Sunday, December 05, 1999

Elton and the English Church - A Brief Historiographical Look at Scholarship Concerning the English Church Under Henry VIII

Perhaps the most widely recognized aspect of the reign of Henry VIII – other than the girth and six wives which in large part constitute his ‘popular’ image – is his involvement in the English Reformation. There is little doubt that this event was one of the most important in the history of the British Isles, yet there is no real consensus among scholars of Henry’s own involvement in the matter. A few scholars have questioned the success of the Reform itself in accomplishing the ideological and practical goals which were established. Namely, there is little agreement whether the church was in fact guilty of wasting its resources through greed, sloth, and neglect of duty to which it had been charged by Protestant radicals. There is further disagreement about popular and clerical resistance to the Reformation. Ultimately, one must examine whether the English Church, in both its structure and practical operation, was indeed radically different after the Reformation. In looking at the Church under Henry’s rule I have chosen to focus largely on the events of the 1530's, although this is not an exclusive rule. For practical reasons I have taken
G. R. Elton’s study Reform & Reformation: England 1509-1558 as a baseline for comparison with other texts, largely because several other scholars refer to his work in their own studies. The individual biases of each author are made fairly evident in their texts, and one can easily understand Robert Blake’s statement, “all history is in one sense contemporary history” within this context. Analysing the English Church in the sixteenth century, it would be exceedingly difficult to conclude differently from the majority of scholars and argue that there was relatively little change. On a structural level, the break with Rome that occurred in the 1530's vastly altered the religious landscape.

The question of where reform originated and how it ultimately succeeded is of great debate among scholars. For Elton, Henry was not himself immediately responsible, but merely asked his ministers for a solution to the political troubles involving his first marriage. Certainly Henry had some agency of his own in finding a solution: he had initially pushed for a solution through Levitical law, and then in the early 1530's had decided upon a course of action involving his supremacy within the realm. Elton argues that the King could find no means to act upon his claims, however, as “if Henry was clearly so sure of his autonomous rights, and so clearly moving from this early date [1530] towards the total breach, his prolonged wait and the ups and downs of his endless stream of instructions become inexplicable”. Henry had not found a way in which he could legally enforce his autonomy. Elton argues that it was his chief minister Thomas Cromwell who found such legal means to secure the Royal Supremacy. Indeed, as one progresses through the text, Elton’s emphasis becomes quite clear. It was through the genius and exertions of Cromwell that the English Church was forever altered. That the radicals, led in Convocation by Cromwell, were not successful in 1531 as they were five years later in Parliament is explained as to their “not being in control of the King’s mind and policy”. The obvious subtext behind such terms is that Elton downplays Henry’s own agency in favour of his strong minister. Henry merely wished to secure legal grounds upon which he could divorce; it was Cromwell’s desire to bring the English dioceses under the rule of the monarchy, or in other words to nationalize the Church. Elton argues that Cromwell’s zeal for reform originated in his veneration of the Bible as the source of supreme authority for religious practise. He was the truest of Protestants who wished to “reform the earthly existence of men” and to “remake and renew the body politic of England”. There is clearly no question in Elton’s mind that Cromwell was the impetus and motivational agent for the Henrician Reformation.

Such a belief is far from universal however. While he does recognize Cromwell’s administrative genius, Tjernagel in his 1965 study – stressing the connection between the English reformers and the Lutherans, from which much of their religious ideology originated – emphasizes Henry’s wisdom in using Parliament to ensure the success of the Royal Supremacy. The legal machinations were indeed Cromwell’s, but the execution of the entire design must be attributed to Henry’s genius as “King in Parliament”. Henry did not perform this task without moral regard, and consequently the delays and hesitation of the early 1530's can be attributed to his religious convictions: “the proposals for the final breach with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries must have been repugnant. But little by little Henry saw the inevitability and utility of both”. Cross, writing ten years later, agrees stating that “the Henrician Reformation must still be seen as a naked act of State, the imposition of the will of one man, the Monarch, upon an entire nation”. The Supremacy did indeed begin with Henry and his advisors, although they were aided by a Commons sympathetic with the reform, as it sought to improve its position against the privileged clergy. C. S. L. Davies counters that there is a possibility that some of the measures passed by Commons, namely the Supplication against the Ordinaries, could have had Cromwell’s influence in their engineering. Tjernagel is alone however in stating that the Reformation as precipitated by the King’s will reflected the “will of the people ....[to] nationalize the church in England .... Virtually the whole nation identified itself in that action”. Other scholars are not so easily convinced of the ‘public’ unity of Henry’s actions however, especially Pallister who advances that many acquiesced because they feared the Crown’s wrath.

Elton’s view of the actual changes that took place in the Church are best reflected by his statement to the effect that the Church lost its status as “spiritual estate” of England to being a specialized profession ministering to the spiritual needs of the country. He argues that such occurred in part due to Cromwell’s poor opinion of canon law; instead of reforming it he endeavoured to limit its powers. The means by which the Church enforced such law did not change after the Reformation however, as largely through Henry’s own interests the ecclesiastical courts remained to a great extent unaltered. In most regards the Church retained the appearance of the pre-reform generation, with one crucial difference brought about by lay pressure, again greatly due to Cromwell’s influence. For the Reformation to succeed the monasteries had to be dissolved, as “the secularization of their possessions was the least that lay demand – royal and private – would rest satisfied with, but also because the government stood under the guidance of men who disapproved of them in principle”. The Dissolution can be seen to have devastated the lives of many men and women in the Church, mostly friars, nuns, and monks from poorer houses, and there were a few protests. Stronger resistence, however, was saved for Parliament’s issuance of the Ten Articles and the Injunction, both works of Cromwell from 1536. Elton argues that the Pilgrimage of Grace was precipitated in part because of the defence of traditional religion which were attacked by acts such as those stated above. Cross is in agreement, stating that the Pilgrimage demonstrated to both Henry and Cromwell that there were political consequences for accelerated religious change; Cromwell was thereafter more vigilant in his policing of the realm. Pallister doubts the significance of religious ideological conflict, and instead stresses the regional nature of the uprisings. Elton finds other scholars agreeing with him in his belief that Cromwell himself, along with other radicals such as Latimer and Cranmer, wanted the Ten Articles to be much more Lutheran than was ultimately accepted, yet compromise was required. Certainly such seems to be Elton’s premise for the whole of the Reformation: it was guided by radicals, yet to be accomplished legally it had to proceed more slowly and with concessions to the more conservative members of Parliament, and indeed to the more conservative side of Henry himself.

Elton does not detail much of the pre-Reformation Church. Heal’s study examines the extent to which the clergy were mired in an economic crisis which in part precipitated the Reformation. Many clerics could not support their ecclesiastical responsibilities with their relatively meagre incomes, and those who were appointed to several benefices were lambasted by reformers for their absenteeism. Her wholly economic approach to the subject prompts the conclusion that inflation was responsible for many of the clergy’s problems. As to the Reformation itself, there was no real change in clerical financing to aid poorer benefices; quite in opposition, smaller parish clergy were hurt the most by reform as it was they who had to pay a greater proportion of the tax demanded by the Crown. Davies argues that these disparities produced wildly differing situations in terms of the ‘spiritual authenticity’ of each parish. Some lived up to Protestant expectations, while in others there was a great amount of corruption and a decline in religious standards; some clergymen could not even recite the Lord’s prayer. Consequently there was much dissatisfaction and anti-clericalism already present in England even before Henry’s reign. The Dissolution of the Monasteries is another matter. Elton’s argument that the commissioners responsible for reporting to Cromwell were somewhat justified in their derisive accounts on the state of the monasteries has opponents however. He states that such men had the “intellectual capacity and administrative competence” to carry out their task. More importantly, their derogatory reports were expected to be so by Cromwell, as he needed such ammunition to dissolve the lower orders. Tjernagel contends that the vices of the monks and clergy were likely to have been exaggerated, and furthermore that Cromwell and his agents enriched their own finances through the dissolution, thus placing imparting their motives with somewhat of a darker aspect. Agreeing with Elton, he adds that there was relatively little resistence from the clergy as “the secular clergy had little love for the religious”, and furthermore that there was little outcry when Wolsey had dissolved monasteries on papal authority. Cross agrees, but with a slightly different interpretation: some clergy were indeed disappointed that the funds which emerged from the dissolution of the smaller monasteries were not used to aid new spiritual or social purposes, but were instead assumed by the Crown for other purposes, namely
the expansion of the King’s coffers. She also provides a telling example of a Protestant reformer who had supported the royal supremacy but turned against the suppression of the monasteries, believing that the Church should be just free from State oppression as the schism had liberated it form “a corrupt papacy”. One does get a sense in Elton’s study that he personally regrets the dissolution in terms of the loss of great English architectural works and historical monuments. Such ‘mourning’ is present in Pallister’s text as well, as he provides contemporary evidence that much of the populace was against Henry’s actions, although they would not dare vocalize their beliefs.

For the most part the scholars selected here do agree with Elton in his findings. Certainly there is some argument in the particulars of the English Church in the early sixteenth century, yet there is consensus among most of the scholars concerning the reaction to the royal supremacy. A more prominent ideological divide is present when looking at the source of the Reformation however. Elton’s view that it was through the machinations of Cromwell that England nationalized its Church has to some measure polarized scholars, although the belief in the importance of Henry’s minister is nearly universal. Comparing a few works by these scholars allows one to begin observing the different ideological constructs used by academics of diverse religious beliefs and time periods.

Bibliography


Cross, Claire. Church and People 1450-1660: The Triumph of the Laity in the English Church.
Trowbridge, Great Britain: The Harvester Press Limited, 1976.

Davies, C. S. L. Peace, Print & Protestantism. London: Fontana Press, 1995.

Elton, G. R. Reform and Reformation: England, 1509-1558. Cambridge, USA: Harvard
University Press, 1977.

Heal, Felicity. “Economic Problems of the Clergy”, Church and Society in England: Henry VIII
to James I. Ed. Felicity Heal and Rosemary O’Day. Hamden, USA: Archon Books, 1977.

Pallister, D. M. “Popular Reactions to the Reformation during the Years of Uncertainty
1530-70", Church and Society in England: Henry VIII to James I. Ed. Felicity Heal and Rosemary O’Day. Hamden, USA: Archon Books, 1977.

Tjernagel, Neelak Serawlook. Henry VIII and the Lutherans: A Study in Anglo-Lutheran
Relations from 1521 to 1547. St. Louis, USA: Concordia Publishing, 1965.

