Accessing the Core of Spirituality: Religion in Equus

Accessing the Core of Spirituality: Religion in Equus

John Kuczmarski

November 8, 2004

Professor Soderholm

Accessing the Core of Spirituality: Religion in Equus

What is a church?  What makes up a religiously spiritual sanctuary?  Is it darkened corridors echoing with hymnal reverberations , ornately colored stained glass, and the smoothened, mahogany wood found in most chapels?  Or is it some relationship that you intrinsically cultivate and carry around with you, regardless of your environmental surroundings?  The Greek word for “church”, “kyriakos”, means  “belonging to the lord”, “the body”, “extraordinary being”, and “to make a house”, while “ekklêsia” (another synonym for “church” used in the Gospels) means “assembly” or “congregation”(Liddel 385).  Even further from the conventional connection of “church”, occurring before any of the books of the New Testament, is the Aramaic definition, which has a variety of etymological roots connoting festival and celebration (Liddel 385).  Maybe a church-like experience should not be a confined, solemn habitat, but an atmosphere that simply provokes and promotes authentic spirituality and connected nurturing of one’s passion.  According to Greek ideology, we must experience pain and suffering in order to become passionate spiritual beings.  This painful suffering becomes a carving process, whittling away the excess residual sculpture, allowing one to arrive at the altruistic soul.  This transparency is created not by a church, but by one’s relationship to his spirituality – his essential religious core.  Almost 2000 years after St. Paul’s blinding and consequential conversation to Christian faith, Peter Shaffer’s 1973 play, Equus, exemplifies how the protagonist, Alan, initiates a blindingly pious worship involving horses.  In Equus, the core of worship and sexuality is accessed on myriad different levels of interpretation, spiritual environment, and church.  

The blinding and conversion of St. Paul (then known as Saul) occurred a couple decades after his birth in 10 ad. and caused Jesus of Nazareth to reveal his perception of Paul via Ananias “a vessel of election, to carry [God’s] name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel”  (Acts 22:14).  Could it be that the young teenager, Alan, felt compelled to become a “vessel of election” and, with missionary-like conviction, spread the word of his equestrian religion; or, possibly, did Alan deify himself to play the role of God by blinding six horses?  Alan may not have deified himself, but he certainly was perceiving messages that were, like those Paul recieved, not being experienced by others: “the others could who were with [Paul] saw the light but did not hear the voice of” God (Acts 22: 9). In the story of Paul’s Conversion, Ananias plays the role of a Platonic Guardian because he went back into the cave, to provide Paul with his sight, encouraging him to spread the word of God and practicing moving the soul “from the world of becoming into that of being”  by becoming “a vessel of election, to carry [the name of Jesus] before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel" (Plato 143)(Acts 22:14).  Plato and the writer of Acts had congruent beliefs regarding the process of enlightenment involving an initial blinding glare of insight.  Both of these authors would, no doubt, find meaning in the Zen parable encouraging one to “empty your cup”, insinuating that we only learn new knowledge by being a vessel to communicate a message.

 In Equus, Alan becomes a similar kind of Guardian, like Ananias to Paul, liberating the psychiatrist, Dysart, from the “black cave of the Psyche” ( Shaffer p. 75).  In Plato’s Allegory, the “church” or location of veritas (teachings of being, instead of becoming) was the new mysterious Sun of Reason and Goodness outside the dark psychic cave, and Alan became a master of this mysterious unknwon, with his “real worship” (p.82) -- the only form of worship he has ever known.  Plato tells that stepping into the world of being revolves around the application of the soul: “the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being”.  Because Alan applies his soul, unlike Dysart who only applies his mind, to knowledge (exemplified by his hour of equestrian freedom and worship) he steps into the liberating world of being.  This profound worship allows Alan to grow: “without worship, you shrink”, and create a haven for his practices – the corral (Shaffer p. 82).  

Alan’s conception of church clearly revolves around the stable and the horse corral.  This environment provides spiritual cultivation and access to the deified Equus and other horses for sexual and spiritual worship.  Yet, Alan interprets the corral as a permanently safe sanctuary solely for horse worship.  By limiting the spiritual context of the stable solely for horse worship, Alan immerses himself in maladaptive isolation and fixates himself in a dangerously intractable position. An ancient Taoist monk said, “Changing with change, is the changeless state”.  The wisdom entrenched in this simple adage rings remarkably true with Shaffer’s message regarding the dangers of immutability.  By orchestrating a symphony of horse galloping, medieval-like worship, and “fantastic surrender to the primitive”, Shaffer depicts Alan’s interpretation of the corral as “church” to be exclusively used for spiritual connections with horses (p.82).  Even though his “real worship” illuminates Dysart, like Ananias did with Paul, Alan’s rigid interpretation of the stable becomes his confining cave.  With his excessibely myopic perception, he fails to change with the change, and this produces blatantly brutal and bloody ramifications, neglects to make the religious sanctuary a church that could house sexual spirituality with humans, and denies himself the capacity to grow and connect with Jill.

Our ability to comprehend that the relationship to the environment, and not the environment itself, cultivates spirituality in a place is remarkably important and poignant.  Once we realize that “Passion, you see, can only be destroyed by a doctor.  It never can be created”, we begin to cease external seeking a remedy for a lack of truth and fulfillment, and examine ourselves for spiritual prescriptions, engendering our internal capacity to nurture the generation of our intrinsic truths (p. 108).  Once these truths have been accessed, we embrace the core of our spirituality, and by seizing and holding onto that core, we can, regardless of the atmosphere, remain engulfed in a connection spiritually-insightful poignancy and.  Like any entity that can be used to catalyze serenity or deified to provoke celestial callings, the distinctive line separating horses and spiritual connections becomes remarkably porous if you’re committed to the experience.  I have a friend who, after riding for over 14 years, has developed a connection with the horse where she simply thinks about turning, and through a meditative-like connection, the horse instantly responds as if the human and the horse were one.  This exemplifies a fundamental tenet of Zen Buddhism: wie wu wie, or “doing not doing” (Lao-tzu vii).  By being immersed in the experience of the present, the rider, thought and action, dream and reality, are smudged together in a cohesive bond of instantaneous connection. .  If Baudrillard discusses the formation of an image, where the simulacra’s perversion and concealment of reality’s absence creates a “pure simulacra”, the meditative experience that unites horse and rider, like Alan’s relationship to Equus, represents the reverse process – the dissimulation of such an image, where the reality, and not the simulacra, becomes pristinely real (Baudrillard).  This pure connection with religion is what Alan then tries to dissimulate, “to feign not to have what one has”, at the onset of his psychological dialogues with Dysart (Baudrillard).  When Dysart sees through Alan’s ploy of Socratic irony, he becomes enticed by Alan’s intimate connection to the “dessert of the real” (Baudrillard) and uses some of his own “bloody tricks” to not only get Alan to confess, but to try to access his own authentic church (Shaffer 79).

It is clear that this pristine connection with the environment exemplifies the church that many characters in Equus try to emulate.  The church for the psychiatrist, Dysart, in the play was clearly the psychological office and his ritualistic hobby of perusing Grecian art books.  This was his ritual and provided him with a personally cultivated agenda for meaning, and, relative to Alan, this ritual manufactured an exponentially smaller amount of religious poignancy, but simulated fulfillment in Dysart’s dryly insipid sexual life, absent marriage, and confining home.  Finally, the church for many of the men viewing the pornographic film, including Alan’s father, Frank Strang, was illuminated as the theater itself.  When experiencing the milieu of the room, the bewildered and awe-struck Alan said, “all the men were staring up like they were in church” (p. 92).  The lustful men had the metamorphic capacity to transform a sleezy porno theater, into the reverence one would exhibit in a cathedral.  The role of the authentic church is one that holds on to a center, but has incredible spiritual potential, as well.

