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.
Friday, April 09, 1999
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.
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.
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.
Friday, March 26, 1999
Rrrrromanticism: A No-Act Play
Dramatis Personae
Apuleius, a Romantic.
Lord D–, another Romantic. They might be lovers.
William De G–, who knows? Apparently a third Romantic, but that mysterious cape covers much of his identity.
Randomly Created Just For the Sake of an Ending and Therefore Ultimately Pointless Musician, a musician.
Various Musicians, filler roles for bad actors between food service jobs.
SCENE 1
On top of a hill, early morning. Birds sing from a tree, a dog rests at the base. Apuleius sits opposite, writing in a folio. From the other side of the hill Lord D– enters carrying a cane.
LORD D: You have picked a very beautiful tree under which to write. What are you composing?
APULEIUS: Words, words, words.
LORD D: You know, I think that’s been done before. Your readers would appreciate something a little more original. You do have to think about them, you know.
APULEIUS: I’m not going to worry about them now. I don’t care what they think. What the hell do they know anyway? I’m the artist, not them. If they were so smart, they would be the ones publishing.
LORD D: True enough, vicious rabble. You know, my last book only made it into its seventeenth edition.
APULEIUS: They didn’t understand you. My Notes From Salisbury was stopped after its twelfth. But I think this one here is genius. I’m reflecting on the hedgerows – natural barriers, they are!
LORD D: Nice premise.
APULEIUS: It is impossible that this one is going to fail with the publisher.
LORD D: Your father didn’t particularly like your last book, Ode to Childhood. Except for the scene where he and you were boxing in the servants’ quarters.
APULEIUS: Well, he is the person who made me deaf in one ear. And anyway, I hardly touched the girl.
LORD D: She did produce a child for you. By and by, where is he now?
APULEIUS: Last I heard he had gone to join a war or something. Byron took many of my household with him the day he came by the manor.
LORD D: That bastard was a born leader. His pilgrimage took four of my servants with him as well. (Feeling around, he leans against the tree and listens) So, do you not hear the glorious song coming from this tree?
APULEIUS: Aye I do, but it sounds faint. When I look to my left at the sunset, I can hear it. When the sun is out of view, there is no song. The faintness of the song does allow me a more unique inspiration does it not?
LORD D: ‘Tis a shame, the birds in this tree are magnificent.
APULEIUS: There is only one bird in the tree.
LORD D: Nay, three. The others are to your right.
APULEIUS: (Looking up into the tree) Damn it all! That decimates my aesthetics after the third verse! (Scratching out the remaining verses)
LORD D: So much for inspiration.
APULEIUS: Don’t you talk to me of inspiration! I seem to remember during one of your trips to Prussia that you got lost in the forest for three days chasing a butterfly.
LORD D: It had the most beautiful of patterns on its wings. Reminded me of the mists of Avalon.
APULEIUS: There never was an Avalon.
LORD D: Herectic!
APULEIUS: You were still lost in Mallory and de Troyers, I think. And what the hell do you know anyhow? You are as blind as a fucking mole at the best of times.
LORD D: Well yes, but I could feel the creature’s beauty. Some things go beyond the sense.
APULEIUS: True enough. Weren’t you receiving a spiritual aid, however?
LORD D: Actually, I did have a copious amount of mushrooms in my belly. I think that it was Percy’s hashish that really helped me to navigate the forest.
APULEIUS: I find that my soul is best served when I have my Virgil beside me. One time after I read about the underworld, I went out into my garden and saw spirits in my perennials. My creative potency returned to full strength after staring at one of my roses for six hours.
LORD D: Isn’t that always the case with roses? How Freudian. (sits beside Apuleius)
APULEIUS: What are you talking about?
LORD D: I don’t know. I was just babbling and it came out.
APULEIUS: It sounds as though you are well ahead of your time.
LORD D: Do you know what else has let my quill flow? (dramatic pause) Absinthe!
APULEIUS: Once again, you a re a few years too early, I think.
LORD D: (picking up a sheet of Apuleius’s folio) It has yellowed. Are you striving for the aged look. Oh precious antiquity! Perhaps a lost manuscript? A newly-found Boethius? A (pause) Homer?
APULEIUS: Nay. My dog felt that he needed to express himself.
LORD D: I always feel as though I were from another age. As if my destiny were entwined with that of another from years past, perhaps even Odysseus himself. (jumps up quickly) Wait! (pause) I’m feeling the deepest of inspirations! (runs off into the forest, colliding with several trees in the process)
APULEIUS: Finally I am rid of him. A corrupting influence, he is. Now I may return to my work. (stares at a small flower by his feet as several minutes pass)
SCENE 2
A library. Several books are scattered about the floor. Apuleius sits reading. Lord D– enters followed by De G–, who is wearing a long cape. The narrator is forced to smirk with contempt.
LORD D: My Lord Apuleius. How goes your study?
APULEIUS: (starting) D–! I didn’t hear your admittance.
LORD D: Well then allow me to further introduce to you one of the most eminent man of letters of this generation or any other, a genius beyond measure, and a man for all seasons! William De G–, here in your very presence! (De G– bows slightly) I have brought him here to read your new work.
APULEIUS: Very kind of you, and Monsieur De G–, I am honoured. I was moved to tears by your Fall of Encolpius. What pain! What suffering. What need for lubrication!
LORD D: Indeed a watershed and a glorious triumph of the English language.
APULEIUS: Here is my folio. Please do not hesitate to critique it as you will.
LORD D: I am positive that you will only benefit from De G–‘s opinions. It was from him that I learned how to transcend mere description and use words to touch the face of God.
(De G– reads through the folio, nodding at various times)
APULEIUS: See, I knew this work would have a mark! It was a glorious month for me, as I felt prodigiously creative.
LORD D: Hold your thoughts for a second and let De G– finish. (After a few pauses during which he continues to nod ever more violently, De G– hands the folio to Apuleius. He ponders for a few moments, steadying his chin between his thumb and forefinger, then grabs a large pendant from around his neck and opens it. He pulls out a piece of paper and begins to write, while nodding to himself)
APULEIUS: Ha! Look! He is himself inspired to write! I think that my present work shall be my masterpiece, and a hallmark for future generations of under...um...graduates.
LORD D: Future what? Do you predict radical social change? A utopia run by these under...graduates, whose language and beauty shall enlighten all of humanity? Keep this future to yourself for the time being. In truth, De G– is writing his own opinions to you. (De G– hands the paper to Apuleius)
APULEIUS: What is this?
LORD D: Did you not know De G– is a mute?
APULEIUS: No I did not! (begins to read) And what is the meaning of this writing? Is this man truly touched by the gods?
LORD D: (examining the paper) Ah, well you must understand that in addition to being mute, De G– also suffers from spiritual possession which inspires all of his life’s work.
APULEIUS: This note looks as though it had been written by a constipated donkey.
LORD D: The spirits touch De G– by means of chronic, uncontrollably violent muscle spasms. Well, every true artist must develop his own unique style. I think that his spasmodic contractions add a great primitivism to his work, like a noble savage.
(De G– continues to nod uncontrollably)
SCENE 3
Feeling an almost total revulsion at the presumption and futility of the previous scene, the narrator ends it. Presently, Apuleius and Lord D– sit by the side of a lake observing the mists rising. De G– stands over them, the nodding of his head providing what, for our two protagonists, is a pleasing contrapuntal element to the scene in front of them.
LORD D: Beauty is everywhere, is it not?
APULEIUS: Aye. But despite the lucidity of the scene before me, my mind is elsewhere.
LORD D: Oh, another love? Christ, who is it this time?
APULEIUS: Lady Hamilton. She has captivated my heart. I do not think that I can continue without her.
LORD D: Nor should you.
APULEIUS: Those graceful hands that I need to clasp. Her luscious lips that I wish to kiss that ehy may provide me with such a delightful fever. Her cascading hair! And those breasts!
LORD D: Yes, much will be written about Lady Hamilton’s breasts.
APULEIUS: I wrote to her several Odes, encased in a velvet sleeve with pressed roses on its cover.
LORD D: She didn’t buy your ruse, did she?
APULEIUS: Nay. She told me that she thought I just wanted to fuck her.
LORD D: Women just do not have the capacity to understand true love.
APULEIUS: Well, she did allow me a quick lay.
LORD D: Quick?
(quick??)
APULEIUS: Well, I certainly cannot control the outpouring of my emotions! You really can’t restrain yourself, can you? That’s not very creative.
LORD D: I am sure that she appreciated your artistic integrity. (pause)
APULEIUS: I am a man in love as much as Ovid.
LORD D: You know, I don’t think that the poor can ever trule fall in love. How can they when they cannot even afford books? (long pause) Sometimes I think that God does not really know where it is going with all of this. (waves his hand in an extravagant gesture)
APULEIUS: What do you mean?
LORD D: It all seems so random, doesn’t it? So arbitrary. As though there really was no master plan. That God was really just writing what it felt like writing without thinking things though a little further.
APULEIUS: I agree.
(De G– hands Lord D– a note)
LORD D: So does De G–. He says that there really isn’t a God after all, that life is purely chance. God would provide proof if it really exis–
SCENE 4
Lightning strikes a tree, which then falls onto Lord D–, killing him instantly. It is a magnificent scene.
SCENE 5
Apuleius sitting opposite De G– by the lake.
APULEIUS: What the hell was the point of that? I guess that you are right, De G–.
(De G– nods, perhaps in accordance. They stare at each other for several minutes. Growing increasingly bored, the audience decides to vacate the theatre)
APULEIUS: Well, do you think that’s our cue?
(De G– nods)
APULEIUS: Alright, how do you want to do this, then?
(De G– begins drawing on a sheet of paper from his pendant, then hands it to Apuleius)
APULEIUS: Well, that should work. Do you have any rope?
