Live Evil: of Magic and Men [1 ed.] 9781848880726, 9789004403482

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Live Evil

At the Interface

Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Dr Daniel Riha

Advisory Board Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Dr Peter Mario Kreuter Professor Margaret Chatterjee Martin McGoldrick Dr Wayne Cristaudo Revd Stephen Morris Mira Crouch Professor John Parry Dr Phil Fitzsimmons Paul Reynolds Professor Asa Kasher Professor Peter Twohig Owen Kelly Professor S Ram Vemuri Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E

An At the Interface research and publications project. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/ The Evil Hub ‘Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness’ & ‘Magic and the Supernatural’

2011

Live Evil: Of Magic and Men Edited by

Sophia Vivienne Kottmayer

Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom

© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2011 http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/

The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global network for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Inter-Disciplinary Press.

Inter-Disciplinary Press, Priory House, 149B Wroslyn Road, Freeland, Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR, United Kingdom. +44 (0)1993 882087

ISBN: 978-1-84888-072-6 First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2010. First Edition.

Table of Contents Introduction Sophia Vivienne Kottmayer

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Literary Movements and the Emerging Question: ‘Can Evil Exist Today?’ Zekiye Antakyalıoğlu

1

Evil as Opposition to Self in American Literature and Contemporary Culture Marc Bourget and Norris Smith

9

The Abyss of Freedom: The Radical Evil at the Basis of Human Subjectivity Joseph Carew

17

Evil as Bondage to the Passions: Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown and Fury Roxana Doncu

25

Unexpected Evils: The Necessity of the Dark Side in Adolescent Narrative Phil Fitzsimmons and Edie Lanphar

33

What is Tempting Anthony? The Beauty of Evil Depicted in Symbolism Liesbeth Grotenhuis

43

Transgressing Gender Roles: Shape-Shifting in Bram Stoker’s Dracula Sophia Vivienne Kottmayer

53

Malicious (Non)Space in Speculative Fiction: Kathe Koja’s The Cipher and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves Agnieszka Kotwasińska

63

Evil Writers: The Obsessive Effect of Gothic Writing Maria Antónia Lima

71

‘Primum Non Nocere’: Grey Area in Commanding the Right and Forbidding the Wrong John D. Martin III

79

What We Know About Evil: A Deep Map William Andrew Myers

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Complexio Oppositorum: The Integration of Good and Evil in Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat Jean Rossmann

95

The Evil Queens of The Faerie Queene Hande Seber

103

Towards a Communicative Conception of Evil Martin Sticker

113

The Hoodoo that You Do: The Material Culture of Gendered Magic as Risk Management Mechanisms C. Riley Augé

123

Magic and the Power of the Condemned: English Public Execution and Popular Superstition from 1735 to 1868 Stephen Banks

131

Cinema and the Magical Erasure of the Woman, Or ‘How do You Make a Woman Disappear?’ Viv Chadder

141

Shifting the Focus: Magical Beings as Sympathetic Other Nadine Farghaly

149

Schools for Wizards George Hersh

157

Ancestor Haunts: Ghosts in Don Rosa’s Donald Duck Comics Katja Kontturi

165

Faerie Communion: Magical Cure in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Merve Sarı

173

Introduction Sophia Vivienne Kottmayer Evil draws men together - Aristotle Held in Prague, Czech Republic, the 12th Global Conference ‘Perspectives on Evil with Magic & the Supernatural’ was a convention that unified scholars flocking together from 20 different countries to share their thoughts on the many layers of an intangible as well as indefinable entity, yet one that all of us have experienced in one way or another. Being itself a town steeped in legends and sayings, Prague was a most adequate setting for this conference. Where else would you be surrounded by the raging ghosts of stabbed virgins, beheaded Protestants and a sick infant all the while apprehending the Golem’s rage? The suspense-laden atmosphere emerging from the city’s historicity was indeed unique and so it is with Aristotle’s above cited observation in mind that we cannot help but wonder what it is that has fascinated people of all times about supernatural phenomena and the Evil in particular. Why is it t hat the Evil is more enthralling than the Divine? Dante’s Inferno is described in colourful detail and with a vivacity that is completely lacking in the Paradiso. Why is Hell so alluring when compared to Heaven? What determines if magic is used as an instrument for Good or Evil and what if we lack proficiency in mastering it? Are we as human beings used as interceptors to negotiate between Good and Evil? Are we really masters of our own fate or are we the pawns of sublime powers? In religion, the play with the Devil is a dangerous one. And yet, much as we are aware of the impending peril of our soul falling into the flaming pit of damnation for all eternity, we are virtually mesmerized by the allure of the Evil: at Lot’s flight from the Kingdom of Sodom (which is described in Genesis, the first Book of the Pentateuch), he and his wife are exceedingly tempted to look back to the burning city and when his wife actually concedes she is tuned into a pillar of salt. Not only does this scripture reference demonstrate the absolute sovereignty of the Sublime, but it a lso admonishes us to abjure Evil, to literally turn our backs to it a nd to unfalteringly carry on, if we do not want to suffer the consequences. As a matter of fact, the Bible evinces various instances of disobedience and oftentimes depicts God’s reaction as wrathful and the means he uses to punish impenitent sinners are cruel. In other words, not even God – or at least our worldly conception of Him – is purely good. Even He needs the tools of Evil to establish and ensure Good. Following this train of thought, it b ecomes crucial to mention Baudrillard’s chapter, ‘The Spirit of Terrorism’, in which the French philosopher and cultural theorist goes one step further by stating that there seems to exist a self-regulatory power that perpetually keeps the dichotomy of Good and Evil in equilibrium. ‘Good does not conquer Evil, nor indeed does the reverse happen: they are at once both irreducible to each other and inextricably interrelated.’ 1

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__________________________________________________________________ It can happen nonetheless, that one side wins the proverbial upper hand for a certain span of time. In the case that the other side appears to be all but destroyed and cannot fight back anymore, the balance is re-established from the inside: the lack of any kind of counterbalance is frightening to the extent that people begin to feel the menacing terror of its absence, which consequently converts into an effect of longing, paradox as it may seem. People become literally paralyzed by this psychological terror and accordingly well-nigh demand a change – and not only for the better, since this affect holds true in both directions: if people have lived in apparent affluence for a long time, they gradually become timorous in view of the probability of losing everything they have at that specific point in time. Even though there might be no rational reason whatsoever for being apprehensive about anything, the human beings’ innate instincts renders the transitoriness of the status quo explicitly obvious to them. This realization in turn, increasingly triggers anxiety that leads to fear that leads to panic that leads to the urge to react somehow, even instinctively; irrationally, that is. This is a process which can be aptly described by the domino effect. Evil then can materialize because it is conjured up. In politics, this phenomenon could be witnessed before World War I and during the Cold War. In literature, the grotesque characters figuring in fin-de-siècle oeuvres, like Dracula, Dorian Gray, Ambrosio (The Monk), and Dr Jekyll/ Mr Hyde only to name a few, summarise the prevailing fear of the time and transfigure interior anxiety into exterior monstrousness. It is exactly at this point that Evil becomes interconnected with Magic and the Supernatural, for in this state of anxiety, people automatically become more susceptible to metaphysical practices. Evil, Magic and the Supernatural are inescapably linked together, as one facilitates and influences the other. One could even go as far as to call this unification the Evil Trinity, in which Evil stands for the diabolically sublime, whereas the supernatural is the channel that facilitates the realization of magic. In other words, Magic is the instrument, the Supernatural the gateway and Evil the ubiquitous inspector (here using the word’s literal meaning). However, the Evil Trinity is somewhat unstable as both, the channel and the instrument can also be used for good purposes. The fact that the outcome of Magic depends on the sound or evil intentions of the individual, (sorcerer, witch, shaman, medicine man, etc.) significantly dwarfs the dark sublimity of Evil even further. As has been mentioned above in another context, Baudrillard also points out in his chapter that in order for Good to establish its hegemony, it has to make use of methods that only Evil would think of, and vice versa. In other words, there is no such thing as pure Good or pure Evil a priori. It is hence erroneous to think of binaries or dichotomic circumstances in terms of two dimensional polarities for it is more adequate and precise to postulate their poly-dimensionality. Dichotomies are not two sides of the same coin. As a matter of fact, the globular yin and yang image would be far more accurate, for there are

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__________________________________________________________________ no set limits between the two extreme poles of binaries (but rather seamless transitions) and if one gets to the far end of one pole, one will inextricably arrive at the opposite; in other words, paradox though it may sound, opposites are two entities that are simultaneously (in terms of semantics) most apart from and closest to each other. The reason why the dichotomic-like thinking of patriarchal society is so strongly highlighted in this introduction is that terror fiction deliberately experiments with the disruption of order. Therefore, the horrific part about horror is so-to-say the fact that it transgresses existing limits, which is the main pillar on which our society is based. Using Lloyd-Smith’s distinction between horror and terror, it is worthwhile emphasising that the aforementioned transgression occurs bilaterally, viz. psychologically (terror) and visually (horror). As will be disclosed in the here present collection of academic chapters, the lines between what we call reality and the other world are more than blurry. Mythical creatures like vampires, witches and zombies pop in and out of the real world as if it were their prerogative to do so. In popular culture, the co-existence of various realms has already become a matter of course: Harry Potter, The Twilight Zone and The Vampire Diaries, just to name a few and probably the most popular oeuvres, postulate the existence of Magic and the Supernatural as a given. Yet even factual history and contemporary ritualistic practices as viewed in a p lethora of occurrences have taught us that the Supernatural is inextricably linked to our individual perception of reality. Occultism has been part and parcel of the history of mankind: in Ancient Greece oracles were considered as portals through which the Gods could communicate with mortal beings and vice versa and voodoo is still central to tribal life in Africa and the Far East. However, we do not have to go as far as that to witness magic penetrating our quotidian lives – we could even venture to say that there has been an inversion of the colonizing process: eastern spirituality permeates western rationality. There are effectively more and more people who embrace the prophetic powers of astrology, seek the guidance of fortune-tellers, believe in superstition, or even use their transcendental knowledge for homeopathic purposes such as in Prana healing, Traditional Chinese Medicine or hypnosis. All of these categories have in common that they emphasise the coexistence and liminality of the spheres. The chapters in this compilation distinguish themselves in that they cover a wide span of topics that are approached from different perspectives and in various contexts, using a multitude of literary methodologies, whilst exploring the darkest areas of the human mind and attempting to answer the question as to why Magic, the Evil and the Supernatural are so immensely fascinating in general and in present times in particular.

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__________________________________________________________________ Key themes that are central to the project include: the language of evil; the nature and sources of evil and human wickedness; moral intuitions about dreadful crimes; psychopathic behaviour; is a person mad or bad?; choice, responsibility, and diminished responsibility; social and cultural reactions to evil and human wickedness; the portrayal of evil and human wickedness in the media and popular culture; suffering in literature and film; individual acts of evil, group violence, holocaust and genocide; obligations of bystanders; terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing; the search for meaning and sense in evil and human wickedness; the nature and tasks of theodicy; religious understandings of evil and human wickedness; postmodern approaches to evil and human wickedness; eco-criticism, evil and suffering; evil and the use/ abuse of technology; evil in cyberspace. More specifically speaking, the chapters approach the general theme mostly from a literary and/ or cinematographic perspective (including a diversity of genres such as horror, gothic, science fiction, but also fantasy and comics). However, there are also works that have been inspired by real life occurrences, be it by factual history or by occult practices that are carried out to this day. Magic and the Supernatural have become de rigeur in popular culture to an extent that it i s well-nigh inconceivable to imagine our quotidian lives without them. Oftentimes it is claimed that something is only magical until it can be explained in rational terms and that therefore we remain in a state of childish ignorance if believing in it. We are made to think that it is more conducive to focus on what happens in the here and now than to worry about the afterlife. From a perfectly logical point of view, though, this must be a misconception, for, as has been disclosed above, there is no such thing as purity. Consequently, rationality cannot exist by itself. And after all, do stark facts not mar the pleasure of the marvellous? This collection of academic chapters seeks to analyse how over centuries mankind has cast supernatural experiences into narrative, into archetypal stories which account for a specific culture’s heritage, all the while trying to conserve the marvel emerging from the inexplicable. This said, let us keep Joanne K. Rowling’s words in mind: ‘It is important to remember that we have all magic inside us.’

Notes 1

J. Baudrillard, ‘The Spirit of Terrorism’, The Spirit of Terrorism and O ther Essays, Verso, New York, 2003, p. 13.

Bibliography Baudrillard, J., ‘The Spirit of Terrorism’. The Spiritof Terrorism and Other Essays. Verso, New York, 2003.

Literary Movements and the Emerging Question: ‘Can Evil Exist Today?’ Zekiye Antakyalıoğlu Abstract Since evil has been inherent in man’s lot because of his all-too-human imperfections, because he lacks the omnipotence of God, literature – the art of mimesis – has taken it as one of its main topics while illustrating the human nature. Literature dedicates its energy to the representation of reality, in essence it is always realistic, and realism is the place where all other movements find their roots. Literary movements vary according to the way they wrestle with reality and it has been as such since the time of the Classicists. The heterogeneous and inconsistent nature of reality, on the other hand, has made the notion of evil a problematic one. Obviously, evil as understood by Samuel Johnson can never be the same as the evil which is illustrated by Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Lawrence, Kafka or Beckett. In order to come up with a largely accepted notion of evil, the precondition was to find a reliable ground by which evil could be measured, and this ground has always been ‘reality’. Literary movements and literature seem to be proper ground in tracking the footsteps of reality, and, of course, the concept of evil which is shaped by it. This chapter is an attempt to analyse how the concept of evil has been handled by the literary movements as classicism, romanticism, realism, modernism and postmodernism, and how literary texts might have changed their attitude to evil from past to present. Baudrillard and his views on simulacra and hyperreal will be referred as a conclusive remark on arousing the question of whether evil can exist or not in a world which has lost its connection with reality for ever. Key Words: Philosophy, reality, literature, classicism, romanticism, modernism, postmodernism, simulacra. ***** The concept of evil has engaged philosophers, moralists and theologians since the time of Plato. Classicists sought to explain things by reason, put the emphasis on the laws of causality and used dialectics and dialogue form as their method. They knew that metaphysical and natural evils could not be rationalized. This kind of evil was thought to be uncaused, or to be its own cause. The safe way, then, was to anthropomorphize evil in moral terms and transform it to something reasonable. To construct a homogeneous society, moral standards and restrictions were required. ‘Plato’, as Jeffrey Alexander states, ‘associated his ideal forms with goodness. To be able to see these forms, he believed, was to be able to act in accordance with morality.’ 1 This view associated evil with anything that was

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__________________________________________________________________ imperfect, despicable, chaotic, satanic and low. If evil implied disorientation to society, an incapability to meet the expectations of the law, then its opposite, good would be there to make one happy, integrated and peaceful. Classicism in art kept a record of prevailing for about 2200 years. The main tenets of Classicism, its ethical perspectives, its laws and rules on almost every aspect of life could be visible until the end of the 18th century. The major literary figures of neoclassicism in the 17th and early 18th century England kept on following Plato’s and Aristotle’s footsteps in defining the function and the meaning of poetry. ‘To instruct delightfully’ was the general end of all poetry and this motto was shared by a range of poets/critics like Philip Sidney, John Dryden, Samuel Johnson and Alexander Pope, who had a high regard for the classical standards. For Dr Johnson, confounding the colours of good and evil, vice and virtue was a fatal mistake; therefore, he didn’t hesitate to convict Shakespeare for sacrificing virtue to convenience, for pleasing more than instructing, and for writing without a moral purpose. 2 Vice or evil had to be depicted inasmuch as it could invoke disgust in the reader. When Samuel Johnson warned his readers against the popular novels of his time, he had the ‘splendidly wicked’ 3 characters on mind. Later on, the age of Enlightenment showed eagerness in shedding light upon the dark, untouched and mysterious aspects of nature, but it somehow failed to translate them to the language of science. Enlightenment and its deterministic discourses of universe were merely efforts of intellectualizing and institutionalizing the natural sciences and material realities. On the other hand, the need for re-defining man was felt by the great philosophers like Leibniz, Rousseau, Locke, Kant and Hume. The newly emerging bourgeois public sphere, the new ethical demands of the industrial developments and the scientific discoveries resulted in an alarming necessity for re-defining man in terms of his long ignored characteristics. The newly emerging concepts like freedom of thought, and the famous triad of the French Revolution created a n ew perspective of man as individual being. Compared to the impersonal, disinterested, objective, rational man as an obedient member of society, the individual was regarded as personal, self-interested, emotional, and deeply subjective in evaluating his rights and wrongs. This new type of idealism was called the romantic idealism and it involved an inability to believe all the ways in which tradition found meaning in evil. In literature, Romantic poets like Goethe, Blake, Shelly, Coleridge and Byron tried to examine and spread the new spirit of individualism. For Blake, ‘the same rules for the lion and ox’ was oppressive, and evil was never something simply despicable. For Byron certain kinds of human wickedness could, in fact, be rather splendid, and Don Juan was a great example of it; for Goethe the evil doings of Faust were never simply condemnable. The Byronic heroes were fond of spending time in ‘sin’s long labyrinths’. 4 Evil was the dark shadow that the light of reason could not banish. 5 For Terry Eagleton, the damned like Dr Faustus, were too proud to submit to limit. They would not bow the knee to the finite, least of all to their

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__________________________________________________________________ own creatureliness, 6 and the damned always had a h ubristic love affair with the illimitable. 7 Romantic period marks a turning point in time not only by challenging the fossilized norms of classicism but also by presenting a n ew and subjective alternative of realism which declared war to the good-old discourses on ‘rigorous discipline’, ‘rules to obey’, ‘proper behaviour’, ‘common-sense’ and ‘reason’. Man was no longer measured only by his cognitive abilities; his interaction with nature, reality and god was far more complex. In the naturalistic novels of Thomas Hardy, man was a victim of an indifferent and blind nature/god, and his reason was somehow handicapped. His relationship with society was getting ugly and society was seen like Kronos devouring his children. Later, this indifference of nature and/or god was replaced by Joseph Conrad’s representation of nature as hostile, ceaselessly entrapping man and transforming him to a rather quixotic being. The famous hero of all times and genres was metamorphosed into a notorious anti-hero. When the French thinker Michel Foucault said that ‘man was born circa 1800 as the child of a particular configuration of knowledge’ he obviously saw what Nietzsche had seen in the late 19th century. 8 Nietzsche’s attempts of discussing the good and evil in a non-moral sense, and his desire to see what was ‘beyond’ the shallow classical principles, set a strong model for the twentieth century perspectives on evil. As Neiman states, ‘his doctrine of eternal return was an attempt to smash the residue of redemption and the philistine insistence on progress. It also destroyed the idea of telos. The disappearance of telos was the end of all established meanings. Without a point beyond time to redeem or condemn us, human kind had to transform itself.’ 9 In order to found an alternative and antidialectical version of ethics, he declared, therefore, the death of god. Man, in order to remain morally good, needed a voyeur, and created God. God had always been there as the father, protector, punisher and rewarder. He believed that if the world was ruled by a good and powerful father figure, he could live in a perfectly harmonious and just system. ‘Love your neighbour’ and ‘thou shall not’ type of patterns were necessary to keep life in order. This is why Nietzsche sees them as utilitarian and superficial, and condemns Socrates for surrendering himself to reason at all costs in his last defence. This new perspective was, in fact, announcing the abolishment of the cogito kingdom. It was not only Nietzsche who saw the problematic atmosphere of the 19th century. Georg Lukacs examined this paradigm shift, in his seminal works The Theory of the Novel and The Historical Novel, while he was discussing the ontology of the novel in the beginning of the 20th century. The novel, for Lukacs, is the epic of an age in which the extensive totality of life is no longer directly given; 10 the epic individual, the hero of the novel, is the product of estrangement from the outside world; 11 the novel is the epic of a world that has been abandoned by god. In it, meaning can never penetrate reality because the essence is divorced from life and became alien to it. 12 The result, for him, was transcendental homelessness. In the beginning of the 20th century, Virginia Woolf tried to explain

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__________________________________________________________________ this fundamental change in her own terms. She believed that ‘on or about 1910, human character changed, and the change was not sudden or definite’. 13 Woolf criticized the realist novels of Wells, Bennet, Fielding and Austen for simply focusing on the external realities. When we go through the monumental texts of the late 19th and early 20th century, we can notice this radical shift of perception. The more heterogeneous and inconsistent reality was, the more problematic and chaotic evil had become. Obviously, evil as understood by Samuel Johnson was not the same as the evil as illustrated by Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, D.H. Lawrence, Kafka or Beckett. Dostoyevsky proved through his character Myshkin that sometimes idiocy could be the other name of innocence and good-heartedness; Flaubert’s Emma had a lot to say to the blind judges of adultery. It was clearly realized that human and inhuman were not binary oppositions, and acting as if they were, was the greatest mistake of the classical tradition. Modernist literature, as Hassan says, was the literature of silence, a lamentation for the loss of the absolute meaning. This silence implied the alienation from reason, society, and history. 14 The result was the ventriloquisms of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and Samuel Beckett. Modernists, one might say, suffered from the unspeakable memory of the two world wars, the holocaust and Auschwitz; whereas the postmodernists have no such trouble for they have no memory left. Amnesia has become the defining quality of our century. The lamentation has been over. Frivolity, playfulness and parody highlight the major contemporary texts. The artist, the great imitator of reality, suffers the very void of reality. The postmodern literature, therefore, enjoys what it normally has to endure. What kind of a place can evil have in the postmodern fiction when there is no ground possible to threaten it? Terry Eagleton, in his book, On Evil says that evil feeds itself from the very meaningless. Metaphysically approached, evil has no practical purpose and is extremely pointless. It is a rejection of logic and causality, and an example of pure disinterestedness. After reading Eagleton’s accounts of evil one can feel that evil is a lot more interesting than what it has seemed so far. In an article he wrote for The Guardian, Eagleton says: ‘The devil, so they say, has all the best tunes. Nobody would take a guided tour of Dante’s Paradiso if they could have one of the Inferno instead. Milton’s God sounds like a b ureaucratic bore, while his Satan shimmers with mutinous life. Nobody would have an orange juice with Oliver Twist if they could have a beer with Fagin instead. So why is evil so sexy, and good so profoundly unglamorous? And why does virtue seem so boring?’ 15 He, obviously, tries to save evil from the moralists, in the same way as he saved Marx from the Marxists and Christianity from the Christians. Eagleton connects the concept of evil to the Freudian death drive, which emerges from the tension between love/life as symbolized by Eros and death/nothingness as symbolized by Thanatos. Freudian death drive is a desire for nothingness and it is, by necessity, an expression of the infinite. When we remember the hubristic love affair of evil with the illimitable, we can get the point. ‘Evil involves a megalomaniac overvaluing of the self and an

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__________________________________________________________________ equally pathological devaluing of it.’ 16 For Freud, human beings unconsciously desire their own destruction, and at the core of the self is a d rive to absolute nothingness. To preserve ourselves from the injury known as existing, we are ready to face our own disappearance. Once this unconscious drive is translated to the consciousness, we feel an ecstatic sense of liberation that nothing really matters. The delight of the damned is not to give a damn. So, the death drive is a deliriously orgiastic revolt against the interest, value, meaning and rationality. 17 This awareness, we might say, can function to fill in the void which caused the intellectual immaturity of the past. After cognizing Freud’s death drive, condemning the evil as those who are deficient in the art of living can sound like a childish over-generalization. ‘Evil’, as Eagleton quotes from Andre Green, ‘is without why, because its raison d’être is to proclaim that everything which exists has no meaning, obeys no order, pursues no aim, depends only on the power it can exercise to impose its will on the objects of its appetite.’ 18 To the clichés like ‘God bless this country’, evil’s reply is ‘yeah, whatever’. 19 Consequently, the postmodern novels approach the term ‘morality’ as preachy, unscientific, oppressive and boring; they don’t care about the people making fuss on people going to bed with someone else; they don’t have a clear and distinct sense of war, peace, terrorism, and somehow feel uneasy in determining whether the governments or terrorists are more terrorists; they treat terrorism as a commodity which is imported and exported, and war as ‘capitalism with the gloves off’. 20 Moreover, they really have no sense of distinguishing fact from fiction, and very often perceive two opposing propositions as equally logical. For example: When we ask a question like ‘who attacked the twin towers in 9/11?’ Both answers: ‘Bush did it himself using Usame as pretext’ and ‘Al-Quaida did it t o punish the U.S.A.’ sound equally reasonable. Our system, as Baudrillard puts it, is no longer reasonable, because it is now a system of surface, performativity, and a fragmentation or fracturing of rationality. 21 The immanence of simulacra marks the end of Apocalypse. Today, robbing a bank and founding one are, morally speaking, the same. There is no longer anything radical about evil; instead, banality outlives everything. The people of our time are, like T.S. Eliot’s ‘Hollow Men’, too shallow to be damned. This is the third order of simulation and capitalism feeds itself on it by manipulating the banal mass culture. The romantic individual has become extinct, and the mass has taken its place. To have a concept of evil we need moral standards, to apply the moral standards we need individuals who are responsible for their actions, but wasn’t it Nietzsche who first saw the illusion of individual, by saying, no one can really be indivisible? Can we really be the sole proprietors of our own actions? ‘We’, as Eagleton states, ‘live our lives in a set of complex relationships of action and reaction, so who really has ownership of a particular deed? Who exactly is responsible for killing the saintly Simon in Lord of the Flies?’ 22 More importantly, together with the extinction of the individual, evil has undertaken an impersonal nature. We can perfectly talk about evil acts without evil

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__________________________________________________________________ persons executing them. Once evil becomes immanent, it ceases to exist. Don’t we all, as masses, contribute to the destruction of nature? Don’t we keep silent when people are killed in the different parts of the world? Or, do we even rouse when children are starving in Africa? Do we literally care about anything? The credibility gap that is opened up between fact and value, truth and lie paralyses all of us. Moreover, evil’s love with the illimitable can also guide us while examining the perpetual nature of capitalism which functions as a s ystem of desire. We all like it, contribute to it and although we sometimes question its greediness and consumerism we never attempt to put an end to it. Postmodern hedonism confirms evil’s love of nothingness, purposelessness, and the infinite. As Eagleton sums up, On the whole, postmodern cultures, despite their fascination with ghouls and vampires, have had little to say of evil. Perhaps this is because the postmodern man and woman – cool, provisional, laid-back and decentred – lacks the depth that destructiveness requires. For postmodernism, there is nothing really to be redeemed. For high modernists like Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, or the early T.S. Eliot, there [was] indeed something to be redeemed, but it [was] impossible to say quite what. 23 Whether we are better or worse than the high modernists, time will tell. But to the remaining question ‘can evil really exist today?’ the best reply comes, I think, from The Raven: ‘Nevermore’.

Notes 1

J. Alexander, ‘Toward A Sociology of Evil’, Rethinking Evil, M.P. Lara (ed), p. 157. 2 S. Johnson, ‘Preface to Shakespeare’, Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism, V. Leitch et al. (eds), Norton & Company, 2001, p. 474. 3 S. Johnson, op. cit., p. 465. 4 Lord Byron, ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’, Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. II, M.H. Abrams et al. (eds), Norton & Company, 1986, p. 515. 5 T. Eagleton, On Evil, Yale University Press, London, 2001, p. 132. 6 Ibid., p. 26. 7 Ibid., p. 31. 8 S. Burke quoting M. Foucault in The Death and Return of the Author, Edinburgh U.P., Edinburgh, 1999, p. 81. 9 Neiman, in Rethinging Evil, op. cit., p. 39. 10 G. Lukacs, The Theory of the Novel, trans. A. Bostock, The MIT Press, USA, 1971, p. 36.

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Ibid., p. 66. Ibid., p. 41. 13 V. Woolf, ‘Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown’, Theory of the Novel, M. McKeon (ed), The John Hopkins UP, London, 2000, p. 746. 14 I. Hassan, The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Towards a Postmodern Literature, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1982, pp. 8-12. 15 T. Eagleton, ‘Ideas for Modern Living: Virtue’, The Guardian, Sunday 12 September, 2010, Viewed on 26 January 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/ 2010/sep/12/ideas-modern-living-virtue-evil-sexy . 16 Eagleton, On Evil, op. cit., p. 103. 17 Ibid., p. 108. 18 Ibid., p. 103. 19 Ibid., p. 74. 20 T. Stoppard, Travesties, Faber & Faber Limited, London, 1975, p. 39. 21 R.J. Lane, Jean Baudrillard, 2nd Ed., Routledge Critical Thinkers, New York, 2009, p. 89. 22 Eagleton, op. cit., p. 37. 23 Eagleton, op. cit., p. 15. 12

Bibliography Alexander, J.C., ‘Toward a Sociology of Evil’. Rethinking Evil. Lara, M.P. (ed), University of California Press, London, 2001. Baudrillard, J., Simulacra and Simulation. trans. Glaser, S.F., The University of Michigan Press, U.S.A., 2010. Burke, S., The Death and Return of the Author. Edinburgh UP, Edinburgh, 1999. Byron, L., ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’. Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol. II. Norton & Company, Abrams, M.H., et al. (eds),1986. Eagleton, T., On Evil. Yale University Press, London, 2010. —, ‘Ideas for Modern Living: Virtue’. The Guardian. Sunday 12 S eptember, 2010, Viewed on 26 J anuary 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2010 /sep/12/ideas-modern-living-virtue-evil-sexy. Hassan, I., The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Towards a Postmodern Literature. The University of Wisconsin Press, 1982.

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__________________________________________________________________ Johnson, S., ‘On Fiction’. Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Leitch, V., et al. (eds), Norton &Company, 2001. —, ‘Preface to Shakespeare’. Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Leitch, V., et al. (eds), Norton &Company, 2001. Lane, R.J., Jean Baudrillard. 2nd Ed., Routledge Critical Thinkers, New York, 2009. Lukacs, G., The Theory of the Novel. trans. Bostock, A., The MIT Press, USA, 1971. —, The Historical Novel. trans. Stanley, H., Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1978. Neiman, S., ‘What’s the Problem of Evil?’. Rethinking Evil. Lara, M.P. (ed), University of California Press, London, 2001. —, Evil in Modern Thought. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002. Nietzsche, F., The Twilight of the Idols and t he Anti-Christ. trans. Hollingdale, R.J., Tanner, M. (ed), Penguin, London, 1990. —, Beyond Good and Evil. trans. Norman, J., Horstmann, P. (ed), Cambridge U.P, New York, 2002. Stoppard, T., Travesties. Faber & Faber Limited, London, 1975. Woolf, V., ‘Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown’. Theory of the Novel. McKeon, M. (ed), The John Hopkins UP, London, 2000. —, ‘Modern Fiction’. Theory of the Novel. McKeon, M. (ed), The John Hopkins UP, London, 2000. Zekiye Antakyalıoğlu is the head of English Department at Gaziantep University in Turkey. She is the author of Stoppardian Drama: Postmodernist and Counterpostmodernist Attitudes. (Berlin: VDM, 2009) and has published a range of articles on Tom Stoppard, Jeanette Winterson, Orhan Pamuk, and Peter Ackroyd.

Evil as Opposition to Self in American Literature and Contemporary Culture Marc Bourget and Norris Smith Abstract Since its advent in the seventeenth century, American literature has offered different versions of evil, although a common theme integrates them, categorized in this chapter as an external force that threatens an individual self or a community. A literal Satan as the main corrupting force evolved into social institutions and systems impeding, confining, and perverting the ‘true nature’ of an individual. For example, writers such as the Transcendentalists championed the conscience as the seat of all morality, a conscience that society often forced, persuaded, or beguiled us to repress. Because literature is a reflection of the mores of a particular time and culture, it is not surprising to find this portrayal of evil in other areas of American society, even in contemporary times. One way to identify this configuration is through the work of Jung, which sees outside evil as a projection of one’s own desire and fear, whether emanating from an individual or a group. The way to combat this evil is through shadow work in which we recognize the source and incorporate it into ourselves. The main focus of this chapter is to examine such manifestations of American literature from a psychological as well as a literary perspective. Key Words: Jung, evil, literature, transcendentalists, contemporary culture, Christianity, Puritans. ***** During America’s infancy, when its new immigrants and explorers still held allegiances to mother countries across the Atlantic, the Puritans of the Massachusetts Colony were seeking refuge from a persecuting authority back home. The Puritans’ allegiances instead were to each other and the faith that defined them both as individuals and as a community. Indeed, as a people oppressed by the government of their homeland and as a people who cast themselves from their known, Christian world into the wilderness of the ‘devil’s territories,’1 their concept of self was inextricably linked to the Puritan communal identity. Moreover, the real and perceived threats to the precarious existence of this community resulted in a binary opposition in which the Puritan community (and Puritan self) was seen as the locus of all that is morally and spiritually good, and the outside world was viewed as a potentially corrupting influence on this goodness. This dichotomy more than just mirrored the adversarial relationship between God and the devil of Christian theology; for the Puritans, it was a fundamental part

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__________________________________________________________________ of it. The devil was perceived as a literal threat to the identity of the community. The members of the Massachusetts Colony were certain that Satan was actively striving to thwart what they believed was a paragon of Christian society, a ‘city upon the hill’ as John Winthrop called it. Cotton Mather writes, ‘Wherefore the devil is now making one attempt more upon us; an attempt more difficult, more surprising, more snarled with unintelligible circumstances than any that we have hitherto encountered; an attempt so critical, that if we get well through, we shall soon enjoy halcyon days with all the vultures of hell trodden under our feet.’2 The attempt Cotton Mather is referring to is Satan’s legion of witches working to undermine and corrupt the soul of the Christian colony. One consequence of this belief was the execution of nineteen members of the colony, fourteen women and five men, who were found guilty of witchcraft. The demise, however, of the colony as Winthrop and Mather knew it came not at the hands of a literal devil but by the progressive ideas of the Enlightenment Period. Nevertheless, there remains as a legacy of that early period of a few hundred settlers a worldview based on a binary opposition of an internal, essential goodness against an external evil striving to corrupt or repress it. It is a deeply embedded configuration in the American psyche and is manifest in the much of literature from the Colonial Period to the present day. Using a multidisciplinary approach, this chapter traces this dichotomous worldview through some of the significant periods of American literature from a literary perspective and analyzes this theme from a psychological one. ‘Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members,’ declares Emerson in his highly influential essay ‘Self-Reliance.’3 Few nineteenth-century thinkers have had a greater impact on American literature than Emerson and his fellow transcendentalists, in part due to the American literary scholars of the 40s and 50s, most notably F.O. Matthiessen, who ‘constructed a literary canon centered around [sic.] their own highly individualistic ‘myth of America.’4 It is clear from the Emerson quote that this ‘myth of America’ is composed of a similar opposition as the one found in the Puritan concept of existence; the difference, however, is that the individual self has replaced the persecuted community (at least for privileged White males) and society has supplanted the devil. In this Romantic configuration, the self and society are mutually exclusive, with the locus of the good found solely within the individual, and evil existing as a society that corrupts the self through pressure to conform to its collective ideas, creeds, and values. Much like the witches of Salem and Boston who were accused of transferring their agency over to the will of the devil, conformists are viewed through a transcendental lens as relinquishing their independent thought and conscience, i.e., their ‘manhood,’ to the collective will of society.

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__________________________________________________________________ In fact, for the transcendentalist, conformity is immoral; it denies the individual of his divine, immortal nature. In his ‘Resistance to Civil Government,’ Thoreau writes, When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death.5 Here, government is included as a component of society that corrupts the individual. What Thoreau means by a ‘conscience is wounded’ is a negation of the divine, intuitive truth of a man’s conscience by participating in or passively allowing the injustices perpetrated by the government, e.g., war and slavery. Continuing into contemporary times, this bifurcation is arguably also manifested in a political philosophy that resists purported governmental imposition, as manifested in relative lack of regulation and lower taxes for those who lobby effectively. Although the Modern Period of American literature is commonly viewed as a shift away from these Romantic ideals of the nineteenth century, the binary opposition of self against society remains intact in much of the writing. However, an important variance of the modern version of the dichotomy is the definition of the individual. To be sure, the individualism of the ‘myth of America’ persists in the literature: the independent heroes of Ernest Hemingway, Ayn Rand, and Raymond Chandler are prime examples of the value of ‘self-reliance.’ What is different is that the view that an individual possesses access to immutable truths through his sentiments and intuition is no longer tenable in the Modern Era. The modern hero is not only isolated socially, but also spiritually. He cannot depend on the clarity and certainty of the Romantic ideals. It is true that goodness can still reside in an individual, not however because of the immortality of his soul or divinity of his nature, but because he chooses to believe in principles despite the amorality and corruption of the society he lives in. It should be clear, however, that it is not the vices and venality of modern society that corrupt the self; that society is morally bankrupt is not an evil. Instead, the evil that is in opposition to the self is the towering city skylines and monolithic corporations of modern America that debase the self by dwarfing him in comparison. The common man is made inconsequential and anonymous in a city of millions, a condition that divests him of his dignity and reduces him to a demeaned status. It is with this view of society in mind when the speaker of T.S. Elliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ states, ‘The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, / And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, / When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, / Then how should I begin.’6 Society (‘the eyes’) views the

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__________________________________________________________________ individual as possessing little intrinsic importance, as if he were an insect pinned to a wall, which limits his sense of agency (‘how should I begin’) and corrupts his sense of self-worth. Perhaps the literary character that most exemplifies the diminishing effect of modern society on the self is Willie Loman, the travelling salesman in Author Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Willie is portrayed as a modern-day tragic hero, ‘a hard-working, unappreciated prince’ whose tragic flaw is that he is a ‘common’ man who wants to retain his innate dignity. 7 Miller writes, ‘Now, if it is true that tragedy is the consequence of a man’s total compulsion to evaluate himself justly, his destruction in the attempt posits a wrong or an evil in his environment.’8 This evil in the environment is the consumer-based culture of American society, which compels a person to compromise and sell himself short in order to thrive. After a life time of service to this system, Willie finds himself fired by his employer, rejected by his sons, and deluded by a nostalgia for the promises of the past that were never realized. In the end Willie’s perspective of self has been so perverted by consumer society, he concludes that he is worth more dead than alive - 20,000 dollars of insurance money. Willie’s suicide represents the complete annihilation of an authentic, noble self that takes place once an individual conforms to the values of American capitalism. In contemporary American literature as well, this version of the binary opposition in which the self is under threat by consumer society is maintained. The recent cult classic Fight Club is a prime example. In this novel, the narrator has conformed to consumer America, resulting in a constructed social identity based on the products he possesses, such as the furniture in his apartment. In doing so, he, like Willie Loman, has diminished his true nature, an authentic self of independence and ‘manhood.’ The twist in this story, however, is that his true nature emerges as a delusional projection named Tyler Durden. Through Tyler, the narrator learns that ‘you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.’9 Tyler’s solution to the evil, however, is complete destruction. Through a terrorist network called Project Mayhem, comprising a gang of angry white working and middle class men, Tyler endeavors to collapse society by destroying its foundation, the banking and corporate systems. The most relevant psychological perspective to address various conceptions of evil is that of Carl Jung, specifically his work on the Shadow. A human archetype consisting of a reservoir of unconscious or repressed drives, or simply the dark side of ourselves, it also serves as the seat of creativity. Of course one also faces the danger of becoming a victim of these dark internal forces if they are not properly integrated, which is exemplified in much of American literature. The solution, then, is to perform ‘Shadow work’ in which these forces are successfully integrated into a mature personality, a process Jung referred to as individuation. The idea is that the conscious part of ourselves must encounter and handle the darkness, rather than unwittingly allowing the shadow to control us.10

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__________________________________________________________________ This psychological analysis explains this encounter with evil as a projection onto others the dark portion of ourselves. Characterized as a defense mechanism, this process distorts or deflects a threat to our well-being or self-esteem. In this instance, rather than confront the primal beast, we simply push these out and see them in others. There needs to be some object to which we can attach this projection of negativity. If there is no obvious object, then we cast outwards a generalized evil onto anything suitable. Necessitating a reduction into something more concrete, we turn an ambiguous evil into something targeted. In effect, the negativity coming from within needs some person, group, or concept to which it may affix itself. Once this establishment of an evil takes hold, it spreads by encompassing the negativity of others and can form a collective evil as seen by those who are projecting. In the same way that the confrontation with evil occurs in the literary realm, some members of society take it upon themselves to engage with what they construct as evil and rally those who are like-minded to acknowledge what they are up against and to prepare for a struggle. Looking for someone or something to pin evil on, the nebulous concept increases its specificity when it is projected onto groups or even individuals. Once again, those who have different views, e.g., political opponents, are seen as threatening and even satanic. Pat Robertson referred to former U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter and George Bush as unwitting agents of Satan simply because they supported, to some degree, the United Nations! They ‘are in reality unknowingly and unwittingly carrying out the mission and mouthing the phrases of a tightly knit cabal whose goal is nothing less than a new order for the human race under the domination of Lucifer and his followers.’11 In a similar celebratory tone, he predicts that some of us will soon pay a price: ‘The silly so-called intellectuals of academia who are spouting their politically correct foolishness will find themselves considered first irrelevant and then expendable when the real power begins to operate.’12 Another example of a societal evil is Pat Robertson’s fundraising letter in which he claimed that radical feminists are more-or-less declaring war on the American family. ‘The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.’13 Once again, the difference between everyday life and literature vanishes. Literature, psychology, religion, social thought and other fields all are rooted in humanity; thus, no single approach can encompass the human image as a whole.14 Consequently, in this case, one can make the case that either cultural, literary, psychological, or other interpretations are more relevant, or even that they all are describing multiple aspects of the same thing. The common theme, though, of myself/us and a dangerous, external evil persists. Whatever the specific form of the outside, corrupting evil, it appears throughout society. One instance of projecting evil onto a specific group, clearly identifying it

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__________________________________________________________________ as a threat to our way of life despite originating in another country, was when a member of an American-based Pentecostal sect named Gen. Efrain Rios Montt gained power in Guatemala in a 1982 military coup. A pastor from Montt’s group plainly stated that ‘the Army does not massacre the Indians. It massacres demons, and the Indians and demon possessed; they are communists.’15 Even if leaders use this for simple manipulation or mobilization, it remains an effective tool because it is nevertheless based on a belief on some level - evil as a menacing threat, potentially robbing us of our freedom and way of life. Since its advent in the seventeenth century, a significant portion of American literature has presented a view of evil as a societal force that corrupts a pure self. This binary opposition is a part of the larger American myth of individualism, which posits the individual as the locus of morality. In literature, society is often portrayed as a malicious force that demands conformity or diminishes the significance of the individual, both of which distance the individual from his true nature. This dichotomous configuration is also seen throughout contemporary American culture. One way to understand such a construction of evil is through the work of Carl Jung, who maintains that outside evil is in reality a projection of an individual’s own dark desires, and the way to combat this evil is through Shadow work, in which the person recognizes the source of the evil and incorporates it into himself, integrating the binary opposition into a unified harmony. The implication is not that dark forces are rendered powerless or transformed into heavenly purity, but rather that the potential for all behavior exists in all of us. The result of such an undertaking is not without hardship and should not be treated lightly. Resolution from this perspective, if one can consider an idealistic concept so simply, is a natural outcome of the process of a deeper self-exploration.

Notes 1

C. Mather, ‘Wonders of the Invisible World’, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, N. Baym (ed), W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2008, p. 144. 2 Ibid., p. 145. 3 R.W. Emerson, ‘Self-Reliance’, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, N. Baym (ed), W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2008, p. 534. 4 A.L. Keating, ‘Transcendentalism Then and Now: Towards a Dialogic Theory and Praxis of Multicultural U.S. Literature’, Rethinking American Literature, L. Brannon and B. Greene (eds), National Council of Teachers, Urbana, IL, 1996, p. 54. 5 H.D. Thoreau, ‘Resistance to Civil Government’, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, N. Baym (ed), W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2008, p. 832.

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T.S. Elliot, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, N. Baym (ed), W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2008, p. 2039. 7 A. Miller, Death of a Salesman, Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism, G. Weales (ed), Penguin Books, New York, 1996, p. 114. 8 A. Miller, ‘Tragedy and the Common Man’, Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism, G. Weales (ed), Penguin Books, New York, 1996, p. 145. 9 C. Palahniuk, Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1996, p. 44. 10 C. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Pantheon Books, New York, 1963, p. 11. 11 P. Robertson, ‘Fundraising Letter for the Christian Coalition of Iowa’, 1992. 12 P. Robertson, The New World Order: It Will Change The Way You Live, Word Publishing, Dallas, TX, 1991, p. 253. 13 P. Robertson, ‘Fundraising Letter for the Christian Coalition of Iowa’, 1992. 14 M. Friedman, Contemporary Psychology: Revealing and Obscuring the Human, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1984. 15 S. Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States, Guilford Press, New York, 1995, p. 238.

Bibliography Diamond, S., Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. Guilford Press, New York, 1995. Elliot, T.S., ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Baym, N. (ed), W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2008. Emerson, R.W., ‘Self-Reliance’. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Baym, N. (ed), W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2008. Friedman, M., Contemporary Psychology: Revealing and Obscuring the Human. Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1984. Jung, C., Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Pantheon Books, New York, 1963. Keating, A.L., ‘Transcendentalism Then and Now: Towards a Dialogic Theory and Praxis of Multicultural U.S. Literature’. Rethinking American Literature. Brannon, L. and Greene, B. (eds), National Council of Teachers, 1996. Mather, C., ‘Wonders of the Invisible World’. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Baym, N. (ed), W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2008.

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__________________________________________________________________ Miller, A., Death of a Salesman. Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism. Weales, G. (ed), Penguin Books, New York, 1996. —, ‘Tragedy and the Common Man’. Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism. Weales, G. (ed), Penguin Books, New York, 1996. Palahniuk, C., Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1996. Robertson, P., ‘Fundraising Letter for the Christian Coalition of Iowa’. 1992. —, The New World Order: It Will Change The Way You Live. Word Publishing, Dallas, TX, 1991. Thoreau, H.D., ‘Resistance to Civil Government’. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Baym, N. (ed), W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2008. Marc Bourget, M.A., is a literature and composition instructor at Webster University (Thailand campus) and a doctoral candidate in education at Nova Southeastern University. Norris Smith, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at Webster University (Thailand campus) teaching psychology and philosophy, the school counselor, and Coordinator of the Arts & Sciences department.

