Cold Comfort Farm

“On the whole I thought I liked having everything very tidy and calm all round me, and not being bothered to do things, and laughing at the kind of joke other people didn’t think at all funny.”

In this passage, Flora is telling her gym instructor why she doesn’t care for sports. She is also articulating her dominant philosophy of life. She will apply the same preference for tidiness and calm in all her dealings with her overwrought relatives.

“Whereas there still lingers some absurd prejudice against living on one’s friends, no limits are set, either by society or by one’s own conscience, to the amount one may impose upon one’s relatives.”

This passage reveals Flora’s pragmatism in her assessment of how to survive. She herself might not have any difficulty living off her friends since she cares little about respectability. However, the untidiness of the Starkadders offers her an irresistible challenge.

“When I have found a relative who is willing to have me, I shall take him or her in hand, and alter his or her character and mode of living to suit my own taste. Then, when it pleases me, I shall marry.”

Flora confides her plans to Mrs. Smiling long before she knows of the Starkadders’ existence and Judith’s invitation to stay. She has already mapped out her future path, confident that tidiness will prevail. She is the one character in her family who has no fear of chance or circumstance upsetting the course she has set for herself.

“I think I have much in common with Miss Austen. She liked everything to be tidy and pleasant and comfortable about her, and so do I […] I cannot endure messes.”

Flora is once again explaining her philosophy to Mrs. Smiling. The allusion to Jane Austen links Cold Comfort Farm with Austen’s Northanger Abbey, a satire of the gothic romance novels of her own day, chiefly those written by Ann Radcliffe. Gibbons is following the same pattern by satirizing the work of Mary Webb, famous for her contributions to the loam and lovechild genre.

“His voice had a low, throaty, animal quality, a sneering warmth that wound a velvet ribbon of sexuality over the outward coarseness of the man. Judith’s breath came in long shudders.”

Judith harbors an unnatural physical attraction toward her favorite son. While Gibbons is establishing the family dynamic in this passage, she is also poking fun at the image of the romantic hero in the popular fiction of her day. Seth will later prove that he is perfectly willing to play that role on screen as well as in real life.

“She reflected on the length, the air of neglect and the intricate convolutions of the corridors through which Judith had led her to her bedroom, and decided that if these were typical of the rest of the house, and if Judith and Adam were typical of the people who lived in it, her task would indeed be long and difficult.”

In this passage, Flora draws a parallel between physical tidiness and mental tidiness, an important theme of the novel. Her plan of attack starts with the physical and works around to the psychological. The first task involves getting her bedroom curtains cleaned. This snowballs into a complete overhaul of the farm and family, inside and out.

“In spite of its impersonal theme, The Higher Common Sense provided a guide for civilized persons when confronted with a dilemma of the Aunt Ada type.”

Flora is undaunted once she learns of Ada’s eccentricities. She has complete faith in Fausse-Maigre’s teachings. Only someone who believes in tidiness would think that a single book would hold all the answers to her dilemma, and this characterization of Flora foreshadows her commitment to tidying her relatives throughout the rest of the novel.

“Amongst all the Starkadders, he looked as though he got the least kick out of life […] Amos got one from religion, Judith got one out of Seth, Adam got his from cowdling the dumb beasts, and Elfine got hers from dancing about on the Downs in the fog in a peculiar green dress, while Seth got his from mollicking. But Reuben just didn’t seem to get a kick out of anything.”

Flora neatly categorizes the Starkadders by their various obsessions, revealing her tendency to view the world in black and white terms. It might be debated whether any of them actually enjoy their respective compulsions, but she perceives them as simple folk with simple ideas. She also fails to recognize that Reuben’s obsession is right beneath her feet: the farm itself.

“They eat him, same as a hen-spider eats a cock-spider. That’s what women do, if a man lets ‘em […] I don’t let no women eat me. I eats them, instead.”

Seth is explaining his philosophy of life to Flora. His predatory female relatives have led him to this defensive position, and he concludes that if he does not seduce women, they will seduce him first.

“True, in Cheltenham and in Bloomsbury gentlemen did not say in so many words that they ate women in self-defense, but there was no doubt that that was what they meant.”

Flora recognizes that Seth is already behaving like an actor. His words are meant to be provocative because he wants to hold his listener’s attention. This theatrical outburst later helps Flora understand Seth’s longing to become an actor.

“She was sure that Amos’s religious scruples were likely to be in the way when she began to introduce the changes she desired to bring about at the farm, and if she could get him out of the way on a long preaching tour her task would be simpler.”

Flora suggests that Amos go on a speaking tour, revealing her pragmatic attitude towards her relatives and their roles in her mission of tidying. Because Amos is an obstruction to Flora’s achievement, she finds a way to remove him, clearing the path both literally and figuratively.

“Flora was now in a dreadful fix […] For if she said that she adored walking, Mr. Mybug would drag her for miles in the rain while he talked about sex […] or else he would make her sit in some dire tearoom while he talked more about sex and asked her what she felt about it.”