(The narrator, having blown his cover with the whole lightning incident in the fourth scene, spontaneously creates two lengths of rope and places them beside De G–. The two climb up a tree and begin to tie the ropes to one of the tree branches, and then around their necks)
APULEIUS: This is not in vain, my friend. Our deaths will be studied for years to come. THIS is art! (Apuleius hurls himself from the tree and hangs himself. De G– follows, but their combined weight snaps the tree branch. He remains prostrate on the ground, shaking uncontrollably. After a few seconds he sits up and writes a note, leaves it on the ground, stands up nodding his head, and slowly exits)
...
(The note: well, there isn’t an audience anymore, so what the fuck. A troupe of travelling musicians enters into the scene. One of them finds the note beside Apuleius’s body and reads it)
RANDOMLY CREATED JUST FOR THE SAKE OF AN ENDING AND THEREFORE ULTIMATELY POINTLESS MUSICIAN: It just says: “I couldn’t even do this properly!” Poor soul. Must have been one of those Romantics. (Exit. The narrator can no longer withstand the blunt satire of his narrative, so...)
END
Apuleius, a Romantic.
Lord D–, another Romantic. They might be lovers.
William De G–, who knows? Apparently a third Romantic, but that mysterious cape covers much of his identity.
Randomly Created Just For the Sake of an Ending and Therefore Ultimately Pointless Musician, a musician.
Various Musicians, filler roles for bad actors between food service jobs.
SCENE 1
On top of a hill, early morning. Birds sing from a tree, a dog rests at the base. Apuleius sits opposite, writing in a folio. From the other side of the hill Lord D– enters carrying a cane.
LORD D: You have picked a very beautiful tree under which to write. What are you composing?
APULEIUS: Words, words, words.
LORD D: You know, I think that’s been done before. Your readers would appreciate something a little more original. You do have to think about them, you know.
APULEIUS: I’m not going to worry about them now. I don’t care what they think. What the hell do they know anyway? I’m the artist, not them. If they were so smart, they would be the ones publishing.
LORD D: True enough, vicious rabble. You know, my last book only made it into its seventeenth edition.
APULEIUS: They didn’t understand you. My Notes From Salisbury was stopped after its twelfth. But I think this one here is genius. I’m reflecting on the hedgerows – natural barriers, they are!
LORD D: Nice premise.
APULEIUS: It is impossible that this one is going to fail with the publisher.
LORD D: Your father didn’t particularly like your last book, Ode to Childhood. Except for the scene where he and you were boxing in the servants’ quarters.
APULEIUS: Well, he is the person who made me deaf in one ear. And anyway, I hardly touched the girl.
LORD D: She did produce a child for you. By and by, where is he now?
APULEIUS: Last I heard he had gone to join a war or something. Byron took many of my household with him the day he came by the manor.
LORD D: That bastard was a born leader. His pilgrimage took four of my servants with him as well. (Feeling around, he leans against the tree and listens) So, do you not hear the glorious song coming from this tree?
APULEIUS: Aye I do, but it sounds faint. When I look to my left at the sunset, I can hear it. When the sun is out of view, there is no song. The faintness of the song does allow me a more unique inspiration does it not?
LORD D: ‘Tis a shame, the birds in this tree are magnificent.
APULEIUS: There is only one bird in the tree.
LORD D: Nay, three. The others are to your right.
APULEIUS: (Looking up into the tree) Damn it all! That decimates my aesthetics after the third verse! (Scratching out the remaining verses)
LORD D: So much for inspiration.
APULEIUS: Don’t you talk to me of inspiration! I seem to remember during one of your trips to Prussia that you got lost in the forest for three days chasing a butterfly.
LORD D: It had the most beautiful of patterns on its wings. Reminded me of the mists of Avalon.
APULEIUS: There never was an Avalon.
LORD D: Herectic!
APULEIUS: You were still lost in Mallory and de Troyers, I think. And what the hell do you know anyhow? You are as blind as a fucking mole at the best of times.
LORD D: Well yes, but I could feel the creature’s beauty. Some things go beyond the sense.
APULEIUS: True enough. Weren’t you receiving a spiritual aid, however?
LORD D: Actually, I did have a copious amount of mushrooms in my belly. I think that it was Percy’s hashish that really helped me to navigate the forest.
APULEIUS: I find that my soul is best served when I have my Virgil beside me. One time after I read about the underworld, I went out into my garden and saw spirits in my perennials. My creative potency returned to full strength after staring at one of my roses for six hours.
LORD D: Isn’t that always the case with roses? How Freudian. (sits beside Apuleius)
APULEIUS: What are you talking about?
LORD D: I don’t know. I was just babbling and it came out.
APULEIUS: It sounds as though you are well ahead of your time.
LORD D: Do you know what else has let my quill flow? (dramatic pause) Absinthe!
APULEIUS: Once again, you a re a few years too early, I think.
LORD D: (picking up a sheet of Apuleius’s folio) It has yellowed. Are you striving for the aged look. Oh precious antiquity! Perhaps a lost manuscript? A newly-found Boethius? A (pause) Homer?
APULEIUS: Nay. My dog felt that he needed to express himself.
LORD D: I always feel as though I were from another age. As if my destiny were entwined with that of another from years past, perhaps even Odysseus himself. (jumps up quickly) Wait! (pause) I’m feeling the deepest of inspirations! (runs off into the forest, colliding with several trees in the process)
APULEIUS: Finally I am rid of him. A corrupting influence, he is. Now I may return to my work. (stares at a small flower by his feet as several minutes pass)
SCENE 2
A library. Several books are scattered about the floor. Apuleius sits reading. Lord D– enters followed by De G–, who is wearing a long cape. The narrator is forced to smirk with contempt.
LORD D: My Lord Apuleius. How goes your study?
APULEIUS: (starting) D–! I didn’t hear your admittance.
LORD D: Well then allow me to further introduce to you one of the most eminent man of letters of this generation or any other, a genius beyond measure, and a man for all seasons! William De G–, here in your very presence! (De G– bows slightly) I have brought him here to read your new work.
APULEIUS: Very kind of you, and Monsieur De G–, I am honoured. I was moved to tears by your Fall of Encolpius. What pain! What suffering. What need for lubrication!
LORD D: Indeed a watershed and a glorious triumph of the English language.
APULEIUS: Here is my folio. Please do not hesitate to critique it as you will.
LORD D: I am positive that you will only benefit from De G–‘s opinions. It was from him that I learned how to transcend mere description and use words to touch the face of God.
(De G– reads through the folio, nodding at various times)
APULEIUS: See, I knew this work would have a mark! It was a glorious month for me, as I felt prodigiously creative.
LORD D: Hold your thoughts for a second and let De G– finish. (After a few pauses during which he continues to nod ever more violently, De G– hands the folio to Apuleius. He ponders for a few moments, steadying his chin between his thumb and forefinger, then grabs a large pendant from around his neck and opens it. He pulls out a piece of paper and begins to write, while nodding to himself)
APULEIUS: Ha! Look! He is himself inspired to write! I think that my present work shall be my masterpiece, and a hallmark for future generations of under...um...graduates.
LORD D: Future what? Do you predict radical social change? A utopia run by these under...graduates, whose language and beauty shall enlighten all of humanity? Keep this future to yourself for the time being. In truth, De G– is writing his own opinions to you. (De G– hands the paper to Apuleius)
APULEIUS: What is this?
LORD D: Did you not know De G– is a mute?
APULEIUS: No I did not! (begins to read) And what is the meaning of this writing? Is this man truly touched by the gods?
LORD D: (examining the paper) Ah, well you must understand that in addition to being mute, De G– also suffers from spiritual possession which inspires all of his life’s work.
APULEIUS: This note looks as though it had been written by a constipated donkey.
LORD D: The spirits touch De G– by means of chronic, uncontrollably violent muscle spasms. Well, every true artist must develop his own unique style. I think that his spasmodic contractions add a great primitivism to his work, like a noble savage.
(De G– continues to nod uncontrollably)
SCENE 3
Feeling an almost total revulsion at the presumption and futility of the previous scene, the narrator ends it. Presently, Apuleius and Lord D– sit by the side of a lake observing the mists rising. De G– stands over them, the nodding of his head providing what, for our two protagonists, is a pleasing contrapuntal element to the scene in front of them.
LORD D: Beauty is everywhere, is it not?
APULEIUS: Aye. But despite the lucidity of the scene before me, my mind is elsewhere.
LORD D: Oh, another love? Christ, who is it this time?
APULEIUS: Lady Hamilton. She has captivated my heart. I do not think that I can continue without her.
LORD D: Nor should you.
APULEIUS: Those graceful hands that I need to clasp. Her luscious lips that I wish to kiss that ehy may provide me with such a delightful fever. Her cascading hair! And those breasts!
LORD D: Yes, much will be written about Lady Hamilton’s breasts.
APULEIUS: I wrote to her several Odes, encased in a velvet sleeve with pressed roses on its cover.
LORD D: She didn’t buy your ruse, did she?
APULEIUS: Nay. She told me that she thought I just wanted to fuck her.
LORD D: Women just do not have the capacity to understand true love.
APULEIUS: Well, she did allow me a quick lay.
LORD D: Quick?
(quick??)
APULEIUS: Well, I certainly cannot control the outpouring of my emotions! You really can’t restrain yourself, can you? That’s not very creative.
LORD D: I am sure that she appreciated your artistic integrity. (pause)
APULEIUS: I am a man in love as much as Ovid.
LORD D: You know, I don’t think that the poor can ever trule fall in love. How can they when they cannot even afford books? (long pause) Sometimes I think that God does not really know where it is going with all of this. (waves his hand in an extravagant gesture)
APULEIUS: What do you mean?
LORD D: It all seems so random, doesn’t it? So arbitrary. As though there really was no master plan. That God was really just writing what it felt like writing without thinking things though a little further.
APULEIUS: I agree.
(De G– hands Lord D– a note)
LORD D: So does De G–. He says that there really isn’t a God after all, that life is purely chance. God would provide proof if it really exis–
SCENE 4
Lightning strikes a tree, which then falls onto Lord D–, killing him instantly. It is a magnificent scene.
SCENE 5
Apuleius sitting opposite De G– by the lake.
APULEIUS: What the hell was the point of that? I guess that you are right, De G–.
