Throughout his literary career, Byron has given life to plenty of heroines in his tale, some bearing a striking resemblance to the others while some differing drastically. In the wake of the liberal and revolutionary atmosphere among the Romantic period, fictional female characterizations oftentimes allude to the contemporary debate on women’s role in society. Two vividly contrasting females, Medora and Gulnare, are introduced in The Corsair, one conforming to the conventional gender norm, and the other transgressing gender boundaries. As the two disparate women are woven into the roaming life of the Corsair, they reveal Conrad’s otherwise hidden emotion and manifest interesting similarities yet even more compelling distinctions. Contrary to Medora, who belongs to the passive-female-victim genre which has appeared in several of Byron’s works prior to The Corsair (Franklin, 1992), Gulnare, employing “the firmness of a female’s hand” (III, 381), marks Byron’s first tentative approach in creating an active heroine. In The Corsair, we see the portrayals of the dichotomous light/dark female characterizations during the Romantic period (Hull, 1978), how the fates of an active and a passive female diverge as the plot develops, and how their personalities are altered or preserved throughout the tale. This paper investigates Medora and Gulnare’s dispositions, actions and love relationships, raises questions about specific plot arrangements, notably the emotional evolvement and the oscillating dominance between Gulnare and Conrad, and aims to explain the reasons behind.
The Corsair is a tale in verse about the story of Conrad, a legendary pirate chief, a “man of loneliness and mystery” (I, 173). Returning from victory, Conrad decrees that a raid on the Pacha’s territory shall take place right away after sunset. Amid the brief interlude, he hastened back to his tower; meanwhile, his lover, Medora, is singing a sad song, expressing her melancholy of her lover’s absence and her fear of being forgotten by the hero. Medora brightens up once she sees Conrad, strives to allure her lover to abort the mission and stay, yet fails, and once again declines to gloomy listlessness after his departure. The coups de main unfolds in Canto II as Conrad and his crew disguise and blend into Seyd’s palace. The marauders have held the upper hand at the beginning of the attack until Conrad hears a cry from the inflamed harem. He hesitates for a short moment then determines to rescue the defenseless odalisques, during which he first encounters Gulnare, the harem queen. The detour from their plan entails a reversed situation and the defeat and capture of Conrad. In gratitude for his effort to save her, Gulnare furtively visits the imprisoned Conrad and promises to persuade Seyd to spare his life. Entering Canto III, Gulnare cleverly coaxes Seyd but her blandishment turns out to be futile as the Pacha prematurely accused her of infidelity. Fury at and humiliated by the false accusation, she returns to Conrad, urging him to assassinate the monarch while he is asleep. After being refused, Gulnare carries out the scheme on her own, buys off Seyd’s henchmen, takes over the dictator’s fleet, liberates Conrad and escorts him back to his colony. Though frightened by her violent act and the bloodstain on her forehead, Conrad obeys and follows Gulnare to escape. As they approach the shore, being greeted by curious fellow pirates, Gulnare renders humility and remorse for her crime. Captivated by her softened expression, Conrad embraces and kisses Gulnare before he heads to the turret where Medora dwells, only to find out that his lover has died of grief. Being stricken by deep sorrow and genuine regret after the tragic discovery, Conrad vanishes, leaving his name “linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes” (III, 696).
Medora’s first appearance, “And these the notes his bird of beauty sung:” (I, 346), has metaphorically revealed her submissive role as Conrad’s possession, and the description of her image, “The tender blue of that large loving eye” (I, 493), leaves a pure and endearing impression. She sings a woeful song in the tower on the hill, displaying the typical image of a princess from a fairy tale, captured, isolated and waiting for a prince to arrive and complete her life. The lyrics: “The only pang my bosom dare not brave, / Must to be find forgetfulness in thine.” (I, 357, 358), disclose her greatest fear — being forgotten by Conrad, which intimates that her hero lover is her mere raison d’être. The absolute dependency can be seen in her melancholy and malaise in the absence of Conrad as she “many a night on this lone couch reclined” (I, 371) in contrast to her brightened spirit, “But trifle now no more with my distress” (I, 418), as soon as she meets her lover. Being the feminine personage, Medora expresses her love in a passive tenor — gazing and waiting for Conrad’s return (I, 383), euphemistically imploring Conrad to abandon his mission and stay with her (I, 410–449) and shedding tears over Conrad’s departure (I, 481–504). In the scene where she solicits Conrad’s company, her attempts, preparing a meal and soothing him by singing and telling a tale, suggest the maternal nature within her personality. Signifying the passive female victim, Medora has no strength or action but only resigned reactions when confronted with misfortune and distress — “She totters — falls — ” (III, 193). The heroine conveys her profound love and extreme delicacy when she can no longer bear the sorrow and suffering ensuing from the dreadful thought of losing Conrad: as if the sad song she sang at the beginning foreboded her fate, Medora dies solitarily in the tower on the hill.
