Colloquy Issue 11 May 2006 - Arts - Monash University

COLLOQUY text theory critiqueissue 11, may 2006A special section on ANTIGONEedited by Dimitris VardoulakisandGENERAL ISSUE

Issue 11, May 2006Editorial 4ANTIGONE – ED. DIMITRIS VARDOULAKISIntroductionDimitris Vardoulakis 6Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ AntigoneCarlo Salzani 8Mourning the Public Body in Sophocles’ AntigoneJennifer R. Ballengee 31A Danish AntigoneSabina Sestigiani 60Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy: Hegel’s AntigoneRhonda Khatab 76The Precedence of Citation: On Brecht’s The Antigone of SophoclesRobert Savage 99No Longer Lost for Words: Antigone’s AfterlifeAlison Forsyth 127Irish Antigones: Burying the Colonial SymptomKelly Younger 148GENERAL ARTICLESImperial Therapy: Mark Twain and the Discourse of NationalConsciousness in Innocents AbroadDaniel McKay 164“Nothing New Under the Sun”: Postsentimental Conflict in Harriet E.Wilson’s Our NigKarsten H. Piep 178Intrinsic and Extrinsic Nature of Time and Space in ContemporaryInstallationVictoria Baker 195Writing the Subject: Virginia Woolf and ClothesCarolyn Abbs 209COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/contents11.pdf

2Contents░REVIEW ARTICLESLiz Conor. The Spectacular Modern Woman: Feminine Visibility in the1920s. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004. ISBN: 0 253 21670 2Juliette Peers. The Fashion Doll: From Bébé Jumeau to Barbie. Oxford:Berg, 2004. ISBN: 1 85973 743 9Robyn Walton 227REVIEWSElizabeth Grosz. The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution and the Untimely.Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, 2004. ISBN: 1-74114-327-6Elizabeth Grosz. Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power. Crows Nest:Allen and Unwin, 2004. ISBN: 1-74114-572-4Claire Perkins 247Astrid Henry. Not My Mother’s Daughter: Generational Conflict and ThirdWave Feminism. Bloomington: U of Indiana P, 2004. ISBN: 0253344549Anthea Taylor 251Avital Ronell. Test Drive. Chicago: Illinois UP, 2004. ISBN: 0-252-02950-X.Faye Brinsmead 256Matthew Sharpe. A Little Piece of the Real. London: Ashgate, 2003. ISBN:0 7546 3918 5Geoff Boucher 260James Phillips. Heidegger’s Volk: Between National Socialism and Poetry.Stanford: Stanford UP, 2005. ISBN: 0-8047-5071-8Andrew Padgett 264John Sellars. The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function ofPhilosophy. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. ISBN: 0-7546-3667-4Michael FitzGerald 268Juliana de Nooy. Twins in Contemporary Literature and Culture: LookTwice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. ISBN: 1-4039-4745-7Dimitris Vardoulakis 271Adrienne Munich and Melissa Bradshaw (eds). Amy Lowell, AmericanModern. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2004. ISBN: 0-8135-3356-2Ce Rosenow 275A.L. McCann. Subtopia. Carlton: Vulgar, 2005. ISBN: 0 9580795 6 0Jay Thompson 278Clare Archer-Lean. Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Writings of ThomasKing and Colin Johnson (Mudrooroo). Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press,2006. ISBN: 0-7734-5864-6Carlo Salzani 281

░ Contents 3Simon Featherstone. Postcolonial Cultures. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP,2005. ISBN: 0 7486 1743 4Barbara Ghattas 285CREATIVE WRITINGWritings from Turkey: Rıfat Ilgaz and Sunay AkınBurcu Alkan 289Blues for AllahAhmede Hussain 298Frank Schätzing. Extract from Death and the Deviltrans. Rhiannyn Geeson 319Fatty’s CyclopaediaVanessa Russell 338

EditorialIssue 11 of Colloquy: text theory critique is divided into two parts. Thefirst part is a collection of papers on Sophocles’ Antigone, while the secondpart consists of the usual general issue articles, reviews, and creative writing.The present issue would have been impossible without the generouscontribution of the many referees who have reviewed articles prior to publication.The following issue of Colloquy will be the proceedings of the conferenceBe true to the earth, which took place at Monash University on March31-April 1, 2005 and which was co-organized by Colloquy. The collection ofpapers, edited by Samantha Capon, Peter Coleman Barbara Ghattas andKate Rigby, will largely focus on eco-criticism and eco-philosophy, and itwill be published in November 2006.Colloquy is presently seeking unsolicited submissions for Issue 12, ageneral issue to be published in May 2007. The deadline for Issue 12 isDecember 15, 2006. Academic articles, review articles, reviews, translationsand creative writing will be considered.The November 2007 issue, Issue 13, will be the proceedings of theconference Imagining the Future: Utopia, Dystopia and Science Fiction,which was held at Monash on December 6-7, 2005. It will be co-edited byAndrew Milner, Matthew Ryan and Robert Savage.THE EDITORSCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/editorial11.pdf

ANTIGONEEdited byDIMITRIS VARDOULAKIS

Introduction to Antigone… a body politic is always threatened more from its citizensthan from any external enemies [hostes] …Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus, VI, 6Sophocles seems to have already reached in Antigone the same insightabout the body politic which will again be expressed in the seventeenthcentury by Spinoza: namely, the political has as its condition of possibilitythe potential for being challenged from within. Sophocles’ play startsimmediately after Thebes has successfully stoved off a challenge from anexternal enemy – from Argos, another city state. However, during the battle,Eteocles, the king, and his own brother, Polynices, who in fact washeading the Argeans, both died. Thus afterwards Creon is elected ruler ofThebes. Creon’s first act of government is to decree that Polynices’ body isto remain unburied. If the new king thought that the worse was past him afterthe end of the battle, he was sorely mistaken. A challenge to his degreefrom one of the citizens and his own niece, Antigone, will not only lead tothe decimation of his own family, but also to the new king being strandedalone at the end of the play, in charge of a self-incurred desert. Antigone, astubborn teenage girl, is the cause of challenging the sovereign of Thebesand hence the city’s body politic.Antigone’s challenge to the body politic results in the distinction betweenpolitics and the political. Her rebellion is, indeed, the precondition ofthe political. This insight is precisely what links Sophocles and Spinoza.Moreover, it is an insight fiercely opposed by the tradition. Thus, Aristotle inbooks VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics explicates a politics based onfriendship (philia), which provides the bonds for the state to function, whilewhat has to be excluded is stasis or rebellion which dissolves the state.However, a close look at the text makes the achievement of philia problematic,for instance because, as Aristotle states, if men are friends, thenthey no longer need justice to mediate their relation (1155a). Inversely, ifthe elimination of justice is impossible, then stasis challenges the primacythat philia is granted in the Nicomachean Ethics. It is this ineliminability ofjustice that the political affirms, and which is not commensurable with theempirical manifestation of a state or sovereign.COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/introduction_antigone.pdf

░ Introduction to Antigone 7Following Aristotle, the Western tradition of political philosophy hasstriven to erase this possibility of rebellion intimately connected to the justiceof the city, but without success. One of the most prominent examplesof this attempt in relation to the Antigone is carried out by Hegel. The argumentadumbrated in the Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Right isclear: there is a distinction between two legal orders, the family and thestate. It is only by privileging the latter that politics can successfully create acommunity. However, as Judith Butler has recently demonstrated in Antigone’sClaim, all attempts to find a stable origin of politics – such as thedistinction between family and state – are bound to fail. Consequently, notonly are the ‘abnormal’ filiations arising from Oedipus marrying his mothernot to be expunged, but rather they point to the fundamental condition ofthe political: namely, the impossibility of a stable origin and the affirmationof a multiplicity of relations which challenge norms and normalcy as thecondition of the possibility of the community.Indeed, as Stathis Gourgouris has noted in Does Literature Think?, thename “Antigone,” as a compound of “anti” and “genos,” means three things:an opposition between kinship and state, an opposition to kinship, and theforce of opposing as such. It is only by affirming all three elements togetherthat a just community can be conceived. Of course, this requires the inscriptionof opposition inside the political. In other words, rebellion as aregulative principle is constitutive of the ontology of the political.Due to this polyphony of meaning in the name “Antigone,” it has beendeemed appropriate to title this special section of Colloquy simply “Antigone.”The various articles presented here approach this polyvalent propername from different perspectives: offering close readings of the Greek text,showing its reception in Western thought, and presenting its impact on theatricalproduction and playwriting. What remains invariable is the need totalk about the political – and this is the legacy, if there is one, of Antigone.Finally, two notes are necessary. First, the inspiration for this specialedition of Colloquy on Sophocles’ Antigone has been a fascinating series ofseminars on Sophocles’ play, conducted by Professor Andrew Benjamin atthe Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Monash University,from March to May 2004. Andrew Benjamin’s breadth of knowledgeand skill in closely reading the text have been a catalyst in showing to allthose present the philosophical import of Antigone. Second, because oftechnical reasons related to the production of the journal, the diacriticalsand spirits of the Greek text have been simplified to a monotonic system.This has been necessary to ensure that the characters are read properly bycomputer software.DIMITRIS VARDOULAKIS

Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ AntigoneCarlo SalzaniPremise: Incipit TragoediaΩ κοινόν αυτάδελφον Ισμήνης κάρα. The famous incipit of Sophocles’Antigone presents various problems to the translator. Κοινόν is what is“common,” “shared,” and this “sharing” is repeated and reinforced inαυτάδελφον, “my own sister,” where αυτός evokes a link of blood and flesh,a profound, archaic commonality of kinship. The invocation is directed toΙσμήνης κάρα, which literally means the “head of Ismene.” As GeorgeSteiner points out, “to claim this head to be ‘common to us both’ and as‘shared in the totality of sisterhood,’ is to negate, radically, the most potent,the most obvious differentiation between human presences. … Antigone’sprolusion strives to compact, to ‘ingest,’ Ismene into herself. She demandsa ‘single-headed’ unison.” 1 This “totality of sisterhood” is reaffirmed fourtimes, in the terms κοινόν, αυτός, άδελφον, κάρα. The translator must workout a periphrastic solution – like Hugh Lloyd-Jones’ “My own sister Ismene,linked to myself” 2 – to avoid a monstrum, like Hölderlin’s Gemeinsamschwesterliches.3As Steiner emphasizes, “a fertile duplicity” 4 inhabits the term κοινόν.On the one hand, κοινόν means the “ordinary,” “general,” what is “common”to many; on the other hand – and specifically in this context – it indicates acommonality of blood, a carnal bond, what is common within kinship. Withinthe incestuous stock of Labdacus though, κοινόν takes on much darker andCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue10/salzani.pdf

░ Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ Antigone 9horrifying connotations. Antigone and Ismene are at the same time sistersand daughters of Oedipus, daughters and granddaughters of Jocasta, andthis aberrant commonality cuts them off from the accepted norms of kinshipbased on the incest prohibition. This makes their sisterhood different, theyare closer than other sisters, they are almost “fused.” 5The invocation to Ismene is thus a request and a provocation to “fuse”in one sisterly identity, the scandal of the sanctification of an aberrant kinshipagainst the polis. The new-born democratic experiment in the Athensof the fifth century B.C., based on plurality and a “modern” concept of individuality,is challenged by Antigone’s archaic, perennial “collective,” by herimpulses towards human interfusion. The dialectic between mechanical individualismand psychic collectivism haunts the whole play. However, at thesame time, in the course of the theatrical action, Antigone becomes theagent of “the most solitary, individual, anarchically egotistical” of the campaigns,6 severing every bond except the one with the dead brother. Antigonesummons Ismene into the play reminding her of a belonging, a sharing,and she herself moves through the whole play ambiguously confoundingthe limits and the definition of this sharing.Figures of CommonalityFollowing the fil rouge of this short interpretation of Antigone’s firstline, this article will read the play through the question of commonality. Antigone’sambiguity, in which “lies the bottomless irony and falsehood of Antigone’sfate,” 7 only exemplifies a complex and articulated topic. Tragedywas, in the Athens of the fifth century B.C., a political tool whose purposewas to educate the polis (πόλις) through the presentation on stage of thedangers and problems of the life of the community; the question of commonalitywas thus the central topic of the tragic education or paideia(παιδεία). Sophocles’ Antigone problematizes and deconstructs the notionof commonality under almost every possible angle: in kinship and polis, languageand communication, love and death, nature and law. In the playevery “figure of commonality” is opened up and “vivisectioned” to show itsfragility and its limits, and the dangers for the polis when the “walls” of itsdemocratic construction are demolished.There are no figures of commonality in Antigone: all the figures representthe aberrations of the concept of commonality, which is displayed, underlinedand invoked through the presentation of its absence. In the classicalinterpretation, Antigone as a figure of kinship represents the conflict betweenthe order of the polis and the one of the family; but, as incestuousoffspring of Oedipus and with her ambiguous acts and claims, she repre-

10Carlo Salzani░sents, in addition, the problematic and aberrations of kinship. At the sametime, as a woman speaking in the public space or agora (αγορά), she alsoraises the question of the polis as a community based on the exclusion ofwomen. Creon represents the aberration of the democratic notion of “civicfriendship” and embodies a voice that silences all the other voices; but atthe same time he evokes the contradictions of a politics founded more onthe concept of enmity than of friendship, more on exclusion than inclusion.Both Antigone and Creon are figures of the misunderstanding of the democraticmeaning of law (νόμος), both negating its fundamental characteristicsof deliberation and conciliation. Deliberation and conciliation whichare founded on another common trait, the sharing of a logos (λόγος), acommon language and understanding; but all the characters of the play aresegregated within a deafness which makes them figures of incommunication.Logos as the base of a “rational” politics fails because all the charactersare figures of irrationality; but, at the same time, the notion of logosraises the question of an order – called, in fact, logo-centric – based on theexclusion of the women as deprived of logos. Antigone even fails in being afigure of love: the only community to which she belongs is the one of thedead. Sophocles’ Antigone presents on stage the complete failure of anypossible kind of commonality and the political dangers represented by thisfailure: every character is apolis (άπολις), a figure of the negation of the politicalunderstood as a space of sharing of thoughts, words and actions.Twenty-five centuries of history have added many interpretative layersto the surface of Antigone’s pedagogic intentions. The political actuality ofAntigone is still present in the presentation of the multiform concept ofcommonality in the democratic agora; but the modern reader must add theanalysis of topics to which an Athenian audience of the fifth century B.C.was uninterested, such as, for example, sexual difference and discrimination,the role of women, a new definition of logos etc. The modernity ofSophocles’ tragedy is that it offers many unintended opportunities for amodern discussion of the concept of commonality. The following analysiswill try to compose the ancient pedagogy with new political inspirations.Philia IWenn Antigone kommt, die schwesterlichste der SeelenGoetheThe ancient Greek term philia (φιλία), when referred to the household,

░ Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ Antigone 11covers the semantic area that embraces the fact of belonging to a stock, afamily, a kinship. It is what Antigone calls “my own.” 8 It presents neverthelessan important differentiation in its use: when referred to the household,philia evokes the world of female “care”; when referred to the agora, thepublic space, philia is a political, i.e., masculine virtue. The Athenian democracywas founded on the division of these two spaces: the householdconstituted the prepolitical condition that enabled the existence of the polis,as Judith Butler writes, “without ever entering into it.” 9 The liberation fromthe necessities of the physical, bare life was the prepolitical condition forthe political freedom in the polis; it was the work of women and slaves thatenabled men to be free in the public arena. 10 The care of the dead was partof women’s duty: Antigone’s claim falls thus entirely within the traditionaland prepolitical role reserved to women. Her claim’s scandal consists in themodalities of her act, which invades the public realm. 11 Since Hegel, Antigonehas been considered “not as a political figure, one whose defiantspeech has political implications, but rather as one who articulates a prepoliticalopposition to politics.” 12Nevertheless, in Antigone the picture is more complex: philia refershere not much to the realm of δόμος (house) or οικία (household), but tothe one of birth or genos (γένος), a relation of blood, the incestuous bloodof Oedipus. As Adriana Cavarero argues, the commonality of philia is here“radicalized in the endogamic model of a generation which has as uniquesource the maternal incest.” 13 In Oedipus’ family, the individual identityseems to be only secondary to a “pre-egotical” community of blood, inwhich the singularity, due to its aberrant incestuous origins, is in symbioticalimmanent union with the genos. Antigone’s philia goes over the divisionsof time and politics, and binds her with Oedipus and Eteocles, butwith Polynices as well. The conflict between polis and genos is the conflictbetween the temporality of the human events and the atemporality of “thewomb as time of the ‘ever’ which death conserves.” 14In this context, in spite – or maybe because – of the morbidity of theattachment to her brother, Antigone has been often identified as “the mostsisterly of souls” (Goethe). Is that really so? Antigone seems to forget thatIsmene is now, after the death of the two brothers, her last and only kin.Ismene is twice harshly repudiated and, in the end, Antigone rejects anycommonality with her. Even from a grammatical point of view, Antigone departsfrom the philia of kinship towards an egotistical solitude: from the dualperson of the first lines, after Ismene’s refusal to join in her pious act, Antigoneswitches to the singular, “which yells the suffering of her uprootedsolitude.” 15 Besides, as Butler points out, in the context of her incestuousfamily, Antigone’s love for her brother is coloured with suspicious tones of