(De G– nods, perhaps in accordance. They stare at each other for several minutes. Growing increasingly bored, the audience decides to vacate the theatre)
APULEIUS: Well, do you think that’s our cue?
(De G– nods)
APULEIUS: Alright, how do you want to do this, then?
(De G– begins drawing on a sheet of paper from his pendant, then hands it to Apuleius)
APULEIUS: Well, that should work. Do you have any rope?
(The narrator, having blown his cover with the whole lightning incident in the fourth scene, spontaneously creates two lengths of rope and places them beside De G–. The two climb up a tree and begin to tie the ropes to one of the tree branches, and then around their necks)
APULEIUS: This is not in vain, my friend. Our deaths will be studied for years to come. THIS is art! (Apuleius hurls himself from the tree and hangs himself. De G– follows, but their combined weight snaps the tree branch. He remains prostrate on the ground, shaking uncontrollably. After a few seconds he sits up and writes a note, leaves it on the ground, stands up nodding his head, and slowly exits)
...
(The note: well, there isn’t an audience anymore, so what the fuck. A troupe of travelling musicians enters into the scene. One of them finds the note beside Apuleius’s body and reads it)
RANDOMLY CREATED JUST FOR THE SAKE OF AN ENDING AND THEREFORE ULTIMATELY POINTLESS MUSICIAN: It just says: “I couldn’t even do this properly!” Poor soul. Must have been one of those Romantics. (Exit. The narrator can no longer withstand the blunt satire of his narrative, so...)
END
Tuesday, March 09, 1999
Gender Issues
After the women’s movement became more or less institutionalized in the late 1970s and early 1980s, new discourses arose over the concerns that feminism had failed to address. Chief among these was an evaluation of homosexuality within the newly created sphere of gender issues. Foucault establishes the groundwork for future criticism in this field by discussing the nature of sexuality within power structures. His ideologies are taken up by Judith Butler, who applies them to her specific situation as an “out of the closet” lesbian.
In The History of Sexuality, Foucault advances the notion that homosexuality is not a set of behavioural patterns but instead as a discourse between itself and heterosexuality. The two are not mutually exclusive binaries, but are part of the same power structure. He argues that any power or authority exists simultaneously with its forms of repression and resistance. They do not operate as an exteriority to power, but are instead multiple points of rebellion within the power structure. Thus he argues that both discourse and silence are simultaneously supportive and subversive of power. Neither is this authority a centralized figure, but in a sense a spread of influence acting omnidirectionally: it is “exercised from innumerable points” (p. 184). Foucault consequently argues that repression has always existed, that the era of Victorian prudish sexuality is not an anomaly situated between periods of liberation. Forms of repression change with the times, with the changing technological structure, and with changing definitions of power-knowledge. He ends this extract by defining sexuality not as a force in and of itself, but as a historical construct determined by power-knowledge. In terms of relationships, a deployment of alliance and a deployment of sexuality have been merged in the form of the family in the modern West. The family unit was itself created as an economic entity, but sexuality emerged in the family which served to disrupt the alliance. It is at this point that “the young homosexual who rejects marriage or neglects his wife” (p. 192) emerges and joins the discourse of sexuality.
Set as a backdrop to Butler’s essay is her belief that gender is an ideological construction which is assumed; it is not a matter of genes, but of impersonation. Gender is merely a continuum which is the superstructure for the binaries of male and female. In this regard she refers somewhat to the Lacanian-Derridian concept of slippery signification. The signifier ‘Female’ does not strictly adhere to a signified feminine heterosexual identity, but indeed can refer to any pattern of sexuality along the continuum. She posits drag to exemplify this principle: “Drag is not ... an act of expropriation or appropriation that assumes that gender is the rightful property of sex, that ‘masculine’ belongs to ‘male’ and ‘feminine’ belongs to ‘female’” (p. 332). Alternately, she proposes that “gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original” (p. 333). One slips from one imitation to another as easily as from one signifier to another. Heterosexuality is an infinite repetition of imitation: it desires to be like the original. Yet by defining itself as the original, heterosexuality immediately describes homosexuality as a necessary. But the inclusion of homosexuality within heterosexuality (and of course, vice versa) does not suppose the derivation of the former from the latter. Butler remains very aware of the Derridian interplay between the binaries. It forces her to examine what it means to be ‘out of the closet’, as both out and in require each other for their own definition. Additionally, she refers to a Foucault’s notion of the mulitvalency of discourse: by coming out of the closet she alters the locus of what the closet symbolizes. Similarly, she describes gay and straight defining each other and even in some instances constituting each other: “the self from the start is radically implicated in the ‘Other’” (p. 336). This ‘Other’ derives from a sense of loss, and is the capacity for the self to realize its identity. She states that this sense of self-identity, specifically of sexual self-identity, emerges as a repetition of psychic compulsions; it is the performance which realizes this illusion of ‘sex’, but fails in its expression of a ‘natural sex’.
In The History of Sexuality, Foucault advances the notion that homosexuality is not a set of behavioural patterns but instead as a discourse between itself and heterosexuality. The two are not mutually exclusive binaries, but are part of the same power structure. He argues that any power or authority exists simultaneously with its forms of repression and resistance. They do not operate as an exteriority to power, but are instead multiple points of rebellion within the power structure. Thus he argues that both discourse and silence are simultaneously supportive and subversive of power. Neither is this authority a centralized figure, but in a sense a spread of influence acting omnidirectionally: it is “exercised from innumerable points” (p. 184). Foucault consequently argues that repression has always existed, that the era of Victorian prudish sexuality is not an anomaly situated between periods of liberation. Forms of repression change with the times, with the changing technological structure, and with changing definitions of power-knowledge. He ends this extract by defining sexuality not as a force in and of itself, but as a historical construct determined by power-knowledge. In terms of relationships, a deployment of alliance and a deployment of sexuality have been merged in the form of the family in the modern West. The family unit was itself created as an economic entity, but sexuality emerged in the family which served to disrupt the alliance. It is at this point that “the young homosexual who rejects marriage or neglects his wife” (p. 192) emerges and joins the discourse of sexuality.
Set as a backdrop to Butler’s essay is her belief that gender is an ideological construction which is assumed; it is not a matter of genes, but of impersonation. Gender is merely a continuum which is the superstructure for the binaries of male and female. In this regard she refers somewhat to the Lacanian-Derridian concept of slippery signification. The signifier ‘Female’ does not strictly adhere to a signified feminine heterosexual identity, but indeed can refer to any pattern of sexuality along the continuum. She posits drag to exemplify this principle: “Drag is not ... an act of expropriation or appropriation that assumes that gender is the rightful property of sex, that ‘masculine’ belongs to ‘male’ and ‘feminine’ belongs to ‘female’” (p. 332). Alternately, she proposes that “gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original” (p. 333). One slips from one imitation to another as easily as from one signifier to another. Heterosexuality is an infinite repetition of imitation: it desires to be like the original. Yet by defining itself as the original, heterosexuality immediately describes homosexuality as a necessary. But the inclusion of homosexuality within heterosexuality (and of course, vice versa) does not suppose the derivation of the former from the latter. Butler remains very aware of the Derridian interplay between the binaries. It forces her to examine what it means to be ‘out of the closet’, as both out and in require each other for their own definition. Additionally, she refers to a Foucault’s notion of the mulitvalency of discourse: by coming out of the closet she alters the locus of what the closet symbolizes. Similarly, she describes gay and straight defining each other and even in some instances constituting each other: “the self from the start is radically implicated in the ‘Other’” (p. 336). This ‘Other’ derives from a sense of loss, and is the capacity for the self to realize its identity. She states that this sense of self-identity, specifically of sexual self-identity, emerges as a repetition of psychic compulsions; it is the performance which realizes this illusion of ‘sex’, but fails in its expression of a ‘natural sex’.
Monday, March 08, 1999
Negative Art Never Exists
There came a time during a repeated viewing of the movie Armageddon in which I began to ask myself why it is that movies such as this enter into production. Pop-art remains the most beautiful and profound of artistic enigmas. Certainly such vacuity cannot echo any great aspect of the human experience. Yet only a misanthrope could argue for its uselessness and invalidity. A purely monetary explanation remains superficial and elliptical; similarly limiting is an escapist analysis.
By altering the definitions of “What constitutes Art?” and “What makes Art engaging?”, a more satisfying solution can be reached. A materialistic approach is generally taken to answer such questions. For an object or image to be recognized as artistically valid it must contain within its conception a certain quality which appeals to the observer. Greek proportions, harmony, balance, structure; the totem of artistic cannon in this regard casts a grand shadow over any who wishes to probe its abstruseness. Even in the writing of the most able art critics, however, a haze of ambiguity obscures any attempts to truly define aesthetic appeal. Dadaism has proven the disunity between Art as institution and any ‘true’ aesthetic values. Similarly, many amateur and lesser poets can be quite adept at utilising the forms and structures traditionally held sacred to their art. Yet, their work frequently lacks that transcendent emotional quality which allows a work to be more universally praised.
Refocusing can in some instances yield clarity. Materialism is limiting. Positing a theory of Art-as-interaction allows a more universal application. Art is not the quality of an object, nor of its various constituent parts. Instead it can be seen as the interaction between the object and the observer. It can be likened to human relationships: it is the space between the two which defines both. Art cannot exist without the observer; the concept of the “lost work of art” is a fallacy and an oxymoron: until they are rediscovered, the lost works of Aeschylus will remain merely interesting facts. Art never exists merely for its own sake. Art is inspiration looking for a lover; the drive is a purely organic one. This interaction may be extremely profound and enduring. It may also be superficial and of only minor interest. Neither is more valid while the observer is in the immediacy of experiencing the interaction however; Dionysus blinds as frequently as he liberates.