The Abyss of Freedom: The Radical Evil at the Basis of Human Subjectivity Joseph Carew Abstract In his ground-breaking work Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling offers a new, radical conception of human freedom as the capacity for good and evil, thus drawing a necessary link between the two. His basic thesis is that, if an act is to be free, then it cannot be subsumed under any pre-established universal law or reason (heteronomy). It must be, in and of itself, self-positing, infinitely self-asserting. Technically speaking, this means that a free act is formally identical to evil: there is no way to distinguish one from the other on the pure basis of freedom. Because freedom knows no rule outside of itself, it is indifferent to both possibilities. But what is even more challenging in this picture is Schelling’s radicalization of the relationship of evil to human freedom. Freedom primordially presupposes the possibility to say ‘No’ to any given order and proclaim its own self-hood. Consequently, even an ethically good free act has evil as its basis: the good can only emerge through the original overcoming of the diabolic evil at the basis of human subjectivity. This chapter is an attempt to come to terms with the potential radical evil at the basis of human subjectivity by reconstructing the major points of Schelling’s argument by establishing its emergence out of Kant. Key Words: Kant, Hegel, Schelling, nature, culture, evil, freedom, ethical action, will. ***** To come to terms with the potential dark underbelly underlying every free ethical action, we must begin in a p erhaps unlikely spot in the history of ideas: Immanuel Kant. Kant’s practical philosophy is so important because it is, in many ways, the first systematization of the experience of freedom, freedom being understood as the capacity for moral self-legislation at the core of human subjectivity which separates us from the rest of mechanical nature. 1 We create our own laws. We live by our own laws. For Kant, it is human freedom that should guide all philosophical thought because it i s irreducible: even his theoretical magum opus the Critique of Pure Reason is an attempt to make room for faith by limiting knowledge and reason. Although Kantian freedom is often presented as rational self-determination, there is more to it. Kant also wondered how such rational self-determination was at all possible. Indeed, the rational self-determination is only created by a k ind of inborn tendency to assert one’s own will, whatever the cost, which Kant calls the

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__________________________________________________________________ excessive ‘unruliness’ of human nature that has to be disciplined if true ethical action is to be possible. Yet, this ‘unruliness’ cannot be equated with the brute reality of animal existence: The love of freedom is naturally so strong in man, that when once he has grown accustomed to freedom, he will sacrifice everything for its sake.... Owing to his natural love of freedom, it is necessary that man should have his natural roughness smoothed down; with animals, their instinct renders this unnecessary. 2 As Žižek makes clear, it is precisely this moment, so often overlooked by philosophers, where Kant’s radicalism lies: The key point is thus that the passage from ‘nature’ to ‘culture’ is not direct, that one cannot account for it within a continuous evolutionary narrative: something has to intervene between the two, a kind of ‘vanishing mediator,’ which is neither nature nor culture … [we] are always compelled to presuppose such a moment of human (pre)history when (what will become) man is no longer a mere animal and simultaneously not a ‘being of language,’ bound by symbolic Law; a moment of thoroughly ‘perverted,’ ‘denaturalized,’ ‘derailed’ nature which is not yet culture. 3 In this quote we see the enigma of the freedom cannot be reduced to a mere dichotomy between nature and culture, as if in order to conform to our self-given moral laws we must first tame the pleasure-seeking principles of our animal nature. The milieu of ethical activity is only possible through a prior, infinitely uncontainable freedom which acts as the ‘vanishing mediator’ between animal reality and human socio-political action. The passage to culture consists in a disciplining of an excessive ‘unruliness’ that marks human nature. This quote could be further developed by supplementing it with Kant’s Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, the first book of which attempts to deal with the radical propensity to evil at the core of human freedom. It argues two major points: (i) ‘the ground of this evil cannot be placed, as is so commonly done, in man’s sensuous nature’ and (ii) ‘neither can the ground of this evil be placed in a corruption of the morally legislative reason.’ 4 This diabolic evil cannot be linked neither to the body and its pleasure-seeking tendencies nor the self’s being within coercive symbolic order, but must itself be seen as a foundational, constitutive part of the subject. It protrudes out of nature and culture and because it must be understood by its own self-determining logic, which can only appear as an

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__________________________________________________________________ uncontrollable unruliness threatening to devour everything, even itself. It is free because it can only be grasped through its own unbridled nature but is, however, synonymous with an unsurpassable moment of evil in the life of the subject because it asserts itself at all costs irrespective of consequence. Perhaps unexpectedly, in Kant we see a conception of human freedom which challenges our view of the very basis of human action and ethical striving. Within the trajectory of modern philosophy, post-Kantian philosophers all think that we see the first truly penetrating account of freedom in Kant. 5 They all agree that there is no going back: this would be to give up on the intuition of human freedom. Any other system would be a r ecoil from the unbearable burden of freedom. Kant was the first to show us the abyss of freedom. In the immediate aftermath of Kant, however, there is an ambiguity as how to proceed. Because Kant precludes the possibility of metaphysics, he risks leaving his philosophy theoretically lacking. The problematic facing the inheritor’s of Kant’s philosophy, therefore, was how to found Kant’s affirmation of freedom in a philosophical system that could rival that Spinoza. Although Spinoza argued that human freedom is merely the misrecognition of man’s subsumption free and creative laws of nature, his philosophy was seen as a more comprehensive system of reason and therefore offered a ch allenge to Kant’s theory of the primacy of action, ethical striving and human freedom. Both Hegel and Schelling sought a way to develop the Kantian philosophy of freedom in such a way as to demonstrate its superiority. Freedom is the central concept to both of their respective philosophies. However, the late Schelling finds something radically unsettling about Hegel’s philosophy, which will help pinpoint his own radical theory of freedom. He perceives Hegel’s philosophy as conceptual artifice that suffocates freedom within the self-actualizing necessity of the Absolute and therefore applies his philosophical prowess to give his own account of freedom that could rival that of his great adversary. His basic thesis is that, although Hegelian Logic can express notional necessity (what something ideally is), it ultimately fails to grasp the fact of being, the primordial basis of its raw reality in freedom, something which forever eludes pure conceptuality. For Schelling, freedom demonstrates ‘the incomprehensible basis of reality.’ Freedom makes reality incomplete and unstable because of its irreducibility. Freedom says that reality cannot be one, a totalizing unity. Freedom is therefore something ontologically violent. In trying to systematize freedom, Schelling reaches a co ntradiction – human freedom shows that nature, the world, is in conflict with itself: ‘Were the first nature in harmony with itself, it would remain so. It would be constantly One and would never become Two. It would be an eternal rigidity without progress.’ 6 The central concern of the late Schelling is to outline the necessary snag systematic thinking, the primordial unruly excess of the real over the ideal as that which prevents the world from being self-enclosed Human freedom, therefore, not merely changes the way in which we must do philosophy and how we are to explain the world. But

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__________________________________________________________________ Schelling’s account has consequences that go further than philosophical ontology. His account of human freedom shows us something potentially terrifying about human subjectivity, if he is correct. In order to situate ourselves more firmly within radicalness of Schelling, we can use the problem of evil as an entry point. Schelling’s critique of Hegel is that evil is reduced to a mere moment in the self-development of the good, a necessary phase for its establishment, through the movement of history. For Schelling, however, evil remains at its very core irrational, illogical – by definition it cannot be sublated as a moment of a higher dialectical or rational standpoint because it is, at its primordial basis, the effect of an irreducible act of will. It is pure selfassertion. There is something spontaneous about the choice for evil which forever eludes our understanding, something insurmountable about the unruliness of a soul that insists on what it wants and will sacrifice whatever it can in order to achieve it. There is something crazed, frantic, and psychotic about it: evil is the capacity to say ‘No’ with the full knowledge of the implications of one’s action. This quality must be understood in its irreducibility and primordiality. As soon as evil is understood and conceptualized, it f ails to be evil – it becomes, rather, misguided good i n the Platonic sense that no one does wrong willingly. But evil is opposed to good. Evil must always be understood as an irreducible act of will, a f reely chosen act, which knows no other reason than its mere self-assertion. And hence Schelling’s articulation of freedom as the capacity for good and evil: freedom in itself must rest incomprehensible, analogous to a self-chosen, self-posited gesture that can only resemble madness insofar as it precedes and makes possible the articulation of a table of values after the fact and by itself cannot be subsumed by them. It of itself knows no order, no rationality – if it d id, it would be explicable in terms of the principle of sufficient reason and would therefore be explainable. But in terms of evil, that which is explainable is not a radical evil – it’s just a misguided choice, a wrong choice. There is therefore always something essentially impenetrable and spontaneous in a good or evil act that is done out of freedom. Freedom has this intrinsically dark, obscure character. This is the only way to save freedom from its elimination within a suffocating logic of overarching reason. That is to say, insofar as the free act itself is concerned, both the modalities of good and evil as expressions of freedom are formally identical insofar as they involve the choice of a set of values without any guarantee and without any external determination or influence. What Schelling therefore does is radicalize Kant’s articulation of the dark underbelly of human freedom, the unruliness of human nature, by showing how, if we take human freedom to be radically self-assertion, self-positing, evil is itself at the core of every good act: in order for an act to be truly good and authentically free at the same time, the good must ‘pass’ through evil, discipline it, and use it as the ground for its own power: ‘the day lies concealed in the night, albeit overwhelmed by the night; likewise the night in the day, albeit kept down by the day, although it can establish itself as soon

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__________________________________________________________________ as the repressive potency disappears. Hence, good lies concealed in evil, albeit made unrecognizable by evil; likewise evil in good, albeit mastered by the good and brought to inactivity.’ 7 In this sense, the Schellingian concept of freedom is an explicit rethinking of the Kantian notion of diabolic evil and its co-related concept of the original ‘unnatural’ unruliness of the human organism as that which precedes and constitutes the condition of autonomy. As an ontologization of Kant’s declaration of the radical spontaneity of human practical activity, Schelling’s philosophical impulse initiated by the Freiheitsschrift is a tentative to develop a system wherein freedom is irreducible to notional necessity and escapes our complete conceptualization. It is the indivisible remainder, the ‘incomprehensible basis of reality,’ missing in mature Hegelian dialectics and classical philosophical systems – an intrinsically enigmatic blind-spot at the core of every action, every decision – a blind-spot wherein the truth, mystery and potential horror of human freedom lies. It is this strong conviction of freedom and the irreducibility of free decision that leads Schelling into the abyssal labyrinths of self-exploration of his late philosophy, in the same way the intuition of freedom made Kant limit knowledge in order to make room for faith and eventually articulate diabolic evil and unruliness in later pedagogical writings. Schelling’s difficult thesis, developed from a reworking of Kant, is that, if human subjectivity is to be truly selflegislative, at its zero-level, there can be no formal distinction between a good and evil free act insofar as both are self-guiding, self-chosen in a moment of rationally incomprehensible, non-disciplinable frenzy, which knows no influence exterior to its own self-asserting activity. In itself, freedom is indifferent to good and evil – it is the capacity for good and evil, as Schelling says: there is no intrinsic difference between a will that wills evil and a will that wills good in terms of act insofar as both are following their own self-given causality, their own radical self-legislation. A will that wills evil is not merely giving over to the animalistic impulses of the body, nor is it expressing its ignorance of moral laws; it is merely asserting its own diabolical evil for the sake of it, basking in its own self-grounding tyranny, even with complete knowledge of the nature and repercussions of its act. What is so radical in the positing of this primordial state of unruliness is its proclamation that the good itself is only possible through the gentrification, the taming, of evil, with the suggestion that this process can never be complete, since this would rob human spontaneity of its irreducible self-positing activity. Posited as that which necessarily precedes and even conditions the possibility of its articulation, at the very heart of the good, therefore, paradoxically lies evil as its extimate Other and ground, threatening at any moment to erupt and disturb the smooth surface of moral order. The radical conclusion we could draw from this is that, even in a good human being, evil, therefore, threatens to emerge at any moment, to wreak havoc on the good: evil and good are not radically different, but merely different logical modalities of freedom, a freedom which knows no law but its own. And, for

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The Abyss of Freedom

__________________________________________________________________ Schelling, this is the price we have to pay for our freedom: freedom itself presupposes a r adical wickedness at the core of human nature, a wickedness that cannot be overcome because it is what makes us human. If this is true, freedom is not a kind of mere fact of human existence. It is a task, a challenge, which constantly pushes us to fight and experience the darker sides of our own existence. An unbearable agony accompanies freedom, an agony that we face when presented with the ‘unruly excess’ at the basis of human subjectivity because this negativity threatens to erupt at any second and devastate our world – at a psychological, interpersonal, social or even political level. It is for this reason that freedom is ‘monstrous’ for Schelling. It shatters any attempt to enclose it, to tame it, to understand it within a system. The only way we can experience it in its fullness is as madness – the groundless can only appear as a ‘trauma’ within everyday experience, that is, in the original etymological sense of ‘trauma’ as ‘piercing.’ Freedom, if it is to be irreducibly free, must be formally identical to evil: it c annot be subordinated to a higher dialectical or rational standpoint, but must be irreducibly self-assertive and self-grounding, arising from within itself and without any external determination. But, the question is, what implications does this have for how we are to live our everyday lives?

Notes 1

Schelling, for instance, situates the true Kantian breakthrough in the Critique of Practical Reason. See F.W.J. Schelling, ‘Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom’, trans. P. Hayden-Roy, Philosophy of German Idealism, E. Behler (ed), Continuum, New York, pp. 217-284, here p. 232. 2 I. Kant, Kant on Education, trans. A. Churton, D. C. Heath & Co, Boston, 1900, pp. 4-5. Cited by S. Žižek, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ideology, Verso, New York, p. 36. 3 S. Žižek, The Ticklish Subject, op. cit., p. 36. 4 I. Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. T.M. Greene and H.H. Hudson, Harper & Row, New York, 1960, p. 30. 5 Schelling says in his Freiheitschrift, for instance, that it is idealism that ‘we have to thank for the first perfect concept of freedom’ (Schelling, op. cit., p. 231). Fichte also said: ‘I live in a new world since I read the Critique of Practical Reason’ because of its ‘proof of freedom’ (J.G. Fichte, Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Division III: Briefe, Vol. I, R. Lauth, H. Jacob and H. Gliwitzky (eds), Frommann, Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt, 1964, nº 63, p. 168). The same applies to Žižek: ‘No wonder Kant is the philosopher of freedom: with him, the deadlock of freedom emerges’ (S. Žižek, The Parallax View, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2009, p. 94). 6 F.W.J. Schelling, The Ages of the World: Third Version (c. 1815), trans. J.M. Wirth, SUNY Press, Albany, p. 219.

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__________________________________________________________________ 7

Schelling, ‘Philosophical Investigations’, op. cit., p. 239.

Bibliography Fichte, J.G., Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Division III: Briefe, Vol. I, Lauth, R., Jacob, H. and Gliwitzky, H. (eds), Frommann, Stuttgart-Ban Canstatt, 1964. Kant, I., Kant on Education. trans. Churton, A., D. C. Heath & Co, Boston, 1900. Kant, I., Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone. trans. Greene, T.M. and Hudson, H.H., Harper & Row, New York, 1960. Schelling, F.W.J., The Ages of the World: Third Version (c. 1815). trans. Wirth, J.M., SUNY Press, Albany. —, ‘Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom’. trans. Hayden-Roy, P., Philosophy of German Idealism. Behler, E. (ed), Continuum, New York. Žižek, S., The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ideology. Verso, New York. —, The Parallax View. The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2009. Joseph Carew is a graduate student of the program Erasmus Mundus Europhilosophie. While primarily interested in German Idealism and its philosophical history, his philosophical interests focus on the obscure aspects of human subjectivity and the relation between human freedom and nature.

Evil as Bondage to the Passions: Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown and Fury Roxana Doncu Abstract The Enlightenment discourse of reason as the highest human faculty was inextricably bound up with a specific conception and a resulting attitude to evil: evil was seen to originate in the animal passions resident in man, and reason’s capacity to control them was conceived as the key to freedom. Passions bind men to their lower, animal natures; reason frees them and orientates towards the higher. Romanticism reacted strongly against the instrumental rationality developed by Enlightenment, and proposed a re-evaluation of the passions, understood as resources of the creative process. The aim of my chapter is to locate these two attitudes to passions, the Enlightenment and the Romantic, in two of Salman Rushdie’s novels: Shalimar the Clown and Fury, and to focus on the conception of evil as bondage to the passions that underlies both of them. In Shalimar the Clown, the desire for revenge that animates Noman Sher Noman is the source of all evil – his unrestrained passion leads to murder and transforms him into a terrorist. In Fury, Malik Solanka’s apparently unmotivated anger causes the break-up of his marriage and his subsequent misfortune. But whereas Noman is totally absorbed in the whirlpools of his anger, Solanka is able to find an outlet for his negative emotions in creation. The conception of evil underlying both novels has its origins in Platonic and Aristotelian thought (the good life as the rule of reason), in the valuation of reason and de-valuation of passions which was dominant in Enlightenment discourse. However, the positive re-evaluation of anger as a ‘daimonic’ (Steven A. Diamond), as a source of creativity that surfaces in Fury is closely linked to the Romantic reaction against the tyranny of reason. Having in mind Bruno Latour’s criticism of modernity, I propose a re-evaluation of the conception of evil as bondage to the passions. Focusing on textual evidence from both novels, I will argue that the source of evil lies not so much in the bondage to the passions that the novels analyze extensively, but in the ignorance of what Latour has defined as the networks that structure our lives, and the complex relationships that govern these networks. What makes us function as moderns, Latour argues, is the work of purification doubled by that of hybridization. Noman is evil because he focuses exclusively on the work of purification, like most fundamentalists, whereas Solanka manages to transcend his anger by undertaking such a work of hybridization as creation. Key Words: Passions, enlightenment, romantic, daimonic, translation and mediation. *****

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Evil as Bondage to the Passions

__________________________________________________________________ 1. Two Views of the Passions The Enlightenment discourse of reason as the highest human faculty was inextricably bound up with a specific conception and a resulting attitude to evil: evil was seen to originate in the animal passions resident in man and reason’s capacity to control them was a guarantee of freedom. This early modern attitude to evil was in fact anything but modern: it originated in ancient Greek thought as the ethics underlying Aristotle’s philosophy. For Aristotle life had meaning in so far as it was understood as a search for the highest good. Wealth, good looks, physical strength and status were secondary to the achievement of eudaimonia (harmony or happiness). Although we must be blessed with the possession of a certain amount of secondary goods in order to be happy, this was not sufficient in itself: a person striving for eudaimonia had to exercise the virtues. The practice of virtue lead to phronesis (practical wisdom), which was mainly the ability to control one’s passions. Depending on their capacity to exercise control of passions, Aristotle distinguished between three types of people: the continent, the incontinent and the evil. The first were those who were able to master their feelings, and the third those who, in their desire for more (pleonaxia), did not even attempt to become continent. Aristotle divided the category of the incontinent into the weak (those who realized that it was better to control their passions, but chose to give way to them) and the impulsive (those that acted on the spur of their feelings and later repented). For the Greek philosopher the passions (ta patheia- also translated as emotions or feelings) were obstacles to the achievement of phronesis and the good life (understood as the rule of reason). Aristotle’s thought came to the fore again due to the reinterpretation and reevaluation of the classics undertaken by Renaissance scholars and it exerted a great influence on scholastic theology. Early Christian beliefs, it should be emphasized, had taken a more ambiguous view of the passions: for example St Evagrius (4th century) in his writings emphasized that passions, particularly anger, which is the focus of this chapter, should be regarded as weapons to be rightly employed in our fight against the devil. Although apatheia ( the lack of passions) was to be regarded as a sign of closeness to God, St Evagrius insisted that anger was not something to be overcome, but a tool which could be put to good or bad use. While Enlightenment rationalism shared the Aristotelian perspective on the good life as the rule of reason, romanticism reacted strongly against this devaluation of the passions. It cultivated spontaneity of feelings and praised genius as the origin and guarantee of value. Genius (the roman translation of the Greek daimon) was seen as a capacity of the soul to be inspired (by God, demons, passions) and to rely on these sources rather than on the rules of reason in the process of creation. Thus, whereas Aristotle and Enlightenment spawned a conception of art based on imitation (mimesis) of reality, the romantics encouraged inspiration (the writer was possessed by a force beyond his control).

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. The Aim of the Chapter The aim of this chapter is to compare and contrast two novels by Anglo-Indian writer Salman Rushdie which engage with the issue of passions (anger especially) as a potential wellspring for either evil or creativity. In Shalimar the Clown, the desire for revenge that animates Noman Sher Noman is the source of all evil - his unrestrained anger leads to murder and transforms him into a t errorist. Fury recounts the sorry fate of Malik Solanka, occasionally seized by bouts of unexplained rage which cause the break-up of his marriage and his subsequent misfortune. But whereas Noman is totally absorbed in the whirlpool of his anger, Solanka is able to find an outlet for his negative emotions in creation. Underlying Shalimar the Clown is the Aristotelian- Enlightenment conception of the passions, while in Fury the Christian-Romantic view takes precedence. In a study entitled Anger, Madness and t he Daimonic, Stephen A. Diamond investigates the psychology of evil and argues that anger can be both a strong psychological force responsible for violent behaviour as well as the hidden spring of creativity:’ creativity can be broadly defined as the constructive utilization of the daimonic’. 1 Interviewed by Douglas Eby, he returns to the Romantic model of the genius/ daimon, showing how rage and creativity can be inter-related: The more conflict, the more rage, the more anxiety there is, the more the inner necessity to create. We must also bear in mind that gifted individuals, those with a genius (incidentally, genius was the Latin word for daimon, the basis of the daimonic concept) for certain things, feel this inner necessity even more intensely, and in some respects experience and give voice not only to their own demons but the collective daimonic as well. 2 Creativity, argues Diamond, is the way artists manage to constructively use their anger- to put it to good use, as Saint Evagrius would say. Yet the word constructively is important. It made me think of Bruno Latour, of constructivism and the seminal role he attributes to mediation in the construction of any stable reality. If anger reveals the internal disorder, the inner chaos that leads to destruction, can mediation and hybridization be the strategies through which anger is channelled towards positive results? 3. The Pathos of Anger The demonized Saladin Chamcha in The Satanic Verses is able to resume human shape only after giving vent to his secret hatred of Gibreel in a bout of rage that destroys a whole nightclub. Anger seems to have a long history in Rushdie’s work. It is the dominant feeling in both Fury and Shalimar the Clown, two novels written after the fatwa episode. The first is set in New York, while the second makes the typical Rushdiesque journey around the world (from India to the US).

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__________________________________________________________________ The geographical context is important, as different cultures frame the pathos of anger. In Shalimar the Clown, Noman Sher Noman’s anger springs from his betrayed love and is associated with a specific Kashmiri Muslim notion of honour. Upon learning of his wife’s infidelity with the American ambassador, Noman decides to kill both of them and the child born from their affair: ‘Sooner or later he would find his way to the American ambassador as well and his honour would be avenged.[…] Honour ranked above everything else, about his sacred vows of matrimony, above the divine injunction of cold-blooded murder, above decency, above culture, above life itself.’ 3 Pachigam, the Kashmiri village where both Noman and his wife Boonyi grow up and fall in love with each other is of mixed population, as Boonyi herself is Hindu. Their parents, though Muslim and Hindi (in Pachigham, Rushdie explains, these were descriptions, not divisions) are close friends, so Noman inherits both the Muslim notion of honour and the Indian conception of the passions, explained by Boonyi’s father: There are six instincts […] which keep us attached to the material purposes of life. These are called Kaam the Passion, Krodh the Anger, Madh the intoxicant, e.g. alcohol, drug et caetera, Moh the Attachment, Lobh the Greed and Matsaya the Jealousy. To live a good life we must control them or else they will control us. The shadow planets act upon us from a distance and focus our minds upon our instincts. Rahu is the exaggerator the intensifier! Ketu is the blocker the suppressor! The dance of the shadow planets is the dance of the struggle within us, the inner struggle of moral and social choice! 4 In order to live a good life we must control our passions. This sounds surprisingly similar to Aristotle’s philosophy. Actually, these concepts come from ancient Vedic texts and were later appropriated by Sikhism to denominate the evils that every believer had to fight against. Sikhism is a predominantly military faith, as are some Muslim factions. It is no wonder that Shalimar the Clown, ‘interpellated’ by such ascetic creeds and the fundamentalist religious ideology of Bulbul Fakh - The Iron Mullah, will turn into an international assassin. Yet his motivation remains intensely private, his desire for revenge finding an ‘objective correlative’ in the martial ideology instilled in him by the Iron Mullah. While the Iron Mullah takes upon himself to train all his converts in his religion of war by altering their consciousness (what we would call brain-washing), Shalimar finds himself unable to be a total devotee to the holy war: For Shalimar the Clown the total abnegation of self was a more problematic requirement, a sticking place. He was, he wanted to be, a part of the holy war, but he also had private matters to

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__________________________________________________________________ attend to, personal oaths to fulfil. At night his wife’s face filled his thoughts, her face and behind hers the face of the American. To let go of himself would be to let go of them as well; and he found that he could not order his heart to set his body free. 5 The bad reviews that Shalimar received after its publication mentioned disappointments. After the events of 9/11, a book which portrays a sham terrorist is unforgivable. What escaped the Western public so concerned with current issues of terrorism and fundamentalism was the insight into the real theme of the novel, which is the descent into the private chaos of rage and revenge. That the private pathos of anger should be disguised under the cloak of international terrorism proved inexcusable for a public which expected to read about the workings of a terrorist mind. Shalimar the Clown is first and foremost a book about passions- and shadows. The shadow planets- Rahu and Ketu- resurface in Noman’s consciousness whenever he is about to take a fateful decision: killing his first victim (a writer standing up against Islam), his wife Boonyi or the retired ambassador Max Ophuls. In Vedic astrology these two planets are called the shadow or the invisible planets (they do not have real, but spiritual existence), and are said to influence people’s emotional lives, by either exaggerating or playing down their instincts. Symbolically, they represent the conflict between the achievement of desire, which gives temporary happiness (Rahu) and spiritual selfrealization through sacrifice (Ketu). Thus, Rahu and Ketu represent the two opposite instincts that distinguish the continent from the incontinent in Aristotle’s view: Rahu the intensifier is the impulse to give in, to act on your feeling while Ketu the suppressor is what blocks passion, allowing reason to step in and assume control. 4. Anger as a Daimonic. Mediated versus Unmediated Anger The fury that drives professor Solanka to point a knife at the sleeping bodies of his wife and child cannot be separated from creation and its meanings. It is frustration that breeds fury, and even if the motives are never clearly laid out before the reader (Solanka’s rage is all the more powerful as he represses its real motivation) the fate of Little Brain speaks volumes. Following a visit to Amsterdam, the aging academic develops a passion for manufacturing dolls. His favourite creation is Little Brain, a doll with a story and a philosophic personality, who challenges the prevailing mentality of the day. She becomes a mediatic success- but the higher she soars in the public’s appreciation, the more a disappointment she becomes to her creator, who resolves one day to destroy it. He can’t do it personally, so he asks his wife to get rid of all the Little Brains in the home- and the same night he is tempted to murder her. Solanka flees home in a hurry and settles in New York, where he is repeatedly seized by bouts of fury.

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__________________________________________________________________ The anger that leads to Solanka’s self-destructive behaviour is determined by the destruction of Little Brain- first the subversion of her complex character by the media, which transforms her into a fashion-icon, then her physical annihilation. This effect cannot be explained unless we regard it as an expression of Solanka’s anima. For Jung anima is an archetype of the collective unconscious and represents the feminine psychological qualities that are often repressed in males. It is responsible for a man’s relationships with women and if the sensitivity of the anima is denied, it leads to one of the most powerful complexes. Solanka’s failed relationship with his wife and his anger may be interpreted as consequences of the destroyed Little Brain, the expression of his anima. If fury is unleashed as a result of psychological inability to express the unconscious anima, release from it comes also with the acknowledging of the need to create. Solanka becomes able to transcend his anger and to forge a n ew love relationship when he begins to write the story of Akasz Kronos and the Puppet Kings on the Rijk Planet- a story that resumes Solanka’s criticism of contemporaneity that had been previously appropriated and subverted by the media (the case of Little Brain). His characters are given life by a group of Internet enthusiasts- and so his story becomes a hyperstory, with plot and ending left open for each player. In order to be contained, anger needs to be constructively used, in Diamond’s opinion. We have a p sychological need for unity and the daimonic is not easily integrated in the psyche. That’s why anger often generates violence- as not many people are capable of transmuting, translating it into something else. Bruno Latour argues that the stability of reality (its unity and coherence) depends on its degree of mediation:’ the amount of heterogeneous ingredients and the number of mediations necessary to sustain realities are a credit to their reality (the more mediated, the more real)’. 6 We can use Latour’s ‘sociology of translation’ to interpret the two kinds of anger (Noman’s and Solanka’s) as unmediated/ not translated and mediated anger. Shalimar the Clown does not manage to translate his anger into some kind of construction, he is mobilized, in Latour’s words, by the agents of purification (the martial religion of Bulbul Fakh) and regimented as an assassin, a destroyer. Malik Solanka finally succeeds to overcome the frustration caused by the wrongful appropriation of Little Brain by the media and translates it i nto a biting criticism of contemporary evils in the story of Akasz Kronos. Unmediated anger breeds violence and could be seen as evil; mediated anger, on the other hand, is constructive and integrative. Because translation is a practice that changes its objects and always translates with a difference (the object is the same, but with a difference) translating a passion may mean changing its effects: from bad to good or vice versa. The anti- social effects of unmediated anger could also be linked to a certain cultural context that insists on the ascetic containment of anger and inhibits creation- a culture which conceives anger in Aristotelian/ Enlightenment/ Vedic/ Islamic terms, as a passion which should be suppressed. The opposite Early

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__________________________________________________________________ Christian/ Romantic idea of anger as a daimonic, as laid out by Stephen Diamond in his study may tend instead to a more balanced approach to the management of the passions. As Rushdie himself notes in Fury: Life is fury, he’d thought. Fury- sexual, Oedipal, political, magical, brutal- drives us to our finest heights and coarsest depths. Out of Furia comes creation, inspiration, originality, passion, but also violence, pain, pure unafraid destruction, the giving and receiving of blows from which we never recover. 7 (30-1) In conclusion, anger is ambiguous; it has both the potential to create and destroy and the recognition of this fact is an important step towards its integration in the self via translation and mediation.

Notes 1

S.A. Diamond, Anger, Madness and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil and Creativity, State of New York University Press, Albany, 1996, p. 256. 2 S.A. Diamond, ‘The Psychology of Creativity: Redeeming our Inner Demons’, Interview with D. Eby. 24 Jan. 2011, http://www.talentdevelop.com. 3 S. Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown, Vintage Books, London, 2005, p. 421. 4 Ibid., p. 76. 5 Ibid., p. 436. 6 B. Latour, ‘Whose Cosmos? Which Cosmopolitics? Comments on the Peace Terms of Ulrich Beck’, Common Knowledge, Vol. 10, No. 3, Fall 2004, p. 459. 7 S. Rushdie, Fury, Vintage Books, London, 2001, pp. 30-31.

Bibliography Barnes, J. (ed), The Complete Works of Aristotle. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1984. Diamond, S.A., Anger, Madness and the Daimonic. The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil and Creativity. State of New York University Press, Albany, 1996. Evagrius of Pontus, In lupta cu gandurile. Sibiu: Ed. Deisis, 2006. ––, ‘The Psychology of Creativity: Redeeming our Inner Demons’. Interview with D. Eby. 24 Jan 2011. http://www.talentdevelop.com.

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__________________________________________________________________ Latour, B., ‘Whose Cosmos? Which Cosmopolitics? Comments on the Peace Terms of Ulrich Beck’. Common Knowledge. Vol. 10, No. 3, Fall 2004, pp. 450462. Rushdie, S., Fury. Vintage Books, London, 2001. –––, Shalimar the Clown. Vintage Books, London, 2005. Roxana Doncu, is a PHD student in the third year at the University of Bucharest, Romania. My research interests cover cultural identity and identity politics in postcolonial studies, postmodernism, contemporary British and American literature. I am preparing my PhD thesis on the historical formations of subjectivity reflected in the work of V.S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie.

Unexpected Evils: The Necessity of the Dark Side in Adolescent Narrative Phil Fitzsimmons and Edie Lanphar Abstract This chapter unpacks the ‘reader-writer’ 1 response to current adolescent and young adult literature as understood by a cohort of middle and high school students. What emerged from their initial reactions to the latest set of texts such as the ‘Twilight Trilogy’ 2 and Suzanne Collin’s ‘Catching Fire’ 3 Trilogy was an intertextual realization that these are socio-culturally representative of the current ‘liminal’ 4 nature of evil. The critical point of this liminality is that evil is being redefined because of a shift away from the traditional religious view and is currently understood, or not understood, as some form of nebulous ‘in between’; a ‘somewhere’. A ‘transitional reaction to religion’, a ‘non-event’ or ‘it doesn’t matter’. This overall definition of being ‘in between’ in itself would also appear to reflect the larger historical ‘context of culture’ in the Western World at large in that it there is an apparent paradigmatic reaction of ambiguity about how to deal with the current religious, political and media descriptions and definitions 5 As Kirkpatrick 6 and Nodia 7 warned, the militaristic definitions set in train by the Nixon era in which communism and dictatorships were described as the ‘most extreme forms of evil’, 8 and the unresolved conflicts against such regimes would cause an on-going sense of socio-cultural reflection as to what is ‘truly evil’. While there was a broader cultural understanding of the nature of current literature, these students also bought this understanding down to a deeply personal level, in that they believed that there is a d eep need for young people to be allowed to ‘touch dark side’ of their own nature. By allowing this ‘socio-emotional’ release, they could make sense of who and where they were. They also enjoyed doing so, and entertainment with a subtext of defining evil became enlightenment. Key Words: Adolescents, ambiguity, defining evil, reader response. ***** 1. From Discourse to Discovery This chapter had its source in an ethnographic study focusing on the ‘readerwriter’ response to current adolescent and young adult literature as understood by a cohort of middle and high school students. An integral component of this classroom’s daily program was the reading of serial fiction, during which the students were free in interject with comments and questions. Following this episode more questions were asked by the teacher and the children, which were then followed by a r ich period of intense discussion and debate. The teacher generally based her initial questions on emotional reactions to the text and

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_________________________________________________________________ questions around the craft of the writing. Almost without exception, responses to both foci set in train questions and comments from the students that were deeply philosophically based. The following excerpt is an example of the types of discussion that occurred: Edie: How many of you like those dark stories about death? Student A: The concept of being between life and death reminds me of Twilight, like the vampires are between life and death. Edie: Is there something else the writer wants you to understand? Student B: It makes you think of living your life every second, in a positive way. Student A: Living between life and death makes you think of your past, and the choices you make. Student C: Being in middle school being stuck between childhood and adolescents 9 As can be seen in the previous example of interaction the students were constantly aware of subtext as well as making real world connections. Also, these discussions were more often than not intertextual, as students and the teacher made connections to movies they had seen, other books they had read and plays they had attended with their family. In particular, this cohort would make intertextual connections to the current set of texts, both textual and cinematic, that were currently in the foreground of adolescent reading, the ‘Twilight’ trilogy’ and Suzanne Collin’s ‘Catching Fire’ Trilogy. The intersection of this discussion with text also gave rise numerous points of interaction based around the concept of the ‘dark side’ or ‘darkness’. Immediately following was these points of discussion the students often moved into individual work, and it was at these times we were able to talk them as ‘equal partners’ about their understandings of the texts being discussed, the issues that underpinned these debates and hone in on student beliefs and meaning making. In particular we began to talk about the concept of ‘darkness’, which they used somewhat as a eu phemism for evil. We’ll come back to this point later in this chapter, whilst continuing to use these terms interchangeably from here on in this chapter so as to reflect the ‘emic’ understandings of the respondents.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. A Contrast of Perspective Trailing onto the long history of theological debate, evil as a s ociological construct is a more recent focus of discussion. While acknowledging its religious history and connections, in this dialogue many commentators have also noted that in the shift to a more secular society, evil has remained as the linguistic means by which the ‘othering process’ is continued. However, while this linguistic framing process is ‘pervasive and enduring’ 10 it is also a two edged sword. Used to encase perceived enemies it also has a deeply reflective aspect in that if used continually by the ‘state’ in on-going conflicts, there comes a tipping point at which the general populace asks ‘where is the dividing line in assessing evil?’ In the recent past, Kirkpatrick 11 and Nodia 12 have commented on this effect, warning that the militaristic definitions set in train by the Nixon era in which communism and dictatorships were described as the ‘most extreme forms of evil’ 13 and the unresolved conflicts against such regimes would cause an on-going sense of sociocultural reflection as to what is ‘truly evil’. If commentators and researchers on the media can be believed, this on-going reflection and focus on evil was revised with the disaster of 9/11, which then formed part of a greater process of defining Islam as evil that commenced with the Crusades. 14 To some degree Buck Morris 15 concurs, contending that there has been a deeply socio-cultural ploy by Western governments to create ‘a stark contrast between good and evil’ with the aim of creating a deeper sense of the ‘other’. Conspiracy theory modes of reactions aside, what even the cause there is a continuing sense of unease around the concept of evil in the United States and the Western World, and a continuing ‘changing face of evil’ that is still a socio-cultural work in progress. Hence, when the class we working with began to mention this notion, our research radars were switched on. While the discussions themselves were interesting from an educational point of view of ‘reader as text analyst’, what we found much more thought provoking were the student’s views on evil, and their ability to describe and define it. This cohort’s ability to give voice to this concept stands in direct contrast to the axiomatic backdrop of the research base, in which the dominant theme is that ‘… evil can’t be defined in a way that we can recognize it’. 16 Or when it is defined, it tends to be along the lines of it being an action that is equated with ‘murderous and harmful destroyers of humanity.’ 17 As can be seen in the following section, not only could they begin to define the concept but they also recognized the inherent ambiguity in doing so. And yet they recognized the need to move towards understanding the elements of evil and give voice to them, in that it appeared it gave more insight into the texts they were reading as well insight into themselves. More importantly, rather than see the ‘dark side’ within human nature as the ‘vicious thug, serial killer inside of us’ 18 which one side of the evil debate would have us believe, these adolescents understood that evil was a necessity and an aspect of shedding light on the human need of finding hope. This was something

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_________________________________________________________________ akin to Solzhenitsyn’s 19 notion of an oscillating line: ‘The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart.’ In other words, the dark and light sides of human nature live in some form of symbiotic harmony with each other, with each only existing and being able to be recognized because of the other side. To reflect on evil of necessity means that the positive elements of life can considered and illuminated. In regard to evil, Neiman comments that ‘[…] understanding evil gives greater insight into happiness. These virtues are connected.’ 20 However, while it would appear from this small sample that children are more than willing to engage in discussing evil, the overarching cultural persuasion is what Gushiken has called ‘the anaesthetics of a b iblical focus’ 21 which has a tendency towards holding the position of ‘the myth of childhood innocence.’ 22 In regard to evil, this is not something that should be shied away from, but an essential element linked in a Manichean sense to the concept of goodness. While often touted as being an over simplistic means of defining evil, could it be the most efficient means of making sense of the deep connection the human condition? Could this notion of binary opposites actually provide a platform for exploring human metaphysical understanding? It would appear to us that the evil needs to be dealt with in a more holistic means such as within the constructs of spiritual literacy or spiritual intelligence. Gushiken also believes that to deny any discussion or dealings with evil ‘ignores the deeper human longing for identity. 23 We would contend that children need to be able explore the full range of issues that appear in their world. In an era where screen technologies are the main means our children communicate, and where the cinema is still the number one mode of narrative, it would appear that simply letting these forms of narrative wash over our children we should instead use them as the means of critique. The stories we tell to ourselves and to others, for ourselves and others, are a ce ntral means by which we come to know ourselves and others, thereby enriching our conscious awareness. Narrative pervades our lives, and conscious experience is not merely linked to the number and variety of personal stories we construct with each other within a cultural frame but is consumed by them. 24 3. Themes and Thoughts With the focus question of ‘how do these students understand the concept of evil’ at the forefront of the data sieving process, through the coding mode of ‘constant comparison’ and the triangulation process of ‘member checking’ several key themes emerged from the interview data. These included:

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__________________________________________________________________ A. The ‘Liminal’ Nature of Evil as a Reflection of the World around Them. A result of the reflection on the texts they were engaging with came the intertextual realization that evil in current literature is socio-culturally representative of the liminal nature of the current cultural milieu. As Nigel noted: We are growing up in a dark side. It’s not as happy a t ime as before. I can’t tell if society is creating the dark side or literature is creating the dark side. I think evil is in all the books I read and it’s like, caught in the middle of something. It’s never defined. 25 From the student’s perspective, the apparent nebulous nature of evil in text, as an ill-defined concept in society at large, conversely meant that the binary opposite, ‘love’, was also in a state of confusion. Just as evil seems to these young people to be what Katy, a fourteen year old student says is ‘in some kind of nowhere place’, so to were the emotions that counter balance this aspect of human nature. As twelve year old Alice elaborated: Even the main characters in these texts are stuck in between stuff, like places and other people. They can’t love, they want to but they can’t. And there is a lot of death, and between death. It’s kind of saying that’s what we’re like. 26 B. Evil is being ‘Marked’ as Displacement of the Traditional Religious View. While linked to the previous point of being ‘no-where’, these students also recognized that the concept of evil was shifting, but again it was in a nebulous direction. As indicated previously, they knew that society is in a state of flux Part of the reason we don’t know what evil is, is that we are moving from an age of western religion, a western dominated way of thinking, to something mostly dominated by secular humanism. But we don’t know what that is yet. 27 During the middle of the year in 2010, there was a distinct shift in this class’ text analyst approach and understanding. Rather than talking in generalities, they began to reflect more deeply on the actual facets in the Twilight saga and the Hunger Games set of texts. Interestingly, these adolescents noted that many of the key issues and discussions related to the conflict over evil in Meyer’s Twilight were set in places that were traditionally marked as pastoral or in what could be described as the ‘rural idyll.’ As they saw it, these places were facades, representing the kind of disequilibrium they were exposed to on an almost daily basis. They were living in a ‘context of society and culture’ that had all the trappings of wealth and ease, and yet this too was a façade. Many in the class came

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_________________________________________________________________ to agree that the change in perspective from the traditional sense of ease and pleasure, to places depicted in narrative as being indicated as places of evil perhaps represented further socio-emotional fractures in their world. As depicted in the narrative they read and viewed, the places of calm were now places in which turmoil in relationships, identity and self-worth. As Kayla related: The places are different but they’re still places where people get killed or hurt. They look nice but that makes them more scarier. You can’t trust them. They’re wild like the people in them, things are really messy in them. 28 Another related facet noticed by these students was the concentration of evil in what could be termed the lack of the ‘silent or sacred place’. You know none of them really have a place they can go where they feel safe. Even when they thought they did, it was taken from them. It’s trying to say, and makes you think you can’t take anything in the future for granted. 29 Again, this notion of place being a site of contradiction with an undertone of insecurity and subversion was psychologically mapped out for these students as a place where ‘good and evil’ were tracing territory. In particular the concept of the home that they had developed intertextually as a p lace of safety was for the characters in the narratives in focus places of misgivings, anger and disturbance. These characters were either unable to use these sites as places of rest or places of nourishment. Another aspect of this dislodgement of the perceived norms in narrative was evil is being ‘inscribed’ as the absence of the ‘nurturing mother’. While this is a typical trope in adolescent literature, in these instances the children saw them as being the catalyst for ambiguity surrounding the notion of evil to surface. Without the care and nurture that a mother is supposed to provide, as understood by this group the main characters were left alone to make ethical and moral decisions that were grounded in the cruelty and getting things done by force that a world dominated by a sense of ‘hunting’. Evil was in this regard was seen as an ‘awful absence’ in which the child is portrayed as being at the whim of ruthless forces. Their mothers just aren’t there. They might be alive but they aren’t there for them. 30 4. The Dark Side as Identity To reiterate, the respondents in this study related to evil through an intertwining of relating key elements of the narratives they were discussing with their own lives

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__________________________________________________________________ and how they saw these facets relating to the society in which they lived. In doing so, evil was seen to be the means by which they could begin to a reflective path of understanding themselves. In many instances this ‘reader response’ focus on evil provided a catalyst for a reading-writing connection in which their writing became a slate for the touching of the dark side. Thus, the could explore even further their thoughts through the vehicle of narrative and poetry, as not only did this provide a sense of relief but also allowed them to fully explore themselves and how they saw the world. ‘Adolescents need to be able to touch the dark side to understand who they are.’ 31 However, no matter whether it was through writing, reading and responding, the elements of evil in the texts they were discussing allowed them to fully appreciate the more positive aspects of life. To give the last voice to these students: You need to be able to touch the dark side to understand what hope is. And the dark side is much more fun. 32

Notes 1

A. Chambers, Tell Me (Children, Reading and Talk) with The Reading Environment, Thimble Press, Stroud, 2011. 2 All references to Twilight are intertextual reflecting the comments made by the respondents. That is they refer to book series and movie series. 3 All references are intertextual and refer to the Hunger Games series and movie that will be released in 2012. 4 S. Broadhurst, Liminal Acts: A Critical Overview of Contemporary Performance and Theory, Cassell, New York, 1999. 5 F. Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and t he Neoconservative Legacy, Yale University Press, London, 2006. 6 J. Kirkpatrick, Dictatorships and Double Standards, Commentary, Vol. 68, No. 11, 1979, pp. 34-45. 7 G. Nodia, ‘Debating the Transition Paradigm: The Democratic Path’, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2002, pp. 3-31. 8 Kirkpatrick, op cit., p. 35. 9 Reader-response discussion, 4/9/10. 10 S. Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2004. 11 Kirkpatrick, op. cit., 1979. 12 Nodia, loc. cit., 2002. 13 Kirkpatrick, op. cit., p. 35. 14 R. Dreyfus, Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundalmentalist Islaam, Owl Books, New York, 2005.

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S. Buck Morris, Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory as the Left, Verso, New York, 2006, p. 35. 16 Neiman, op. cit., p. xiii. 17 S. Stroud, ‘A Kantian Analysis of Moral Judgement in Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale, J. South (ed), Open Court, Chicago, 2008, pp. 185-194. 18 F. Brussat and M.A. Brussat, Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1998, p. 409. 19 A. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956, trans. P. Whitney and H. Willetts, Harper Rowe, New York, 1985, p. 75. 20 Neiman, op. cit., p. 325. 21 K. Gushikin, ‘Nurturing Spiritual Identity Formation in Youth Curriculum from the Theological Psychological Approach of James Loder’, Christian Education Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2010, p. 320. 22 C. Fowles, Our Gods Wear Spandex, Weiser Books, San Francisco, 2008, p. xiii. 23 Gushikin, op. cit., p. 320. 24 G. Fireman, T. McVay & O. Flanagan, Narrative and Consciousness: Literature, Psychology and the Brain, Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 3. 25 Semi Structured Interview, Student L, 1/10/10. 26 Semi Structured Interview, Student A, 7/9/10. 27 Semi Structured Interview, Student C, 7/10/10. 28 Semi Structured Interview, Student M, 9/9/10. 29 Semi Structured Interview, Student A, 8/9/10. 30 Semi Structured Interview, Student X, 5/10/10. 31 Semi Structured Interview, Student L, 8/9/10. 32 Semi Structured Interview, Student A, 8/9/10.

