“I have always maintained the importance of aunts.”
Jane Austen wrote that to her 10-year-old niece Caroline who had just become an aunt. In large families it was not unusual for children to become aunts and uncles.
I am an only child, as was my husband, so I never the privilege of being an aunt. Both my parents came from large families, however and I was blessed with an abundance of aunts (there were many more girls than boys in both families).
The oldest was a Victorian, born in 1900 and several of them made it into their 90s and one received a telegram from the Queen on her 100th birthday,
They all had a lifetime of stories, some sad, some hilarious and, without exception, they had a big impact of my life.
The writer’s friend
For the writer, the appeal of aunts is that they’re part of the family system but they’re not mothers.
As Colm Tóibín points out in his essay The Importance of Aunts, “Mothers get in the way in fiction: they take up space that is better occupied by indecision, by hope, by the slow growth of a personality”.
It’s not by chance that so many young heroines in fiction are orphans.
Aunts may be kindly, selfless, controlling or perfectly foul, but as quasi-mothers they are a gift to writers who need a catalyst to disrupt the lives of their unsuspecting characters.
The same may be said of that equally useful character, the godmother.
Along with most of the authors I know, and whose books I love, I have used them – dead or alive – to drive forward the narrative.
The good
Two of the most famous aunts in fiction are those inflicted upon Bertie Wooster by P G Wodehouse.
Bertie describes his Aunt Dahlia, as his “good and kindly aunt’ Riding in her youth with such fox-hunting packs as the Quorn and the Pytchley, she tends to address Bertie, over the phone or indoors, as if “shouting across ploughed fields in a high wind.”
Kindly she may be, but Aunt Dahlia is always in trouble. A silver cow creamer springs to mind. Her pleas for Bertie’s help always leads to trouble. For Bertie.
The bad…
Bertie’s Aunt Agatha is entirely different. He describes her as as “eating broken bottles, wearing barbed wire next to the skin and conducting human sacrifices by the light of the full moon” and she terrifies him. She is constantly nagging him to pull up his socks and get a job. Or worse, get married.
In the television series, Jeeves and Wooster, she was played by two wonderful actors. Elizabeth Spriggs and Mary Wimbush. also memorable as the controlling Mrs Pargeter, mother of Nigel (who in his early years very much resembled Bertie Wooster) in The Archers.
There is a certain likeness in tone, if not in hat style, to our own much loved/feared Dame Pedantique-Ryter.
Here Mary Wimbush is having her latest plan to hitch Bertie to a young woman she deems suitable sabotaged by a string of pearls.
And the downright horrible…
Despite terrifying Bertie and being the aunt that none of us would want to spend Christmas with, Aunt Agatha isn’t truly horrible. He may not agree with her idea of how his future should play out, but he is an idiot and she has his best interests at heart.
There are, However, plenty of real horrors in fiction. In Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach. His Aunty Spiker and Aunty Sponge are in a class of their own. They physically and verbally abuse him, isolate him in their ramshackle hilltop house and dole out sadistic punishments. They certainly deserve their fruity fate.
Is Mrs Reed, Jane Eyre‘s aunt, evil? Her treatment of a young girl in her care is inexcusable, but what drives that behaviour?
How do you feel about Aunt Ada Doom, controlling everyone in Stella Gibbon’s Cold Comfort Farm from behind the closed door of her bedroom?
Even the worst aunts have their role to play in driving story forward but they do have their own stories, too.
What made Aunty Spiker and Aunty Sponge so terrible?
Does “seeing something nasty in the woodshed” excuse Aunt Ada Doom’s behaviour?
Mrs Reed’s unkindness was driven by her husband’s fondness for Jane. It suggest a backstory involving some psychological trauma.
The first Mrs Rochester has her own story in Jean Rhy’s bestselling book, The Wide Sargasso Sea. Is there an appetite for books exploring the back stories of these women? And not just the bad ones.
Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia has quite a back story and I can think of one author who could entertain us royally with her youthful indiscretions – both on and off the hunting field. An early Riders?
Lovely article thoroughly enjoyed it. I was very lucky had just two aunts both so loving, kind and fun of fun. Lucky me!
Thank you, Yvonne. And yes, those of with good aunts were very lucky indeed.
I loved this blog, Liz. It reminded me of so many aunts of my past — fictional aunts I mean. My real aunts were less influential. I also thought of Travels With My Aunt, and no doubt more fictional aunts will come to mind.
Thank you, Anne. My childhood reading was filled with fictional aunts – there was a bookshelf in my Victorian aunts sitting room filled with the Sunday School prize books that she and her sisters were given. I’m pretty sure that all the young heroines were plucky orphans with mostly horrible aunts! And Travels With My Aunt – Maggie Smith in the film is a treasured memory.
Had a number of aunts, all very different and most honorary. One was fantastically glamorous, with a husky voice and the most delicious laugh I have ever heard. I suspect I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. Or at least to make people laugh like that.
You have inspired me to think which fictional aunts who are crying out for prequels or the opposite, Silvia. Silvia in Ballet Shoes clearly needs a Happy ever After ending — which, blessedly, this year’s production at the National Theatre gave her.
But what has really got my story juices moving is the thought of Bertie’s Aunt Agatha as an amateur sleuth and her possible relationship with the Police Inspectors who might cross her path. Hmm…
Sadly none of my aunts were in the least bit glamorous – both my parents were the youngest in a long line of siblings. I did envy the one who could sew or knit anything to professional standard, though. As for Aunt Agatha as sleuth – terrifying but oh so tempting! She would be amazing.
I still have one of my aunts, though sadly suffering from Alzheimer’s now. I had three on my mother’s side, and one on my father’s. I think the latter probably had the most influence on me. I’ve regarded her as the standard for my own aunthood – I’m aunt to 8, step-aunt to another 3, and great-aunt to 3, step-great-aunt to 5. It’s mad! I participated in baby-sitting for several of them, and still like to keep in touch when I can. My Auntie Betty (my dad’s sister) also had no children so she adopted us in a way by way of surrogates. I’m single and childless too, so it’s no surprise she became my role model for aunts really.
I’m very familiar with Bertie and his aunts. There were more than Dahlia and Agatha, though we didn’t see much of the others. Poor Bertie was harassed by Agatha and blackmailed by Dahlia! I’ve used aunts in my stories too, though I’m inclined to think they are mostly great-aunts. I love these influential old ladies who manage to control either the hero or heroine and steer them into their happy ending.
As for Aunt Agatha as sleuth – I imagine any police inspector would run a mile!
That’s a lot of children to “aunt”, Elizabeth! Amazing that you still have one. There were very few children of my generation, only one cousin about my age so I was utterly spoiled by all of them. I have an especial fondness for the one who used to tell me about the family secrets, ncluding the fact that one grandmother “had been a very naughty girl” and had to get married! Such fun!