Furthermore, art cannot be held responsible for being an influence on society. Believing this allows one to escape one’s own responsibilities. In this regard it is interesting to note that in condemning the pop-artist Marilyn Manson, the American christian coalition uses more graphic language describing his supposedly perverse acts than Manson himself does. How could the works such ‘perverse’ artists such as Manson or Joel-Peter Witkin corrupt society while their critics remain uncorrupted by their exposure to it? By arguing they negate their own argument. Is art a mirror of society, or is society a mirror of art? That is perhaps the wrong question to ask. Is it not more true that art is the act of society looking in the mirror? Such a question allows both the christian coalition and Marilyn Manson to be equally valid answers.
Such a definition allows for the great variety observed in the personal tastes of individuals, as well as the ascent or atrophy of the appeal of an individual work. In this capacity a Lysippian statue or a concerto by Mozart will affect many for centuries. Likewise, a work such as Armageddon will affect many for a much more limited time, which for myself was a few minutes at most. That was, of course, its entire purpose.
By altering the definitions of “What constitutes Art?” and “What makes Art engaging?”, a more satisfying solution can be reached. A materialistic approach is generally taken to answer such questions. For an object or image to be recognized as artistically valid it must contain within its conception a certain quality which appeals to the observer. Greek proportions, harmony, balance, structure; the totem of artistic cannon in this regard casts a grand shadow over any who wishes to probe its abstruseness. Even in the writing of the most able art critics, however, a haze of ambiguity obscures any attempts to truly define aesthetic appeal. Dadaism has proven the disunity between Art as institution and any ‘true’ aesthetic values. Similarly, many amateur and lesser poets can be quite adept at utilising the forms and structures traditionally held sacred to their art. Yet, their work frequently lacks that transcendent emotional quality which allows a work to be more universally praised.
Refocusing can in some instances yield clarity. Materialism is limiting. Positing a theory of Art-as-interaction allows a more universal application. Art is not the quality of an object, nor of its various constituent parts. Instead it can be seen as the interaction between the object and the observer. It can be likened to human relationships: it is the space between the two which defines both. Art cannot exist without the observer; the concept of the “lost work of art” is a fallacy and an oxymoron: until they are rediscovered, the lost works of Aeschylus will remain merely interesting facts. Art never exists merely for its own sake. Art is inspiration looking for a lover; the drive is a purely organic one. This interaction may be extremely profound and enduring. It may also be superficial and of only minor interest. Neither is more valid while the observer is in the immediacy of experiencing the interaction however; Dionysus blinds as frequently as he liberates.
Furthermore, art cannot be held responsible for being an influence on society. Believing this allows one to escape one’s own responsibilities. In this regard it is interesting to note that in condemning the pop-artist Marilyn Manson, the American christian coalition uses more graphic language describing his supposedly perverse acts than Manson himself does. How could the works such ‘perverse’ artists such as Manson or Joel-Peter Witkin corrupt society while their critics remain uncorrupted by their exposure to it? By arguing they negate their own argument. Is art a mirror of society, or is society a mirror of art? That is perhaps the wrong question to ask. Is it not more true that art is the act of society looking in the mirror? Such a question allows both the christian coalition and Marilyn Manson to be equally valid answers.
Such a definition allows for the great variety observed in the personal tastes of individuals, as well as the ascent or atrophy of the appeal of an individual work. In this capacity a Lysippian statue or a concerto by Mozart will affect many for centuries. Likewise, a work such as Armageddon will affect many for a much more limited time, which for myself was a few minutes at most. That was, of course, its entire purpose.
Thursday, February 11, 1999
Strategy, Tactics, and Supply: The Art of War in the First Crusade
There can be no doubting the importance of the Crusades to the medieval world. For several centuries after the conflict, men in Europe celebrated the glories of the Holy War in poetry and art. It was believed to have been the most virtuous of causes, demanded by God for the glory of God. William of Tyre in particular stressed the purity of the Holy Cause, calling the Crusaders ‘dominici’, or God’s people. Such praise frequently centres upon the First Crusade, which was the most immediately successful expedition. One historian has even stated that “the first crusade was by far the most outstanding military achievement of the feudal period”. Within four years the crusading host had marched to Jerusalem, captured the Holy city, and established a kingdom in the Holy Land. To the Christians, such a quick realization of their objective confirmed that God was indeed behind the Crusade. During the siege at Antioch, Anselm of Ribemont wrote “we have certainly captured for Our Lord two hundred cities and castles. May our Mother Church rejoice that she has borne men who have won for her such a glorious name ... in such a glorious fashion”. Despite such spiritual rhetoric however, the material grounds for the crusaders’ successes did in fact include spiritual matters, which affected the morale of the army. While the conception of any grand strategy was largely foreign to the leaders of the crusade, they did have some measure of tactical ability which allowed them to overcome the Moslems. Indeed, it must be stated that despite the opinions of some early historians, the First Crusade was a success not because of accidental actions taken by commanders, but because of conscientious decisions taken by those leaders with regard to several tactical considerations. Interconnected with both strategy and tactics are logistical considerations, which for the crusaders almost became of strategic importance. Attending to such details allows one to deviate from the stereotype held by earlier historians; the crusading knight was not a barbarian inspired by God but acting wholly as an individual and without regard for the ‘art’ of warfare.
There is a general consensus among historians that the overall strategy of the campaign was only vaguely understood by the crusade leaders. Certainly, the very existence of four separate divisions of crusaders hindered strategic cohesion, as communication between them was extremely limited. Therefore, any degree of strategic deployment against the Moslems – as occurred at Dorylaeum, where Bohemund’s army was hard-pressed by the Turks until the cavalry of Godfrey de Bouillon and Robert of Normandy arrived – was more a matter of coincidence or accident than forethought. Additionally, the mystical nature of the crusade prohibited the development of any overarching strategy, as the crusaders felt that they were in fact led by divine plans. Yet the most obvious and seemingly unsophisticated notion of strategy held by each of the commanders was also the only guarantee for their success. The sole objective for the First Crusade was the capture of Jerusalem, and the crusaders accomplished this end using the most direct means. The crusading host was never a large force, and was greatly outnumbered by the Moslems, therefore a massive expedition to capture every city controlled by the infidels would not have been possible. As the crusaders approached the Holy City in 1099, two war councils were held to determine the strategy of attack. While some nobles wished to advance along the coast, securing port cities along the way in order to allow reinforcements and supplies to reach the crusaders, a direct attack on Jerusalem itself was favoured. In order to achieve their ultimate goals, the crusaders isolated several cities as key to success in the Holy Land, notably Nicea and Antioch.
Linked with this direct attack was the desire to completely annihilate the enemy armies, not to merely conquer the Moslems in individual battles or to take prisoners for monetary gain. Such strategic vision explains the sorties from Antioch and Jerusalem, which were undertaken to exterminate the remnants of the Moslem armies surrounding the newly captured cities. Indeed, it was by following such a direct and immediate strategy that the crusaders did in fact succeed in capturing Jerusalem. It has been argued that the single-mindedness of the leaders of the First Crusade was due to their divine inspiration; their success in campaigning was indeed a rare exception for the Middle Ages. There were some hindrances and tangents to the crusaders’ strategic goals, however. The most pointed of these was the desire of the nobles to gain territories and extend their own holdings into the Holy Land. Baldwin, brother to Godfrey de Bouillon, had separated from the main host of the crusaders after the capture of Antioch “on the pretext of protecting the flanks of the main army”; certainly his goals were territorial however. These territorial ambitions began to disrupt the crusade, as occurred when sub-divisions of Godfrey’s army led by Baldwin and Tancred contested over control of Tarsus. Yet even such petty ambitions served to further the success of the strategic operation. The territories captured by both Baldwin and Tancred served to protect the crusading host in Syria from Turkish armies west of Edessa. In this regard, the opinions held by many earlier historians that the crusaders’ strategy was largely accidental can be only partially substantiated. The many strategic decisions taken by the crusade leaders demonstrate the opposite however, that they did have some sentience about the operational arts.
Similarly, a primitive awareness of and ability in tactical matters was exhibited by the four division leaders. This was not immediately the case however, as the battle of Dorylaeum proves. When attacked by the Turkish army, Bohemund’s forces pursued conventional European battle tactics. The foot soldiers pitched camp, while the cavalry circled in formation, waiting for a charge against the Moslem horsemen. The Turks did not conform to such tactics however. The strength of the Moslems was their mobility, as they donned light armour if any at all; this was especially true of their mounted archers. They would encircle the crusaders at a distance and let loose a hail of arrows upon them, arresting their cavalry charge until the enemy was wounded and confused. In this instance, Bohemund’s forces were saved only by the arrival of cavalry under Godfrey and Robert. He did not adapt to the changing tactical situation; such was the nature of tactical instruction given to Frankish nobles, however. Certainly, the Byzantine army was knowledgeable of Moslem tactics however: Leo VI the Wise had written a treatise dealing with that very subject, stressing the importance of open field engagements with the Turks. The crusaders, however, were far too distrustful of the Byzantines to adopt their tactical advice. By the siege of Antioch however, the commanders had learned how to deal with Moslem tactics. Success lay in cavalry tactics: a series of regiments in the front line, backed by a reserve regiment guarding the flanks would prevent the crusaders from being turned. Such tactics were in fact adopted by Bohemund during the sortie from Antioch. He divided his forces into six regiments, which formed a front line while Bohemund’s regiment held the rearguard position. The Moslems wished to outflank the crusaders and secure the bridge leading into the city, but were checked by Bohemund’s rearguard. The Moslems then tried a faux-retreat to break apart the crusaders’ formation – a tactic proposed by Leo – but were routed by the crusaders in close combat upon their own disorderly retreat. One cannot focus solely on the cavalry however, as the importance of the infantry was felt at Antioch, Ascalon, and Jerusalem. Initially, they protected the horses of the knights before they charged, then they protected the rear flank; at Ascalon they served as mop-up units, additionally aiding knights who had been wounded or unhorsed. Furthermore, with their greater range crossbowmen kept enemy horse-archers at bay.