12Carlo Salzani░obsession and madness. 16 However, the most scandalous utteranceagainst kinship’s philia is Antigone’s infamous declaration in the final kommos,where she affirms that she would not do for a husband or a son whatshe did for her brother. 17What kind of philia does Antigone then represent? Does she reallystand for “the sanctity of kinship”? If the ancient Athenian saw in Antigone afigure of the conflict between the orders of kinship and the polis, for a modernreader she cannot be a figure of the commonality of kinship anymore,but rather problematizes the same notion of philia, exposing its limits, itsconflicts, its aberrations. 18Philia IIWar [πόλεμος] is the father and ruler of all thingsHeraclitusWhen it is used in the agora, the term philia means “civic friendship,”which is the principal political virtue: philia no longer intended as a commonalityof blood, but as the pure social bond, which is the determinant criterionfor inclusion in, or exclusion from, the polis. This criterion excludeswomen from the public space, segregates them in the house and confinesthem to the philia of kinship. 19 For Creon, Antigone’s sin is “insubordination”(αναρχία, 672); however, the real scandal of her claim is that shedares to enter the political space, reserved to men, and speak the languageof politics and sovereignty. Her claim concerns “womanly” things, but shepursues them in an “unwomanly” way. 20 Her entry into the male space is athreat to men, who feel “unmanned.” 21Antigone forces into the political arena a pre-political – for the phallogocentricidea of politics – issue. As Arendt emphasizes, “the human capacityfor political organization is not only different from, but stands in directopposition to, that natural association whose centre is the home (οικία) andthe family.” 22 This opposition is confirmed by Creon: “and him who rates adear one higher than his native land, him I put nowhere” (182-3). Civicphilia needs the destruction of the family bond, of the blood relation, of thefeminine philia. The philia Antigone tries to force into the public space is aprepolitical commonality of blood; civic philia persists in an excluding oppositionto it. The two spaces present opposite features: the household is thespace of force and violence, where the head of the family governs throughdiscipline, and freedom does not exist. 23 The role of women is to obey, and

░ Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ Antigone 13there is no worse insult for Creon than to be compared to a woman. 24 ErroneouslyCreon thinks he can apply the discipline, which reigns in the family,to the public space, which is the space of freedom. 25 The public space is aspace shared by “equals,” and discipline cannot be a political means.Thus, Creon misunderstands the democratic articulation of civic philiaand uses it exclusively as criterion of inclusion/exclusion for the polis. Thedialectic friend/enemy is for Creon, as for Carl Schimtt, the political categorypar excellance 26 : friend is Eteocles, “who died fighting for this city”(194-5); Polynices,who came back from exile meaning to burn to the ground his nativecity and the gods of his race, and meaning to drink the people’sblood and to enslave its people, (198-203)is the enemy, the stranger, the Other, “something different and alien,” 27 capableof “drinking the people’s blood.” Not even death can overcome hisotherness and exclusion. 28 The emphasis here is much more on Polynicesthan on Eteocles. For Creon, then – as for a great part of patriarchal politicaltheory – what defines the inclusion in the community is what is excluded:in the dialectic friend/enemy the stress is always on the secondterm, and war becomes the activity which ultimately defines the identity ofthe community. 29 In Greece, “warrior and citizen coincide in a sole and homogeneousconcept – and the meaning of ‘friend’ ends up taking in thesystem an entirely secondary place.” 30However, the inclusion/exclusion criteria of friend/enemy do not workfor Antigone. She is not “the other,” the one who comes from outside toconquer the city. She is an insider, the internal enemy. That is why, unlikePolynices, she does not fit into the category of πολέμιος, the public enemy.31 The Greek language presents a difference between εχθρός andπολέμιος, preserved in the Latin inimicus and hostis, the internal enemyand external enemy. Antigone is the “apolitical,” “prepolitical” internal dissident.And when the opposition is internal, among “citizens” and not against“the Other,” the conflict is more dramatic, “more tragic”: the oppositionφίλος/εχθρός in Antigone emphasizes, as Cavarero writes, “the sense of ahorizon of incestuous blood. A horizon which confers to the concept ofεχθρός all that was radically corporeal in the concept of φίλος, and makesso the enemy consanguineous, as it wanted the friend of consanguineousorigin.” 32In Antigone’s Thebes, no social bond keeps the citizens together: civicphilia is misrepresented and problematized in every character’s rejection ofthe basic political sense of commonality. At the same time, Antigone confoundsand deconstructs the notion of this philia, based on exclusion much

14Carlo Salzani░more than inclusion, on enmity and opposition much more than commonality.NomosThe people [δήμος] must fight for its law as for its walls.HeraclitusAntigone is a tragedy about the law: Antigone’s unwritten laws(άγραπτα νόμιμα, 454-45) are opposed to Creon’s edict (κήρυγμα, 8). Or:primordial, natural laws are opposed to the human and temporal norm. ForHegel the conflict of the “universal” public law and the divine (unwritten) lawis “a conflict of self-conscious Spirit with what is unconscious.” 33 Butlernotes that the unwritten law “appears only by way of an active trace” 34 : it isa law with no traceable origin, no form, no communicability and no translatabilityinto written language. It is not fully knowable, but, “as the unconsciousof public law, it is that which public law cannot do without, which itmust, in fact, oppose and retain with a certain necessary hostility.” 35 Besides,this is a law with “but one instance of application” 36 : it would not applyto a husband or a son, but it does to the brother because he is “irreproducible.”This means that “the conditions under which the law becomes applicableare not reproducible.” 37 This law, therefore, is not conceptualizableas law; it undermines the universality of public law and “destroys the basisof justice in community.” 38It should be noted that Antigone uses the term nomima (νόμιμα), customs,ordinances, and not nomos, which was always a human creation(ποίησις) and therefore opposite to nature or physis (φύσις). The realmeaning of the term nomos is “convention,” “human rule,” something absolutelyhuman and independent from the nature of things. 39 Law was consideredas equivalent to the wall around the polis, the limit and the conditionof possibility of the political space: there can be no community withoutthe wall-like law, and law is the prepolitical founding instrument of the politicalcommunity. 40 Constitutively emendable and correctable, the law was reformulatedand negotiated through deliberation, like the boundary line.Deliberation is precisely what is lacking in Antigone. Hegel already hadnoted how Antigone and Creon exclude and oppose one another, becomingin the end mirror-images. 41 No composition is ever possible betweentheir opposed fanaticisms. Exposing this lack, the tragedy exposes the sinand the danger that undermines any human community: “devotion to one’sown personal sense of justice” and “mutually exclusive commitments to

░ Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ Antigone 15righteousness.” 42 Only through deliberation and conciliation can a communitysurvive: “this,” writes Zak, “is a collective responsibility and wisdomCreon and Antigone will not heed or consider. … In the isolated, selfrestricted,and finally self satisfied kingdom of the spirit each insist oncommanding, both rule their respective deserts beautifully alone.” 43 Manycommentators have underlined how the real sin of both Antigone andCreon is to “declare themselves autonomos, a law unto themselves” 44 : onthe one hand, Antigone, in her autistic exile, excludes herself from thecommunity; on the other, Creon transforms his claim for a general justice ina rule of force and violence. Outside the democratic system of conciliation,the sovereignty of the law becomes indistinct from violence. 45As Stathis Gourgouris points out, in ancient Athens law had a constitutivedifferential and agonic character, “encompassing a range of significationsfrom the explicitly religious (say, the justice of Zeus) to the most historicallyinstitutional, from the widest possible meaning of sacred dike to themost brutal defiance of the law in the name of responsibility to justice.” 46 InAntigone the term is used with opposite connotations by the different charactersand almost all the possible meanings are presented. However, eachand every position remains segregated in its ivory tower, the laws of the polisdo not interweave with divine justice, no real community is ever createdand sustained by these mutually excluding laws.Logos IIn the “Ode to Man” the chorus establishes the foundation of politicalcommonality: men learned (and thus share) speech and thought, which arethe conditions and the components which rule cities. 47 The sharing of thesame language is what makes possible the constitution of a community:“speech and wind-swift thought” enable men to distinguish good and bad,right and wrong, a community is based on shared moral perceptions and onthe capacity of judgement (κρίσις). 48 What differentiates the political animal(ζώον πολιτικόν) from the other animals is the fact of sharing a capacity tocommunicate and decide together; Aristotle’s famous definition acquires itsfull meaning only when completed with his other definition of the “human”:ζώον λόγον έχον, a living being capable of speech. 49 Antigone adds an importantfeature. She cries to Ismene: “Tell them all! I shall hate you farmore if you remain silent, and do not proclaim this to all” (86-7). Actionneeds to be publicized in order to have political valence, and public speechis the real political action. 50 Aristotle’s βίος πολιτικός (the political) consistedof πράξις (action) and λέξις (speech): the Athenian polis was thespace where words and speeches acted as the political medium. Politics is