Bibliography Broadhurst, S., Liminal Acts: A Critical Overview of Contemporary Performance and Theory. Cassell, New York, 1999. Brussat, F. and Brussat, M.A., Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1998. Buck-Morris, S., Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory as the Left. Verso, New York, 2006. Dreyfus, R., Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundalmentalist Islaam. Owl Books, New York, 2005.

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__________________________________________________________________ Fireman, G., McVay, T. & Flanagan, O., Narrative and Consciousness: Literature, Psychology and the Brain. Oxford University Press, 2003. Fowles, C., Our Gods Wear Spandex. Weiser Books, San Francisco, 2008. Gushikin, K., ‘Nurturing Spiritual Identity Formation in Youth Curriculum from the Theological Psychological Approach of James Loder’. Christian Education Journal. Vol. 7, No. 2, 2010, pp. 319-333. Kirkpatrick, J., ‘Dictatorships and Double Standard’s. Commentary. Vol. 68, No. 11, 1979, pp. 34-45. Neiman, S., Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2004. Nodia, G., Debating the Transition Paradigm: The Democratic Path. Journal of Democracy. Vol. 13, No. 3, 2002, pp. 3-31. Solzhenitsyn, A., The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956. trans. Whitney, P. and Willetts, H., Harper Rowe, New York, 1985. Stroud, S., ‘A Kantian Analysis of Moral Judgement in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer and P hilosophy: Fear and T rembling in Sunnydale. South, J. (ed), Open Court, Chicago, 2008, pp. 185-194. Phil Fitzsimmons is an Associate Professor of Education at Avondale College of Higher Learning. Prior to taking up this appointment he was Director of Research at the San Roque Research Institute, Santa Barbara, California. Edie Lanphar is currently a middle school teacher and director of curriculum at the Garden Street Academy, Santa Barbara, California. She has a background in psychology, working with students with special needs and developing programs for children with special needs in the private sector.

What is Tempting Anthony? The Beauty of Evil Depicted in Symbolism Liesbeth Grotenhuis Abstract Who are these wild women? Herds of seductresses flock around a panicking monk, Saint Anthony. With it, 19th century painters developed the symbolist tradition: giving evil a female face. Artists like Lovis Corinth obviously did not follow the script literally, since it tells about the devils’ transformation to a seductive woman. Writers evoke immoral situations with suggestive words and phrases, where painters actually have to give evil an appearance. Late medieval artists illustrated the content more ‘correctly’: Lucas van Leyden presented her as a well-dressed noble female; her devilish character is revealed by the horned cap. Medieval artists had a taste for it: from farting in the face to toads crawling over sensitive body parts. Why ignored their 19th century colleagues this marvelous source of imaginative creatures in Anthony-paintings, and yet painted sirens and chimera’s? Instead, Symbolists developed their concept of evil as a group of femmes fatales, portraying Anthony as a young monk. The answers give an insight in the role evil played in these specific periods. And the power of painting: when evil was depicted so vividly it appeared so tempting that it was forbidden. With my focus on Symbolism, the connection of women to both the devil as to evil is discussed and strengthens my statement that art has the nature to show an ugly face as a pretty thing. Key Words: Anthony, temptation, evil, devil, femme fatale, symbolism, Morelli, Corinth, Flaubert. ***** 1. Introduction Dancing and flirtatious, offering cups of wine and even their own voluptuous bodies: women pull out all the stops to get attention from Anthony. But he resists their entreaties in the knowledge that the greater the temptation, the holier he will be. Granting evil a ravishing feminine face is a typical Symbolist interpretation of the legend of Saint Anthony. Over the centuries, given the broad original textual implications that allowed artists’ imaginations to run free, Anthony emerges as the ideal means of exploring ‘evil’. The forbidden fantasies ascribed to the saint allow us an insight into morality during specific periods. I would like to preface a s ynopsis of the theme by beginning with two Symbolist paintings that present us with the arid, empty desert of Morelli in stark contrast to the overcrowded, exotic world of Corinth.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. Anthony Aghast Dismayed and appalled a young monk cowers against the rocky wall. His eyes and mouth open in terror, his exhausted head thrown back. It takes some time for us to realize the cause of his holy terror: women. A red-headed woman crawls out from beneath a reed mattress; on the other side a smiling brunette gazes at her victim. Anthony tugs his blue habit defensively about him. Morelli’s saint resides in a h ostile desert landscape, which underlines the potency of the erotic temptation. 1 In the dark shadows of the cavern, a golden glow reveals three ghostlike women’s faces. Morelli ramps up the danger - we realize that Anthony is unable to turn for salvation to the cross he carved into the wall for, at its shoulder is a sixth woman whose lascivious intent is clear from her pursed lips and closed eyes. 2 With the transparent women, Morelli makes the hallucinatory nature of the temptation more disturbing than he did before. 3 With a duo of real-life seductresses enjoying themselves with him, it follows the concept of Leloir with the setting in a cave, where the saint relies on a h ome-made cross. 4 Morelli’s spectral effect is common in Orientalism where women materialize from plumes of smoke coming out of a water pipe. 5 In this context it i s also worthwhile to consider ‘Dream’ by fellow Italian Fabbi, which shows an old man with the nargileh. 6 Almost identical, two women kissing appear above his shoulder. Both the placement and the gesture are so identical that I assume Fabbi must have taken Morelli’s seductress as a model. 3. Meet the Queen Khnopff also personalized seduction as a vision. 7 In a b reathtaking confrontation, Anthony slightly raises his gaze to an imposing, serene creature that appears to levitate. Her rich costume is merely suggested by the dim light that has the effect of a halo. 8 Like Morelli’s scene, the confrontation takes place in a calm setting. However, in titling the work, Khnopff related the female to a less silent figure: the Queen of Sheba. As did Corinth. Corinth’s queen is completely opposite: she unveils herself, while her left hand is ready to touch the saint’s shoulder. 9 Her main weapon, her voluptuous body, is visible beneath the transparent emerald voile. Although his terrified eyes cannot pull themselves from hers, Anthony’s athletic body turns away, only to meet more alluring beauties on the other side. Indeed, Corinth’s desert is a hive of activity, filled with elephants, monkeys and above all exotic women cluttering up the scenery. The rope in the saint’s hand confirms just how serious a business it is: crimson droplets of blood reveal that Anthony’s only aid in resisting seduction is self-chastisement. 10 These painters are all making a similar statement; the holy man is no longer shown as the traditional elderly patriarch, – their Saint Anthony is a young barechested, monk. So, just who is Saint Anthony?

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Purity versus Poison The life of the religious devotee Anthony 11 was already recorded in the 4th century, handed down by bishop Athanasius of Alexandria. 12 The original purpose of the text was to convince the reader or listener to convert to Christianity. During the first five centuries the church was occupied with defining its canonical foundation in banishing pagan sources, 13 although closer study reveals both concepts as iconography adapted from antiquity. Early church fathers re-construed the nature of daemon’s from possessed, demonic beings to the devil himself. 14 With a twist: where antique gods could represent both good and bad, 15 Christianity bound up evil in a single figure: the devil. Defining these religious concepts brought theological implications: if there were no such thing as duality and God created all, where was the devil? Was he part of God’s plan and thus diminishing the role of Jesus? Or was he acting alone, being a very real threat from an unknown external force? To keep all this under control, everything was judged as either purifying or poisonous, bodily excrements being an example of the latter. This explains the extremely serious repercussions of farting, accentuated and later symbolized by a horn or bellows. 16 With it, bodily orifices were deemed extremely vulnerable, parallel with doorways: ‘a favorite place for evil.’ 17 Thus lending deeply sinister implications to a dragon licking a woman’s inner thigh or imps crawling in and out body parts. 5. Ridiculous Monsters After the year 1000, with the canon confirmed and accepted, Anthony’s temptations were widely depicted, first as part of his life cycle. 18 Not everyone was amused, especially Bernhard von Clairvaux was famed for his disapproval: …what profit is there in those ridiculous monsters, to what purpose are those unclean apes, those fierce lions, those monstrous centaurs […] under the eyes of the Brethern who read there. 19 A painting by Parentino shows an unconvincing temptation of a man offering a golden cup with coins, and although Clairvaux might not have had a problem with that, this episode is rare. 20 As an image, it held little appeal and the emblem of the cup eroded into a minor detail. 21 ‘So many and so marvelous are the varieties of divers shapes on every hand, that we are more tempted to read in the marble than in our books’, 22 his cry of disapprobation continued, but went unheard: the depiction of ridiculous monsters continued. Representations of monsters work. People were obviously more ‘tempted to read the paint’ when demonic torture was shown, despite the warning message that the doomed will be consigned to suffering for all eternity.

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__________________________________________________________________ Schongauer gives us the fragile patriarch levitating in mid-air facing an overwhelming number of demonic creatures, 23 an interpretation that departs from the original text. 24 The violence of the composition is carefully restrained, harmonious and picturesque nonetheless, and accentuated since the devil’s agents use wooden clubs to berate the Saint’s holy head, despite their razor-sharp claws and fangs. 6. Ugly Looks Schongauer’s carefully composed mandorla filled with evil monsters, mirrors Dante’s description of the essence of Lucifer’s fall: ‘once as beautiful as he is ugly now’. 25 The transformation after the damnation gives way to ugliness – in words evildoing and devilry can certainly described without scenes of demonic depravity. But if evil is to have a face, artists must provide it with a visual reality, one that is chilling and yet sufficiently real (read: visually appealing) to keep viewers looking. How can evil – or the soul’s temptation – be represented convincingly? The starring role is now reserved for creatures unknown to the human eye, plausibly conjured up by artists, based up on the world of flora and fauna in such detail that it was impossible to deny its existence. After all, eye-witness reports of weird animals date back to Herodotus’ ‘Histories’. 26 At the hand of Hieronymus Bosch in particular, the monsters became more numerous, becoming part of what Philipp calls the ‘swarm-image’, ‘Wimmelbild’, 27 where several sins are combined with scenes from black masses and visualized sayings. And although aesthetics was not a main target for medieval art, 28 again Clairvaux grasped precisely the nature of its appeal: ‘that marvelous deformed beauty, that beautiful deformity.’ 29 7. Mind the Feet Dubious beauty. It is the playing field women master. After Eve: 30 ‘a bad woman is trice as worst as the devil’, adds Mantegna as a motto to a t emperapainting. 31 He foresees the 16th century tendency that promotes women from walkon roles to the main protagonist as part of the craze that warns of the power of women; 32 the outbreak of syphilis in 1495 would have fanned the flames of the dangers of flirtations. Yet charm, flattering words, a soft body are obviously an offer no man can refuse. No wonder the devil, a genius in finding men’s weak spots, harnesses the power of woman. Veronese’s Anthony is just tempted by a b eating man and a b are breasted female. 33 When focusing on her hand, her human character disappears with her creamy fingers transforming into talons. 34 In the Northern countries bird claws peek out from the hem of the seductresses’ long skirt, 35 while Van Leyden confirms her pact with the devil by the horned cap of the temptresses, 36 and in doing so following the script of Anthony’s vita literally. Also in the fact that she keeps her hands to herself, in Christian

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__________________________________________________________________ iconography seducing women that actually grab under Christian’s clothes are found. 37 8. Eerie Encounters With changing times a non-existent world lost its ability to terrify: composite creatures were now reduced in being protagonist of their own mythological tales. Evil needed a different face and women served that goal well, no longer as a devil in disguise but as real women from flesh and blood. Indeed, during the late 19th century, the female was seen as a h ysteric, a d egenerate danger; painters like Moreau did not marry scared as he was that a wife would devour his creative juices. So he could continue to paint his femmes fatales. They were easy to identify: dancing Salome carried a silver platter, Judith a sword. 38 Anthony, now, resists anonymous temptations without the deeper resonance of a familiar, underlying story. Which left Symbolist painters with nothing but pictorial elements to express the menace. Hacker chooses a f eline pose for the woman that creeps up on her victim from behind as he prays. 39 And, as early as 1832, Delaroche drapes a bunch of women around the neck of the Saint. 40 A covey of females flourish over a l one predatory seductress, and to increase its impact, persistent patriarch Anthony transformed to a bewildered young man; full of life and ripe for erotic seduction. In his book, Flaubert gave the story a further turn with an ongoing parade of temptation. 41 Now all the pagan cultures served as a source, 42 Brunel expressed the idea of a h arem with musicians and dancers in a P haraonic setting. 43 Although executed quite accurate, and despite the fact that the story took place in the Egyptian desert, this concept was too clean and archeological to serve as a source for other painters. In contrast with the orientalist version Corinth gave. 9. Crosswise The Austrian painter tried different compositions: nudes surround Saint Anthony in an earlier version, carrying emblems of evil: an apple, a s nake, a skull. 44 The woman at the back opens her garment in a d ramatic exhibitionistic gesture ‘as if about to descend on the saint like a bird of prey’, 45 that, more important, recalls the pose of the crucified Christ. An etching confirms this suggestion: here the woman sits on the neck of a devil, her arms bound to the cross. 46 It is a cruel image – the cross was Anthony’s last hope. On top, where Christ is replaced by a woman, is the most blasphemous painting imaginable. Satanic artist Rops executed this idea with a ravishing beauty that knocks an emaciated Christ off the cross, replacing ‘I.N.R.I’ with ‘E.R.O.S.’. 47 Even today, images of this nature continue to cause quite an uproar: ‘blatant insensitivity’ judges Muir the crucifixion of Madonna. 48 But now these acts stand on its own, no longer related to a history. After Freud, this female kind of evil is

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__________________________________________________________________ understood, and again no longer terrifying. So former dangerous figures can transform from wicked to awesome to function autonomous as a ‘l’effect pour l’effect’. Leaving us with the question what temptation Anthony deserves these days…

Notes 1

D. Morelli (1823-1901), ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony’, 1878, oil on canvas, 138 x 225 cm. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome. The effect is even more obvious when compared to the pendant: D. Morelli, ‘Christ in the Desert Attended by Angels’, 1895, oil on canvas, 66 x 166 cm. Here Christ sits on a rock in the open desert with two modestly dressed servants approaching. 2 M. Philipp, ‘Catalogue Entry Morelli’: Schrecken und Lust: Die Versuchung des heiligen Antonius von Hieronymus Bosch bis Max Ernst. Exh.cat. (Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, 2008), 165. Philipp describes the focus on the monk, recalls the five women but did not mention the one over his shoulder. 3 D. Morelli, ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony’, unknown date, oil on canvas, 32,5 x 46 cm . Lot 331 on the auction of Fine Art in Milano April 26, 2007. 4 A.L. Leloir (1843-83), ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony’, 1871, oil on canvas, 100,2 x 72,3 cm. Private Collection. Morelli’s own invention is obviously the cross on the wall, in this painting drawn in blood. 5 The written source is Charles Montesquieu’s (1689-1755) Persian Letters (published 1721). For example: J.J.A. Lecomte du Nouÿ (1842-1923) (after), ‘Cosrou’s Dream’ 1875, photo-engraving, Musée Goupil, Bordeaux; J. Villegas y Cordero (1844-1921), The Dream, 1875, oil on canvas, 151 x 84 cm. Orientalist Museum, Doha; R. Diederen, ‘About Drugs and Dreams’, From Delacroix to Kandinsky: Orientalism in Europe. Exh.cat. (Musées des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, 2010), pp. 169-183. 6 F. Fabbi (1861-1946), ‘Dream’ ca. 1880-1914, oil on canvas, 170 x 100 c m. Collection Wassim Rasamny, New York. 7 F. Khnopff (1858-1921), ‘D’Apres Flaubert, La tentation de Sainte-Antoine’ or ‘La reine de Saba’ 1883, oil and coal on paper, 85 x 85 cm. Private Collection. 8 In homage to ‘the Father of Symbolism’, G. Moreau, Khnopff not only recalls John the Baptist’s head in a halo before the dancing Salome, he transforms the vision from the male victim to a female seductress. G. Moreau (1826-1898) ‘The Apparition’, 1876, watercolor, 106 x 72.2 cm. Musée d’Orsay. 9 L. Corinth (1858-1925), ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony’, 1908, oil on canvas, 135,5 x 200 cm. Tate Gallery, London. 10 The temptation of wealth, food and drink were defeated by fasting, impure thoughts by praying and sin by chastise the body.

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__________________________________________________________________ 11

Also known as Abbas or Eremita, (251-356). First he lived at the edge of the village, later het retreated even more, and stayed in the desert for the rest of his life that lasted 105 years. 12 ‘The Life and Temptation of Saint Anthony’ originally ‘Bios tou makariou Antoniou tou megalou’. Written between 357 362. Soon after publication in 370, Evagrius from Antiochia translated it to Latin. The history was also retold in different vitae of Saints, like the Legenda aurea. 13 Clement, Exhortation 2:23; 10:74, summary in: J. Danièlou, A History of Early Christian Doctrine before the Council of Nicaea. London, 1973, II,.429. in: , Luther Link, The Devil: A Mask without a Face, The University of Chicago Press, London, 1995, p. 18. 14 Luther Link, Ibid, 19. The daimon often was the spirit of a hero that could help with the transformation to afterlife. 15 A. Baring and J. Crashford, The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, Penguin Books, London, 1991, pp. 192-201. The dark aspect of sky goddess Innanna, for example, could be experiences in the roaring thunderstorms. 16 Illuminator of Saint Truiden (16th Century), ‘Gebedenboek of Saint Truiden’ 1570-80, parchment, 12,8 x 9,2 cm. Royal Library, The Hague. 17 C.R. Auge, ‘The Hoodoo that You Do: Risk Management and Gendered Magical Material Culture’, ‘Magic’, Prague, 18th March 2011. 18 One of the first examples is one of the eight frescos in the Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome, 10th Century in: M. Philipp, ‘Chronik der Antonius-Rezeption’, Schrecken und Lust. op. cit., p. 66, but also the capitals in the abbey church Sainte Madelaine in Vézelay are well known. 19 B. von Clairvaux, Apologia ad G uillelmum Sancti Theoderici abbatem. 7. text Translation: http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth212/Apologia.html. 20 B. Parentino (ca. 1437-1531), ‘Anthony Tempted by Gold’ ca. 1494, oil on panel, 46,4 x 58,2 cm. Galleria Doria Pamphilji, Rome. The male has a devilish horn in his hair. 21 The golden glow in Morelli’s painting can be interpretated in this light. 22 B. von Clairvaux, op. cit., p. 19. 23 M. Schongauer (ca. 1450-1491), ‘Der heilige Antonius, von Dämonen gepeinigt’ 1470-75, copper engraving, 31,2 x 23 cm. Hamburger Kunsthalle. 24 The iconography can be traced back to early Dutch painting in which an angel protects the Saint from the devil in the fight between Archangel Michael and the fallen angels. Dietmar Lüdke, ‘O lieber Herr Jesu criste wo warest du do sy mich also geschlůgen: Antonius-Versuchungen in der spätmittelalterlichen Bildkunst’, in: Schrecken und Lust, op. cit., pp. 33-34. 25 D. Alighieri, ‘Inferno’, La Divina Commedia, 1309, canto: ‘S’el fu si bello com’elli è or brutto.’

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__________________________________________________________________ 26

D. Syndram, ‘Das Erbe der Pharaonen: zur Ikonographie Ägyptens in Europa.’ In: Europa und de r Orient (800-1900). tent.cat. (Martin Gropius-Bau, Berlin 1989), 18. Sources like these were consulted as a scientific source throughout the 18th century. 27 M. Philipp, catalogue entry, ‘Hieronymus Bosch, Versuchung des heiligen Antonius’ In: Schrecken und Lust. op.cit.2, 106. 28 P. Wackers, Met ogen van toen: schoonheid en wetenschap in de middeleeuwse kunst. 3rd revised edition. Alfa, Amsterdam, 1996, p. 59. 29 mira quaedam deformis formositas ac formosa deformitas 30 Hesiod, Works and D ays and Theogony. 700 AD. A. Baring and J. Crashford, op. cit., p. 515. 31 A. Mantegna (ca. 1431-1506), ‘Samson and Delilah’ ca. 1490-95, tempera on canvas, 47 x 37 cm. National Gallery, London: Foemina diabolo tribus assibus est mala peior’. 32 Martin Schaffner (1478-1548), ‘Salemer Antonius-Tafeln’ 1517, (4 x ) 146 x 55. 5 cm. These catalogue-like series started in the 13th century and flourished in the 16th, Y. Bleyerveld, Hoe bedriechlijck dat die vrouwen zijn: vrouwenlisten in de beeldende kunst in de Nederlanden circa 1350-1650. Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam 2000. Even originally positive stories like the biblical self-sacrificing Judith or the historical Cleopatra as an example for unconditional love, transformed to dangerous women that caused the death of important men after seducing them. 33 P. Veronese (1528-1588), ‘The Temptation of Anthony’ 1552, oil on canvas, 198.2 x 149.5 cm. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen. 34 According to the Masahiro Mori’s graph of familiarity versus appearance (2005); R. Slegers, ‘Unsettling Banality: The Unheimlichkeit of Evil’ on the Congress ‘Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness’ Prague 18th March 2011. 35 D. Teniers the Younger (1610-1690), ‘The Temptation of Anthony’ ca. 1645, oil on copper, 69 x 86 cm. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Gemälde Galerie Alte Meister, Dresden. Where today we recognize the devil by his cloven hoofs, after Pan, in medieval times the griffin or the ancient Persian demon Aschmodaj was probably the origin of the talons’: L. Link, op. cit., the griffin ‘or a wider variety of creatures transmitted by Sassanian art.’ Resp. M. Philipp ‘Das Inventar der Versuchung’, Schrecken und Lust: op. cit., p. 203. 36 L. van Leyden (1494-1533), ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony’ 1509; copper engraving, 18.4 x 14.6 cm. Teylers Museum, Haarlem. 37 Les Belles Heures du Duc de Berry, The Temptation of the Christian, circa 14061408/9, miniature The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection New York. I could not find such an explicit example of Anthony. 38 Although during this period authors had difficulties to read the signs for a good determination of the depicted person: L. Grotenhuis, ‘By Fire and without Sword:

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__________________________________________________________________ Malice and Misapprehension Concerning the Interpretation of Gustav Klimt’s Judith und Holofernes.’ Akt: About Art, Vol. 17, No. 2, July 1993, pp. 26-29. 39 Here the, very British, victim is not Anthony but Percival; A. Hacker (1858199), ‘The Temptation of Sir Percival’ 1894, oil on canvas, 132 x 157.5 cm. City Art Gallery, Leeds. 40 Hippolyte (Paul) Delaroche (1797-1856), ‘The Temptation of Anthony’, ca. 1823, oil on millboard, 20 x 16 cm. The Wallace Collection, London. 41 It was written as a play but not after 30 years of wrestling with the content and seeing Breughel the Younger, being also inspired by Jacques Callots engraving (1635); Michael Philipp, op.cit.2, 20. 42 The play was so well-elaborated as to be impervious to a broad public, while artists, initially in Belgium and France, were thrilled by its new ideas: U. Harter, Die Versuchung des heiligen Antonius. Zwischen Religion und W issenschaft. Flaubert, Moreau, Redon. Reimer, Berlin, 1998, pp. 35-68; Flaubert’s Anthony is even considered ‘a key text to modern aesthetics’. H. Holländer, ‘Wunderbare und seltsame Sachen. Antonius und die Versuchungen der Malerei’, Phantastik: Kunst oder Kultur? Aspekte eines Phänomens in Kunst, Literatur und Film. J.B. Metzler Stuttgart, Weimar, 2003. 43 K.F. editeurs Paris, post card 796/12: Jean Baptiste Brunel (1844-1929), ‘St. Antoine en Theboïde’ (salon) 1904. 44 L. Corinth, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, 1897, oil on canvas, 88 × 107 cm. Museum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg. Here Anthony is depicted as an old man. 45 H. Urs, Lovis Corinth. Chicago, 1990, p. 106. 46 L. Corinth, ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony’, Tragicomedies, 1894, etching, 34.3 × 42.2 cm. Graphische Sammlung, Albertina, Vienna. 47 F. Rops (1833-1898), ‘La tentation de Saint Antoine’ 1878, pencil on paper, 73.8 x 54.3 cm. Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels. 48 David Muir is the spokesman of the Evangelical Alliance, reacting on Madonna’s Confession Tour in 2006.

Bibliography Baring, A. and Crashford, J., The Myth of the Goddess. Penguin Pockets, London, 1991. Bleyerveld, Y., Hoe bedriechlijck dat die vrouwen zijn: vrouwenlisten in de beeldende kunst in de Nederlanden circa 1350-1650. diss. Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 2000.

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__________________________________________________________________ Dijkstra, B., Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-siècle Culture. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986. Diederen, R., ‘About Drugs and Dreams’. From Delacroix to Kandinsky: Orientalism in Europe. Musées des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Exh. cat., 2010. Grotenhuis, L., ‘By Fire and without Sword: Malice and Misapprehension Concerning the Interpretation of Gustav Klimt’s Judith und Holofernes’. Akt: About Art, Vol. 17, No. 2, July 1993, pp. 26-29. Link, L., The Devil: A Mask without a F ace. The University of Chicago Press, London, 1995. Syndram, D., ‘Das Erbe der Pharaonen: zur ikonographie Ägyptens in Europa.’ Europa und der Orient (800-1900). Martin Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Exh. Cat., 1989. Wackers, P., Met ogen van toen: schoonheid en wetenschap in de middeleeuwse kunst. 3rd revised edition. Amsterdam 1996. Liesbeth Grotenhuis is an independent researcher in Amsterdam, specialized in nineteenth-century art, researching its origins in antiquity (especially Egypt) and its influences on popular culture. She is working on her PhD thesis on the Sphinx in Symbolism at the University of Groningen.

Transgressing Gender Roles: Shape-shifting in Bram Stoker’s Dracula Sophia Vivienne Kottmayer Abstract Deemed a major concern in fin-de-siècle literature, degeneration reflects the prevalent anxiety of the time, viz. the gothic nightmare of heredity. According to Hurley, a poisonous society can infect the individual and vice versa in a way that would ultimately result in the downfall of the whole nation. It is for this reason that the concept of the medical gaze was embraced as an institution to enforce normalcy on the individual, thus inevitably creating the binary opposition of the self and other. Given its unstable character, the body gradually became the entity that was most susceptible to infection and hence to turning the formerly intelligent human being into a Foucauldian monster. Capable of reversing the patriarchal order, including gender roles, the metaphor of the vampire in Bram Stoker’s Dracula echoes the dread of individual alienation from society. Thus, the vampire serves as a metaphor of the evil force that seeks to disrupt order by making use of its shape-shifting abilities. My line of argument predominantly centres on psychoanalytical, theories. It is equally important to address atavist theories, such as Nordau’s and Lombroso’s connection between a p erson’s outward appearance and his susceptibility to becoming a criminal, as discussed by Kelly Hurley. Key Words: Vampire, transgression, degeneration, shape-shifting, normalcy, gaze, othering. ***** 1. In between Life and Death: The Vampire as a Mediator To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. 1 Death in the sense of separation or departure has always been a familiar theme in folklore and literature. There is a French saying acquainting us with the circumstance that ‘Partir, c’est mourir un peu’ – to part is to die a little. The theme of separation and its profound impact on human beings of whatever time or place is evident in the fact that in many societies in the ancient world, the European Renaissance, or even occasionally today, the primary form of condign punishment was/ is exile. In story and myth, separation from one’s people means incurable

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__________________________________________________________________ anguish. For instance Sophocles’ Oedipus, the eponym for Freud’s psychoanalytical well-known terminus technicus ‘Oedipus Complex’, self-exiled himself after discovering that he had killed his father and slept with his mother. Sleep then, which is closely related to parting as well as it is an age-old euphemism for death, becomes a s ource of anxiety as it transcends and more importantly transgresses the binary system a patriarchal society depends on. As a matter of fact, one is never aware of the moment of actually falling asleep. In other words, all subjectivity is lost in sleep. When Jonathan Harker is alone in the room with the three vampire women, he experiences this sensation of complete powerlessness himself as he oscillates between reality and unconsciousness. This state of mind is even comparable to hypnosis or trance. 2 As this chapter endeavours to give an account of the origin of the vampire metaphor (and the anxiety that it evokes) that is as fully-fledged as possible, the integration of another fin-de-siècle novel appeared to be appropriate. The semihistorical novel The Eclipse of the Crescent Moon (original title: Egri csillagok. Literal translation: ‘The Stars of Eger’) written by Géza Gárdonyi in 1899 encompasses about 25 years of Hungarian history of the first half of the 16th century and discusses among other things the Siege of Eger by the Turks. Although most characters of the book are historical figures, they have been strongly romanticised, as has Dracula. The insertion of this piece is supportive not only inasmuch as it facilitates the reader to be aware of an eastern perspective, but also because there are striking parallelism as regards the concept of the innocent self and the foreign other (particularly in the context of the prevalent medical gaze of Victorian times that ascribed immense importance to normalisation), which will be referred to again in a later discussion. For now, let us come back to the topic of sleep and its relevance in this Hungarian novel. In The Eclipse, sleep has a comparatively paralysing function on the characters as explained above, yet in contrast to Dracula, it serves to depict the transgressive and lazy nature of the Turkish Other. 3 Usually associated with peacefulness, 4 when sleep is observed in an evil person, 5 it becomes a t hreat or even a source for infinite (existential) anxiety. Indeed, when Gergely plans his flight from the Turkish camp (for further textual reference see below), he notices the uncanny change in the natural behaviour of the birds in the forest, 6 which further adds to the notion of fear (if the birds sing too loudly, the Turks will wake up). As members of a Foucauldian society in which every ideological notion refers back to a p ower-impact dyad, losing one’s agency is the epitome of the individual’s worst fears. In sleep, it seems, one is trapped in an in-between of the Lacanian Realm of the Real (dreams or hallucinations are the closest one can get to the Realm of the Real while still alive) and the Realm of the Symbolic. The vampire further complicates the dichotomy of life and death, for although he is pathologically dead, he awakens always anew, seemingly unable (or unwilling?) to

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__________________________________________________________________ cross the threshold into the Real. But is immortality not the culmination of human desire and are laws not made ‘to be broken, prohibitions to be transgressed’, 7 as Joan Copjec points out? 2. Transgressing Patriarchal Order Let us dwell for a while on the interrelation between the three Lacanian orders, viz. the Real, the Imaginary and the Symbolic and ponder on the question why it becomes so utterly significant in vampirism. Simply put, the Realm of the Real for Lacan is the ideal status quo that is not dominated by such binaries as ‘absence’ and ‘presence’ as is the Symbolic; there is nothing missing in the Real, in fact it stands for the original whole which precedes and succeeds our being. Due to its optimal character, all human beings develop a d esire to return to this locus amoenus. However, for the duration of a human lifetime, (from womb to tomb) the Realm of the Real remains entirely inaccessible, owing to the fact that the Symbolic order (which is tantamount to language and/ or the patriarchal social order) pre-exists us. Anterior to us, it will always escape our attempts to master it. Thus, the subject is born into this system, unable to endeavour alterations. Once we enter the Symbolic order, we move among substitutes, i.e. we continuously look for an object that replaces our yarn for the Real, and are never able to recover the pure, though fictive, self-identity of the Imaginary. The order of the Imaginary then, oscillates between the Real and the Symbolic in psychological terms (i.e. the subject is torn between his desire for the Real and his recognition of the Symbolic) and occurs during the pre-oedipal/ pre-linguistic phase for the first time. However, it is not a stage to be outgrown but is (re-)contained within the Symbolic as a series of ideal projections and identifications. It is presumably at the Lacanian Mirror Stage that the subject wants to establish its own being and to distinguish itself from everybody else. In other words, the ego is the narcissistic process whereby we bolster up a fictive sense of unitary selfhood by finding something in the world with which we can identify. The ego is not ‘ourselves’ but an imaginary illusion of full self-presence. We construct ourselves only because we are mirrored back from the position of another’s desire. 8 How does this relate to or how can this be applied to vampirism? Lacan’s triadic model should be considered the basic concept to explain the terror the vampire emits, for he threatens to disrupt the binary-based order of the Symbolic, abnegates the Imaginary and contaminates the pureness of the Real by his refusal to enter it. Social and physical laws alike seem to be rescinded and dichotomies are inverted: ‘We thought her dying whilst she slept, and sleeping when she died.’ 9 This semantic chiasm taken from the scene of Lucy’s murder demonstrates how the vampire blurs the lines between hallucination and reality. It is for these reasons that, indoctrinated by patriarchal order, the living human beings have to take it upon themselves to expel the vampire from the Symbolic and forcibly send him where, according to their understanding, the undead vampire truthfully belongs.

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__________________________________________________________________ The idea of immortality is characteristically embedded in a larger theological context. In Christian belief, for instance, bodily death is a portentous event. The soul leaves the body forever and begins an eternal spiritual life, the quality whereof is determined by the Divine judgement of one’s earthly sins and merits. Here the question arises, why the resurrection of the soul as taught in Christian dogma is yearned for and religiously legitimised, all the while vampirism as a kind of prohibited apotheosis is vilified. In contrast to an afterlife in heaven, the once-human vampire’s existence is a frightening tragedy, sans goodness or hope, repose or satisfaction. In order to survive, he must drink the blood of the living. The possibility of real death is unattainable to him for all eternity, unless he is murdered. Strangely enough, there seems to be an unwritten code that suicide is not an alternative to opt for, just as in Christianity. Thus he continues, wanting to live, wanting to die; not truly alive and not really dead. As all vampire legends and customs attest, being trapped in an inbetween is feared even more than death. 3. Enforcing Normalcy: The Fear of the Other and Degeneracy One major social development in the 19th century was the rise of normalising medicine and the obsessive wish to control the common man through the medical gaze. It was thus that the fear of one’s body being potentially deviant from the norm arose. By classifying those who are different as ‘deviant’ and a threat to social order, stigmatisation becomes a central part of the alienation process. 10 Much of the terror in late 19th century British Gothic fiction draws upon the anxiety of national, social and psychic decay and degeneracy, which is also known as fin-de-siècle-anxiety. Given the fact that Victorian England had witnessed a long period of prosperity (profits that came from oversees colonies and the Industrial Revolution), it was only natural to assume that after reaching a peak, the growth of the British Empire would eventually come to a halt, or even fall into precipitous decline. Taking all this into consideration, it is little surprising that we can discern a certain desire in Dracula as a t ypical fin-de-siècle Gothic text to identify the unfixed, the transgressive and the other, and, in a further step to (re-)establish a norm. Hurley states that it is with the rise of anthropology, that the idea of measuring the human skull (and body), so as to determine what lies within the limits of normal and what not, first emerges. 11 It is from these beliefs that arose the enduring binary notion of normalcy and deviance. However, compulsory able-bodiedness also went hand in hand with the fear about the downfall of the British Empire: ‘There is a widespread theory that the fall of great nations in the past had always been connected with degeneracy and moral decay’. 12 According to Stephen Arata, ‘Dracula enacts the period’s most important and pervasive narrative of decline, a narrative of reverse colonisation’, 13 which

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__________________________________________________________________ consisted in the anxiety of being colonised by ‘primitive’ forces. Not only does this angst arise from geopolitical fears, but also from being aware of one’s guilt in the course of colonisation. In Dracula, in this marauding, invasive other, the British reader realises his country’s own imperial practices mirrored back in monstrous forms. Reverse colonization narratives are obsessed with the spectacle of the primitive and the atavistic because degeneration constituted the worst fear of the time. 4. Shape-Shifting The image of the atavistic, repulsive othered body is introduced from the very beginning: when Jonathan looks at Dracula in his coffin, he describes him as ‘a filthy leech’, 14 a bloodsucking annelid that has always been regarded with disdain owing to its somewhat lowly life form. Adding to its repulsive effect on humans is its asexuality and its capability to regenerate after severe injuries. Stoker could indeed not have found a metaphor that describes the nature of the vampire more adequately. On the other hand, however, it was not uncommon in Stoker’s time (and it s till is a standard treatment) to use leeches in medical therapy. In other words, leeches were a n ecessary evil for regaining health. In that respect, the vampire might be viewed as an aid that liberated the individual of bad blood. Indeed, blood takes on manifold significations in Dracula depending on the viewpoint from which its symbolic character is approached: blood denotes lineage 15 in Transylvania and most literally life for Count Dracula, whereas in England it becomes the source of unease, even sheer panic of becoming infected or inheriting bad/ degenerative genes. Given its unstable character, on the most literal level, therefore, the body gradually came to stand in for the Achilles heel, the object that was most prone to infection and hence most susceptible to becoming a Foucauldian monster. In view of the fact that according to the latter monstrosity was ‘systematically suspected behind all criminality’ 16 in the nineteenth century, criminal actions were even more shunned than before, for it is one thing to be deemed a criminal and another to be socially ostracised. Foucault was concerned about the transgressive behaviour of two opposed types of political monsters, who both break the social contract they have subscribed to, therewith reverting to the state of nature: first, the royal monster who breaks the law from above and is often deemed the sexual transgressor and second, the popular monster who breaks the law from below by acts of cannibalism. In Dracula, the reader encounters both forms of political monsters. Nonetheless, as is typical in vampirism, clear categorisations are virtually impossible to attain. With his harem and ability to incite especially women (Lucy and Mina) to lust and his title of nobility, there seems to be very little doubt that he is the royal monster, whereas the popular monsters seem to be women in general. As has already been mentioned several times before, however, the vampire reverses patriarchal order, including gender roles: stripped of her

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__________________________________________________________________ natural mother role, (by becoming a vampire Lucy is sexualised which automatically disqualifies her for taking on a mother role) Lucy becomes a raging harpy sans innate maternal protective instincts. 17 On the other hand, Dracula takes on the role of the mother, most prominently so in the breast-feeding scene. 18 The gender lines are blurred even more when he uses the exact same words Adam utters after creating Eve out of his rib. 19 Dracula then is not only a figure who confronts, challenges, and distorts Christian themes and images, but he is also the Antichrist who wants to establish his reign of Evil. 5. Vampirical Reproduction: Bad Genes? Dracula is empowered by his own right to actively enforce eugenics according to his imagination. Before injecting his own parasitic DNA, he makes sure to eliminate all traces of lineage, personality and life by literally sucking out the blood of his victims. Without any doubt it is the worst of human fears to be changed from within and transformed into soul-less, robotic shells that have lost all subjectivity whatsoever, and that is exactly the new identity Dracula’s victims receive. It is further quite interesting to observe in Dracula how race and gender issues 20 become well-nigh trivial in view of a much larger threat. [H]is right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast, which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. 21 This is the climax of Stoker’s Dracula. Dracula cuts into a vein in his own breast and forces Mina to drink his blood, thus intending to transform her into a vampire. This specific moment in the novel is simultaneously the epitome of the prevalent fear of the 19th century: Dracula, the medieval Count has arrived in modern Europe to enforce his right as a nobleman of the jus primae noctis. By ‘raping’ a woman he not only demonstrates his moral decadence, but he also questions the potency of the men who are supposed to protect their women against similar attacks. It is this complete powerlessness 22 in the face of losing one’s agency that was the worst of all fears to be experienced and the source for this anxiety is the constant fear of the unknown, the foreign, the other. On a concluding note, it can be said that Dracula represents what Freud called the uncanny, that which should have remained hidden but does not. There is something both familiar and alien about Dracula which we try not to recognise, as it is too frightening to face. It seems that the compulsion for normalcy and order in a patriarchal society like ours is inevitable. The moment we want to deviate from the norm we are hunted down. Thus, the vampire serves as a universal metaphor of

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__________________________________________________________________ the evil force that may lurk in unknown places and times, seeking to disrupt this order by making use of its shape-shifting abilities. Yet in the end the question remains if the vampire is evil per se?

Notes 1

Shakespeare: Hamlet Act III, scene 1. B. Stoker, Dracula, Barnes & Noble Classics, New York, 2003, pp. 42-43: ‘I suppose I must have fallen asleep; […] I thought at the time I must be dreaming when I saw them, for, though the moonlight was behind them, they threw no shadow on the floor.’ 3 G. Gárdonyi, Egri Csillagok, Szépirodalmi Kiadó, Budapest, 1963, p. 36: ‘Aludt az úgy, hogy az erdö minden fája is elmehetett volna töle.’ (They were sleeping so heavily that he would not have noticed if all the trees in the forest would have been gone..) / ‘De kapitány úr, kegyelmed nappal nem eszik, éjjel nem alszik.’ (But you, Captain, do n ot eat during the day and do n ot sleep during the night.) The Hungarian soldier is therewith pictured as a self-disciplined and devotional hero. 4 This becomes obvious when we have a look at phrases, idioms and collocations we use on a daily basis: ‘He slept peacefully.’ ‘Sleep is sweet to the labouring man’ (The Pilgrim’s Progress and the Bible, Ecclesiastes 7:12). ‘Sogni d’oro’ (translation from Italian: ‘golden dreams’. This is a phrase before going to bed.). 5 How unstable the notion of sleep is becomes obvious when considering the concept of the ‘Sandmann’. Although the majority of German children associate him with a person who helps children fall asleep by dusting sand into their eyes, he becomes the epitome of Evil in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novel Der Sandmann. 6 G. Gárdonyi, Eclipse of the Crescent Moon, Corvina Books, Budapest, 2002, p. 31: ‘Everywhere there was the darkness of night and the song of nightingales. A hundred, a thousand nightingales! It was as if all the nightingales in the world had come down in that forest.’ 7 J. Copjec, ‘Vampires, Breastfeeding, and Anxiety’, The Horror Reader, Routledge, London, 2000, p. 29. 8 J. Lacan, Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book I, Norton & Company, New York & London, 1988, ch. VII. 9 Stoker, op. cit., p. 176. 10 E. Durkheim, É., The Rules of the Sociological Method, Free Press, New York, 1964, p. 68. 11 K. Hurley, The Gothic Body: Sexuality, Materialism, and Degeneration at the Fin de siècle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York, 1996, pp. 9597. 12 Hurley, op. cit., p. 70. 2

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S.D. Arata, ‘The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonialism’, Victorian Studies, Vol. 33, No. 4, Indiana University Press, 1990, p. 623. 14 Stoker, op. cit., p. 58. 15 Ibid., pp. 33-35: ‘We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. […] Again, when, after the battle of Mohacs, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free.’ 16 M. Foucault, Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France,1974-1975, Picador, New York, 2003, p. 81. 17 Stoker, op. cit., pp. 191-192: ‘The neighbourhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines as ‘The Kensington Horror’, ‘The Stabbing Woman’, or ‘The Woman in Black’. During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. […] [T]he consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a ‘bloofer lady’. […] [S]ome of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat. 18 Ibid. 306: ‘With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound’. 19 New American Standard: Genesis 2:23-24: ‘The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’, for she was taken out of man. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.’ 20 Lilith is an African American woman who now functions as the leader of the survivors and also in Dracula men of different nationalities have to co-operate so as to thwart Dracula’s endeavours. 21 Stoker, op. cit., p. 300. 22 Ibid., p. 300: ‘On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though in a stupor.’

Bibliography Arata, S.D., ‘The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonialism’. Victorian Studies. Vol. 33, No. 4, Indiana University Press, 1990, pp. 621-45.

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__________________________________________________________________ Byron, G., ‘Gothic in the 1890s’. A Companion to the Gothic. Punter, D. (ed), Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, 2001. Copjec, J., ‘Vampires, Breastfeeding, and Anxiety’. The Horror Reader. Routledge, London, 2000. Durkheim, É., The Rules of the Sociological Method. Free Press, New York, 1964. Florescu, R. and McNally, R.T., Dracula: A Biography of Vlad the Impaler, 14311476. Hawthorn Books, New York, 1973. Foucault, M., Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974-1975. Picador, New York, 2003. Freud, S., ‘The Uncanny’. The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 17. Hogarth Press, London, 1958. Gárdonyi, G., Egri Csillagok. Szépirodalmi Kiadó, Budapest, 1963. —, Eclipse of the Crescent Moon. Corvina Books, Budapest, 2002. Garland-Thomson, R., ‘Introduction: From Wonder to Error: A Genealogy of Freak Discourse in Modernity’. Freakery. NYU Press, New York, 1996. Gibson, M., Dracula and the Eastern Question: British and French Vampire Narratives of the Nineteenth-Century Near East. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke & Hampshire, 2006. Györke, Á., ‘Nation and Gender in The Eclipse of the Crescent Moon’. Neohelicon XXXII. Springer, Budapest, 2005. Hurley, K., The Gothic Body: Sexuality, Materialism, and Degeneration at the Fin de siècle. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York, 1996. Lacan, J., Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book I. Norton & Company, New York/ London, 1988. Roth, J., ‘Suddenly Sexual Women in Bram Stoker’s Dracula’. Literature and Psychology. Vol. 27, 1977, pp. 113-121. Stoker, B., Dracula. Barnes & Noble Classics, New York, 2003.

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__________________________________________________________________ Sophia Vivienne Kottmayer, MA is a graduate student at the University of Salzburg, Austria. Her field of research includes early Gothic texts and particularly centres on English fin-de-siècle literature.