As her happiness and her sole purpose of living lie in her devotion for and the requital from her lover, Medora epitomizes the classic stereotype of women who have limited voice and action and have no choice but to passively wait for the response or return of her men. Though occasionally these women gain voice or act out, as Medora does in the only scene where she speaks of her request and takes action, their effort turns out in vain. She fits perfectly into one of the categories of Romantic heroines where women are characterized by excessive sensitivity and fragility, often leading to their tragic death, to which Zuleika, Giselle and numerous female personages belong. Furthermore, Medora incorporates the nature of a loving mother in the role of a loyal wife, the combination that satisfies men’s desires in every aspect in a romantic relationship with the tender and gentle mother providing care and support, and the fragile and dependent wife fulfilling their self-aggrandizing fantasy. She conforms to the conventional gender norm originated from men’s imagination of ideal women, featuring softness, obedience, reliance on her man and having no existence outside the relationship. Kelsall’s concise statement defines Medora’s identity: “Byron sets a simulacrum of female chastity and motherhood” (1990, p.60). It is her compliance with the patriarchal ideology that ultimately wins Conrad’s heart.
To compare Gulnare with Medora, they share a significant commonality — their intense love for Conrad, serving as one of the main plot motivations. However, as seen from Gulnare’s half-confessing-half-confronting speech:
Thou lov’st another — and I love in vain;
Though fond as mine her bosom, form more fair,
I rush through peril she would not dare.
If thy heart to hers were truly dear,
Were thine I own — thou were not lonely here:
An outlaw’s spouse — and leave her lord to roam!
What hath such gentle dame to do with home? (III, 297–303)
They vary in their ways of declaring love and demonstrate drastic differences in what they have done for their lover, which eventually differentiates their final destiny as Medora dies with a broken heart but acquires Conrad’s affection and life-long lament while Gulnare rescues the protagonist but kindles horror and repulsion and loses the qualification for being loved.
As opposed to Medora’s monotonic nature, Gulnare is a controversial three-dimensional character, displaying both feminine and masculine features. “The Harem queen — but still the slave of Seyd” (II, 224), her first appearance proclaimed her contradictory temperament, and her looks, “While many an anxious glance at her large dark eye” (III, 137), “She stopped — threw her far-floating hair” (III, 140), convey the dark and wild aspects in her characteristics. Though being possessed by the Pacha, unlike a caged bird, Gulnare is aware of the fact that she is being oppressed and is clever enough not to confuse the coerced sexual relationship with love: “I never loved — he bought me…Since with me came a heart he could not buy” (III, 329, 330). As Caroline Franklin mentions, “she owes Seyd no allegiance; their relationship was of power not love” (1992, p.81). Rather than developing an attachment to her possessor, she astutely wields the Pacha’s favor and trust to her own purpose, stealing the Pacha’s signet and sneaking into the prison to meet her rescuer (II, 411, 412). In the face of adversity, Gulnare exhibits intelligence and intrepidity in the attempt to coax Pacha into sparing Conrad’s life as it requires her to keep her composure and remain sincere while conceiving a sensible proposition. From her incandescent response to being prematurely accused of infidelity:
Wronged — spurned — reviled — and it shall be avenged —
Accused of what till now my heart disdained —
I was not treacherous then — nor thou too dear:
But he has said it — and the jealous well,
Those tyrants, teasing, tempting to rebel
Deserve the fate their fretting lips foretell. (III, 322–328)
One can see that, though being a slave, she has maintained her pride and self-esteem. The first failure does not hinder Gulnare’s pursuit of freedom; fierce and determined, she returns to the dungeon and demands Conrad to assassinate the Pacha, but Conrad refuses her due to his code of chivalry. Then comes the climax of the tale — bespeaking her remarkable courage and capability and highlighting her independence among the protagonist, Gulnare executes her well-laid plan and kills the Pacha with “the firmness of a female hand” (III, 381). However, in the end, on the journey back to Conrad’s island, Gulnare, “Who now seemed changed and humble: — faint and meek” (III, 533), withdraws her aggression and retreats into a feminine stance.