In the ancient Tao Te Ching, or “Book of the Way, by Lao-Tzu, a free-flowing entity called the Tao is discussed in detail: “The Tao is like a bellows:/ it is empty yet infinitely capable./  The more you use it, the more it produces;/ the more you talk of it the less you understand./ Hold on to the center” (Lao-tzu 5).  Even though these Chinese words of wisdom were written nearly 500 years before Paul’s christening, the parallels between God’s message to hold on to the Christian center and to seek out its infinite capability are remarkably similar.  The mathematician, Koch, produced a formula that deals with infinitum.  His curve mathematically proves a infinite perimeter, but finite area of a curve.  This simultaneously restricted and boundless – finite and infinite – curve illustrates the mathematical equivalent of the Tao.  The Christian message of Paul’s conversion, the above Chinese words of wisdom, and Koch’s curve suggest a truly boundless faith – unconditionally infinite – in order connect with an authentic church.  According to Thomas Paine who said, “my mind is my church”, we realize that this message encourages us to live connected to the spiritual core of our own vitality, not to become paralyzed by over-analysis, and most importantly, to hold fast to our own spiritual center of poignancy – the mind.  Unlike the Cyclops, who lacks awareness and only “dwells in his own mountain cave…indifferent to what the others do”, we must avoid blindness in our mind’s eye by cultivating awareness and by holding on to our center, or we risk being distracted by tempting veils of unfulfilling endeavors (Homer 306: 119).  The Christian church would refer to these as sins of temptation, but anything that doesn’t resonate with your authentic self keeps you in the cave, sacrificing mobility of your core.  

Stepping out of the cave does not, certainly, insinuate abandoning the church, but it does imply the necessity of expanding our perception of religion and a house of religion.  When I was in Costa Rica participating in a Christian Surfer mission, the religious priests, confident that “they carry the church with them”, had daily sermons on the beach.  Despite their glamour, do we really need the stained glass, pews, and altar to create a building, housing religion?  At the end of Equus Alan’s fervent piety provoked Dysart to realize his perversion with psychiatry and embrace the conversion of authentic being.  Outside of one’s allegorical cave, authentic faith has the capacity for unconditional and omnipresent worship -- unaffected by the environment -- in any nostos (Greek, for home) be it a horse stable, movie theater, or Cycloptic cave.

But everything is reflective of the beholder.  Embracing a religion that upholds morality and virtue doesn’t make your good.  Everything is interpretative and dependent on how your utilize beliefs.  Terrorists, for example, use the September 11 bombings as placation for religious qualms.  They erroneously substantiated Islamic faith as proof to support the terrible destruction and death they incurred.  Being ideologically allied with one of the world’s major religions, this erroneous alignment became dangerously charged.   In his Republic, Plato reminds us of enlightenment’s double-edged design: “Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue --how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness”.  Despite their inherent nature, enlightened beliefs can be used for malign, perpetuating evil or for devout veneration, promoting the endurance of benevolence and compassion.   We must make the choice to enliven our generous capacity for love.

Works Cited

Bible, The. New International Version.  Grand Rapids Michigan: Zondervan Publishing 

House, 1984.  

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulations. Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed. 

Mark Poster. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1988. pp.166-184. 

www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/ Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html - 54k - Nov 6, 2004

Homer.  The Odyssey. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces; Ed 7,. Vol. 1. 

Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York: Norton & Company, 1999.

Lao-tzu. Tao Te Ching. Tran. Stephen Mitchell. New York; Harper & Row, 1988.

Liddel, Henry G. and Scott, Robert.  A Greek and English Lexicon: Based on The German Work of Francis Passow; Ed. 3. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1849.  p. 1-1622

Plato. The Republic. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. 

http://www.plotinus.com/plato_allegory_of_the_cave.htm

Shaffer, Peter. Equus. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.

Hold Your Breath or Embrace the Process: The Bhakti and Moksha Feast of Rama, Rhada, and Ramprasad

John Kuczmarski

11/16/05

Professor Coleman

Hinduism

Hold Your Breath or Embrace the Process:  The Bhakti and Moksha Feast of Rama, Rhada, and Ramprasad

In March of 2002, “vengeful Hindu mobs burned Muslim homes” and ended up killing over three hundred people in Gujarat, India (Dugger 1).  In 2002 Muslims launched a terrorist attack on a Hindu train traveling to Ayodha; Hindus responded with retaliatory riots.  These Muslim attacks on the Hindu train, however, were retaliatory in themselves; because Muslims were responding the demolition of a “16^th century mosque that was razed by Hindus in 1992” (Dugger 1).   This ping-pong game of back-and-forth retaliatory destruction has become detrimental to both religions by destroying the presence of safety as well as sanctified temples and buildings.  Is it possible that such violent outbursts could be prevented with a greater emphasis on dharma and, more specifically, bhakti in the Hinduism faith?

The etymology of bhakti is derived from the word “bhaj”, meaning to share, or to be devoted, to love” (Eck 103).  In other words, it is the devotional sharing of love to a God, or “the heart’s attitude toward devotion and love toward the lord” (Eck 103).  The Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana have their differences; the Bhagavad Gita is commonly considered to be more of a Machiavellian-like text, emphasizing power and schisms, while the Ramayana emphasizes dharma, duty, virtue and family.  Even though they were written over two millennia ago, both these texts play a monumental role in defining the mythology, stories, history, and lessons of bhakti today.

The key message of bhaktiyoga in the Bhagavad Gita is that one must practice the devotion and the love without expecting or having attachment to the fruits of honoring Krishna.  Lord Krishna reminds us that “no effort in this world is lost or wasted; a fragment of sacred duty saves you from great fear” (Miller 35).  If interpreted as a reference to bhakti, this would mean that the very intention of performing the sacred duty of bhakti, , even if it is a mere “fragment”, would liberate one from their fears.  This liberation from doubt and uncertainty through the act of bhakti is precisely what happens to Rhada in his love for Krishna, which will be discussed later.

In the Fifth teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asks Krishna if actions are better than discipline and Lord Krishna responds, “renunciation and discipline in action both effect good beyond measure; but of the two, discipline in action surpasses renunciation of action” (Miller 57).  Because “renunciation is difficult to attain without discipline,” discipline is vital to the process of acquiring renunciation, and without discipline, eliminating one’s hates and problems via renunciation would be impossible (58).  This type of discipline is strongly associated with the devotional discipline of bhakti. According to Krishna, discipline – whether it be discipline of bhakti or dharma – becomes a tool that arms the practitioner, so they can “subdue the self, master his senses, unite himself with the self of all creatures” (Miller 58).  Bhakti can dissolve ego, give control of the senses, and make one recognize universality.  Both discipline and renunciation, when combined with bhakti, have tremendous significance in shaping the relationship between God and man in the Bhagavad Gita.

At the end of the Ramayana, it was bhakti that made the face of even the most demonic foe, Ravana, become “aglow with a new quality” (Narayan 159).  By the time Rama fires the Brahmasthra weapon, Ravana’s layers of “dross, the anger, conceit, cruelty, lust and egotism, which had encrusted his real self” had already been chipped and chiseled away by Rama’s arrows (Narayan 159).  After the brittle coating of debauchery and the cracked crust of deceit had been destroyed, Ravana’s “personality came through in its pristine form – of one who was devout and capable of tremendous attainments” (Narayan 159).  These incredible attainments and devotional-bhakti were concealed behind the external, grimy crust of malevolence, but the intense devotion had always been there. Because of his patience and insight, Rama was able to see through Ravana’s deceitful malign and recognize his wickedness simply as a sham.  Rama saw that deep down, beneath those vile layers, he was a bhakta.  Rama was able to have compassion for Ravana and have faith that even those most immoral enemy would be good because Rama, being the ideal king, husband, and man, possessed patience and faith for every human.  It’s extremely fortunate that Rama did reach out with his compassion and hang in there because Ravana, the person who maliciously captured Sita, had cultivated bhakti from meditating on Rama and from that devotion, he, indeed, did prove to be good: “his face shone with serenity and peace” (159).  Once again, devotion transformed malign into clarity in the Ramayana.  