Thursday, December 02, 1999

I Dreamt a Little Dream of Der Sandmann*

*(Or, How Nathaniel Got a Piece of Sand Lodged in His Eyes and he could only get it out by jumping)

One of the most interesting paradoxes in literature is that between reality and fantasy, as the very nature of the medium continually challenges the author to demonstrate the validity and credibility of his narrative. Many of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short works stress the malleability of the boundary between the two, and consequently readers are encouraged to create a cohesive structure – frequently one which originates from only a subtext or marginalia within the narrative itself – upon which to analyse the text. Der Sandmann further entertains the frequently roguish nature of reality in literature, in part by its very title and the implications of a dreamer upon his own story, as well as by Hoffmann’s often muted use of humour to satirize the act of reading itself, or more precisely of a reader’s interpretation of his narrative. Most of the issues that Hoffmann addresses in the story are channelled through the main character Nathaniel, while the more self-referential critique of the creative process occurs by directly conversing with the reader. Even more substantially however, Hoffmann is seeking to examine the relations between individuals that are superficially normal, yet contain much that remains hidden to external observers; there is much to be revealed about the true nature of Nathaniel’s familial relations. Madness is of course the extreme condition that the author finds in Nathaniel’s character, and yet others seems equally disturbed if not in quite so conspicuous a manner. In this fashion he is studying the very nature of literature as a voyeuristic medium, and indeed as an intrusive process. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Der Sandmann is that the reader never has the narrative completely within his or her grasp; one is not positive whether the events that occur are objective reality or remain subject to Nathaniel’s madness.

The very title of the text suggests that Hoffmann wishes the reader to question the credibility of the narrative, or at least of the narrator. Initially, Nathaniel himself relates the story, and throughout the remainder of the text the reader retains several artifacts from his viewpoint. Most glaring is obviously Nathaniel’s physical description of the advocate Coppelius. His vilifying portrait of whom he calls the Sandman – his “ochre-yellow face”, “large, heavy nose”, and “crooked mouth” which let out a “strange hissing sound” (89) – remains imprinted on the reader, and upon Coppelius’s later appearances one shares Nathaniel’s profound sense of dread. Such is true despite the fact that few of the other characters react in a similar manner to the old man. Although Nathaniel’s mother and sisters seem much more troubled by the fact that Coppelius will be removing the father from the family for scientific experimentation than by Coppelius himself, for the remainder of the text one sides with Nathaniel in believing the advocate to be a malignant figure. A closer scrutiny of the text seems to counter such a view, however. Nathaniel’s first letter to Clara, ostensibly written for Lothario, does not seem to be a mere correspondence, but a carefully fabricated narrative designed to convince Clara of the reality of the Sandman. Events are chronologically reorganized for maximum effect: one hears of the Sandman long before Nathaniel introduces Coppelius, despite the latter’s prolonged acquaintance with his family. Upon encountering the advocate for the first time it is relatively easy for the reader to agree with the narrator and acknowledge Coppelius as the feared Sandman, yet Nathaniel only later provides evidence of Coppelius’s evil nature, mentioning how he and his siblings dreaded visits from the old man. Further insights are allowed by the sequence in which Nathaniel describes an incident with Coppelius in which the latter “seized [him] so violently that [his] joints cracked, unscrewed [his] hands and feet, and fixed them on again now in this way, now in that” (91-2). In fact, for a great deal of his narrative it seems quite clear that he remains in a state of dreaming while awake. At the very least, Nathaniel has begun to confuse his dreams with reality, and yet of this fact he remains unaware; in such stressful situations he loses consciousness and falls into a sickness. Upon rising from sleep, however, Nathaniel does not attribute his strange experiences to a dream, but instead asks “Is the sandman still here?” (92). Objective reality for him has now become an existence in which such fantastical events as occur when the sandman is present are not questioned.

Logic of this sort is certainly the realm of the deranged, and indeed by the end of the text there is no question of Nathaniel’s lunacy. Furthermore, the text hints at possible reasons for his madness which do form a plausible and psychologically motivated explication of Hoffmann’s narrative. Nathaniel’s relations with the members of his family are problematic at best. He admits that he and his sisters “saw little of our father all day. Perhaps he was very busy” (86), although to most readers acquainted with working parents such does not seem to stray far from normality until Nathaniel’s dependency upon his father is questioned. The time spent with their father seems far from wholesome, as they are placed in strange positions of subjugation and isolation. Nathaniel doesn’t explicitly state his own feelings towards his father, although in one instance he lowers his defences and allows that “an invincible timidity” (88) prevented him from speaking with his father. While he is here referring to inquiries about the Sandman, of greater consequence is that Nathaniel would feel that he must conceal such issues from his father. There are a few cues to suggest that Nathaniel is not alone in his mental instability, however. The problems within the family are perhaps best presented by Nathaniel’s mother, who remains to a great extent a marginal figure throughout the text. Indeed, it is her silence which is most telling. In two places Nathaniel describes her as “gloomy” in relation to her husband, first during the instances when he silently smoked while the children were reading, and later when Nathaniel hides himself in his father’s room. In each case his mother is gloomy just prior to a visit from the Sandman, and indeed she would alert the children of his impending arrival. Possibly the two are linked in a manner akin to Jekyll and Hyde, the sandman being the father’s more violent temperament; certainly such a concept of dual personality is not foreign to Hoffmann. In this regard, Nathaniel’s apparently innocuous question to his mother, “who is this sandman who always drives us away from Papa? What does he look like?” (86), becomes a much more loaded inquiry. It would not be improbable for Nathaniel to sublimate his knowledge of his father’s abusive nature into the myth of the Sandman, despite Hoffmann’s insistence not to allow such to advance far beyond mere supposition. The author does allow some room for controversy, however, as one could argue that it was Coppelius himself who was the agent of abuse upon the children: “He used always to call us the little beasts; when he was present we were not allowed to make a sound, and we cursed the malign and repellant man who deliberately sought to ruin for us even the most minute pleasure” (90). On this point Hoffmann himself is largely ambiguous although the narrators of the text – both Nathaniel and the later unnamed narrator of the ‘prose’ section – each condemn Coppelius, although the latter is for obvious reasons much more subdued than Nathaniel. A more easily defended position can be argued, suggesting that Nathaniel lost control of his mind at a later date than childhood and then reinvented his past, projecting his insecurities and psychological defences back into his memories and confusing them with the myth of the Sandman: “the sandman was now no longer that boogeyman of the nursery tale ... no! he was now a repellent spectral monster” (90), meaning of course Coppelius. Several other aspects of his recollection other than Coppelius himself have been changed to become incorporated into this fantasy, including “what I had for so long taken to be a wall-cupboard was, rather, a black cavern, in which there stood a small hearth” (91). It is not impossible to reason that the cupboard is now, and has forever remained, a simple cupboard. Similarly exaggerated is Nathaniel’s description of the family’s reaction prior to Coppelius’s final visit. They seem to know that the father is going to be killed during this visit and are consequently very apprehensive: “Tears started from my mother’s eyes. ‘But father, father!’ she cried. ‘Must it be so?’” (93). Viewed in its entirety Nathaniel’s letter does appear to be a colourful re-interpretation of his past.

Hoffmann does allow a brief glimpse past the ambiguity of the narrative during the dream sequence with the hearth when Nathaniel states that his father looked like Coppelius. Much can be construed from this brief phrase, and indeed it could be used to support the notion forwarded above that they are in reality the same individual. Alternately, Nathaniel could be comparing the two figures in an attempt to rationalize his father’s death. Surely such a traumatic event would have had a drastic impact on the young Nathaniel, and blame could be easily transferred to an individual such as Coppelius, who would in effect be guilty of robbing the father of his identity. There is of course no evidence in the text that the advocate was truly affiliated with the explosion which killed his father, and indeed that Nathaniel implicates the ‘sandman’ without any valid foundation is made explicit: alone in his room he hears the explosion and cries out “This is Coppelius!” (93). Furthermore, a threat of vengeance is made which, discounting the accountability of Coppelius in his father’s death, seems to foreshadow Nathaniel’s suicide at the end of the text: “I have resolved to get the better of him and, whatever the outcome may be, revenge my father’s death” (94). Latent throughout the text is an element of Nathaniel’s guilt over his father’s death. To him perhaps it stems from his inaction to expose Coppelius for the villain Nathaniel believed him to be. It is possible to extrapolate somewhat of a more consistent answer from several details which appear to be secondary in Hoffmann’s text. Throughout Nathaniel’s dealings with both Coppelius and the optician Coppola, references to eyes are made – “lov-ely occe, lov-ely occe” each of them says. More important is the dream sequence already mentioned above:

‘Eyes, bring eyes!’ Coppelius cried in a dull hollow voice.
‘Little beast! Little beast!’ he bleated, showing his teeth. Then he pulled me up
and threw me on to the hearth, so that the flames began to singe my hair.
‘Now we have eyes – eyes – a lovely pair of children’s eyes!’ .... my father raised
his hands imploringly and cried: ‘Master! Master! Let my Nathaniel keep his
eyes – let him keep them!’
.... ‘The boy can have his eyes then, and keep use of them’
(91)

Arguably, Nathaniel has seen something traumatic in his childhood which he has since repressed and sublimated into the Sandman fantasy, and which becomes manifest in terms of his fascination and repulsion of eyes. While his attempts at creative works are ultimately rejected by the other characters, the writing process does have a pacifying effect on Nathaniel, although even here he can not escape his fetish with sight, and eyes in particular. His composition is quite revealing:

[Nathaniel] heard Clara’s voice: ‘Do you not see me? Coppelius has deceived
you: those were not my eyes which burned into your breast; they were glowing-
hot drops of your own heart’s blood – I still have my eyes; you have only to
look at me!’ .... Nathaniel looked into Clara’s eyes, but it was death which
gazed at him mildly out of them.
(105)

It is quite possible to interpret this fixation originating from seeing his father’s body after the explosion. A body subject to such a violent death is a very gruesome sight, especially for a relative, and certainly some form of psychological defence would emerge.

Nathaniel’s affair with the automaton Olympia triggers his final descent into madness leading to his suicide. He had thought her a perfect companion, and one whom he could project his values upon. She does not question his artistic experiments but remained seated, listening intently. His own emotional detachment is made explicit through Olympia; she lacks a true voice, merely repeating ‘Ah, ah’, and yet Nathaniel feels that “what Olympia said of his work, of his poetic talent in general, came from the depths of his own being, that her voice was the voice of those very depths themselves” (118). With her he feels that he can communicate anything he desires, and indeed one could argue that he has found in Olympia an agency lacking from his own childhood: that of his own voice. Much like his repulsion/attraction to the eye signifier, his relationship with Olympia carries within it the seeds of his continued madness. Despite his desire for a largely emotionless relationship, certainly professor Spalanzani’s daughter was bound to be exposed as an automaton at some point. To Nathaniel this knowledge is a terrifying surprise uncovered when the professor and Coppola are fighting over the robot:

Nathaniel stood numb with horror. He had seen all too clearly that Olympia’s
deathly-white face possessed no eyes: where the eyes should have been, there
were only pits of blackness – she was a lifeless doll!
.... At this point Nathaniel saw that a pair of blood-flecked eyes were lying
on the floor and staring up at him; Spalanzani seized them with his uninjured
hand and threw them at him, so that they struck him in the chest.
(119-20)

The correlation between this incident and Nathaniel’s dreams from childhood, as well as his later creative endeavours, is far too great to be mere coincidence. Hoffmann seems to be emphasizing the fact that single traumatic events can trigger madness, as occurs to Nathaniel after being struck with Olympia’s eyes. He repeats this performance atop a tower at the end of the text, whence he throws himself to his death. It is therefore likely that this single incident triggered memories from childhood with which he could not cope. One may forward the supposition that in the experiments carried out by Coppelius and Nathaniel’s father, they were attempting to create an automaton of their own, yet either failed or the former took the creation himself much as he had done with Spalanzani. Perhaps Nathaniel had seen several of these stunted creations – maybe some unattached limbs, heads without eyes, or a torso – and could not separate them from dead humans. Suppositions such as these must remain so.