Malicious (Non)Space in Speculative Fiction: Kathe Koja’s The Cipher and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves Agnieszka Kotwasińska Abstract Both the unreadable Funhole in Koja’s debut novel and the House on Ash Tree Lane in Danielewski’s book destabilize the narratives and drastically transform the people who have stumbled upon them. What is more, the undefined origins and unclassifiable dimensions of the Funhole and the House point to a shared theme of a malevolent consciousness which inhabits these spaces and which intrudes on characters’ lives in an increasingly disturbing and hostile manner. Still, the concept of an evil space endowed with a mind of its own is neither original, nor rare. In fact, haunted sites have always been enormously popular with horror aficionados. Nevertheless, both as readers and moviegoers we are accustomed to obtaining a rational explanation behind the irrational and only rarely do we encounter a space whose raison d’être is not given away in the final moment. In other words, the malicious nature of such spaces is always linked to external forces which have precipitated or at least contributed to it. What differentiates The Cipher and House of Leaves from typical horror and speculative fiction, in which evil places are invariably discovered to have been defiled and violated by death, sacrilege, or a violation of taboo(s), is that the spaces created by Koja and Danielewski are completely autonomous, mute and simply impossible entities. This chapter intends to map the different ways in which the Funhole and the House elude easy labeling as malignant sites whose emergence can be blamed on some prior human wrongdoing and wickedness. The chapter also analyzes Koja’s inexplicable hole and Danielewski’s labyrinthine house as literary critiques of the nature of evil which just like these two architecturally impossible spaces, cannot be easily dismissed, rationalized and measured. Key Words: Horror, evil, space, void, Funhole, speculative fiction, Koja, Danielewski, monster. ***** Standing in the midst of a concentration camp in Oświęcim, perhaps better known under its German name—Auschwitz, a visitor is tempted to describe the place in terms of absolute evil. But how can a building, a place, or space for that matter be called truly evil if it is always a human being that stands behind its creation? Concentration camps, secret prisons, torture chambers, crime scenes, sites of massacres, battles and genocide are imbued with evil which has contaminated these places from the outside rather than from within. Deeds rather

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__________________________________________________________________ than deities generate spaces that we tend to portray as evil, malicious or simply bad. Still, even though places do not cause bad things to happen and they cannot force their inhabitants to commit evil, some spaces are unquestionably more uncomfortable and frightening than others even if no depravities took place within their confines. The peculiar ways in which architecture can elicit negative responses is apparent in the case of agoraphobia and claustrophobia, two mental disorders typically associated with urban landscape, and which were first identified in the nineteenth-century Europe following the unrestrained urbanization of the major cities. 1 Another well-known example is the centuries-long obsession with horror vacui which goes hand in hand with the belief that nature abhors void. For that very reason rational human beings will always avoid vast empty spaces. Yet the baroque fascination with infinity seems to defy horror vacui, indeed, it proves that depth and obscurity can be linked to transcendence, whereas void and labyrinthine space may reflect the inner workings of the mind, both sane and insane one. A certain paradox emerges which contends there are no places that can be justly deemed evil, but there are places that can nonetheless lead its dwellers to a psychosomatic discomfort, or even psychosis. Though this paradox is mirrored by real-life disorienting pieces of postmodern architecture or in the modernist use of Le Corbusier’s ‘l’espace indicible’, it is in horror fiction that we can find its finest manifestation. 2 At first glance horror seems to offer a straightforward solution as it seems to portray unnatural and evil places as beings with minds and wills of their own. However, all these haunted houses with doors slamming behind terrorized maidens, gothic castles plagued by draughts and squeaking gates, old mansions, towers, dungeons, graveyards, ships, woods, hills, mental asylums, abandoned hospitals, orphanages, and other spine-chilling locales are revealed at some point to be nothing more than elaborate vessels for monster(s). Ghosts of murder victims or ghosts of their murderers control haunted houses, vampires rule their castles, woods are under the spell of burnt witches, hills are controlled by mutants, whilst other ghastly places are populated (or might have been occupied at some point in the past) by supernatural creatures, serial killers, prehistoric beings or extraterrestrials. One thing remains certain, haunted grounds do not haunt people for no apparent reason. Past violations of taboos, sacrileges, blasphemies or extreme violence fill the space with its present spite and rage. Thus, quite rational justification resides in the history of the location in question and its former or current dwellers. Two speculative fiction novels, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves and Kathe Koja’s The Cipher, go against the accepted mechanisms of horror fiction, as they reformulate a number of motifs including the one of a haunted house/space. Apart from the latter motif, I would like to concentrate on three issues, transformative powers of unique spaces, horror vacui and emptiness, and the

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__________________________________________________________________ question of resistance and surrender, as they are all closely related to the subject of evil spaces. Whereas Koja’s The Cipher remains virtually unknown in academic circles, Danielewski’s debut has attracted quite a lot of critical attention in recent years. For this very reason, I need to state emphatically that it is not my intention to map the plethora of interpretative paths that can be studied in Danielewski’s book. Interestingly, although the haunted house motif is, in fact, a major theme of House of Leaves, its obviousness is often taken for granted and it ends up being used as a starting point for more sophisticated analyses that centre on the formal attributes of Danielewski’s novel, the textual experiments, the interplay and breakdown of different narratives, etc. What is more, I find the impact of the ontological instability of the house on the narrative, on the characters and their motivation, finally on the readers and their responses irrelevant for the present discussion. In truth, whether the house does actually exist in the fictional reality to which both Zampanò and Johnny belong, or whether it exists solely in Zampanò’s head or is a by-product of Johnny’s inheritance of schizophrenia, the Ash Tree Lane house creates certain indisputable effects on everyone who comes into direct or indirect contact with it. The house which Karen Green and Will Navidson buy in order to resuscitate their failing relationship quickly reveals itself to be a living architectural puzzle which eludes rational explanations and mathematical equations. Bearing in mind Noël Carroll’s formula of horror fiction which in its fullest manifestation consists of the onset, the discovery, the confirmation and the confrontation, in a typical and fully-developed haunted house story after the first sinister event (the onset), the characters should explore the house, dig up its secrets, and learn its history up until they discover what has happened that has brought this particular monster figure into their dwelling. 3 Only then can they learn how to defeat it. In fact, the desire to satisfy the curiosity raised by horror narratives may be the single most important factor that makes both readers and watchers consent to being repulsed and/or frightened by such texts. Carroll aptly summarizes this argument by saying that ‘it is not that we crave disgust, but that disgust is a predictable concomitant of disclosing the unknown.’ 4 However, the unknown remains hidden in House of Leaves, and no major discoveries are made. Not even the actual monster, whose growl reverberates through the empty corridors and whose presence can only be suspected, is confronted in the end. More than that, we cannot be sure whether the monster that creeps into Zampanò’s and later Johnny’s lives is really monstrous or just misread and misconstrued. 5 The novel also subverts a popular horror fiction rationalization according to which haunted space may act as a supernatural mirror reflecting inner demons which are brought therein by its inhabitants. Obviously, House of Leaves investigates this interpretative path but in such a way as to discredit it a s an oversimplification. 6

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__________________________________________________________________ Koja’s novel is much more straightforward in its identification with horror genre fiction than House of Leaves. In the last few sentences Koja even hints at a clear-cut explanation that the Funhole may be, in fact, a physical representation of Nicholas’s empty heart: What if somehow I’m crawling blind and headfirst into my own sick heart, the void made manifest and disguised as hellhole, to roil in the aching stink of my own emptiness forever? 7 But this particular reading is rather weak as it appears briefly towards the end, but remains unexplored. Thus, a clear-cut way out of the impossible is never provided. The suggestion of the monster, which as in Danielewski’s novel is never truly present, appears in the video tape made by Nakota. The continually transforming record reveals the ecstatic prance of self-evisceration, a figure carving itself, recreated in a harsh new form from what seemed to be its own hot guts, becoming no figure at all but the absence of one, a cookiecutter shape and in but not contained by its outline a blackness, a vortex of nothing. 8 Again, the emptiness and darkness are emphasized, but we are left with more questions than answers. Koja’s characters do not discover any history behind the hole, in fact, they are not even interested in seeking its origins, they are more involved in understanding the process the Funhole represents to them. The three common motifs that constantly reappear through the two texts—the transformation, the experience of emptiness/void, and the resistance and surrender—only serve to emphasize the inability of these works to contain their impossible spaces. The characters in House of Leaves are changed both mentally and physically by the house, with one of the characters driven to madness, murder and suicide, and all being hurt in one way or another. The side effects include insomnia, mild anxiety, migraines, stupor, impotence, suspected ulcer, echolalia, scratches, nausea, to name just a few, and it is only after the house has dissolved and disappeared that the symptoms lessen and finally recede. 9 Interestingly, it is also stated that even the people who read about the house or watch The Navidson Record are affected, a circumstance proven by Zampanò’s and Johnny’s gradual withdrawal from life and their descent into madness. In Koja’s novel the transformative power of the Funhole is even more clearly pronounced as everything that goes into the hole is transformed: bugs die and mutate, a mouse explodes, a d ead hand comes back to life, Nicholas’s palm develops its own Funhole, sculptures standing near it begin to melt and one of them becomes

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__________________________________________________________________ Funhole’s (and Nicholas’s) guardian, another character’s face mutates into a living terror resembling a viperfish. But it is Nicholas that undergoes the most dramatic transformation in terms of his mentality and his body. When in the close proximity of the Funhole he goes into a trance and levitates, later he melts metal objects and burns people who try to get near the Funhole, including Nakota, whom he unintentionally kills. 10 During the last and final confrontation Nicholas is able to move his hands freely through closed doors, thus passing last physical barriers between himself and the reality represented by the Funhole. The physical transformation is accompanied by increasing violence on the part of Nicholas which he exhibits mostly towards Nakota, who is incidentally quite content with this novel aspect of her former lover. Another distinct theme—that of emptiness and horror vacui—is intimately linked with the issue of resisting and finally accepting the void. In Koja’s novel the emptiness is represented figuratively through Nicholas’s own self. After his aborted suicide attempt Nicholas dwells on his own worthlessness: ‘It’s so easy to be nothing. It requires very little thought or afterthought.’ 11 The nothingness professed by Nicholas may explain his special relationship with the Funhole, and may answer why he was chosen as its catalyst. The way he accepts everything life throws at him and the way he floats with the currents of his mundane existence makes him a perfect receptacle, a one truly reliable disciple who will not turn away or escape, as he years no enlightenment or secret wisdom the way Nakota, Malcolm and other Funhole devotees do. Though others declare readiness for the ultimate sacrifice, their offerings are tainted by a burning need to be transformed or to gain something substantial from the Funhole; fame, knowledge, perhaps nirvana. Nicholas is the only one who wants nothing from the Funhole and decides to jump into the rabbit hole and dissolve in its nothingness just because there is nothing else left for him to do. The theme of emptiness in House of Leaves is associated with the fear of the void, as well as the experiences of claustrophobia and agoraphobia. The latter are especially well developed in Chapter XX which deals with the last exploration undertaken by Will Navidson. Apart from the formal measures which reflect the agoraphobic or claustrophobic moments (for example, chunks of texts becoming smaller and smaller to mirror Navidson’s painful crawl through a shrinking passage) the text concentrates on Navidson’s willing rejection of his former urge to comprehend this place, to map it, and therefore to conquer it. He absorbs the constant changes without looking back or without lamenting the subsequent loss of his bike, backpack and equipment. In the last pages of Chapter XX we see him floating in absolute darkness, neither falling, nor going up, his body fading away from his own mind because of the numbing coldness. It is in this last moment of surrender that a s mall light appears and the darkness literally opens for Karen to retrieve Will. Interestingly, Karen’s astute claustrophobia is inexplicably

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__________________________________________________________________ suspended for this instant so that she can walk in with no apprehension to help Will. At the end of the day, the malicious nature of the house on Ash Tree Lane and the Funhole is both paradoxical and ironic, as excluding Tom’s smashed hands and his disappearance into the void, no actual harm has been inflicted by either of these spaces. The deaths, the mutations, and the violence are in most cases the upshots of being in or near the two spaces. And if we were to put the Funhole and Navidson’s house on t rial, it would be virtually impossible to prove they were the real perpetrators of these transgressions. In The Cipher it is Nicholas who actually maims and kills, whereas in House of Leaves, the house tries to vindicate itself by gently accepting Will during his last exploration, removing the threat of the monster and finally allowing Karen and Will to leave its darkness and escape to a better life. In light of such reasoning the two places, though not exactly benevolent, cannot be considered unequivocally malevolent. Still, evil in popular understanding is often perceived as extremely difficult to define or measure, it often seems incomprehensible in its range and intensity, and it is at times almost transparent as it shirks responsibility and points the finger at other, be it s ocial, historical or psychological forces. In the face of absolute evil people are often helpless to grasp the true ramifications of what has happened and who or what should be blamed. The situation gets further complicated by the concept of the banality of evil, a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt to describe how ordinary German citizens during the Nazi era trusted the state and simply followed orders without fully realizing in what they participated. Obviously, the banality of evil does not dissolve the responsibility for evil deeds, it rather shows how difficult it is to find its origins and how easily evil can be diffused or concealed by the grey shadows. The fact that the Funhole and the house on Ash Tree Lane not only easily evade the accountability for what is taking place in or near them but they also escape logic and reason only strengthens the overall impression that evil in its pure form is beyond human comprehension, it cannot be measured as its contours change constantly (as in House of Leaves), and it cannot be fought effectively if its origins remain buried (as in The Cipher). One can only try to escape from it or, conversely, surrender to it completely hoping for quick and painless resolution. Seen in this light the two spaces transform into non-spaces—the Funhole becomes a l imitless gap in reality, an ever-evolving process rather than an established location, and similarly Navidson’s house leaves its inhabitants and researchers completely at a loss as to its definition: Is it merely an aberration of physics? Some kind of warp in space? Or just a t opiary labyrinth on a much grander scale? Perhaps it serves a funereal purpose? Conceals a secret? Protects

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__________________________________________________________________ something? Imprisons or hides some kind of monster? Or, for that matter, imprisons or hides an innocent? 12 Popular horror fiction reassures us the way real life cannot. In stories that concern haunted and malicious spaces evil is almost always identified, and the knowledge that we can safely lay the blame on a ghost, a vampire, or a serial killer provides us with a huge sense of relief. We are told that spaces cannot be evil by themselves, and evil acts do not happen without somebody’s (or something’s) malicious intent. Yet in real life evil resembles the malicious (non)spaces of Koja’s and Danielewski’s worlds, it is an ever-shifting actuality, a process and a transformation that cannot be explained, ordered and forgotten. Like Will and Nicholas, Karen and Nakota we are powerless in the face of indefinable evil.

Notes 1

For more information see A. Vidler, Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000, pp. 2832. 2 Consider Fredric Jameson’s exposition of the Bonaventure hotel in ‘Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’, and the ways in which the building confuses its residents, hides itself from the outside world through the use of reflecting glass, and conceals the exits in its labyrinthine structure. For more see F. Jameson, ‘Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’, New Left Review, Vol. 146, July-August 1984, pp. 59-92. 3 For more information on horror formula and its variations refer to N. Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror, Or Paradoxes of the Heart, Routledge, New York, 1990, p. 16. 4 Ibid., p. 185. 5 Frequent allusions to sons escaping their father figures (especially Johnny’s story of running away from his abusive foster father) together with the many crossed-out versions of the Minotaur myth suggest that there is more to the monster hiding in the labyrinth than it meets the eye. Such treatment of the monster figure serves to further undermine this typical horror device. For more examples of this theme see M. Danielewski, House of Leaves, Transworld Publishers, London, 2000, p. 78, p. 93, p. 180 & p. 336. 6 For more see Ibid., p. 166. 7 K. Koja, The Cipher, Dell Publishing, New York, 1991, p. 355. 8 Ibid., p. 56. 9 M. Danielewski, House of Leaves, Transworld Publishers, London, p. 396. 10 Nicholas tried to stop Nakota from going into the Funhole as ‘for her there would be no transformations, no ultimate transcursion, to fulfillment: she was just

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__________________________________________________________________ another insect, just another fucking bug.’ See also K. Koja, The Cipher, Dell Publishing, New York, 1991, p. 352. 11 Ibid., p. 121. 12 M. Danielewski, House of Leaves, Transworld Publishers, London, p. 111.

Bibliography Carroll, N., The Philosophy of Horror, Or Paradoxes of the Heart. Routledge, New York, 1990. Danielewski, M.Z., House of Leaves. Transworld Publishers, London, 2000. Jameson, F., ‘Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.’ New Left Review. Vol. 146, July-August 1984, pp. 59-92. Koja, K., The Cipher. Dell Publishing, New York, 1991. Vidler, A., Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachussets, 2000. Agnieszka Kotwasińska is an independent researcher and plans to begin her Ph.D. on women’s horror fiction in the fall 2011 in the Department of American Literature at Warsaw University, Poland. Her research interests include the study of canon formation, feminist speculative fiction, queer horror, and New Journalism.

Evil Writers: The Obsessive Effect of Gothic Writing Maria Antónia Lima Abstract Writing, as any other form of creation, can be an addictive practice that leads to obsession and madness. Gothic fiction involves particularly high levels of ambivalence, which are sometimes translated by a curious similarity between hero and villain, and by a fatal attraction between victim and criminal. A possible identification between the writer and his villain is an important aspect of the ambiguity and transgressive power of gothic narratives. The intention to give gothic fiction a high degree of reality, in order to produce strong emotions, has always been a central motive for many gothic writers.Gothic terrors can subvert and transgress social and moral values as well as any kind of aesthetic limits, but they are also paradoxically used to reaffirm those limits underlying their value. Horror fiction can become a warning against the dangers of transgression, presenting them in their darkest and most threatening form. However, many of the bestselling gothic novels can only produce a high level of alienation, extracting only a very superficial aesthetical pleasure from destruction. As Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose reminds us, the threat may not be a s upernatural creature, but a text. Key Words: Evil, writer, obsession, gothic, trangression, danger. ***** To consider writing as an addictive practice, which leads to obsession and madness, is a point of view from which some gothic writers depart to reflect on the dangerous effects of the creative process, when it becomes a Faustian enterprise that exceeds all its reasonable limits. Gothic fiction involves high levels of ambivalence, which are sometimes translated by a curious similarity between hero and villain, and by a fatal attraction between victim and criminal. The villain is allowed some human features and may often be the victim of sinister forces beyond his control. Consequently, a possible identification between the writer and his villain is an important aspect of the ambiguity and transgressive power of gothic narratives. Author and villain can be different versions of the same figure: the outsider in a hostile and incomprehensible world, the self-portrait of the Romantic artist. The intention to give gothic fiction a high degree of reality, in order to produce a strong aesthetic pleasure, has always been the central motive of many gothic writers. In John Carpenter’s famous film, In the Mouth of Madness, we can find an expert in fantastic literature, Sutter Can, who is able to affect the mental state of his readers by the power of his writing, a special gift that any other author, such as

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__________________________________________________________________ Lovecraft and Stephen King can possess. Their novels can be an inspiration to create this evil writer. Jack Torrance in The Shining, Ben Mears in Salem’s Lot, Thaddeus Beaumont in The Dark Half and Paul Sheldon in Misery can be good examples to illustrate the obsessions and existential crisis provoked by gothic writing. The language crisis from which they suffer makes them authors of two kinds of novels: the good ones and the bestsellers. The first type produces a fiction whose authenticity and cathartic power try to exorcise the anxieties and obsessions connected to literary and artistic creation. Writing can be dangerous, but can also be a confrontation with other dangers involved in the creation of a world which is far from being a safe place. In these novels the writer can be an author of evil, but he has a cathartic function, which Stephen King was able to clarify: ‘I and my fellow writers are absorbing and defusing all your fears and anxieties and insecurities and taking them upon ourselves. We’re sitting in the darkness beyond the flickering warmth of your fire, cackling into our caldrons and spinning out our spider webs of words, all the time sucking the sickness from your minds and spewing it out into the night.’ 1 Gothic terrors can subvert and transgress social and moral values as well as any kind of aesthetic limits, but they are also paradoxically used to reaffirm those limits underlying their value. Gothic fiction can become a warning against the dangers of transgression, presenting them in their darkest and most threatening form. However, some of the bestselling gothic novels can only produce a high level of alienation, extracting only a very superficial aesthetical pleasure from destruction. In this sense, gothic writers can become real villains without any ethical responsibility or aesthetical honesty. As Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose reminds us, the threat may not be a supernatural creature, but a text. To denounce this danger implies an intellectual challenge, which contemporary gothic criticism should never refuse. In Wickedness, Mary Midgley alerts for this sense of responsibility, stating that: From the earliest myths to the most recent novel, all writing (including comic writing) that is not fundamentally cheap and frivolous is meant to throw light on the difficulties of the human situation, and if, in tribute to arbitrary theories of aesthetics, we refuse to use that light, we sign up for death and darkness. Where the refusal extends to teaching students not to use it, the responsibility is particularly grave. 2 According to David Punter, the essential features of gothic fiction are psychological: derangement, obsession, nightmare, and the eruption of the irrational. The ambiguous meanings of gothic fiction intervene to create a certain duplicity of its effects. Not only its authors are able to confront and exorcise the sources of terror by the cathartic effect of their narratives, but they can also be

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__________________________________________________________________ responsible for the desire for terror in their readers minds, inducing them to practice evil actions by following the same obsessive impulses they saw portrayed in some evil characters so realistically created by writers, who, perhaps, only wanted to objectify in their villains some of their own creative obsessions. This dangerous proximity between writer and his villains happens because the same identity crisis or obsession that takes a criminal to kill or to develop perverse behaviours is often originated from the same existential emptiness and anxiety that lead the author to write, experiencing sometimes the frustrations and the impossibility to fulfil his personal desires of power and fame by being unable to reach meaning through language. This feeling of dissatisfaction and impotence in face of the blank page is what leads the writer to try, so obsessively, to achieve perfection in his art, as the criminal also repeats his crimes to show high levels of competence in his performances. The anxiety and terror felt by the writer, in his moment of writing, can turn into evil and extreme attitudes, as Stephen King concluded in his famous novel The Shining. The play-writer Jack Torrance is possessed by an uncontrollable impulse to murder all his family, due to an enormous feeling of boredom and emptiness lived in the loneliness of the Overlook Hotel, from which he wants to escape writing a play and teaching his son how to write. King’s interest in individuals who become victims of terror, by living deep existential crisis provoked by the use of language, is the reason he so often uses in his novels characters who are themselves writers. Representing King’s selfreflection on his role as a writer, these characters try to exorcise the anxieties connected to the literary and artistic production, being a way for the author to reveal the act of writing in all its authenticity. He wants to warn us that writing can be dangerous by giving origin to a certain perverse impulse, inherent to the nature of speech. In The Gothic Sublime, Vijay Mishra clarifies this process: ‘Any idea that is in excess of language signifies the death of its own medium of representation, that is, of language itself. For speech is marked by a compulsion towards its own self-dissolution, its own nirvana, that narrative attempts to circumvent by prolonging through writing.’ 3 In The Dark Half, George Stark is the personification of that impulse. Being a pseudonym of the writer Thad Beaumont, he acquires a life of his own and starts committing all the crimes described in his novels. The writer is thus threatened by a character born from his own literary creativity. His capacity for using language may be lost in a fight against a self-destructive force created inside language. So terrified as Dr. Jekyll, after discovering the perversity of his own creation, Thad becomes conscious of all the dangers inherent to writing. If the irruption of George Stark showed him that ‘pen names can come to life and murder people,’ 4 he could also run the risk that his activity as a writer could turn against himself, being to him very harmful for provoking obsessions, fragmentation of personality, and a deep alienation in relation to others and to himself. As Stark represents Thad’s projection of this fear towards writing, he refers to him as a double - ‘I will call it

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__________________________________________________________________ my William Wilson complex’ 5 - who will have to be confronted in order to reach consciousness and authenticity, similarly to what happens in Poe’s short-story. Relating the desire of writing to the terrible repressions produced by the act of writing itself, King creates his monsters as the result of repressed desires and fears that are equivalent to the desire for the unrepresentable, so common in the gothic sublime, which sometimes leads the imagination to a crisis. This creative paradox of gothic fiction has a positive effect, because it uses the confrontation with the fear of language or with the terror of writing, so that an author could surpass them and obtain a deeper consciousness of his human condition and of his role as a writer. As Thad Beaumont well knows about his ‘dark side,’ George Stark, ‘words on paper made him, and words on paper are the only things that will get rid of him.’ 6 Consequently, Gothic transforms the aesthetics of sublime into an existential and psychological process, which is able to bring to consciousness the dark side of human psyche, so that it could be recognized as an integral part of its identity. Its essential cathartic function is once more described by Stephen King as a kind of exorcism. In Danse Macabre, he refers to gothic writing as a necessity of ‘lifting a trapdoor in the civilised forebrain and throwing a basket of raw meat to the hungry alligators swimming around in that subterranean river beneath.’ 7 This cathartic effect is usually not only felt by the readers, but also by the author, who exorcises his most terrible demons through gothic writing. The most perverse characters have very often the power to dramatise their author’s creative crisis, whenever they become obsessive characters involved into some maniac purpose, but who also possess some criminal impulses that, apparently, keep them at a d istance from the identity of their creator. Through this process, the gothic writer finds an indirect and metaphorical way to reflect on his own act of writing, transforming some of his stories into meta-fictions that develop efficient processes of self-reference. Both in literature and in cinema, we can find several examples of these evil writers, showing that Stephen King is not alone in this reflection on the darkest side of creativity. The famous Basic Instinct, staring Sharon Stone, can be associated with many other psychological thrillers, such as Secret Window, with Johnny Depp, adapted from King’s novel Secret Window, Secret Garden. Burdened with a cr aft that is essentially uncinematic, writers in the movies are perennially blocked, broke, and insane, simultaneously romanticised and ridiculed for their excesses, which allow a process of self-regarding and self-reflexivity, both from the reader’s perspective, as in Misery, and from the writer’s, as in Dark Half by George Romero. All these stories have the common purpose of discussing the question of the writer’s double personality to which his creative activity seems to condemn him, giving evidence of the fact that his power to create and to imagine evil gives him more probabilities to yield to those destructive instincts that he so obsessively wants to create with the highest level of authenticity, proving he has a deep .

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__________________________________________________________________ knowledge of the darkest side of human mind. This explains the relation of empathy between the writer and his villains, an identification that leads them to imitate one another, as Val McDermid’s novel, Killing the Shadows, so well exemplifies. The plot centres on a serial killer whose actions seem to blur the line between fact and fiction, because his victims are thriller writers he imitates, whenever he kills them in the way they killed the victims in their books. Through this novel, McDermid expresses her awareness of the responsibility writers should have for whom they write, leading them to reflect on the effects of violent writing on people’s minds. Consequently, we can conclude that neither readers nor writers are completely protected against these dangers, because there is no such thing as safe art. This is so especially if these artistic products are part of a culture which is so driven by obsession with celebrity that it makes celebrities out of serial killers. In Haunted, Chuck Palahniuk created a story about a group of people who accept to participate in a s ecret writer’s retreat, because they want to become famous writers, and this obsessive purpose will lead them to do anything to get fame and fortune. An homage to horror stories, that reminds Lord Byron’s Villa Diodati and Frankenstein’s genesis, this is a fiction about the process of writing gothic fiction and also a satire of reality TV, where perverse behaviours associated with creative motives are totally exposed, showing the dark-side and all the horror of narcissism. Deeply believable and horrifyingly real, these 17 stories also contain Palahniuk’s irony and provocative tone, which allow to reflect upon gothic writers’ obsessive desire to represent terror with high degrees of authenticity and reality. The cover itself has a d ark image that changes while the book is read. When the book is closed in darkness, the effect is that a scaring face appears before the reader. This so real effect, which every good horror story should create, was especially obtained by ‘Guts,’ one of the best known of these stories, because it was read by the author to his audiences in several promotion tours, and over 35 people fainted while listening to the readings. As direct consequences of transforming fictional terrors into real terrors, these and other effects force us to reflect on the consequences of the special power which gothic writers have to transcend the frontiers between fact and fiction. The creative obsession from which the author departs, feeling simultaneously great joy and terrible torment, is transmitted to the readers who are stimulated to reproduce, in the reality, all the terrors they lived in the world of fiction, to experience, with the same degree of intensity, the real risks the writer created. Sometimes they desire to imitate his creative power to gratify their own perverse needs for terror and violence, as Annie Wilkes, the obsessive reader in Misery, so well illustrates. This danger can be created by the process of writing itself, because writers can be often exposed to the excess. Defending that Gothic is the paradigm of all fiction and all textuality, in Gothic Pathologies, David Punter states: Gothic is, on the whole, proliferative, it is not intrigued by the

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__________________________________________________________________ minimal: in its trajectory away from right reason and from the rule of law it does not choose to purify itself but rather to express itself with maximum – perhaps magnum – force, even if on many occasions this also involves considerable ineptitude. It tells stories, it te lls stories within stories, it r epeats itself, it forgets where it left off, it goes on and on; it ‘loses the place’. Endlessly it seeks for excess after excess, and does not draw a textual line under this. 8 This close connection to the excess and the persistence in its representation implies a risk of loosing the aesthetic distance to certain terrifying experiences and to the real sources of terror, especially in gothic fiction, because both writer and the reader have the same intention of extracting strong aesthetic emotions from every terrible event. Commenting on some readers’ desires for fear and their anxieties of experiencing real risks, in Delights of Terror, Terry Heller concludes: Modern readers come to such works expecting some sort of a challenge; adult readers, I believe, though they may enjoy ‘The Man in the Bell’, prefer ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, in part because it produces some measure of real risk. The pleasure of enduring and overcoming this anxiety of real risks, however small they may be, is greater than that of simply entering into the sufferings of the victim at second hand. 9 The fact is that neither writers nor readers are free from their desires to satisfy negative pleasures, some irrational impulses that Freud explained in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, where he concluded that ‘the aim of all life is death’, because he suspected that instincts other than those of self-preservation operate in the ego, leading man to be impelled by unconscious desires of self-destruction, completely opposite to his life instincts. In ‘The Imp of Perverse,’ Edgar Allan Poe reflected on these paradoxical tendencies to practice evil without motive. No other writer gave better expression to the consciousness of his own obsessions and the urgency to objectify them in his characters, forever victims of their own recurrent and persistent thoughts that caused them so much anxiety and distress. Like Poe, every gothic writer knows he can’t be free from these paradoxical tendencies of the human behaviour. One of the main themes of gothic fiction is precisely this ambiguity, being the double one of its most interesting type of characters, in the tradition of Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This duplicity can be transmitted to gothic writing itself, whenever the writer’s intention to transcend himself, through the experience of the terrible, can induce him and their readers to self-destruction, which shows the paradox of the gothic sublime. Nothing is merely aesthetic or fictional, because there is always a

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__________________________________________________________________ mutual contamination between art and life. Reflecting on the high level of alienation that some aesthetic experiences could produce whenever they extract pleasure from violence or destruction, Walter Benjamin, in his Illuminations, concludes: ‘Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.’ 10

Notes 1

S. King, ‘The Playboy Interview’, The Stephen King Companion, Futura, London, 1991, p. 69. 2 M. Midgley, Wickedness, Routledge, London, 2001, p. 200. 3 V. Mishra, The Gothic Sublime, State University of New York Press, New York, 1993, p. 23. 4 S. King, The Dark Half, New English Library, London, 1990, p. 135. 5 Ibid., p. 135. 6 Ibid., p. 430. 7 S. King, Danse Macabre, Berkley Books, New York, 1981, p. 205. 8 D. Punter, Gothic Pathologies, Macmillan, London, 1998, p. 9. 9 T. Heller, The Delights of Terror, p. 42. 10 W. Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and R eflections, Schocken, New York, 1968, p. 242.

Bibliography Beahm, G. (ed), The Stephen King Companion. Futura, London, 1991. Benjamin, W., Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. Schocken, New York, 1968. Chuck, P., Haunted. Jonathan Cape, London, 2005. Freud, S., Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Norton, New York, 1989. Heller, T., The Delights of Terror. University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 1983. King, S., Danse Macabre. Berkley Books, New York, 1981. –––, Misery. Signet, New York, 1988. –––, The Dark Half. New English Library, London, 1990.

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__________________________________________________________________ –––, The Shining. Signet, New York, 1977. Mcdermid, V., Killing the Shadows. St. Martin’s, New York, 2002. Midgley, M., Wickedness: A Philosophical Essay. Routledge, London, 2001. Mishra, V., The Gothic Sublime. State University of New York Press, New York, 1993. Punter, D., Gothic Pathologies: The Text, the Body and the Law. Macmillan, London, 1998. Maria Antónia Lima teaches American Gothic Literature at the University of Évora, in Portugal. She writes literary criticism and fiction.

‘Primum Non Nocere’: Grey Area in Commanding the Right and Forbidding the Wrong John D. Martin III Abstract The Arabic term hisba is defined classically within Islamic juridical and theological writing as being the divine or prophetic directive for all Muslims to commanding the right and forbid the wrong [al-amr bi-l-ma’rūf wa-l-nāhy ‘an almunkar]. The Qur’anic directive which is the origin of this principle is and has been interpreted variously throughout Islamic history: ‘[Believers], you are the best community singled out for people: you order what is right, forbid what is wrong, and believe in God.’ 1 Many of the classical theories of hisba and its proper application were developed as a means for a government to control economic and commercial practices by applying an Islamic orthopraxy to market environments. This official enforcement was the duty of the muhtasib [‘market inspector’]. This is the basis for the discussion of hisba in the works of al-Mawardi in his Ahkam alSultaniyya [‘The Ordinances of Government’] and Ibn Taymiyya in his major work on the topic, named simply, Al-Hisbah. Key Words: Hisba, right, wrong, law, praxis, doxis, Islam. ***** 1. What is hisba historically? There are aspects of hisba which make it more than simply a theoretical tool for generating and applying rules for market practices. As a tool, hisba is a doubleedged sword. It has been utilized as a i nstrument of the state to either control or coerce individual Muslims into monitoring one another regarding matters of practice or belief. I chose the title of this chapter because the topic at hand has the potential to become maligned by the interests of those given the authority to practice it. In classical sources there are warnings of this type which are made to ensure that the enforcer not overstep bounds which will cause unintended sin greater than that which he was attempting to prevent. The noted eleventh-century theologian and jurist Abu Hamid al-Ghazali treats hisba as a duty that must be carried out by Muslims with the utmost prudence in order to avoid its abuse. He believed that hisba could, if mishandled, create harm and cause the evil that it is meant to condemn. Throughout Islamic history, we find anecdotes of such abuse, beginning even with a story in which the second Caliph, Umar b. al-Khattab, breaks into a man’s house in the interest of hisba. On occasion, this duty has been performed both formally and informally in some Muslim countries, by volunteers who are allowed a g reat deal of latitude in their enforcement. More recently, hisba was used as the legal justification for the late

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__________________________________________________________________ Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd being accused of apostasy in Egypt due to a negative response to his academic theological inquiries regarding the historicity of some data within the Qur’an. In the aforementioned story related by al-Ghazali in his Ihya ulum al-din [‘The Revival of the Religious Sciences’], the caliph Umar b. al-Khattab is walking along and hears some strange sounds coming from inside a house. He climbs the wall of the house to the roof in order to see if he can locate the source of the sounds. The roof gives way and Umar lands inside the house only to find the owner in a compromising state with a woman. Umar rebukes the owner for fornication. The owner of the house offers rebuttal, ‘Commander of the Faithful, if I have committed a sin, then you have committed three times that.’ Confused, Umar replies, ‘How so?’ The owner explained: ‘The Qur’an says: ‘Do not spy,’ yet you climbed my walls to hear what was going on inside my house. The Qur’an says: ‘Enter houses by way of their doors,’ but you have entered through my roof. The Qur’an says: ‘Do not enter another’s home until you have made yourself known and greeted those within,’ and you have offered me no greeting.’ Umar, realizing his mistake, apologized and left, through the door this time, without charging the man with the sin of fornication. 2 The original role of the market inspector in Islamic cities was to ensure that fair weights and measures were being used in the markets, and also to enforce the purity metals used in coin. His role, historically, did not end here. Often the muhtasib became the enforcer of other matters of commanding the right and forbidding the wrong, particularly demanding that shopkeepers and merchants leave their shops on Fridays at prayer time to go to the mosque. 3 Other improprieties in personal and religious behaviour were handled by the muhtasib as well, but within limits. Mottahedeh and Stilt use the above anecdote to demonstrate one such limit: respecting privacy in order to allow others to maintain modesty. 4 Privacy and private space, as Alschech argues, was important among the limitations imposed on the muhtasib, based on a Qur’anic injunction not to enter the homes of others without permission. 5 The story also demonstrates a too-often disregarded aspect of commanding the good and forbidding the wrong: the potential for doing wrong by doing so. Caliph Umar was widely known for his passion for upholding the principle outlined in the Qur’an that Muslims, as a community, enjoin righteous behaviour and condemn evil when they encounter it. Even he, though, as Amir al-mu’minun [‘the commander of the faithful’] was prone to overly zealous application of the Qur’anic injuction, resulting in his disregarding other Qur’anic commands. This

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__________________________________________________________________ story is often included in juridical works on the duties of the muhtasib, possibly for this reason. It illustrates a key condition for the application of hisba which is that a transgression should be apparent [zahir] or it cannot be condemned in this manner. al-Ghazali, like al-Mawardi before him, describes the role of the muhtasib in normative, rather than descriptive, terms. In al-Mawardi’s Ahkam al-Sultaniyya, he describes those things which he believes should be regulated by the muhtasib, alluding to the fact that the post was not being used as it was intended in the cities in which he lived and worked as a qadi—or judge. He makes mention of certain improprieties which were being allowed, and is particularly judgmental of the permissive allowance of women in the affairs of the street and the market. Amedroz observes that al-Mawardi viewed the institution as being in decay, which necessitated his clarifying the jurisprudence on the topic. 6 Al-Ghazali on the other hand, seems to be preoccupied with limiting the jurisdiction of the muhtasib, as well as the application of hisba in general, to only that which is legally prescribed. With that in mind, the aforementioned story can certainly be regarded as a means for demonstrating the danger of allowing the muhtasib, or anyone else, to operate unchecked. Michael Cook, who quite actually wrote the book on commanding the right and forbidding the wrong, entitled Commanding the Right and Forbidding the Wrong in Islamic Thought, observes that al-Ghazali in particular understood that normative rules for such an office can only go so far. He writes, ‘...striking is the freedom with which al-Ghazali brings psychological insights to bear in doctrinal questions, as with his remarks on the subjectivity of expectations, the psychology of ignorance, and the lure of the egotrip. Such insights are not themselves necessarily new, but they are new to the genre. Ghazzali also displays a v ery real sense of what can and cannot be determined by laying down rules in advance. He has a vivid awareness that life is full of problematic cases and grey areas, and that individuals have to make judgments about them as best they can. All in all, there is a great deal of fresh air in Ghazzali’s account.’ 7 What Cook finds refreshing in al-Ghazzali’s treatment is that it is not simply a blind application of abstract legal theory found in so many other sources on this topic, but is instead thoughtful and nuanced. It is this nuance which is often lacking in the present application of hisba. 2. What is hisba Today? The institution of muhtasib no longer exists in the Muslim world as such, but this does not mean hisba is not readily applied by individuals and both formal and informal, legal and extra-legal institutions in the modern Islamic world, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Iran. One possible reason that there is no muhtasib is that many of the functions of the office defined in the classical theory on the topic have come to be handled by other legal entities within state. This leaves personal and religious behaviour, which becomes grey area very quickly if jurisdiction, precise responsibility and limits of power are not clearly defined. al-

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__________________________________________________________________ Mawardi defined the difference between the muhtasib as the official censor of the state and the mutaṭawwi’ [lit. ‘volunteer’] as the individual performer commanding the right and forbidding the wrong. 8 In Saudi Arabia, due in part to the influence of the Wahhābīs, though there is no office of the muhtasib, there is al-ri’āsa al-’amma li-hay’āt al-amr bi-l-ma’rūf wa-l-nāhy ‘an al-munkar [‘the General Presidency for Committees of Commanding the Good and Forbidding the Wrong’], officers of which are more commonly referred to as the muṭawwa’. 9 In Iran, after the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini announced that a ministry for commanding the good and forbidding the wrong would be created, though it never actually was. Floor argued that there was only ever a partial implementation in the form of an Idara-yi Munkarat which means literally ‘Administration of Wrongs.’ Instead, at least through the 1980’s, the Iranian state relied on an extensive network of mutatawwi’ to report their neighbors for transgressing the law. 10 Frank Vogel notes the similarity between the usages of mutatawwi’ and mutawwa’, the latter of which is used to refer to a religious leader or missionary by Wahhābīs. 11 The root of mutawwa’ can indicate a type of subjugation as well. Regardless of the nuances in meaning of the names popularly ascribed to them, these relatively informal, often self-appointed mutawwa’ enforce an interpretation of hisba on behalf of the states in which they exist. This has on occasion had disastrous consequences of just the type in which we are interested. The committees in Saudi Arabia occupy themselves with encouraging attendance at prayers and closing shops at prayer times. They also police drinking and dancing, the modesty of women in public and gender segregation when called for, among other things. Their application of hisba is governed law, but it is applied in a way very different to that prescribed by the classical sources. Vogel and Cook both observe that there is no real consideration for the technological advancements which allow for extensive surveillance and powers of government enforcement which differ from those available to medieval Islamic societies. 12 The limits of the muhtasib, particularly as they pertain to privacy, are no longer employed with any regularity. Additionally, some of those enforcing hisba are doing so with very little consideration for the well-being of other people. In one famous and serious transgression of non-existent boundaries in 2002, a mutawwa’ committee refused to allow a group of schoolgirls to leave a burning building because they were not properly veiled for going into public. This cost a number of lives. The committee responsible was later absolved of guilt by a state inquiry and reforms of the system were promised when some Saudis spoke out in protest of the committees’ carelessness and ignorance, but they never occurred. 13 Another case occurred in Egypt in the 1995-1996 when a group of lawyers brought suit in the national court in order to have the scholar and then Cairo University professor Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd declared an apostate due to some of his published work on the historical interpretation of the Qur’an. This occurred at a time when such cases were becoming more common in Egypt, Sudan, Iran and

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__________________________________________________________________ Yemen, almost always directed at defendants who were scholars attempting to develop Islamic thought, but in doing so offend the sensibilities of those in positions of religious authority, which often carry governmental authority as well. 14 In the case of Abu Zayd, a group of lawyers accused him of apostasy (thus making him no longer Muslim) and demanded that he be forcibly divorced from his Muslim wife. The lawyers argued for the judgement on the basis of hisba. In theorizing about the Qur’an as a text with a different meaning for each successive generation reading it, Abu Zayd had demonstrated kufr [‘unbelief’]. He was never allowed to defend himself in court. The case was initially dismissed, but on appeal in 1996 it was confirmed by a judge and Egypt had declared a scholar an apostate based on the content of his work. Abu Zayd and his wife left the country in exile and lived in Leiden, where he taught, until his death last year. This case set a p recedent for another variety of state-controlled hisba in the modern world. Johansen argues that ‘the apostasy rule in combination with the hisba rule on witnesses provides the highest courts of Egypt with an efficient instrument for the control of thought in the public sphere.’ 15 As with the Saudi context, the caveats of the classical sources are not the measure used in applying this principle. Rather, the interpretation of lawyers and judges in the present period decreed that a s cholar of the Qur’an was not capable of writing exegesis in the modern period which differed in its theoretical approach from other sources. This application of hisba was reckoned not to violate Abu Zayd’s privacy because it was a reaction to work which he published openly. 16 3. Hisba in the Future? The practice of commanding the right and forbidding the wrong certainly has a place in modern society. As Cook so eloquently argued in the introduction of his work on the topic, there is a tendency in the modern world to all too often turn a blind eye to wrong-doing right under our noses. 17 We would perhaps be better off if everyone took it upon him- or herself to actually perform this function on occasion. It does become increasingly problematic when such an institution becomes debased or maligned and is then manipulated as a tool for controlling and containing behaviours with are mostly innocuous. In the cases that it is taken to extremes, it is clear that people can be injured deeply. The classical sources for regulating the practice of hisba are very clear that it must be a practice carried out with purity of intention lest its application do more harm than good. It is not a practice which should be abolished, but it is one which should be checked, monitored, and regulated if utilized by nation states as part of their legal framework. Indeed it is perhaps incumbent upon the citizens of these states to apply hisba to those who would have it applied for such purposes and watch the watchmen, so to speak.

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Notes 1

Qur’an 3:110, trans. M.A.S. Abdel-Haleem, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004, p. 42. 2 Translation from R. Mottahedeh and K. Stilt, ‘Public and Private as Viewed through the Work of the Muhtasib’, Social Research, Vol. 70, 2003, pp. 737-738. This story can be found in al-Ghazali’s ‘Kitab al-amr bi-l-ma’ruf wa-l-nahy ‘an almunkar’ in Ihya ulum al-din. 3 H.F. Amedroz, ‘The Hisba Juristiction in the Ahkam al-Sultaniyya of Mawardi’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1916, pp. 82-85. 4 Mottahedeh and Stilt, op. cit., pp. 737-739. 5 E. Alschech, ‘Do Not Enter Houses Other than Your Own: The Evolution of the Notion of a Private Domestic Sphere in Early Sunni Islamic Thought’, Islamic Law and Society, Vol. 11, 2004, pp. 293-294. 6 Amedroz, op. cit., p. 101. 7 M. Cook, Commanding the Right and Forbidding the Wrong in Islamic Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, p. 450. 8 Ibid., p. 448. 9 F. Vogel, ‘The Public and Private in Saudi Arabia: Restrictions on the Powers of Committees for Ordering the Good and Forbidding the Evil’, Social Research, Vol. 70, 2003, p. 758. 10 W. Floor, ‘The Office of the Muhtasib in Iran’, Iranian Studies, Vol. 18, 1985, pp. 67-68. 11 Ibid., p. 766, n. 14. 12 Ibid., p. 759. 13 Ibid., pp. 758-759. 14 B. Johansen, ‘Apostacy as Objective and Depersonalized Fact: Two Recent Egyptian Court Judgements’, Social Research, Vol. 70, 2003, p. 698. 15 Ibid., p. 701. 16 Ibid. 17 Cook, op. cit., pp. ix-xi.

Bibliography Alshech, E., ‘Do Not Enter Houses Other than Your Own: The Evolution of the Notion of a Private Domestic Sphere in Early Sunni Islamic Thought’. Islamic Law and Society. Vol. 11, 2004, pp. 291-332. Amedroz, H.F., ‘The Hisba Jurisdiction in the Akham al-Sultaniyya of Mawardi’. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 1916.

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__________________________________________________________________ Cook, M., Commanding the Right and Forbidding the Wrong in Islamic Thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. Floor, W., ‘The Office of the Muhtasib in Iran’. Iranian Studies. Vol. 18, 1985, pp. 53-74. al-Ghazali, A.H., Ihya ulum al-din. Vol. 2. Dar al-Bayan al-Haditha, Cairo, 2003. Johansen, B., ‘Apostacy as Objective and Depersonalized Fact: Two Recent Egyptian Court Judgements’. Social Research. Vol. 70, 2003, pp. 687-710. Mottahedeh, R. and Stilt, K., ‘Public and Private as Viewed through the Work of the Muhtasib’. Social Research. Vol. 70, 2003, pp. 735-748. Vogel, F., ‘The Public and Private in Saudi Arabia: Restrictions on the Powers of Committees for Ordering the Good and Forbidding the Evil’. Social Research. Vol. 70, 2003, pp. 749-768. John D. Martin III is an MA candidate at the American University in Cairo. His primary area of research is in the formulation of conceptions of orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Islamic thought.