The mythology and lessons of the Ramayana Bhagavad Gita tell us all about the interpretations and usages of bhakti, but one still needs to understand how bhakti is an evolving concept in Hinduism.  Juergensmeyer discusses how bhakti was one of the variables that has constantly evolved within the Hinduism faith.  He discusses that the devotional-love movements of bhakti were pioneered by “North Indian poet-saints of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries and by South Indian bards who lived centuries before” (Juergensmeyer 82).  Bhakti-devotion to a deity is seen in many different forms, and is something that has adapted and changed throughout time. One of the most interesting portrayals bhakti-devotion is in Radha’s relationship with Krishna, and Ramprasad’s with Kali.  

While Ramprasad and Rhada both experience suffering associated from being separated from their respective gods, they each have incredibly distinct and unique interpretations of this experience of samsara, and, consequentially, vastly different perspectives of moksha.  In the poetry of “Praise of Krishna”, it is obvious that Radha, like Ramprasad, suffers.  Radha is clearly plagued by snakes, darkness, night, and the times when his “feet were muddy and burning where thorns had scratched them” (Dimock 21).  However, unlike Ramprasad, Radha recognizes the suffering of samsara as a stepping-stone, and is part of the process, to moksha.  It is evident that Radha has this awareness that samsara continues into moksha, when he says,  “but I had the hope of seeing [Krishna], none of it mattered, and now my terror seems far away” (Dimock 21).  Radha’s fear literally dissolves as his love and trust in Krishna becomes salvation itself.  People say that “hope makes a good breakfast but a bad supper,” but here, hope has resilience and it endures.  His hope not only pulls and motivates Radha through the suffering of the material word, but his faith actually liberates him so that “all [his] anger is gone” (Dimock 50).  In a sense, his bhakti  to Krishna delivers him to the “far shore of this sea of conflict” (Dimock 46).  

With Rhada’s love and bhakti for Krishna, he doesn’t even have to hold his breath.  Instead, he simply transcends suffering altogether by embracing the process and discovering liberation through suffering, and then reunites with Krishna in the trysting place.  Radha’s interpretation of the juxtaposition of moksha and samsara insinuates a transiency; samsara is part of the process of liberation.  He believes that suffering, if interpreted correctly, can actually become moksha – being almost liberation “disguised as pain or suffering”.  This does not imply that all pain or suffering is fallacious or non-existent, but that, with the right interpretational twist, a person can transcend that real suffering and transform it into a freedom.

Ramprasad, and his relationship with the Mother, Kali, however, is not as lucid as Radha’s, and he is deluded by Maya, while being overwhelmed with an emotional angst throughout the poetry of Grace and Mercy in her Wild Hair.  Ramprasad says, 

“About maya this is the strangest of all – those trapped in it scurry every which way.  Those free of it rest contented.  ‘I’m this. This is mine.’ Idiot thoughts. O mind, you imagined all that stuff was real and carelelessly entangled the heart!” (Nathan 38).

Clearly, Ramprasad recognizes and is affected by these illusions that entangle him in tormenting problems.

Throughout the poems, the reader is positioned at a unique vantage point to witness Ramprasad being affected by these illusions.  From this “omniscient crow’s nest”, the reader, endowed with an outside perspective, can observe can observe Ramprasad being deluded by maya, even though he may not know he is experiencing an illusion.  An example of an unclear, deluded moment was when Ramprasad says, “I’m sweating like the slave of an evil spirit” (Nathan 12).  Later, he says, “Mind – no one’s anything to anyone” (Nathan 13).  These are not exactly lucid thoughts.  Instead, they seem to be quite obfuscated – thoughts reminiscent of being deluded by illusion.

Additionally, Ramprasad’s poetry is strongly emotional as opposed to being divine.  In some parts of the poem it appears to be just a common, everyday conversation between a bickering, needy adolescent and his occasionally nude mother.  There is an interesting inconsistency between the grand reverence of Kali by all the other gods and the simplicity and plainness of Ramprasad’s request for Kali’s affection.  To the Gods, Kali’s very “name is the only freedom,” but Ramprasad, at times, simply just thinks of her as a mother (Nathan 6).  While Ramprasad recognizes Kali’s divinity and omniscience, he clearly is more interested in simple love and affection, or at the least, recognition from his mother.

Ramprasad has the power to vindicate himself because he, in part, has created his own imprisonment.  The bulk of his imprisonment is based on his inability to be at peace with mind, Maya, and material possessions.  Ramprasad has allowed his mind to deplete his essence: “mind, you gambled and lost everything so how do I move now?” (Nathan 22).  Furthermore, in his discussion of Maya, he asks, “who am I? Who is mine? Who else is real?” showing that his inability to relinquish Maya has demolished his identity.  Finally, he is consumed by material possessions when he talks about beauty living “in a pleasure house” and being “lured” into the world” (Nathan 8).  Ramprasad experiences bouts of disparity and lack of clarity, but he also can be incredible wise and illuminated at times, too.

Amongst being partially deluded at times, one can witness him flickering in and out of awareness with crystal-clear alacrity.  Towards the end of the poems, he eliminates the “wine of desire” and “begging door to door” (Nathan 47).  Clearly, the curtains of moksha open for split second, and Ramprasad mitigates some of the habits that entangle him in suffering.  He is, at times, no doubt deluded by mind and illusions, but he experiences incredible awareness and displays the capacity to truly free himself.  During those times of illumination, he knows what to do and executes it with incredible tenacity.  He is aware of the deception of illusions and even says, “I’m not going to be fooled anymore” (Nathan 47).  Additionally, he’s aware and is “light of the passions that almost sank me in the poisoned well” (Nathan 47).   Ramprasad makes his relationship with Kali extremely bleak and full of despair, but he is aware of his possession of knowledge and knows how to truly utilize his mind to liberate him “into the saving waters” (Nathan 65).  

The poetry of Kali is not about Ramprasad’s trials and tribulations, but rather his respect of Kali and struggle to free himself from being overly self-conscious.  When Ramprasad describes his mother running around naked, he is at first, offended: “Why are you naked again?  Good grief, haven’t you any shame…don’t you have any clothes” (Nathan 40).  But even though he may have initially taking offense, Ramprasad is captivated by Kali's ability to obliterate being overly self-conscious.  In her nakedness she has a tremendous presence of self-confidence that makes her “necklace gleam,” so that “even Shiva fears [Kali] when [she’s] like this” (Nathan 40). While Ramprasad often awe-struck with admiration for Kali’s demolition of inhibition and doubt, he is not jealous.  Ramprasad still considers Kali to be close to him, and simply has maternal respect for the deity. 

Rhada recognizes the contingency of samsara into moksha, while Ramprasad detrimentally sees both concepts as separate entities.  Rhada, unlike Ramprasad, would see the samsara of “being born in 8 million forms” as part of the liberation process (Nathan 8).  However, Ramprasad does have moments of illumination and respect for Kali, even though he primarily interprets interactions with Kali as snares of entrapment or the prolongation of suffering. Ramprasad looks at the prolongation of distance between he and Kali as suffering, but Rhada deals with the prolongation as something that will make the union with Krishna, all the more spectacular and freeing.  This is kind of similar to the concept of fasting.  One can interpret fasting the “Ramprasad-way” -- as suffering, starvation, and torment -- or the “Rhada way”-- as something that makes the final feast so much more enjoyable because of the building anticipation.  The latter method allows one to not only enjoy, but to respect the fasting process (or the duration of time away from God), and through that appreciation, generate liberation.

In his discussion of new patterns in Hindu traditions involving bhakti, Ted Solomon talks about a shift in the methodology of Brahmin practitioners.  Solomon writes, “Orthodox Brahmins traditionally committed to the paths of ritual observance and of knowledge are turning to the path of devotion” (Solomon 32).  Even the most converntional Brahmins, typically gravitating to the knowledge-based path, are realizing the significance for the poignant path of love and devotion.  They do not abandon their traditions nor discard knowledge, but embrace a more wholistic pursuit involving the essentiality of bhakti.  Embracing more paths of bhakti, as opposed to solely paths of knowledge impact culture as well: “modern cultural performances, such as concerts, ballet, and dance-drama, ‘gain their deepest significance for Indians and expressions of devotion’” (Solomon 32).  So even today, the practice of bhakti is shifting and undergoing altercations within the different varnas, just as it was shifting around the 1600s with the North Indian poet-saints.  Hopefully, with greater attention to the scriptures and the detailed duty of dharma and compassion derived from bhakti, there will cease to be episodes of violence like the 1992 riots.  Furthermore, instead of a neutral position, simply one of cessation of violence, hopefully more people will practice bhakti and embrace the ideals of Rama and the appreciations of Rhada to not simply find liberation, but to have faith, despite outward appearances, in the intrinsic goodness all people.