16Carlo Salzani░not force, not violence, but speech, understanding, confrontation andagreement. 51Creon’s will to command rather than persuade, his incapacity to listento the other, represents the opposition to, and the negation of, this conceptionof the political. Creon transfers into the political space the prepoliticalways of violence and force characteristic to the household. He insists onthe necessity of discipline and obedience (πειθαρχία, 676), and on thedangers of insubordination (αναρχία, 672), contradicting the very notion ofdiscursive politics itself. 52 Creon’s discourse is appropriate to an army, notto the polis: he refuses to listen to the others’ opinions 53 and, writes Euben,relegates the others’ voices to “whispers (the people of Thebes) or cavesand houses (Antigone and Ismene).” 54However, it is not just Creon who represents the negation of the political.Rather, as it has been noted, in Antigone language is paradoxicallywhat divides and separates: every character retires into a code not understandableto the others; they use the same words, but confer to thesewords different connotations, so that what they enact is “a dialogue dessourds. No meaningful communication takes place. Creon’s questions andAntigone’s answers are so inward to the two speakers, so absolute to theirrespective semantic codes and visions of reality, that there is no exchange.”55 This is what George Steiner calls the paradox of “divisive facsimile”:“the discovery that living beings using the ‘same language’ canmean entirely different, indeed irreconcilable, things.” 56 This paradox is aproblem of the language in general and “is present in all speech andspeech-acts,” 57 but in Sophocles’ Antigone it is taken to such extremes thatforbid any kind of communication, in any kind of dialogue. Euben thus concludes:“the exchange between Creon and Haemon suggests that samenessand interchangeability can mask different features … more specifically,that repetition of terms can obscure incompatible principles and interests.What seems to be or should be a firm basis for deliberation, sharedlanguage and culture, turns out to be divisive.” 58Logos II“Good sense [φρονείν] is by far the chief part of happiness” (1348-9).With these words the chorus concludes the tragedy, emphasizing that“good sense,” φρονείν, is precisely what is lacking in the play. There ismuch talking about reasoning, knowledge, deliberation, but every characteris guided by the irrational: the voice of reason conceals always a passion.Especially Creon insists on the rightfulness of his reasoning, whereas theothers are supposed to be mad, irrational, without sense or judgement:

░ Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ Antigone 17άνους. In the end, every character is dominated by the conviction to be“right” and that the others are “wrong”; none of the characters is ready toacknowledge his or her mistake. Reason is questioned and problematized.59Thus, reason fails in the play. However, reason does not fail merely inits “correct use”; it fails also in its pretension of universality. When Creoninsults Haemon calling him a “contemptible character, inferior to a woman!”(746), he is implicitly calling him άνους, irrational, lacking of correct reasoning.Φρονείν, the “right thinking,” as well as “thinking” in general, have infact traditionally been male attributes: women, emotional and passional, arenot fit for the “reasonable” public space and are to be sequestered and silencedin the darkness of the household. Creon’s exasperated misogyny inthis respect only mirrors the situation of women in ancient Athens.Women are considered not “reasonable” because they are deeplyrooted in the carnality and materiality of the body, and cannot rise to theheights of reason. As Cavarero writes, body and corporeity are consideredas the “mere material support of the human faculties of speech andthought,” 60 thus distinct and separated from them. The political order builton this distinction and exclusion has been called logocentric and phallocratic,and thus phallogocentric: it is based on the exclusion from thehigher political realm, on the one hand, of the corporeal, and, on the other,of women as inevitably rooted in this corporality. 61 Logos is what separatesand redeems men from the animal condition; but at the same time, it separatesthe “human” from its corporality and relegates women into it.By raising her voice, Antigone confuses and violates the “logical” order,which relegates her to silence. She speaks in public, and to do so shehas no other means than to utilize that same logical order which wants hersilent. Antigone speaks in that language which is not “hers,” the languageof a hyper-masculinized logos that wants her silent, the language of politicsand sovereignty that sequesters her in the house. This is the “only” language,the sharing of which is what constitutes her as “human,” but that atthe same time excludes her as not fully so. 62 Antigone as a woman is excludedfrom the realm of logos, politics and higher “humanity”; she lacks a“reason” and a language of her own, and must make her political claim usingthe logocentric tools that exclude her. On the other hand, her claim isconsidered non-political because she inhabits a region outside the realm oflogos. The failure of reason is thus complete: reason fails because everyone in the play lacks reason (is άνους), and even “reasonable” actions areprompted by passions; but reason fails also as the founding element ofidentity for the animal rationale, because it becomes a pretext for exclusionand reclusion.

18Carlo Salzani░ErosDeny thy father and refuse thy name,Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.Shakespeare, Romeo and JulietWomen, expelled from the (public) space of logos, are relegated withinthe realm of passion: eros (έρως). In the Athenian polis, though, eros hadan institutionalized status: it was simultaneously the pedagogic tool of thepaideia, and, in the symposia (συμπόσιον) and the gymnasia (γυμνάσιον),the glue which reinforced the social bonds. It was thus a constructive andcivil force. Nevertheless, that was an exclusively masculine and homosexualeros; the Eros, “invincible in battle,” 63 of whom Antigone’s chorusspeaks, is a maddening force opposed to logos and to the polis. It is thereforea feminine force. As Claude Calame writes, “tragedy leads the readeraway from masculine love and back to the Eros who assails women.” 64The chorus’ ode to eros follows the clash between Creon and Haemonand illustrates the latter’s “mad” behaviour. Eros has “stirred up this quarrelbetween men of the same blood” and has broken the family bond; eroswrenches “just men’s mind aside from justice, doing them violence.” Its irresistibleforce severs the individual from the community and throws him orher back into a pre-communal wilderness. Love’s folly is a jump out of therealm of logos and out of the polis: love’s power unsettles any social relationship,in order to build an improbable “community of lovers,” it breaks alltheir other links to justice, logos, and society. In the end, the community oflovers is a new, different community opposed to the polis; eros is not justan a-social force, but rather an anti-social one, one that dangerously underminesthe structures of society itself.As Steiner notes, the presence of Eros evokes an archaic, a-logical, orbetter, pre-logical world, a world that precedes logos and polis: an archaic,pre-Olympian, omnipotent force, which masters over humans and immortalsas well. 65 The hypothesis therefore seems plausible that the maddeningforce the chorus’ ode evokes is not Eros, or the “irresistible” goddessAphrodite, but Dionysus; and that the ode to love and the invocation toDionysus at the tragedy’s acme are strongly connected. It must be rememberedthat the tragic representation used to take place on occasion of theDionysia, celebrations in honour of Dionysus, and one of the functions ofthe tragedy was to “represent … the extremes of madness into which theonslaught of erotic desires drives us, along with all its dire consequences.”66

░ Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ Antigone 19The feminine eros thus is destructive and dangerous for the polis: itstands in opposition to it and as such is primarily tragic. It is strange, then,that the figure that represents Eros in the play is not a woman, but Haemon.Women in Antigone are victims of passions, but not of eros; Antigone,who should be Haemon’s counterpart in the representation of love, is insteadlost in the passion for her brother: Steiner remarks that “if Antigoneloves anyone, then it is her brother.” 67 Again roles, limits and boundariesare confused. The tragic topos forbids the constitution of a “community oflovers” and interweaves love and death; Antigone’s bridal chamber is atomb and Haemon enacts the bloody wedding and a symbolic defloration atthe threshold of death. 68ThanatosEven before her suicide and the bloody nuptial rites with Haemon, Antigonedwells in a sort of limbo between life and death: “my life has longbeen dead, so as to help the dead” (559-60). Almost every member of herfamily is now in Hades, with the exception of Creon, her enemy, and Ismene,who lets her down. The familial bonds drag her into a commonalitywith the dead that conditions her life. Antigone’s “own” is in death, nolonger in the polis and in the community of citizens: “it’s honourable for meto do this and die. I am his own and I shall lie with him who is my own” (72-4). Antigone’s “love for the impossible” is a love for the dead and for death;as Creon maintains his enmity even with the dead, 69 so does Antigone withher love.With her whole family in Hades, Ismene wants to join Antigone in herpunishment and share her destiny of death. However, Antigone contemptuouslyrejects her, at the same time rejecting any commonality and severingany link with the living, and reaffirming her belonging to the dead. 70 Antigonein the kommos laments her death “without the bridal that was mydue”; she will be “the bride of Acheron” (810-6). The bridal with Acheron,the marriage with death, is nevertheless the completion of a life lived “neitheramong the shades, neither with the living nor with the dead!” (850-2).She is going to join “her own” in Hades: “to them I go, to live with them, accursed,unmarried!” (866-9). The famous invocation to the tomb as bridalchamber evokes the final reunion with her family. 71“Those below” are anyhow an inescapable presence throughout thewhole play: almost every character evokes their presence, only Creonboasts indifference toward “things in Hades.” However, his sin is not onlyhis boasting: Creon’s unforgivable impiety consists in his disrespect for thelimits and boundaries between the world “below” and the world “here.” He