Hoffmann does not allow the reader to interpret his text in so simple a fashion, however; indeed, he seems to revel in the ambiguity of his text. Throughout the story Hoffmann seems to remain a step ahead of the reader’s own interpretation, and it is largely through a variety of narrative voices that this is successful. The first instance in which such can be observed is Clara’s response to Nathaniel’s letter. Her reaction to his story is a rational one – that everything he had experienced occurred solely in his mind, and that he must forget such childish delusions – and is likely to be similar to the reader’s initial interpretation as well. She does in fact hint at the line of reasoning which I have here followed, by implicating Nathaniel’s father in his son’s mental instability: “your father, altogether absorbed in the deceptive desire for higher truth, would have become estranged from his family” (96). Furthermore, she disavows the existence of Coppelius as a harmful entity, most notably concerning his father’s death, “Your father surely brought about his own death through his own carelessness, and Coppelius is not to blame”. Certainly it would be easy to conclude as she does, yet several aspects of the text counter such an easy answer to Nathaniel’s madness. Almost in passing, near the end of the text, Hoffmann presents several characters who comment on the automaton sequence, some trying to understand it in the ‘realistic’ terms of Olympia’s yawns as “the sound of the clockwork winding itself up”, while another forwards that the entire episode was “an allegory, an extended metaphor” (121). One almost gets the sense that Hoffmann is ridiculing the readers themselves in this passage, as if he could presuppose every possible interpretation of his text and counter it. Such seemingly minor passages initially succeed in keeping the reader from following a single interpretation. Most significant to Hoffmann’s apparent desire to detain his text in ambiguity, the narrator who appears after Nathaniel’s second letter seems to himself believe in the malicious nature of Coppelius-Coppola, if not in the sandman itself. This usurpation of the narrative shields the reader from any of Nathaniel’s further writings, which would have revealed his lunacy far too effortlessly. This second narrator continues the villainous description of Coppola that Nathaniel had first implanted in the reader, using such epithets as “the repulsive ... Coppola” (103) and “the sandman Coppelius” (109). The scene in which Coppola fills a table with many eyeglasses is itself much like a dream; it seems improbable that the optician could contain so many pairs of glasses and telescopes upon his person, and yet the narrator relays such information as if it were fact. One begins to question whether such fantastical occurrences were truly fantasy and not part of objective reality of which the narrator is ostensibly a part. Furthermore, Hoffmann-as-author increasingly intrudes into the narration as the text nears its conclusion. At the end of the text the narrator has knowledge of Coppelius emerging among the crowd gathered around the tower, taciturnly goading Nathaniel to jump, and then disappearing. He then concludes with a short description of Clara’s new life. Such information would have been impossible for the ‘narrator-friend’ to have obtained, and consequently one must conclude that it is Hoffmann himself who is here speaking.

Reflecting on the prior narration at this point reveals that Hoffmann has been playing with the slippery signification which is suggested by the story’s title. For him this slippery signification becomes physical, much as the sandman himself is a doppelganger, changing form between the advocate Coppelius and the optician Coppola. Dream becomes reality, and one cannot determine whether Coppola’s eyeglasses are merely that, or instead “a thousand eyes [which] gazed and blinked and stared up at Nathaniel, ...[whose] flaming glances leaped more and more wildly together and directed their blood-red beams into Nathaniel’s breast” (109-10); certainly the latter is more real for Nathaniel himself. One also gains the awareness that it is relatively simple to construct a narrative upon which to base one’s life, as Hoffmann seems to suggest – by means of ambiguous episodes such as that involving Olympia – that reality is sufficiently strange and fantastic that madmen can create an insane logic out of the chaos of normal life. It is this ambiguous boundary between fact and fiction which makes Hoffmann’s tale of madness – which is ultimately what the narrative is – much more than a simple tragedy of a young student’s downfall.

Bibliography


Hoffmann, E.T.A. The Sandman. Tales of Hoffmann. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Toronto:
Penguin Books, 1982.

Wednesday, November 24, 1999

The Sounds of Silence: The Voice of the Other in Coetzee's Foe

When looking at civilization, or indeed any notion of humanity whether collective or individual, one naturally presupposes language to be fundamental to its structure and development. Such assumptions are not without validity, as communication does principally create civilization on its many levels. Arguably, culture is itself the superstructure above this act of communication within a society. Within this context it is possible to observe how culture and language are determined by the social structures within a society; those that are in positions of power regulate both the medium and the content of culture. Throughout Foe, J. M. Coetzee consistently demonstrates the implications of power structures on language and the ability to communicate. The protagonist herself struggles to convey her story despite cultural limitations, as she begins to understand that though she cannot tell her own story, using another author removes her voice. Foe consequently uses his cultural dominance to dictate the constituency of a proper story, yet throughout the text Susan pursues her own narrative, and indeed the nature of her own position within that story. Most prominent however is the portrayal of the mute slave Friday, whose subservience is so thorough that he can barely understand or respond to others. Susan herself attempts to engage in a dialogue with him, but he remains mute to her. One cannot disavow Friday an element of his own agency however, as Susan’s pursuit of his story despite his silence largely precipitates the story that Coetzee presents to the reader. Indeed, taken as a whole the premise of Foe is that of the agency of the subservient. It is when the repressed become aware of their mutual relationship with authoritative voices and subsequently engage with them that a measure of independence and freedom is gained.

The first section of Foe is a direct narrative of Susan’s life on Crusoe’s island told from her own perspective. As such it must of course be analysed in light of the narrator’s biases – in particular, that Susan does not have access to the ‘truth’ behind the events of their stay on the island as either Crusoe or Friday perceive it – yet that is precisely one of the main themes of the novel as a whole. Upon her return to England, she attempts to bring her experiences into a cohesive narrative to be shared with the reading public and endeavour to remain as ‘factual’ as possible. It is important for the narrative to be her own, and she commences in a similar manner as other tales of maritime adventure. The beginnings of both the first section and her story-within-a-story description of events to Crusoe are routine for such narratives: “At last I could row no further” (p. 5); and then speaking, like Ishmael, to Crusoe, “My name is Susan Barton ... I was cast adrift by the crew of the ship yonder” (p. 9). Each instance stresses the importance of Susan as an individual within the narrative, and there is no doubt that this is her story. Yet such conventions originate in masculine adventure narratives, and Susan quickly learns that she cannot incorporate all the elements that she wants into this framework. Her desire to include accounts from both Crusoe and Friday to complete her narrative is frustrated when she discovers that she cannot do so. There is no possibility of Friday revealing his story to her, neither can the recently dead Crusoe, for “who but Crusoe, who is no more, could truly tell you Crusoe’s story?” (p. 51). While she does attempt to engage Friday in order to reveal his story, which will be further discussed below, it becomes apparent that regardless of its validity, his story – or indeed that of any of the characters from the island – is largely irrelevant for readers. Such becomes manifest during her supposed collaboration with Foe, who subsumes Susan’s account into his own narrative. She felt that she could not write the text herself, for she cannot truly find her own voice within the silence of both Friday and Crusoe. She does not feel that it is her right to speak for them, although others, namely Foe himself, do not hesitate to speak for her.

Susan believes that she requires Foe for precisely the reason that she struggles to find her own voice. As a man involved with and indeed an articulate exponent of British culture, Foe represents the dominant culture from which Susan as a woman was largely excluded. Susan doubts her ability to produce a cohesive narrative within the confines of the patriarchal culture. Literary society – which in the eighteenth century largely restrained women as marginal figures – required a focus for texts, a point to be reached, and one which Susan could not provide: “my stories always have more applications than I intend, so that I must go back and laboriously extract the right application and apologize for the wrong ones and efface them. Some people are born story tellers; I, it would seem, am not” (p. 81). Susan is here fighting with the knowledge that history does not emerge from a single narrative, instead it is much more subjective. The very existence of the text of Foe proves the disparity that Susan feels between what she should say according to social convention and what she believes needs to be said. It is this struggle which provides thematic and narrative continuity to Coetzee’s text and proves, to modern readers at least, that Susan would indeed have been an able storyteller. She believes that storytelling is a live medium better suited to oral transmission since “a liveliness is lost in the writing down which must be supplied by art” (p. 40), and therefore any story will contain more of the soul of the author than elements of truth. Stories are living entities informed by the teller, they are products of a creative process akin to eroticism, and therefore requires the participation of the author within the narrative. Susan continually refers to physical love as the basis for narratives, saying that the “tongue is like the heart” (p. 85) and that “without desire how is it possible to make a story?” (p. 88). Certainly there was some level of desire on the island, foremost was obviously Susan’s desire to escape back to England, but also her sexual feelings shared with Crusoe were important. Regardless, such themes would be ill-suited to the phallocentric British society, which would inscribe its own voice on her narrative for “he has the last word who disposes over the greatest force” (p. 124), which of course if not necessarily Susan herself.

Perhaps most important to finding her own voice is Susan’s desire to engage others in a dialogue to conjoin her own narrative. It is in this sense that a sense of ‘truth’ would emerge from a multiplicity of voices. Yet such simultaneous narration is deemed too divided by contemporary literary culture, as personified by Foe in the text. Susan wants the truth of the events that occurred on the island to liberate her, in a fashion, from the dominance of others. Her story would demonstrate that a woman is just as independent a creature as a man. Thematically and practically the island was her freedom, as it was there that she was agent to her own emancipation. Yet upon her return to England she finds that she cannot convey her story as she lacks both the publishing credentials of someone like Foe and the ability to write as a woman within British culture of the time. It is because of her internalization of the cultural norms which exclude her that she feels that she must apologize for her “wrong applications”. She therefore denies the validity of her own voice and instead believes herself to be as a Muse to Foe while he writes her story. However, she quickly learns that she will not achieve freedom by his pen. Foe’s writing is not any real account of her life on the island but instead a more elaborate account which she ultimately rejects: “You know how dull our life was, in truth. We faced no perils, no ravenous beasts, not even serpents. Food was plentiful, the sun was mild. No pirates landed on our shores, no freebooters, no cannibals” (p. 81). Susan does not gain the liberation of free communication through Foe, quite contrarily his writing literally imprisons Susan and Friday within his house. Foe wants Susan to be secondary to his narrative, and indeed his writing leads to the creation of a second Susan, a character who believes she in fact is Susan Barton. He begins to contradict her, and attempts to convince her to accept this second Susan and presuppose a narrative which she is trying to reject:

Foe smiled. ‘Tell me more of Bahia,’ he said.
‘There is much to be said of Bahia. Bahia is a world in itself. But why? Bahia
is not the island. Bahia was but a stepping stone on my way.’
‘That may not be so,’ replied Foe cautiously. ‘Rehearse your story and you will see.”
(p. 116)

Foe then proceeds to create his own narrative, effectively removing Susan from her own story; to him a sequential narrative is more important. Only one hero is required for Foe, and other narratives – namely those of Friday, Crusoe, and in effect Susan herself – would only be distracting and more importantly it would be outside of the literary tradition. Despite being aided by numerous assistants, Odysseus, Jason of the Argonauts, Aeneas, and Crusoe in Defoe’s original text – all effectively stood alone during their travels. Foe in fact creates her story as if it were his own, as though he had himself been a castaway, and more importantly it becomes a story which adheres perfectly with the patriarchal society in which they live, with “five parts in all ... it is thus that we make up a book” (p. 117).