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Works Cited

Dimock, Edward C. & Levertov, Denise.  In Praise of Krishna.  London: U of Chicago P, 

1967.

Poetry of Radha and Krishna.

Dugger, Celia.  “Hindu Rioters Kill 60 Muslims in India”. The New York Times.  March 

1, 2002.

Discussion of violence and riots in India between Hindus and Muslims.

Eck, Diana. Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India.  3^rd ed.  New York:  Columbia U P, 

1998.

Interesting interpretations of seeing the divine deity image, darsan.

Juergensmeyer, Mark. The New Cold War? : Religious Nationalism Confronts the 

Secular State. Comparative Studies in Religion and Society; 5.  Berkeley, Berkeley U P, 1994.

Discussion of violence in religious political groups and the role of bhakti in developing Hinduism.

Miller, Barbara. The Bhagavad Gita. Trans. Barbara Miller.  New York: Bantam, 1986.

The Full text of the Gita.

Narayan, R. K. The Ramayana. Trans. R. K. Narayan.  New York: Penguin Books, 1972.

The translation of the Ramayana.

Nathan, Leonard & Seely, Clinton. Grace and Mercy in her Wild Hair. Prescott: Homh 

Press, 1999.

Ramprasad’s relationship with Kali in poetry.

Solomon, Ted.  “Early Vaisnava Bhakti and Its Autochthonous Heritage.” History of 

Religions. Chicago.  Chicago U P, 1970. p. 32-38

Interesting discussion of new images of bhakti in Brahmin culture.

Moby Dick: Capturing the Geist of the American Renaissance through Melville’s Transparent Eye

Moby Dick: Capturing the Geist of the American Renaissance through Melville’s Transparent Eye

John Kuczmarski

 “It may no be precisely accurate to refer to our mid-nineteenth century as a re-birth; but that was how the writers themselves viewed it.  Not as a re-birth of values that had existed previously in America, but as America’s way of producing a renaissance, by coming to its first maturity and affirming its rightful heritage in the whole expanse of art and culture”

-- Francis Matthiessen, American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman

September 25, 2005

Colorado College

Professor Dan Tynan

English 394: American Renaissance

Moby Dick: Capturing the Geist of the American Renaissance through Melville’s Transparent Eye

In his “hugely influential book”, Francis Matthiessen asserts, “works such as Moby Dick came to be seen as declarations of American cultural independence from the aesthetic canons of England and Europe” (Selby 51).  In other words, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman, and other mainstream American authors that wrote around the 1840s, produced quintessential “declarations” that not only differentiated from the traditional European and English frameworks, but also generated an entirely genuine American literary construct in itself.  Although these writers and their craft, like Melville’s Moby Dick or Emerson’s Nature, mark only the nascence of the “flowering of native American literary culture”, this burgeoning style was the very first clean break from the English and European literary methods (Selby 51).  Because the era was the genesis of an entirely original and undiluted American style, Matthiessen and literary scholars refer to that period as the “American Renaissance” (Matthiessen vii).  

The factors that caused the break from traditional literary transitions launched extremely revolutionary ideas.  Some of these radical messages included the economic self-sufficiency and omnipresent divinity inherent in the revolutionary transcendentalism of Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau, and Hawthorne’s dark-sided criticism of the Puritan mind.  Pinpointing the precise cause of this movement is complex, but it is clear that a creatively energetic and flourishing period of entirely new ideological and literary frontier emerged.  The backbone of this shift revolved around the authors of that time and, more specifically,  Melville’s Moby Dick.  Moby Dick was such a seminal piece of American literature because of its simultaneous depiction of antebellum America, the emphasis of antebellum America in defining the American Renaissance, and most importantly, Melville’s ability to intertwine the myriad contemporary transcendental ideas with rich Biblical, geographical, historical, and psychological themes into the text.

While Benjamin Franklin was no doubt the key figure representing Enlightenment in American -- by founding the American Philosophical Society and his myriad inventions, from the lightning rod to ventilation systems -- Melville, Emerson, and the other transcendentalists, no doubt, define the literary American Renaissance (Hoffman 36).  Scholars claim that Melville’s work operates on so many different layers that the same text of Moby Dick can be read literally, psychologically, morally, or mythically (Bixby107).  David Leverenz even believes that Moby Dick can be read purely in terms of gender issues: “Moby Dick is obviously a man’s book, about a man obsessed with avenging his shattered manhood” (Leverenz 126).  From whatever perspective the text is read, it no doubt leaves an impact. Additionally, Moby Dick is a novel that plugs into nearly whichever generation that reads it, and it is precisely this ability, to connect with myriad generations, that makes it an archetypal text.

Because Moby Dick portrays “an image of America that is particularly conducive to that specific generation of readers,” Donald Pease and Wai-chee Dimock declare that Moby Dick is an “archetypal American text” (Selby 147).  Given that Pease can only really be understood by following the logic of Matthiessen, because so much Pease’s criticism revolves around Matthiessenian analysis, one thing is clear from Pease: Moby Dick has become an archetypal text because it elucidates “the tensions and struggles within antebellum America” (Selby 147).  However, just because the book uses brilliant imagery -- drawing Biblical, geographical, psychological, and historical references – to paint the picture of America before the Civil War, does not make it the so-called great make American novel; what makes Moby Dick the great American novel is the fact that antebellum American – the very era of which Melville wrote – is the period that has “come to be seen as epitomizing American identity and culture generally” (Selby 147). 

In other words, it is the formation  “American Renaissance”, and the specific gravitation to the pre-Civil War era, that embosses Moby Dick upon American literature. If this same logic was extrapolated and applied so that the Gilded Age or the Post-Reconstruction Era was said to embody American culture and identity, then Twain’s Huckleberry Finn or Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, respectively, could easily have been the “great American novel”.  However, this was not the case. Melville’s masterpiece is the centerpiece of the antebellum era, and antebellum America is the centerpiece of the American revolutionary identity and Renaissance.  Because of this inference, interpreting Moby Dick, or more specifically, the protagonist of the novel, remains one of the best ways to investigate the American Renaissance.

One of the key discrepancies in the format of the novel is that the unequivocal nature between the narration and the character of Ishmael.  From the first sentence, Melville degrades his primary character by dubbing him Ishmael – “the very name being significant of a propensity to wander” (Parker and Hayford 595).  In giving him this name, Melville connotes the Biblical, outcast Ishmael, who “will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers: (Genesis 16:12).  Right off the bat, Melville crafts the character Ishmael into a penniless, low status wanderer -- a stark contrast from the magisterial presence and long-winded narrative of the narrator Ishmael. 

And it is this contrast that gives Ishmael the status of the “Twenty-Ninth bather” from Whitman’s Song of Myself , which is a model of Emerson’s transparent eyeball image.  Whitman asserts that to truly experience the world one must be fully in it, yet distinct enough from it.  This is fully exemplified with Melville’s creation of Ishmael because the character Ishmael he can be “bathe by the shore…dancing and laughing”, while the narrator Ishmael can remain hidden, “handsome and richly deft” (Whitman 2238). The narrative-character duality between Ishmael simultaneously gives him the immersion of experience and the awareness of outside observation.  Clearly, Melville did not splatter the messages of contemporary writers into a messy pastiche, but cleverly intertwined them into a delicate framework throughout the story of the Great While Whale.

But one other essential detail must be addressed regarding the protagonist is this: it was not Melville who dubs the narrator Ishmael, but the character himself who asks the reader to “call [him] Ishmael (Melville 1).  By having the narrator christen himself as Ishmael, the very first sentence is symbolic of America independently identifying its own style; it is not a British or European label, but an American identity made by America, for America.  Through this simple phraseology Melville brilliantly makes the storytelling much more tangible by using the low-status, “donkey of a man” character coupled with the elaborate story-telling capacity of the narrative Ishmael.  The penniless, Ishmael character can objectively wander throughout Nantucket and observe the dealings of the Pequod, while the narrative Ishmael, with his majestic descriptions, can infuse the details of the story that the character Ishmael experiences.  The two are almost completely distinct personas, but they both embody the self-identifying richness of American heritage.   