Three further aspects of tactical operations that were of vital importance to the success of the crusade were discipline, reconnaissance, and supply. Without adequate control over his troops, a commander would not be able to organize them into formation; in the Holy Land this would have meant the routing of the army. Keeping the crusaders together was perhaps the greatest challenge faced by the commanders. The armies did manage to stay together however, most likely due to the strength of their religious convictions. Morale – an aspect of and contributor to discipline – was similarly raised by religious belief, most pointedly demonstrated by the Lance of Christ found before the sortie from Antioch. Nicephorus Phocas had stated the importance of reconnaissance, mainly for the knowledge of enemy positions. Of equal importance was knowledge of terrain. The crusaders were at a great disadvantage in that they were traversing foreign lands, and indeed, their lack of geographical knowledge had caused several defeats. They were not without recourse, however, as they had access to many spies and traitors to aid them in reconnaissance.
A more grave issue throughout the First Crusade was the supply of the army. Emperor Alexius had promised to supply the crusaders, yet once they were outside his realm his fleet could not reach them because all of the ports were held by Egyptian forces. Consequently, the crusaders were frequently in need of provisions; their dearth became acute during sieges, such as at Antioch and Jerusalem. Indeed, many among the Christian forces began to starve during the siege of Antioch, leading to low morale and a high rate of desertion. Alexius did however finally manage to supply the crusaders with siege equipment and engineers to allow the capture of the city. The peasants who had joined the host did not aid in food collection, but rather were a further burden on the already stretched supplies. The normally fertile areas surrounding the cities in the East had been poisoned by the Moslems to hinder the crusaders, thus forcing food collection parties to wander far from the siege camp to accomplish their task. The crusaders required a fairly high amount of food to sustain themselves: military exertions by knights required a diet high in meat; furthermore, the horses consumed three to four times the weight in food as their riders. Consequently, the sources stress the importance of the “capture of foodstuffs as booty”. Indeed, the knights depended on such booty for their very status. The provisioning of the army had drained their monetary resources, and therefore without the seizure of such booty they could fall into poverty. Many knights had to sell their arms and armour to buy food, instead using arms captured from the Moslems. Additionally, there are numerous instances of knights who had lost their horse in battle being unable to remount and consequently joining the infantry. The crusaders had expected such hardships, perhaps even viewed it as part of their penance as defined by the initial call by Pope Urban II, and therefore despite starvation and poverty, they succeeded in capturing Jerusalem.
As has been stated, the First Crusade was unique in that it almost immediately accomplished its goals. Certainly the religious fervour incited by the Pope’s call-to-arms as well as the many local priests drove the crusading host to realize what they believed to be the wishes of God. A more materialistic reason for their successes can be forwarded, however. It was because of the abilities of the leaders of the crusade on both strategic and tactical levels that Jerusalem was captured with the fairly limited supplies and troops available. There were setbacks to be sure, but the expedition succeeded within a relatively short period, and the Holy City became under Christian control.
Bibliography
Bradford, Ernle. The Sword and the Scimitar. Milan, Italy: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974
Contamine, Philippe. War in the Middle Ages. Trans. Michael Jones. New York: Basil Blackwell,
1984.
Daniel-Rops, H. Cathedral and Crusade. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1957.
Edbury, Peter W., and John Gordon Rowe. William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Guillaume de Tyr. Chronique. Corpus Christianorum. Vol. 63. Ed. R.B.C. Huygens. Brepols, 1986.
Hyland, Ann. The Medieval Warhorse from Byzantium to the Crusades. Dover, UK: Alan Sutton
Publishing Limited, 1994.
Koch, H.W. Medieval Warfare. London: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1978.
Leyser, Karl. Communication and Power in Medieval Europe. London: Hambledon Press, 1994.
Nickerson, Hoffman, and Oliver Lyman Spaulding. Ancient and Medieval Warfare. London:
Constable and Company Limited, 1994.
Oman, C.W.C. The Art of War in the Middle Ages. Revised and edited by John H. Beeler. New York:
Great Seal Books, 1953.
Severin, Tim. Crusader. London: Hutchinson, 1989.
Verbruggen, J.F. The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages. Trans. Sumner
Willard and S.C.M. Southern. Amsterdam, Netherlands: North-Holland Inc., 1977.
Supplementary
Barker, Ernest. The Crusades. London: Oxford University Press, 1923.
Rousset, Paul. Histoire des Croisades. Paris, France: Payot, 1978.
Tierney, Brian, and Sidney Painter. Western Europe in the Middle Ages. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1992.
There is a general consensus among historians that the overall strategy of the campaign was only vaguely understood by the crusade leaders. Certainly, the very existence of four separate divisions of crusaders hindered strategic cohesion, as communication between them was extremely limited. Therefore, any degree of strategic deployment against the Moslems – as occurred at Dorylaeum, where Bohemund’s army was hard-pressed by the Turks until the cavalry of Godfrey de Bouillon and Robert of Normandy arrived – was more a matter of coincidence or accident than forethought. Additionally, the mystical nature of the crusade prohibited the development of any overarching strategy, as the crusaders felt that they were in fact led by divine plans. Yet the most obvious and seemingly unsophisticated notion of strategy held by each of the commanders was also the only guarantee for their success. The sole objective for the First Crusade was the capture of Jerusalem, and the crusaders accomplished this end using the most direct means. The crusading host was never a large force, and was greatly outnumbered by the Moslems, therefore a massive expedition to capture every city controlled by the infidels would not have been possible. As the crusaders approached the Holy City in 1099, two war councils were held to determine the strategy of attack. While some nobles wished to advance along the coast, securing port cities along the way in order to allow reinforcements and supplies to reach the crusaders, a direct attack on Jerusalem itself was favoured. In order to achieve their ultimate goals, the crusaders isolated several cities as key to success in the Holy Land, notably Nicea and Antioch.
Linked with this direct attack was the desire to completely annihilate the enemy armies, not to merely conquer the Moslems in individual battles or to take prisoners for monetary gain. Such strategic vision explains the sorties from Antioch and Jerusalem, which were undertaken to exterminate the remnants of the Moslem armies surrounding the newly captured cities. Indeed, it was by following such a direct and immediate strategy that the crusaders did in fact succeed in capturing Jerusalem. It has been argued that the single-mindedness of the leaders of the First Crusade was due to their divine inspiration; their success in campaigning was indeed a rare exception for the Middle Ages. There were some hindrances and tangents to the crusaders’ strategic goals, however. The most pointed of these was the desire of the nobles to gain territories and extend their own holdings into the Holy Land. Baldwin, brother to Godfrey de Bouillon, had separated from the main host of the crusaders after the capture of Antioch “on the pretext of protecting the flanks of the main army”; certainly his goals were territorial however. These territorial ambitions began to disrupt the crusade, as occurred when sub-divisions of Godfrey’s army led by Baldwin and Tancred contested over control of Tarsus. Yet even such petty ambitions served to further the success of the strategic operation. The territories captured by both Baldwin and Tancred served to protect the crusading host in Syria from Turkish armies west of Edessa. In this regard, the opinions held by many earlier historians that the crusaders’ strategy was largely accidental can be only partially substantiated. The many strategic decisions taken by the crusade leaders demonstrate the opposite however, that they did have some sentience about the operational arts.
Similarly, a primitive awareness of and ability in tactical matters was exhibited by the four division leaders. This was not immediately the case however, as the battle of Dorylaeum proves. When attacked by the Turkish army, Bohemund’s forces pursued conventional European battle tactics. The foot soldiers pitched camp, while the cavalry circled in formation, waiting for a charge against the Moslem horsemen. The Turks did not conform to such tactics however. The strength of the Moslems was their mobility, as they donned light armour if any at all; this was especially true of their mounted archers. They would encircle the crusaders at a distance and let loose a hail of arrows upon them, arresting their cavalry charge until the enemy was wounded and confused. In this instance, Bohemund’s forces were saved only by the arrival of cavalry under Godfrey and Robert. He did not adapt to the changing tactical situation; such was the nature of tactical instruction given to Frankish nobles, however. Certainly, the Byzantine army was knowledgeable of Moslem tactics however: Leo VI the Wise had written a treatise dealing with that very subject, stressing the importance of open field engagements with the Turks. The crusaders, however, were far too distrustful of the Byzantines to adopt their tactical advice. By the siege of Antioch however, the commanders had learned how to deal with Moslem tactics. Success lay in cavalry tactics: a series of regiments in the front line, backed by a reserve regiment guarding the flanks would prevent the crusaders from being turned. Such tactics were in fact adopted by Bohemund during the sortie from Antioch. He divided his forces into six regiments, which formed a front line while Bohemund’s regiment held the rearguard position. The Moslems wished to outflank the crusaders and secure the bridge leading into the city, but were checked by Bohemund’s rearguard. The Moslems then tried a faux-retreat to break apart the crusaders’ formation – a tactic proposed by Leo – but were routed by the crusaders in close combat upon their own disorderly retreat. One cannot focus solely on the cavalry however, as the importance of the infantry was felt at Antioch, Ascalon, and Jerusalem. Initially, they protected the horses of the knights before they charged, then they protected the rear flank; at Ascalon they served as mop-up units, additionally aiding knights who had been wounded or unhorsed. Furthermore, with their greater range crossbowmen kept enemy horse-archers at bay.
Three further aspects of tactical operations that were of vital importance to the success of the crusade were discipline, reconnaissance, and supply. Without adequate control over his troops, a commander would not be able to organize them into formation; in the Holy Land this would have meant the routing of the army. Keeping the crusaders together was perhaps the greatest challenge faced by the commanders. The armies did manage to stay together however, most likely due to the strength of their religious convictions. Morale – an aspect of and contributor to discipline – was similarly raised by religious belief, most pointedly demonstrated by the Lance of Christ found before the sortie from Antioch. Nicephorus Phocas had stated the importance of reconnaissance, mainly for the knowledge of enemy positions. Of equal importance was knowledge of terrain. The crusaders were at a great disadvantage in that they were traversing foreign lands, and indeed, their lack of geographical knowledge had caused several defeats. They were not without recourse, however, as they had access to many spies and traitors to aid them in reconnaissance.