Susan does not allow Foe to be sole narrator of the text, however. Initially she counters Foe’s authoring of a palatable story for the English masses by rejecting his attempts to subserve her life to that narrative as well as the inscriptions that he places upon her:

if I were a mere receptacle ready to accommodate whatever story is
stuffed in me, surely you would dismiss me, surely you would say to your-
self, “This is no woman but a house of words, hollow, without substance”?
‘I am not a story, Mr. Foe.
(pp. 130-1)

Despite what Foe is trying to do to her, Susan firmly believes that she is greater than the story, and indeed, there is more to the character than is presented by Coetzee; her life does not begin with the first paragraph of part I. She learns from her isolation with Friday in Foe’s house that she must more actively involve herself in the story’s creation. To this end she attempts to engage both Friday and Foe himself into the narrative. Susan intends to become a subject for Foe in both senses of the word. His repressive acts do remove her identity to a great extent, yet not to the extreme of her entirely doubting herself or her voice. She never displays any uncertainty concerning the second Susan but remains adamant that she herself is the real Susan, despite Foe’s intentions. Simultaneously however, in many instances she does demonstrate her own agency: when she has a sexual encounter with Foe; the letters of Part II, originally meant for Foe but much more of her own narrative voice to be read by others.

More informative are the initiatives taken with Friday in order to allow his story to emerge. It is from these instances that a voice emerges for Susan. At the same time however, these passages demonstrate the extent to which Friday has himself become a subject to both the colonial power and the narrative itself. He had of course once been a slave, and to the British he will always remain so. Susan’s efforts to ‘free’ him from servitude do not in fact liberate him from colonial rule; indeed, that she inscribes her own values and an identity upon him is made quite evident when she fashions for him a ‘freedom sack’, containing his manumission papers, to be worn around his neck. Many times she mimics Foe in inscribing her own words upon Friday in place of his own voice: “I say he is a cannibal, he becomes a cannibal; I say he is a laundryman and he becomes a laundryman ... what he is to the world is what I make of him” (pp. 121-2). More telling are her attempts to probe Friday for his story, despite his inability to communicate in any but the most basic manner. It is this probing that allows Coetzee’s narrative a continuity and indeed remains the locus for the text. Susan senses something in Friday that she cannot truly fathom until the final part of the text. Throughout her interaction with Friday, there is an agency in his silence and indeed in his slavery on the island of which she becomes aware:

Why, during all those years alone with Crusoe, did you submit to his rule,
when you might easily have slain him, or blinded him and made him into
your slave in turn? Is there something in the condition of slavehood that
invades the heart and makes a slave a slave for life”
(p. 85)

Friday has to a certain degree internalized his own servitude, yet more importantly, he exists within a different medium than either Susan, Crusoe, or Foe, and one in which Susan herself longs to live. Friday is not confined to the slippery signification of identity with which all of the other characters remain burdened, continually exchanging positions of master-slave, self-other, and Subject-subject. Instead he remains outside of such a system; his existence is more pure and untainted by the identity construction which would others inscribe upon him. To a great extent it is his lack of language which allows Friday to be free of such encumbrances of society. The final part of the text suggests that Susan herself has begun to understand the nature of his existence: “This is a place where bodies are their own signs. It is the home of Friday” (p. 137). It is within this context that one can more fully understand the association continually made between writing and sexual desire. By doing so, Susan is endeavouring to unite Friday’s pure world of ‘body-as-sign’ with the literary world of slippery signification, and consequently find a means of communication. Arguably, Susan cannot remove the social constructs which bind her from such a place, however much she longs to join Friday. She is far too much like Foe, and her dependency on language is far too great.

Many texts have examined the impact of social structure on language and communication, and a number of theoretical works have been advanced sharing similar views. The relationships between the dominant and subservient classes are not simple ‘give-and-take’, but instead form a complex of interdependency; each internalizes the supposed roles of the other. Within this context, Susan – a character repressed in many way by her society – must find a voice with which she can create her story. It is her struggle to find this voice, undertaken largely through the voices of others, that forms the locus of Coetzee’s narrative. The final section of the text seems to suggest that she has succeeded in finding such a voice by understanding Friday’s silence, and there is little evidence to doubt her newly discovered communicative freedom.

Bibliography

Coetzee, J.M. Foe. London: Penguin Books, 1986.

Tuesday, October 05, 1999

After the Rain (for Robin)

There is a scientist within me that wants to categorize my father. Make of him a quantity or dichotomy, enumerate him:

1. as Scientist
2. as Photography / Storyteller
3. as British
4. as Authority
5. as Bryan William to us and Robin to his true friends
6. as Provider
7. Dad

I usually get bored with long lists.

~

What is a beginning? It cannot be created, at least not by the potential creator. Like a life is a beginning: it must be given to you. Things are more easily be ended, though. I was not given a beginning, so I begin with the end.

I do not think that I will be able to cope with my father’s death. I have not coped well with the deaths of others.

When my dog died, I watched television for thirteen straight hours.
When my friend Brie died, at first I laughed and watched a plane fly overhead; I haven’t stopped crying since.
When my Nannie died, I broke down in the cafeteria at school (there’s no jury like your peers).

Every day I prepare myself for my father’s death. But I do think there will be a day when I stop crying.

~

A certain peace comes after a rainfall, a rising with the mist.

~

There was a time in my father’s life when a painful degree of hopelessness followed desperation. I can very clearly remember how he used to come home after work, summarily acknowledge the rest of us, and then go right up to bed. I spent very little time with my father at this point in our lives.

His boss at work had decided to make his own personal life a public affair, and consequently created himself tyrannus ab administratione over my father. In this structure, my father could hardly operate. His job required a continual adaptation of technique in order to get the results he desired. Histology was his muse, it was his passion and means of melodic expression against the dissonant chordal structures handed to him by his teachers of decades past. You could sometimes see it in his eyes: a flurry of melody following the thump! smack! of wood on skin. Those damned teachers of the old British school. Nobody escaped that system without a caning. Sure, scars are formed – ugly details which can be seen upon closer observation – but the very act of covering those marks can be characterising and religious in nature. Old people do not lie when they say that such hardships build character.

It was at this point that I discovered and more truly understood my father’s patterns.

~

Comfort can be found in routine, but so too can loneliness. You begin to wonder about other lives; you begin to fantasize about other people. Imagination can be freed, but so can destructive energies.

An iron trap can be seen to cover the face, perhaps even the entire body. This maiden is first a protection against the loneliness of routine, held in place to deflect the sharp blows that are perpetually falling. To one outside the maiden, it is an obvious entrapment: you can watch the slow drain of blood by the inward-pointing spikes. They aren’t as big or obvious as depicted in medieval textbooks. These points are dangerous for their imperceptibility.

It took my father three years to escape from his loneliness.

~

I remember reading in one of my old comic books about an archaeologist who had discovered an ancient mask in a dusty tomb. It was a very beautiful mask, entrancing both for the intricacy of its construction and the elemental simplicity of its decoration. It became of such value to him that he had to hide it from the police in that country so that he could keep it for himself.

When he brought the mask home to his wife, she screamed and would not let it into the house. His love for this mask forced him to leave her and lock himself in his office at the university so he could be alone to study the mask. He spent years alone with the mask, never letting anybody in.

Then one day he left his office, walked out into the hall, and collapsed in a corner. He began to laugh. He laughed so hard that all of the other archaeologists and professors came out into the hall to find out what was happening. They found the archaeologist in the corner, laughing, the mask beside him at his feet. He would not talk; he just stared at them and laughed. They wanted to learn why he did this, so they began to study the mask.

When I was a kid my father never liked me reading comic books. He thought it was a waste of time and money. At the age of thirteen, I sold one of my comic books for nearly six-hundred dollars. Now I can read anything I want.

~

Stories lie. No matter what is said by old people and other authorities, stories are not real. It’s all bullshit. There is no greater storyteller than a thief. Storytellers are themselves thieves. By his retelling of the story, he steals; he takes away truth, opinion. You can’t argue with a storyteller. They will either ask you to keep quiet while they talk or create another lie and tuck you back into bed. Stories are dead artefacts, cultural scars, masks buried in fine sand. Never in my life will I ever believe a story.

~

My father and I would, on occasion, discuss whatever ‘new thing’ had emerged in any of our common interests. Advances in digital media; the problems with conservative government. A re-released and remastered Miles Davis album: my father always insisted that Miles Davis ceased to be Miles Davis after the release of Bitches Brew in 1969. No matter how well I argued in favour of the album – how a great deal of music since then used it as a reference and inspiration – my father would insist that the Golden Age Of Jazz ended with that album’s release. He just would not understand that rhythms as well as notes could be improvised.

~

I was always building things with my father. We worked on lawn chairs, we raised a wooden fort over the three compost piles in the backyard, we would build little electric motors. There exist pictures of us rebuilding the entire side of our house. I’m trying to be like father: holding the hammer like him, wearing boots and safety goggles. I might look a bit like him, but the glasses don’t fit properly. I do still like to build things though.

~

I can remember my favourite times with my father. We would be watching television or listening to music, my face resting on his stomach. There was a certain warmth that I felt then, one that I’ve always tried returning to. I will never forget his smell; there is no smell in the world like that of your father when he hugs you. During my life he has always had a large stomach, but I’ve never been ashamed of my father. I liked the way it felt under me when he breathed. I rose up and down in a constant and pleasing rhythm. Long before any real concrete ideas of masculinity had entered into my life, I was never embarrassed to feel this way. My artificially-protective shell was not yet formed.

I soon learned that real men have no desires or feelings, only the desire to feel.

~

There is nothing easier than an ending. You know what to do with an ending. No contradictions, no argument. Just a period or a fade-to-black. THE END. You laugh or cry, or you leave the theatre.

~

The first thing that I remember about my father is his voice. He always had a very soothing voice, and it remains the same now that he has entered into old age. Even when he yelled it was a pleasant voice. Oddly, yelling is a part of his more loveable patterns. Every day when he comes home from work he announces his entrance with a melodious “hel-lo”, rarely varying the pitch or timing as the weeks pass.

My father can’t dance, but he sure can sing when he wants to.

Sunday, May 16, 1999

Postcolonialism

It has become a matter of course in the late twentieth century to examine the relations between countries of the first- and third-world. Out of these studies postcolonial theory has arisen to explain the power discrepancy between these two categorizations. European and North American imperial involvement in third-world countries has had a lasting impact, and not solely in terms of technological advances and social structure. The identities of citizens in their-world countries has been markedly shaped by their cultural deference to the imperialist countries. In The Language of African Literature, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o stresses that the African self-image has been upended by the suppression of their native tongues under British apartheid. Edward Said widens the scope somewhat with his essay Orientalism, which examines the effects of colonialism in the orient in relation to both the imperialists and the colonized.

