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.