Title: A Paradise Rubric: Introduction to The Bird of Paradise

Author: Sara Berger

In: The Bird of Paradise

Publication details: S. N. Brown and Co., 1896, Dunedin

Part of: Nineteenth-Century Novels Collection

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III. Fact in Fiction

The court case story and the plot of The Bird of Paradise largely agree, so it is useful to outline them together. Eugene/William, one of several boys in his family, is a keen student. He travels away from home to study surgery, and returns to his home (broadly) at the conclusion of his studies. He settles down and begins to earn a decent living; he marries a beautiful woman (Marvel/Mary).

It is Marvel who is lauded as 'the bird of Paradise', which develops into irony throughout the book. At first infatuated with her, Eugene comes to see his wife from an increasingly jaded viewpoint: not an exotic, fabulous creature, but more like the jackdaw of fable, who puts on peacock feathers, and is cast down when its pretensions slip. This moral is unsubtly explained in a conversation between two of Eugene's female acquaintances, soon after he marries, when Madame Pompadour innocently asks Guinevere about the origin of Marvel's “feathery name”, and Guinevere, a font of wisdom, explains to her all of the mythical and the ornithological aspects of the Paradisea rubra¹. The ironic contrast that is set up between a person and their plumage is reflected in Dutton's writing; it is his style to embellish his subject with language that is more ornate and ostentatious the less they deserve it. Throughout The Bird of Paradise, phrases such as 'the bird of heaven and air' come to be used with an increasingly bitter tone.

Whether foretold or not, it is true for both Eugene and William that after his marriage, his relationship with his wife quckly sours. ('From the very first the respondent was addicted to drunkenness,' alleges Mary². '[Eugene] discovered that he had to deal with an irritable, captious and absurdly jealous wife,' writes Dutton.³) Either a wastrel, or unable to deal with her capriciousness, our hero takes up social gambling and drinking. He also dabbles in racing, and owns a horse.

The two narratives run in parallel, but not perfectly. Significant cognitive dissonance results from comparing certain episodes from the novel with episodes related by witnesses at the trial. In The Bird of Paradise, our protagonist is gradually established as a competent and caring doctor; in chapter 9 he visits the house of an old friend to operate on her young son, who is suffering from diphtheria and requires a tracheotomy. It is a heartwarming scene and the boy later makes a full recovery. In the trial, another story is related by Dutton's former medical partner: “Dr. Honman, Dr. Dutton, and myself had a consultation about a case of tracheotomy. An operation was performed on the patient – a child – and during the operation the child died. After the operation Dr Dutton showed increasing signs of drink...”⁴ This is not merely Dutton's plausible version of events, but an authorial hand creating light from very dark materials.

Eugene/Dutton decides to move his practice, against his wife's wishes. Eugene moves to Galveston, or William leaves Castlemaine, and this sets off a chain of unhappy, brief moves, and medical practices which gradually decrease in value. There are periods of happiness. Perhaps the most joyful point in The Bird of Paradise is the birth of a daughter, Pearly (Ruby Oswald Dutton), whom he rhapsodizes with verse by Bennett. She is followed by a son, Valentine (Norman Edward Dutton). A third child dies in infancy. Recorded in fiction and courtroom drama, the cause of this death is unclear; but Mary and William each blamed the other for the tragedy.

Marvel secreted his illness for some inscrutable reason as close as she could from the doctor... For a week, night after night he knelt over the cradle in the vain effort to rock to sleep the fore-doomed baby...

writes Dutton (1896)⁵.

I rushed outside the house undressed with the baby. I remained outside all night in the open air... It was bitterly cold. I, with two servants, attempted to go into the house at 7 o'clock in the morning, and we were chased away by respondent... The baby died a fortnight after...

states Mary (1894)⁶.

Marvel/Mary's family provides her more money than Eugene/William can, and this is a source of tension in their marriage. (Mary's father, Robert Dent Oswald, was the owner of a large gold mine⁷; Marvel's father, Julian Jasper Gould, is referred to throughout Paradise as 'the mighty coal-king'). Whenever Marvel/Mary can, she takes the children along on extended stays with friends or family. When our hero has been married seven years, his wife's father dies, and she inherits a sizeable income, although it comes with the condition that she use part of it to maintain her children. After this, she leaves William/Eugene entirely. He achieves custody of his children; but his practice is suffering. He appeals, through the court, for his wife's maintenance money, which she is forced to give to him. She seeks a divorce: the court proceedings begin the day after the tenth anniversary of their marriage. Much of the divorce case turns on accusations by Marvel/Mary concerning her husband's conduct with the various servants who have passed through their employ, and especially two sisters: Lillie and Lollie Delaine, or Nellie and Jennie Case. The divorce case is brutal, lasting a month in Australia, and two months in fictional America. During the case, Eugene/William receives an appointment overseas; and he leaves at the end of the trial.

'The Court then adjourned, and the two children were led across by Dr. Dutton and handed over to their mother.'⁸ This is the scene with which the Argus concludes its thorough coverage of the Dutton trial. In many ways, this is the end of the story, because it is here that fact and fiction begin to diverge. Dr. Dutton moved to New Zealand, and was as itinerant there as he was in Australia, before dying at the early age of 38; but Eugene, living for some years in South Africa, returns after a time to find that his former wife is frail and repentant, and his children are loyal. He dies honourably in the American Civil War. This ending is unconvincing to the historical reader; but perhaps it is more satisfying in the context of "A Romance". After all, that is what we are reading.