Character Clues
Character Analysis
Clothing
Clothing isn't a standout feature for most characters in Possession, but it's pretty important for both Maud Bailey and Christabel LaMotte. That's not because the two women are Gaga-esque fashionistas; it's because their clothing adds a little extra somethin' to their characterization as Melusine-esque figures.
The fairy Melusine (or Melusina), as you'll recall, could assume a form that was half woman, half serpent or dragon or fish. Possession makes it clear that both Maud and Christabel are real-world Melusinas, and rather than describe them as having distinctly fishy body odors, or as being native speakers of Parseltongue, Byatt gives them signature emerald-ivory color schemes instead.
Both women have very pale white skin, and both have almost unearthly light blond hair. Both are also fond of wearing green, and the combined effect of these colors should be ringing the mermaid bells in our brains.
To get a sense of how this plays out for Christabel, check out this not-so-nice entry from Sabine de Kercoz's journal: "And she changes in my sight. I hate her smooth pale head and her greeny eyes and her shiny green feet beneath her skirts, as though she was some sort of serpent, hissing quietly like a pot in the hearth, but ready to strike when warmed by generosity" (19.256).
Ouch. Just in case you were wondering, Shmoopers: Christabel's feet aren't actually green. She wasn't born on Orion; she's just wearing green boots.
Byatt doesn't lay it on quite as thickly with Maud, but her first appearance in the novel should be getting those mermaid bells primed and ready to go: "She was dressed with unusual coherence for an academic, Roland thought, rejecting several other ways of describing her green and white length, a long pine-green tunic over a pine-green skirt, a white silk shirt inside the tunic and long softly white stockings inside long shining green shoes" (4.12).
What's with these women and green shoes? Melusine's with them, that's what.
Of course, Maud and Christabel's shared fashion sense doesn't just connect each of them to Melusine, it also connects them to each other. You know what they say (spoiler alert): like great-great-great-grandmother, like great-great-great-granddaughter.
Names
So many of the names in Possession are tools of characterization that we'll forgive you if you mistake the novel for a medieval mystery play. You know, the kind of play where characters representing virtue, vice, and gluttony are named—you guessed it—Virtue, Vice, and Gluttony.
In Possession, we have Fergus Wolff, whose aggressive, "devouring" (28.192) nature is emphasized by the fact that his surname is just one letter away from being the word "wolf."
We have Christabel LaMotte and Maud Bailey, whose surnames combine to create the term "motte-and-bailey" (28.117)—a distinctive, early European style of military fortification military fortification that emphasizes their shared defensiveness and desire for solitude.
We also have Mortimer Cropper, whose first name includes the Latin word for "death" (shades of Lord Voldemort here, folks), and whose surname suggests the action of cutting (giving us shades of the mythical Ankou with its sharp scythe).
Need we go on?
Although it's true that not every single character in Possession has a symbolic name, many of them do. So, keep your eyes peeled and your minds open to shout-outs, allusions, and correspondences as you're reading (don't worry—we're here to help), because you never know when a casual name-drop might contribute a new layer of meaning to the text.
Social Status
Possession is no Downton Abbey, but social status matters quite a bit in this novel, and it's especially important to the novel's twentieth-century characters. Does that surprise you? Let's check out some of the ways in which social status helps to flesh out our 1980s heroes.
According to England's class system, Roland Mitchell is "urban lower-middle-class" (23.65). This helps to shape his sense of class identification with his girlfriend, Val, whose class status actually falls below the middle class. It also helps to shape Roland's reaction to characters who have hereditary upper-class status. Check out his first impression of Sir George Bailey, for example:
Sir George was small and wet and bristling. He had laced leather boots with polished rounded calves, like greaves. He had a many-pocketed shooting jacket, brown, with a flat brown tweed cap. He barked. Roland took him for a caricature and bristled vestigially with class irritation. Such people, in his and Val's world, were not quite real but still walked the earth. (5.76)
Roland's "class irritation" extends to Maud Bailey, too, if in slightly different ways. In the early days of their working relationship, he assumes that her upper-class background stops her from recognizing and appreciating certain things that he can appreciate fully, like the luxurious, old-world romance of Seal Court (9.138). Once he realizes his feelings for Maud, their class differences take on an entirely different meaning:
Maud was a beautiful woman such as he had no claim to possess. She had a secure job and an international reputation. Moreover, in some dark and outdated English social system of class, which he did not believe in, but felt obscurely working and gripping him, Maud was County, and he was urban lower-middle-class, in some places more, in some places less acceptable than Maud, but in almost all incompatible. (23.65)
For her part, Maud also rejects England's old-fashioned class system. Here's her own first impression of Sir George: "Maud too saw him as a type; in her case he represented the restriction and boredom of countless childhood country weekends of shooting and tramping and sporting conversation. Rejected and evaded" (5.76).
Although their respective social statuses aren't given a ton of attention in Possession, they do have some bearing on how Roland and Maud interact. Luckily for them, Maud actively rejects the customs that come along with her "County" heritage, and Roland isn't one to let his "class irritation" get the better of him for long.