them by coming to live at Great Mop. (Warner, Lolly Willowes 152)
Laura gradually learns to leave her past behind her. Step by step, she disengages herself from her former life and gives up defining herself by her relatives and family background. She resultantly ceases to derive pleasure from speculating on her relatives’ reactions to her departure as she cuts herself off. However, Laura does not remain passive to what has been done to her and deals with her past in her own way:
There was no question of forgiving them. […] If she were to start forgiving she must needs forgive Society, the Law, the Church, the History of Europe, the Old Testament, the Bank of England, Prostitution, the Architect of Apsley Terrace [her London home], and half a dozen other useful props of civilisation. All she could do was to go on forgetting them. (152)
Instead of harbouring ill feelings towards all the institutions that confined her – emphasised here by the use of capital letters – Laura simply decides to forget about their existence. By admitting to their existence, she would have to accept the role they had cast her in and would always be tied to them. Only by forgetting them can she liberate herself from her past life. Bruce Knoll calls Laura’s reactions to society “an assertiveness that falls between the two extremes” of “feminine passivity” and “masculine aggressiveness” (344). Whereas Knoll calls the result of her behaviour “separatism”, I would argue that Laura’s behaviour cannot be regarded as a political reaction, but rather a casting off of her old life. She finds the strength to detach herself from her surroundings and, ultimately, society as a whole. Forgetting “useful props of civilisation” is not the same as consciously separating from them. If Laura had merely detached herself from these institutions, she would still have had to acknowledge their existence, thereby endowing them, and the society that produces them, with both meaning and power.
The institutions that Laura decides to forget (such as the Law and the Church to mention a random few) are firmly entrenched within society. According to Foucault’s concept of power, set out in The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality 1 (1976), institutions are powerful because society gives authority to them. Laura realises that in order to detach herself from these aspects of society, she must renounce society as a whole – an impossible task, since she herself is also a product of society. The only route that lies open to her is to detach herself from society as far as is possible. Foucault does not believe that power is imposed hierarchically from top to bottom, but considers power to work within a net-like system. Foucault states that
[o]ne needs to be nominalistic, no doubt: power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society. (WtK 93)
Foucault explains that “power must not be sought in the primary existence of a central point, in a unique source of sovereignty from which secondary and descendent forms would emanate” and that it is always and continuously maintained by society (93). Since there is no single point to attack or to separate from, forgetting about society’s existence is an efficient way of dealing with society and all its institutions. In this way, the influence society has on Laura gradually loses significance since she does not confirm its value system ex negativo. As Foucault states, with regard to power and power formations, resistance is always possible. He notes that, “Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority to power” (95, emphasis added). Foucault highlights the fact that power and resistance are coexistent and that resistance automatically becomes part of the same structure as power. Foucault shows that ultimately there is no way out since whichever side you choose, you will never be able to disassociate yourself from one or the other side completely. Therefore, instead of fighting society or showing aggressiveness or resigning and remaining passive, Laura chooses to turn her back on society. She decides that she does not want to be part of any society that operates with means she abhors. Laura knows intuitively that by fighting patriarchal systems, she will only be perpetuating them.
It is not until Laura encounters Satan and eventually becomes a witch that she feels that she is getting close to achieving her personal freedom. Throughout the novel Satan remains an enigmatic character that not even Laura can pin down. In reply to her question, “Tell me about yourself”, Satan counters, “Tell me first what you think” (LW 238, emphasis in the original). Inevitably, this question prompts Laura to start talking. She speaks out for herself and womankind when she says:
When I think of witches, I seem to see all over England, all over Europe, women living and growing old, as common as blackberries, and as unregarded. […] Well, there they were, there they are, child-rearing, house-keeping, hanging washed dishcloths on currant bushes; and for diversion each other’s silly conversation, and listening to men talking together in the way men talk and women listen. Quite different to the way women talk, and men listen, if they listen at all. […] Nothing for them except for subjection and plaiting their hair. (239–40)
Laura continues talking in this manner and Satan patiently listens to what she has to say. At a later point, he even encourages her to continue talking to structure her thoughts (cf. 244). She explains that women become witches to “escape all that – to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out […] by others” (243). Laura clearly recognises that society treats women unjustly, but does not make plans to change the situation for women by, for example, becoming politically active.
Laura eventually comes to realise that she does not fit into any of the groups of society open to her – neither in London nor in Great Mop. She therefore “[finds] herself moving even further into the indifferent, non-social company of shrubs and ditches” (Hotz-Davies and Gropper 1). Knoll finds this aspect of the novel problematic and expresses his dissatisfaction at the way Laura rejects society and gradually isolates herself from it at the end of the novel by stating, “It is not a perfect solution, in that Laura is effectively cut off from all others” (361). Knoll overlooks the fact that Laura is not cut off by society, but cuts herself off from the society towards which she has become indifferent. He does not recognise that Laura is content with her chosen lot and does not wish to join the society of any particular group. When Laura finds herself alone after Satan’s departure, she realises that the sun has gone down and that she has missed the last bus back home. Instead of feeling intimidated by the situation, Laura experiences a new sense of freedom:
First Satan, then the sun and the bus – adieu, mes gens! With affectionate unconcern she seemed to be waving them farewell, pleased to be left to herself, left to enter into this new independence acknowledged by their departure. (LW 250)
At the end of the novel Laura starts walking – and literally disappears – into the woods. This scene hints at the fact that death is possibly the only way to end the quandary of having to “keep one foot on the ground” (cf. Schabert 154).
In view of the narrative style of the novel and the behaviour of the main protagonist, Laura, Ina Schabert describes Lolly Willowes as a “foot-off-the-ground novel”. The term “foot-off-the-ground novel” was originally coined by the female protagonist, Pompey, of Stevie Smith’s Novel On Yellow Paper Or Work it Out For Yourself (1936). Referring to the novel she is writing, Pompey states,
This is a foot-off-the-ground novel that came by left hand. And the thoughts come and go and sometimes they do not quite come and I do not pursue them to embarrass them with formality to pursue them into a harsh captivity. (38)
Pompey’s novel does not follow a chronological order; it describes events, actions and people that randomly spring to the narrator’s mind. Pompey further states that the only reason why she adheres to traditional rules of writing in the structure of her novel is to make it more accessible to the reader.7 With regard to foot-off-the-ground novels, Schabert states:
Der Boden, von dem die foot-off-the-ground novels abheben, ist die allgemeine Kultur, die akzeptierte gesellschaftliche, politische, moralische und literarische Sinnstiftungspraxis. Die Autorinnen halten Abstand zu dem, was das Ihre nicht ist. Sie erzählen mit anderen als den gewohnten Prioritäten, Ordnungs- und Wertvorstellungen. Ein solches Erzählen ist in letzter Konsequenz paradox, da