Thiong’o initially argues that language serves a dual purpose, first as a method of communication and then as a vehicle for the transmission of culture. The two may or may not be interconnected: English serves both purposes in England, but in Africa it does not transmit culture, where the dominance of native languages remain. Thiong’o’s beliefs are rooted in Marxism, and indeed that is the starting point for the extract. He divides communication into three processes: Marx’s “language of real life”, speech as an imitation of that language, and writing as an imitation of speech. Culture emerges out of the repetition of these aspects of language; it is therefore a reflection of the history of a society. He then states that imperialism attempted to control the language of real life (means of production), but did so by commanding the culture of Africa. English was imposed upon Africans; its use was rewarded while use of native tongues was reprimanded. A similar alienation of native culture occurred in other areas of learning: history, sociology, literature; in every field Europe became the focus. Consequently, African children raised in such a context began to view the world not as Africans, but as colonial subjects. Highly educated Africans began to believe themselves as independent of imperialists, while at the same time they attempted to “Africanize English” instead of promoting the native languages of Africa. From this point Thiong’o reflects Foucault’s notion of rebellion implicit in authority. It was in fact the peasantry of Africa, excluded from the elite “language” circles, who kept such languages alive, and indeed, new ones were created. New writers emerged who talked about specifically African culture; born out of the peasantry they reflected its “folk” roots: “African literature can only be written in African languages ... of the peasantry and working class” (p. 372).

Said bases his essay on his definition of Orientalism: studies in every field – sociology, history, literature – that relate to the orient as described by westerners, as well as the practical (political) outcomes of such beliefs. More specifically, he defines it not in terms of the subject matter of the Orient and its peoples, but instead of the ideologies held by westerners which inform such studies. Orientalism more rightly becomes a ‘Derridian’ definition of Europe itself against the other of the orient. Such knowledge is inevitably politicized, and it is never the “pure” knowledge with which academics are supposed to engage. All studies of the Orient are “tinged and impressed with, violated by, the gross political fact” (p. 250), which consequently determines the author-as-imperialist to be superior to his subject. Said is quick to point out that such authority is not natural, but is instead a human creation governed by its own impulses of “taste and value” (p. 255). This fact is observable in many texts produced concerning the Orient; it in fact becomes the Althusserian problematic of such texts. Said then describes his methodology in detail, describing attempts to localize the author of a text in relation to the Orient (strategic localization), and the interrelations between texts (strategic formation). It is this interrelation between texts, and furthermore between these texts and society and history, that gives them authority over their subjects; the cumulative ideology of “Oriental” is imposed on the Orient. Consequently, the language of such discourse in fact alienates it from any true sense of the Orient.

Friday, April 09, 1999

The Discourse of the Other in The Prowler

There has been a great deal of discussion concerning the real-world applicability of critical theory. Despite ostentatiously basing their works on tangible examples in literature and society, theorists have often been accused of merely exchanging ideologies amongst their own elite academic society with no acknowledgement to those outside their ‘interpretive community’. There are however many artistic works which do not allow for an interpretation unaided by critical discourse. Certainly the most popular critical model used to interpret art in the twentieth century has been psychoanalysis. It has been praised for its universality, although it is just as frequently been over-emphasized as an effective tool of evaluation. Other models have been proposed which can be applied just as universally, arguably the most important of which have proven to be the deconstructivist ideas of Derrida and Foucault. In establishing mutually-dependant binaries – such as Self and Other – deconstructionism has proven to be a productive supplement to literary studies, explicating relations between characters for example. Furthermore, other critical movements have emerged from deconstruction theory which have also been of great influence. Perhaps the most currently debated critical movements are feminism and post-colonialism, which are similar in that each acts as periphery to the central masculine-imperial ideology. They endeavour to subvert this dominant cultural ideology and displace it with their own. Adapting these theoretical models to analyse Kristjana Gunnars’s text The Prowler demonstrates their usefulness to literary study, as indeed the work is pregnant with theoretical meaning. Gunnars continually emphasizes the Other, which is mainly the various representations of the prowler as individual, and in fact the Other can almost be viewed as the Althusserian problematic of the text. The Other is also signified in the author’s implicit post-colonial discourse, which posits her native Iceland as occupied country under the authority of several other nations. Additionally, feminism informs not only the subject matter of the novel, but its structure as well. Indeed, the form of the text – regarded somewhat loosely as a novel by Gunnars herself (or the publisher) – is difficult to interpret without regarding feminist discourse.

        Emerging from Saussurian and Lacanian ideas of slippery signification, deconstructivist theory analyses the relationships between dominant and marginal entities. Derrida’s work – and also in the ideas of Bakhtin – suggests that the two are not mutually exclusive, but alternately are intimately intertwined ontologically. The definition of one depends on the existence of the other. It is within this context that the concept of the Other can be applied to literature. In The Prowler, the Other is not one entity to the narrator, but indeed there are a variety of Others. Gunnars is in fact subtextually referring to the structuralist ideology of slippery signification in this regard, for while the meaning of the term itself remains the same, that which it signifies changes dramatically through the text. The prowler is variously a thief, the reader, the narrator, a man onboard the Gullfoss, the author, and finally the text itself. Indeed, it is the prowler-as-reader which provides the greatest disclosure of Gunnars’s application of slippery signification. Every aspect of the prowler – as thief, as author, as narrator – are all contained within the position of reader: “There are prowlers everywhere. They prowl about, looking for dialogue” (Gunnars, 74). The author and narrator become the reader as well as the thief in order to understand their story, for it is the “reader [who] ... steal[s] from the text”(Gunnars, 59) and is therefore able to take its meaning. The exchange of roles in this manner is implied by her statement that “the answer is also contained in the question” (Gunnars, 24), that the very act of questioning is its own answer. By destroying the boundaries between the various prowlers, between author and reader, the author / narrator is “free to steal from [herself]” (Gunnars, 59), and consequently learn from her writing. This is made most evident when the narrator and the prowler-as-Other cooperate in reconstructing a puzzle on board the Gullfoss. Furthermore, there are several instances in the novel where Gunnars posits herself as Other to the text itself: “It is not my story. The author is unknown. I am the reader.” (Gunnars, 119). The Self is identified by the Other; Gunnars logic therefore is to become the Other in order to realize the Self. The narrator herself endeavours to become the Other, first describing herself as the prowler of the school library, but also more importantly when she begins to learn other languages. Throughout the text she refers to the almost mythological purity and value of other cultures, that “anything that came from far away was good. Life elsewhere was magical. The further away it was, the more magical” (Gunnars, 21). There is no purity in the Self, it is diseased and needs to be cured by the Other. Such a belief emerges when the narrator is brought to a doctor who tells her “if you live in the Middle East, ... you can maybe go to the Red Sea and wash in it. That will no doubt cure you”, as “up here in the North there is no hope” (Gunnars, 37). Indeed, the self-doubt of the narrator is blatantly expressed when she states that “material for stories came from magical places so far away that people there had never heard of us” (Gunnars, 83).

        She does in fact come to a very distinct conclusion about her existence within the Self-Other binary however. Like Derrida, Gunnars states her preference for the ambiguity – of the freeplay – between the definitions of Self and Other caused by their mutual dependence. By identifying with the text itself, Gunnars is able to observe all of these different borders and abuse their definitions, for “all that a story is ... is a way of looking at things” (Gunnars, 90). She is well aware that any definition given to an entity is not a strict and complete measure of its existence, but instead that “everything ... depends on vantage point” (Gunnars, 90). There are many references to the uncertainty and arbitrariness of socially defined borders which express the author’s desire for freeplay. Iceland itself, while having the definite physical borders of being an island, does not have any ethnic or cultural ones. There is no sense that nations are defined by natural reasons, and consequently the narrator questions the rigidity of national boundaries, whether one can “know when there was a border? Can borders be felt? Is there perhaps a change of air, a different climate, when you go from one country to another?” (Gunnars, 60). At several times Gunnars mentions the classless system upon which Icelandic society is built; everybody is a “white Inuit” at relatively the same socio-economic level. The narrator is often confused when confronted with distinctions in class, as when she lived with her great-aunt and her housemaids. The encounters that she has with other cultural groups also hint at the ambiguity of boundaries. She initially defines Americans as abusers, as men who would prey on teenage Icelandic girls. When she goes to school in America however, she learns that Americans are not in fact different from her own countrymen. The author also makes reference to the lack of a perimeter in modern electronic communication, which can indeed be seen to define much of modern world culture: everyone has access to American radio and television broadcasts. It is within such regions of ambiguity that the author / narrator does indeed find solace. Outside of boundaries she defines herself, free of self-judgement and free of judgement by the Other. It is for this reason that she likes sailing, where she is between boundaries and can feel “entirely at home (Gunnars, 134) as “the text is relieved that there are no borders” (Gunnars, 164).
There are certain limitations placed upon such a lack of ‘natural’ borders however, as it is human nature to delineate the natural world for political and economic reasons. Consequently, those Icelanders who did in fact listen to American radio were accused of betrayal: “Rolls of invisible barbed wire circled the American as across the airwaves” (Gunnars, 71). Additionally, while the narrator herself is above all ethnic classification and is able to function among all the various groups at school, nevertheless there were many who had been rigidly inscribed within a set class definition. These socially described exactitudes can be seen to emerge quite directly from Iceland’s status as an occupied country. Following Bhabha’s discourse of mimicry, it could be argued that the Icelanders’ adapting of class distinctions is a mimicry of the authority imposed upon them by their quasi-imperial occupiers. In other words, the occupying peoples – such as the Danes – attempt to recreate the stratified conditions in their home country, and in doing so they cause the Icelanders to internalize colonial authority and displace their own identity. Gunnars makes the resultant alienation quite apparent when she speaks of their culinary habits, which are different from those of other peoples because of necessity: “we are the white Inuit. We eat fish. And in summers we graze like sheep among the mountain grasses” (Gunnars, 7) because Iceland “was a country where people died of starvation” (Gunnars, 39). The reader is brought to sympathize with these white Inuit not because of the relatively poor food selection, but rather due to the estrangement and self-effacement that results from their cultural differences. A more obviously colonial alienation occurs as a result of the extensive leprosy found in Iceland, lepers which had been expelled to Iceland by other countries because “they did not think the people on this remote island counted” (Gunnars, 41). Gunnars is implicitly asking why it is that Iceland is not to be respected, and why it has little respect for itself. According to Bhabha such is the nature of colonial discourse, as the authority of the occupying nation – signified by its denigration of Iceland – is mimicked by the colonized. Gunnars herself predates Bhabha’s work, yet she does signal his ideology; another interpretation of “The answer is also contained in the question” is the mimicry of colonial discourse.

        The author / narrator’s self-doubt can also be explained in terms of post-colonial theory. It is the desire of the colonizer to define the colonized; they are the Self which defines the Other. When she doubts the authenticity of her text – “I do not feel clever. If I laugh at myself, it is because I have nothing to say and I am full of love. Because nothing I say says anything. There will be mere words.” (Gunnars, 4) – it is precisely because she questions her right to assume for herself a voice. Much like her relationship with her parents – Iceland “was not a country where children spoke to adults. Only the adults spoke to the children” (Gunnars, 10) – the narrator struggles to claim for herself a discourse within the colonial system. Obliquely referring to Said’s Orientalism, the narrator presupposes the authority of imperialist texts when she describes Malraux’s text on the Chinese Revolution as “something worth writing ... a true story” (Gunnars, 86). Her own text is something to be doubted: “it is not writing. Not poetry, not prose. I am not a writer” (Gunnars, 1). The voice that does emerge however is not expressed in her own Icelandic language as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o suggests is necessary, ostensibly because she has internalized so many languages as her own. She even forwards the notion that language is not the defining characteristic of an individual, that “there can be nothing extraordinary ... in a language” (Gunnars, 5). Iceland itself remains under colonial authority and does not express itself in any meaningful cultural way: there are, for example, “no Icelandic dances” (Gunnars, 44). But ultimately the text is given life by the author / narrator, it does stand independent as a worthy story.