A more grave issue throughout the First Crusade was the supply of the army. Emperor Alexius had promised to supply the crusaders, yet once they were outside his realm his fleet could not reach them because all of the ports were held by Egyptian forces. Consequently, the crusaders were frequently in need of provisions; their dearth became acute during sieges, such as at Antioch and Jerusalem. Indeed, many among the Christian forces began to starve during the siege of Antioch, leading to low morale and a high rate of desertion. Alexius did however finally manage to supply the crusaders with siege equipment and engineers to allow the capture of the city. The peasants who had joined the host did not aid in food collection, but rather were a further burden on the already stretched supplies. The normally fertile areas surrounding the cities in the East had been poisoned by the Moslems to hinder the crusaders, thus forcing food collection parties to wander far from the siege camp to accomplish their task. The crusaders required a fairly high amount of food to sustain themselves: military exertions by knights required a diet high in meat; furthermore, the horses consumed three to four times the weight in food as their riders. Consequently, the sources stress the importance of the “capture of foodstuffs as booty”. Indeed, the knights depended on such booty for their very status. The provisioning of the army had drained their monetary resources, and therefore without the seizure of such booty they could fall into poverty. Many knights had to sell their arms and armour to buy food, instead using arms captured from the Moslems. Additionally, there are numerous instances of knights who had lost their horse in battle being unable to remount and consequently joining the infantry. The crusaders had expected such hardships, perhaps even viewed it as part of their penance as defined by the initial call by Pope Urban II, and therefore despite starvation and poverty, they succeeded in capturing Jerusalem.
As has been stated, the First Crusade was unique in that it almost immediately accomplished its goals. Certainly the religious fervour incited by the Pope’s call-to-arms as well as the many local priests drove the crusading host to realize what they believed to be the wishes of God. A more materialistic reason for their successes can be forwarded, however. It was because of the abilities of the leaders of the crusade on both strategic and tactical levels that Jerusalem was captured with the fairly limited supplies and troops available. There were setbacks to be sure, but the expedition succeeded within a relatively short period, and the Holy City became under Christian control.
Bibliography
Bradford, Ernle. The Sword and the Scimitar. Milan, Italy: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974
Contamine, Philippe. War in the Middle Ages. Trans. Michael Jones. New York: Basil Blackwell,
1984.
Daniel-Rops, H. Cathedral and Crusade. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1957.
Edbury, Peter W., and John Gordon Rowe. William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Guillaume de Tyr. Chronique. Corpus Christianorum. Vol. 63. Ed. R.B.C. Huygens. Brepols, 1986.
Hyland, Ann. The Medieval Warhorse from Byzantium to the Crusades. Dover, UK: Alan Sutton
Publishing Limited, 1994.
Koch, H.W. Medieval Warfare. London: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1978.
Leyser, Karl. Communication and Power in Medieval Europe. London: Hambledon Press, 1994.
Nickerson, Hoffman, and Oliver Lyman Spaulding. Ancient and Medieval Warfare. London:
Constable and Company Limited, 1994.
Oman, C.W.C. The Art of War in the Middle Ages. Revised and edited by John H. Beeler. New York:
Great Seal Books, 1953.
Severin, Tim. Crusader. London: Hutchinson, 1989.
Verbruggen, J.F. The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages. Trans. Sumner
Willard and S.C.M. Southern. Amsterdam, Netherlands: North-Holland Inc., 1977.
Supplementary
Barker, Ernest. The Crusades. London: Oxford University Press, 1923.
Rousset, Paul. Histoire des Croisades. Paris, France: Payot, 1978.
Tierney, Brian, and Sidney Painter. Western Europe in the Middle Ages. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1992.
Tuesday, February 02, 1999
The Interpretive Framework of Marxist Ideology
It can be argued that the entire cannon of modern socioeconomic theory has emerged either to support or reject the works of Karl Marx. Indeed, his statement that “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life” has become a mantra for leftist thinkers and an anathema for more conservative theorists. To a great extent, Marx intended such controversy. His theory is centred upon the concept of an economic base (the production of the basic necessities for a society) which underlies a superstructure (religion, politics, law). It is the interaction and conflicting interests between individuals within this dual structure which gives rise to ideology. Such ideology originates in the socioeconomic status of the individuals which produce it. Generally, the expression of ideology within a society is limited to the dominant class; historically, art and religion exemplify such theory. The oppositions and disparities inherent in the economic base do manifest themselves in a society’s ideological complex, however. History therefore becomes the study of opposing ideologies: conflicting economic interests between the ideologies of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie gives rise to a third ideology which surmounts the initial opposition and itself becomes the dominant ideology. In artistic terms, Marx’s dialectic materialism demands that art both supports and rejects – that it is a function for and a critic of – the dominant ideology. An artistic creation, or more broadly any creation of the superstructure, cannot therefore arise in a society which has a differing ideology than that in which it does arise.
There have been numerous reinterpretations of Marxist thought, yet few have had the influence that the works of Louis Althusser have had. He reinterpreted Marxism to focus on the works of the more mature Marx, which he believed did not correspond with simple dialectic materialism. In his rereading, economy is not the originator of ideology. While the dominant class imposes its ideology upon individuals of the lesser classes, the dominant ideology originates in the means of production and the relations between the classes. Termed in a more Althusserian manner, the Subject controls the subject, but is itself a reflection of the Subject-subject relationship. Particular ideologies were indeed based on material conditions, yet they also had an imaginary aspect: Althusser reads in the later Marx that individuals have an imaginary relation to their means of existence. Ideology does however express itself in materialistic terms: a policeman’s shout, a prayer. Most radically, Althusser challenged the notion of the binary relationship between base and superstructure, which he believed was in fact a simplistic reading of Marx. In between these two categories lies a third concept, the ‘problematic’, which is the unconscious ideology which dictates the forms and content of a discourse. The problematic is the function of both the base and the superstructure. Within this framework, history becomes the study of the subconscious within texts. That which is concealed by the author is of equal importance as the text itself; thoughts cannot arise which are incompatible with the dominant apparatus of ideology.
Juliet Mitchell provides a more concrete example for Althusserian belief. In Femininity, narrative, and psychoanalysis she applies the historical process of Marx-Althusser to a specific definition of history, that of the novel. She describes the novel as primarily the domain of women, beginning with autobiographical works. Novels become for women a definition of and a reaction to their existence within bourgeois society. Through writing, women establish themselves as (Althusserian) subjects, as ‘hysterical’, simultaneously accepting and rejecting “sexuality under patriarchal capitalism” (p. 151). One does get a sense in Mitchell’s work of a parallel with Marx and Althusser, in that women could not think outside of the context of the ideological state apparatuses. In this regard, Mitchell argues that there is no distinct form of women’s writing. Alternately, female novelists are reflections of their repressed existence within a patriarchal society; the very language itself is phallocentric. Thus, in Althusserian terms, women novelists became subject (with the latent double-meaning of the word) to the Subject. Working within the terms of patriarchal capitalism, women nevertheless were able to provide an alternate history for themselves by the very act of writing. They therefore became manifestations of Althusser’s concept of Subject-subject reflection, they became in a sense bisexual.
While Marx’s original maxim can be validly interpreted as it stands, there have been numerous reappraisal of its validity. The consequence of Althusser’s work is the complication of Marx’s original precept to include “subconsciousness as determined by life”. Mitchell subsequently limits the general concepts of Marx and Althusser to a specific example and ideology, that of women novelists writing under early modern patriarchal capitalism. At its most fundamental level however, Marx’s statement remains pertinent.
There have been numerous reinterpretations of Marxist thought, yet few have had the influence that the works of Louis Althusser have had. He reinterpreted Marxism to focus on the works of the more mature Marx, which he believed did not correspond with simple dialectic materialism. In his rereading, economy is not the originator of ideology. While the dominant class imposes its ideology upon individuals of the lesser classes, the dominant ideology originates in the means of production and the relations between the classes. Termed in a more Althusserian manner, the Subject controls the subject, but is itself a reflection of the Subject-subject relationship. Particular ideologies were indeed based on material conditions, yet they also had an imaginary aspect: Althusser reads in the later Marx that individuals have an imaginary relation to their means of existence. Ideology does however express itself in materialistic terms: a policeman’s shout, a prayer. Most radically, Althusser challenged the notion of the binary relationship between base and superstructure, which he believed was in fact a simplistic reading of Marx. In between these two categories lies a third concept, the ‘problematic’, which is the unconscious ideology which dictates the forms and content of a discourse. The problematic is the function of both the base and the superstructure. Within this framework, history becomes the study of the subconscious within texts. That which is concealed by the author is of equal importance as the text itself; thoughts cannot arise which are incompatible with the dominant apparatus of ideology.
Juliet Mitchell provides a more concrete example for Althusserian belief. In Femininity, narrative, and psychoanalysis she applies the historical process of Marx-Althusser to a specific definition of history, that of the novel. She describes the novel as primarily the domain of women, beginning with autobiographical works. Novels become for women a definition of and a reaction to their existence within bourgeois society. Through writing, women establish themselves as (Althusserian) subjects, as ‘hysterical’, simultaneously accepting and rejecting “sexuality under patriarchal capitalism” (p. 151). One does get a sense in Mitchell’s work of a parallel with Marx and Althusser, in that women could not think outside of the context of the ideological state apparatuses. In this regard, Mitchell argues that there is no distinct form of women’s writing. Alternately, female novelists are reflections of their repressed existence within a patriarchal society; the very language itself is phallocentric. Thus, in Althusserian terms, women novelists became subject (with the latent double-meaning of the word) to the Subject. Working within the terms of patriarchal capitalism, women nevertheless were able to provide an alternate history for themselves by the very act of writing. They therefore became manifestations of Althusser’s concept of Subject-subject reflection, they became in a sense bisexual.
While Marx’s original maxim can be validly interpreted as it stands, there have been numerous reappraisal of its validity. The consequence of Althusser’s work is the complication of Marx’s original precept to include “subconsciousness as determined by life”. Mitchell subsequently limits the general concepts of Marx and Althusser to a specific example and ideology, that of women novelists writing under early modern patriarchal capitalism. At its most fundamental level however, Marx’s statement remains pertinent.