But Ishmael is more than a simple character narrative; he is what Emerson would refer to as a “transparent eyeball” where one feels like a “part or particle of God” and where “all currents of the Universal Being circulate through [him]” (Emerson 10).  There are strong Emersonian themes running throughout Melville’s work.  In regards to writing style, Nina Baym remarks, “It is surprising how much Melville resembled Emerson” (Baym 2).  Additionally, in a letter to Evert Duyckink, Melville alludes to Emerson’s elevated intelligibility and remarking on Emerson’s depth of thought, Melville remarks, “I love all men who dive” (Melville; Duyckink 1).  To further understand Melville’s link between Ishmael and the transparent eyeball state, one must dive into an understanding of Emerson.  

As one Colorado College professor scrutinized, “Emerson is not a philosopher”; he approaches the topics in Nature is in a literary manner, not a typical philosophical train of logic.  While Emerson’s methods may not be philosophical, the concepts in Nature certainly are.  Melville’s usage of circle, transparent, and nature imagery is strongly reminiscent of Emerson’s concepts in nature.  Especially significant, however, is Emerson’s discussion of the communicative distinction between God and man is of primary importance to understanding Ishmael.

The relationship with fellow man is different than the relationship with God.  There are tasks, routines, agendas, appointments, and scripts involved with relationships with fellow man; those create the enchaining protocol of conduct that simultaneously provide direction, but also completely limit man.  The very human-to-human interaction, even if it is devoted to the liberation or removal of the enchaining protocol of conduct, cannot escape its medium because.  Just as a telephone call cannot occur without some form of telephone wiring, station, or signal, the human-to-human interaction cannot function without the enchaining protocol of conduct.  Communication with God, however, is the abandonment of script; it is the abandonment of certainty, and the fixation and obsession with compassion.  However, because the essence of universal communication revolves around compassion, the established connection is very strong.  When the Universal being is felt and “all egotism vanishes,” confining protocols cease to exist (Emerson 10).

The transparent eyeball image is vital to explaining the distinction between spiritual communication and human-to-human communication.  This state of universal knowing and awareness can only be acquired, Emerson states, when all “mean egotism vanishes” and during this time of incredible humanitarian unity, ironically, Emerson feels that “the name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental” (Emerson 10).  Not only does the presence of fellow man – friend or stranger, master or servant, whatever the relationship – appear accidental, but it is a “trifle and a disturbance” (Emerson 10).  And it is a trifling disturbance that confronts Ishmael in the first three inns he visits.

Upon settling on the Spouter-Inn, Ishmael has tapped into the universal being.  His first attempt at finding a place to rest, the “Crossed Harpoons”, is “too expensive and jolly” (Melville 8).  And even though the “dreary streets” are checkered with “blocks of blackness”, Ishmael’s next stop, the “Sword-fish”, is too illuminated, with “such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packaged snow and ice” (Melville 8).  Next, “The Trap”, where the Negro church represents the sacrificial “Ben Hinnom” Valley, or the Valley of Slaughter, from the Biblical location of Tophet near Jerusalem, is too dark and hell-like (Melville 8).  What is Ishmael looking for?  More directly, what is Melville showing us?  His character doesn’t want a place too bright or too luxurious, like the “Crossed-Harpoons or Sword-Fish, because such a place is not fluid, but fixed – the opposite of the Emersonian state of Universal Being, which is “not fixed but fluid” (Emerson 48).  Nor does Ishmael want a vile, dark place like “The Trap”, where “disagreeable appearances, swine, spiders, snakes…and the sordor and filths of nature” lie because that is an impediment to the Universal being, as well (Emerson 48).  Melville deliberately shows Ishmael’s elimination process to show his unity with the Universal being.  Additionally, it is the “zephyr” from the Greek west wind god, Euroclydon that causes Ishmael to settle on the Spouter Inn.  Being drawn to the inn but a gust of wind is strongly reminiscent of the “pure spirit, fluid, volatile, and obedient” quality of Universal oneness (Emerson 48).  

Once Ishmael commits to the “universally connected” Spouter-Inn, his tale has already begun.  In fact, all throughout his journey on shore, Ishmael is on board some kind of ship on another.  He is already “aboard a boat” more or less when he sees the “straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft” (Melville 10).  Additionally, when he hears Father Mapple’s sermon, the preacher had ascended the “perpendicular side ladder” to the pulpit as if “mounting a ship form a boat at sea” (Melville 37).  Clearly, when Ishmael has decided on the Spouter-Inn, his sea-faring journey has already begun.

More importantly, however are the Biblical connotations for arriving at the Spouter-Inn by the Euroclydon wind because this is exactly what happened to Paul, formerly Saul, in his sail for Rome.  Along the shore of Crete, Paul’s ship was “caught by the storm and could not head into the wind; so [he] gave way to it and were driven along” (Acts 27:15).  This maneuver of being carried by what the Bible describes as the “wind of hurricane force”, the Euroclydon wind, is in itself extremely in tune with the Emerson’s idea of Universal Being (Acts 27:14). After all, giving into the course of the celestial Euroclydon storm would be becoming one with the “uncontained and immortal beauty” running through the “currents of the Universal Being” (Emerson 10).   

Just as Saul, reborn as Paul, goes on to tell the story of “the Kingdom of god…about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets” when he arrives to preach in Rome (Acts 28:23), so does Ishmael, possibly reformed himself, go on to tell his story of the universe of the Pequod, the sinister Ahab, the prophet Gabriel, who forbade Ahab’s doom for seeking out the whale, and Ishmael’s near-death escape from the “closing vortex…ever contracting toward the button-like black bubble” that sank the Pequod (Melville 566).  The ties between the Euroclydon wind driving Ishmael to the Spouter-Inn automatically encapsulate the story as having biblical significance because Ishmael, in that specific context, symbolizes Paul, telling his tales after so many years of blindness to, and then illumination toward, God.  Additionally, however, the process of eliminating the fixed (and not fluid), expensive inns along with the inn of “blackness and darkness” reveals Ishmael’s tendency to gravitate toward loci where the Universal Being force can resonate, which shows his appreciation of nature.  

To Emerson, the universe is composed of nature and soul. Nature, basically everything except your soul, is all other men, body, nature, and art. “Nature in the common sense refers to essences unchanged by man “like space, the air, rivers, and life (Emerson 8).  Art, on the other hand, is “applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, a picture” (Emerson 8).  So the Pequod would be an example of art – the “contrasting things – oak, and maple, and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp” -- within the unchanged essence of the ocean (Melville 547).  Because of the “man-made art within nature context,” Ishmael experiences oneness by simply being aboard the Pequod.

But on board the Pequod, whether it be near the horn of Africa or in the vastness of the Indian Ocean, some form of Universal being constantly surrounds Ishmael: “the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman’s look” (Melville 531).  As the hunt for Moby Dick reaches its apex, Ishmael witnesses how the Pequod itself “held them all…all the individualities of the crew, the man’s valor, that man’s fear; guilt and guiltiness, all varieties were welded into oneness” (Melville 547).  Furthermore, as Ishmael observes a pod of nursing mothers, he sees the beauty of nature in the ocean that is “to a considerable depth exceedingly transparent” (Melville 386).  Out of all the depictions of nature’s beauty and “unearthly reminiscence” witnessed by Ishmael, it is no coincidence that one of the most wondrous occurs with the usage of Emersonian transparency.  Clearly, the link between Emerson’s universal being and transparency and Ishmael’s narration is secure, and even though the vessel may be set on an outrageous hunt and controlled by a mad captain, it, nevertheless, operates as binding universe in itself where, as Emerson put it, “all the parts incessantly work into each other’s hands for the profit of man” (Emerson 12).  