       Indeed, by claiming the text for herself – not as a story or a poem, but just as a means of expression – Gunnars not only escapes from the trap of a post-colonial mentality of silence, but also from the trap of a masculine ideology which similarly imposes a silence upon her. It the “relief just to be writing” (Gunnars, 3) that confirms her independence. The very act of writing itself rejects patriarchy, for “writing ... contain[s] a note of defiance. To confront its opposite, to stare it down” (Gunnars, 105). This rejection of masculine-imposed silence is completely within the ideologies of Helen Cixous, who explicitly calls for women to write. The traditional masculine views of women, that they are far too influenced by their emotions to have meaningful discourse, must be rejected if women are allowed to speak. Gunnars posits that it is not emotion itself which impedes discourse, but rather it is “conflicting emotions [which] are silencing” (Gunnars, 36). Certainly she had internalized masculine oppression, of not owning her own identity as her name was not her own but belonged to a man: “I was certain I was my father’s property” (Gunnars, 94). This identity is quickly rejected however as she continues to write and identify with the text. From one author emerges two voices, one which remains repressed by a patriarchal society and another which merely intends to write in her own voice. The latter censors the intended writing of the former, it is the other author, “behind the official author, who censors the official text as it appears. The other author writes: that is not what you intended to say. I think of a book which has left in the censor’s words.”
(Gunnars, 63).

       This multiplicity of expression again finds a correlation in the ideologies of Cixous. Women must acknowledge their bodies in their writing, as indeed this is the basis for expression for both genders. Consequently female writing will be informed by the multiplicity of their sexual experience; no single approach will suffice, but instead the multi-orgasmic, multi-sensuous woman will speak with multiple voices. Certainly Gunnars makes several references to the importance of the female body to her expression: the anorexia experienced by the narrator’s sister is directly associated with her silence. More importantly however, the very structure of the text is informed by Cixous’s ideology of multiplicity. It does not have a linear focus, but instead approaches the narrative and thematic strands in a variety of ways; the ending itself is self-described as arbitrary. Neither time nor the narrative are contiguous, but are broken up and placed seemingly randomly in the text, picked up at certain moments and subsequently dropped until late. The structure of the text is not a ‘rising action leading to climax followed by denouement’, but rather “an unfolding of layers” (Gunnars, 25). Conversely, male authors need a distinct purpose which is to be followed directly and linearly: “The male line. The masculine story. That men have to be going somewhere. Men are always shooting something somewhere” (Gunnars, 25). Accordingly, the novels written by Icelandic men have a particular motive, which was to slander women accused of having American lovers. Such works have one centre which is pursued. Alternately, The Prowler is an attempt “to watch the egg hatch” (Gunnars, 28); it has no specific centre but is composed, like the jigsaw puzzle that the narrator and the prowler collaborate on, of numerous centres. While in her text “there are figurative prowlers looking for something” (Gunnars, 110), Gunnars-as-prowler has already found the numerous centres with which she has constructed her identity.

        Certainly when one has been informed by some measure of critical theory The Prowler aids in its own interpretation. Gunnars does not bury the Althusserian problematic of the text too deeply, but rather seems to delight in periodically exposing it for critique. Indeed, such is perhaps her point, as it conforms with the theme of the text. The Prowler is a meditation upon the gradual cognizance of self-identity, an identity which emerges in multiple fashions. Gunnar’s Self is not informed and defined by any single Other, but rather it is a centre for numerous Others. Consequently, identity could be extended to represent the transitional area between an almost infinite number of centre-periphery relationships. By the end of the text, Gunnars suggests that it takes a long time to come to this necessary realization.



Bibliography

Althusser, L. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”, Modern Critical Theory. Ed. D. Coleman. Hamilton, Canada: McMaster University Bookstore, 1998.

Bakhtin, M. “ From Discourse in the Novel”, Modern Critical Theory. Ed. D. Coleman. Hamilton, Canada: McMaster University Bookstore, 1998.

Bhabha, H.K. “Of Mimicry and Man; The Ambivilance of Colonial Discourse”, Modern
Critical Theory. Ed. D. Coleman. Hamilton, Canada: McMaster University Bookstore, 1998.

Cixous, H. “The Laugh of the Medusa”, Modern Critical Theory. Ed. D. Coleman. Hamilton, Canada: McMaster University Bookstore, 1998.

Derrida, J. “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”, Modern
Critical Theory. Ed. D. Coleman. Hamilton, Canada: McMaster University Bookstore, 1998.

De Saussure, F. “The Object of Study”, Modern Critical Theory. Ed. D. Coleman. Hamilton, Canada: McMaster University Bookstore, 1998.

Foucault, M. “From the History of Sexuality”, Modern Critical Theory. Ed. D. Coleman. Hamilton, Canada: McMaster University Bookstore, 1998.

Gunnars, Kristjana. The Prowler. Red Deer, Canada: Red Deer College Press, 1996.

Lacan, J. “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason since Freud”, Modern
Critical Theory. Ed. D. Coleman. Hamilton, Canada: McMaster University Bookstore, 1998.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o. “The Language of African Literature”, Modern Critical Theory.
Ed. D. Coleman. Hamilton, Canada: McMaster University Bookstore, 1998.

Said, E. “From the Introdustion to “Orientalism”“, Modern Critical Theory. Ed. D. Coleman. Hamilton, Canada: McMaster University Bookstore, 1998.

Wednesday, April 07, 1999

War and Peace / Cassandra and Disneyland

It can be successfully argued that literature had its thematic foundation in the depiction of warfare. Certainly the vast majority of ancient oral culture, which has subsequently been preserved in such influential ballads and verse works such as The Iliad and The Song of Roland, centred upon the heroic exploits of warrior-men. Perhaps it could be argued that pre-modern cultures required the stories of such noble fighters as antithetical to their own routine-governed and impoverished existence; more plausibly, hero worship was a form of life affirmation. The myth of the hero allowed a culture to assert its authenticity in face of opposition from other societies. Myths will never exceed that function, they are neither representative of any ‘truth’, nor can they can not approximate reality. The twentieth century has proven itself to be the destroyer of old mythologies. War does not produce heroes, in fact in very few instances is it creative. This fact was true of ancient warfare, where any real instances of heroic behaviour were greatly overshadowed by mythological exaggeration. Few heroic myths emerged from twentieth century warfare however, where individual valour was defeated by mechanized means of slaughter. Modern writers who depict war consequently inform their narratives with the knowledge that the atrocities of war overwhelm heroism. Christa Wolf’s re-interpretation of the Trojan siege perfectly exemplifies such modern conventions. Faced with the near extermination of her people, Cassandra addresses the metaphysical aspects of war: who is the enemy? and why is war necessary? It is the first question which seems to be the prime substance of the text, as Cassandra questions the rigidity of the defined binaries of us-and-them. Indeed, it becomes readily apparent that there is no true distinction, as the Other of enemy exists within and its essence is assumed. The appropriation of the Other is made even more clear in Barbara Gowdy’s Disneyland, which depicts the source of Cold War hostilities as most fundamentally domestic in nature. Underlying each of the texts is the feeling of female helplessness caused by the despotic rule of a patriarchal society. Furthermore, both texts share a similar ideology about warfare, and one which has almost become cliché in the nuclear age. It is not the Other which is the true enemy, but warfare itself.

Cassandra is unique among literary characters involved in warfare in that she can foresee the outcome of the conflict. This gift of prophecy allows her to ignore the routine concerns of surviving a siege – such specifics remain irrelevant when one knows one’s fated destruction – and instead philosophize about the Trojan war, and indeed of the ontological essence of warfare in general. The details concerning the origins of the war are outlined: as with all wars the siege at Troy began due to political and economic contestations, obscured with the guise of a dispute over Helen. Cassandra makes it clear that such origins become unimportant in war, they first become mythologised to justify hostilities, then ultimately forgotten as the fighting persists year after year. Mythologised origins of war can in fact be used by rulers to consolidate their power; in their own narratives they are the only leaders who can defeat the enemy. Priam had done this by making himself the “almighty king” (Cassandra, p. 65) who stood against the Greeks, and similarly when he had his dream interpreted by Panthous to support the war effort. The factual origins at the base of such mythologisation quickly disappear however, to be replaced solely by illusion. At Troy, Helen became the means by which the Trojan soldiers could be “raised ... beyond themselves” (p. 68) to fully believe in the ambitions of the conflict. Notably, Helen-as-woman became the symbol for Trojan pride in the war, for as Anchises stated she represented a more noble ideal to which they could aspire than the earthly vices of political and economic greed. Ultimately however, every reason for going to war was rejected as battle continued over the course of a decade. While they had once idolized her as an emblem of nationalistic ambition, the soldiers began to hate Helen, just as the Greeks began to hate Menelaus because his wife had been taken from him. In their desperation the Trojan war council misguidedly turned to the glorification of living heroes over respecting dead ones in an attempt to maintain the discipline and morale of the army. Cassandra notes the fallacy of such a belief, a lie which will in fact shatter the unity of the Trojans: “But don’t you see how much more dangerous it is to agitate the foundations of our unity carelessly!” (p. 101). It was the desire for glory and honour which allowed the Trojans to be led into war despite Cassandra’s advancing of several possible solutions: “If you can stop being victorious, this your city will endure” (p. 116). She can not understand that Troy would destroy itself to maintain its honour, yet she remains powerless to act against the stubbornness of the Trojans. In this context can be understood the tragedy of her curse as a prophet ignored by her people.