Tuesday, January 19, 1999
Of Language and Discourse: de Saussure and Bakhtin
When analysing a text, critics usually attempt to determine its symbolic importance, frequently in terms of literary theme A representing concept B. Such symbolism occurs at a macro level however; the study of linguistics seeks to ascertain the origins of symbolism at the micro level of linguistic structure. Fundamental to the discipline is the work of de Saussure, who defined linguistics in such terms, and posited it at the base of all humanist studies. Mikhail Bakhtin’s Discourse in the Novel argues that the importance of any given speech is determined by the social context in which it is given.
One of the principles of de Saussure’s work is that linguistic structure is based on two facets of language. Simultaneously, language contains both the physical attributes of phonetic “facts” as well as the conceptual attributes of words and phrases. De Saussure models the interaction between these two elements by means of a speech circuit. A concept within an individual’s brain, termed psychological by de Saussure, triggers a corresponding physiological response allowing the transmission of the concept as a pattern of sound waves, which then enters into the ear of another individual and is changed from a physical pattern into a physiological one, and finally into a psychological concept. The words themselves do not contain the whole nature of language however, as it has both a social context (langue) and an individual one (parole).Concepts of language are defined collectively, but the differences in an individual’s expression of them are determined by their own ‘psychological speech-circuits’. De Saussure quickly points out that the concepts themselves are not naturally ordained, but instead are more or less arbitrary. While some terminology such as exclamations and onomatopoeic words are somewhat determined by their complimentary physical sound patterns, most terminology is collectively determined for other reasons (which he does not define, but leaves to future scholars of semiology). He defines a sign as an underlying psychological signification (concept) which is triggered by a physical signal (sound pattern). De Saussure calls for the new discipline of semiology to be established, which would study the social significance of sings. It is in this manner that literary critics have contributed to linguistic study by applying de Saussure’s principles to their own field.
In his Discourse in the Novel, Mikhail Bakhtin further analyses the social influence on an individual’s understanding and usage of language. Fundamentally, Bakhtin concerns himself with the ‘Other’ of discourse; one virtually defines one’s identity based on what is said by the Other. This can be viewed in the common social context of daily life, as expressed by the gossip and rumour of public opinion, which can have a profound psychological influence upon an individual. More importantly however, the social context in which a conversation is had is of crucial importance. The transmission of speech determines its understanding, and any manipulation can thus alter the meaning of discourse: “thus it is...very easy to make even the most serious utterance comical” (p. 531). It is thus of critical importance to determine the nature of the speaker and the context in which they are speaking. As an example, one would understand that any medical advice given by a doctor would be almost sacrosanct in relation to the same advice given by a plumber. Similarly, if the aforementioned doctor had given his advice to an individual with whom he had earlier scuffled, one would be naturally more sceptical of the validity of the advise. Furthermore, if such advise had been published and utilised for a lengthy period, it would become almost a dead argument, or a relic. If one were to adopt it, such must be done wholly, as there could be no refusal of the validity of certain parts of the argument. Such forms of discourse Bakhtin terms authoritative. On a more personal level, any discourse which finds a resonance within an individual is coined internally persuasive. In general it is more contemporaneous with the receiver of the discourse than the artefactual transmission of concepts within authoritative discourse, and can be viewed as part of their own ideology, and not the textual ideology of the Other. There can however be a interplay between the two forms of discourse, but Bakhtin acknowledges that such is rare. The importance of Bakhtin’s work can be seen in light of narration, as it can be used to examine the relationships between two characters engaged in discourse. Furthermore, it is possible to use his ideology to analyse the relationship between the author and the reader.
One of the principles of de Saussure’s work is that linguistic structure is based on two facets of language. Simultaneously, language contains both the physical attributes of phonetic “facts” as well as the conceptual attributes of words and phrases. De Saussure models the interaction between these two elements by means of a speech circuit. A concept within an individual’s brain, termed psychological by de Saussure, triggers a corresponding physiological response allowing the transmission of the concept as a pattern of sound waves, which then enters into the ear of another individual and is changed from a physical pattern into a physiological one, and finally into a psychological concept. The words themselves do not contain the whole nature of language however, as it has both a social context (langue) and an individual one (parole).Concepts of language are defined collectively, but the differences in an individual’s expression of them are determined by their own ‘psychological speech-circuits’. De Saussure quickly points out that the concepts themselves are not naturally ordained, but instead are more or less arbitrary. While some terminology such as exclamations and onomatopoeic words are somewhat determined by their complimentary physical sound patterns, most terminology is collectively determined for other reasons (which he does not define, but leaves to future scholars of semiology). He defines a sign as an underlying psychological signification (concept) which is triggered by a physical signal (sound pattern). De Saussure calls for the new discipline of semiology to be established, which would study the social significance of sings. It is in this manner that literary critics have contributed to linguistic study by applying de Saussure’s principles to their own field.
In his Discourse in the Novel, Mikhail Bakhtin further analyses the social influence on an individual’s understanding and usage of language. Fundamentally, Bakhtin concerns himself with the ‘Other’ of discourse; one virtually defines one’s identity based on what is said by the Other. This can be viewed in the common social context of daily life, as expressed by the gossip and rumour of public opinion, which can have a profound psychological influence upon an individual. More importantly however, the social context in which a conversation is had is of crucial importance. The transmission of speech determines its understanding, and any manipulation can thus alter the meaning of discourse: “thus it is...very easy to make even the most serious utterance comical” (p. 531). It is thus of critical importance to determine the nature of the speaker and the context in which they are speaking. As an example, one would understand that any medical advice given by a doctor would be almost sacrosanct in relation to the same advice given by a plumber. Similarly, if the aforementioned doctor had given his advice to an individual with whom he had earlier scuffled, one would be naturally more sceptical of the validity of the advise. Furthermore, if such advise had been published and utilised for a lengthy period, it would become almost a dead argument, or a relic. If one were to adopt it, such must be done wholly, as there could be no refusal of the validity of certain parts of the argument. Such forms of discourse Bakhtin terms authoritative. On a more personal level, any discourse which finds a resonance within an individual is coined internally persuasive. In general it is more contemporaneous with the receiver of the discourse than the artefactual transmission of concepts within authoritative discourse, and can be viewed as part of their own ideology, and not the textual ideology of the Other. There can however be a interplay between the two forms of discourse, but Bakhtin acknowledges that such is rare. The importance of Bakhtin’s work can be seen in light of narration, as it can be used to examine the relationships between two characters engaged in discourse. Furthermore, it is possible to use his ideology to analyse the relationship between the author and the reader.
Tuesday, December 01, 1998
The Government and Modernization of Japan
The rise of Japan during the last century is widely regarded as one of the marvels of the modern era. Certainly, no observer during the nineteenth century would have predicted that such a ‘backward’ and mostly rural country such as Japan would become one of the main economic powers of the world only a few generations later. Arguably, the most important catalyst for Japan’s economic rise was the influence of the government on shaping the process of modernization. Beginning during the Meiji Restoration and continuing through the imperial decades to the post-WWII recovery period, the government adopted many important policies which hastened the country’s modernization. A secondary, although somewhat lesser, influence on the nation’s development was the unintended consequence of several international events. Japan was favourably aided by several wars during the modern era, interestingly in most of which the country was not actually a participant. As a consequence, the country very rapidly rose to economic power in the twentieth century. Japan was in fact singular among Asian nations for its early and rapid development into a modern country.
One of the defining characteristics of modern Japan has been the strength and almost singular determination of its government. Indeed, a once commonly-held stereotype in the West was that Japan followed a centralized ‘plan’ with which it could realize its ascendancy. To a certain extent such a convention can in fact be substantiated, as the government did indeed lead Japan into the modern era. The strong, centralized nature of the administration had its origins in the dominance of the domain lords of the late-Tokugawa period, which was additionally when the cult of the emperor re-emerged. The Meiji administration which superceded the old regime adopted a policy of national modernization, which had in fact been commenced in the Chōshū and Satsuma domains prior to the Restoration. While such governmental intervention would be seen as highly detrimental in the West, Japanese leaders, educated in the paternalism of Confucian teachings, felt that it was their duty to mould Japan to ensure its future success. Indeed, under such strong leadership Japan’s transition from a feudalistic to a modern society was fairly rapid and non-violent. Following a reform of land distribution, the government initiated a system of taxation to fund industrialization. Japan’s initial foray into modern industrialism relied heavily on the West. The government was required to purchase machinery from Western countries to begin modernizing Japan. More importantly however, in order to become self-reliant in the future Japan hired experts from the West to teach industrial methods and technology to Japanese workers. Foreign currency gained through the export of textiles such as silk allowed the government to purchase such goods and services from the West without incurring a heavy debt. While the teachings of the West were certainly important in imparting a self-reliance to Japan, the wider sphere of public education cannot be ignored. An educational policy was instituted devoted to the indoctrination of the populace with the ideals of the Restoration, namely the modernization of Japan. Not only were the Japanese to be instructed in the basics of a modern education such as literacy and mathematics, they were also taught to be wholly subservient to the government and its ideals, with the emperor as its figurehead. Such an authoritarian system of education was not completely without precedent in Japanese culture, as Confucian teachings promote a reverence for the social hierarchy. The system did succeed in its ambitions, as it produced a workforce dedicated to Japan’s economic progress. Yet, by the twentieth century it was to become much more malignant as the main tool for the militarization of Japan under Imperial doctrine.
