At Work and at Play 51
argued previously, on the beach the two groups are ‘most notably contrasted’.^53
Th at contrast is eff ected by the activity of the locals working hard to bring in the
catch (their livelihood dependent upon it) and the passivity of the artists. I wish
to develop here an argument about the beach scene which I put forward in the
article ‘Rural Geographies’, I have therefore quoted a section of this article below:
Lee emphasizes both the number of men under task on the beach and the intensity of
their labour, carried out with an acute sense of urgency. He explains that, “men rested,
panting , and were summoned to fresh exertions before breath returned to them”.
Meanwhile
‘Th e pictorial possibilities of the scene were discussed amongst the group [of art-
ists]. Such talk at such a time completed their isolation ... One man held his lantern
high in the air, and the two parties surveyed each other curiously. Th e contrast – the
essential contrast of Tregurda – fl ashed before one.’
...
However, while the contrast is clear to the reader and the narrator, of the colony,
only Robert appraises his position. Robert is aff ected by contemplation of his own
inactivity in relation to the fi sherman:
‘Th e thick darkness shut in the scene with its moving lights and fi gures; the insist-
ent roar of the sea fi lled the air like a tangible presence; and somehow, in the darkness
and uproar, the business of grievous muscular toil took majestic proportions in Mau-
rice’s eyes. Th e men loomed bigger, grew Titanic in their struggle for the few shining
fi sh. He was ready to doubt the existence of a world beyond this world in brief, with its
toilers and lookers on. Th ey were adrift together on dark space. And it was hard to stand
idle in the midst of violent exertion; he was angry with his weedy frame and underdevel-
oped muscles; he was man incomplete and degenerate; the desire obsessed him to tug at
ropes, to feel his sinews crack, to taste the delicious pain of physical fatigue.’
...
‘Robert is made to feel inferior through his idleness but also, crucially, his physi-
cal defi ciency which prevents him from being active in the same way as the fi shermen.
For Robert, masculinity is clearly still defi ned by physical strength, which the local
men demonstrate, rather than the intellectual or artistic ability of the set to which he
belongs.’^54It would seem then, that both class and gender remain fi xed on the beach just
as elsewhere in the novel: the two groups remain divided on the basis of their
class-determined activity and passivity and Robert’s understanding of nine-
teenth-century gender codes leads him to feel emasculated. He can only read the
fi shermen’s activity as ‘majestic’.^55
Yet this is not the case. Pilchard fi shing was in rapid decline by the 1900s –
the large shoals appearing on the Cornish coast like clockwork each year were
a thing of the past. Th e activity on the beach, therefore, is not a triumphant
hauling-in of a catch but rather a desperate struggle to reap what the sea has
aff orded in an ongoing battle with nature which the fi shermen are destined to
lose. Th ey are fi ghting to be able to feed their families against what is described