Economy and Violence in the Writings of Muriel Spark

There is something hypnotic about The Public Image.  With the character of Annabel as its main focus, Spark ignites a tale of an actress caught in a web of deceit due to her husband’s role in Rome, the "eternal" city.

My main point about this book is what I find its underlying cross-rhythm of nationalist and internationalist themes, a particular obsession of Spark’s. Dubbed the ‘Tiger-lady’, Annabel appears to function as an allegory of the dangers of conforming to type, highlighting the problematic nature of nationalism; its obsession with violent imagery, its viral sense of nostalgia and its atavism.

Written in 1968, the novel is set in Italy which, as Spark rather disingenuously stated in an interview with Martin McQuillan in 2001, was a time that “everyone was going international”. She suggests the reversion to type inherent in Catholic doctrine concerning the Deadly Sins and their influence on Italian culture, aptly summed in an early paragraph where Italy is described as

a country of dramatic history, cradled in the Seven Capital sins ... Never a week but one of these pure vices formed the topic of a new sensation at the time Annabel Christopher’s public image was launched and beyond that time

The rest of the passage quoted above goes on to imply how the “flagrant flouting” of what she calls “cardinal virtues” are symbolised in the figure of the Madonna, (aka "the Creature") a recurring motif in the novel. After her husband's violent suicide, Annabel shrewdly stages his redemption, making full use of the media and its mawkish interest in celebrity culture, watched over her Italian director who was

admiring her thrift. The rich understand thrift while the poor spend
quickly on trifles.

Ending with an enigmatic comparison of  the connection between Annabel and her child “as an empty shell contains, by its very structure, the echo and harking image of former and former seas”, Spark reflects upon the powerful nature of the symbol and its enduring influence.

Written at a time of an emerging ideology of the nation-state, The Public Image seems divided between the overtly sentimental culture of nationalism and the apolitical or "mystical" assumptions of statism.

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Published on January 1st, 1984, The Only Problem narrates Muriel Spark's obsessions with terror, direct action and the Book of Job. This time around, it is the figure of Effie who emblematises the reactionary impulse aggravated by religious orthodoxy. In her support for the FLE, or 'Front de Liberation de l'Europe', her story illustrates how the search for freedom often involves what seems an impossible union of opposites, or extremes.

'Metaphors We Live By' states that oppositional points of view can only exist by virtue of holding the same metaphorical ground, even though their focus has a completely different viewpoint. Thus we can read Effie's opposite, Harvey Gotham, as doggedly pursuing his academic career to a state of piety almost as bad as the Hasadim. Yet not quite. For he cannot give up his love of his ex-wife. As if it were true, that all's well that ends well.