Some+Do+Not...

//Some Do Not...//
// Some Do Not… // is the first novel in Ford’s tetralogy //Parade’s End//, also known as 'the Tietjens saga'. The novel fits into the modernist aesthetic in form and style, as well as theme by presenting its protagonist, Christopher Tietjens, as a man who "stands outside society, representing what society ought to be" although the world he inhabits is "a crumbling world of ambition and hypocrisy" (Moore 52). The novel is set in London and uses the city as a representation of some of the key aspects of modernism. Much as in Virginia Woolf’s novel //Mrs. Dalloway//, the city functions as more than a background, and is woven into the consciousness of the characters. The beginning of the novel takes place in Hythe, a town in the English countryside, and the descriptions of the country along with the events that take place there, can be contrasted with city life to show how their underlying associations differ. The country represents the past and traditional values while the city represents modernity and progress; however, the progress is not necessarily positive and is tempered by isolation, fragmentation, and a breakdown in communication – concepts and concerns many modernist writers sought to address. The action of the novel moves from Tietjens and his friend Macmaster’s trip to the countryside to their life in the city and a general pattern of the dissolution of social order can be traced throughout the novel. This dissolution has its roots in the scenes in the country but comes to its fruition in London.  There are a number of descriptions of the countryside landscape as well as the buildings in which Macmaster and Tietjens visit which first give the impression of quaintness and convention. Macmaster believes the Duchemin’s house in the country to be the “ideal English home” which is filled with traditional eighteenth-century décor and ornate furniture (58). In contrast, Tietjens does not enjoy the country manor house in which they are lodged. The novel states, “Tietjens hated these disinterred and waxed relics of the past […] he would have preferred to go to a comfortable modern hotel” (49). In the novel ** Tietjens represents the “last Tory”, not a likely proponent of the shift to a modern society; however, even he seems stifled by his surroundings manor house. **As well, the country becomes a place where forces of the modern collide with traditional values. The suffragettes, notably Valentine Wannop, disrupt the men’s game of golf and are chased down with the threat of humiliation and violence, reinforcing convention and traditional values. The men come from the city to enjoy a weekend of golf in the country and escape from their modern pressures, such as the turmoil caused by the burgeoning women’s movement, although they are not able to. After the incident with the suffragette’s Mr. Sandbach is one who remains outraged, and refuses to continue the game, declaring that he believes Tietjens and the city men are “the sort of men who were the ruin of England” for having anything to do with the suffragette’s cause. If the suffragettes can be seen to represent change and progress, then they are certainly unwelcome in the haven of tradition that the countryside represents. In this way the country’s association with the past and its traditional values becomes clearer, along with the tension that is created when modern values encroach on the traditional.

The city does not disappear while the characters take their jaunt through the county, but quite the opposite – it remains in the characters’ minds and discussions throughout. While in the country, Macmaster daydreams about improving his station and social standing to blend in with more powerful men of society, "he wanted to walk down Pall Mall on the arm precisely, of a largely lettered Senior Wrangler; to return eastward on the arm of the youngest Lord Chancellor England had ever seen; to stroll down Whitehall in familiar converse with a world-famous novelist [...]" (54). He wants to be seen with the elite in the areas of the city of concentrated power and wealth, a representation of his own personal progress. 

While Macmaster is concerned with progress during his time in the country, Tietjens is confronted by the issue of communication. One point of great tension regarding this issue occurs during a conflict in the countryside -- the accident between the Wannop’s horse cart and the General’s motorcar. This scene in the novel has a number of distinct elements, as it can be seen to symbolically represent the incompatibility of the past with with the modern present and future, as well as the point of inception for the lapse in communication that occurs between Tietjens and Wannop once they return to the city. During the banter Tietjens and Wannop exchange as negotiate the horse cart through dense fog, Tietjens attraction for her becomes clear. They sustain a lengthy conversation, freely revealing personal views and exchanging playful jabs. Tietjens does not directly express his budding affection fo r Wannop, but he a dmires her silhouette in the moonlight and begins to desire a physical connection: “Before she was quite up, Tietjens almost kissed her. Almost. An all but irresistible impulse!” (156). He hold back, but their conversation continues. This is the last point in the novel in which Tietjens and Wannop converse so freely, intimately, and at such great length. They are interrupted when the General, blinded by the fog, crashes his car into their cart. This literal crash of animal and machine is also in a way representative of the intrusion and impingement of the modern. From this point forward in the novel, Tietjens and Wannop are rarely alone and have little opportunity for an extended conversation. The thread of communication between Tietjens and Wannop is broken, never to be reclaimed in the same way after their return to London.

The return to the city also marks the return of Tietjens's wife Sylvia and the further disintegration of her relationship with Tietjens. The strained communication between Sylvia and Tietjens plays a large role in their troubled marriage. Both characters feel isolated from one another, and the breakdown of their communication is clear, at one point Sylvia tries to maintain a conversation with him, "She wanted also to keep up a desultory conversation or he might leave the room [...] So they would each talk: sometimes talking at great length and with politeness, each thinking his or her own thoughts till they drifted into silence" (188). Sylvia and Tietjens are able to talk but ultimately are unable to communicate in a meaningful way.

Along with the isolation Tietjens experiences in his marriage with Sylvia, he also becomes increasingly isolated from the rest of society as the novel progresses. Tietjens refers to himself as a “broken man” alone in the world (202). Rumors are swirling around London regarding his character, he is plagued by debt which has been falsely created by Brownie in order to ruin him, pressured to resign from his social club, and haunted by a black mark against him from having been discharged from his post as a liaison officer after being diagnosed shell shock. Mrs. Macmaster reveals the public’s changed opinion of Tietjens when she states, “It was all very well when that fellow had brains […] But now that, with his drunkenness and debaucheries, he has got himself into the state that he is in; for there’s no other way of accounting for his condition!” (295). Although Tietjens had once been thought a genius, he is now estranged from, and ostracized by, the society which once welcomed him. The sense of isolation that Tietjens experiences is a hallmark of modernism, and furthers the representation of the city as a place of alienation.





**Other Resources:**
Shell Shock, Modernism, and Some Do Not

Works Cited:
Ford, Ford Madox. //Some Do Not...// New York: Grosset and Dunlap Publishers, 1924. Print.

Moore, Gene M. "The Tory in a Time of Change: Social Aspects of Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End ." //Twentieth Century Literature// 28.1 (1982): 49-68. //JSTOR//. Web. 15 Dec. 2009.

//Kent, Hythe, High Street c1930's//. N.d. //Old UK Photos//. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2010. http://www.oldukphotos.com.

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