When she recognizes the inevitability that Troy will indeed fall, Cassandra begins to question the distinctions between her people and the Greeks. Initially, people in times of war define themselves quite rigidly as either friendly or enemy – the binary of us-and-them. In this manner it is quite easy to determine right from wrong: right is all actions taken by us, wrong is all of those taken by them. There can not be any deviation from such rigid moralistic boundaries. At Troy therefore, the ruling of the war council is not only completely right, but also wholly just and virtuous. Priam makes this fact quite clear to Cassandra: “Anyone who does not side with us now is working against us” (p. 70). Cassandra is quick to challenge these boundaries, however, as she recognizes that warfare frequently provides for the most demonstrable instances of the deconstructivist ideology of a Self and an Other. Such a theoretical model is of course never explicitly remarked upon by Cassandra, yet it remains tacit in her meditations. The Self needs the Other for its very definition, as “man cannot see himself, ... he needs the alien image” (p. 124). Consequently each assumes the essence of the other and the boundary between definitions is ambiguous. In terms of national conflict, countries use the existence of enemy nations to define and unite their people. Frequently however, the very connotations applied to the enemy are self-reflexive. In order to justify hostilities, the enemy is referred to in slanderous terms – “mental armament consisted in defamation of the enemy” (p. 63) – and indeed these nominations are interchangeable and adaptable as defined enemies fluctuate: the murderous Greeks, the cruel Spartans, and for a much later generation the vicious Russians and inhuman Germans. Adjectives such as these are largely arbitrary and can change with shifting political or economic ambitions. “Guest-friends” (p. 55) can degrade to “friend” and finally to enemy with little trouble. Examples are subsequently given as proof of the blood-thirst and wickedness of the enemy. The Greeks are murderous and treacherous, evidenced by Achilles brutality on the battlefield, and indeed deception and wiliness become their particular characteristic as personified in Odysseus. Cassandra herself does not believe in such simple denotations, but instead comes to understand that the Trojans have assumed the characteristics of their enemy. She notices that the Greeks do not differ from her own people first when she was able to converse with captive Greeks, later when she was allowed into their ranks and was allowed to observe them more intimately, and finally when she is herself held captive by the Greeks. They were not barbarous; many like Odysseus did not in fact want to go to war. Such knowledge liberates Cassandra from the propaganda sermonized by the war council: “We were supposed to smite the enemy, not to know him! ... They are like us!” (p. 13). For this reason, deserters and spies like Calchas are more even hated than enemy soldiers, as they are a painful reminder that the Self identifies quite intimately with the Other.

The actions of the war council frequently confirm the ambiguity of enemy and friend to Cassandra. To win the war they will use any means, including the trade of their women for specific gains. Polyxena is used as a lure to expose Achilles to an ambush; later Cassandra is sold to a war chief in exchange for soldiers. Polyxena herself illustrates the fact that the process of identifying with the enemy is also a process of becoming a victim, the Other defeated by the Self. At this point in the text Cassandra realizes that in fact the Trojans were guilty of the same barbarity of which they charged the Greek army. Indeed, after her return from the Greek camp – where she was treated with a greater dignity and civility than at Troy – Cassandra notes that it is the ignorance of the Trojans that allows them to become so violent and assume the enemy’s characteristics. Eumelos’s tyrannical suppression of Trojan liberties in defence of the city perfectly exemplifies the hypocrisy of the war council, where “the duty to kill [their] worst enemy, ate up the right” (p. 127). It was believed that the survival of their city was more important than truth or liberty, and that in such desperate times “everything that would apply in peace was rescinded” (p. 84). Eumelos subjected Troy to a strict regulation which forced them to literally assume the role of enemy captive under Trojan martial law. Cassandra viewed Eumelos’s totalitarianism as far more barbaric than captivity among the Greeks, where she believed that she was “free to express [herself]” (p. 116). The Self and the Other, the us-and-them, are in fact one and the same; the basic fallacy of warfare is that this truth is rejected. Cassandra attempts to end the war by persuading Priam to accept this truth; her tragedy is that no one will listen to her. It is not merely the curse imparted on her by Apollo that causes the Trojans to ignore her pleas for revealing this truth. One of the most difficult aspects of human existence is the recognition that evil is within, and not a distinct and antagonistic enemy that can be defeated. Troy itself falls because this fact is never recognized by either its leaders or its people.

The Cold War of the twentieth century adequately illustrates the rejection – or in psychoanalytical terms, the projection – of evil in the Self, which is then externalized in the Other. The Western world identified itself as the harbinger of a peaceful and justly democratic world in opposition to the communist aggression of the eastern Soviet bloc. The Communists led by Russia were identified as barbarous tyrants who repressed their populations and sought to extend their rule throughout the world. Against such expansion, the west had to contain communism by extending the justice of democracy. Certainly the latent hypocrisy of such a conflict, and its existence as a mutually dependant binary relationship, does not elude modern authors. Barbary Gowdy’s Disneyland demonstrates the mutuality of Soviet-North American relations during the Cold War. The bomb shelter built by the father is a convention of North American fears of Soviet induced nuclear war which itself assumes aspects of the enemy. Most obviously, it is run in the same manner as a Soviet commune. The necessities of life are distributed by a ruling elite, which in this instance is the father. Just like communism itself, the communistic ideals of the bomb shelter attempt to provide a precisely organized society which allows for the highest possible quality of life. These ideals were quickly destroyed in both cases when the ruling elite began to retain possession of needed goods such as food, or alternately by mismanagement of the resources available. In Gowdy’s text this destruction of the ideal occurs when the father miscalculates the amount of water required to sustain his family in the shelter for fourteen days. Rationing becomes ever more strict as the water supplies continue to dwindle. The failure of such a logistical ideal is indeed the essence of Gowdy’s implicit criticism of the Cold War mentality. The bomb shelter itself is an unattainable ideal, as in the event of an actual nuclear bombardment it would not protect its inhabitants. The items brought into the shelter are equally useless: a shovel would not be an adequate means of digging through any fallen buildings which may bury the shelter, nor would a bow and arrow be of use as any game that could be hunted would have been killed in the bombing.

Much like Eumelos in Cassandra, the shelter becomes the means of self oppression and victimization in defence against the Other. The girls themselves quite literally become victims encased within the tomb-like bomb shelter. Their father quickly becomes the means by which such victimization is actualized, as it is within his character that the internalization of the Other is most apparent. A state of war continually exists within him: “We’ll be living as if the bomb’s dropped ... there’s radiation up there” (Disneyland, pp. 55-6). Indeed, within this context can be asked the same question that Cassandra had not resolved, namely “You can tell when a war starts, but when does the prewar start?” (Cassandra, p. 66). The Other is readily dehumanized to justify its status as enemy; enemy peoples are not represented as complex characterizations but as cut-out surface characteristics. Non-whites and non-North Americans become objects of derision, and in this way it is believed that they lose their power of influence over the Self. Accordingly, the father believes that he is disarming Russians and Negroes by laughing at them: “You’re a sap, Mister Jap” (pp. 58-9). Very early in the text the father has assumed in himself the Cold War stereotypes of Soviet repression, and indeed for this reason himself becomes an object of ridicule. He treats his family as they were a military regiment, drilling them in proper air-raid defence. Indeed, the itinerary that the family is to follow, called The Regime by the girls, is as strictly organized as that of a military barrack. When they function well within this structure, their father praises them for acting like “a smooth-running machine, ... a crack squad, ... troopers” (Disneyland, p. 65). The structure can not adequately operate for long however, as it is far too repressive of individuality, and arguably of human nature itself. To retain its authority it begins to suspect its populace of treason and acting against its interests. Consequently, the father begins to suspect his daughters of scheming against his exertions, of “undermin[ing] the whole exercise” (p. 69). His suspicions were of course justified, as the girls were indeed endeavouring to escape from the repressive authority of the shelter. In this manner the system itself justifies repression while precipitating resistence among its subjects. The Self becomes violently suppressive, and consequently the father lashes out at Lou for intimating his weakness during a game of Scrabble. Despite the common Cold War belief that Communism was the primary corrupting influence of the human race, especially on young and impressionable minds, it is in fact the father himself who corrupts his children. He allows them to be sedated with alcohol, and is himself far too drunk to function as a parent. By the end of the text the father had fully internalized the Cold War stereotypes of the Other. Despite exiting from the bomb shelter to return to “home, sweet home”, he remains in a state of war: “his eyes were triumphant, crazy, miserable” (p. 72). Victory is defeat as the Self represses itself to defeat the Other. One can only infer the nature of the torment that he could still inflict on his family after this experience.

It must be emphasized that both Cassandra and Disneyland are just texts themselves, and are not wholly above the mythology they present. While they both can contribute to a preference for an anti-war mentality, arguably there has been no greater motivator for peace-research than the creation and deployment of nuclear weapons. The sheer power of these devices – strong enough in fact to destroy entire cities – forced a majority of people in the latter twentieth century to re-evaluate their notions of armed conflict. No longer could war be justified as a battle between the good-of-us and the evil-of-them. This century has proven that there are no limits to human cruelty, and also that the “evil” which allows such cruelty exists in all humans. The enemy no longer was a separate entity to be defeated, it was no longer Achilles deployed by the Greeks or the hydrogen bomb deployed by the Russians. The Trojans proved that they were just as capable of slaughtering the Greeks as Achilles, just as North Americans during the Cold War could have deployed their own hydrogen bombs. The danger inherent in warfare, especially when it is based on a conflict of moralities, is that in attempting to defeat the enemy one becomes the enemy. Once the Self acknowledges the presence of and a mutuality with the Other, only two options are available: peace or self-destruction.

Bibliography

Gowdy, Barbara. Disneyland. Falling Angels. Toronto: Somerville House, 1989.

Wolf, Christa. Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays. New York: The Noonday Press, 1996.

Monday, March 29, 1999

I Am An Other: Existentialism and the Discourse of the Other in Ingmar Bergman's Persona

There can be no denying that films categorized as ‘art cinema’ can to a great extent remain obtuse to most viewers. Those who limit themselves to the traditional narrative-based films of commercial cinema usually find the demands of art cinema to be far too great for either their understanding or enjoyment. It is in fact the demands of the genre that ultimately provide the most pleasure and stimulation for the intelligent critic. Decoding art cinema cannot be accomplished without the proper theoretical tools, however, as some form of critical theory – be it psychoanalysis, semiotics, or Marxist thought – should inform the analysis. Ingmar Bergman’s Persona very definitely exemplifies this conception of art cinema. Upon first screening the film, many viewers will remain undoubtedly confused as to the purpose and meaning of the film. Certainly, an easy understanding of Persona is hindered by Bergman’s use of unorthodox stylistic devices at several points in the film, notably during the opening and middle sequences. Several theoretical models for analysing the film allow the critic points of access to its meaning. While a psychoanalytical approach might initially seem obvious, a deconstructionist / existentialist analysis seems more fitting with the tone of the film. The philosophical backdrop of the film is most obviously existentialist in nature. Realization of the absurdity of life informs the actions of both protagonists; Elizabeth is the first to realize this, although by the middle of the film Alma has acknowledged it as well. The relationship between the two can be most easily understood in terms of the Derrida-Buber discourse of the Other. They are defined by each other and are therefore dependent on each other for identity. When each realizes this interdependency, not long into Persona, the Other loses its rigid boundaries and they become in effect one personality.

The title of the film itself refers to this concept of ‘slippery personality’, and indeed extends to signify the existential undertones of the entire picture. ‘Persona’ can be understood by the various Latin meanings for the word: personality, character, part in a play. Certainly Persona is an observation of, and even an extended meditation on, the two personalities of the protagonists. The camera lingers on their features, both physical and behavioural, and indeed the viewer is directed into an intimate relationship with them. Additionally, in several instances the characters recognize themselves as characters within the film, acknowledging the camera either verbally, as when Alma converses with an off-screen woman almost as though she were being interviewed by the camera / viewer, or visually, occurring most often when one of the characters stares straight at the camera and out toward the viewer. Such stylistic devices are not foreign to art cinema, and indeed self-recognition by films can be seen as part of the definition of the genre. A more significant and appropriate interpretation can be made using alternate meanings for ‘persona’ however. The term can also signify a mask, a fallacy, or a pretense, and in these contexts a deeper insight into the motivations of the characters is gained. By realizing that their personalities are masks and fallacies, and consequently that their lives are not in fact “real”, they begin to understand the ultimately absurd nature of existence. Elizabeth is the first to perceive the situation of her ridiculous existence, and indeed this consciousness is the catalyst for the narrative. During a stage performance she ceases speaking and turns away from the audience; thereafter she ceases to speak altogether. She turns away from all of these assumed personas, and this act is Elizabeth’s attempt at rejecting the falsity of modern existence. Her role in the play is no more or less real than any of the roles she enacts in her personal life; each is equally a mask. Consequently, her escape from domestic life – demonstrated most obviously when she destroys the picture of her son – can be explained as another false identity which must be abandoned.