20Carlo Salzani░denies burial to a corpse and buries a living being 72 and his impiety sets inmotion Dike’s nemesis – the just or divinely ordained justice – that will reestablishthe balance of life and death. As Hegel already recognized, “thedead, whose right is denied, knows therefore how to find instruments ofvengeance, which are equally effective and powerful as the power whichhas injured it.” 73 Contrary to Creon’s initial belief, the dead exercise a constantinfluence on the action of the play. The dead, the gods (but they arealways the gods “below”), “prompt” the actions of the humans, as recognizedby the Chorus: “King, my anxious thought has long been advising methat this action may have been prompted by the gods” (278-9). The deadstations at the border of Hades and hangs over the living guiding theirmovements. Steiner recognizes that “hardly any notable utterance or actionby the living does not occur under pressure of the dead. … Starting withAntigone’s first speech, the dead are made animate both in their place ofdarkness and at the uncertain frontiers of life.” 74 Death conquers this waythe world of humans in its “tidal advance … on the dissolving society of theliving.” 75PolisMan has learned “how to escape the exposure of the inhospitable hillsand the sharp arrows of the rain, all resourceful” (356-60). The “exposure”is the fact that man is “thrown out” into the world, and at the same time isseparated from it. It is a distance from the natural world that constituteshuman essence. Man is all-resourceful (παντοπόρος, 360): the one whohas many ways, many routes, and thus many resources. For Heidegger,the polis is the crossroads of all these routes, the place of human historicity,the “where” and the “how” of human distancing from nature and beingin-the-world.76 However, what defines this “crossroads” as a political space,as a polis, is less the exclusion of the natural world than the inclusion of theconditions for freedom. This freedom is guaranteed by plurality, by the factthat no one rules over the others: the common space of the polis is thespace of appearance where people share words and deeds. Polis, properlyspeaking, is therefore not so much a physical location, a “crossroads,” butrather, argues Arendt, “the organization of the people as it arises out of actingand speaking together.” 77 This space is constituted by “words anddeeds” and so “it does not survive the actuality of the movement whichbrought it into being.” 78 The polis is actualized each and every time wordsand deeds are “political,” that is, “where words are not empty and deedsnot brutal, where words are not used to violate and destroy but to establishrelations and create new realities.” 79

░ Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ Antigone 21That is why in Antigone there is no polis. There is no sense of whatGourgouris calls “differential autonomous plurality”; 80 there is no plurality atall because Creon’s rage silences any other voice. 81 “There is no city thatbelongs to a single man,” cries Heamon to Creon; and: “you would be afine ruler over a deserted city!” Antigone’s Thebes is that “deserted city”over which the tyrant rules: where no sharing of words and deeds createsthe political space there is no polis, but a political desert. 82 However, asZak points out, it is not just Creon’s folly that erases politics from Thebes;but a diffuse individualism stops the very emerging of the political. Warningus against the apolis, the enemy of the polis, the chorus seems to forgetthat the enemy is an insider (Antigone); the treason is from within. And forZak this treason is general: “all the Thebans but Teiresias and Ismene havedetermined to ‘make their own way’ apart from one another.” 83 Thebansare excluded from the polis and the political by their own individualism.From this point of view, it is interesting to consider Froma Zeitlin’s hypothesisthat Thebes “provides the negative model to Athens’s manifest image ofitself with regard to its notion of the proper management of city, society andself.” 84 Thebes is an image used to represent in dramatic form the conflictsof the polis at their extremes: its definition, its essence, and the limits andrisks of its existence. Thebes is in the theatre the anti-Athens, the “other”place, where Athens acts out questions crucial to the polis: there, the primalquestion of the polis, the one regarding the sense and the existence ofthe community, is problematized in the representation of its absence.ApolisThe notion of apolis (άπολις) is thus the central issue of Antigone.Nevertheless, the concept has multiple and even potentially contradictorymeanings: “outcast from the city” is the law-breaker and the evildoer, butalso the one who is refused and excluded by the city, or who excludes himorherself. Therefore, the question about the identity of that apolis the chorusis talking about cannot have a single answer.Apolis is bound with the notion of “perversion.” And the possibility ofperversion is constitutive of the human being, as the chorus acknowledges:man “advances sometimes to evil, and other times to good” (367). Thepossibility of being apolis, outside the community, is intrinsic to the notionof humanity itself. This is because, unlike other creatures, human beingsare unnatural: being human signifies a rupture with the natural world, theviolent and exclusively human act of creating a polis, an artificial space.This violence constitutes the “human.” In Heidegger’s interpretation this iswhy man is το δεινότατον, “the most terrible,” “the strangest,” or – in his

░ Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ Antigone 23commonality is problematized under almost every possible angle, and itsaberrations are laid open in front of the audience. Antigone’s “community”is made up, instead, of figures of conflict: conflict within the family, betweenthe family and the state, between states, between the sexes and the generations,between law and justice, within language, speech, action. And themodern reader may add to the traditional reading further conflicts proper toour time.There are no figures of philia in Antigone. The notion of philia intendedas the belonging to a stock, a birth relation or genos, is deconstructed bythe tragedy of Oedipus’ incestuous family; Antigone’s mad – since thequestion of whether it is incestuous endures – love for her brother makesher renounce any commonality of philia. Nor are there any figures of a civicphilia in Antigone’s Thebes, where Creon erases any space of freedomwith his claims for a military discipline. Besides, the patriarchal notion ofcivic friendship as the basis of the political is shown to be founded more onthe concept of the enemy rather than the friend, more on exclusion that inclusion.In Antigone there are no figures of nomos, the law based on negotiationand deliberation that constituted the foundation of the Athenian democracy:every character declares him- or herself auto-nomos, a law untothemselves, erasing the prime condition of a democratic community. Thereare no figures of logos, no commonality based on a shared language andunderstanding, nor a common “rationality” as base of a presumed humanity.There is no freedom of speech under Creon’s tyranny; furthermore, theshared language in the tragedy is not a means of communication but anobstacle and a vehicle of misunderstanding. As for “rationality,” everyone inthe play acts irrationally; but reason itself fails in its pretension of universalitybecause, in a phallogocentric horizon, it is a male prerogative and a pretextfor women’s exclusion and reclusion. Even eros cannot build a communityin the tragedy: the feminine eros is a destructive and antisocialforce, opposed to the polis; but not even a community of lovers takes placein Antigone, as Antigone’s only love is for her brother and her nuptials withHaemon are enacted with his suicide. The only commonality in the tragedyseems to be the one of Antigone with the dead: she refuses any link withlife and polis and embraces her destiny of death. Death as the only possiblecommonality devours every community in the play. Thus there is no polisin Antigone, no sense of community, of plurality, of democracy: everyoneis apolis, secluded from the polis for their individualism, egoism or gender.Antigone’s community is a figure of absence.Sophocles’ Antigone gives no answer and proposes no solution to theproblems of the community. Tragedy’s “message” in general, writes Castoriadis,was a “constant remainder of self-limitation”; 91 and Antigone’s

24Carlo Salzani░“message” in particular may be “the demonstration that contrary reasonscan coexist … and that it is not in obstinately persisting in one’s own reasons(monos phronein) that it becomes possible to solve the grave problemsthat may be encountered in collective life.” 92 However, there is noresolution of the dilemma of the community, no answer to the questions ofcommonality. As Gourgouris puts it: “Unlike philosophy (and certainly,unlike theology), tragedy is a techne of espousing, not resolving, the differentialequations of the law – in the last instance, a techne wrought ofenigma and contradiction for the sake of contradiction and selfinterrogation.”93Monash UniversityCarlo.Salzani@arts.monash.edu.auNOTES1 George Steiner, Antigones: How the Antigone Legend has Endured in WesternLiterature, Art, and Thought (New Haven: Yale UP, 1996), p. 209.2 In the following discussion I will always refer to Hugh Lloyd-Jones Antigone’s editionand translation in Sophocles, Antigone, The Women of Thrachis, Philoctetes,Oedipus at Colonus, trans. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP,1994). All references are given parenthetically by line number.3 Friedrich Hölderlin, Sämtliche Werke, Briefe und Dokumente, ed. D.E. Sattler,Bremer Augabe, (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004), 10: 162.4 Steiner, Antigones, p. 208.5 See Steiner, Antigones, pp. 208-9.6 Steiner, Antigones, p. 213.7 Steiner, Antigones, p. 213.8 In the first dialogue with Ismene, Antigone insists on using the possessive τόνεμόν, “my own”: “I will bury my [εμόν] brother, and yours [σόν], if you will not” (45);“But he has no right to keep me from my own! [τών εμών]” (48). As Paul Ludwignotes, “of etymological importance is the fact that in earlier Greek the adjectiveform, φίλος, also denoted ‘one’s own.’” Paul W. Ludwig, Eros and Polis: Desireand Community in Greek Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002), pp.212-3.9 Judith Butler, Antigone’s Claim: Kinship between Life and Death (New York: ColumbiaUP, 2000), p. 2.10 For a clear presentation of this theory on the historical situation see Hannah Arendt,The Human Condition (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998).11 See J. Peter Euben, Corrupting Youth: Political Education, Democratic Culture,and Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1997), p. 167.

░ Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ Antigone 2512 Butler, Antigone’s Claim, p. 2.13 Adriana Cavarero, Corpo in Figure: Filosofia E Politica Della Corporeitá (Milano:Feltrinelli, 1995), p. 32.14 Cavarero, Corpo in Figure, p. 57.15 Cavarero, Corpo in Figure p. 35.16 For a discussion on the taboo about Antigone’s possible incestuous love for herbrother see Butler, Antigone’s Claim. The incest taboo constitutes, even beforepsychoanalysis or Lévi-Strauss, the condition of social intelligibility. For Hegel thestability of kinship is based on blood relations, which make desire impossible.These conditions here are confused in an unstable incestuous web of blood anddesire.17 Antigone says: “for never, had children of whom I was the mother or had my husbandperished and been mouldering there, would I have taken on myself this task,in defiance of the citizens. In virtue of what law do I say this? If my husband haddied, I could have had another, and a child from another man, if I had lost the first,but with my mother and my father in Hades below, I could never have anotherbrother” (904-12).18 For a discussion of this point see Butler, Antigone’s Claim.19 Cavarero notes: “So Creon and Polynices … although enemies, stay on the sameside of that patriarchal symbolic order which assign women to domestic circle andmen to a humanly progressive and higher political sphere,” Corpo in Figure, p. 50.20 See Euben, Corrupting Youth, p. 166.21 Like Creon, who in fact cries: “indeed, now I am no man, but she is a man, if sheis to enjoy such power as this with impunity” (484-9).22 Arendt, The Human Condition, p. 24.23 This is Arendt’s position. Using Plato and Aristotle, Ludwig gives a different interpretationof civic philia as extension to the city of the philia that reigned in the family.See Ludwig, Eros and Polis, p. 340.24 He says: “in this way we have to protect discipline, and we must never allow awoman to vanquish us. If we must perish, it is better to do so by the hand of aman, and then we cannot be called inferior to women” (677-80). And to Haemonhe cries: “Contemptible character, inferior to a woman!” (746).25 Creon says: “if those of my own family whom I keep are to show no discipline,how much more will those outside my family! The man who acts rightly in familymatters will be seen to be righteous in the city also” (659-62).26 See Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (NewBrunswik, New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1976).27 Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, pp. 26-7.28 As Creon says, “an enemy is never a friend, even when he is dead” (522).29 Schmitt writes: “War as the most extreme political means discloses the possibilitywhich underlies every political idea, namely, the distinction of friend and enemy,”The Concept of the Political, p. 35.

26Carlo Salzani░30 Cavarero, Corpo in Figure, p. 52. Cavarero – together with a good part of feministcritique – attacks the binary paradigm of friend/enemy which is the basis of patriarchalpolitical theory and which emphasizes uniquely the category of enemy. Inopposition to this, Antigone releases philia from its contrary, from enmity: ούτοισυνέχθειν, αλλά συμφιλείν έφυν (523), “I have no enemies by birth, but I havefriends by birth,” or “I wasn’t born to share enmity, but to share love.” Antigonerepresents “an unpolitical philia, inscribed in maternal generation, which doesn’tcontemplate and doesn’t know its contrary,” Cavarero, Corpo in Figure, p. 52.31 As Schmitt emphasizes, “an enemy exists only when, at least potentially, onefighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity. The enemy is solelythe public enemy, because everything that has a relationship to such a collectivityof men, particularly to a whole nation, becomes public by virtue of such a relationship.The enemy is hostis, not inimicus in the broader sense; πολέμιος, notεχθρός,” The Concept of the Political, p. 28.32 Cavarero, Corpo in Figure, p. 56.33 For Hegel, as unconscious of the public law, the unwritten law is “the law ofweakness and darkness” and it is where the universality of the public law isrooted: “The publicly manifest Spirit has the root of its power in the nether world.”Public law has to “consume” and “absorb” into itself and its universality the unconsciouspower of the unwritten law. See Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenologyof Spirit, trans. T.M. Knox (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997), p. 286-7.34 Butler, Antigone’s Claim, p. 38.35 Butler, Antigone’s Claim, p. 38.36 Butler, Antigone’s Claim, p. 10.37 Butler notes that “this is a law of the instant and, hence, a law with no generalityand no transposability, one mired in the very circumstances to which it is applied,a law formulated precisely through the singular instance of its application and,therefore, no law at all in any ordinary, generalizable sense,” Antigone’s Claim, p.10.38 Butler, Antigone’s Claim, p. 52.39 Castoriadis writes: “Φύσις: the push, the endogenous and spontaneous growth ofthings that nevertheless is also generative of an order. Νόμος: the word, usuallytranslated as ‘law,’ originally signified the law of sharing [la loi du partage], thereforeinstitution, therefore usage (ways and customs), therefore a convention, and,at the limit, convention pure and simple. That something pertains to νόμος and notto φύσις signified, for the ancient Greeks, that that something depends on humanconventions and not on the nature of beings. … Νόμος is our creative imaginaryinstitution by means of which we make ourselves qua human beings.” CorneliusCastoriadis, World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis,and the Imagination, trans. David Ames Curtis (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1997), pp.331-2.40 Arendt writes: “The laws, like the wall around the city, were not results of actionbut products of making. Before men began to act, a definite space had to be securedand a structure built where all subsequent actions could take place, thespace being the public realm of the πόλις and its structure the law; legislator and

░ Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ Antigone 27architect belonged to the same category. But these tangible entities themselveswere not the content of politics (not Athens, but the Athenians, were the πόλις),”The Human Condition, pp. 194-5.41 See Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 280.42 William F. Zak, The Polis and the Divine Order: The Oresteia, Sophocles, and theDefence of Democracy (London: Associated UP, 1995), p. 90.43 Zak, The Polis and the Divine Order, p. 90.44 Zak, The Polis and the Divine Order, p. 113. Zak proposes the hypothesis of afundamental death-drive contained in and sustaining this autonomist folly, andtransposes to Antigone and Creon the term Ismene uses to describe Eteocles andPolynices: αυτοκτονούντε (56), “an ambiguous term at once denoting mutual destructionand self-slaughter. … Refusing all conciliatory communication with oneanother, they turn their fury upon themselves when they find the blows they woulddeliver to their enemies fail of their intended mark,” The Polis and the Divine Order,p. 113.45 For a discussion about law, violence and sovereignty, see the section NomosBasileus in Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans.Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998).46 Stathis Gourgouris, Does Literature Think? Literature as Theory for an AntimythicalEra (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003), p. 126.47 “And he has learned speech (φθέγμα) and wind-swift thought (φρόνημα) and thetemper that rules cities” (354-6). Steiner notes that “lines 354-5 … entail almost apolitical theory of speech,” Antigones, p. 254.48 See David Cohen, Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens (Cambridge:Cambridge UP, 1995), p. 36ff.49 For a discussion on the centrality of speech in the polis see Arendt, The HumanCondition.50 Arendt writes: “Without the accompaniment of speech … action would not onlylose its revelatory character, but, and by the same token, it would lose its subject.… Speechless action would no longer be action because there would no longer bean actor, and the actor, the doer of deeds, is possible only if he is at the sametime the speaker of words,” The Human Condition, p. 178-9.51 As Arendt remarks, the polis “not without justification has been called the mosttalkative of all bodies politic,” The Human Condition, p. 26.52 Creon cries: “But there is no worse evil than insubordination! This it is that ruinscities, this it is that destroys houses, this it is that shatters and puts to flight thewarriors on its own side! But what saves the lives of most of those that go straightis obedience! In this way we have to protect discipline and we must never allow awoman to vanquish us” (672-8).53 Haemon reproaches him: “Do you wish to speak but not to listen to him you speakto?” (757).54 Euben, Corrupting Youth, p. 160.55 Steiner, Antigones, p. 247.