What We Know About Evil: A Deep Map William Andrew Myers Abstract Regular participants in the project called Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness 1 have seen a burgeoning interest in evil studies not just among scholars participating in the annual conferences but also in the wider academy and beyond. Using the heuristic metaphor of a d eep map, that is, a three dimensional representation of the territory of evil studies, I attempt here a sketch of current researches into evil. The surface of the map represents the many disciplines from the home ground of which scholars approach phenomena from a distinctive methodology. Subsurface strata include historical events, present conditions, and texts in various media. We also pay attention to different models of response: criminal justice, international war crimes trials, reparations, and truth and reconciliation commissions. These strata are intimately interconnected, resting on each other, blending at the margins. No map, regardless of scale, can depict all of reality, and the cartographer must perforce select. This attempt is intended to serve as a basic sketch of the current state of the ‘interdiscipline’ of evil studies. Key Words: Evil studies, representations of evil, natural evils, wickedness, torture, genocide, terrorism, responses to evil. ***** 1. Introduction The metaphor of a deep map comes from the American Writer William Least Heat-Moon, whose book Prairy Erth is a study of a single rural county in Kansas, one in which there is no sizable city nor anything in particular that would make it a destination for outsiders or tourists. 2 Heat-Moon details the geography, geology, architecture, aspects of language history, economy, past and present inhabitants, i.e., virtually everything that makes up the place. He calls the result a ‘deep map’ of Chase County, Kansas. I have found this metaphor useful for visualizing the study of evil as layers or strata from surface to bedrock. As in geology, the form of the surface depends on materials and forces in the strata below. No map can provide a complete depiction of its topic. Hence this map, or rather sketch of a map, must be selective in the information it presents. Some principles emerge from the study of evil which seem to have become well established. Some of them are: 1. Evil is extraordinary badness, not common or usual. 2. ‘Natural’ evils call for different kinds of explanation than humanly induced evils

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__________________________________________________________________ 3. Evil can be systemic, organizational, or it can be individual. 4. Systems can magnify or focus the actions of non-malicious ordinary individuals to produce evil results. 5. Some individuals’ actions are wicked or depraved. 6. Radical evil calls for re-evaluation of moral frameworks, whether secular or religious. 7. Evil’s victims are always individuals. Here I will present a sketch of the ways in which these principles and others fit a large scale schema of the study of evil. 2. Layer 1: The Surface: Disciplines in the Study of Evil As a multidisciplinary project the conferences on evil and human wickedness have brought together a remarkable sampling of academic disciplines and independent scholars. The conferences themselves and the resulting publications have melded those multiple disciplines into some truly interdisciplinary conversations. An incomplete list would include sociologists, criminologists, historians, theologians, psychologists, anthropologists, psychiatrists, media scholars, literary analysts, linguists, and philosophers. Each of these fields work with specific methodologies that illuminate different aspects of the whole, and each brings those methods of work to bear on a huge body of material. Literature and film alone provide inexhaustible sources of texts for analysis; historical examples of large and small scale evils likewise are major sources for reflection. We also have a large store of personal memoirs detailing individual experiences. Moreover, many disciplines, such as philosophy and theology, have their own histories of encounter with the phenomena, ongoing conversations from the ancient world to today. Mapping this layer entails showing the fields of study and the ways in which they intersect each other. Bringing specific methodologies to bear on phenomena, whether historical or textual, results in generalizations to theories and explanatory principles, which our map will represent as the first layer below the surface. 3. Layer 2: Theories and Explanatory Principles From a pragmatic point of view, what do we want the word ‘evil’ to do. That is, all words have a f unction, and typically the function of nouns is demarcation. So, what is the most useful application of the word ‘evil’? One available principle is that evil is extraordinary badness, not the common or usual run of accident or human predation. Though the boundary between ordinary and extraordinary badness is irremediably soft we do have a sense, attested to over and over in papers for these conferences, that true evil reveals remarkable wickedness in a perpetrator or that the actions of a p erpetrator are extraordinarily depraved. Likewise, in the category of what have been called

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘natural evils,’ we expect the term to stand for events of horrific scope or extraordinary personal tragedy. Earthquakes, tsunamis, and epidemics that take large numbers of lives are called evil, as are more localized events such as the deaths of children by disease. However, here we find a controversy about the application of the term ‘evil’: is it correct to refer to so-called ‘natural evils’ as evil at all? Extraordinarily wicked human conduct, such as participation in mass murders, should be uncontroversial. However, the attribution of evil to natural events involves making claims, or at least assumptions, about ultimate matters such as the existence and character of God, as well as about the place of humans in the in the world. Does personal tragedy equal evil? In the early Modern period, Leibniz provided a j ustification for natural evils, coining the word ‘theodicy.’ Theodicy is the justification of the ways of God. It attempts to solve the conundrum of the incompatibility of evils in the world with the supposed benevolence, omniscience, and omnipotence of God. In its various forms theodicy tries to reconcile traditional concepts of God, indeed God’s very existence, with suffering, both that resulting from natural events and that inflicted by other persons. However, in the Twentieth Century a l ine of thought emerged claiming that the Holocaust presents an unprecedented form of evil, often expressed in the statement, After Auschwitz, there can be no theodicy. In this vein philosophers began to speak of ‘radical evil’ to distinguish mass horrors perpetrated by large numbers of people operating in concert from individual criminal acts or small scale events, however cruel or tragic. Kant first used the term ‘radical evil’ to refer to evils springing from roots (radix in Latin) in human nature. But post-WWII thinkers like Hannah Arendt appropriated the term to point to extreme evils as opposed to the more mundane and common nastiness, regardless of roots. Despite different treatments of the term, there is consensus that radical evil calls for re-evaluation of moral frameworks, whether secular or religious. 3 But Arendt also opened up a large discussion of ordinary people as perpetrators. The subtitle of her account of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS factotum responsible for much of the logistical planning to carry out the mass murder of the Jews, was ‘A Report on the Banality of Evil.’ However accurate Arendt’s reading of Eichmann was, her idea was that essentially thoughtless people going along with organizational programs and adapting their cliché ridden language and patterns of behaviour to the ethos of the organization can cause great evil without specific malicious intent. The infamous experiments by Stanley Milgram showing that individuals could be induced by figures of authority pretending to be conducting a scientific experiment to cause apparent severe pain to others, actually actors simulating their agony, are an empirical direction the study of ordinary people committing evil has taken. 4 Historians such as Daniel Goldhagen 5 and Christopher Browning 6 have examined this idea in the context of

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__________________________________________________________________ a single battalion of reserve policemen ordered to take part in the face to face murder of Jews. Raul Hilberg, in his magisterial and detailed study of the ways in which the perpetrators of the German genocide program likewise shows how ordinary people were necessary to the workings of the plan. 7 This is the merest sketch of this level, where we find a rich literature of discussion and debate about the concept of evil, its appropriate application, and the details of its workings. 4. Layer 3: Texts From the point of view of the field of semiotics, all the world’s a text (perhaps with subtexts) as absolutely everything humans can be aware of has meaning. In our work, texts under analysis have included fantasy literature, Japanese Manga and horror films, historical documents, art films, television programs, visual art objects, cartoons, novels, plays, music lyrics, and so on. What unites these disparate artefacts is that in one way or another they illuminate specific experiences of evil, evil characters, and particular victims. In some cases they also illustrate the ways in which language is used to conceal or distort truths. 5. Layer 4: Stolen Lives Slavery has been endemic to human civilization from the beginnings of history through the present day. Its forms and conditions have been various but the defining constant is force. Whether in ancient mines, American plantations, or present day brothels, the constant is that individual lives have been appropriated for the purposes of others. The most absolute appropriation is, of course, murder, also endemic in human civilization. Individual homicides, mass murders, and genocides raise innumerable questions about human nature, the genesis of violent and destructive social and religious movements, and the pathologies of violence in general. Within this layer, too, we find the various ways in which governments practice oppression of their own citizens through intimidation, torture, and disappearances. Another form of oppression that has received considerable attention in these conferences is discrimination and marginalization of members of groups marked as outsiders by reason of their religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality. While true genocide seems to be a new phenomenon in the history of human depravity, some degree of social oppression is probably universal, as the dynamics of ‘us – them’ binaries are embedded in group behaviour. 6. Layer 5: Individual Perpetrators While much of our attention is drawn to large scale phenomena involving numerous victims and perpetrators, the wars and genocides, even when they act in concert it is individuals who do the harm. Instigators of mass evil are not necessarily more important or more interesting than those involved in smaller scale

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__________________________________________________________________ crimes. It is here that questions arise as to the psychology and neurology of individuals who commit, for example, murder. While serial killers get a disproportionate amount of attention in fiction and television series compared to their actual incidence, more mundane examples of lethal assault raise important questions: does traumatic brain injury figure in the causes of violent behaviour? 8 And if so, should neurological diagnosis count in mitigation of violent crimes? In the United States at least a new field called forensic neurology has arisen, and a defence attorney who did not call on the services of one of its practitioners in a case of violent crime would be seriously remiss. Some individuals’ actions are wicked or depraved. But it is likely that crimes committed from sheer malice – hatred of one’s race or sexuality for instance - are much less prevalent than those committed from muddled mentality, drunkenness, and yes, traumatic brain injuries that result in aberrant thinking and poor impulse control. 7. Layer 6: Responses to Evil Probably every society since the beginnings of civilization has had to confront intolerable behaviour on the part of some of its members, and likewise has had to protect itself from predation from other groups. Available responses to evil have evolved from group sanctioned revenge and vendetta to present day international criminal tribunals and the use of truth and reconciliation commissions modelled on that of South Africa led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Large scale responses to evil can be divided roughly into categories: (1) state criminal codes treating definitions and criminal procedures within states; (2) international conventions on war crimes and crimes against humanity; (3) international conventions limiting use of certain classes of weapons in warfare, treatment of prisoners, etc.; and (4) processes such as the truth and reconciliation commissions employed to recover factual information ab out events that have the potential to fester and divide a society over the long run. Other processes aim at treating the victims of evil, one example of which is the Centre for the Victims of Torture, in my home town of St. Paul, Minnesota. The Centre offers care and treatment for individuals who have been tortured as well as scholarly resources for the study of torture in its various forms. Individuals confront evils in various ways. 9 One important response is forgiveness, which Hannah Arendt treats as one of two ways in which humans attempt to control chaotic and potentially disastrous futures. (The other is promising.) 10 8. Bedrock: Individual Experiences It is easy in the study of evils to focus on the mass atrocities which engage so much of our attention. Consider the sheer mass of works describing, explaining, or based on the events of World War II and particularly the Holocaust. Or more recently, the disappearances in Argentina, the genocides in Cambodia and

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__________________________________________________________________ Rwanda, the mass murder in Srebrinica. Works in various media and from different disciplinary paradigms may help us to comprehend the large scale, but those huge numbers of victims, with all those zeros, can lull us into abstractions. Fiction, film, and drama can aim us toward the particular, personal tragedy, but we need to stay mindful of the historical particular as well, the actual persons who suffered, died, or were maimed, the individual survivors with their wounds and grieves living out lives they did not choose. I offer one example to signify the rest: her name was Elsie Leggett. She was four years old in June of 1915 when a German dirigible raid dropped bombs on London, one of which hit the house where Elsie was asleep in bed. She is believed to be the first person in history to have been killed in an air raid; her sister also died, a few days later. 11 Individuals like Elsie are the ultimate bedrock of our deep map. Each person enslaved or murdered, dead of plague or flood, perhaps lumped into a large round number of victims because that is the best can do, each is a stolen life. Each of the premature dead is a lost world, possibilities – good or evil – forever unfulfilled. We need the understanding of mass phenomena, and we also need to pay full attention to individuals whose experiences are after all the material of the mass. 9. Conclusion The sketch of the deep map I have presented emphasizes the vertical orientation of the various topics and phenomena; to be truly four dimensional the map would need to be developed sideways, so to speak, and through time. In other words, it is quite incomplete. Nonetheless, I hope that as a heuristic device it may be of service in our ongoing conversations.

Notes 1

This version of the chapter that was presented at the 12th Annual Conference on Evil and Human Wickedness has been shortened by about one-third to conform with the length limits of the e-book. A diagram has also been deleted. 2 W. Heat-Moon, PrairyErth, Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1991. 3 R. Bernstein, Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2002, esp. chs. 1, 6, and 8. 4 S. Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, Harper and Row, New York, 1974. 5 D. Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Vintage, New York, 1997. 6 C. Browning, Ordinary Men, Harper, New York, 1992. 7 R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2003. 8 See J. Pincus, Base Instincts: What Makes Killers Kill? Norton, New York, 2001, for a neurologist’s findings on this issue. 9 http://www.cvt.org.

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__________________________________________________________________ 10

H. Arendt, The Human Condition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1958, pp. 240-244. 11 New York Times, 14 June 1915 [no page number available].

Bibliography Arendt, H., Eichmann in Jerusalem. Penguin Books, New York, 1965. —, The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1951. —, The Human Condition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1958. Bernstein, R., Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2002. Browning C., Ordinary Men. Harper, New York, 1992. Goldhagen, D., Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Vintage, New York, 1997. Hilberg, R., The Destruction of the European Jews. Yale University Press, New Haven, 2003. Heat-Moon, W., Prairie Earth. Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1991. Milgram, S., Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. Harper and Row, New York, 1974. Pincus, J., Base Instincts: What Makes Killers Kill? Norton, New York, 2001. William Andrew Myers is Professor of Philosophy at St. Catherine University in Saint Paul, Minnesota USA. He may be reached at [email protected].

Complexio Oppositorum: The Integration of Good and Evil in Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat Jean Rossmann Abstract Marlene van Niekerk’s novel, Agaat, centres on the complex relationship between Milla de Wet, a white farmer woman afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Agaat Lourier, her adopted coloured daughter, relegated to the roles of housekeeper, farm manager and nurse. As the primary narrator, Milla presents Agaat as a p hantasmagorical character - a contradictory amalgam of images of abjection, supreme evil, compassion and supernatural powers. Milla calls her a ‘witch’, ‘a thousand devils’, and even ‘Satan’. And yet her name originates from the Greek word meaning ‘good’, which the Dominee says is a ‘holy brand’ and ‘an imminent destiny […] to do g ood, to want to be good, goodness itself’. 1 In this chapter I will explore the ambivalent representations of Milla and Agaat as they resonate with Jungian psychology, which is informed by Gnostic theosophy and alchemy. I will argue that Agaat is presented as Milla’s projected ‘shadow’, a dark mercurial force, but also as the mystical philosopher’s stone that becomes a catalyst for psychic wholeness, enabling Milla to ‘ reconcile [her] moieties’. 2 Key Words: South African literature, race, Jung, shadow. ***** Marlene van Niekerk’s novel, Agaat, centres on the complex relationship between Milla de Wet, a white farmer woman afflicted with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and Agaat Lourier, her adopted coloured daughter. 3 Milla discovers Agaat, naked, dirty, deformed and abused in the hearth of one of the labourers’ cottages on her mother’s farm and decides to take her and raise her as her own. However, after seven years Milla falls pregnant with her own child – Jakkie, a son and heir to the farm – and she ousts Agaat from the farmhouse and relegates to the roles of housekeeper, nanny, farm manager and nurse. This South African plaasroman (farm novel) spans the history of Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa from its rise in the 1940s to its demise and the consequent Truth and Reconciliation hearings in 1996, the year of Milla’s death. Milla presents Agaat as a phantasmagorical character — a contradictory amalgam of images of abjection, supreme evil, compassion and supernatural powers. Milla calls her a ‘witch’, ‘a thousand devils’, and even ‘Satan’. And yet her name originates from the Greek word meaning ‘good’, which the Dominee says is a ‘holy brand’ and ‘an imminent destiny […] to be good, goodness itself’; 4 however, Agaat’s more beneficent characteristics are often only glimpsed from an oblique angle as she is denied her own narrative voice (except for the fairy-tale autobiography she narrates in the first

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__________________________________________________________________ person in the Epilogue). In this chapter I will explore the ambivalent representations of Agaat as they resonate with Jungian psychology, its archetypes and the process of individuation. I will argue that Agaat is presented as Milla’s projected ‘shadow’, a dark mercurial force, but also as the philosopher’s stone that become a catalyst for psychic wholeness, enabling Milla, the necrotypal heroine, to rise from her ocean-grave and ‘reconcile [her] moieties’. 5 Agaat deals with the relationship between white self and racial other and the human propensity to imagine evil as a d iabolical force outside ourselves and is a labour of mourning white complicities with an oppressive ideological system. Van Niekerk’s writing shows a preoccupation with the past similar to that found in German and other European literature in the wake of the Holocaust. Bearing in mind the parallels between Nazi anti-Semitism and apartheid racial hegemony, Jung’s theories on the repression and projection of the shadow provide useful insights into the psychological underpinning of racism (despite his problematic complicity with anti-Semitic thought). Jung’s theories on evil focus on the individual’s ability to integrate the creative and destructive potential of the unconscious, which Jung refers to as the shadow, into the self. Jungian individuation is much like the Gnostic path to enlightenment which is achieved through the integration of good and evil. 6 For Jung, ‘the self is a union of opposites par excellence’: 7 it is young and old, powerful and helpless, good and evil. These paradoxical characteristics can be seen in the shifting representations of Agaat who is the deformed and defenceless child who helps Milla see the mysteries of nature anew, but as a woman she is depicted as a Chthonic Mother who is able to summon the forces of nature. Agaat’s association with the numinous and intuitive make her analogous with the unconscious drives of the shadow and place her in opposition to Milla who over-identifies with the persona (the public face of the self) in her concern with appearing to conform to the values and ideals espoused by the bigoted farming community she belongs to. Milla attempts to indoctrinate Agaat with the Afrikaner Calvinism which forms the core of Apartheid ideology, with its Manichean aesthetics and dualistic theology of good and evil. In Agaat’s fairy tale, Milla declares, ‘yóú I’m taming, yóú I’m turning white’. 8 Agaat’s coloured family called her ‘Gat, Asgat, because she sits with her arse in the ash in the fireplace all the time’. 9 This name, unlike the Christian Agaat, suggests her chthonic origins: she comes from a ‘hearth-hole,’ 10 the soil that is the beginning and end of all life. When Milla finds her she smells of ‘iron’, ‘blood’, ‘soot’ and ‘grass’. 11 In hers fairy tale cosmogony she comes from ‘the hearth […] the wind, from the flow of the wood, […] from the smoke that turns the sun red as copper and the moon as yellow as gold’. 12 Like Mercurius, the guiding spirit of alchemy, she is prima materia – the base elements that allow for an occult awakening and transformation to the very highest elements. When Milla first discovers Agaat she is so disturbed and moved that she flees to a dam to find some divination in the water that might explain the child’s effect

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__________________________________________________________________ on her. There she sees whirligig beetles swimming on the water with their reflections, their ‘little twin shadow[s]’, ‘inscribing the surface of the water with rapidly successive perfect circles’. 13 This image reveals Agaat as her shadow and double. Although this augury remains an enigma to Milla, the concentric circles formed by the whirligigs can be seen as mandalas, symbols of the unified self. Furthermore, Milla intuitively associates the feral child with her repressed unconscious, the wellspring of the self, as she exclaims to her mother on her return, ‘I myself happened, my almost forgotten self’. 14 The unconscious serves a compensatory function to the ego and can be a source of vitality, spontaneity and creativity when integrated with the ego, 15 as can be seen in the way the young Agaat fills the lack in Milla’s loveless and childless life and reconnects her with her sensual and instinctual self. The shadow only becomes evil when it is ignored and denied. Thus a megalomaniacal ego, that denies its weaker and darker aspects and splits the personality, projecting all badness onto others, will be haunted by a tormenting and horrifying shadow. In an argument between Milla and her husband, Jak, Milla acknowledges Agaat’s role as an archetypal force that will lead to enlightenment and yet Jak exposes the egoism that prevents Milla’s transformation. Everything has a purpose, I say to Jak, she’s been given to me to learn something about myself. To learn what really matters in this life. Jak says I sound like a Jehovah’s Witness on Eau de Cologne. He says he thought I’d achieved total illumination some time ago and it’s not a matter of A. because all I can talk about is myself & and I can really spare him my sickly sentimental stories they give him a p ain because all he sees in front of him is the worst case of megalomania & control freakery south of the Sahara. 16 In an article published in 1945 Jung tries to understand how Hitler and the German nation could remain blind to their own evil through an analogy with Goethe’s Faust. In Faust, states Jung, we see how grand ideas and a s triving toward perfection cause a psychic splitting of the self, as all human qualities regarded as inferior become intolerable. Faust consequently establishes ‘‘evil’ outside himself in the shape of Mephistopheles’. 17 By embracing his shadow Faust becomes more human, but also commits great evil. Yet he refuses to admit his culpability and instead lays the blame on Mephisopheles. 18 Faust, is ‘only aware of his good motives, and when the bad ones can no longer be denied he becomes the unscrupulous […] Herrenmensch who fancies he is ennobled by the magnitude of his aim’. 19 Similarly, after Milla ousts Agaat out of her home, she represses feelings of guilt and shame and instead declares that she is ‘directed by the

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__________________________________________________________________ Almighty God’, to care for Agaat so she may ‘ponder the unfathomable ways of Providence, who worked through me’. 20 Agaat’s expulsion to a small room in the backyard and her provision of a ‘maid’s’ uniform and separate enamel dishes (a sign of her demotion to servant) signals Agaat’s emergence as a p ersecutory phantasm. In her autobiographical fairy tale Agaat ritualistically buries the dresses, toys and ‘things of the child she’d been’ and declares, pointing her deformed snake-like arm, ‘Now, Good, you are dead’. 21 It is only when Milla is in the last stages of physical atrophy that she admits to herself that she ‘pushed [Agaat] away’ and ‘forsook’ her. 22 Unable to confess her love and contrition verbally Milla makes reparation through a motif of selfsacrifice. Only days before her death, Agaat prepares a last supper for Milla, which becomes a metaphorical communion between mother and daughter where Milla imagines herself as the unpalatable meal Agaat must ingest. In this passage Milla imagines herself as a ‘baked bat’ whose spindly wings are the Eucharistic ‘body’ and ‘blood’ that get stuck ‘between [Agaat’s] teeth’. 23 Her bat wings are a substitute for more vital organs such as the heart or liver, organs that are used in making ‘humble pie’ and which are usually associated with the soul. Yet they are an appropriate reflection of the depleted and impoverished state of Milla’s ego and highlight the state of her abjection before Agaat. The spectral bat has particular symbolic significance to Milla and Agaat. In her first childhood drawing Agaat depicts Milla with wings, because to Agaat Milla is her ‘angel’. 24 Milla chastises her for drawing ‘spindly black wings’, which can only belong to Lucifer, 25 the ambitious archangel who was driven out of heaven to become lord of Hell and humankind’s tormentor. Jung observes that Lucifer’s name, meaning ‘bringer of light’ and morning star, makes him ambiguously Christ’s double. 26 In her fairy tale cosmogony Agaat has eyes ‘like two morning stars’; 27 however, Agaat’s moral universe is not based on Milla’s Christian dualism that associates darkness with ugliness and evil, and light with beauty and good. Unlike the Christian Lucifer who represents absolute evil, Agaat will reveal herself to be more like Jung’s Mercurius, the ‘shadow brother of Christ’, his complement not his absolute opposite. Agaat is equally fascinated with bats as she is with butterflies. Indeed, her totem insect is a butterfly, a Jungian symbol of the self. She anthropomorphises the Purple Emperor butterfly into a paradoxical deity called the ‘Eye of Everything’ who is capable of love (good) as well as stern judgment (axiomatic with evil in Kabbalistic thought). Agaat associates herself with another ambivalent deity: the Wise Virgin, a Great Mother figure. Agaat is not only the humble servant and gentle nurturing mother and nurse, but also aggressive, powerful and vengeful. In an article entitled ‘Devotional Ambivalence: The Virgin Mary as ‘Empresse of Helle’’, Kate Koppelman, identifies a late medieval narrative in which Mary actually descends to hell and bargains with the devil in order to reclaim the soul of a monk and then

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__________________________________________________________________ after saving his soul unexpectedly takes his life in vengeance for betraying her. In this story, Mary is not simply ‘a passive font of mercy and grace’ but is also sovereign and vengeful. 28 Jung bemoans the fact that the Christain Virgin Mary, as a mother archetype, has been ‘split off from her original Cthonic realm’, her relation to ‘earth, darkness, […] instinctual nature, and to ‘matter’ in general’. 29 After Milla and Agaat’s Eucharistic last supper, Agaat declares, ‘it is finished’, 30 referring to the shroud she has embroidered for Milla; however, her words echo Christ’s last words on the cross and anticipate her donning the shroud in a ‘dress-rehearsal’ of Milla’s burial. Like Christ, or rather the Virgin Mary as ‘Empresse of Helle’, Agaat must enter the grave and emerge transcendent in order to redeem Milla’s soul. Milla follows Agaat to the grave through a vivid dream in which she imagines herself as a ship sailing through the cemetery and into an ocean-grave. On her journey Milla hears a song ‘of which the ending is like the beginning. Arising muffled from a dark place?’ 31 It is reminiscent of a medieval riddle rhyme, and invokes archetypal images and symbols of the eternal return, such as the world tree and the cosmic egg. In the song a laughing child and a woman are metonymically connected to a d ove’s egg and are cradled in the tree. According to Jung, the tree of life ‘symbolizes that entity from which Christ had been separated and with which he ought to be connected again in order to make his life complete. In other words the Crucifixus is the symbol of uniting absolute moral opposites’. 32 Consequently, Milla’s dream is a vision of reconciliation with her opposite and her double, Agaat, but is also a symbol of the integration of shadow into the self. Through her descent into the grave Agaat becomes a paradoxical saviour figure who rescues Milla from drowning in the depths of her ocean-grave. The dream of entering the grave and the song of the eternal return is a reminder that for both Milla and Agaat that death is not the end, but renewal. Milla notes that Agaat ‘arose out of that grave of mine last night. She went up into the mountain. Now it’s my turn, now she’s come to fetch me from the water. I strain to keep up, to get where she is, do my bit’. 33 Milla’s accomplishment of union with Agaat resonates with the Jungian individuation, which involves delving into the unconscious to encounter one’s shadow and find the complexio oppositorum, analogous to alchemy. In her deathscene epiphany in the final stream-of-consciousness passage Milla seeks salvation through alchemy. In this passage, Agaat, like Mercurius, is the hearth of ice and fire that must reconcile elemental opposites and offer salvation through earth and water, fire and air: forehead of flame eyes of soot mouth from which glowing coals crumble roaring of flames lamenting and wailing cast me in a hearth of ice press my front in the snow roll me into a snowball

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__________________________________________________________________ one side of me the other side of me my cold and my hot my wet and my dry who can reconcile my moieties?’ 34 Like Mercurius she is figured in Milla’s fantasy world as ‘death and resurrection’, she descends into the earth and ascends to the heavens. 35 It is only through confronting the shadow within herself that Milla is able to finally sees and knows Agaat, not as a tormenting and horrifying force, but as human, fallible, ‘timid’ and a source of comfort in her final moments. In an essay entitled ‘The Fight with the Shadow’, Jung warns that the ‘evil’ of Nazi Germany will readily be repeated unless individuals become aware of their own shadows: ‘The world will never reach a state of order until this truth is generally recognized’. 36 Jung soberly admits that human aggression is ‘ineradicable’, but suggests that surely it is ‘better to know that your worst enemy is right there in your own heart’. 37 The final stream-of-consciousness passage ends with Agaat and Milla hand in hand entering he Milla’s Elysian Fields, her Overberg, provides the utopian ending that is deeply desired by the reader who sees this reconciliation as an allegory for reconciliation between the races, the triumph of good and the yearned for ideological fantasies of social harmony inherent in the notions of the Rainbow Nation and the African Renaissance. However, the sublime moment of reconciliation should not be read as the disintegration of difference, but rather the ineradicable ambivalence of opposites, temporarily held in suspension.

Notes 1

M. van Niekerk, Agaat, trans. M. Heyns, 2006, p. 487. Ibid., p. 672. 3 In South Africa the term ‘coloured’ refers to someone of mixed race and refers to a racial group distinct from black South Africans. 4 Ibid., p. 487. 5 Ibid., p. 672. 6 C. Stobie refers to the ‘kabbalistic interpenetration of good and evil’ in Agaat’s character in ‘Ruth in Marelene van Niekerk’s Agaat’, Journal of Literary Studies: Tydskrif vir Literatuurkunde, Vol. 25, 2009, p. 66. 7 C.J. Jung ‘Introduction to the Religious and Psychological Problems of Alchemy’, Jung on Evil, M. Stein (ed), Routledge, London, 1995, p. 27. 8 Van Niekerk, p. 686. 9 Ibid., p. 666. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., p. 657. 12 Ibid., p. 688. 13 Ibid., p. 658. 2

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Ibid. S. Rowland, Jung: A Feminist Revision, Polity, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 30-31. 16 Ibid., p. 623. 17 C.J. Jung, ‘After the Catastrophe’, in Murray Stein (ed), op cit., p. 191. 18 Ibid., p. 197. 19 Ibid., p. 191. 20 Van Niekerk, p. 681. 21 Ibid., p. 689. 22 Ibid., p. 540. 23 Ibid., p. 584. 24 Ibid., p. 623 25 Ibid. 26 Jung in Stein, pp. 45, 53, 113. 27 Van Niekerk, p. 687 28 K Koppelman, ‘Devotional Ambivalence: The Virgin Mary as Empresse of Helle’, Essays in Medieval Studies, Vol.18, 2001, pp. 68 & 69. 29 Jung in Stein, p. 46. 30 Van Niekerk, p. 584. 31 Ibid., p. 644. 32 Jung in Stein, p. 76. 33 Van Niekerk, p. 646. 34 Ibid., p.672. 35 Jung in Stein, p. 43. 36 Ibid., p. 178. 37 Ibid., p. 179. 15

Bibliography Jacobson, Y., ‘The Concept of Evil and its Sanctification in Kabbalistic Thought’. The Problem of Evil and its Symbols in Jewish and Christian Tradition. Reventlow, H.G. & Hoffmann, Y. (eds), T & T Clark International, London, 2004. Jung, C.J., ‘After the Catastrophe’. Jung on Evil. Stein, M. (ed), Routledge, London, 1995. ––, ‘Introduction to the Religious and Psychological Problems of Alchemy’. Jung on Evil. Stein, M. (ed), Routledge, London, 1995. Koppelman, K., ‘Devotional Ambivalence: The Virgin Mary as Empresse of Helle’. Essays in Medieval Studies. Vol. 18, 2001, pp. 67-82.

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__________________________________________________________________ Rowland, S., Jung: A Feminist Revision. Polity, Cambridge. Van Niekerk, M., Agaat, trans. Heyns, M., Jonathan Ball, Cape Town. Jean Rossmann is based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, working on her Ph.D. thesis under the supervision of Professor Cheryl Stobie. Her research explores notions of cultural melancholia in the works of South African writer, Marlene van Niekerk.

The Evil Queens of The Faerie Queene Hande Seber Abstract The Faerie Queene, as indicated in Edmund Spenser’s ‘Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh’ is intended to praise Queen Elizabeth I. Although in this letter Gloriana and Belphoebe are said to be fashioned to represent the monarchic and personal virtues of Queen Elizabeth respectively, in almost all the virtuous female characters the Queen is glorified. In contrast with these characters, the poem is also remarkable with the evil female figures whose primary function is to divert the questing knight from the right conduct and to prevent the virtue he championed from reaching perfection. They pervert the celebrated virtues and particularly the evil women with royal power are presented as threats to social order and true faith. The abuse of authority and power, pride, arrogance and cruelty are the common vices shared by them and other than reason, they employ their femininity to obtain what they desire. They are the allegorical representations of how a q ueen should not be. Moreover, these evil queens/women play a significant role in Spenser’s task of celebrating the Queen, for in the whole work opposite concepts like truth and error, good and evil are presented side by side and contrasted with an aim of magnifying what is ideal. Despite the machinations of these malevolent forces to darken the faerie land, the virtues of the ideal representatives of royal power, Gloriana, Mercilla, and the good female characters shine brightly in Spenser’s eulogy, and thus they all contribute to the glorious portrait of Queen Elizabeth I as an ideal ruler. This chapter, therefore, aims at a study of the evil queens of The Faerie Queene, namely Lucifera, Duessa, Philotime, Acrasia and Radigund, to show that they illustrate the negative examples of authority, with emphasis on Spenser’s idea of the perfect ruler as elaborated in the whole work. Key Words: The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser, evil queens, Lucifera, Duessa, Philotime, Acrasia, Radigund. ***** In the dedicatory epistle of The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser addresses Queen Elizabeth I as ‘the most high, mightie and magnificent empresse renovvmed for pietie, virtue, and all gratiovs government’ 1 and the work as a whole celebrates her virtues and her rightful rule. As indicated in Spenser’s ‘Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh’ the poet who aims ‘to fashion a gentleman or noble person of vertuous and gentle discipline’ 2 presents the process how each virtue attains perfection through the course of the knightly adventures. While ‘the generall intention’ of the poet is realized through the adventures in the Faerie land, Spenser’s ‘particular’ intention of glorifying the Queen is carried out with her numerous representations.

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__________________________________________________________________ Despite the fact that Spenser names Gloriana and Belphoebe to represent her both as ‘a most royall Queene or Empresse’ and as ‘a most vertuous and beautifull Lady’ 3 respectively, the excellence of the queenly and virtuous women in the whole work contribute to Spenser’s portrait of the ideal ruler. These women are depicted with similar virtues. Noble birth, innocence, purity, physical and spiritual beauty, maidenhood, virginity and chastity are their common merits. They are also associated with light as their virtues provide them with a heavenly brightness, distinguishing them from the dark ones. They evoke respect, admiration, devotion, and the queenly ones are singled out with their legitimacy to rule. Faith, courage, justice, mercy, compassion and courtesy are among their common virtues. In contrast with these characters, the poem is also remarkable with the evil female figures whose primary function is to divert the questing knight from the right conduct and to prevent the virtue he championed from reaching perfection. King believes that in The Faerie Queene, there are ‘many ‘dark doubles’ of Queen Elizabeth’ and these characters are often the ‘perversions of regal magnificence.’ 4 However, there are critical views that take these evil queens/women as means of criticism. 5 With reference to the critics who pointed out this idea, King suggests the possibility that these characters may illustrate the problems of female rule. He also believes that ‘[b]lame is a co nventional component of the poetry of praise because it can be used to intensify the force of eulogy.’ 6 These evil women, with their false light, are related to darkness. Associations with the underworld, death, sin, lawlessness, abuse of authority, perversions of the moral virtues, tyranny, cruelty, pride, usurpation of the throne, lack of chastity are the common features of this dim portrait. Phillips believes that Spenser, in the allegorical representations of his ideal ruler, and also the wicked ones, was familiar with the arguments in the treatises written for or against female government. 7 He further adds that the ‘public and private’ vices of Mary Tudor and Mary Stuart also provided him with material to depict the ‘ungodly queens.’ 8 Among numerous evil female characters in the work, Lucifera, Duessa, Philotime, Acrasia and Radigund will be briefly studied so as to figure out the negative qualities that Spenser attributes to an unfit ruler. Lucifera is the first of these women, who is the queen of the House of Pride described to be ‘[a] stately Pallace’ with high walls that are neither strong nor thick, covered by ‘golden foile,’ but shines with a false glitter. 9 The palace is built on a sandy hill and has a ‘weake foundation.’ 10 It is the first of the allegorical houses representing sin and vices. Lucifera wears rich royal attire and is ‘A mayden Queene, that shone as Titans ray.’ 11 However, this brightness is unreal, as it is not the projection of any virtue but of her pride – for ‘So proud she shyned.’ 12 She is on her high throne, looking down on people. There is a ‘dreadfull Dragon’ underneath her feet. She holds a mirror in her hand and is delighted to see her reflection. 13 Her sovereignty is described in terms of usurpation, lawlessness and tyranny. 14 Lucifera, who is a ‘Princesse too exceeding prowd,’ 15 personifies pride

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__________________________________________________________________ and her six councillors passing in a procession are the allegorical representations of the rest of the deadly sins. 16 She is not the rightful heir to the throne for she did not inherit it. Her ancestry that is related to underworld also distinguishes her from the virtuous queens as she is the daughter of ‘griesly Pluto’ and ‘sad Proserpina the Queene of hell.’ 17 Lucifera takes her power from her pride not from God and his justice, and appears as the negative counterpart of the gracious queen of Book V, Mercilla. The contrast between these two queens is significant as the major differences between them are further elaborated in the preceding representations. Mercilla sits on a high throne which is a ‘rare device’ and is richly decorated with gold and precious stones. From there she ‘might all men see,’ 18 and unlike Lucifera who disdains people, Mercilla is there to care for all. She is surrounded by angels, some holding the cloth of state, some singing hymns to God, and among this heavenly brightness, Mercilla appears as ‘Angel-like, the heyre of ancient kings / And mightie Conquerors.’ 19 She holds a s ceptre in her hand which is ‘[t]he sacred pledge of peace and clemencie.’ As she is raised to sovereignty through the grace of God, her land is also blessed. Underneath her feet rests a rusty sword not used for long, so mighty that it could ‘all the world dismayde,’ and a ‘huge great Lyon’ bound with ‘a strong yron chaine.’ 20 Aptekar suggests that with all the symbolic objects Mercilla resembles the portraits and illustrations of the Queen: her scepter is ‘the supreme emblem of monarchy,’ the rusty sword is ‘an emblem of her ready but not-now-needed power’ and the lion represents royal power and magnanimity. 21 As Mercilla is one of the best representations of Queen Elizabeth I’s royal power, mercy and equity, the false light of Lucifera’s palace and reign becomes more visible. The term ‘maiden’ that is used for Gloriana, Una, Belphoebe, Britomart and Mercilla, is at the same time used for Lucifera. King refers to the negative and positive applications of this epithet and in Lucifera’s case, he states that it is ironically used and it refers to her pride. Her unmarried state is not the outcome of her virtue but of her pride. 22 In her representations, Queen Elizabeth’s perpetual virginity is always glorified and her maidenhood is synonymously used with her chastity. It is, therefore, quite significant to see that unless it is complemented with chastity, the maiden state of Lucifera, Duessa, Philotime, Acrasia and Radigund is far removed from being a virtue. The other evil woman of Book I, who is at the same time an opponent to true faith, is Duessa. She is the allegorical representation of all the vices and also the dark reflection of Una, who represents true faith and holiness. In Book I, particularly in Una’s character, Queen Elizabeth’s Protestantism is glorified. Throughout the work Duessa appears on a number of occasions, all of which are associated with sin, evil and temptation. She is also crowned as a queen by the giant Orgoglio who gives her gold, a purple robe and a seven headed monster that walks over all sacred things, destroying them. 23 King states that Duessa personifies

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__________________________________________________________________ the Roman church ‘or its localized manifestation in the Catholic queens, Mary I or Mary, Queen of Scots.’ 24 Accordingly, in Book 5, during her trial by Mercilla she was accused of and found guilty for ‘murder,’ ‘sedition,’ ‘incontinence,’ ‘adulterie’ and ‘impietie.’ 25 Phillips gives special emphasis on this trial scene, and believes that Duessa is not only an evil female figure but also appears as an unfit ruler. He thus states that ‘Duessa, as a woman ruler, is charged by Kingdom’s Care, Authority, the law of Nations, the ‘publicke cause’ of the common people, and Justice [V.ix.43-44]. Not only for what she does but for what she is, Duessa fails to qualify as a governor.’ 26 The next queenly woman who is also associated with darkness is Philotime, the daughter of Mammon ‘God of the world and worldlings’ 27 and she is the princess of a magnificent and rich palace under the ground. 28 The contrast between the dim light of the throne room and Philotime’s brightness indicates the insufficiency of her light, her virtue. 29 The descriptions of Lucifera and Philotime bear similarities, as they both share the common vices attributed to the evil queens, primarily pride. Philotime is holding a golden chain, the upper part of which reaches to heaven the lower part to hell. 30 Although similar phrases are attributed to both the evil and virtuous queens, they do not make them identical but rather underline their difference, and leads one to question whether they are worthy enough to bear these titles that are associated with Queen Elizabeth. Philotime is described as ‘The fairest wight that wonneth vnder skye,’ 31 however the use is ironic because none of these women are depicted with qualities that could challenge the greatness of the Queen. While Philotime is the fairest person dwelling under the sky, Queen Elizabeth in the beginning of the book is singled out and addressed as the ‘fairest Princesse vnder skye.’ 32 The other evil woman in the same book, who is not a queen but ‘a false enchaunteresse’ dwelling at the Bower of Bliss is Acrasia. 33 Her bower is the site of temptation and sin. She has sovereignty over men and both with her femininity and with the pleasures that her bower offers, she charms the virtuous knights, metaphorically enslaves them, makes them forget about their knightly duties. She is presented as extremely beautiful and equally dangerous. She is lying on a bed of roses and her beautiful naked body that looks like alabaster is covered with ‘a vele of silke and siluer thin.’ 34 Her last lover, who was once a knight, is sleeping by her side. His arms and shield are hanged on a tree, and he doesn’t seem to care about his knightly honour anymore as he is under the enchantment of Acrasia. 35 Like the palaces of Lucifera and Philotime, Acrasia’s bower is vividly described with all its false glitter and attraction. In the Bower of Bliss, nothing is real but imitation, 36 and despite its beauty, it is easily destroyed by Sir Guyon, the knight of temperance, at the end of the book. The temptations of the evil queens and their realms are avoided by the right guidance of virtue. They are not presented as threats strong enough to ruin the virtue advocated. However, Book V offers an evil queen who is almost invincible.

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__________________________________________________________________ She is a b rave, heroic but a tyrannical ruler, Radigund, the Queen of Amazons. 37 Among these evil women, Radigund needs special emphasis as she is not only the most developed character but also strong enough to enslave Artegall, the knight of justice. In her first appearance she is presented as ‘A Princesse of great powre, and greater pride’ who is very skilful in using arms, and has gained glory and fame with her success in the battles. 38 She rules the great and mighty city of Radegone, 39 but it is not a lawful sovereignty given to her by God. 40 Although she shares the negative attribute of pride with the other evil women, with her courage and warfare skill she resembles to Belphoebe and Britomart – the Queen’s most celebrated representations. However, her tyrannous nature surpasses her warfare skill as she uses her power to enslave and kill men, and thus her rule is an example of abuse of authority. As it involves such violence and cruelty, it is commonly agreed that the image of an amazon is rarely used in Queen Elizabeth’s representations. 41 After defeating Artegall, Radigund forces him, and also the other male captives, to dress in women’s clothes and do women’s job. 42 King sees a similarity between Acrasia’s and Radigund’s attitude towards men, as Radigund ‘shares Acrasia’s habit of ‘emasculating’ victims whom she has stripped of warlike attire.’ 43 Both cases can be considered as the examples of abuse of power and authority, for in the work either through feminine charm or by captivity and insult the knights are kept away from their duties. Such enforcement is shown as a threat to social order and peace, and allegorically it aims at destroying spiritual strength and subverting the virtues represented. Enforcing physical and spiritual captivity is presented as the worst aspect of a ruler, and it stands in direct contrast with the sincere and willing devotion of the knights to Gloriana. Such a sovereign who evokes ultimate loyalty and devotion is celebrated throughout the work, so as to honour the Queen. Indeed, in Book V, it is not only Radigund’s unlawful rule that is criticised. Through the end of this book, Spenser talks about the misrule of others where other than the gender of the ruler, the unjust and tyrannical rule is questioned. Therefore, in the male characters, Souldan, Gerioneo and Grantorto the abuse of power and authority are further illustrated. Queen Elizabeth’s justice as a sovereign is elevated and found superior to that of the male and female rulers. Whether they are evil or virtuous, all the women so far named are distinguished with their beauty. However, it is necessary to note the distinction between physical and heavenly beauty. Radigund is beautiful, but her beauty is not celebrated as a reflection of God or of any virtue, but rather it is used as a means to weaken her opponent, reminiscent of Acrasia’s beauty that enslaves men. During the fight between Artegall and Radigund, allegorically the struggle between justice and tyranny, Radigund’s beauty causes momentary hesitation in the knight of justice, so he becomes her prisoner. 44 However, it is not the first time that Artegall was defeated by a woman. Earlier in Book IV, he was defeated by Britomart, but this defeat ended in mutual love. 45 Woods notes a very striking contrast between these two parallel instances and argues that while Artegall ‘becomes Britomart’s vassal

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__________________________________________________________________ on his own free will’ he ‘becomes Radigund’s slave because of her improper use of female beauty to effect political tyranny.’ 46 Such use of physical beauty is the opposite of chastity, the most celebrated virtue of the women who are the representations of the Queen. Forces of good and evil, virtuous and dark characters, queens, knights, wise men and women, maidens, temptresses, villains, victims, giants, beasts populate the faerie land. Despite the machinations of the malevolent forces to darken the faerie land, the virtues of the ideal representatives of royal power, Gloriana, Mercilla, and the good female characters shine brightly in Spenser’s eulogy, and thus they all contribute to the portrait of Queen Elizabeth I as an ideal ruler. Although the evil women are fashioned to share some common aspects with the virtuous ones like maidenhood, beauty and authority, none of them is presented as a challenge to the greatness of the Queen. They momentarily appear and attract attention with their brightness and power, but then they either immediately disappear or are destroyed by a mightier power. Still, their destructive nature is not underestimated, for they are depicted as direct threats to the rightful sovereignty, peace, social order and faith, as in the guise of various ills – yet truth is always victorious in the faerie land. Throughout the whole work opposite concepts like truth and error, good and evil are presented side by side and contrasted with an aim of magnifying what is ideal. By illustrating the negative examples of queenly authority, these evil women contribute to Spenser’s portrait of the ideal ruler, as their vices and darkness make the virtues more visible and bright.