Furthermore, the chaos and arbitrariness of life as internalized and rejected by Elizabeth are confirmed in several sequences. She is horrified by the Vietnamese scenes of war and the self-immolation of the Buddhist monk that she watches on television, and equally so by the photograph of Jewish persecution under the Nazis. A disbelief in a divine power is never blatantly expressed in Persona, yet such confrontations with reality-as-suffering confirm for Elizabeth the Nietzschian and existentialist maxim of “God is dead”. There is no ultimate truth around which Elizabeth can structure her life, there remain only the personality masks that she once assumed and now rejects. Her artistic life no longer represents anything of reality, as any harmony and order that it champions does not exist in such an arbitrarily violent and chaotic world, as depicted in the scenes from war. She can no longer function by taking on her personas, so consequently she rejects her artistic life and adopts what she believes as a ‘more real’ truth – that of non-functioning, or at least not displaying any vocal communication, the most obvious outward trapping of falsity. Alma similarly comes to realize the artifice of her own personality, most evidently when she relates her involvement in an orgy with another woman and two young boys. Furthermore, her relationship with her fiancé Karl-Henrik is ostentatiously a farce, a social convention to which she must adhere. Elizabeth more dramatically evidences her ‘existentialist’ convictions however, as she frequently rejects the pretense of truth that others have internalized. Early in the film she laughs at a radio broadcast, scoffing at the truths of love, mercy, and forgiveness which it attempts to convey. Ultimately she rejects Alma herself as an actor and a fiction: in her letter to the doctor she states that she enjoys observing Alma’s behaviours, which seem to her almost as a play. In a meaningless world, personas themselves are ultimately meaningless. The absence of God is not stressed in existentialist thought, nor in fact in the film itself, but rather it is the presence of the absence of God that exists. The characters, and especially Elizabeth feel this presence-of-absence quite viscerally; without God there is only the meaningless of an absurd existence. Bergman makes this quite obvious early in the film, when he displays scenes of barren, rocky coastlines while Alma reads from a book: “All the anxiety we carry with us – our blighted dreams, the inexplicable cruelty our anguish at the thought of death, the painful realization of our earthly state – have slowly crystalized our hope of salvation. The cries of our faith and doubt are one of the most terrible proofs of our desolation”. Throughout the film Bergman uses scenes of barren rocks to emphasize personal isolation within an existentialist world. At this point in the film however, only Elizabeth can agree with this statement; Alma remains unconvinced.

Insight into the relationship between the two women can be gained through the application of the discourse of the Other. Described by Derrida, Foucault, and other deconstruction philosophers, an entity is defined by its relation to the entities that it excludes, which become for it a symbolic Other. Despite using the Other as a means of differentiation, an object can not be defined without the existence of the other. Consequently both entities contain elements of the Other within themselves; the definition is both exclusionary and inclusionary. Both Alma and Elizabeth define themselves in relation to each other in this ontological manner. They are initially quite distinct from each other, and play explicit roles: Alma as Nurse and Elizabeth as Patient. Yet as Foucault elucidates, this specified power relationship is not exterior to the means of its own disintegration. By performing her authoritative role as nurse, Alma will cure Elizabeth of her status as patient and consequently disarm her own authority. The realization of this fact comes relatively swiftly to Alma, who soon blurs the distinctions of her authority and furthermore of her personality. During their initial meeting Alma remains methodic and distant, engaging with Elizabeth very formally. She introduces herself in a scientific manner, casually listing off her characteristics: name, marital status, and so forth. This clinical approach does not allow any true communication between the two however.

A greater intimacy is required, a familiarity which becomes manifest as the two women (unconsciously) realize themselves as the Other. Their intimate relationship is in fact an awareness of the importance of the Other and its consequent internalization. Alma initiates the process when she herself becomes patient to Elizabeth, relating her own problems and traumas. They begin to act and look alike: both humming while picking mushrooms; both wearing similar clothes, as Alma adopts Elizabeth’s black attire and smoking habit; Elizabeth becoming the “good listener” that Alma thinks she herself is. Perhaps the most vivid example of the unification of persona through the internalization of the Other occurs when Alma confronts Elizabeth about the rejection of her son. Bergman repeats this scene twice, in the first sequence focussing on Elizabeth’s face as she silently expresses her guilt for spurning the love of her son. Then the sequence is repeated, as Bergman confines the camera to Alma as she speaks. In the second sequence Alma seems to be alluding to her own life and its failed enactment of motherhood when she aborted a child. At several instances elsewhere, Alma implicitly challenges the distinction of their characters: “Can you be one and the same person? I mean... be two people?”, and “I looked into the mirror and thought, why we look alike ... I could change myself into you ... I mean inside ... You could change into me”. They seem to share personalities, or more accurately, share one dominant personality. Bergman himself noted this fact: “There’s something extremely fascinating to me about these people exchanging masks and suddenly sharing one between them.” His choice of framing his subjects strengthens this unification of character, as in several scenes their figures seem to merge into one form. Indeed the director had made their coupled personas clear long before, in the opening sequence and before the actual introduction of either character: in the sequence a youth reaches out toward their projected faces, which alternate and blend together. An extension of this relationship model can be forwarded using the theories of Martin Buber, who defines relationships in terms of the subjective (I-thou) and objective (I-it). The relationship between Alma and Elizabeth begins objectively with both characters acting strictly within their ordained roles. It quickly becomes subjective, at which point the two women “exchang[e] masks and ... [share] one between them”.

More correctly however, if several ambiguous sequences during the second half of Persona can be interpreted as dream-sequences, which is highly likely, it is in fact only Alma who truly internalizes the relationship as I-thou. She begins to incorporate Elizabeth into a fantasy relationship which for Elizabeth remains largely subjective. During one of these dreams, Elizabeth comes into her room at night and they embrace. Despite Elizabeth’s repeated denial that it occurred, this event becomes internalized in Alma as a symbol of the subjectivity of their relationship. Several times thereafter she refers (and simultaneously does Bergman) to this caress. As has been mentioned above, Elizabeth ultimately rejects Alma desire for an I-thou relationship as she began to view Alma herself as a pretense and an actor. This fact becomes apparent, to both the viewer and to Alma, when Alma reads Elizabeth’s letter to her psychiatrist. It is the failure of this intimate relationship which both enrages and anguishes Alma; her desperation is quite palpable when she asks Elizabeth, “Must it be like this?”. It is also at this point that she acknowledges the ontological meaning in the artifice and apparent meaningless of their relationship. After Alma says to Elizabeth, “You don’t need me anymore”, she comments that this statement sounds false; indeed, Alma seems to imply that in a chaotic and meaningless world the concept of “need” itself becomes largely irrelevant. She sets a quasi-trap for Elizabeth, not warning her of the broken glass on the back lawn. When Alma sees Elizabeth’s face upon cutting her foot – an expression establishing Elizabeth’s knowledge of Alma’s intentions – the film stock itself literally disintegrates. There have been numerous critical explanations for Bergman’s effect, yet perhaps the most obviously symbolic is also the most applicable. The film stock disintegrates at the moment when the relationship between Alma and Elizabeth has reverted from a subjective I-thou to an objective I-it. Thereafter their conversation loses its intimacy, first becoming idle talk and then quickly escalating into angry discourse. Alma begins to violently force Elizabeth to speak, which she had not previously attempted. Their confrontations escalate until Elizabeth is compelled to cry out when Alma threatens her with a pot of boiling water. After these instances of violent conflict, Alma appeals to Elizabeth to re-establish their I-thou relationship. This endeavour remains a failure, yet Alma begins to fantasize about a return to intimacy, and indeed these fantasies become effectual on her persona by the end of the film. The (dream) sequence involving Elizabeth’s husband demonstrates Alma’s continuing internalization of Elizabeth-as-Other. She claims Elizabeth’s position quite vividly as lover and as husband, even to the extreme of assuming her role as mother and accepting the child that Elizabeth had rejected.

Despite the deterioration of their relationship into the objective I-it, their previous I-thou relationship continues to inform their personas. By the end of the film each has come to realize Elizabeth’s initial precept of the falsity of role-playing personalities. Alma recognizes that her appropriation of Elizabeth’s character is a pretense, and finding shame in this appropriation she rejects the dream as “nothing but lies and cheating”. Elizabeth comes to the realization that her silence and rejection of false personas is itself a persona. Her psychiatrist had in fact made this quite clear early in the film:

you can refuse to move. Refuse to talk so that you don’t have to lie. You can
shut yourself in. Then you needn’t play any parts or make wrong gestures. Or
so you thought. ... No one asks if it’s true or false, if you’re genuine or just a
sham. Such things matter only in the theatre, and barely there either. I understand
why you don’t speak, why you don’t move, why you’ve created a part for yourself
out of apathy. ... You should go on with this part until it is played out, until it
loses interest for you. Then you can leave it, just as you’ve left your other parts
one by one.

The ending to the film is quite sudden, yet it is not unsatisfactory. Both women resume their previous roles, they can in fact embrace their existence within these roles informed by their experiences with each (O)ther. Through their relationship they have come to re-assume their individual and separate personas. Elizabeth fixes the torn picture of her son and returns to acting; likewise, Alma again dons her nurse uniform. They share one truth that lets them return to functionality, a truth which is spoken by both Alma and Elizabeth: “nothing”. Indeed this word is the first utterance that can be positively ascribed to Elizabeth. “Nothing” is of course an ambiguous answer, yet most likely refers to the aforementioned existentialist maxim of “God is dead”. Bergman further obscures the meaning of the ending by showing the boy from the opening sequence reaching out towards the empty space which previously pictured the face of Alma / Elizabeth. The viewer is left to ponder whether the director intended this scene to counter the ‘narrative’ ending, implying that the reintegration of Alma and Elizabeth into their distinct personas by means of “nothing” is itself a false role.

Bergman chose a difficult subject to portray in Persona, yet the relative simplicity of the plot may confuse viewers not well informed by critical theory. It may well be argued however that most art films such as Persona were never intended for general consumption, but instead for critical study. Indeed, such elitist limitations are unavoidable, as critical discourse is itself largely the discourse of the intellectual elite. Persona can be enjoyed for more than ideological reasons, however, as it does present a fascinating and sensuous relationship between two women who themselves have thoughts and opinions. Any even moderately intelligent individual could not avoid the pleasure of voyeurism in this context.

Bibliography

Cowie, Peter. Ingmar Bergman: A critical biography. London: Secker & Warburg, 1982.

Livingston, Paisley. Ingmar Bergman and the Rituals of Art. London: Cornell University
Press, 1982.

Manns, Torsten, and Stig Björkman and Jonas Sima. Bergman on Bergman. Trans. Paul
Britten Austin. London: Secker & Warburg, 1973.