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4.0 out of 5 stars
A power-filled book influenced by great writers of the past., Oct 13 1998
By A Customer
In a career spanning over forty years, Frame created such successful works as The Lagoon, Scented Gardens for the Blind, Owls do Cry and To the Is-Land. As a gifted wordsmith and an acute observer of life hungry to express herself, it was no surprise that she chose to write about her own remarkable life. With her autobiography, An Angel At My Table, her unique artistry and strength was only further in evidence, as she managed to turn seven years of a harrowing, personal nightmare into a work of beauty, compassion and subtle humor. While a young student at university, "[H]er shyness and insecurity made her 'different' and this, coupled with a clumsy suicide attempt, led to the first of her incarcerations in a mental hospital." Originally diagnosed as suffering from "schizophrenia," Frame wrote about her experience: "The six weeks I spent at Seacliff Hospital in a world I'd never... thought possible, became for me a concentrated course in the horrors of insanity.... From my first moment there I knew that I could not turn back to my usual life or forget what I saw.... Many patients confined in other wards... had no name, only a nickname, no past, no future, only an imprisoned Now, an eternal Is-Land without its accompanying horizons...." The nightmare continued with her introduction to electroshock. "I was given the new electric treatment, and suddenly my life was thrown out of focus. I could not remember. I was terrified. I behaved as others around me behaved. I who had learned the language, spoke and acted that language. I felt utterly alone. There was no one to talk to... you were locked up, you did as you were told or else, and that was that... I was 'there for life.'" The treatment left her "in terror and despair equivalent to an execution." Throughout her writing Frame creates passages that are powerfully evocative of the terror experienced when one's mind is meddled with by a force over which one has no control. Her writings are have some distinct similarities with Shakespeare's "The Tempest": Prospero meddles with the subconscious minds of those shipwrecked on his island. When they are regaining consciousness, he says: Their understanding Begins to swell, and the approaching tide Will shortly fill the reasonable shore, That now lies foul and muddy. (V.i.70-82) That a storm has been induced in the minds of Prospero's foes is evident because their "reasonable shores" are "foul and muddy". Ariel, at Prospero's command, has lured Alonso, Sebastian and Antonio to a banquet only to confront them with thunder and lightning and the pronouncement of their mutual guilt in having banished Prospero from Milan. Ariel says, "I have made you mad" (III.iii.59), but her action is not the equivalent of inducing an epileptic fin in the minds of these men. Gonzalo says, "All three of them are desperate; their great guilt,/Like poison given to work a great time after,/ Now gins to bite the spirits" (III.iii.104-06). It is the consciences of the three men that are activated by Ariel's enactment of Prospero's plan. Prospero is ever careful to avoid harming those upon whom he exercises his power. He boasts to Miranda that he has not harmed one hair on any of the creatures upon whom he has worked his magic (I.ii.30-31). Frame does not, however, have such benevolent or skilled workers delving into her subconscious mind. Her storms are electrical convulsions of the most uncontrolled kind. Frame's bewilderment at finding herself mistakenly diagnosed with schizophrenia resounds in the passage from The Tempest (I.ii.206-10) which stands as an epigraph to An Angel at My Table: Prospero: My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil Would not infect his reason? Ariel: Not a soul, But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd Some tricks of desperation. In this passage Prospero is asking Ariel which of the mariners had been able to resist Ariel's performance of his magic. Ariel's reply indicates that none could help by be affected by her sport.3 Frame's use of the passage, however, seems to suggest that even the bravest, firmest, most constant of human beings, including Prospero, herself or the reader, might find their spirit (or mind) infected by "a fever of the mad", and that Frame's "tricks of desperation" in having role-played text-book schizophrenia to gain attention have been such a success that the medical profession has been duped. When Frame was diagnosed as having schizophrenia, she says, "I kept 'pure schizophrenia' for the poems where it was most at home, and I looked forward to John Forrest's praise" (Angel 79). In keeping "pure schizophrenia" for her poetry, Frame was using language to create a storm, rather than to construct a 'realistic' narrative. Much of Daphne's singing in Owls Do Cry is an example of this technique.4 In creating storm by using poetry, Frame is emulating Prospero who is able to conjure up tempests by using his magic art. It is ironic that Frame's incorrect diagnosis and subsequent hospitalisation were preceded by attention from her psychology lecturer, who almost coaxed the young woman into believing that madness and genius were inseparable and that schizophrenia was an asset to the serious poet. Forrest made a remark of which Frame writes, [The comment] was to direct my behaviour and reason for many years. ... "When I think of you," he said, "I think of Van Gogh, of Hugo Wolf, [of Schumann]." (*) All three were named as schizophrenic, with their artistic ability apparently the pearl of their schizophrenia. Frame blends the past and present well in her story. It's interesting to note that despite the good intensions of her family members, tragic stuck mercilessly.
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