The dynamics between Gulnare and Conrad reside within a broader spectrum as Gulnare’s power waxes and wanes in the course of the tale. Gulnare first appears as a damsel in distress, being rescued by Conrad from the fire and becoming enamored of the hero, representing the idealistic female persona. Following the capture of Conrad, from which he loses his power and mobility, Gulnare starts to gain momentum and grow active, breaking through the passive-female-victim framework. The Gulnare-Conrad relation, in which Conrad becomes the disabled and restricted victim as Gulnare overtakes the role of a resourceful rescuer, mirrors the previous Conrad-Medora relation while interchanging sexualities. Curiously, there is a noticeable correspondence between the scene in Canto I where Medora is left alone after Conrad’s departure and that in Canto II where Conrad is brooding over Gulnare’s visit after she left. “And was she here? And is he now alone?” (II, 538), Conrad’s thought to himself apparently resembles Medora’s monologue: “And is he gone?” (I, 482), “It is no dream — and I am desolate!” (I, 504). Conrad anxiously waits for her arrival, “The first day passed — he saw not her — Gulnare/ The second — third — and still she came not there” (III, 244, 245), just as Medora awaits his return, “Sinks with its bean upon the beacon height — / Medora’s heart — the third day’s come and gone — / with it he comes not…” (III, 67–69). As Conrad considers Gulnare his savior: “Whate’er her sins, to him a guardian saint, / And beauteous still as hermit’s hope can paint” (III, 274, 275), the heroine ascends to the level in parallel with the hero.
During her second visit, Gulnare transcends the male protagonist and takes charge of the plot movement when she commands the wonted commander to engage in her scheme. After he rejects Gulnare’s proposal, denying the presence of a dominant female, Conrad consoles himself: “Thanks to that softening heart — she could not kill!” (III, 407) and therefore is terrified when seeing the bloodstain on Gulnare’s forehead. It is the crucial moment symbolizing Gulnare’s gender transgression, which intimidates the hero and in turns annihilate Conrad’s ambiguous fondness for her. To his eyes, the masculine Gulnare is no longer a lovable lady comparable to Medora (II, 489, 490), but a guilty homicide instead (III, 463). It is not until Gulnare retired into the feminine realm, imploring Conrad’s forgiveness that the hero takes her trembling hand and allows himself to liberate his gratitude and passion for her. Though “he was free! — and she for him had given” (III, 529), the impact from Gulnare’s violent acts is irreversible; consequently, it is impossible for her to receive Conrad’s love. Her defiance of patriarchal order and gender trespass separate her fate from Medora’s, sentencing her to loveless destiny.
Under the historical context of the Romantic era, during which the first wave of feminism unfolded, Gulnare plays a significant role in The Corsair. Long have been the society viewing women as an entire group and ignoring their individuality, imposing cultural regulation that linked passivity, silence and subservience to female moral integrity. The liberal and revolutionary atmosphere in the Romantic period nurtured the awareness of female equality and spawned the debate among women’s roles in society. Some women have become prolific writers and/or sensible readers, and various women writers, most notably Mary Wollstonecraft, advocated an egalitarian treatment in their literature. There were writers, both men and women, embracing feminism while many contemporaries opposed the then avant-garde ideology, and yet some others held an ambivalent feeling. Under the conflicting ambiance about feminism, female roles within Romantic narratives were given increased diversity and sometimes contradictory or controversial traits. It was with mixed feelings that Byron created Gulnare, the beautiful yet forceful female figure. Julian speculates about Byron’s romantic desire and infers that “thinking he wanted a ‘Medora’ in his life, Byron was actually attracted more strongly to women who embodied unconventional gender identities” (1993, p.787). Though initially being oppressed under a paternal hierarchy, Gulnare remains vigorous and eloquent, eventually subverts the tyrant and rescues the male protagonist. Her achievements prove that women are not inferior to men, her idiosyncrasies confront cultural regulation, and the reversal of gender roles challenges social norms. However, in the end, possibly due to his disdain for intellectual women (Giuliano, 1993, p.785), Byron attenuated his potent heroine and restored the gender conventions. “[Byron’s] retreat from his headier creation back to the safer delineation of the one-dimensional woman and simpler Byronic heroine represents a capitulation the orthodoxy of his genre and society, and also to his own ambiguous feelings about bold, strongly individualistic women,” Hull explains (1978, p.81).