28Carlo Salzani░56 Steiner, Antigones, p. 234.57 Steiner, Antigones, p. 234.58 Euben, Corrupting Youth, p. 162.59 Euben formulates it this way: “does Antigone provide us with a view of reason asdefective, or does it provide us with a case of pride and stubbornness ‘masquerading’as and perverting reason? Is what we see not ‘true’ reason but a ‘semblance’of it? Or do the very terms of this distinction beg the question?”, CorruptingYouth, p. 148.60 Cavarero, Corpo in Figure, p. 20.61 Cavarero illustrates this clash between polis and (female) body, using Sophocles’Antigone as an extremely representative example and, at the same time, as anatypical case where the body is loaded with an unusual importance for the centralityof the corpse and of an incestuous sexuality. See Cavarero, Corpo in Figure.62 Judith Butler evidences this paradox in Antigone’s claim: “Her words, understoodas deeds, are chiasmically related to the vernacular of sovereign power, speakingin and against it, delivering and defying imperatives at the same time, inhabitingthe language of sovereignty at the very moment in which she opposes sovereignpower and is excluded from its terms,” Antigone’s Claim, p. 28.63 The chorus invocation is full of awe: “None among the immortals can escape you,nor any among mortal men, and he who has you is mad. You wrench just men’smind aside from justice, doing them violence; it is you who have stirred up thisquarrel between men of the same blood. Victory goes to the visible desire thatcomes from the eyes of the beautiful bride, desire that has its throne beside thoseof the mighty laws; for irresistible in her sporting is the goddess Aphrodite” (781-805).64 Claude Calame, The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece, trans. Janet Lloyd(Princeton: Princeton UP, 1999), p. 141.65 See Steiner, Antigones, p. 256ff.66 Calame, The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece, pp. 149-50.67 Steiner, Antigones, p. 158.68 The description of the macabre nuptial rites reads: “Still living, he clasped themaiden in the bend of his feeble arm, and pouring forth a sharp jet of blood, hestained her white cheek. He lay, a corpse holding a corpse, having achieved hismarriage rites, poor fellow, in the house of Hades” (1238-43).69 Creon says: “An enemy is never a friend, even when is dead” (522).70 Antigone says to Ismene: “Do not try to share my death, and do not claim as yourown something you never put a hand to! My death will be enough!” (534-47). Ismenereplies: “Ah me, am I to miss sharing your death? Antigone: Yes, you choselife, I chose death” (554-5).71 The invocation reads: “O tomb, O bridal chamber, O deep-dug home, to beguarded for ever, where I go to join those who are my own, of whom Persephassahas already received a great number, dead, among the shades! Of these I am thelast and my descent will be the saddest of all, before the term of my life has come.

░ Figures of Commonality in Sophocles’ Antigone 29But when I come there I am confident that I shall come dear to my father, dear toyou, my mother, and dear to you, my own brother” (891-9).72 In the words of Tiresias: “in return for having hurled below one of those above,blasphemously lodging a living person in a tomb, and you have kept here somethingbelonging to the gods below, a corpse deprived, unburied, unholy. Neitheryou nor the gods above have any part in this, but you have inflicted it upon them!”(1068-73).73 Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 287.74 Steiner, Antigones, p. 263.75 Steiner, Antigones, p. 265.76 See Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, Gregory Fried and RichardPolt (New Haven: Yale UP, 2000), pp. 156 ff.77 Arendt, The Human Condition, p. 198.78 Arendt, The Human Condition, pp. 199-200.79 Arendt, The Human Condition, pp. 199-200.80 Gourgouris, Does Literature Think?, p. 141.81 The dialogue (des sourdes) between Haemon and Creon, accelerated and madeso more dramatic, effective and captivating in the stichomythia, expresses exemplarilythe anti-political situation of Thebes:HAEMON: This people of Thebes that shares our city does not say so.CREON: Is the city to tell me what orders I shall give? …CREON: Must I rule this land for another and not for myself?HAEMON: Yes, there is no city that belongs to a single man.CREON: Is not the city thought to belong to its ruler?HAEMON: You would be a fine ruler over a deserted city! (733-9)82 Tyranny, Arendt explains, means isolation: “isolation of the tyrant from his subjectsand the isolation of the subjects from each other through mutual fear andsuspicion – and hence … tyranny was not one form of government among othersbut contradicted the essential human condition of plurality, the acting and speakingtogether, which is the condition of all forms of political organization,” The HumanCondition, p. 202.83 Zak, The Polis and the Divine Order, p. 12784 Froma Zeitlin, “Thebes, Theatre of the Self and Society in Athenian Drama”, inGreek Tragedy and Political Theory, ed. J. Peter Euben (Berkley: U of CaliforniaP, 1986), p. 102. It is, of course, a very old interpretation to see Antigone as pittingAthens against Thebes, although the terms of contrast may differ. Cf. RichardJebb, Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments: Part III, Antigone (Cambridge: CambridgeUP, 1900, pp. ix-x.85 See Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 159.86 Cavarero, Corpo in Figure, p. 44.87 Gourgouris, Does Literature Think?, pp. 141-2.88 Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p. 70.

30Carlo Salzani░89 As Haemon asserts: “For whoever think that they themselves alone have sense,or have a power of speech or an intelligence that no other has, these people whenthey are laid open are found to be empty” (707-9). Thus Gourgouris concludes:“The two sides of the law (human/divine, State/family, etc.) are not as mutually exclusiveas they appear at first glance since they can be interwoven, and it is preciselyin the sense that Kreon and Antigone resist this interweaving (pareirein) andpursue each other to destruction by following the law of monos phronein that theybecome apoleis. To think and act alone in a democratic polis is plainly selfdestructive,as well as an affront to the polis,” Does Literature Think?, pp. 140-1.90 Euben writes: “Proximity because what the audience saw and heard on stageresonated with recognizable contemporary events, characters, and situations; distancebecause, though elements of the excesses on stage were present in Athenianlife, they did not define it,” Corrupting Youth, p. 176.91 Castoriadis, World in Fragments, pp. 93-4.92 Castoriadis, World in Fragments, pp. 93-4.93 Gourgouris, Does Literature Think?, p. 155.

Mourning the Public Body in Sophocles’ AntigoneJennifer R. BallengeeAt the close of Oedipus at Colonus (c. 401 BC), the last extant play ofSophocles and his final treatment of the myth of Oedipus’ accursed family,a strange dramatic event occurs. As the thunder of Zeus peals overhead,Oedipus’ body, located somewhere offstage, disappears forever, simultaneouslybestowing a remarkable power upon the site where he departsfrom earthly life. Perhaps stranger still, for the form of the drama, are theresponses that Theseus and Antigone have to the catastrophe. Accordingto the messenger who reports the details of Oedipus’ death to the chorus(and the watching audience), the epic hero who alone among humans haspermission to witness Oedipus’ passing actually fails to see the singularevent:And when we had departed, after a short time we turned around,and could see that the man [Oedipus] was no longer present, andthe king [Theseus] was shading his eyes, holding his hand againsthis head, as though some terrible, terrifying thing, unbearable tosee, had been presented.ως δ’ απήλθομεν,χρόνω βραχεί στραφέντες, εξαπείδομεντον άνδρα τον μεν ουδαμού παρόντ’ έτι,άνακτα δ’αυτόν ομμάτων επίσκιονχείρ’ αντέχοντα κρατός, ως δεινού τινοςCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/ballengee.pdf

32Jennifer Ballengee░φόβου φανέντος ουδ’ ανασχετού βλέπειν. (1647-52) 1In an odd twist of dramatic performance, Sophocles represents the catastrophe2 of Oedipus’ death by means of a messenger who is forbidden tosee the occurrence. Thus the messenger must report upon what he saw ofthe only one who was allowed to see, Theseus – who himself fails to seebecause the sight presented is too terrible for seeing. In lieu of representation,then, in the place of what cannot be staged, the audience must turn tonarrative language to gain knowledge of this event.Such a pointedly linguistic presentation seems counter to the drama’stheatricality. As Aristotle indicates in the Poetics, tragedy, which belongs tothe arts of mimesis or representation, remains distinct from other mimeticarts such as epic poetry, dithyramb, or music in that it utilizes actors on astage along with verse and rhythm in order to convey its meaning. As hiswell-known formula describes:Tragedy is a representation of a serious, complete action which hasmagnitude, in embellished speech, with each of its elements [used]separately in the [various] parts [of the play]; [represented] by peopleacting and not by narration; accomplishing by means of pity and terrorthe catharsis of such emotions.έστιν ουν τραγωδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας και τελείας μέγεθοςεχούσης, ηδυσμένωι λόγωι, χωρίς εκάστωι των ειδών εν τοιςμορίοις, δρώντων και ου δι’ απαγγελίας, δι’ ελέου και φόβουπεραίνουσα την των τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν. (1449b24-28) 3The body of the actor corresponds to the meaning of language; gestureshave the potential to be both mimetic and deictic. In tragedy, this passagesuggests, the “doing” (δρώντων) of actors takes the place of the reporting(απαγγέλων) of narrative language. Tragedy represents its meaning upon astage before an audience by means of bodily actions supplemented byspoken words.The speech of the messenger (that is, the reporter, the άγγελος)quoted above, however, suggests a more complicated relation betweenmimesis and language in tragedy. In fact, later in the Poetics, it seems thatpoetic language, apart from the bodily gestures that correspond to it, comprisesan integral part of the function of the drama. The purpose of the performanceof speech, Aristotle suggests, would disappear if the thoughtsspoken by the actor were not essential: “For what would be the task of thespeaker, if the necessary elements were apparent even without speech? [τιγαρ αν είη του λέγοντος έργον, ει φαινοιτο η δέοι και μη δια τον λόγον]”(1456b7-8, my trans.). Lucas’s commentary suggests two possible mean-