Notes 1

E. Spenser, The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, J.C. Smith and E. De Selincourt (eds), Oxford University Press, London, 1942, p. 1. 2 Ibid., p. 407. 3 Ibid. 4 J.N. King, Spenser’s Poetry and the Reformation Tradition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1990, pp. 114-115. 5 See King, op. cit., p. 115; J.H. Anderson, ‘In Living Colours and Right Hew’: The Queen of Spenser’s Central Books’, Critical Essays on Edmund Spenser, M. Suzuki (ed), Simon and Schuster Macmillan, New York, 1996, pp. 168-182; M. Suzuki, ‘Scapegoating Radigund’, Critical Essays on Edmund Spenser. M. Suzuki (ed), Simon and Schuster Macmillan, New York, 1996, pp. 183-198. 6 King, op. cit., pp. 115-116. 7 J.E. Phillips, ‘The Woman Ruler in Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queene’, The Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 2, 1942, pp. 211-234, JSTOR, Viewed on 14 March 2008, http://www.jstor.org, p. 211. 8 Ibid., p. 234. 9 (I.iv.4). All quotations from The Faerie Queene are from Spenser, op. cit.

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(I.iv.5). (I.iv.8). 12 (I.iv.10). 13 Ibid. 14 That made her selfe a Queene, and crowned to be, Yet rightfull kingdome she had none at all, Ne heritage of natiue soueraintie, But did vsurpe with wrong and tyrannie Vpon the scepter, which she now did hold: Ne ruld her Realmes with lawes, but pollicie, And strong aduizement of six wizards old, That with their counsels bad her kingdome did vphold. (I.iv.12) 15 (I.iv.15). 16 (I.iv.18-35). 17 (I.iv.11). 18 (V.ix.27). 19 (V.ix.29). 20 (V.ix.30-33). 21 J. Aptekar, Icons of Justice: Iconography and T hematic Imagery in Book V of The Faerie Queene, Columbia University Press, New York, 1969, pp. 58-62. 22 King, op. cit., p. 118. 23 (I.vii.16-18). 24 King, op. cit., p. 115. 25 (V.ix.48). 26 Phillips, op. cit., p. 219. 27 (II.vii.8). 28 (II.vii.43). 29 And thereon sat a woman gorgeous gay, And richly clad in robes of royaltye, That never earthly Prince in such array His glory did enhaunce, and pompous pride display. Her face right wondrous faire did seeme to bee, That her broad beauties beam great brightnes threw Through the dim shade, that all men might it see: (II.vii.44-45) 30 (II.vii.46). 31 (II.vii.49). 32 (II.Proem.4). 33 (II.i.51). 34 (II.xii.77). 35 (II.xii.79-80). 36 (II.vii.42). 11

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Suzuki argues that Radigund is a complex character, and her representation is not allegorical but rather dramatic. Spenser’s disillusionment as a poet is reflected in the second half of The Faerie Queene, and it is evident in such characterization. Moreover, it is also suggested that, unlike the allegorical representations of Lucifera and Malecasta, in Radigund’s case, Spenser explains the reason behind her cruelty towards men (due to her unrequited love for Bellodant), and makes her different from these female characters. Suzuki, op. cit., pp. 183-185. 38 (V.iv.33). 39 (V.v.35). 40 Such is the crueltie of womenkynd, When they haue shaken off the shamefast band, With which wise Nature did them strongly bynd, T’obey the heasts of mans well ruling hand, That then all rule and reason they withstand, To purchase a licentious libertie. But vertuous women wisely vnderstand, That they were borne to base humilitie, Vnlesse the heauens them lift to lawfull soueraintie. (V.v.25) 41 W. Schleiner, ‘Divina Virago: Queen Elizabeth as an Amazon’, Studies in Philology, Vol. 75, 1978, pp. 163 & 179. See also L.A. Montrose, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Shaping Fantasies of Elizabethan Culture: Gender, Power, Form’, Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe, M.W. Ferguson, M. Quilligan and N.J. Vickers (eds), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1986, pp. 77-79; and M.R. Bowman, ‘She There as Princess Rained: Spenser’s Figure of Elizabeth’, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 43, 1990, pp. 521-522. 42 (V.v.20-23). 43 King, op. cit., p. 135. 44 (V.v.12). 45 This instance is also used as a means of praise, because with Glauce’s (Britomart’s old nurse) words to Artegall, Queen Elizabeth I’s sovereignty and her superiority over land and sea is exalted: And you Sir Artegall, the saluage knight, Henceforth may not disdaine that womans hand Hath conquered you anew in second fight: For whylome they haue conquerd sea and land, And heauen it selfe, that nought may them withstand. (IV.vi.31) 46 S. Woods, ‘Spenser and the Problem of Women’s Rule’, Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 48, 1985, p. 153.

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Bibliography Aptekar, J., Icons of Justice: Iconography and Thematic Imagery in Book V of The Faerie Queene. Columbia University Press, New York, 1969. Anderson, J.H., ‘In Living Colours and Right Hew: The Queen of Spenser’s Central Books’. Critical Essays on Edmund Spenser. Suzuki, M. (ed), Simon and Schuster Macmillan, New York, 1996. Bowman, M.R., ‘She There as Princess Rained: Spenser’s Figure of Elizabeth’. Renaissance Quarterly. Vol. 43, 1990, pp. 509-528. JSTOR, Viewed on 14 March 2008, http://www.jstor.org. King, J.N., Spenser’s Poetry and the Reformation Tradition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1990. Montrose, L.A., ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Shaping Fantasies of Elizabethan Culture: Gender, Power, Form’. Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe. Ferguson, M.W., Quilligan, M. and Vickers, N.J. (eds), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1986. Phillips, J.E., ‘The Woman Ruler in Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queene’. The Huntington Library Quarterly. Vol. 2, 1942. Schleiner, W., ‘Divina Virago: Queen Elizabeth as an Amazon’. Studies in Philology. Vol. 75, 1978, pp. 163-180. Spenser, E., The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser. Smith, J.C. and De Selincourt, E. (eds), Oxford University Press, London, 1942. Suzuki, M., ‘Scapegoating Radigund’. Critical Essays on Edmund Spenser. Suzuki, M. (ed), Simon and Schuster Macmillan, New York, 1996. Woods, S., ‘Spenser and the Problem of Women’s Rule’. Huntington Library Quarterly. Vol. 48, 1985, pp. 141-158. Hande Seber is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Letters, Department of English Language and Literature at Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. Her research interests are Renaissance English literature, Victorian poetry and British women poets.

Towards a Communicative Conception of Evil Martin Sticker Abstract Moral evil, as Hegel presents it in his Jenaer Realphilosophie von 1805/06 can be understood as a disruption of communication, i.e., of the exchange of normative claims between self-conscious agents. Evil can therefore be attributed to a selfconscious agent who, in his deliberations, discards the normative claims of other agents and attaches an absolute weight to his own normative claims. I will argue that this is an interesting account of evil because it allows us to draw a c lear-cut distinction between the morally bad and the evil agent. I close with a discussion of the main objection to a position which conceives of evil as a disruption of communication: How can such an approach account for our intuition that there are certain kinds of evil which presuppose communication between evil agents? I propose to understand ‘collective evil’ as analogous to a single evil agent. Key Words: Hegel, evil, collective evil, communication, German Idealism. ***** In this chapter, I will discuss the conception of moral evil held by the early Hegel. I will try to develop this account of evil by conceiving of it as a disruption of communication. The term ‘communication’ for this purpose denotes an exchange of normative claims. 1 I understand ‘normative claims’ for this purpose in a broad sense, as encompassing an agent’s claims to resources, rights, recognition etc. as well as an agent’s articulated conceptions of what is just or right in a certain situation. Justified normative claims are claims an agent should take into account in his normative deliberations, no matter who articulated these claims. I take ‘normative deliberations’ to be the act of evaluating normative claims and weighing them against each other. The early Hegel’s account of evil, on which I will focus, is largely neglected not only because of its obscurity and its historical remoteness but also because it stands in the shadow of the more mature account of evil from the same thinker, which can be found, for instance, in the Elements of the Philosophy of Right. In the first part of the chapter, I will focus on Hegel’s very brief exposition of this account, in the second part I will discuss its implications, and in the third I will address what I take to be the main objection to this conception of evil. A heuristic note: Hegel does not discuss and develop his conception of moral evil in any detail in the fragment in which he offers the most straightforward but also most dense characterization of it: th e Jenaer Realphilosophie (JR). For this reason, I will use the Phenomenology of Mind (PoM) to elucidate this

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__________________________________________________________________ characterization. This is legitimate since there are many parallels between the two works and they were written at the same time. Due to restrictions of space, the position I will sketch can only be an outline of the main points, and I cannot discuss concrete examples or more than the main objection. 2 1. Hegel’s Characterization of Evil In the Jenaer Realphilosophie written in 1805/06, and only published posthumously in 1931, Hegel characterises moral evil as ‘internal actual [ii], absolute certainty of itself [iii], the pure night [iv] of being for itself [i]’. 3 In the following I will interpret this dense, and on a first glance obscure, characterization. (i) Being for itself: Being for itself is the central term of this characterization. The other three components are characteristics of a b eing for itself which is evil. The context of the phrase, as well as other passages, show that ‘being for itself’ denotes the self-consciousness of an agent. 4 Evil therefore is a possible property of self-conscious agents. 5 (ii) Internal actual: The first characteristic of an evil agent is that what is actual for him, i.e., what he takes to be the source of justification of his normative claims, is internal to this agent, i.e., not shared or recognized by other agents in the external world. Hegel therefore writes that evil is ‘divided from the universal’ (JR 249 margin/257). In the preface of the PoM, Hegel’s example of such an internal actual is the ‘internal oracle’ (PoM 47), which he identifies with an agent’s immediate feeling that something is correct in so far as the agent takes this immediate feeling to be a source of justification for normative claims. The problem with taking one’s immediate feeling that something is correct to be such a source, and consequently appealing to it for the purpose of justification of normative claims, is that agents only consider this immediate feeling as a source of justification if they find it within themselves. The entire justificatory role of the immediate feeling that something is correct depends on the presence of this immediate feeling within an agent. There is, however, no way for an agent to talk another agent into having an immediate feeling that something is correct. An agent either has such a feeling or he does not (PoM 47f.). That the ‘internal actual’ denotes a source of justification of normative claims, which plays a different justificatory role in the deliberations of other agents, is made more explicit in Hegel’s treatment of conscience in the PoM. 6 There Hegel identifies the determination by one’s internal law with the determination by one’s

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘singularity’ [Einzelnheit] 7 and ‘arbitrariness’ [Willkür]. Being determined by one’s internal law is therefore, for Hegel, a violation of what is universally recognized (PoM 356f., cf. also JR 250 margin/258). It is therefore warranted to claim that the ‘internal actual’ denotes a source of justification of normative claims, which is composed of what an agent does not share with other agents, such as personal convictions, which the agent cannot sufficiently justify to other agents, or goals, which he can only realize in violation of recognized normative standards. The internal actual is the sum of an agent’s idiosyncratic convictions and egoistic goals. I will refer to this part of the agent, which excludes by its very nature the claims of other agents, henceforth by the term ‘singularity’. 8 Taking one’s singularity to be a source of justification, however, does not yet mean that an agent is evil. Singularity is a necessary moment of subjectivity and agency. Justifying claims by appeal to one’s singularity is legitimate in many circumstances, such as questions of taste or personal lifestyle choices. The following two conditions will, however, specify an attitude of an agent towards his singularity which leaves no room in an agent’s deliberations for anything other than his singularity. It is this attitude that Hegel takes to be the characteristic property of an evil agent. (iii) Absolute certainty of itself: ‘Absolute certainty’ describes the attitude the evil agent has towards his singularity. An evil agent attaches absolute credence to his singularity, i.e., under no circumstances does he doubt claims which have the approval of his singularity. This means that, for such an agent, a normative claim is justified beyond doubt if it has the approval of the agent’s singularity, and that the approval of the singularity justifies claims, not only regarding taste or personal lifestyle choice, but in all possible circumstances, i.e., also in morally relevant cases. ‘Approval of an agent’s singularity’, in this context, means that the claim ‘feels’ right to the agent. This ‘right feeling’ should be understood in a broad sense, not merely as stemming from an emotional hunch of the agent. The examples from the PoM indicate that such a f eeling can also stem from a s upposed divine command (internal oracle), supposed moral convictions (conscience) or other personal beliefs and goals (arbitrariness). Feeling, in this sense, is everything that fits well enough with the idiosyncrasies of the agent to seem immediately correct or just to the agent without being sufficiently justifiable to other agents. (iv) Pure night: Following my interpretation of (i-iii) the metaphor of the pure night can be understood as signifying the

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__________________________________________________________________ attitude of an evil agent to possible sources of justification other than his singularity. A pure night can be understood as a night which exhibits nothing but the characteristic property of a night: darkness. 9 A pure night is therefore most of all an inhibition of vision, and makes it impossible to gain visual information about what is external. It is therefore a state in which an agent falls back on his internal actual, his singularity, because his access to what is external to him is inhibited. This means that insofar as an evil agent takes a normative claim to be justified, this justification is not derived from an external source but from the approval of his singularity. 10 I summarize: evil is a self-conscious agent (i), who takes his singularity to be a source of justification (ii) beyond doubt and in all cases (iii), and does not take anything else to be a source of justification (iv). Normative claims are justified if and only if they have the approval of an agent’s singularity, i.e., if they ‘feel right’ to the agent. They are dismissed without consideration if they lack this approval. This account of evil can be understood as a disruption of communication, because evil puts a constraint on an agent’s exchange of normative claims. An evil agent dismisses all claims which lack the approval of his singularity as unworthy of being taken into account in his deliberations. He only articulates the claims, which have the support of his singularity, to be taken into account by other agents, but is not willing to take their claims into account and respond to them. An exchange of normative claims with such an agent is not possible. 2. Moral Badness and Evil This conception is not an account of moral badness in general, but of something more extreme. It therefore offers an account of the differences between moral badness on the one hand, and evil on the other hand. 11 Morally bad agents attach an undue weight, in their deliberations, to certain normative claims which have the approval of their singularity. This, however, does not mean that they attach no weight to normative claims which lack this approval. Even a morally bad agent recognizes that, in one’s deliberations, weight has to be attached to moral rules or universally recognized norms, even if they lack the approval of this agent’s singularity. A morally bad agent, however, will commit mistakes in his normative deliberations, because some normative claims are unjustly outweighed by other normative claims which have the approval of this agent’s singularity. An evil agent, by contrast, is an agent who, in his deliberations, never takes into account normative claims which lack the approval of his singularity. The evil agent therefore does not attach a s pecial weight to normative claims, which have the approval of his singularity; rather, he attaches no weight at all to claims which lack this approval. These claims do not enter his deliberations.

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__________________________________________________________________ This means that we can communicate, i.e., exchange normative claims, with bad agents but not with evil agents. A bad agent will take the justified claims we articulate into account – although not to the extent that he should, given that these claims are justified by sources like moral norms, recognized standards, or the singularity of other agents. We can then argue with the bad agent, try to show him that he has attached an undue weight to certain claims, and point out why he should not have done so. The bad agent will either admit his mistake, or respond by denying that he attached an undue weight, or by trying to justify this disproportionality. In any case, an exchange of normative claims with the bad agent is possible, he is, so to speak, willing to enter the process of reason-giving, and justifying. The evil agent, however, sees no need to enter this process. He takes his claims to be sufficiently justified just because his singularity approves of them, and he sees no need to take objections, which lack this approval, into account. The only way for such an agent to be criticised by other agents is when the claims of other agents happen to have the approval of the evil agent’s singularity. The possibility of criticising the evil agent internally, via appeal to his singularity, however, is not sufficient to establish communication with him. The singularity as the sum of the idiosyncratic convictions and egoistic goals is far too narrow to allow for an effective internal criticism of the agent. One might be able to tell the evil agent that, given his goals, he should employ this means rather than that one – after all an evil agent is not a raging madman and very well capable of employing means-ends rationality – but internal criticism can, at most, bring the agent to exchange one of his egoistic goals for another, and only if his singularity happens to approve more of the one than of the other. This means that occasionally we will have the impression that the evil agent reacts to us in the right way, i.e., takes our claims into account, but he still remains evil, i.e., determined by the approval of his singularity alone. The evil agent therefore cannot be criticised effectively via an appeal to his singularity and he does not understand that other people can demand justifications for his normative claims other than the approval of his singularity. This conception of evil as opposed to moral badness also accommodates the intuition that evilness, in contrast to moral badness, implies the impossibility of feeling regret, shame or remorse. 12 The evil agent is unable to understand that what he did was objectionable, because it was unobjectionable to him and nothing else matters to him. He sees no need to reconsider his position in the light of the normative claims of other agents, because he sees no point in these claims. That the evil agent attaches no weight at all to normative claims lacking the approval of his singularity means that there is a fundamental difference in how the bad and how the evil agent deliberate. The bad agent takes into account, in his deliberations, claims justified by different sources and has to rank these claims, weigh them against each other, and see which one is the most cogent. His

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__________________________________________________________________ deliberations work like the deliberations of the morally good agent, except for occasional, or frequent, mistakes. The morally good and the morally bad agent have in common that their deliberations are complex. The deliberations of the evil agent are simple, since he only takes into account claims justified by one source. He does not have to worry about questions of commensurability, such as what weight to attach to normative claims’ being founded on needs of others, moral duties, special obligations, universally recognized norms etc. as opposed to those claims having the approval of his singularity. His deliberations are simply determined by the approval of his singularity. Whatever it approves of, he takes as sufficiently justified, no matter what. 13 3. The Problem of Collective Evil I will now address the main objection against a theory which conceives of evil as a disturbance of communication: Such an approach seems unable to account for collective evil, i.e., groups of agents or social structures, encouraging or actualizing evil in collective actions, or even entire societies working on principles and structures we would call evil. I take it that the intuition that there is such a thing as collective evil, manifesting itself, for instance, in certain periods of human history, is widespread. According to the communicative approach, an evil agent does not communicate. Collective evil, however, requires communication to coordinate and maximise the effectiveness of actions, and to spread propaganda or ideological convictions, which encourage the formation of an evil disposition among the members of a group or society. The account I presented following Hegel cannot account for this without modification. There is, however, a way to accommodate collective evil in a modified communicative theory of evil. For Hegel, ‘singularity’ is a logical term, defined by its opposition to ‘particularity’ and ‘universality’. What these terms denote depends on the context of their use and shifts depending on t he subjectmatter of the investigation. The term ‘singularity’ for Hegel roughly denotes, in general, something which cannot be subsumed as a p articular case under a universal rule, i.e., something which is incommensurable with everything else. In the account presented, ‘singularity’ denoted the idiosyncrasies of a single agent. If we shift our focus from the individual to groups or societies, ‘singularity’ can denote idiosyncrasies shared by members of a group or society, in contrast to nonmembers of this group or society, or in contrast to other groups. 14 These idiosyncrasies can be, for instance, the founding myth of a s ociety, or the conviction of a group of their superiority to other groups, plus the convictions which make this notion of superiority plausible to members of the group, or certain goals of a group or society which can only be achieved by wronging other groups or individuals.

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__________________________________________________________________ Collective evil, then, means that groups discard, in their deliberative procedures, everything that lacks the approval of their collective singularity. The members of such a g roup can therefore communicate with each other, since they share the same collective singularity, but members of the group will not communicate with non-members. Furthermore, it is to be expected that the communication of collectively evil agents with one another is heavily infested with appeals to their collective singularity. This collective singularity will be the prime source of the justification that collectively evil agents give to each other for their normative claims. Communication within a collectively evil group will therefore appear in a perverted form. In a collectively evil group, communication does not serve to include the normative claims of others by enquiring what these claims are and how they are justified, but serves to exclude the normative claims of most others (namely all non-members of the group) by engaging in and reinforcing the practice of justifying normative claims by appeal to the collective singularity. 15

Notes 1

Due to shortage of space I cannot argue in this chapter that the notion of communication, as I have defined it, is crucial for the Hegel of the first decade of the 19th century. Cf. instead Phenomenology of Mind (PoM) 47f., pp. 275-282 & pp. 351-357; H. Ikäheimo and A. Laitinen, ‘Analyzing Recognition: Identification, Acknowledgement and Recognitive Attitudes Towards Persons’, Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and t he Tradition of Critical Social Theory, B. van den Brink and D. Owen (eds), Cambridge University Press, New York, 2007, pp. 3739, as well as A. Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996, p. 67. 2 This means especially that I cannot address a worry, fuelled by PoM 360, and articulated in R. Bernstein, Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2002, p. 75, that an account of evil which conceives of evil as a part of a rational development of subjectivity and social institutions thereby justifies or legitimates evil as something necessary. 3 This characterization occurs in G.W.F. Hegel, Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 8, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg, 1968, p. 256 separated in two different margins, but the more recent edition G. Göhler (ed), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Frühe politische Systeme, Ullstein, Frankfurt a.M. et. al, 1974 puts the characterization in the main text and as one sentence, as it is reproduced above. In the following I will quote the Gesammelte Werke edition but also provide the page number of the Göhler edition. Hegel translations are my own. 4 Cf. PoM 110: ‘the self-consciousness is initially simple being for itself’. Cf. also PoM 111. The idea that evil is a property of self-consciousness is also maintained in Hegel’s later works – cf. the Elements of the Philosophy of Right (EPR) §139A.

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The attribution of evil to agents is further warranted by JR250 margin/258. Treating evil as a property of something other than actions, i.e., of the character, the person, or the agent seems to be a widely accepted view. Cf. for instance C. Card, The Atrocity Paradigm, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, p. 22, A. Morton, On Evil, Routledge, New York, 2004. 6 The tight connection between conscience and evil is maintained in Hegel’s later writings. Cf. EPR §139. 7 The standard translation of ‘Einzel(n)heit’ is ‘individuality’. This is inadequate for many reasons – most notably because it does not allow one to distinguish between ‘Einzelheit’ and ‘Individualität’. I will therefore use the more literal term ‘singularity’ as a translation of ‘Einzel(n)heit’. 8 That evil is a certain attitude to one’s singularity is also maintained in Hegel’s more mature writings. Cf. EPR §139A. 9 In JR 252 margin/260 Hegel calls evil ‘this darkness of man in itself’. 10 This interpretation derives further warrant from a passage in which Hegel calls evil ‘the pure knowledge of oneself’ (JR 252 margin/260), i.e., of nothing but one’s internal actual. 11 The intuition or conviction that there is a fundamental difference between mere moral badness and evil is widely shared among philosophers. Cf. for instance: J. Kekes, Facing Evil, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1990, p. 49, S. Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, Oxford, 2002, p. 8., R. Perrett, ‘Evil and Human Nature’, The Monist, Vol. 85, 2002, p. 304. 12 Cf. for instance Ibid., p. 304 and P. Barry ‘Extremity of Vice and the Character of Evil’, Journal of Philosophical Research, Vol. 35, 2010, p. 30. 13 Due to shortage of space in this chapter, I cannot here discuss a second important implication of Hegel’s conception of evil: the connection between evil and recognition. 14 Thanks to Daniel Wenz and André Grahle for pressing me on this point. 15 This chapter has benefited from comments by Christopher Macleod, Vera Sophie Flocke, André Grahle, Jeannine Kunz, Daniel Wenz, Nathan Howard, and Heather Peterson.

Bibliography Barry, P., ‘Extremity of Vice and the Character of Evil’. Journal of Philosophical Research. Vol. 35, 2010, pp. 25-42. Bernstein, R., Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2002.

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__________________________________________________________________ Card, C., The Atrocity Paradigm. Oxford University Press, New York, 2002. Göhler, G. (ed), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Frühe politische Systeme. Ullstein, Frankfurt a.M. et. al., 1974. Hegel, G.W.F., Gesammelte Werke. Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg, 1968ff. Honneth, A., The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996. Ikäheimo, H. and Laitinen, A., ‘Analysing Recognition: Identification, Acknowledgement and Recognitive Attitudes Towards Persons’. Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory. van den Brink, B. and Owen, D. (eds), Cambridge University Press, New York, 2007. Kekes, J., Facing Evil. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1990. Morton, A., On Evil. Routledge, New York, 2004. Neiman, S., Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, Oxford, 2002. Perrett, R., ‘Evil and Human Nature’. The Monist. Vol. 85, 2002, pp. 304-319. Martin Sticker is PhD student at the Universities of St Andrews and Stirling. He works on Classical German Philosophy, Practical Philosophy and the Methodology of Practical Philosophy.

The Hoodoo that You Do: The Material Culture of Gendered Magic as Risk Management Mechanisms C. Riley Augé Abstract While much anthropological, historical, archaeological, and folkloric evidence exists to support the premise that humans from all cultures have used or currently still employ apotropaic devices as risk management strategies to protect their domestic boundaries from misfortune, this is an area that has received limited attention from archaeological researchers. Despite documentation of the staggering variety and scope of the material culture of magic and its distribution across cultures, little is really understood about the underlying connections between people, their magical beliefs, their material culture, and the implications of those connections. Material culture, particularly in archaeological contexts, often appears divorced from the human agency which both generated and used it. In particular, the relation of gender to magical material culture production and magical practice remains unexplored. This sterile perception strips material culture of its social, political, and/or symbolic meanings. This point is especially salient for magical material culture if one considers the fearfully charged circumstances in which they were used as well as their powerful supernatural associations. Their use constituted deliberate engagement with the powers of good and evil, which implies some degree of danger or risk. Studying such psychologically charged circumstances through a focus on gendered threshold apotropaic beliefs and behaviours can provide insights into the human processes of negotiating a sense of existential security and personal empowerment. Gleaning insight into gendered social realities and underlying worldviews is necessary to the understanding of how, why, and by whom magic was used in the past. In this chapter I will briefly examine examples of domestic magical material culture to illustrate and question the gendering of particular magical practices and what they may reveal about how women and men manage space as defensive, offensive, and empowering mechanisms that define distinctions between and relationships with others. Key Words: Apotropaia, boundaries, gender, historical archaeology, magic, risk management. ***** To understand supernatural and magic belief associated with boundaries and risk management necessitates understanding the conceptual ideology of threshold spaces, an ideology that finds expression in art and literature as well as religious and folk belief. Novelist Günter Grass captured the universal attribution of supernatural forces with thresholds when he wrote, ‘as everyone should know, a

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__________________________________________________________________ doorway is the favourite dwelling place of evil.’ 1 Numerous scholars note the importance of threshold spaces as supernaturally powerful in African and African American belief systems. Similar protective attention is given to thresholds space in India, China, the Middle East, and Europe. Thresholds are conceived as both physical and intangible, as both literal and metaphorical. The physical boundaries of buildings and properties were often perceived as the literal and metaphorical liminal thresholds between the living and the dead; the material and the spirit; the public and private; the decent and the indecent; the sacred and profane; male and female; single and married; insiders and outsiders; and danger and security. While the evils of the world hovered around the exteriors of home and farmstead, the people within found themselves negotiating a sense of control and safety through their belief and faith in apotropaic applications. Thresholds both demarcate the dichotomies of safety/danger, and simultaneously establish a liminal zone because the threshold itself is neither inside nor outside the structure. Thus, they create the concrete boundary between inhabitants and evil and provide a solid canvas upon which amulets can be attached. In their liminal capacity, thresholds represent the space where supernatural forces reside and, therefore, it is where apotropaic agents would be the most effective risk management mediators. In order for the objects to be efficacious in the realm of the supernatural they, too, needed to cross the threshold from the material realm to the spirit world. Thus, the objects were usually either beyond their usefulness or were ritually ‘killed’ by being intentionally damaged in some way to transition across to the otherworld. Additionally, placement of material objects at liminal crossroads, or thresholds constituted their transition into the spiritual realm, but they may also be rendered invisible through intentional burial, submersion, or concealment to further emphasize their status as spiritual agents. Due to their concealed deposition, these artefacts have the highest chance of survival in the archaeological record and so comprise the largest and most varied sample of magical material culture from around the world. While architectural thresholds or geographical boundaries appear relatively straightforward, they symbolize a m ore complex interface between the built environment and the human physical and spiritual body. Architectural historians espouse the metaphorical implications of the human body with the threshold points of architectural structures by exploring the symbolic anthropomorphizing of doors as mouths, windows as eyes, roofs as heads, and hearths as hearts and the subsequent correlation between the well-being of the protected structure and the well-being, both physical and psychological, of the inhabitants. 2 Obviously, there exists a metaphorical as well as phenomenological connection between people and their domestic structures. The experiential relationship between space/place and human well-being lies at the core of many magical practices as means to protect both life and property. According to Michel Foucault,

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘Space is fundamental in any exercise of power,’ 3 an idea that Smith translates as expressing a language of power: Spatial language clearly represents power differentials in a variety of ways. People lacking access and power may be expressed in an abstract or unnamed manner as people denied space, displaced, or placeless. Spatial language is also used to represent the relational and explicitly the oppositionality of social relations, using the relation of other spaces in such metaphors as margin/ centre, periphery/ core, or inside/outside. The spatial metaphor of power difference may also be well defined in terms of (and control over) spatial concepts such as the body, borderland, or home. 4 While this intimate connection between body and space centralizes power in the actual control of space, this represents but one aspect of people’s ability to wield authority over their designated domestic spheres. To understand other aspects of power and their part in magical belief and practice requires consideration of the nature and functions of magic. W.R. Halliday stated, ‘All magic is in a sense a conflict’ and that ‘that magic is based on power.’ 5 According to Halliday, everyone innately possesses power that resides in even the minutest of bodily parts like hair or nail clippings. As concentrated containers of an individual’s essence, they can both inflict harm upon others and be used as conduits to harm their originator. In fact, as Halliday notes and as substantiated in numerous sources, it is generally the weak, the young, the ill, the dead, the unbaptized or uninitiated, and animals that are considered most susceptible to magical harm. Healthy adults inherently possess what is known as mana or essential power; sorcerers or witches are attributed with wielding a greater degree of mana, but not with monopolizing it. The belief that all people manifest some degree of mana accounts for the confidence in their ability to create and utilize counter-magical efforts against the magic of maleficent persons and forces. Magic is indeed about conceptualizing, weighing, and generating one’s power in response to specific circumstances. Magic as conflict can serve as the general theory from which context and cultural specific examples of magic can be interpreted as risk management strategies. Beyond, or rather implicated with, risk management lays magical practice as an empowering agentic. In undertaking the effort of gathering the appropriate materials and ritualistically assembling and activating them, the magical practitioner demonstrates a co nfidence in his or her own authority and power to manipulate or otherwise affect supernatural forces for personal advantage.

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__________________________________________________________________ As manufacturers of magical objects or merely as wielders of magical power through the implementation of such objects, these individuals enact a sense of personal and social identity. Additionally, one’s social identity as one successfully enacting expected social and gender roles may in part be demonstrated through magical practice if the use of magic to protect or enhance one’s family or livelihood is interpreted as an extension or further dimension of one’s duty. Virtually every type of material has been employed as magical material culture. In domestic contexts these materials derive from quotidian sources. Magical material culture includes everyday utilitarian objects constructed of wood, metal, minerals, glass, and ceramic; plants, animals, and soil; foodstuffs; textiles; and human components like hair, nail clippings, and excreta. Magical materials, their usage, and expression differ culturally, but many traditions seem to share similar conceptualizations of magical agency. One common idea holds that evil can be diverted, confused, or trapped by objects that engage its sensibilities. These objects usually capture evil’s attention through complex designs, bright colours, shiny or reflective surfaces, diverting sounds, or imitative images. As previously noted, some magical objects may be overt and readily recognized for their magical purpose. Others require an element of stealth to affect intended targets. The concealment of a magical charm and its subsequent rumoured existence, are sufficient to cause the target terrifying unease. Archaeologists offer similar interpretations of African and African American based uses of magic in Conjure, Hoodoo and Voodoo traditions. In these traditions the magical objects are usually buried at threshold or crossroad points over which the intended target would normally pass or would be disguised in the target’s food or drink to secretly cross the bodily threshold. Three examples of domestic magical material culture should illustrate the engendering of magical practices: Indian kolams, needlework designs, and African American charms. The daily creation of Indian threshold kolam designs provides a highly visible case of gendered apotropaic behaviour. These intricate interwoven knot-like or continuous loop patterns created with coloured rice flour (traditional) or chalk (modern) appear twice a d ay, at sunrise and again in late afternoon, across India. Always constructed by women, they cross both regional cultural differences and caste boundaries. 6 Alfred Gell identifies an entire category of artistic work as ‘apotropaic art,’ which includes among other expressions kolams, needlework, woodcarving, tattooing, knotwork, coin designs, and labyrinths. Like these other designs, threshold kolams ‘are demon-traps, in effect, demonic fly-paper, in which demons become hopelessly stuck, and are thus rendered harmless’ 7 The kolams have a twofold protective power; they are representative of naga, the cobra deity of protection and fertility, and they contain their own apotropaic power to capture or divert evil through their complex patterns.

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__________________________________________________________________ In Sheila Paine’s extensive look at the variety of amulets found worldwide, she depicts numerous examples of apotropaic embroidery and woven designs incorporated into clothing and other textiles from cultures across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. 8 Needlework, especially the type associated with children’s clothing or household linens, usually represents women’s work. These textiles often incorporated magical designs and symbols. As apotropaia the embroidered designs were concentrated around openings (e.g., thresholds of body and house). For clothing this meant needlework encircled caps, hems, sleeves, necklines, pant legs, belts, and waistlines; for houses apotropaic embroidery edged window, doorway, hearth, and bed curtains. Bright and or magical colours, intricate patterns, flashy or reflective materials, magical symbols, and sound producing objects are all incorporated into textiles for personal and household threshold protection. These items served as metaphoric threads knitting the family and home together in a protective skein provided by the women of the house as extensions of their wifely and motherly obligations to the well-being and prosperity of their households. In Bali, for instance, the weaving of the geringsing (a special magically protective cloth) is solely the province of women; however, the cloth is worn by everyone and is used to adorn offerings and inanimate objects as well. 9 It protects both the thresholds of the built environment as well as the bodily thresholds and is considered indispensible as a material agent in the complex relationship between the Balinese people and their numinous world. Laurie Wilkie’s statement, ‘If we are to successfully study gender within African-American households, we must consider the magical dimension of gender relationships, and likewise, if we are to consider magical practices, then we must consider gender,’ emphatically asserts that gender and magic for African Americans in colonial and slave contexts constitute an integrated system. 10 Wilkie explicates the gendered dimensions of magic within the household context. In this setting, the intimate proximity occasioned by cohabiting amplified the inherent tension between males and females. African American worldviews espoused the belief in innate male and female magical powers. These powers resided within one’s bodily fluids and waste. Therefore, to magically harm another, one only had to acquire such fluids to use in a charm against his or her spouse. Women’s charms were often to keep the family bound together. Men, aware of these charms, could implement counter-charms to protect themselves or take other preventative measures to foil female charm use. The gendered use of magic impacted the daily activities and tasks of a household. If women generally were responsible for cooking, but the men feared their food was ‘charmed,’ then they might take over the cooking as a way to ensure their own protection. Understanding how gender-based magical beliefs impact behavioural decisions and ultimately the archaeological record, underscores the importance of belief systems in constituting behaviour and, by extension, material culture.

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__________________________________________________________________ In the examples of kolams and needlework, the household assumes a homogeneous unity that must be protected from external disruption. In contrast, the African American belief in potentially antagonist forces residing in males and females appears to focus on internal disruptions. While much anthropological, historical, archaeological, and folkloric evidence exists to support the premise that humans from all cultures have used or currently still employ apotropaic devices to protect their domestic boundaries from misfortune, this is an area that has received limited attention from archaeological researchers. Compilations like Paine’s Amulets: Sacred Charms of Power and Protection document the staggering variety and scope of the material culture of magic and its distribution across cultures. Yet little is really understood about the underlying connections between people, their magical beliefs, their material culture, and the implications of those connections. Material culture, particularly in archaeological contexts, often appears divorced from the human agency which both generated and used it. This sterile perception strips material culture of its social, political, and/or symbolic meanings. This point is especially salient for magical material culture if one considers the fearfully charged circumstances in which they were used as well as their powerful supernatural associations. They were more than mere utilitarian objects; their power and efficacy existed both within their material forms and was integrated within the ritualistic performance of their making and use. Their use constituted deliberate engagement with the powers of good and evil, which implies some degree of danger or risk. Studying such psychologically charged circumstances through a f ocus on gendered threshold apotropaic beliefs and behaviours can provide insights into the human processes of negotiating a sense of existential security and personal empowerment.

Notes 1

G. Grass, The Tin Drum, Random House, New York, 1964. K.C. Bloomer & C.W. Moore, Body, Memory, and Architecture, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1977. 3 M. Foucault, ‘Space, Knowledge, and Power’, The Foucault Reader, Pantheon, New York, 1984. 4 A. Smith, ‘Mapping Landscapes: The Politics of Metaphor, Knowledge and Representation on Nineteenth Century Irish Ordinance Survey Maps’, Historical Archaeology, Vol. 41, Iss. 1, 2007, pp. 81-91. 5 W.R. Halliday, ‘The Force of Initiative in Magical Conflict’, Folklore, Vol. 21, Iss. 2, pp. 147-167. 6 R. Dohmen, ‘Liminal in More Ways than One: Threshold Designs (Kolams) in Contemporary Tamil Nadu, South India’, A Permeability of Boundaries? New Approaches to the Archaeology of Art, Religion, Folklore: British Archaeological Reports, John and Erica Hedges, Ltd, Oxford, 2001. 2

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A. Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998. 8 S. Paine, Amulets: Sacred Charms of Power and P rotection, Inner Traditions, Rochester, 2004. 9 B. Hauser-Schäublin, M. Nabholz-Kartaschoff & U. Ramseyer, Balinese Textiles, Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd, Basel, 1991. 10 L.A. Wilkie, ‘Secret and Sacred: Contextualizing the Artifacts of AfricanAmerican Magic and Religion’, Historical Archaeology, Vol. 31, Iss. 4, pp. 81106.

Bibliography Bloomer K.C. & Moore, C.W., Body, Memory, and Architecture. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1977. Dohmen, R., ‘Liminal in More Ways than One: Threshold Designs (Kolams) in Contemporary Tamil Nadu, South India’. A Permeability of Boundaries? New Approaches to the Archaeology of Art, Religion, Folklore: British Archaeological Reports. John and Erica Hedges, Ltd., Oxford, 2001. Foucault, M., ‘Space, Knowledge, and Power’. The Foucault Reader. Pantheon, New York, 1984. Gell, A., Art and A gency: An Anthropological Theory. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998. Grass, G., The Tin Drum. Random House, New York, 1964. Halliday, W.R., ‘The Force of Initiative in Magical Conflict’. Folklore. Vol. 21, Iss. 2, pp. 147-167. Hauser-Schäublin, B., Nabholz-Kartaschoff, M. & Ramseyer, U., Balinese Textiles. Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., Basel, 1991. Paine, S., Amulets: Sacred Charms of Power and P rotection. Inner Traditions, Rochester, 2004. Smith, A., ‘Mapping Landscapes: The Politics of Metaphor, Knowledge, and Representation on Nineteenth Century Irish Ordinance Survey Maps’. Historical Archaeology. Vol. 41, Iss. 1, 2007, pp. 81-91.

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__________________________________________________________________ Wilkie, L.A., ‘Secret and Sacred: Contextualizing the Artifacts of AfricanAmerican Magic and Religion’. Historical Archaeology. Vol. 31, Iss. 4, pp. 81106. C. Riley Augé holds an undergraduate degree in English Literature and a Master’s in Mythology and Folklore, and is currently a PhD candidate in the Anthropology department at the University of Montana. She teaches courses in comparative mythology, historical archaeology, and religious belief systems. Her research focuses on the material expression of traditional beliefs in magic and the supernatural.

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Magic and the Power of the Condemned: English Public Execution and Popular Superstition from 1735 to 1868 Stephen Banks Abstract When a man kills sixty children he might expect that his memory be excoriated or else perhaps erased from history altogether. However, when Kleomedes of Astypalaia went mad, pulled down the roof of a school upon its pupils and then disappeared, the townspeople responded by worshipping him. The belief that the doing of a great deed, one which for good or ill writes itself into the fabric of the world, imbues the doer or his relics with a reservoir of accessible ‘magical’ power is ancient. Later Christian culture accommodated itself to such belief but sought to tame it b y adding moral categorisations. These divided the supersensory powers into those to which one might legitimately appeal, for example by praying over the bones of a saint, and those which one should neither approach in prayer nor seek to compel by witchcraft. After 1735 one could no longer be condemned for witchcraft in England but the popular belief in the supernatural potential of objects or persons associated with heinous crimes or suffering untimely deaths persisted. On the scaffold women held up diseased children to have them cured by a felon’s touch, hands were hacked off for ‘Hands of Glory’ and executioners sold fragments of the rope as lucky charms. Until 1868 the state indulged and even seemed to share in common assumptions about the latent potentiality of the felon’s corpse. When the Ratcliffe Highway murderer was buried in 1811 he was first paraded through the streets then interned in quick lime at a cross roads with a stake through the heart. This paper then will explore the fear and veneration of felon’s bodies and objects from the abolition of the offence of witchcraft to the demise of public execution finally suggesting that a belief in the resonant magical power of evil deeds remains with us still. Key Words: Execution, England, magic, superstition, corpse, talisman, felon, dissection. ***** In the myth of Perseus the hero uses the head of his slain adversary Medusa as a protection against those who attack him. This device though depends upon two propositions. Firstly, it depends upon the proposition that the decapitated head retains some resonance of the magical power that had been possessed by the living creature. Secondly, upon the presumption that, although some vestigial personality might be associated with that power, possession is nine-tenths of the supernatural law and the new owner can acquire and can deploy its magical potential. Medusa, in short, becomes the servant of her killer. That the power of a magical corpse may

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__________________________________________________________________ be harvested is a co mmon belief in many societies - though post-Reformation Europe has attempted to move away from it. Eighteenth and nineteenth century England is my particular concern here and the imperfectly articulated beliefs, anxieties and superstitions surrounding violent death and criminality at that time. But I want to try and embrace a broader theme by suggesting a connection between those beliefs and earlier classical religious thought. The connection hopefully being made apparent, I will then leave it to you to decide whether the superstitions of eighteenth and nineteenth century England were but relicts of earlier beliefs, destined to disappear in the face of modernity, or whether they were reflections of enduring apprehensions about the nature of the supersensory world that are in fact still potent today. Returning to Classical Greece for a moment, Medusan heads were not ten a penny but what were commonplace were places where the gods had interacted with man. This interweaving between the gods and man is very important in understanding that to the Greeks the two worlds shared a common and permeable border. Although paganism lacked the clearly defined salvationist beliefs of monotheism, although ideas of heaven and hell were but imperfectly developed; it was nevertheless believed that some men could cross into the world of the gods and become, in a sense, divine. Much cultic activity was directed towards those who had been born mere human but whose deeds in life had been so great that they were subsequently both worshipped and supposed to retain some vestigial personality after death. Of course many of these supposedly mortal born heroes were entirely mythical. Some however, were possibly historical personalities - such as the lawgiver Lykurgos. Some were undoubtedly so - such as the heroes of Marathon to whom annual sacrifice was offered each year 1 or Spartan King Leonidas whose cult was established after his death at Thermopylae. 2 Such men left behind relics a devotion to which promised power in both the supersensory and sensory worlds. Contending powers therefore, struggled over the possession of what remained. For example, in the sixth century an expanding Sparta seized the bones of Orestes from Tegea 3 and those of his son Tisamenos from Helike. 4 In the fifth century the prestige of the Athenian politician Cimon was much enhanced by his expulsion in 475 B . C. of the Dolophians and the recovery of the remains of Theseus. 5 Jon Mikalson has persuasively argued that Athenian military in the first years of the Second Peloponnesian War was heavily influenced by the need to secure cultic objects and seize the sanctuaries of opponents. 6 To understand the divine however, one must understand that a great act, one that left a scar upon eternity, was not necessarily a moral act. Neither the gods, who could induce Herakles to murder his own children, nor the heroes, possessed what we would clearly recognise as moral sense. When the boxer Kleomedes of Astypalaia was wrongly denied victory in the Olympiad of 484 B C he went mad and pulled down a school on the pupils inside. He fled into Athena’s sanctuary and promptly disappeared. The perplexed citizens sent to Delphi and the Pythia

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__________________________________________________________________ instructed them, ‘Astypalaian Kleomedes is the last hero, worship him he is no longer mortal.’ 7 Since there were no physical remains of him the citizens set up a statue. This soon proved its connection with the divine; when a rival came in the night to flog it the statue promptly fell and killed the offender. 8 What made Kleomedes a hero? Edgar Wind argued long ago in his, ‘The Criminal God’, that the criminal can stand in the stead of the sovereign and both his acts and his fate can confer magical benefit, ‘If superior power is understood as a force which is neutral to the distinction between good and evil.’ Both the deeds and the sufferings of the criminal resonate in eternity and may thus endow remains, images or artefacts with magic power. 9 Such power has both animate and inanimate facets. Sometimes, the original doer retains enough personality to have some control over his or her statue or have some influence over what is done with his or her bones. More commonly, all that is left is latent magical potential. Latent magical potential was understood very well by the later Christian churches although they evinced altogether clearer ideas about the fate of souls and were very much more prescriptive about appropriate cultic practice. Not that their saints were necessarily benign. ‘We worship the saints for fear,’ wrote William Tyndale, ‘Lest they should be displeased and angry with us and plague or hurt us.’ 10 At the heart of medieval Christianity was often a debate about whether bones, relics, holy books, sacred places were mere aids to prayer or whether they themselves possessed some sacral power which might be deployed to advantage. The very prescriptions of the Church against magical practice suggested the latter; witches could profane and use the power of the Host, or work an incantation by reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards. The corpse, or parts thereof, could well be used for nefarious purposes; thus a conspirator in 1440 carried with him a dead man’s arm holding a candle believing that this would guarantee him immunity from arrest. Not for nothing did the 1604 witchcraft act make it a felony to take up a dead body for magical purposes. 11 For good or ill, the bodies of the murdering or the murdered were particularly potent. For example, the body of a murder victim retained the power to identify its killer by gushing forth fresh blood at his or her touch. Thus a coroner put a man to the test in 1574 by making him touch the corpse 12 and a J.P. did likewise in 1613. 13 In 1755, at the Court of Great Sessions, Lewis Cynfyn was indicted for the murder of his wife upon the evidence of a witness who claimed that blood had spurted from the nose of the corpse upon his touching her body. 14 Of course there were sceptics, especially amongst the educated, and the Reformation had done its best to exorcise the belief in magical objects. When Jane Wenham was accused of flying during her witchcraft trial in 1712 t he judge, Sir John Powell, was able to pithily retort that as far as he was aware there was no law against doing so. 15 In 1735 the Witchcraft Act formally declared that witchcraft, as an actual magical enterprise, did not exist. 16 And yet the sense of some

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__________________________________________________________________ supernatural resonance clinging to the body continued to be de facto recognised. In 1752 the Murder Act declared that: Whereas the horrid crime of Murder has been of late more frequently perpetrated...it is thereby become necessary that some further Terror and peculiar Mark of Infamy be added to the punishment of death...That the body of such murderer ...shall be dissected and anatomized. 17 The horror that this occasioned is carefully chronicled in Peter Linebaugh’s essay, ‘The Tyburn Riots against the Surgeons.’ 18 What strikes is how few riots there were to prevent the actual execution and yet how many to prevent the corpse being anatomised by the surgeons. The supply of corpses to the expanding medical schools was never enough and in 1832 the Anatomy Act consigned unclaimed workhouse corpses to the same fate. Significantly, the moral reservations of the select committee appointed to inquire into the supply of corpses had been overborne by the consideration that the alternative was to continue to turn a blind eye to body-snatching. This affected rich and poor alike and the surgeon Sir Astley Cooper had carried the day by calmly addressing the horrified committee and remarking, ‘There is no person let his situation in life be what it may, whom, if I were disposed to dissect, I could not obtain. 19 But what could one’s body do in nineteenth century England? In 1811 J ohn Williams killed himself whilst awaiting trial for the so called, ‘Ratcliffe Highway Murders.’ Let us observe what was done with his body. First, it was paraded on a cart together with the instruments with which he had, allegedly, committed the crimes. The cart rested for 15 minutes outside the place of each homicide and was abused. It was rather as if, like the man who had whipped the statue of Kleomedes, it was believed that some additional punishment could be visited on the deceased by a post mortem act of dishonour. Then the body was taken to the crossroads at St. George’s turnpike and buried with a stake pinned through its heart. 20 Here we think back to Hecate, to the chthonic deities of the underworld who rarely featured in city cult, but who received propitiatory offerings at shrines set up at the crossroads. Crossroads are significant because a malefactor may walk and burying him at the crossroads means that he may not find his way back to those who have disposed of him. The stake of course was designed to prevent him walking in the first place. The possibility remained the subject of popular anxiety - even chains did not prevent the return of the felon in Dumas (fils) 1907 story, The Hanging at La Piroche. It was desirable of course, that such a powerful corpse disappear as quickly as possible- hence the use of quicklime on John Williams and many subsequent murderers. What though are we to make of the spectators who purchased slivers of the stake itself?