One of the interesting things about Ahab, which Ishmael gets to observe, is his almost intrinsic connection with the whale. Nearly every ship-captain Ahab encounters he interrogates about the Whale and everyone tells him to turn back, but Ahab’s obdurate resilience is indefatigable.  When he meets the Jeroboam he is encountered by the mad Gabriel who prophetically was “ascending to the main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling forth prophecies of speedy doom” about pursuing the whale (Melville 315).  When Ahab meets Captain Boomer from the Samuel Enderby, Bunger is astonished at the devil-like heat that radiates from Ahab: “this man’s blood – bring the thermometer! — It’s at the boiling point!” (Melville 439).  And even when Captain Boomer suggests that the whale is “best let alone”, Ahab remarks that Moby Dick is “a magnet” perpetually luring him into the chase (Melville 439).  

Another interesting quality of Ahab is his demonic personality.  M.O. Percival references Kierkegaard: “the demonic person, he says, becomes more and more shut up and incommunicative” (Percival 59).  Connecting with the “many silences in Ahab’s life”, one could infer that the captain becomes more and more demonic throughout the journey.  However, despite what Kierkegaard says, it is not simple isolation that creates a devilish character.  Instead, it is the a combination of Ahab’s oddities -- the “solemn meals, eaten in awful silence,” how “Ahab’s soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom,” and the hot-blooded demeanor that constantly affects Ahab – that make him a very mercurial character (Melville 151).  Mercurial offers a much more accurate description of Ahab because from Captain Boomer’s remarks about his boiling blood and from witnessing his dream episodes, where he “would burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on fire,” one realizes that Ahab is a character who suffers with his compulsive pursuit of the great White Whale and should by pitied, not demonized (Melville 201).  

Alternatively, maybe Ahab is sexually deprived or, through some seriously awkward logic, maybe relates the great White Whale to sex.  After all bursting from a “fiery bed” and constantly getting “boiling blood’ when discussing Moby Dick certainly has its sexual connotations, as well.  But if Melville is symbolically linking Ahab to Satan, then, in a purely Biblical context, he is insinuating that he is Lucifer – a former archangel who had stood side-by-side with God before becoming corrupt and falling from Heaven to Hell.  Given the symbolic link to Lucifer being a degraded, character who lost his place, Ahab could use a little compassion, considering his state.  Besides, compassion goes a long way, even if it is “sympathy for the devil” (Jagger and Richards).  Regardless of the cause of Ahab’s idiosyncrasies, considering the captain’s obstinate and deranged drive to hunt the whale, it is amazing that Ishmael managed to escape the deadly demise of the Pequod at all.  

But Ishmael’s ability to so effectively account the story of Moby Dick goes back to how Ishmael first sought the ideal place to begin his journey -- seeking, not places of luxury, not of poverty, not of illumination nor darkness, but a place that resonates with the Universal Being.  By synchronizing himself with the Universal being Ishmael was able to decide upon a place that would harmonize him with methods to not only survive the adventure, but also to then effectively re-account the story. 

It is very fortunate, too, that the protagonist of the great American novel symbolizes universal being and the biblical journeys of Paul because this bodes a very auspicious future for America in the Reconstruction era.  Even though it was Melville, in his Hawthorne and his Mosses, who referred to Hawthorne as an “American Shakespeare”, Melville -- because of his literary mastery and ability to intertwine biblical, geographical, historical, religious, and psychological themes – is most certainly an “American Shakespeare” himself.  This mastery is certainly revealed in his masterpiece.

So Moby Dick represents the American Renaissance because the book reflects antebellum America and antebellum America is considered the centerpiece of American revolutionary identity; but it is not simply the connection with antebellum America that makes Moby Dick a centerpiece of American literature and the great American novel.  Instead, it is Moby Dick’s connection with antebellum American coupled with Melville’s ability to intertwine the contemporary transcendentalist ideas of Emerson’s universal being along with rich psychological, religious, historical, and geographic themes that make Moby Dick capable of taking the cake for capturing the cultural geist of the entire American Renaissance. 

Works Cited

Baym, Nina. “Melville’s Quarrel with Fiction.” Proceedings of the Modern Language 

Association of America. 34, 1979.  p. 909-923.

Described Melville’s similarity to Emerson

Bixby, William.  Rebel Genius: The Life of Herman Melville.  New York: David McKay 

Company, Inc.

Described the multiple ways MD can be read and Melville’s rebellious bio.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays and Lectures. New York: The Library of America, 1983.

Excerpts from Nature regarding the transparent eyeball image and the details of Universal Being.

Hoffman, Abraham & Soifer, Paul. United States History. New York: Wiley Publishing, 

1998.

Useful account of Ben Franklin and general antebellum to reconstruction US 

History.

Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 

1984.  

Essential reference for deciphering Melvillian Biblical metaphors.

Jagger, Mick and Richards, Keith. “Sympathy for the Devil”. Beggar’s Banquet. Dec. London: London 

Records,1968.

The lyrics of “Sympathy for the Devil”.

Leverenz, David. Manhood and the American Renaissance. Ithaca: Cornell U P, 1989. 

p.270-281.

Discusses MD in terms of gender roles and manhood.

Matthiessen, Francis Otto. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of 

Emerson and Whitman.  London: Oxford UP, 1941. p. vii.
Quintessential resource for one of the primary analysts of what is none to be the 

American Renaissance.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Random house, The Modern Library, 1926.

The primary text of MD.

Melville, Herman. “On Ralph Waldo Emerson and his Philosophy.” Letter to Evert 

Duyckink. March 3, 1849.  HYPERLINK "http://www.melville.org/hmquotes.htm" http://www.melville.org/hmquotes.htm.

Primary source reference of Melville’s thoughts on Emerson.

Percival, M.O. A Reading of Moby Dick. Chicago: Chicago U P, 1930.

Selby, Nick. Herman Melville: Moby Dick. New York: Columbia U P, 1998.

Wove together reflections or literary critics, including Matthiessen and Leverenz.

Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself". The Norton Anthology of American Literature: 

1820-1865. Vol. B. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003. p. 2232.

The full text of "Song of Myself".

  It is important to note that, because of the distinction between compassion and pity, Ahab would deserve compassion, but Lucifer, most likely, would not.  Ahab truly suffers and deserves compassion, which is a sympathetic concern for one’s sufferings with the desire to alleviate and/or reduce such sufferings.  But, the corruptness of Lucifer more aptly deserves pity, which is a simply an emotion of sorrow upon encountering a person who suffers, making it compassion without the desire to help, or “indifferent compassion”.

Kuczmarski  PAGE 0

The Necessity of Emotional Authenticity: Gabriel’s Deteriorating Sequence in The Dead

The Necessity of Emotional Authenticity: Gabriel’s Deteriorating Sequence in The Dead

 

James Joyce, 1882-1941

John Kuczmarski (John Thomas aka John Kooz)

December 1, 2004

Professor Soderholm

The Necessity of Emotional Authenticity: Gabriel’s Deteriorating Sequence in The Dead

If you were born blind, were unable to see your entire life, and then suddenly could see for five seconds, what would happen?  Imagine if, during this brief blip of visual illumination, you saw all the colors, hues, and the entire visual spectrum while walking in a forest, but then went blind after that five-second revelation? Gabriel Conroy, the protagonist of “The Dead” experiences a revelation similar to this.  Gabriel Conroy is a humble man – perhaps too humble. He is an emotionally sensitive bookworm who welcomes books more than money and “loves to feel the covers and turn over the pages of newly printed books” (1594).  His sensitized, introverted personality is ill suited for the brusque and boisterous (especially with the presence of Freddy Malins) environment at the Morkan’s dance party. Throughout “The Dead” James Joyce plants triggers that build in stages, showing Gabriel’s sensitivity, that eventually culminate with an epiphany, where the emotionally battered Gabriel chooses to recognize himself with members of the dead.  He is like the blind man, who, after spending his entire life blind, can see for five seconds but then chooses to go back to sleep.  The fact that Gabriel had this choice of choosing blindness (death) or illumination (life) was the result of emotional distance and disparity.  The reason why he chose to reside and reunite with the dead was because of a shattered confidence, distance from the festivities, the presence of a gathering shadow of doubt around him.  Throughout the short story, Gabriel Conroy has an over-reliance on external sources of confidence and doesn’t produce enough self-reassurance originating from an internal source.  

