ABSTRACT
Manston is a figure of atavistic potency, and he can be viewed as a tentative prototype for those 'satyrs' of the mature fiction, Edred Fitzpiers and Alec d'Urberville, who respect few decrees outside their own need for instant self-gratification. Satyrs were lecherous creatures allied with the natural forces of the woodland in Greek mythology. D. H. Lawrence argues that the primal drives which make Manston kill his wife and then attempt to marry Cytherea Graye could have been a wellspring of vital creativity in an earlier epoch: he is an 'aristocratic' male who 'fell before the weight of the average, the lawful crowd, but who, in more primitive times' might have formed a 'romantic' rather than a 'tragic' figure.7 However, to be reinstated within the orthodox parameters of the dominant culture one must learn to smother or contain wayward instinctual energies. Manston lacks the necessary nervous equipment for this show of rational restraint and compliant conformity, which explains why he has been, of his own choice, beyond the pale for so long, an outcast.