The government had come into the possession of the industries once held by the domain lords, yet to match the West it had to become much more technologically advanced. To this end, during the 1870s the government invested heavily in industrial technologies and factories. Such patronization was especially important for the expansion of mechanized production facilities and heavy industry such as steelworks, which required a greater financial investment than could be granted by private individuals or companies. Heavy manufacturing in turn stimulated the growth of other industries such as mining and fuel production. Of further benefit to Japan’s economy was the attention paid by the government to improving the country’s infrastructure, especially the creation of a national railway. The immediate effects of Japan’s increased productivity was the expansion of trade, to which Asia was the principle market, and a reduction in the dependence on imported goods from the West. Japan’s industrial and economic growth during the late nineteenth century did not proceed unimpeded however, as by the 1880s the government found itself in debt. The Government, led by its financial minister Matsukata began to further adopt a more western-style of economic policy. Almost all of the governmental holdings in industry were sold, although a close relationship was kept with the businessmen who subsequently took control. Perhaps the most important aspect of Matsukata’s reforms, however, was the institutionalization of a national system of banking. The establishment of the Bank of Japan and a sound currency allowed for investment capitalism, which greatly aided the growth of the private sectors of the economy. Furthermore, Japanese investments were not limited to the mother country, as by the early 1900s Japanese investors had turned their endeavours to the greater Asian market.
A similar centralization of reform policy occurred following the second World War. Under the guidance of SCAP during the Occupation, Japan proceeded to rebuild its economy to such an extent that it was to become an economic leader of the modern world. America wanted a healthy Japan as an ally against the Communist bloc, so a great deal of financial aid was given to the country to allow for re-industrialization and economic recovery. Certainly the war had not completely devastated Japan, for while much of its industrial base had indeed been annihilated, the country still had a large reserve of highly skilled and educated human resources available. The destruction of Japan’s industrial complex had a secondary consequence as well, as in rebuilding its industry the country adopted the most modern techniques and machinery of the period. Additionally, the land reforms initiated by SCAP decreased rural poverty, which in turn led to the modernization of agriculture as farmers began to use modern technologies and methods. A new system of education based on the American structure was introduced, which emphasized the liberal-capitalist ideology of the West. While the Occupation succeeded in demilitarizing Japan, greater economic advances were made after Japan once again became a free country. The Mutual Security Treaty allowed the nation to avoid high military expenditure and instead concentrate on developing the civilian economy. Again one can observe the close relationship between the government and the business elite as during the 1950s laws were passed allowing it to regulate investment to target development in specific industries, such as plastics and electronics technologies, which were believed to be important future enterprises; simultaneously, industries viewed as obsolete were not given any aid. Further aided by the domestic demand for consumer products, Japanese production and exports increased exponentially during the 1950s and 1960s. There can be little doubt that by this period Japan was fully modernized, and indeed by the 1970s the country led the world in the high-technology industries.
Although the modernization of Japan was in large part a consequence of governmental policy, during several crucial periods of development the country was the beneficiary of events outside of its influence. Of primary importance was the minimal amount of foreign intervention during the Meiji Restoration, which along with a relative stability domestically allowed the government to concentrate on internal policy. Japan was also greatly assisted by a number of wars of which it played no immediate part. During the first World War the Japanese economy greatly benefited from its position as a supplier of munitions for Britain and France. Additionally, Japan assumed trade in the commercial markets, especially in Asia, previously held by the Western nations who had become preoccupied with the war. The wartime boom was only temporary however, as by 1920 the western nations had reclaimed their trade monopolies. A more lasting benefit was gained during the Korean War however, when Japan became a base for United Nations operations. Soldiers stationed in Japan, especially Americans, purchased a great deal of commercial and military supplies, and thus gave the country vital foreign currency and promoted a second ‘wartime boom’.
Analysing the modernization of Japan allows the discernment of one key factor that influenced the country’s development. Led by a strong and intent government, the Japanese people became a unified and skilled workforce. Industry flourished with government investment, which in turn generated a development in other sectors of the economy. Development after the second World War was particularly rapid and successful as through specific governmental policy Japan became one of the world leaders in high technology. The nation was further assisted economically by international events such as the Korean War. Despite such fortuitous events, it is quite possible however to attribute Japan’s ascendancy into the elite of the modern world to a determined central policy of development begun during the Meiji Restoration.
One of the defining characteristics of modern Japan has been the strength and almost singular determination of its government. Indeed, a once commonly-held stereotype in the West was that Japan followed a centralized ‘plan’ with which it could realize its ascendancy. To a certain extent such a convention can in fact be substantiated, as the government did indeed lead Japan into the modern era. The strong, centralized nature of the administration had its origins in the dominance of the domain lords of the late-Tokugawa period, which was additionally when the cult of the emperor re-emerged. The Meiji administration which superceded the old regime adopted a policy of national modernization, which had in fact been commenced in the Chōshū and Satsuma domains prior to the Restoration. While such governmental intervention would be seen as highly detrimental in the West, Japanese leaders, educated in the paternalism of Confucian teachings, felt that it was their duty to mould Japan to ensure its future success. Indeed, under such strong leadership Japan’s transition from a feudalistic to a modern society was fairly rapid and non-violent. Following a reform of land distribution, the government initiated a system of taxation to fund industrialization. Japan’s initial foray into modern industrialism relied heavily on the West. The government was required to purchase machinery from Western countries to begin modernizing Japan. More importantly however, in order to become self-reliant in the future Japan hired experts from the West to teach industrial methods and technology to Japanese workers. Foreign currency gained through the export of textiles such as silk allowed the government to purchase such goods and services from the West without incurring a heavy debt. While the teachings of the West were certainly important in imparting a self-reliance to Japan, the wider sphere of public education cannot be ignored. An educational policy was instituted devoted to the indoctrination of the populace with the ideals of the Restoration, namely the modernization of Japan. Not only were the Japanese to be instructed in the basics of a modern education such as literacy and mathematics, they were also taught to be wholly subservient to the government and its ideals, with the emperor as its figurehead. Such an authoritarian system of education was not completely without precedent in Japanese culture, as Confucian teachings promote a reverence for the social hierarchy. The system did succeed in its ambitions, as it produced a workforce dedicated to Japan’s economic progress. Yet, by the twentieth century it was to become much more malignant as the main tool for the militarization of Japan under Imperial doctrine.
The government had come into the possession of the industries once held by the domain lords, yet to match the West it had to become much more technologically advanced. To this end, during the 1870s the government invested heavily in industrial technologies and factories. Such patronization was especially important for the expansion of mechanized production facilities and heavy industry such as steelworks, which required a greater financial investment than could be granted by private individuals or companies. Heavy manufacturing in turn stimulated the growth of other industries such as mining and fuel production. Of further benefit to Japan’s economy was the attention paid by the government to improving the country’s infrastructure, especially the creation of a national railway. The immediate effects of Japan’s increased productivity was the expansion of trade, to which Asia was the principle market, and a reduction in the dependence on imported goods from the West. Japan’s industrial and economic growth during the late nineteenth century did not proceed unimpeded however, as by the 1880s the government found itself in debt. The Government, led by its financial minister Matsukata began to further adopt a more western-style of economic policy. Almost all of the governmental holdings in industry were sold, although a close relationship was kept with the businessmen who subsequently took control. Perhaps the most important aspect of Matsukata’s reforms, however, was the institutionalization of a national system of banking. The establishment of the Bank of Japan and a sound currency allowed for investment capitalism, which greatly aided the growth of the private sectors of the economy. Furthermore, Japanese investments were not limited to the mother country, as by the early 1900s Japanese investors had turned their endeavours to the greater Asian market.
A similar centralization of reform policy occurred following the second World War. Under the guidance of SCAP during the Occupation, Japan proceeded to rebuild its economy to such an extent that it was to become an economic leader of the modern world. America wanted a healthy Japan as an ally against the Communist bloc, so a great deal of financial aid was given to the country to allow for re-industrialization and economic recovery. Certainly the war had not completely devastated Japan, for while much of its industrial base had indeed been annihilated, the country still had a large reserve of highly skilled and educated human resources available. The destruction of Japan’s industrial complex had a secondary consequence as well, as in rebuilding its industry the country adopted the most modern techniques and machinery of the period. Additionally, the land reforms initiated by SCAP decreased rural poverty, which in turn led to the modernization of agriculture as farmers began to use modern technologies and methods. A new system of education based on the American structure was introduced, which emphasized the liberal-capitalist ideology of the West. While the Occupation succeeded in demilitarizing Japan, greater economic advances were made after Japan once again became a free country. The Mutual Security Treaty allowed the nation to avoid high military expenditure and instead concentrate on developing the civilian economy. Again one can observe the close relationship between the government and the business elite as during the 1950s laws were passed allowing it to regulate investment to target development in specific industries, such as plastics and electronics technologies, which were believed to be important future enterprises; simultaneously, industries viewed as obsolete were not given any aid. Further aided by the domestic demand for consumer products, Japanese production and exports increased exponentially during the 1950s and 1960s. There can be little doubt that by this period Japan was fully modernized, and indeed by the 1970s the country led the world in the high-technology industries.
Although the modernization of Japan was in large part a consequence of governmental policy, during several crucial periods of development the country was the beneficiary of events outside of its influence. Of primary importance was the minimal amount of foreign intervention during the Meiji Restoration, which along with a relative stability domestically allowed the government to concentrate on internal policy. Japan was also greatly assisted by a number of wars of which it played no immediate part. During the first World War the Japanese economy greatly benefited from its position as a supplier of munitions for Britain and France. Additionally, Japan assumed trade in the commercial markets, especially in Asia, previously held by the Western nations who had become preoccupied with the war. The wartime boom was only temporary however, as by 1920 the western nations had reclaimed their trade monopolies. A more lasting benefit was gained during the Korean War however, when Japan became a base for United Nations operations. Soldiers stationed in Japan, especially Americans, purchased a great deal of commercial and military supplies, and thus gave the country vital foreign currency and promoted a second ‘wartime boom’.
Analysing the modernization of Japan allows the discernment of one key factor that influenced the country’s development. Led by a strong and intent government, the Japanese people became a unified and skilled workforce. Industry flourished with government investment, which in turn generated a development in other sectors of the economy. Development after the second World War was particularly rapid and successful as through specific governmental policy Japan became one of the world leaders in high technology. The nation was further assisted economically by international events such as the Korean War. Despite such fortuitous events, it is quite possible however to attribute Japan’s ascendancy into the elite of the modern world to a determined central policy of development begun during the Meiji Restoration.
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