At the opening of the story, as Gabriel is removing his goloshes, a  congenial conversation with Lily goes horribly awry.  In their brief dialogue Gabriel inquires about her school, learns that she has finished and responds, “I suppose we’ll be going to your wedding one of these fine days with your young man, eh?” (1588).  This causes Lily to respond with “great bitterness: ‘The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you.’” (1588).   It is obvious Gabriel has unintentionally offended Lily with a comment that she interprets to be patronizing.  Instead of tactfully explaining what he means, he emphasizes the communicational faux pas, exacerbates the squabble and furthers the distance between their socio-economic statuses by giving her a tip.  What is the psychological consequence of fouling up this conversation and being somewhat scolded by Lily?  Emotional disparity from the party and loss of confidence is the consequence.  Gabriel’s confidence in communicating is smashed.  Immediately after he darts up the stairs to evade Lily and join the party, he distances himself from the festive activity: “he waited outside the drawing-room door until the waltz should finish…he was still discomposed by the girl’s bitter and sudden retort.  It had cast a gloom over him” (1589).  Not only is he emotionally removed, but also he is psychologically discomposed by Lily’s bitter response.  Also, the negative ramifications of Lily’s compliment initiate a building gloom that leaves him disparately disconnected from the party.  Because he unsuccessfully communicates with Lily, a gloom is cast over him, shattering his confidence. 

There is a lyric from a song by the Goo-goo Dolls that goes “I don’t want the world to see me because I don’t think that they’ll understand”.  This fear of other people not understanding you has infected Gabriel and he suffers from it.  He pictures that he “would only make himself ridiculous by quoting poetry to them which they could not understand...They would think he would be airing his superior education”(1589). It is clear that Gabriel fears a replay of what happened earlier, where he untactfully said the marital expectation comment to Lily, and now assumes the other party-goers will not understand him either. Furthermore, the narrator recognizes Gabriel’s smashed confidence: “he would fail with them just as he had failed with the girl in the pantry…his whole speech…an utter failure” (1589). Standing outside the drawing-room shows the physical disparity and expecting his speech to be incomprehensible shows Gabriel’s emotional dissociation and lack of confidence. It is clear the genesis of Gabriel’s brooding gloom and crumbling confidence, which distances him form the party, has commenced.

Instead of recognizing his false assumptions (that all of his conversations at the party would now be incomprehensible or misconstrued) Gabriel continues to make them, which doesn’t prevent, but perpetuates, the deterioration of his confidence.  The next stage that Joyce tactfully plants to show how Gabriel’s shattered confidence, which leads to his emotional separation, occurs with Miss Ivors on the dance floor.  While dancing, Miss Ivors and Gabriel engage in a discussion about Irish tradition and, once again, the introverted Gabriel is unable to emotionally express himself.  Miss Ivors questions his patriotism and ties with Ireland: “Haven’t you your own land to visit,’ continued Miss Ivors, ‘that you know nothing of, your own people, and your own country?’” (1595).  It is clear that this comment is somewhat confrontational, but, being overly-sensitized to it, Gabriel blurts out “to tell you the truth…I’m sick of my own country, sick of it” (1596).  When Miss Ivors asks the poor conversationalist, Gabriel, to expound, and he can’t, she mocks him by saying, “of course, you’ve no answer” (1596).  He then hides his agitation “by taking part in the dance with great energy” (1596).  During this bicker Gabriel doesn’t express his opinions nor his irritation, and, instead, buries them.  Because he emotionally buries his feelings, he ends up relating with the physically buried dead, instead of the living, during his epiphanic moment at the end of the play.  

Obviously, the combination of Gabriel’s inability to express his ideas and Miss Ivors caustic response tarnish his self-assurance once again.  As a result of his deteriorated esteem he retreats to isolation, emotionally distancing himself form the party by sitting “in a remote corner of the room where Freddy Malins’ mother was sitting” (1596).  Gabriel is crossing all boundaries now; he generalizes and assumes that he has been a communicational failure with the youthful Lily and the middle-aged Miss Ivors, so now he tries his tongue with the elderly: old Mrs. Malins!  Because the conversation with Mrs. Malins is simply another evasion (like when he avoided the conflict with Lily’s interpretation of his comment by running up the stairs) it is unsuccessful.  During this conversation “Gabriel hardly heard what she said” (1596), when Mrs. Malins was describing a fishing excursion,.  The shattered confidence causes Gabriel to emotionally run away, which distances him from the party to such an extreme that he can’t even listen to Mrs. Malins.  

These three stages have placed Gabriel in such a denigrated state that he cannot even bear to stay at the party.  “How pleasant it would be to walk out alone,” (1597) he says, “how much more pleasant it would be [at Wellington Monument] that at the supper-table” (1597).  So far we have seen Gabriel’s incapacity to have a successful conversation destroy his confidence and distance himself from the party with Lily.  He becomes even more agitated with Miss Ivors, and his irritation builds to an unbearable amount with Mrs. Malins.  By the time he reaches his fourth conversational confrontation and can’t express himself, his irritation boils over to anger.  

When he finds out his wife, Gretta, has been reminiscing about an old love, “A dull anger began to gather again at the back of his mind…and the dull fires of his lust began to glow angrily in his veins” (1612).  He is really charged up here; even his veins pump angry blood.  Instead of expressing his agitation in the fact that his wife loved Michael Fury (a very witty name considering the infuriating reaction it evokes from Gabriel) more than he, Gabriel buries his rage.  By now, the infuriation has built up to such a huge level that it converts to overwhelming doubt: 

“Gabriel felt humiliated by the failure of his irony…he saw himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy for his aunts, a nervous well-meaning sentimentalist, orating to vulgarians and idealizing about his own clownish lusts, the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.” (1613) 

This is the epiphanic climax where he sees himself as the battered, emotionally sensitive person who doubts his belief to such a degree that he labels them, clownish.  Even his voice is different after this realization: “his voice when he spoke was humble and indifferent” (1613).  That moment was the time when he needed to turn it around; he needed to express his well-justified irritation about his wife appearing to have loved another.  Instead, of choosing to emotional resurrect himself through authentic expression, Gabriel continues to use his ineffectively drab mode of communicating and, as a result of not seizing this crucial opportunity for change, is completed terrorized when he hears his wife say that Michael Furey died for her: “a vague terror seized Gabriel at this answer…some impalpable and vindictive being was coming against him, gathering forces against him in its vague world” (1613).  So instead of choosing to express himself, he negates the opportunity for emotional salvation, and he feels vague ambiguity.  This impalpable and vindictive force is his own shattered self-confidence and his world is so vague because of his emotional distance from it.  When he understands this, the shadow of doubtful gloom completely begins to subdue him.

 Towards the end of the story, after being glazed over by the realization, the epiphanic moment reaches the apex where the decision to emotionally return to life, or remain with the dead, greets him when “generous tears feels Gabriel’s eyes” (1615). His interpretation of himself has already deteriorated from being a sensitive person who idealizes about his ludicrous ideas amongst “vulgarians”, to being meekly held captive by a vindictive force in a vague world.  By the end of the story, Gabriel feels “his soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead” (1615) and “his own identity was fading into a grey impalpable world” (1615).  The shadow of gloom that was sparked by maladaptive conversational skills, leading to lack of emotional integrity and confidence, has completely buried Gabriel and he has emotionally and spiritually joined the dead.  Gabriel’s despondent situation could have been stopped at any time – from initially having a confrontation with Lily to the other extreme of feeling lost in a vindictively vague world -- if he had chosen to seize his emotional reactions, authenticate them, and tactfully respond with sincerity.  The crucial point here is that Gabriel had a choice, but denied himself the opportunity because of lack of emotional authenticity.  From Gabriel’s downward-spiraling sequence of events in “The Dead” Joyce shows us the crucial necessity of empowering ourselves and authenticating our emotions in every context and that communicative Carpe diem can occur, and must occur, in the “now”.