It is worth notice that even though the person whom Gulnare kills is the one who persecutes her, Conrad considers her sinful and appalling, and she is therefore disqualified from being a potential lover. This plot device conveys a warning message: women who choose to take vengeance, even on the one who has mistreated or betrayed her, are guilty and forbidden from being loved. The vindication of Gulnare’s crime fits a category of misogyny in which men are depicted as the victim of radicalized women to frame women’s independence as an assault on men. Rather than being repulsed by violence itself, Conrad is actually daunted by the allegorical meaning of her action. Giuliano relates the bloodstain from the killing act to that on a marriage bed:
Instead of proving her virginity, Gulnare’s blood spot articulates her disruption of the hierarchical opposition of masculine and feminine” (1993, p.793).
Hadlock withal captures this power transfer:
Gulnare in short ‘unsexes’ herself, moving into the masculine condition that the poem has associated with Conrad himself: she is fierce, armed, embarking on a campaign of liberation and retribution. Meanwhile, the imprisoned Conrad is in the condition that the poem has established as ‘feminine’: enclosed, immobilized, and unable to act in the face of danger (2002, p.48).
Conrad’s fear for the masculine Gulnare and men’s fear for independent women is related to castration anxiety, within which they all feel that the existence of powerful women threatens their dominance and significance, ergo feminizes them. While being intelligent, bold and fierce, women who encapsulate masculinity can also be alluring and attractive, evoking confusion and equivocal emotions from men, thus engender greater perceived menace. In order to cope with their inner conflicts, men create a narrative demonizing and directing reprimand and abhorrence to masculine women. This counteraction is an associate with another psychological phenomenon, Madonna-Whore complex, “where such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love” (Freud, 1912). In this case, Conrad divides women into two distinct archetypes: the submissive, domestic, intimate bride and the subversive, fervent, guilty homicide; the former his dearest lover and the latter a fearful being.
Reasoning through Gulnare’s feminine-masculine-feminine personality shift and Conrad’s discrete attitude toward her in the three phases, I would conclude that The Corsair is still situated within a patriarchal discourse, yet the formulation of Gulnare demonstrates Byron’s pioneering attempt to empower women and emancipate female from male oppression. Though the formidable Gulnare is eventually banished, her defiant soul and rebellious conduct leave a vivid impression, provoke second thoughts about gender stereotypes, and inspire further rumination over gender equality.
References
Franklin, C. (1992). Byron’s heroines. Oxford [England]: Clarendon Press.
Freud, S. (1912). Beiträge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens II: Über die allgemeinste Erniedrigung des Liebeslebens. Jahrbuch für Psychoanalitische und Psychopathologische Forschungen, 4(2), 40–50.
Giuliano, C. F. (1993). Gulnare/Kaled’s “Untold” Feminization of Byron’s Oriental Tales. Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900, 33(4), 785–807.
Hull, G. (1978). The Byronic Heroine and Byron’s the Corsair. Ariel. A Review of International English Literature, 9(1), 71–83.
Hadlock, H. (2002). ‘The firmness of a female hand’ in The Corsair and Il corsaro. Cambridge Opera Journal, 14(1–2), 47–57.
Kelsall, M. (1990). Byron and the Romantic Heroine. In A. Rutherford (Eds.), Byron: Augustan and Romantic (pp. 52–62). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