Mybug is characterized as an intellectual. He seems to enjoy talking about his favorite subject as opposed to seducing Flora into participating in it. For her part, Flora isn’t shocked by Mybug’s single-minded interest. She matter-of-factly tries to figure out the most efficient way to rid herself of his company, which is consistent with her pragmatic personality.

“Flora knew her hunting gentry […] They hated fuss. Poetry (Flora was pretty sure Elfine wrote poetry) bored them […] They preferred the society of persons who spoke once in 20 minutes. They liked dogs to be well trained and girls to be well turned out and frosts to be of short duration.”

Flora paints a bland picture of Elfine’s prospective husband and his social set. The whimsical Elfine seems ill-suited to such a mate, but Flora thinks less about a clash of temperaments than she does about the need to modify Elfine’s appearance. This observation about Flora illustrates for the reader Flora’s strategy of tidying her relatives from the outside in.

“And seeing that it was because of that incident that you sat here ruling the roost and having five meals a day brought up to you as regularly as clockwork, it hadn’t been such a bad break for you, that day you saw something nasty in the woodshed.”

Ada is thinking about the traumatic experience from her childhood that turned her into a recluse. On some level, she recognizes the advantage of adopting a persona of madness. Her greatest desire is to keep a grip on her family, and the woodshed goblin provides the perfect excuse.

“The Starkadders themselves would be sure, when the engagement was announced, to kick up one hell of a shine. Difficult times lay ahead. But this is what Flora liked […] quietly pitting her cool will against opposition.”

This passage demonstrates Flora’s confidence in her ability to conquer any obstacle. She believes so firmly in her pragmatic principles that the prospect of a battle thrills her. Most people would run from a daunting challenge, but Flora assumes she will prevail.

“Elfine was rescued. Henceforth, her life would be one of exquisite, sunny natural content. She would bear children and found a line of pleasant, ordinary English people who were blazing with poetry in their secret souls. All was as it should be.”

Flora has taught Elfine how to be ordinary, and in this way, Flora’s goal of saving Elfine is accomplished. In making her ordinary, Flora has made her a fit wife for a country gentleman, who is equally commonplace. The tidiness of this balanced relational equation is a source of great satisfaction to Flora, whose characterization as a practical individual is well-established by this point in the novel.

“She had been observing Aunt Ada’s firm chin, clear eyes, tight little mouth […] and she came to the conclusion that if Aunt Ada was mad, then she, Flora, was one of the Marx brothers.”

Flora has just met Aunt Ada for the first time. She recognizes that the old woman is using the pretext of madness to control her family.

“The next day was Sunday, so thank goodness everybody could stay in bed and get over the shocks of the night before. At least, that is what most families would have done. But the Starkadders were not like most families. Life burned in them with a fiercer edge.”

As Flora assesses the aftermath of the highly dramatic Counting the night before, she notes the emotional intensity of the experience. The weeping and wailing continued for hours, yet the Starkadders are up and about the following morning as if nothing unusual had happened. The taste for drama is a shared family trait. 

“He looked exactly what he was, the local sexually successful bounder. Millions of women would realize, in the next five years, that Seth could be transported in fancy to a Welsh mining village […] and still remain eternally and unchangeably the local irresistible bounder.”

Seth’s entire life has groomed him for the part of a stereotypical film star. He has passively internalized the obsessive attachments of both Judith and Aunt Ada, and now, he is ready to present himself to the world at large, believing himself to be as irresistible to the public as he is to his mother and aunt. 

“Seth would never have a chance, now, of becoming a nice, normal young man. He would become a world-famous, swollen mask. When next she saw him, it was a year later and the mask smiled down at her in the drowsy darkness, from a great silver screen.”

Flora fails to realize that Seth never stood a chance of becoming a nice, normal young man. The obsessive devotion of his mother and grandmother has conditioned him to be idolized. He is merely stepping out into the world to play that role on a larger stage. 

“She knew from experience that intellectuals thought the proper—nay, the only—way to fall in love with somebody was to do it the very instant you saw them.”

Flora observes Mybug as he falls in love with a cousin named Rennet, and in this passage, Flora is revealed to be a non-believer in the notion of love at first sight. In her world, romance ought to be an orderly arrangement with an appropriate mate at a convenient time.

“It was she, Robert Poste’s child. The wrong done to him had come back to roost […] She had poured poison into the ears of your family, and sent them out into the world, leaving you alone […] Then...when they had all gone...you would be alone at last—alone in the woodshed.”

Aunt Ada broods over the disintegration of her family while revealing the real motivation for her behavior. Her desire to control everyone has nothing to do with ego or pride. She is afraid of abandonment because being alone would force her to confront the unnamed demon from the woodshed.

“Now it looked dirty and miserable and depressing no longer. Its windows flung back the gold of the sunset […] ‘I […] did all that with my little hatchet.’ And a feeling of joy and content opened inside her like a flower.”

In assessing her impact on the Starkadders, Flora once again focuses on the externals. She observes the physical change in the farm as opposed to contemplating the far more significant emotional changes that have taken place.