetition of attempts—and often failures—by Trollope’s characters to understand/to know/to acknowledge the hearts and minds of their comrades and also, critically, of themselves.  I began searching recurrences of “understand,” more often than not finding the word in a negative mode e.g. “could not,” “cannot,” “will not,” “did not,” “do not,” or “hardly” understand etc. Other slight variations on this theme did catch my eye, however, and I tried to include a few in my catalogue such as “…he might not know his own mind….she hardly knew her own mind” (137).

    Thus we have a knowledge-problem spawning much pain and confusion for our lovers and friends. Though sometimes rendered brilliantly comic (as when Miss Todd and Adela visit Mrs. Leake) misunderstanding usually leads to suffering. And Trollope all the while gives us the sense that this suffering—by “stricken harts” and stricken hearts—is needless. In other words, this complex pain could have, indeed, should have, been avoided if George had tried harder to understand the complexity of Caroline; if Old Bertram had better known his own nephew’s character, or recognized better his own miserliness; if Arthur would have actually looked and actually understood Adela’s deep unswaying love (a love that had always been there for him); if Caroline had recognized her own capacity to love George, and her own need to be loved. This profound inability to know, to understand, to acknowledge one’s self and one another I actually do not find to be resolved by the end of the novel. Our lovers do find each other, do find a kind of understanding with one another. Recognition scenes, after all, are not absent from this very English tragicomedy: “Caroline Waddington had once flattered herself that that heart of hers was merely a blood-circulating instrument. But she had discovered her mistake, and learned the truth before it was too late. She had known what it was to love…” (445). But one senses from Trollope’s novel an inevitability: that to live is to suffer, to struggle, and to misunderstand.

    Two characters, Trollope’s heroes, escape this somewhat tragic condition: Adela and Miss Todd. Adela, “pure, true, and honest” always understood Arthur, and always understood herself. Similarly, the Falstaffian Miss Todd sees through the deceptions and misunderstandings of her friends and neighbors: all but once. Miss Todd does fail to understand Miss Baker’s attraction to Sir Lionel, and yet we might see here the success of that misunderstanding: Sir Lionel’s iniquitous seductions, we feel, are better kept far away from Hadley. Miss Todd we are told “does more good to others than others do to her”: to do so is to make a kind of heroic effort. Unlike Arthur’s orthodoxy, Miss Todd’s ethics requires not creeds but only an effort of understanding. 

The Bertrams and “understanding”

Volume One

·         Adela had never before known him to be solicitous about money for himself, and now she felt that she did not understand him. (Chapter 4, p44)

·         Indeed Mr. Bertram did not think very much about degrees. He had taken no degree himself, except a high degree in wealth, and could not understand that he ought to congratulate a young man of twenty-two as to a successful termination of his school-lessons. (55)

·         They did not understand each other; perceiving which, Sir Lionel gave up the subject. He was determined not to make himself disagreeable to his son. (89)

·         “…But you hardly understand me, or him either.”

“I think I understand him, George…” (91)

·         “…I hardly think you know or realize what my feelings to you are. I can only meet you to tell you again and again that I love you. You are so cold yourself that you cannot understand my—my—my impetuosity, if you choose to call it so." (135-136)

·         …he might not know his own mind….she hardly knew her own mind. (137)

·         "Ah! my dear fellow, you do not know her…” (166)

·         "Ah! you say that because you do not understand her…” (166)

·         "And occasionally cheese," said Harcourt, who could not understand that any rising man could marry early, unless in doing so he acquired money. (176)

·         "Yes, I do; at times very, very much; but I fear the time may come when I may love him less. You will not understand me; but the fact is, I should love him better if he were less worthy of my love—if he were more worldly."

"No, I do not understand that," said Adela, thinking of her love, and the worldly prudence of him who should have been her lover.

"That is it—you do not understand me; and yet it is not selfishness on my part. I would marry a man in the hope of making him happy." (184)

Volume Two

·         "But it was a fault of yours. Do you think that I cannot understand? that I cannot see?...” (238) 

·         …she had acted foolishly in that, certainly; had not known him, had not understood his character… (244)

·         "Trouble—trouble! But I will not make a fool of myself. I believe at any rate that you understand me."

"Oh! perfectly, Mr. Bertram."

But she did not understand him; nor perhaps was it very likely that she should understand him. What he had meant her to understand was this: that in giving her up he was sacrificing only himself, and not her; that he did so in the conviction that she did not care for him; and that he did so on this account, strong as his own love still was, in spite of all her offences. This was what he intended her to understand;—but she did not understand the half of it. (251)

·         Bertram did not understand her, and he showed he did not by his look. (253)

·         Mr. Bertram turned towards the table, and buried his face in his hands. He did not understand it. He did not know whence came all this opposition. He could not conceive what was the motive power which caused his nephew thus to thwart and throw him over, standing forward as he did with thousands and tens of thousands in his hand. But he knew that his request was refused, and he felt himself degraded and powerless. (314)

·         "I believe much that I do not understand. I believe the distance of the earth from the sun. I believe that the seed of a man is carried in a woman, and then brought forth to light, a living being. I do not understand the principle of this wondrous growth. But yet I believe it, and know that it is from God. But I cannot believe that evil is good. I cannot believe that man placed here by God shall receive or not receive future happiness as he may chance to agree or not to agree with certain doctors who, somewhere about the fourth century, or perhaps later, had themselves so much difficulty in coming to any agreement on the disputed subject." (334)

·         "Ah! you do not understand, George." (336)

·         “I do not know what you wish me to understand, Mr. Bertram.”

“Yes, Adela, you do; I think you do. I think I am honest and open. At any rate, I strive to be so. I think you do understand me.” (344)

·         She was in a twitter of sentimental restlessness, but she did not understand the cause of her own uneasiness. (377)

Volume Three

·         “Ah! you little know me.”

“I should but little know you if I thought you could esteem me in that guise.” (449)

·         "What is it you mean?"

"I will not deserve the name again—even from you."

"Nonsense; I do not understand you. You do not know what you are saying."

"Yes, Sir Henry, I do know well what I am saying. It may be that I have done you some injury; if so, I regret it. God knows that you have done me much. We can neither of us now add to each other's comfort, and it will be well that we should part."

"Do you mean me to understand that you intend to leave me?"

"That is what I intend you to understand."

"Nonsense; you will do no such thing." (455)

·         “But, Adela, do not misunderstand me…” (461)

·         “Well, I don’t suppose you know your own mind, as yet.”

“Oh, sir! indeed I do.” (464)

·         "Well, all things are possible; but I do not understand how mine are to be cured. They have come too clearly from my own folly." (471)

·         But he knew himself to be a handsome man, and he could not understand how he could be laid aside for so ugly a lout as this stranger from England. (484)

·         Much as his uncle understood, he had failed to understand his nephew’s mind. (516)

·         His lordship had given directions at the lodge that she was not to come up, and could not understand how it had come to pass that the lady had forced her way to the hall-door. (534)

·         “My lord, if you’d only give yourself the trouble to understand me—“

“I don’t understand a word you say...” (537)

·         She felt sure that if Lord Stapledean would only be made to understand the facts of the case, he would yet take her part. (538)

·         “…Now we may fairly trust that we do know our own minds…” (541)

·         His uncle, he knew, had misunderstood him. (555)

·         “Father, you do not understand this matter.” (566)