Works Cited

Joyce, James.  The Dead. The Norton Anthology of World 

Masterpieces; Ed 7,. Vol. 1. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York: Norton & Company, 1999.

James Joyce: the Brazen Head. 

http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/joyce_biography.htm l 

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Some Excerpts of Beginning Fiction Writing I Did

John Kuczmarski

Beginning Fiction Writing

Beginnings 250 (Perspective w/light)

June 7, 2005

Rekindle the Rapport

The reflection of the office lamp on the window made it nearly impossible for Rebecca to see out into the ghostly summer night.  Not that she was concerned with the arid desert evening; she was fervently pecking away at the conclusion to her “Metaphors of Sexuality in American Society” thesis.  Because there was no way for her to see out as he looked in, the one-way window transparency did, however, benefit her colleague, the spying Samuel Gervin, whom she knew before she moved to the vacant desert of Montana.  His hesitation before entering wasn’t voyeuristic.  Instead, Samuel -- nervous about rekindling any relationship, be it business-related or long-time friendship -- had paused in awe of the strokes of undulating reminiscence that bombarded his conscience when he saw her assiduously typing away.

Samuel and Rebecca had been friends for almost all of the two-year experience at the small Stone Child College near Box Elder, Montana.  Samuel had always considered their relationship as something more than companionship, but was complacent with their rapport, which was generated by doing field research for their ecological final, studying for finals, and attending most classes together.  The waves of college memories -- from getting lost in the Appalachians during their research project, to surviving the car crash on I-191 near Harlowton, to Rebecca’s graceful smile of gratitude whenever he reminded her to take her insulin – almost made him dizzy with glee to see her.  Taking a deep breath, he balanced one crutch against his hefty body, opened the screen door, inched his broken leg inside the doorframe, and was about to rap upon the window-pane of the door, but paused.  An uncertain, icy panic besieged him; “maybe I shouldn’t visit her,” he thought at the last minute.  “Maybe she doesn’t even want to see me in the middle of her work”.  Too late -- the squeak of the screen door had alerted Rebecca, who twisted in her chair, squinting out into the dim night to determine the source of the disturbance.  In an embarrassed fluster, Samuel simultaneously realized his impending obligation to, now, knock and enter and his desire to bolt away from the porch and abandon the visit entirely.  He awkwardly wheeled around his body, wrenching his leg forward, and rapped twice on the door, only to snag his crutch on the screen door, tripped, and fell into a pathetic heap on the porch just as Rebecca opened the door.

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Startled, and suddenly frightened, by the alarming clamor that had just assaulted her door, Rebecca pounced out of her chair and then froze, uncertain if she should scream and call the police or boldly confront her intruder.  Despite their differences, Rebecca and Samuel did meet ends on one aspect of their behavior, indecision.  And much to her chagrin, just as stalling between the choices of knocking or fleeing had resulted in Samuel's pathetic collapse outside the door, Rebecca now stumbled between her two approaches and flung open the door and screamed blindly into her intruder.  Samuel, who had by that time gotten up, collected himself, and was about to attempt to re-enter, caught the full blast of her uproarious siren of a scream head on and tripped back again into a winded heap on the floor in front of Rebecca.

"Who the fuck do you - Oh my god.  Samuel!  Samuel, are you alright?  Oh my god! What the fuck are you -- ?  You scared me to death.  Were you trying to scare me?"

"What the fucking hell do you think I was trying to do?  I was trying to visit you!  Just popping by to remember the old times, you know!  Did you have to scream in my face?"

Rebecca, laughing, "Oh my god!   Well it's great to see you, Samuel.  I think this break is what I needed.  Damn, you sure pick the craziest times and entrances though.  What the hell happened to your leg?  Why are you in crutches?"  Then in a playful, mocking tone, Rebecca said, "Oh you poor thing....snooby dooby wooby..." 

"Humph.  Well you certainly recollected my "love" for babytalking."  Samuel muttered rolling his eyes.  "Help me up, will ya?"

Rebecca gave Samuel a hand, pulled him up, helped him regain his balance on his teetering stilts and he followed her into the house wedging himself in behind the screen door before it swung shut.

The Cure

A crescent sliver as sharp and as clear as Rinaldo had ever witnessed shone into the valley, illuminating the shadowy Peruvian forest.  “It must be the proximity to the equator,” Rinaldo thought, “that makes the moonbeams so crisp and vivid”.  As he headed back to the base camp, he buried his longing for the gems of civilization – a radio to hear the recent news of the Kennedy assassination, his Aztec history books to peruse, and a cool shave.  He suppressed his civilized desires because he knew that not only should he strive to take advantage of the richly immersive experience at the tropical rainforest of the Tambopato reserve, but he had no other option but to savor the 6-month-long commitment in the northern portion of the reserve, near the Bolivian border, along the eastern border of Peru.  Although Rinaldo was surrounded by throngs of ornithologists, studying “the world’s greatest diversity of bird life”, as the tour books read, his expedition revolved around botanical research.  This specific research had just recently discovered a chemical response to the endangered Carnero (Poulsenia armata) specimen.

Rinaldo had taken his sojourn away from the camp to overlook the peaceful forest, in order to temporarily escape the hullabaloo sparked by the recent findings. When he returned from his reflective respite, he found the base camp, despite it being past midnight, brewing with lively scientific commotion.  On a typical day the four canvas tents were stagnant abodes, housing typical laboratory equipment -- microscopes, samples of flora and fauna, maps of the Tambopata’s ecology, and mysterious substances contained in equally mysterious flasks.  The source of this midnight din revolved around one of these specific flasks.  Bubbling and frothing, fluid in the beaker containing a sample of the 100-foot Carnero tree had shifted from a translucent whitish hue to a crimson viscous liquid.  This chemical change meant the xylem of the Carnero tree had reacted with the AIDs virus strain, indicating only one thing -- the tree had potential curative properties.

John Kuczmarski

Beginning Fiction Writing

Beginning 396 (Visual Images)

June 9, 2005

The Tidal Wave

“Watch out for the second loop – it’s vicious,” said Frederick with an air of experience to his African American brother, Fritz, who was masking his worry by fidgeting with his seatbelt.  Frederick timed the warning perfectly.  Immediately after he spoke, the coaster’s lap bar shot down, and the entire car lurched forward with a crank.  There was an instantaneous pause that gave Frederick just enough time to smoothly rotate his head to the right and boldly smile at his squirming, uneasy brother before the coaster train jolted out of the depot with a booming sound of explosive cranks and clinks, and the speed and urgency of a full-bladder toddler sprinting to the bathroom.

The enormous rush of fear and anticipation that had swelled up in Fritz, when he had been waiting in the depot, immediately purged out of him with a scream of exhilaration.  His eyes tearing with the speed, fighting the oncoming torrent of wind, he turned to the left to examine his adrenaline-junkie brother.  Frederick’s dark-skinned left arm was raised like he was hailing down a taxi at rush hour and the right arm clenched over his body as if wielding a crowbar.  Laughing at the intensity of the speed, he said, “Yeah, Chicago Six Flags! Can’t get this back in Tennessee! Can’t get this anywhere, but,” and he paused for Fritz to chime in, where both of them finished the sentence, “Heeerrreee!”  The two brothers both let out bellowing howls that were an octave above the cacophony of shouts and screams of the other passengers.  

The coaster swerved left and right, dipped and dived, whipping around its passengers like willow branches during a tornado.  Before beginning its plummeting descent, the roller-coaster reached its zenith and paused as if a plane stalling in mid-air.  A dead silence fell upon the passengers before their thrilled screams billowed out into a descending clamor of yells and shrieks as the coaster bulleted back to the station.

Because he had never been on a coaster before, and because of his older brother’s appreciation of the coaster, this ride felt like an initiation into adulthood on Fritz’s eighteenth birthday. He was exuberant from the rush, but more so from the satisfaction of weathering his storm of reluctance and connecting with a source of Frederick’s wild energy.

“Well, now you’re a ‘Tidal Wave’ veteran.”

“Yup, I checked that second loop.”