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__________________________________________________________________ The acquisition of such artefacts was in fact common. Thus when Nicholas Mooney was executed in 1752 a women took the rope believing it would cure her ailments. 21 Men were observed to fight for pieces of the rope after an execution in Newcastle upon Tyne believing that it would cure headaches. 22 Touching the corpse was perhaps even more efficacious. Thus when a coal heaver was hanged in 1768 a well-dressed woman ascended the scaffold with her 3 yr old and the deceased’s right hand was used to stroke the boy who suffered from the ‘King’s Evil.’ 23 This was repeated at the execution of Dr Dodd in 1777 when, after he had been hanging for 10 minutes, a young woman touched his hand to her face in order to cure a cyst. 24 As Grose put it: It seems as if the hand of a person dying a violent death is deemed particularly efficacious: as it very frequently happens that Nurses bring Children to be stroked with the hands of executed Criminals, even whilst they are hanging on the Gallows. 25 Most potent of all was possession of some corporeal fragment. In Hungary, a perquisite of the hangman was the selling of the felon’s blood. 26 At the execution of Charles I the crowd surged forward to dip their handkerchiefs in the gore and John Brand claimed that he had seen sawdust impregnated with the blood of executed Jacobites being taken to make charms. 27 By and large the purposes that were admitted were benign but the remains had darker potential. For example, the Hand of Glory, the hand of a hanged man holding a candle made out of his fat, had the power to stupefy and to allow thieves to open doors at will. 28 Of course, it is tempting to ascribe such beliefs to the ignorance of the poor. And yet that violent death imparted something special was more than a vulgar apprehension. Boswell insisted that the portrait he had commissioned of John Reid in 1774 be painted after he had been condemned, ‘The better to capture the emotion of the moment.’ 29 A fascination for the condemned inspired Hogarth to study Sarah Malcolm in 1733 and Lord Lovat in 1746 and many other artists followed thereafter. In 1815 a servant girl, Elizabeth Fenning, was executed for attempting to poison her employers. The evidence was circumstantial and many respectable people believed in her innocence. Their belief was subsequently confirmed by the sight of her body, exhibited in a picture shop, ‘she lay in her coffin seemingly as in a sweet sleep, with a smile on her countenance ...no part of her body changed colour in the least for three days after her execution.’ 30 As the fate of John Williams suggested, the state was still at this time operating a theatre of punishment which implied that the felon could suffer material harm post mortem. Significantly, the challenge to the loose collection of beliefs upon which this was predicated came not from religious orthodoxy but from the deistical ideas of the Cato Street conspirators. Hung and then beheaded for treason in 1820,

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__________________________________________________________________ they refused to accept the additional horror of their sentence. Rather, they requested that their bodies and heads be exhibited to raise money for their families. Failing that that they should be sent to the King’s kitchens to be made into soup! 31 The government wisely had them quick-limed in Newgate. With the demise of the public execution in 1868 the crowd no longer had access to the body of the condemned or to the relics of the gallows. Corporeal resurrection continues to this day as a s ubject of many fictional genres-but did genuine belief in the talismanic power of the condemned criminal and his artefacts endure? Why else did thousands travel to Palmetto, Georgia in 1899 to see a man lynched and then to buy a slice of his body? 32 Why did men dip their handkerchiefs in the blood of John Dillinger as he lay dying in 1934? Slavoj Žižek once told a very witty anecdote about the physicist Niels Bohr which illustrates the complex and contradictory nature of what we believe. A fellow scientist, Zizek related, visited Bohr at home and was astounded to see a lucky horseshoe nailed up outside his house. The visitor expressed his astonishment- at which the great physicist was said to have replied, ‘Ah well, I’m told that it works even if you don’t believe in it!’ Is it true that we now believe that the dead body is no more than an empty vessel, that it retains neither personality nor power? As Michael Ragon has put it: The dead are no longer feared, but we continue to shut them away in coffins, which have been nailed down or (even more securely) screwed down, which are then enclosed in sealed, concrete burial vaults, under a very heavy stone. And all this is further enclosed in a cemetery surrounded by high walls, the gates of which are kept locked. 33 No longer quite true perhaps of the common or garden modern cemetery but still an accurate description of the last resting place of many a felon.

Notes 1

IGII (1) 471.26 ff. See also the Athenaion Politeia, 58.1. Simonides frg. 259. 3 Herodotus 1. 67-8. 4 Pausanias 7. 8. 1. 5 Plutarch, Cimon chap. 8. 6 J.D. Mikalson ‘Religion and the Plague in Athens, 431-424 BC’, Studies Presented To S. Dow upon His Eightieth Birthday, Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1984, pp. 217 ff. 7 Pausanias VI. 9. 6. 8 Pausanias VI. 11.2. 2

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E. Wind, ‘The Criminal God’, Journal of the Warburg Institute 1 (1937-8), pp. 243-245. 10 W. Tyndale, Expositions and Notes, H.Walter (ed), Cambridge, 1849, p. 165. 11 1. Jac. 1 c. 12, An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits. 12 G.D. Owen, Elizabethan Wales, Cardiff University Press, Cardiff, 1962, p. 181. 13 Diary of Walter Yonge, G. Roberts (ed), Camden Society, London, 1848, p. xxiii. 14 Court of Great Sessions 13th June 1755, case of Lewis Cynfyn of Crickhowell. The National Library of Wales, fo. 4/381/3, doc. 19. I am grateful to Richard Ireland for this reference. In the USA a similar case is documented in the NewYork Journal or General Advertiser, 1 October 1767 and 29 October 1767. 15 P.J. Guskin, ‘The Context of Witchcraft: The Case of Jane Wenham (1712)’, Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 15, 1981, pp. 48-71. 16 9 Geo. 2 c. 5. 17 25 Geo 2 c. 37 ss. 1-2. 18 P. Linebaugh, ‘The Tyburn Riot against the Surgeons’, Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime and Soc iety in Eighteenth-Century England, D. Hay, P. Linebaugh, J.G. Rule, E.P. Thompson and C. Winslow (eds), London, Pantheon, 1976, pp. 65-118. 19 Report and Evidence of the Select Committee on Anatomy, 1828, Q. 50. 20 V.A.C. Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 17701868, OUP, Oxford, 1994, p. 82. 21 Anon., The Life of Nicholas Mooney: A Notorious Highwayman Executed at Bristol, April 24th 1752, p. 30. 22 J. Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities: Chiefly Illustrating the Origin Of Our Vulgar Customs, Ceremonies and Superstitions, F. Rivington, London, 1813, pp. 582-583. 23 Westminster Journal, 16th June 1768. 24 Brand, Observations, p. 582. 25 F. Grose, A Provincial Glossary: With a Collection of Popular Proverbs and Superstitions, S. Hooper, London, 1787, p. 56. 26 C. Quigley, The Corpse: A History, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 1996, p. 144. 27 Brand, Observations, p. 582 28 Encyclopaedia Metropolitana or Universal Dictionary of Knowledge, Rev. E. Smedley (ed), London, 1845, vol. XIX p. 7. 29 W.K. Wimsatt and F.A. Pottle (eds), Boswell for the Defence, 1769-1774, Heinmann, London, 1960, p. 296. Cited in Gatrell, The Hanging Tree, p. 88. 30 Gatrell, The Hanging Tree, p. 88. 31 G.e Wilkinson, An Authentic History of the Cato-Street Conspiracy; With the Trials at Large of the Conspirators, for High Rreason and Murder: A Description of Their Weapons and Combustible Machines, and Every Particular Connected

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__________________________________________________________________ with the Rise, Progress Discovery, and Termination of the Horrid Plot, T. Kelly, London, 1820, p. 359. 32 Quigley, The Corpse p. 13. 33 M. Ragon, The Space of Death: A Study of Funerary Architecture, Decoration and Urbanism, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1983, p. 16.

Bibliography Anon., The Life of Nicholas Mooney: A Notorious Highwayman, Executed at Bristol, April 24th 1752. Brand. J., Observations on Popular Antiquities: Chiefly Illustrating the Origin of our Vulgar Customs, Ceremonies and Superstitions. F. Rivington, London, 1813. Gatrell, V.A.C., The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770-1868. OUP, Oxford, 1994. Grose, F., A Provincial Glossary: With a Collection of Popular Proverbs and Superstitions. S. Hooper, London, 1787. Guskin, J., ‘The Context of Witchcraft: The Case of Jane Wenham (1712)’. Eighteenth Century Studies. Vol. 15, 1981, pp. 48-71. Linebaugh, P., ‘The Tyburn Riot against the Surgeons’. Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England. Hay, D. et al. (eds), Pantheon, London, 1976. Mikalson, J.D., ‘Religion and the Plague in Athens, 431-424 BC’. Studies Presented To S. Dow upon His Eightieth Birthday. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1984. Owen, G.D., Elizabethan Wales. Cardiff University Press, Cardiff, 1962. Pausanias, Guide to Greece. Penguin edit. Harmonsworth, 1971. Quigley, C. The Corpse: A History. MacFarland, Jefferson, North Carolina, 1996. Ragon, M., The Space of Death: A Study of Funerary Architecture, Decoration and Urbanism. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1983. Roberts, G., Diary of Walter Yonge. Camden Society, London, 1848.

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__________________________________________________________________ Smedley, Rev. E., Encyclopedia Metropolitana or Universal Dictionary of Knowledge. London 1845. Tyndale, W., Expositions and Notes. Walter, H. (ed), Cambridge, 1849. Wilkinson, G., An Authentic Account of the Cato-Street Conspiracy; With the Trials at Large of the Conspirators, for High Treason and Murder: A Description of Their Weapons and Combustible Machines, and Every Particular Connected with the Rise, Progress, Discovery, and Termination of the Horrid Plot. T. Kelly, London, 1820. Wimsatt, W.K. and Pottle, F.A. (eds), Boswell for the Defence, 1769-1774. Heinmann, London, 1960. Wind, E., ‘The Criminal God’. Journal of the Warburg Institute. Vol. 1, 1937, pp. 243-45. Stephen Banks is co-director of the Forum for Legal and Historical Research at the University of Reading and works in the fields of modern criminal law and nineteenth century British history.

Cinema and the Magical Erasure of the Woman OR ‘How do you Make a Woman Disappear?’ Viv Chadder Abstract This chapter examines the techniques for rendering the woman invisible in 19c England, including later specific instances, and with reference specifically the performance of stage magic, specifically with regard to the development of the ‘vanishing lady’ trick, and its implications with regard to anxiety over the proliferation of dysfunctional women and their emergent voice. It then shows the absorption of these themes into early cinema and suggests that it transforms into the development of the ‘locked room’ formula in crime fiction. The work of Méliès and Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes are discussed in detail, and the chapter traces the use of the formula in cinema until and including the latest film by Scorsese, Shutter Island. Through an analogy with The Tempest, it is argued that the paranoid space of earlier films here develops into an ethical space, where there is scope for the performance of good magic? Key Words: magic, performance, vanishing, women, cinema, anxiety, locked room formula. ***** Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, Saying that now you are not as you were When you had changed from the one who was all to me But as at first, when our day was fair. 1. The Invisibility of Woman I shall begin by rehearsing some of the circumstances and methods by which women, in the 19th century have been made to disappear, or vanish. On the level of the social, unruly women have been ‘vanished’ through legal means. Elaine Showalteri has amply demonstrated the ease with which husbands could commit unruly wives to a mental institution without recourse, as demonstrated in the 1946 film Bedlam or perhaps they took up residence in the attic? As in Jane Eyre, marriage in itself could be viewed as a kind of vanishing, an absorption of the self, as envisaged by the heroine, Iris, in Hitchcock’s film, The Lady Vanishes, who demonstrates throughout the film a resolute independence of spirit, and a spontaneous rejection of the ‘official’ husband-to-be in favour of the almost vagrant Gilbert, eccentric collector of folk song. Clearly, death provides a seemingly permanent disappearance, for reference ‘however’ Thomas Hardy’s poems where the departed and estranged wife ‘haunts’ the husband, her voice,

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__________________________________________________________________ embedded in the landscape reinforcing her loss and transformation. Socially, again, creative, women through the 19c disappeared into masculinity to obtain a voice, Mary Ann Evans, becoming George Eliot for example. The end of the 19th century saw a sudden surge in the popularity of the stage magic act of vanishing the woman, or sawing her in half! Its point of decline coincided with the birth of cinema, which appropriated this performance, as frequently witnessed in the ‘trick’ films of Edison and Méliés. I intend to examine the significance of this ‘magic’ in film, and its narrative transformation into the kind of disappearance and return performed in The Lady Vanishes and other more contemporary films. In these kinds of examples what lies behind the idea that ‘seeing is believing’, the privileging of the eye over the voice? In yet another register, a much filmed and debated event is the disappearance of Agatha Christie. On discovering that her husband has a lover, Agatha ‘disappears’. Her abandoned car is found at a Surrey beauty spot, significantly close to a lake. Some time elapses before she is identified as a r esident in a H arrogate hotel where she lives under the assumed name which incorporates the surname of her husband’s lover. This seemingly imponderable clue is difficult to interpret, though it may impact on the process of becoming a woman. For guidance in the matter of magic I shall go to the essays of Jim Steinmeyer, 1 on the art and technique of illusion on the stage., in particular, his essay on ‘Above and Beneath the Saw’. He leaves us in no doubt as to how we should understand the appearance in the 1820s of the act of Sawing a Woman in Half. Today we might conclude that for some reason at that time and place, it was suddenly entertaining to victimize a young lady on stage. Selbit, perhaps quite innocently had come upon the right idea for the right time. 2 He is relatively emphatic as to the violence involved in such an act. Selbit naturally capitalized on his success with publicity stunts. For example, between performances his men poured buckets of murky red liquid into the gutters in front of the theatre. 3 World War I and the Grand Guignol theatre for Steinmeyer are inextricably linked in this development in the profession of magic, as indeed is the campaign for women’s suffrage as the hidden agenda of this implied violence against women. M agicians discovered to their cost, that the man could not replace the woman as victim and feminists were quick to perceive the implications of their struggle.

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__________________________________________________________________ When Richiardi presented the illusion in New York in 1971, the theatre was picketed by feminists. Such protests were encouraged by the magician. They provided important publicity for the show. 4 Other theorists have associated the proliferation of such magic acts with the late 19c idea of a surplus of women, and the anxiety that such an act might appease, 5 On the level of the psyche, we might also consider Freud’s discussion of a child’s game in ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’, 6 which involves the throwing away of an object and the celebration of its return, the pleasure, as with the trick, being incomplete without all three stages, as explained to us in the film from 2006, The Prestige. Can we accept this as an interpretation of the endless repetition and re-staging of loss and reappearance as the rehearsal of an infantile command over a primary trauma? 2. Stage to Screen I have identified a number of films that deploy this trope, sharing a structure with early films of Me/lies. Méliès’ ‘trick’ films usually deploy the cut/edit to achieve the effect of vanishing, and to enable a temporary substitution, for instance of a skeleton for a Victorian lady, reminding us of the familiar magic repertoire which produces the rabbit out of a hat? Or the dove from the sleeve? The effect being to produce something from where it could not be. Everything takes place before your very eyes, so the woman really does disappear, she really is sawn in half as there is no escape. In this extract from The Prestige, the child is not for one moment deceived as to the true horror underlying this magic. The bird is dead. The magician may not reproduce or reanimate. In Hitchcock’s film, The Lady Vanishes, 1938, we are introduced to a range of travellers artificially brought together on a train journey, that is to say a n enclosed space, which places strangers in an intimate setting, but with limited opportunity for disappearance. The disappearing woman, Miss Froy, set in a context of incomplete relationships, is herself surplus, she is the governess who is no longer needed, but who is redeployed for war work. Iris, the heroine is in the place of the child, who does not believe, despite the persistent eyewitness denial of Miss Froy’s existence. Hitchcock demonstrates his awareness of cinematic history and the connection with his film. His train includes a stage magician, a search of the luggage car reveals his magic apparatus, and his major trick, the disappearing woman, but the great Il Doppo is not in the place of the magician here, though he shares the secret. Rather the place of the magician is occupied by the CzechGerman doctor. It is he who causes the lady to vanish. Hitchcock pursues his narrative with a series of delayed ‘substitution’ shots, as in early cinema, a cut to the empty seat which was never occupied by the Miss Froy who never existed,

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__________________________________________________________________ though she is rediscovered as is appropriate to magic acts wrapped like a mummy in bandages. The denial of the others is consistent, but Iris, as with the child, 7 will not believe her eyes. As spectators we too are misled by the magic. All appears to be revealed. The evil magician is found out, but we see Miss Froy, the secret agent shot before our eyes, no bullet catch trick here. We are in doubt, but Iris persists in her belief, and of course we should expect the ‘prestige’. Cabinet doors are opened by the magician’s assistants to reveal Miss Froy, alive and well in London, rising from behind the piano, and appearing like the rabbit, dressed in black velvet with white fur trim from out the magician’s hat, her precious assignment completed while Iris, resists her own imminent vanishing into marriage. A magical ‘happy’ return by all parties, even for the cricket, ‘rain stopped play’, they missed nothing. The Hollywood film A Letter to Three Wives is of interest in this context. We are introduced to three wives and their less than perfect marriages. All three have husbands who knew a certain woman, Attie Ross. As they embark on a school outing, leaving their husbands who give less than satisfactory explanations as to how they are to spend their day and evening, the wives receive a letter from their old friend Attie. She is leaving town like them but for good, and she will take]e one of their husbands with her. Flashbacks and voice- over narrate for us the emptiness of their marriages. The seductress, Attie remains invisible, known to us, the spectators, as a v oice - over, and once as a s exy bare arm, smoking a ci garette (indicative of a sexual encounter), closeted with one of the husbands. This invisibility confirms her status as a male fantasy, which leaves the three ‘real’ women deserted. Two of the would-be erring husbands reject their fantasy and return. Only the older miserable industrialist finishes off the vanished woman and.allows for the destruction of the fantasy woman. He ran away with Attie but he returns to his wife. He rejects the fantasy and agrees to the (Lacanian) impossibility of the sexual relation. Only Attie’s voice- over, knowing and complicit reminds us that this fantasy woman is indestructible and may always return. 3. The Locked Room Formula With the more recent films, Flight Plan (2005) and Shutter Island (2010), we find some further developments of the trope, but still the structure remains. In the place of the train we have the airplane or the isolated island with only one harbour. This is the familiar device of the crime narrative, and the magic trick? The locked room, and impossible crime? So how does a woman disappear here? This time, in Flight Plan we experience a maternal trauma. We have a dead husband, (suicide or murder?) and a traumatized daughter. Flying the dead body over to the States, the mother conceals her daughter beneath a cloak of invisibility. Only we, the spectators see her legs beneath the coat and ‘know;’ she is on the plane. The child vanishes, and nobody has seen her. It is as if the magician this time has succeeded in his trick. To the mother, everyone is complicit. She appears increasingly

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__________________________________________________________________ delusional. Is the child already dead? Did the father ensure his daughter died as well, in the fall? Eventually we learn that the child has been made to disappear on the plane by means of a complicated plot to hold the plane hostage. The magician relies on the effect of maternal trauma. She will access the locked coffin with secret explosives, to find her daughter. The mother rejects the seeds of doubt and the hint of failed relation. She will not refuse the evidence of her eyes. We, the spectator, know the trick must be completed and the child restored. The magician’s ‘envy’ is not gratified; he misunderstands the boundlessness of enraged, maternal deprivation and her knowledge of ‘matrixial space’, 8 and is defeated by her. I would argue that this film exacts a penalty for transgression from the woman, who is an aircraft engineer and who exhibits unlikely knowledge of the secret inner workings of the aircraft which enables the ‘natural order’ to be restored? Lucy Fischer discussing the early magic trick films of Méliès and others, talks of the function of early cinema as expressing anxiety concerning woman’s procreative function 4. Birth Envy: The Creative Mother But certainly not all magical practice involves a thinly disguised hostility toward women. W hat about tricks producing rabbits from hats or flowers from cones? Though it is true that such stunts do not suggest male aggression toward women, they can nonetheless be seen as constituting a s ubmerged discourse on male-female relations. For when one begins to examine those sleights of hand so characteristic of magic tradition, one is struck by how many of them centre on the theme of creation: men pulling rabbits out of hats, making flowers grow from canes. Bringing mechanical automata to life: All of these acts seem like symbolic interpretations of birth, and their occurrence at the hands of the male magician speaks of an envy of what is essentially, the female procreative function. 9 So we might suggest that such a film as Flightplan follows in a tradition that deploys the structure of the magic trick in order to impose on the woman the hostility of the Other, which manifests itself as indifference to the seizure of a child and the ensuing maternal tragedy? 5. Paranoid Space Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it i nherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind.

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__________________________________________________________________ It is with this reference to The Tempest that I shall begin my brief discussion of Shutter Island, The Tempest being a play after all, that deals in good and bad magic. At first sight, this film seems not to obey the formula of the previous films discussed? I shall argue, however, that it shares with them a vanished woman, a paranoid atmosphere and a remote, isolated location, as indeed does The Tempest, and that the film involves a magical substitution by transforming a paranoid space into an ethical one. The Marshall, Ted and his new deputy arrive at an island, to encounter no pastoral idyll, but a bleak, brutal, inhospitable landscape, where they are marooned by a tempest. Ted’s assignment is to search for a woman disappeared, from this asylum for the criminally insane. His hidden agenda is to avenge the death of his wife at the hands of an arsonist whom he believes to be an inmate. H e encounters instead fantasies, violent, blood-stained and murderous indeed, a dead wife and drowned children, or combusted family, combined with holocaust memories. No calling voice lingers in the landscape. The lost woman is discovered in a cave, but she is unruly psychiatrist/fantasy, not inmate. The power of the cinematic image persuades us, the spectator, to accompany Ted on his journey as he himself is persuaded, but of course, as in The Prestige, this is a magician’s trick. Ted opts for permanent disappearance. So here we have no charming illusion as in The Illusionist, where woman and magician vanish, they are true escapologists, from a c ruel Crown Prince. This ‘good’ magic, as in The Tempest, demands confrontation and expiation of guilt, not just exposure and destruction of a cruel regime, which enables not just physical, but ethical freedom? Is this a new development? Where the ‘locked room; device does not just preoccupy itself with the woman alone, but with the magical transformation of a paranoid space into an ethical one? This film has been widely criticized for ambiguity, an equivocal conclusion. It has caused disappointment in some viewers and anger in others. As spectators we share the position of a man who is revealed to be a murderer, whose pathology prohibits him from acknowledging his guilt, and that he himself is the criminal he seeks. Like Prospero in The Tempest, though, he admits ‘This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine’ this absence of conclusiveness may perhaps arise from the failure of the film to restore the woman with whose loss we have become most involved? The power of the magician is undermined? or undertakes an alternative project. The temporary enclosed world of the island produces no white rabbit, but an extra signifier?

Notes 1

J. Steinmeyer, Art and Artifice: and Other Essays on Illusion, Carroll and Graf, New York, 2006. 2 Ibid., pp. 78-79. 3 Ibid., p. 82. 4 Ibid., p. 1200.

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K. Beckman, Vanishing Women, Magic, Film and Feminism, Duke UP, Durham London, 2003. 6 S. Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Martino Fine Books, Eastford, 2009. 7 The Prestige, 2006. 8 This concept is developed in the work of Bracha Ettinger. 9 L. Fischer, ‘The Trick Film, The Lady Vanishes: Women, Magic and the Movies’, Cinematernity: Film, Motherhood, Genre, Princeton University Press, 1996, p. 47.

Bibliography Steinmeyer, J., Art and Artifice: and Other Essays on Illusion. Graf, New York, 2006. Beckman, K., Vanishing Women, Magic, Film and F eminism. Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2003. Fischer, L., ‘The Trick Film: The Lady Vanishes: Women, Magic, and the Movies’. Cinematernity: Film, Motherhood, Genre. Princeton University Press, 1996. Showalter, E., ‘The Female Malady’. Women, Madness and English Culture, 18301980. Pantheon Press, New York, 1987. Films The Vanishing Lady. Hichcock, A. (dir). Viv Chadder has recently retired as a senior lecturer in film and cultural studies from Nottingham Trent University. She is currently a PhD student at De Montfort University, Leicester. Her main interests are feminism, horror films and Freudian Lacanian interpretations of film and literature.

Shifting the Focus: Magical Beings as Sympathetic Other Nadine Farghaly Abstract Since we live in a s ociety which has embraced stories about vampires and werewolves and regards them as a part of our mythical heritage, it is not very surprising that the audience is craving new monsters with whom they can identify. These magical beings are filling the pages of books and the screens of televisions in an ever increasing number; nowadays, it is not enough to dazzle the audience with reoccurring plots and ideas about our favorite bloodsucking fiends and their furry counterparts, instead authors and screenwriters need to extend their realms to include other magical creatures like dragons, centaurs, and mermaids. During the last five years these magical shape-shifting bodies celebrated a co meback like never before. G.A. Aiken and P.C. Cast are among the many authors who utilize this growing need for new heroes and magical creatures. Their paranormal romance stories are filled with wonder and magic and most of all understanding. Rafford Pyke states in ‘What Women Like in Men’ that women ‘hesitate no more [once they have found] the man who understands, the man whom women never can forget.’ According to him and other scholars sympathy is a trait that women look most for in romance. I propose that these novels are so popular with the female audience because they demonstrate a strong kinship between the male protagonist and the female readership. Both beings are regarded as other, and one could even say shape-shifters. Using novels from the above mentioned authors and theories by Janice A. Radway, Rafford Pyke and others I will demonstrate why these magical beings are superseding more familiar beings such as vampires, and why it became necessary for authors to reutilize these magical creatures. Key Words: shape-shifting, sex, romance, dragon, vampire, the Other. ***** Since we live in a society which has embraced stories about vampires and werewolves and regards them as a p art of our mythical heritage, it is not very surprising that the audience is craving new monsters with whom they can identify. These magical beings are filling the pages of books and the screens of televisions in an ever increasing number; nowadays, it is not enough to dazzle the audience with reoccurring plots and ideas about our favorite bloodsucking fiends and their furry counterparts, instead authors and screenwriters need to extend their realms to include other magical creatures like dragons, centaurs and mermaids. During the last ten years these magical shape-shifting bodies celebrated a comeback like never before. G.A. Aiken and P.C. Cast are among the many authors who utilize this growing need for new heroes and magical creatures. Their

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__________________________________________________________________ paranormal romance stories are filled with wonder and magic and most of all understanding. Rafford Pyke states in ‘What Women Like in Men’ that women ‘hesitate no more [once they have found] the man who understands, the man whom women never can forget.’ 1 According to him and other scholars kinship is a trait that women look most for in romance. I propose that these novels are so popular with the female audience because they demonstrate a strong similarity between the male protagonist and the female readership. Both beings are regarded as other, and one could even say shape-shifters. Using novels from the above mentioned authors and theories by Janice A. Radway and Rafford Pyke. I will demonstrate why these magical beings are superseding more familiar beings such as vampires, and why it became necessary for authors to reutilize these magical creatures. At this point let me say that I’m not saying that there have not been any stories about centaurs, mermaids or dragons before, because they have. Especially if you look at the different genres, for example science fiction or fantasy because there are a lot of dragons, but the focus is slightly different because sexual relations are not the emphasis of the story; it is positioned at the margins but not in the center. While in romance novels one certainly has a d ifferent angle to this, here the relationship between two main characters is at the center of the action, and everything else happens around them. To demonstrate my point, it is necessary to explain the role vampires play for us. Nina Auerbach notes in her book Our Vampires, Our Selves that every generation creates its own vampire. She illustrates how Bram Stoker’s Dracula influenced the vampire myth, Auerbach illustrates that while vampires incorporated different personas and aspects over the centuries: ‘The Vampires our own century creates are empire builders.’ 2 She emphasizes that the vampire has moved beyond such romantic notions and states that ‘after Dracula, they moved to America and turned into rulers.’ 3 (Additionally, she stresses: ‘In the United States especially, Dracula has been one constant in the volatile twentieth century….the king Americans are not supposed to want.’ 4 According to her, vampires have now more power than ever. They are ‘kings’ who rule and act; they do not confirm their actions with other individuals. Like patriarchy reproduces itself, the vampires have reinvented their own traditions. They took charge of their own destiny driven by the urge to assert power and to dominate others. Throughout her book, Auerbach reinstates that vampires are, by all means, capable of fulfilling the role as patriarch. She reminds her audience that ‘Stoker’s Dracula … was fundamentally a r apist’ 5 who forced himself not only on the female, but also on the male body. However, it needs to be understood that vampires are not completely masculine; they share distinctive features with the feminine realm, as well. Dracula, or any other vampire for that matter, needs blood to exist. He needs to consume it regularly, and therefore, it is unproblematic to associate vampires with women. The author Barbara Creed states that ‘the vampire, like the female body, is

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__________________________________________________________________ not clean and pure and closed.’ 6 Therefore, the vampiric body is as ‘Other’ as the female body. The female body loses blood and this process is usually accompanied by a state of discomfort. Bram Dijkstra, quoted in The Lure of the Vampire, argues that ‘the vampire demonstrates the way western culture simultaneously hates, fears and fetishes the female body‚’ and he concludes that ‘all vampires represent the female body in a distorted and monstrous form.’ 7 Like the female body, Dracula is able to transform. Female bodies transform when they are pregnant and they are also able to give life. Dracula is able to transform into a wolf, into rats and into a bat but more important than that, he is able to give eternal life. Dracula himself states, ‘blood is life... and it s hall be mine.’ 8 He knows that he needs blood to survive. Dracula starts Mina’s transformation into another being, saying ‘Then...I give you life eternal. Everlasting love…Walk with me...to be my loving wife...forever’ 9, and, therefore, Dracula is the creator of a new being. He ‘gives birth’ to someone, which emphasizes his feminization even more. But the figure of the vampire is not enough anymore. It is not enough to craft another story depicting a l eechlike (usually defanged (in one way or another)) vampire who eventually overcomes his bloodlust (as well as other personal matters) and rides into the proverbial night with his chosen bride. Vampires don’t cut it anymore! This can be seen in the steadily published paranormal romance novels where a vampire isn’t just a vampire anymore; Dracula has gone hybrid. The vampiric figure has been mixed with other mystical creatures like demons, phantoms, berserkers, and dragons. J.R. Ward and Kresley Cole are among the others who excel at creating new vampires and these new beings range from vamons (demon + vampire) to phantires (phantom + vampire); demonstrating a wide range of new mystical beings that supersede ‘pure’ vampires. Vampires have become too familiar, to mundane and to boring. They seem to have lost their bite. They have been around for so long that it is not completely unsurprising that authors needed to up the ante. In addition, one ends to be aware that vampires are inherently human while dragons and other creatures were never human to begin with. Nonetheless, I propose that a co uple of the aspects that help to feminize vampires can therefore be applied to other shape shifting entities. Now that I have demonstrated how we can interpret a monstrous being such as the century old Dracula himself as feminine, or at least demonstrated his close similarity with the female body, it becomes clearer how these ideas can be applied to other monsters as well. As was mentioned before, although vampires are still among the favorite monsters, they have long lost their monopoly. During the last five to ten years, bookshelves around the world have been filled with novels about mermaids, dragons, centaurs and other mystical and magical creatures. These rejuvenated monsters have found a secure place among readers as well as writers. While Aiken has an affinity for dragons, Cast focuses in her Divine series on centaurs. All of these creatures share one very important aspect; they are able to

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__________________________________________________________________ shift. According to the situation and their personal needs, these protagonists shift their bodies from human or human/animal hybrid to their animal form and back. One of the most important aspects here is that this shift never happens without some kind of loss. Whether it is the experience of pain or a general weakness that follows the transformation, shifting bodies comes with a price. Again this can be linked to the female body where the shifting cycle is also connected to some kind of pain, weakness or at least change inside the body. The best example for this would be Cast’s character ClanFintan. The centaur experiences a huge loss of power after every transition. Therefore, he’s not able to shift back and forth according to his own personal needs or wishes. In addition to this, the centaur really needs to schedule his transformations to avoid feeling helpless and out of control. Since Casts novel play during wartime this fact is of great importance. Whenever ClanFintan wants to join the battle or is preparing a campaign, he is unable to shift several days before that because it would weaken him. This facet is especially important when the aspect of having sex comes in to play. Often times it is necessary for ClanFintan and his wife to either postpone sexual intercourse or to find other means of finding sexual gratification. As Rafford Pyke states ‘she hesitates no more; for she has met the man who understands, the man whom women never can forget. There lives no woman who could not make the work of Emerson her creed. ‘When I meet a man whose mind is like my own but stronger, then I become his very slave.’ 10 Pyke has a very peculiar idea about women in general since he also states that it is hard saying but it’s true that the men whom women love the most, are men who are quite capable of cruelty, not likely nor without reason yet beyond all doubt. When a woman feels that if she makes mistakes, if she assumes too much, or if she goes too far in her caprices the gentleness will shrivel away in its place will rise a terrifying harshness then she will have the real happiness that comes to the true woman, when she knows that she has found her master.’ 11 Although Pyke’s ideas need to be examined carefully, since they paint a rather bleak picture of a woman’s state of mind, his ideas cannot be dismissed completely. Especially is idea off a woman needing a master is very important for this work since one reason of the resurgence of non vampiric shape shifting bodies, seems to be rooted in the lack of danger and violence vampires possess nowadays. One just has to look at the recent publications to see why readers feel the need of more dangerous creatures. The latest publications in the vampire genre demonstrate and abandons of defanged vegetarian vampires who are just a washed out version of their predatory ancestors.

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__________________________________________________________________ Therefore, Pyke’s ideas cannot be discharged entirely since it appears to be very likely that a lot of romance novels work on the principles mentioned above. The female protagonists of these romance novels are not only seeking a mate, but they are also looking for someone who can understand them and to whom they can connect on an emotional level and who would be better suited than an also othered being? Janice A. Radway discusses these aspects in her book Reading the romance. ‘[Often a hero] embodies an ideal hero’s love for his heroine in the image of a mother who stays is with her child throughout a storm to soothe away its fears... This romantic heroine is... Sensuously aroused by the promise of being nurtured as a child is by its mother... A nurturing hero is the ideal male partner who is capable of fulfilling both object rolled roles in a woman’s triangular inner-object configuration. His spectacular masculinity underscores his status as her heterosexual lover and confirms the completeness of her rejection of her childlike self. At the same time, his extraordinary tenderness and capacity for gentle nurturance means she does not have to give up the physical part of her mother’s attentions. The symbolic recovery of primary love and the total security and identity confirmation it implies, finally enable her to embrace a new identity as mature woman.’ 12 Of course this does not mean that every woman who is in favor of reading romance novels tries to reconnect with her mother as well as to connect with a partner, but it goes without question that many romance novels operate on these principles. In Aiken’s novels, no heroine had a successful relationship with her mother so far. On the contrary either their mothers died, or were real bitches. The same is true for Cast, her heroine’s mother died when she was little. Therefore, all of these heroines could on a subconscious level try to reconnect with their mothers or the nurturing environment they offered. Many of the above mentioned aspects highlight that women are not only looking for a partner, but on a subconscious level also for a nurturer who resembles them in some way. This is where the dragons and other shape shifters come into play. Due to all the reasons mentioned above, it becomes clear why shape shifting entities have become so popular, their ‘otherness’ links them not only the female protagonists but also the female readers and the danger they stand for, appeals, according to Pyke, to a woman’s need for a master. While Aiken’s dragons don’t suffer from weakness while they shift, it i s still stressed throughout the book, that it is not the Dragon that functions as the disguise but the human form. Aiken mentions the word human 202 times and the word Dragon 419 times. The author focuses a l ot on this aspect. The following quotes represent just a fraction of the actual scenes where the author reminds her readers of the fact that the Dragon is in fact not human. ‘He snorted a laugh. ‘Hate is a human emotion. It means nothing to me.’ 13 ‘Trapped in a cave with three human-eating dragons—she

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__________________________________________________________________ should be terrified beyond all reason.’ 14 ‘In the end, I am human. And you, … are clearly not human.’ 15 ‘Glancing to her left, she saw the human form of the dragon stretched out next to her.’ 16 ‘Briec leaned in and whispered softly in her ear, ‘Remember, … Not human.’ 17 ‘How do I make you comfortable with who I am? Because nothing will change the fact that I am a dragon. I can shift to a human form, but I am in no way human. And to be quite honest, I have no desire to be.’ 18 ‘My body’s human, but … you’re dealing with pure dragon.’ 19 It becomes very clear, that there is no confusion whatsoever about what the Dragon actually is. Both Briec and Talaith are fully aware of who or what the other is. Talaith knows that she’s dealing with the Dragon at all times, the quotes above make it clear that even when the Dragon is in his human form, he is still a Dragon. A human eating Dragon at that. Therefore, it can be seen without a doubt, that both characters know that they are as different from each other as night and day. Nonetheless, this aspect does in no way diminish the attraction they feel for each other. On the contrary, I would argue that it is this difference that not only brought them together, but it’s also the reason for their great fit. The dragons pose a danger to the frail human body that most vampires no longer do. The similarity between shape shifting beings and women, as well as the danger they represent, are essential aspects of these paranormal romance novels. Since this is a work in progress I am not yet sure where all of this is going to end, but it goes without question that the appearances of shape shifting bodies and paranormal romance novels is a trend that should be analyzed. Taking into consideration that the romance novel occupies about 50% of the book market, we should not fall into the trap of merrily dismissing these novels as low culture, but they should be given the attention and focus that not only they but also their readers deserve.

Notes 1

S.O. Weisser, Women and Romance: A Reader, New York University Press, New York, NY 2001, p. 48. 2 N. Auerbach, Our Vampires, Ourselves, University of Chicago, Chicago, 1995, p. 60. 3 Ibid., p. 101. 4 Ibid., p. 112. 5 Ibid., p. 114. 6 M. Williamson, The Lure of the Vampire: Gender, Fiction and Fandom from Bram Stoker to Buffy, Wallflower, London, 2005, p. 12. 7 Ibid., p. 11. 8 Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Dir. F. Ford Coppola. Prod. F. Ford Coppola. Perf. G. Oldman, W. Ryder and A. Hopkins, Columbia Pictures, 1992, DVD. 9 Ibid.

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__________________________________________________________________ 10

Weisser, op. cit., p. 48. Ibid., p. 49. 12 J.A. Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1984, p. 147. 13 G.A. Aiken, About a Dragon, Kensington Publishing, New York, 2008, p. 16. 14 Ibid., p. 23. 15 Ibid., p. 14. 16 Ibid., p. 31. 17 Ibid., p. 94. 18 Ibid., p. 192. 19 Ibid., p. 208. 11

Bibliography Aiken, G.A., About a Dragon. Kensington Pub, New York, 2008. Auerbach, N., Our Vampires, Ourselves. University of Chicago, Chicago, 1995. Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Dir. Ford Coppola, F., Prod. Ford Coppola, F., Perf. Oldman, G., Ryder, W. and Hopkins, A., Columbia Pictures, 1992, DVD. Cast, P.C., Divine by Choice. Luna, New York, NY, 2009. —, Divine by Mistake. Luna, New York, NY, Luna, 2009. Radway, J.A., Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1984. Weisser, S.O., Women and Romance: A Reader. New York University Press, New York, NY, 2001. Williamson, M., The Lure of the Vampire: Gender, Fiction and Fandom from Bram Stoker to Buffy. Wallflower, London, 2005. Nadine Farghaly, M.A., is studying at the University of Salzburg. While her research interests embrace various themes like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Potter, she mainly focuses on gender representations within popular culture. She writes a PhD-thesis with the working-title ‘Unleashing the Beast and Claiming the Human: Reoccurring Instances of Zoophilia and Bestiality and their Meaning in Genre Fiction.’

Schools for Wizards George Hersh Abstract Members of the Neo-Pagan community display beliefs about the existence and operation of magic that differ significantly from the beliefs exemplified in folk traditions and systems. The Neo-Pagan belief complex is heavily influenced by literary sources and shows strong respect for literary fictional representations of magic and the training of magic workers. In Western fiction, a n arrative has evolved to describe the training of a magician. This ‘magician’s progress’ is related to Raglan’s ‘hero’s journey’ as popularized by Joseph Campbell, but follows its own sequence: secrecy, selection, initiation, training, mastery, transgression, and transcendence. The stories that embody the best-developed and the most philosophically interesting ideas often include parodies or satires of mundane higher education and of the various public expressions of esoteric occult belief. This study centres on four fictional schools for wizards, their associated psychologies and their relationships to present-day functioning schools of magic or magical religion. The fictional schools are Le Guin’s Roke, Pratchett’s Unseen University, Rowling’s Hogwarts, and Grossman’s Brakebills. The real world exemplars are The Grey School of Wizardry and Cherry Hill Seminary. Literary descriptions of the process of becoming a magician present a set of overlapping career path elements. Of these, the almost universal prerequisite is hereditary predisposition. The most common second requisite is the acquisition of an object, entity, or process affording access to magical power. Eleven modes of access to this second requisite are briefly described: Develop The Magical Will, Develop Dexterity, Learn a Magical Language, Get the Book(s), Learn the Powers of Plants, Ingest a Magical Substance, Acquire an Object-of-Power, Acquire a Ma gical Servant, Apprenticeship or Servant robs Master, Visit the Underworld, Go to School. Key Words: Wizard, magician, sorcerer, education, fiction, university, magic, school, college. 1. Belief Systems in Representative Fiction Four outstanding works of fiction spanning nearly half a century describe the education of wizards in disparate academic institutions: Le Guin’s Roke, 1 Pratchett’s Unseen University, 2 Rowling’s Hogwarts, 3 and Grossman’s Brakebills. 4 The school on Roke Island and its world of Earthsea are described with detailed gravity. Unseen University and Hogwarts are shown in broadly humorous styles, each with elaborate attention to detail. Brakebills is set in the present day United States, and uses the devices of magical realism to draw the reader into a convincing milieu.

