Maria Graham: A Literary Biography By Regina Akel

Cousin Barbara must have been related or perhaps even been a sister of Cousin Mary. She represents the lowest point of the scale in relation to the narrator, whereas Cousin Mary occupied the highest. The setting up of unsympathetic antagonists to the heroine is another narrative device common in fiction. Their function is to foreground the positive qualities of the protagonist or to present difficulties to the achievement of the final goal. In Maria’s case, the former seems more likely. She was shaping up her narrative persona and she needed to establish her intellectual superiority.

In another part of the memoir, when she felt the need to foreground her moral superiority, she used another feminine antagonist, this time her sister. Towards the end of the memoir Maria relates that she had not seen her father since the day he left her at school when she was eight years old and that when she became eighteen the family was to be reunited for the first time in ten years. Her sister had never been contradicted in her life, and when she refused to attend the school of Miss Bright she was sent to another, very expensive institution, thus prolonging the separation of the sisters. Her younger sibling was good looking and talented, Maria admits, yet she was ignorant and lacked self-control:

The introduction of Maria’s sister seems pointless, if the narrator’s justification for her brief inclusion in the story is to be believed. However, if the reference is seen as a ploy to call attention to the virtues of the protagonist, a logical thread that links all these antagonists to the protagonist can be detected.

Up to now Maria Graham has indicated or implied that she is strong, intellectually superior to her classmates, and endowed with moral qualities. One aspect of her persona, the personal and the emotional, is eloquently articulated in the memoir yet significantly missing in her other work. In one remarkable passage, the intimate and emotional Maria makes observations regarding her relatives and suggests reasons why later in life she found it difficult to interact with other people.