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__________________________________________________________________ How does the idea of a school for magicians work in a story? T. H. White’s Merlin is privately tutored by Blaise. 5 Prospero learns directly from his books. 6 But Sparrowhawk and Rincewind and Harry Potter and Quentin Coldwater go to school and the school experience is the making of them. The fictional schools are total-immersion environments in which major transformations of personality and motivation are routinely achieved. But for each of these students, the magic of their school fails. Wilful independence pries each from the launching grooves of the curriculum and sets them adrift to create their own masteries and individual destinies. To a large degree, each of our four exemplars is descended from the British School Story genre. George Orwell partially traced the origins of the form to Tom Brown’s Schooldays and to Stalky and Company. 7 Tom Brown is shaped and moulded by his school experience, but Stalky, Beetle, and M’Turk survive as mocking non-conformists, outsiders, and aliens, even as they learn and are nourished. In Western fiction, a narrative has emerged that describes the academic training of a magician. This ‘magician’s progress’ is related to Raglan’s ‘hero’s journey’ as popularized by Joseph Campbell, 8 but follows its own sequence: secrecy, selection, initiation, training, mastery, transgression, and transcendence. Our own schooling allows many of us resonate to the School Story, but what kind of reader needs the Magic School Story and what is it that they need? How many of us read because we want magic to be true. How many read to defend our selves against the possibility of a real magic by confining the idea to the manageable space of fiction? At least three kinds of people have a hotly motivated interest in magic: magic makers: would-be, professional, traditional, or amateur; magic consumers: those who feel the need for magical assistance and believe or hope that they can obtain it from another; and academicians: ever on the hunt for unexploited themes or fresh publishable views of old scenes. Academia has always offered the compelled a refuge, an apotropaic, or a counter-magic against the chaos of the world-as-it-is. And beyond all these readers dwells the multitude, those who, like Quentin Coldwater, read of Fillory, or Narnia, or Oz, or The Shire and never quite come home again. Stories of school-trained magicians tell us of a s hared set of career path elements. Of these, the almost universal first requisite is hereditary or birth-evident predisposition. The bulk of the short spiritual autobiographical essays posted on the NeoPagan web site The Witches’ Voice echo this theme in many variations. 9 The issue of male vs. female magical aptitude is variously dealt with. LeGuin started by describing a male-centred and misogynistic magical belief system and, over the course of six books, evolved a narrative in which males are not inherently privileged (although it helps to be descended from a dragon). 10 Pratchett, ever open to satiric sabotage, introduces one gifted female magic worker, the eighth child of a wizard, and throws her into the all-male functioning of Unseen University. 11

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__________________________________________________________________ Rowling is conscientious about documenting female student and staff presence at Hogwarts. Grossman is carefully egalitarian from the start. Although a strong strain of female-only training exists in the Neo- Pagan community, the most widely known schools are egalitarian. Some see balanced male-female polarity as essential. Most accept and include gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. 2. Getting There is Half the Fun Secrecy: In LeGuin and Pratchett the existence of the magician’s school is widely known, but in all four narratives the content of the curriculum is secret, revealed slowly after matriculation. Outsiders may obtain magical knowledge from other sources. The schools see such external training as doubtful, threatening, or subversive For readers, apparently, our breaching of the secret allows us to become insiders, participatory voyeurs, our imagination captured by the appeal of power and special advantage. A colleague has written me: ‘When I taught the seminar on Harry Potter (...), the first year I had students who were Harry’s exact age-mates (which meant A LOT to them) and they told me (and I heard this from my own kid too) that they were devastated on their 11th birthdays not to get their letter from Hogwarts.’ 12 Selection: Each fictional school has its own method of selection. Each has the effect of leading the reader through a process of self-doubt and subsequent external validation. Selection involves the recognition of burgeoning talent, by a mage, a magical register, or a mana-leakage-detector. The magical world is constrained to recognize the promise of a candidate. In each school, as well as in many other non-school magical training stories, the pattern of selection resembles accounts of the recognition of religious figures of significant power and charisma. The selected individuals are initially the objects of motivated seeking by the schools or by individual teachers. For students of extant mundane magic schools, the selection process is wordof-mouth and on-line search plus a willingness to pay for training. The for-pay schools and numerous free trainings by ‘traditions’ usually incorporate a religious component and hence, an implied belief system. The fictional schools avoid the incorporation of a religion, either as a deliberate philosophic choice or by omitting any overt mention. Initiation: The Master Doorkeeper of the Roke School vets, and admits eligible applicants by inspection and challenge. The usual Unseen University student is identified and sponsored by an established wizard known to the faculty. Sponsorship almost ensures acceptance after a cursory inspection by the assembled instructors and administration. At Hogwarts, initiation takes the form of ‘sorting,’ a magical divinatory ritual which assigns the new students to one of the four school

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__________________________________________________________________ houses. Brakebills students undergo a s eries of initiations at each stage of their education, including a third year ordeal in Antarctica. For the reader, knowledge of initiation is a desired stage after selection. The word carries at least three associated meanings: A rite that marks transition from one stage of development to the next, A ceremonial admission to a body of knowledge, A transfer of mana or of the ability to manipulate some form of magical energy to a new practitioner. As readers, we participate vicariously in each of these meanings and feel ourselves transformed. The real-world magic schools try to provide their students an initiatory experience, often of the kind performed by fraternal organizations. A major difficulty for these schools is that the transformative effect of most initiations relies upon prior secrecy and the anticipation of an unknown ordeal. Such secrecy is impossible to maintain in the face of an earnest internet search effort. Training: Each fictional narrative describes curriculum subjects and selected classroom events in incomplete but intriguing detail, a necessary step for the development of participatory identification by the reader. Curriculum listings provide structure and order to the laws of magic of each fictional universe. For each, magic is the art of strong metaphor, the definitions of the English Department made flesh: Metaphor - changing a word from its literal meaning to one analogous; assertion of identity. With magic, metaphoric transformations are actual and material. Metonymy - substitution of cause for effect, a n ame for one of its qualities. Magical causes create effects by applying the laws of contiguity and similarity. Learning the true name of a thing or entity establishes control. Synechdoche - substitution of a part for whole, species for genus. The ‘voodoo doll’ of popular belief is a familiar example of the efficacious substitution of part for whole. Mastery: Magical mastery can be described as an achievement of phronesis. Dreyfus argues that phronesis is the spontaneous ability to choose the right action; to transcend internalized rules and practices. 13 Phronesis, following Dreyfus, is fluent mastery of a discipline or area of knowledge, the acquired ability to ‘get it right’ under the stress of emergency. Recent popular psychology has advocated the ideas of ‘the flow,’ an effortless rightness achieved through sympathy with the nature of a task and perfection of the needed skill sets. We readers are given the opportunity to identify with an individual in the state of ‘flow,’ a master who has achieved a magical phronesis. Different mundane magic schools solve the problem of achieving mastery in many ways: successful passing of a series of courses, reviews, and personal essays, approval by qualified elders, survival of an ordeal. They reduce their requirements to a close imitation of the degree requirements of standard academic institutions. Transgression: Stories require a ch allenge to the reader to maintain interest. The School Story shows us an individual in training for a well-defined role. The Magical School Story speaks of one who cannot or will not follow the prescribed

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__________________________________________________________________ path to mastery. Sparrowhawk summons a malevolent shadow and is driven from the school by the contamination of his summoning. Rincewind, as a beginner, reads and absorbs a powerful spell that frightens any subsequent magical skill from entering his mind. Harry Potter is magically bound to his nemesis Voldemort and cannot complete his magical education until his enemy is dead. Quentin Coldwater works diligently, but is unable to commit himself to anything. For us as readers, the fascination of transgression lies in the idea of ‘the outsider,’ the person who must break the rules and strike out on his own. Identifying with the outsider allows us to gloss our own shortcomings and incapacities as necessary imperfections. It opens us to the idea of magic as an active force in our individual lives. The mundane magic schools systematize and structure transgression. By their very existence, they represent defiance of culturally accepted norms. The more conservative, like Cherry Hill Seminary, mollify this image by emphasizing skills that are also needed by mundane clergy dedicated to serving communities. 14 The schools most closely approaching the fictions, like the Grey School of Wizardry, include courses on the taxonomy and behaviour of supernatural beasts and beings. 15 Transcendence: Plot closure requires the heroic transgressor to achieve mastery by surpassing the established career path of the run-of-the- mill magic worker. This need is echoed by the peculiar development in the recent magic-working culture of chaos magic. Where traditional ceremonial magic is an almost pure construct of obsessive/compulsive behaviour, chaos magic is the niche of the rebel risk-taker, who sees all rules in suspension without penalty. For the reader, transcendence is Tolkien’s eucatastrophe, for the student it can be a distant but cherished dream. 16 3. Empowerment by Hook or by Crook The most common second requisite for magic working is the acquisition of an object, entity, or process opening access to power. Eleven alternative modes of this second requisite are briefly identified here. The last, ‘Go to School,’ is built from a select list of the other modes shaped into a formal curriculum. Develop The Magical Will: This was Aleister Crowley’s emphasis and is a staple of ceremonial magic. 17 The argument runs: The operations of the mind produce manifestations in the world. Sufficient learned control of the mind should produce more consistent and stronger effects. Develop Dexterity: Sleight of hand is treated as a preliminary to the learning of supernatural magic. The appeal is to the economy of means: Never use a transformative spell where an illusion will do, never use an illusion where a deception will suffice. See the lessons of the Master Hand at Roke and Brakebill’s assignment of Practical Exercises for Young Magicians as a beginner’s textbook. 18

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__________________________________________________________________ Learn a Magical Language: Examples are Latin, Hebrew, and Le Guin’s The Speech of Making. The languages of conduct of religious services and the tongues of magical beings are favored. Get the Book(s): See Davies account of grimoires for an inclusive discussion. 19 Words in books are seen as more powerful and more to be respected than common conversation.. Learn the Powers of Plants: Plants that grant magical powers extend from moly to ayahuasca. Botanicas, herbalists, and kitchen witches agree that you had better know where to find the plants that soothe an itch. Ingest a Magical Substance: the Salmon of Knowledge, Cerridwen’s broth, the Tomtsnake, Fafnir’s heart. Acquire an Object-of-Power: Ring (The One Ring in Tolkien is morphologically a wedding ring.), Lamp, Wand, Staff, Tattoo, each can be imbued with power or be the residence of a powerful but subservient entity. Acquire a Magical Servant: Magical assistants range from minor consultants to major supernatural entities. The magician can form a b ond with a familiar, a revenant spirit, a captive demon, or a jinni, but must beware the servant who becomes master such as Mephistopheles. Apprenticeship or Servant robs Master: In many tales, such as The King o the Black Art, Magical power is earned by serving a master or by accidently or purposefully absconding with power that the master wished to retain for himself. 20 Visit the Underworld: In stories, usually for a specific item. In shamanic initiation, a necessary experience to be converted into a repeatable skill. 21 Go to School: Some or all of the above, formalized as a curriculum.

Notes 1

U.K. LeGuin, A Wizard of Earthsea, Parnassus Press, Berkeley, CA, 1968. T. Prachett, Rincewind The Wizzard, SFBC Fantasy, New York, N.Y.,1999. 3 J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Bloomsbury, London, UK, 1997. 4 L. Grossman, The Magicians, Viking, New York, N.Y., 2009. 5 T.H. White, The Sword in the Stone, Dell, New York N.Y., 1963. 6 W. Shakespeare, The Tempest, Oxford U. Press, USA, 2008. 7 G. Orwell, ‘Boys’ Weeklies’, Horizon, No. 3, GB, London, 1940. 8 J. Campbell, The Hero with a T housand Faces, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1972. 9 The Witches Voice, http://witchvox.com/, Accessed 30/01/2011. 10 A.M. Clarke, Ursula K. LeGuin’s Journey to Post-Feminism, McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson N.C., 2010 and U.K. Le Guin, ‘Magic, The School on Roke, Celibacy and Wizardry’, Tales from Earthsea, Ace, Penguin, Putnam, New York, N.Y., 2001, pp. 309-314. 2

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T. Pratchett, Rincewind The Wizzard. SFBC Fantasy, New York, N.Y., 1999, Sourcery. 12 A.M. Clarke, personal communication, Feb. 4, 2011. 13 H. Dreyfus and S.D. Kelly, All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age, Free Press, New York, N.Y., 2011. 14 Cherry Hill Seminary, http://www.cherryhillseminary.org/, Accessed 30/01/ 2011. 15 Grey School of Wizardry, http://www.greyschool.com, Accessed 30/01/2011. 16 J.R.R. Tolkien, Tree and L eaf: Including ‘Mythopoeia’, Harper Collins Publishers Ltd, San Francisco, CA., 2001. 17 A. Crowley, Magick: Book 4, Liber Aba, Weiser Books, San Francisco, CA., 1998. 18 U.K. LeGuin, A Wizard of Earthsea, Parnassus Press, Berkeley, CA., 1968, p. 56-57 and L. Grossman, The Magicians, Viking, New York, N.Y., 2009, pp. 52-53 and 61. 19 O. Davies, Grimoires: A History of Magical Books, Oxford University Press, Inc., New York, N.Y., 2009. 20 S. Douglas, The King of The Black Art and Other Folk Tales, Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen, UK, 1987, pp. 14-19. 21 M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 2004.

Bibliography Campbell J., The Hero with a T housand Faces. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1972. Clarke, A.M., Ursula K. LeGuin’s Journey to Post-Feminism. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson N.C., 2010. Crowley, A., Magick: Book 4, LiberAba. Weiser Books, San Francisco, CA., 1998. Davies, O., Grimoiresl: A History of Magical Books. Oxford University Press, Inc., New York, N.Y., 2009. Douglas, S., The King of The Black Art and Other Folk Tales. Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen, UK., 1987. Dreyfus, H. and Kelly, S.D., All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age. Free Press, New York, N.Y., 2011.

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__________________________________________________________________ Eliade, M., Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 2004. Grossman, L., The Magicians. Viking, New York, N.Y., 2009. LeGuin, U.K., ‘Magic, The School on Roke, Celibacy and Wizardry’. Tales from Earthsea. Ace, Penguin, Putnam, New York, N.Y., 2001, pp. 309-314. —, A Wizard of Earthsea. Parnassus Press, Berkeley, CA., 1968. Prachett, T., Rincewind The Wizzard. SFBC Fantasy, New York, N.Y., 1999. Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Bloomsbury, London, UK, 1997. Shakespeare, W., The Tempest. Oxford U. Press, USA, 2008. White, T.H., The Sword in the Stone. Dell, New York, N.Y., 1963. George Hersh is a l icensed clinical psychologist in private practice in Berkeley, California, USA. He holds Ph.D.s in zoology from the University of California at Berkeley and in psychology from the Wright Institute and served on the curriculum committee of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, U.C. Berkeley, from 2006 to 2010.

Ancestor Haunts: Ghosts in Don Rosa’s Donald Duck Comics Katja Kontturi Abstract Haunting can be roughly divided into two categories. First one is evil-intentioned, which usually takes place in horror stories. The second is benevolent haunting in which the ghost wants help from the protagonist, or wants to help him. In the latter case haunting happens in a fantasy setting. This chapter discusses on the haunting that takes place in Don Rosa’s Donald Duck comics. Rosa, being one of the worldknown Disney comic artists and writers, follows the history of Scrooge McDuck in the footsteps of Carl Barks. The haunting in Rosa’s comics takes place in the Castle McDuck, situated in the Dismal Downs in the central Scotland. The castle is an ancestral home of the McDuck clan of which Scrooge is the final heir. The three stories that include the haunting are situated in the youth of Scrooge, when he has to fight to keep the castle to the clan. It is rumored that Sir Quackly McDuck, an ancestor who sealed himself to the wall of the castle with his treasure, haunts the castle and keeps the unwelcomed guests away. Scrooge meets Sir Quackly in his youth without realizing he’s a ghost – that is only revealed to the readers later on. Scrooge also experiences some sort of borderline experience between life and death, during which he meets a group of his ancestors playing golf on top of a cloud. Later on he can’t remember what happened. The ancestors who haunt the Castle McDuck are there for the readers to see, but the ducks never realize their existence. It is also important to mention that Rosa is the first Disney comic artist, who shows the death of an important character – and how he turns into a spirit. Key Words: Comic, Disney, Donald Duck, Don Rosa, ghost, haunting, spirit. ***** 1. Introduction Generally, there are two distinguished types of haunting: the malevolent and the benevolent. The malevolent ghost wants something bad to happen to anyone who disturbs its peace, whereas the benevolent ghost is typically defined as someone who’s died before it has finished something important, so the spirit wants help from the protagonist. Or, like in my study, the spirit is an ancestor of the protagonist and wants to provide help rather than needs one itself. My chapter concentrates on the comics of an American comic artist and writer Don Rosa (1951- ), who is most famous of his work in the field of Disney’s Donald Duck comics. Rosa distinguishes himself from the other current Disney comic artists with his unique, detailed style of drawing and intriguing stories that are filled with both fantastic and mimetic elements which are based on the historical facts. Rosa is often referred to as the follower of Carl Barks (1901-2000),

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__________________________________________________________________ the noted Disney artist, whose lifework included creating Duckburg and numerous important characters like Scrooge McDuck. Rosa refers to the stories Barks wrote, writes sequels to them and generally follows the history Barks created for the ducks. The most recognized of Rosa’s works is the collection of the stories called The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck which tells the history of Scrooge from a little duckling to the old man we know. Rosa received a Will Eisner award 1 of this work in 1995 and later on published a sequel to it. This chapter discusses the haunting that appears in the three comics of Rosa’s collection: The Last of the Clan McDuck, The New Laird of Castle McDuck and The Billionaire of the Dismal Downs. All of these stories take place in a distant area called the Dismal Downs in Scotland, where the family of Scrooge comes from and where the Castle McDuck is located. It is commonly known to the people that the place is supposed to be haunted, but no one has got any confirmation about it. I have divided this chapter to three sections: the first one is about the main ghost, Sir Quackly McDuck, the guardian of the Castle McDuck; the second is about the ‘borderline’ type of experience Scrooge has after he’s hit by a lightning; and the last part is perhaps the most important, because in this comic Rosa describes how an important character passes away and turns into a spirit – a thing that no other Disney comic artist has presented in anywhere. In the conclusions, I summarize all my points on how this type of benevolent haunting is described in Rosa’s Donald Duck comics and how different is the reader’s perspective from the characters’ perspective. I will also emphasize how big of an issue this ‘death scene’ really was on the Disney level. 2. Sir Quackly McDuck – the Haunting Ancestor There is an ancient legend among the McDuck clan about a treasure. Back in the times of the civil war on 1057, one of the ancestors, Sir Quackly McDuck was ‘given a chest of gold in return for defendin’ King MacBeth’. But while protecting the chest, Quackly accidentally sealed himself into the wall with the treasure. Since then the whole clan has looked for both but never found them. 2 There is still a widely known rumour that the ghost of Sir Quackly roams the now deserted castle and will scare away anyone attempting to steal his treasure. In the comic The Last of the Clan McDuck, Scrooge (as a young duck) was cutting peat for sale on the old land of McDuck clan. He was scared by the spiteful neighbours, the Whiskerwilles, 3 and escaped to the castle where he met a strange duck wearing a kilt. The nameless duck gave Scrooge the idea to travel to America to search for his fortune and somehow knew a lot of Scrooge’s job of shining shoes of which Scrooge never told him anything about. Scrooge never learned who the duck was, but the reader gets more information from the following frames, when the duck walks alone in the castle talking to the voices of unseen speakers. ‘Why

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__________________________________________________________________ dinnae you show him where your treasure is hidden?’ asks a voice and the duck answers: ‘[- -] If Scrooge is to achieve greatness, he must work for it! Only then will we regain our honour!!!’ 4 The reader is revealed that the strange duck is no other than Sir Quackly himself. The only known treasure in the castle is his and in his answer he talks about ‘we’, referring to the clan of McDuck, humiliatingly warned off from their lands two centuries ago. More proving on this statement is the very next frame in which Sir Quackly steps through the curved wall to the place he sealed himself in. 5 So it wasn’t a mere duck Scrooge met, it was a real ghost. What is interesting in Sir Quackly’s ghostly appearance is the fact that he does that in two different forms. At first, he appears to Scrooge in the real world, but not as a see-through figure like we may imagine, but in a tangible form: there are three frames in which Sir Quackly sets his hand on Scrooge’s shoulder, so he definitely is a corporeal being. 6 Secondly, he appears in his unsubstantial, ethereal form, but only to the reader. In his form he is part of the unseen world of the dead: he may talk to the other ancestors of the McDuck clan and walk through the walls without any effort at all. 3. ‘Borderline’ Experience – Meeting the Relatives The second time Sir Quackly appears to Scrooge is in the comic The New Laird of Castle McDuck. Scrooge has just got home from America to save his family from the debts, and ends up to a dual with one of the Whiskervilles wanting to take over the old McDuck castle. Scrooge is about to lose the fight in the high balcony of the castle, when his dropped sword magically rises up to the air to his hand and he can knock out his opponent. Unluckily at the same a lightning hits Scrooge, he falls into the moat and a brick hits him unconscious. On the next moment he wakes up on top of a cloud next to a familiar looking duck in a kilt who leads him to a group of other ducks playing golf up in the air. The familiar duck is of course Sir Quackly and the rest are the ancestors of Scrooge. 7 Scrooge seems to have ended up in some kind of ‘heaven-like’ place with his deceased relatives. The colours in the frames are soft yellow and all the ducks are walking on clouds which is obvious reference to the Christian view of heaven. Sir Quackly insists the ancestors should send Scrooge back, because ‘[t]his lad’s not due here for decades!’ After a lot of discussion the ancestors finally realise Scrooge is going to be the biggest ‘penny-pinching tightwad on earth’ so in their eyes he’s worthy of getting a second chance. Sir Quackly gives Scrooge a hint on how to save himself and then he drops him off the cloud. Scrooge falls high from the sky, wakes up in the moat without any clear memories of what happened and eventually avenges the Whiskervilles. 8 In this story, the haunting appears only in the spirit world. After getting that nasty hit on the head, Scrooge’s mind travels to the spirit world whereas his body remains on its place in the moat. At first it might look like Scrooge dreams

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__________________________________________________________________ everything he sees, but that’s not completely so. Generally in comic narration, wavy borderlines indicate a dream, but in this story, the borders of the frames remain normally straight lined, so what happens, happens for real. A few other facts also point out that the experience was real. One of the ancestors mentions ‘how easily the Whiskervilles stole [Scrooge’s] bank draft’. 9 This draft was meant to pay the debt of the clan and Scrooge never saw the Whiskervilles taking it. But when he comes back ‘from the death’, he instantly threatens the Whiskervilles with his sword and claims his bank draft back. Scrooge didn’t know where he got that information; he just had a ‘feeling’. 10 This time Sir Quackly doesn’t appear in the castle in his corporeal form. On the page 97, the readers can see a s hadowy figure of a strange duck watching how Scrooge’s father prepares him for the upcoming dual. Later on, as I mentioned, Scrooge’s sword rises up from the floor to his hand and a bodiless voice screams: ‘Nay! Never!’. Sir Quackly himself states that it was him who gave the sword back to Scrooge starting this whole matter. 11 Final statement on proving the existence of the haunting and the spirits of the ancestors happens to both the reader and the Whiskervilles. The evil men make an attempt to take Scrooge’s life, but before they get to Scrooge, a group of glowing heads appear through the walls of the castle and literally scare the hair out of the Whiskervilles. All of the ancestors, who normally don’t haunt the castle, appear in their ethereal spirit form (and only as floating heads) ready to protect Scrooge. 12 This comic indicates how the whole ghost family is willing to help their descendant if they’re in trouble, even if they don’t take part in normal haunting. 4. Becoming a Spirit – Death in Donald Duck In the last of the comics, the appearance of the ghost of Sir Quackly is very brief and happens only on the final page. But this page includes one of the most interesting and important events that has happened among the Disney comics. Scrooge has already lost his mother, 13 and has returned to Scotland as a rich young man. He wants his family to join him and move to America. Scrooge’s sisters get all excited but his father Fergus claims he’s too old to leave. So he decides to stay in the Castle McDuck with a young caretaker named Scottie. Scrooge and his sisters leave the castle and see their father in the window waving to them for goodbyes. He’s not there alone, and Matilda, Scrooge’s sister claims that it’s Scottie. But the reader sees Scottie in the very next frame, outside the castle. 14 So who else was there? The figure standing next to Scrooge’s father is his late wife, mother of Scrooge. Scrooge’s father obviously sees her, as they talk to each other. Then Sir Quackly appears next to them and shakes hands with Fergus. With joined hands the parents of Scrooge follow Sir Quackly through the wall as the reader sees at the same time the body of Fergus in the bed with his glasses next to him on the bedside table. 15

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__________________________________________________________________ Rosa has clearly made history of the Disney comics by showing us, how an important character passes away. Fergus McDuck has died during the night, as he was finally ready to go to his wife knowing that Scrooge was doing well in his new life. So he is already in his ethereal spirit form, but visible to regular people when he waves to his children goodbyes. He is also wearing his glasses at the same time the glasses are on the table, so this is another proof that it’s his spirit form we’re seeing. Rosa shows the death of Scrooge’s father as a peaceful event which happens when he’s done everything for his offspring and is ready to join with his late spouse and the rest of the ancestors to the spirit world. 5. Conclusion I have presented Disney artist Don Rosa’s three comics which deal with ghosts and haunting. What is interesting about this haunting, is the fact that only the reader (and in one case the scared Whiskervilles) remains sure of the existence of the ghosts. Scrooge never finds out his old home is actually haunted, he even says in the end of the The New Laird of Castle McDuck: ‘[- -] If I didn’t know better, I’d think his place was... [- -] haunted!’ 16 The haunting of Sir Quackly McDuck is presented in three different forms. He moves between the spirit world (the heaven-like place with the golf-playing ancestors) and the normal world and can appear first in corporeal form in which he can touch living beings; secondly in a transparent ethereal form which only the reader can see and in which he can move through objects; and finally in invisible ethereal form. He was in this last form while he gave Scrooge his sword back in The New Laird of Castle McDuck. In this last form of him, he is invisible to both the characters and the reader. But the most important matter is how Scrooge’s father Fergus turns into a spirit. Rosa is the first Disney comic artist who describes a death of an important character. This is remarkable, as in general Disney comics the characters don’t have a r eal history. Everything that has happened to them before comes back to square one in the next story whether it is written by the same or by a different writer. Don Rosa and Carl Barks are the two exceptions of this ‘rule’. So when everything goes back to where it was, the history doesn’t move forward, hence no one ages. But as Rosa has written the entire history for Scrooge McDuck, it means his parents had to die at some point. The death of his mother was shortly mentioned in a letter, but the death of his father is dealt with a more profound way. By seeing how gently the spirit of Scrooge’s late mother comes to take his spouse with her, the readers feel like this is how it should happen. The death isn’t described as a scary unknowing event, but as a transformation to a new form, to a spirit in a new world. Fergus himself says that their job here is done; the rest is up to Scrooge. One generation moves away and gives space to a new one.

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__________________________________________________________________ This is a truly historical moment for the Disney comics in which everything has been the same since 1930’s. The haunting and the ghosts in Don Rosa’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck are definitely not malevolent. Rosa shows one type of ghost, a spirit of a deceased ancestor, who is willing to help his descendant when they’re in trouble. This type of spirits haunt the place they died in because of unfinished business. Sir Quackly has the castle to watch for as well as his hidden treasure. 17 But the biggest thing that matter to him is restoring the clan’s glory. 18 As we know Scrooge is about to become the richest duck in the world, we can assume Sir Quackly has done his duties and his spirit can now rest.

Notes 1

Will Eisner award is considered being the ‘academy award’ of the comics. It is given for the creative achievement in American comic books. It is named after the famous comic artist Will Eisner. 2 D. Rosa, ‘The Last of the Clan McDuck’, Walt Disney’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Gemstone Publishing, Timonium, Maryland, 2005, p. 10. 3 There is an obvious reference to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s, Hound of Baskerville, here as it was the Whiskersville who warned off the McDucks from their own land by scaring them with the ‘ghost dog’ 200 years ago. This is mentioned in Ibid., p. 11. 4 Ibid., pp. 15-20. 5 Ibid., p. 20. 6 This happens in Ibid., pp. 16, 17 and 18. 7 D. Rosa, ‘The New Laird of Castle McDuck’, Walt Disney’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Gemstone Publishing, Timonium, Maryland, 2005, pp. 95-96 & 99-100. 8 Ibid., pp. 103-105. 9 D. Rosa, ‘The New Laird of Castle McDuck’, Walt Disney’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Gemstone Publishing, Timonium, Maryland, 2005, p. 103. 10 Ibid., p. 105. 11 Ibid., pp. 97 & 99-100. 12 Ibid., p. 106. 13 This was mentioned in a letter in Rosa’s comic ‘King of the Klondike’, Walt Disney’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Gemstone Publishing, Timonium, Maryland, 2005, p. 163. 14 D. Rosa, ‘The Billionaire of the Dismal Downs’, Walt Disney’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Gemstone Publishing, Timonium, Maryland, 2005, pp. 185-186. 15 Ibid., p. 187.

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D. Rosa, ‘The New Laird of Castle McDuck’, Walt Disney’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Gemstone Publishing, Timonium, Maryland, 2005, p. 106. 17 The treasure is later on found by Scrooge, Donald and the nephews in the story The Old Castle’s Secret (1948) by C. Barks. In this comic there was a ghost, but it wasn’t a real one, only a thief pretending to be the ghost of Sir Quackly. 18 This is mentioned widely on first on the conversation between Sir Quackly and Scrooge, and later on between Sir Quackly and the spirits of the other ancestors on D. Rosa, ‘The Last of the Clan McDuck’, Walt Disney’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Gemstone Publishing, Timonium, Maryland, 2005, pp. 18-20.

Bibliography Rosa, D., ‘The Last of the Clan McDuck’. Walt Disney’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Gemstone Publishing, Timonium, Maryland, 2005, pp. 8-21. Rosa, D., ‘The New Laird of Castle McDuck’. Walt Disney’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Gemstone Publishing, Timonium, Maryland, 2005, pp. 92-107. Rosa, D., ‘King of the Klondike’. Walt Disney’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Gemstone Publishing, Timonium, Maryland, 2005, pp. 145-168. Rosa, D., ‘The Billionaire of the Dismal Downs’. Walt Disney’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Gemstone Publishing, Timonium, Maryland, 2005, pp. 172-187. Katja Kontturi is a scholar and postgraduate student of contemporary culture at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Currently she’s working on her doctoral thesis on Don Rosa’s Donald Duck comics as both fantastic and postmodernist comics.

Faerie Communion: Magical Cure in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Merve Sarı Abstract In his short story, ‘The Machine Stops’, E.M. Forster satirises the Post-Industrial British society who relies heavily on machinery and technology as their life-force. Technological developments, which start as a means to make life easier, gradually invade the lives of the individuals, and in the end, turn them into mere puppets of their own inventions. Similarly, J.R.R. Tolkien in his essay, ‘On Fairy-Stories’, reveals his distrust for the ‘Robot Age’ by pointing to the loss of connection between the individual and nature in the modern world. Taking the importance of magic and supernatural in ancient societies into consideration, Tolkien’s remark reveals this significant lack in the contemporary world. While today’s world replaces magic with technology, it also loses something very primeval on the way. Whether it is nostalgia for the past, a satire of current politics or satisfaction of individual desires, the instinct to make up for what has been lost through technology is, according to Tolkien, a most natural need. Accordingly, in his pioneering work of fantasy, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Tolkien makes use of magic and supernatural to compensate for the damage that has been caused by the machinery. Hence, in his novels planes are replaced by great eagles, and trains by mumakils; the trees are given voice via their close relatives: the ents. Technology brings no good or happiness to the inhabitants of the Middle-Earth but only destruction and waste. Through his magical realm, Tolkien satirises those who give in to technology and, in the end, offers ‘eucatastrophe’ to his readers. ‘The consolation of happy-ending,’ as he defines it, is the cure Tolkien provides his readers with. Through fantasy’s power to arrest strangeness, Tolkien enables the individuals, and societies to get in touch with their most primitive wishes though these do not seem familiar to the readers any more. In this sense, the aim of this chapter will be to discuss the role of magic and supernatural in coping with the individual and social problems. Key Words: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, nature, technology, magic, enchantment, recovery, eucatastrophe. ***** For the twenty-first century society who is familiar with the dangers of overreliance on technology in such examples as the beefy Terminator movies and the naivety of Wall-E, it is not hard to imagine one of the primeval fears of the modern man. Behind the obvious belief that technology does make our lives easier also lies the fact that it a lso threatens humanity’s very own being. Although, this might

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__________________________________________________________________ seem as a contemporary notion, the roots of this terror lies in the late Victorian, early Modern period when the rise of the machines, due to rapid pace of industrialisation, caused considerable unrest in the society. As always happens with something new, faced with this high-paced industrialisation, the early twentiethcentury society was terrorised by the thoughts that the society might lose their traditional values such as the harmony of man and nature, their confidence in religion and faith, the belief in a stable social order and so on. In this way, they either reacted bitterly or covertly criticised the socio-politics of their time. In this respect, E.M. Forster’s short story, ‘The Machine Stops’, written in this period, provided a rather bold criticism, overtly criticising man’s over-reliance on machinery which gradually occupies the position of an unquestionable metanarrative in the story. 1 Soon after, Tolkien similarly revealed his disgust with the ‘Robot Age’ in his essay ‘On Fairy-Stories’ by satirising the fascination with technological objects as a means of combining ‘elaboration and ingenuity of means with ugliness, and (often) with inferiority of result’. 2 For Tolkien, technology caused a b reak between civilisation and nature by way of its false charms, and what he proposes instead is a remedy for it. In this age of ‘improved means to deteriorated ends’, 3 the magic of faerie, thus, proposes to satisfy certain primal human desires such as communicating with other living things. 4 However, the real comfort that the faerie offers rather rests upon the elements which are central to a fairy-story; namely fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation. 5 In his The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Tolkien puts these elements into practice. Criticising the careless attitude of his peers, he aims to make up for the lost connection between nature and humanity, while at the same time warning it for what may come ahead if precautions are not taken. To begin with, it is important to have a look at the period the trilogy was written in. Written in between 1937 and 1949 with interruptions, The Lord of the Rings clearly covers a period which can be regarded simply as devastating. It is highly probable that Tolkien reflects the aspects of the War of the Rings in such detail driving upon his own experiences during the First World War. Despite the fact that people extremely suffered from the First World War, the unrest continued. Soon, the Second World War broke out and this time it was Tolkien’s sons that were fighting in the trenches. What is most significant about the World Wars is that for the first time machinery was introduced into the battlefields. Single combat was, thus, ended, and mass murder took its place. The society witnessed destruction in every sense of the word. It was not just limited to massacres only but to the societies’ means of living as well. Subsequently, the natural world was affected from it as much as the people. Fields were contaminated, waters were poisoned, trees were cut down, and animals were scattered around making it impossible for people to continue their lives especially due to the use of nuclear weapons during the Second World War. Although Britain was not affected by the nuclear holocaust as such, its apocalyptic aftermath was hard to ignore.

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__________________________________________________________________ Technology was invading people’s lives more and more, gaining a permanent status, and it was what Tolkien was critical of. It is rarely technology as it is than the increasing blind trust in it t hat he is hostile to in his novels. Tolkien’s is a nostalgia for the past; a wish to re-establish the lost union between nature and humanity. If fantasy, as he suggests, has to do with desirability primarily, then the lack and the wish to fill its void is quite comprehensible. 6 The author, starting with creating a plausible secondary world, provides it with all the necessary details that will guarantee its authenticity. That is why in his novels Tolkien makes use of Great Eagles instead of aeroplanes, mumakils instead of trains, and ents besides trees. His aim is to defamiliarise technological toys and the rest of the familiar objects of our daily lives in order to free them from ‘possessiveness’, which is what Tolkien marks as ‘recovery’. 7 Moreover, escape is considered as the revolt of the artist in the face of such possessiveness. 8 Accordingly, the artist becomes a sub-creator of his own universe imposing his own rules onto it. Finally, ‘eucatastrophe’ is the consolation of happy ending which Tolkien regards as a must for all the works of faerie. 9 In Tolkien’s novels, the characteristics of the faerie are visible in several occasions. First of all, the insightful presence of the natural world is what makes Tolkien’s novels highly plausible. With its distinctive geography meticulously drawn on a map, diverse ecology, unique examples of fauna and flora, in addition to calendars specifically drawn for individual nations, Tolkien’s world is one of credibility. It is so effective that, the various races of people in Middle-Earth are ‘unimaginable without their natural contexts’ which also enables the escape of the author from familiarity. 10 Yet, the issues that are raised are still visible behind the veil of magic and the supernatural. In his trilogy, Tolkien includes a satisfaction of personal desires. The most important lack he observes is the disharmony of man and nature which he tries to recover. Tolkien’s initial attempt, in this sense, centres upon a specific affection for the flora he invents such as athelas, elanor, and simbelmyne, next to those he borrows from the primary world. He admires the beauty of these as well as the trees, real or imagined, and creates natural places that are unique and varied. For instance, every forest in Middle-earth, such as Mirkwood, the Old Forest, and Fangorn, are all unique in characterization reflecting their inhabitants’ personal traits through them. Hence, Shire is described as a peaceful, nature-loving atmosphere where treetrunks serve as accommodation for the hobbits, whereas in Lórien where the cultivated elves live, it is the branches that are choosen. Thus, the places of Middle-Earth are never generic. Each forest, each river, each mountain range is distinctive, and a fortiori, more precise places (such as Caras Galadhon, Rauros, and Moria) each has its own personality. Another characteristic is that every natural place has a cultural

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__________________________________________________________________ dimension, and vice versa. Thus, the Elves (at least while in Middle-earth) are unimaginable without the forests, the Dwarves without the mountains, the hobbits without the domesticated nature of the Shire. 11 In this light, it can be suggested that what seems to be magic may only be a powerful understanding of nature, and one’s surroundings since the idea is that ‘magic is a deep affinity with and understanding of the natural world’. 12 This is the re-union Tolkien provides his readers with. Trees are in danger as a result of the technological advances that are exemplified in the novel through the machinations of Saruman and Sauron. The Tower of Orthanc messes with the balance of nature enormously with the huge number of trees that the orcs and the Uruk-Hai fell down. The mechanisms that are used to enable this result in a greater amount of destruction than a single saw would ever achieve in a longer period of time, which directly echoes the negative effects of industrialisation in Britain. That is why, in his novels, the places are ‘never mere settings for the human drama’ but rather, ‘participate in and help determine the narrative’. 13 The various elements of MiddleEarth, thus, figure as characters themselves in The Lord of the Rings. The trees play a significant role throughout the trilogy. In fact, The Lord of the Rings begins with a Party Tree and ends with the blooming of a new one in the end. The trees that initially stand for hostility towards usurpation, then, gain a deeper sense of regeneration, hope, and validity. As Flieger accurately observes, the first villain to be met in The Lord of the Rings is a t ree, namely, Old Man Willow which is cruel towards strangers. 14 His trapping the tree-loving hobbits Merry and Pippin inside his trunk on the one hand and his attempt to drawn Frodo on the other hand, according to Flieger, give the hobbits ‘their first major setback’. 15 Being the first antagonistic force the hobbits have ever faced since the start of their journey, Old Man Willow’s malevolent attitude is justified through its earlier hatred for destructive mankind due to an ages-old battle for space between the Buckland hobbits and the Old Forest. 16 Although Flieger considers this incident as an example of the unlikelihood of a possible co-existence between civilisation and nature, unless it’s a cultivated fairy-land like Lórien, Tolkien’s attitude, perhaps, reveals his wish to refrain from romanticizing nature. 17 Drout, in this regard, argues that the various places of Middle-earth are often dangerous, sometimes fatally so. By the same token, conflict between nonhuman natural interests and those of humanity (more or less) are certainly possible, the uneasy truce between the Old Forest and the Hobbits of Buckland being a case in point. Ultimately, as in any ongoing relationship, between humanity and nonhuman nature is one in which outcomes are not reliably predictable. 18

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__________________________________________________________________ Despite the fact that Old Forest’s side seems to be favoured, it is clear that Tom Bombadil, who guards the forest, and, as is exemplified, those in need, serves as a balance factor. In contrast to the Old Forest’s power to make the intruders feel unwanted, unwelcomed, and unliked stands the hospitality and the helpful attitude of Tom Bombadil who eventually saves the hobbits. If the Old Forest is innately dangerous and threatening like the popular fairy tales of old, Fangorn Forest is its total opposite. Ents, which populate the forest along with huorns - slightly treeish versions of ents - do not react in the face of deforestation at once. Despite the ‘mechanistic evil spreading over Middle-earth’, 19 it takes a while before Treebeard and his friends finally decide to act. Treebeard’s situation is a hard one. While tree-herds become more and more treeish daily, he worries about the future of their generations with no ent-wives to continue their line. The need to ensure the continuity of the next generations and the ultimate realization of their inevitable doom finally fills Treebeard with an anger that gives Saruman a devastating blow in The Two Towers. When young ents get hurt during the assault, their anger reaches to its peak, and they send the mechanizations of Orthanc to sand and dust. 20 Yet, however hard they try they are doomed to extinction and Treebeard is aware of this: ‘Of course, it is likely, my friends,’ he said slowly, ‘likely enough that we are going to our doom: the last march of the Ents. But if we stayed at home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later.’ 21 However, there is still hope for some. Even if the ents will be no more, the tree that blossoms in the courtyard in Minas Tirith, the White Tree, gives hope to the future generations as a symbol of harmony between man and nature and the continuation of this pact. Initially, the White Tree is ‘symbolic of the reestablishment of Aragorn and his line on the throne, and of the persistence (if nothing more) of Men’. 22 So, in Curry’s words, it is spiritually, culturally, and physically a living symbol of ‘continuity with life in and of the past’, as well as a ‘faith in its future’. 23 Thus, the White tree is ‘one of Tolkien’s cosmogonic trees of life’ which he is much obsessed about. 24 With the cultivation of the White Tree the renovation of the land is guaranteed. The tree, hence, gives hope to the future generations of animate and inanimate objects alike. Additionally, Aragorn’s plantation of the White Tree in Minas Trith finds its reflection in the microcosm in Sam’s attempts to revive Shire with the help of Galadriel’s gift. Once the hobbits cleanse Shire of the industrial waste land it has been turned into, they start planting new gardens and trees throughout Shire. Due to the soil brought from Galadriel’s orchard, and the acorn of a mallorn tree, which he planted to replace the old Party Tree, Shire recovers its past glory and harmony with nature presented at the beginning of the narrative. 25

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__________________________________________________________________ This is the solution Tolkien offers for his readers, for his ‘trees are never just symbols, but convey the uniqueness and vulnerability of the real trees’ 26 so much so that the effect upon the readers is not fundamentally nostalgic but heartening; trying to arouse an awareness of the nature of the primary world here and now, which consequently gave rise to such movements as Deep Ecology 27 and the Green Movement 28 in Britain recently. Clearly, what first announces ‘Sauron’s presence, everywhere in Middle-earth, is the ugliness and impoverishment of local natural habitats’. 29 Throughout their journey the fellowship has been to several places and has encountered various foes, both animate and inanimate, yet it is only in Lotlórien that Frodo has found peace. Frodo describes the peaceful harmony he witnesses in Lórien in terms of natureimagery: ‘No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien there was no stain’. 30 Contrarily, closer to Mordor everywhere is sterile and poisoned. Without nature there is no civilisation. For instance, in the Dead Marshes instead of plants corpses crowd the earth which look like a mirror-image of the dead land. Even closer the Mount Doom, the land is desolate. It is not safe to drink water from anywhere and there are hardly any plants but instead rocks, dust and fume all around. There are no animals to inhabit the land either. Throughout the trilogy, usually the foul animals, such as wolfs and wargs, have been used as spies by the foe whereas friendship, or at least respect, in the case of the Great Eagles only, existed in between the members of the fellowship. In view of that, each of the horse-riding members is closely connected to his mount. The members of the fellowship give their horses names and care for them as much as they do for themselves. The relationship between Sam and Bill the pony, Shadowfax and Gandalf, Aragorn and Hasufel, Legolas and Arod, are among the many examples. To sum up, in The Lord of the Rings Tolkien aims to provide the readers with the consolation of happy ending that is provided through the re-union between man and nature. Even though the characters or the places may be unusual, the reality he reflects through his pages is a familiar one. At a time when wealth is measured with material goods, Tolkien shows that the treasure that is saved from the dragon is actually happiness which is only at an arm’s reach.

Notes 1

Forster’s story is written in 1909 anticipating what the future, under the control of machinery, would be like. E.M. Forster, ‘The Machine Stops’, Blackmask Online, Viewed on 04 January 2011, http://www.acidlife.com/ subconscio/the_machine_st ops_e.m.forster_2.pdf, p. 1. 2 Initially presented by Tolkien at the University of St Andrews, Scotland as a paper in 1939, the essay was first published in 1947 in a volume compiled by C. S. Lewis entitled Essays Presented to Charles Williams. J.R.R. Tolkien, ‘On Fairy-

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__________________________________________________________________ Stories’, Poems and Stories: J.R.R. Tolkien, Harper Collins Publishers, Hammersmith, London, 1992, p. 168. 3 Ibid., p. 172. 4 Ibid., p. 125. 5 Ibid., p. 54. 6 Ibid., p. 149. 7 Ibid., p. 165. 8 Ibid., p. 168. 9 Ibid., p. 175. 10 P. Curry, Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth and M odernity, St Martin’s Press, New York, 1999, p. 61. 11 The quotation is originally an observation of Curry’s book on Tolkien and Modernity. M.D.C. Drout, ‘Nature: From Curry, Patrick’. Defending MiddleEarth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity’, J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment, M.D.C. Drout (ed), Routledge, New York, 2007, p. 453. 12 M.N. Stanton, Hobbits, Elves, and Wizards: Exploring the Wonders and Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Palgrave, New York, 2001, p. 47. 13 Drout, op. cit., p. 453. 14 A. Letcher, ‘The Scouring of the Shire: Fairies, Trolls and Pixies in Eco-Protest Culture’, Folklore, Vol. 112, No. 2 O ct., 2001, Viewed on 04 J anuary 2011, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1260829, p. 148. 15 Flieger, op. cit., p. 148. 16 N. Werber, ‘Geo- and Biopolitics of Middle-Earth: A German Reading of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings’, New Literary History, Vol. 36, No. 2, Spring, 2005, Viewed on 04 January 2011. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 20057890, p. 239. 17 Letcher, op. cit., p. 155. 18 Drout, op. cit., p. 454. 19 Stanton, op. cit., p. 53. 20 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harper Collins Publishers, Hammersmith, London, 1999, p. 209. 21 Tolkien, op. cit., p. 102. 22 Stanton, op. cit., p. 90. 23 Curry, op. cit., p. 67. 24 Ibid., p. 64. 25 JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Harper Collins Publishers, Hammersmith, London, 1999, pp. 367-368. 26 Curry, op. cit., p. 70. 27 Drout, op. cit., p. 454. 28 V. Flieger, ‘Taking the Part of Trees: Eco-Conflict in Middle-Earth’, J.R.R. Tolkien and H is Literary Resonances, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, 2000, p. 147.

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__________________________________________________________________ 29

Curry, op. cit., p. 82. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Harper Collins Publishers, Hammersmith, London, 1999, pp. 460.

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Bibliography Curry, P., Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth and M odernity. St Martin’s Press, New York, 1997. Drout, M.D.C., ‘Nature: From Curry, Patrick. Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity’. J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and C ritical Assessment. Routledge, New York, 2007. Flieger, V., ‘Taking the Part of Trees: Eco-Conflict in Middle-Earth’. J.R.R. Tolkien and H is Literary Resonances. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, 2000. Forster, E.M., ‘The Machine Stops’. Blackmask Online. 04 January 2011. Letcher, A., ‘The Scouring of the Shire: Fairies, Trolls and Pixies in Eco-Protest Culture’. Folklore. Vol. 112, No. 2, Oct. 2001, pp. 147-161. Stanton, M.N., Hobbits, Elves, and Wizards: Exploring the Wonders and Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Palgrave, New York, 2001. Tolkien, J.R.R., ‘On Fairy-Stories’. Poems and St ories: J.R.R. Tolkien. Harper Collins Publishers, Hammersmith, London, 1992. Tolkien, J.R.R., The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Harper Collins Publishers, Hammersmith, London, 1999. Tolkien, J.R.R., The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Harper Collins Publishers, Hammersmith, London, 1999. Tolkien, J.R.R., The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Harper Collins Publishers, Hammersmith, London, 1999. Werber, N., ‘Geo- and Biopolitics of Middle-Earth: A German Reading of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings’. New Literary History. Vol. 36, No. 2, Spring, 2005, pp. 227-246.

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__________________________________________________________________ Merve Sarı is currently doing her PhD and working as a Research Assistant in the Department of English Language and Literature at Hacettepe University. Her research areas include fantasy, science fiction, and other types of formula fiction along with folk and fairy tales, magic realism, and poetry.