░ Mourning the Public Body 33ings: “Either A. is asking what would be the function of speech in drama ifthe necessary emotions could be aroused by pantomime, or, more likely,what would be the role of rhetoric in drama if the emotions could bearoused by the action.” 4 With an emphasis on the way in which languageitself conveys meaning, Aristotle introduces a discussion of lexis, diction,the manner of speaking the thought of the tragedy. 5 Diction provides, heexplains, the means by which rhetoric will be effected in the drama. Derrida,in his essay “White Mythology,” likewise suggests that this passageemphasizes the function of rhetoric in tragedy: “If there were no differencebetween dianoia and lexis, there would be no space for tragedy. … This differenceis not only due to the fact that the personage must be able to saysomething other than what he thinks. He exists and acts within tragedy onlyon the condition that he speaks.” 6 For Derrida, the need for lexis, the rhetoricalpresentation of the thought of the work, indicates a significant difference– between speech and thought – that creates the space for tragedy.In tragedy, the thought of the work can be expressed in speech that doesnot refer to it directly; conversely, words in tragedy may, by means of theirrhetorical potential, pose a number of possible meanings. Rhetoricalspeech, then, is an essential aspect of tragedy; without speech, the thoughtof the play remains unspoken.Yet what happens when speech fails? To return to Oedipus atColonus, in the speech of Antigone that follows the messenger’s report(quoted above), Sophocles presents another barrier to understanding:Alas, alack! It is for us, it is for us to lament in all fullness for the accursedblood from our father that is in us, unhappy pair; our fatherfor whom we endured continual pain, and at the last we shall carryaway from him things beyond reason that we have seen and suffered.αιαί, φευ. έστιν εστι νων δηου το μεν, άλλο δε μη, πατρός έμφυτονάλαστον αίμα δυσμόροιν στενάζειν,ώτινι τον πολύνάλλοτε μεν πόνον έμπεδον είχομεν,εν πυμάτω δ’ αλόγιστα παροίσομεν,ιδόντε και παθούσα. (1670-6)For Antigone and Ismene, what is left at the end of Oedipus’ life, which it istheir continual curse to mourn, surpasses reason (it is αλόγιστος), remainingfor them in the experience of sight and suffering. What eludes speechcan nevertheless be seen and felt. It seems, then, that speech works inconjunction with physical performance in the tragedy; for, in drama, “dis-

34Jennifer Ballengee░course itself is on display.” 7These two responses to Oedipus’ death present two divergent hurdlesto communication. On the one hand, the event of Oedipus’ death is notseen by any individual, even the epic hero designated to witness it. Nevertheless,the death is reported by the witness in terms of its not having beenseen; the messenger’s words, delivered to the audience of Theban eldersand the audience of spectators, take the place of the actual event. Yet thisnarrative account, failing to correspond entirely to the catastrophic momentof Oedipus’ death, cannot entirely convey the thought or meaning of hisdeath. This difference arises again in the second passage. For, as Antigonelaments, the meaning of Oedipus’ death – that is, what the mourningof his passing, and therefore of his past, would convey – stands beyondreason, it cannot be reasonably communicated to others, but remains tothe daughters only in what they themselves have seen and suffered becauseof their father’s life. This failure in language returns us to the differencebetween speech and thought. Bridging the difference between lexisand dianoia, the tragic actor performs upon the stage not only before hisaudience, but for his audience. The terms of this performance are echoedin Antigone’s troubled lament. The necessity of the mourning that Antigonefinds impossible shifts the impact of Oedipus’ death from his daughters’ individualexperience of the event to the manner in which they may (or maynot) communicate his death, by means of his life, to the polis. The transferenceof mourning from an individual ritual to a communal demonstrationand process raises the problem of communicating the act of mourning to alarge body of people. What does the corpse of the one who has died meanfor the polis? What is the meaning of the loss of the individual for the city?In Oedipus at Colonus, the meaning of Oedipus’ passing, and his pastlife, for the city, is embodied in his crimes: his past achieves significance inits pollution of the polis. For the city, the meaning of his passing mustsomehow indicate the nature of that pollution – that is, the extent of histransgression – in order to measure its loss or resolution in death. Whilethe individual mourns in ritual the passing of an other individual, the meaningof mourning for the city is construed in terms of a larger ideal that reflectsthe position of that individual in relation to the city. 8 In the case ofOedipus, mourning becomes an exploration of justice, in which the bodybecomes evidence or proof that will indicate justice effected. Thus, the individualbody stands in as evidence for the meaning – the thought – of Oedipus’life. Antigone’s method of communicating the meaning of his death –by means of her own body’s suffering – suggests this potential of communicating,from the individual to the masses, by means of the body.While Oedipus at Colonus offers a demonstration of the political fate of

░ Mourning the Public Body 35Oedipus’ body, whose public significance has already been made horrifyinglyclear, 9 Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone, in its essential concern with burial,traces the role of the body in its shift from individual to political mourning.Describing events that occur after Oedipus’ criminal investigation, selfconviction,and death in exile, 10 this play demonstrates a preoccupationwith crime and justice that reflects a fifth-century Athenian interest in thedemocratic mode of judgment – the formal trial. As a result, the body in Antigonefunctions not only as a representation of an action, but ultimately asa potential body of evidence – the evidence of meaning – whose sufferingprovides the legitimacy of proof to a witnessing audience. While the corpse,in its persistence on stage, 11 reminds the audience of a potential meaningwhich it indicates, the body acquires this potency by having suffered pain.How does suffering enable the body to mean more than itself? How doesthe symbolic potential of the body relate to its position at the juncture of individualand polis? In this article, I will suggest that in the conjunction oftragedy and trial (both aspects of the polis), 12 the sense of the body as evidenceexpands the function of mimesis – through the rhetorical concepts ofevidence, proof, and punishment – beyond determinable meaning, surpassingthe temporal and spatial limits of language to refer directly to theconception of divine justice at the location of the tortured, dead body.The unforgettable corpseOf Sophocles’ three Theban plays, Antigone (c. 442 BC) provides, inthe motivating corpse of Polynices, the clearest example of the status ofthe material body for the polis. Taking place after a war between opposingforces led by Antigone’s two brothers, the play opens in the wake of anarmy of bodies killed in battle – corpses among which those of the brothersoccupy a position of marked importance, due to the political significancewith which they are invested. Yet it is Polynices’ corpse, denied burial byCreon as punishment for his insurrection against Thebes and his brotherEteocles, which poses the ethical dilemma of the play. While Antigone expressesa passionate loyalty to her brother, repeatedly attempting to givePolynices a proper burial, Creon opposes her efforts with a staunch andunbending loyalty to the city-state, condemning her actions as traitorouslycriminal.Polynices’ unburied corpse introduces an ethical dilemma into the playfrom the very first, when Antigone proposes to her sister Ismene the plan tobury it, raising the problem of Creon’s edict against such an action. Whatseems to strike Antigone first about the situation is the inequality with whichher brothers are being treated: while Eteocles is honored with burial,

36Jennifer Ballengee░Polynices is not. Yet the manner in which she relates Creon’s proclamationto Ismene reveals that the matter is not merely about a simple burial: “Butas for the unhappy corpse of Polynices, they say it has been proclaimed tothe citizens that none shall conceal it in a grave or lament for it, but thatthey should leave it unwept for, unburied, a rich treasure house for birds asthey look out for food [τον δ’ αθλίως θανόντα Πολυνείκους νέκυν / αστοίσίφασιν εκκεκηρύχθαι το μη / τάφω καλύψαι μηδέ κωκύσαί τινα, / εάν δ’άκλαυτον, άταφον, οιωνοίς γλυκύν / θησαυρόν εισορώσι προς χάρινβοράς]” (26-30). While the practice of leaving traitors unburied is not uncommonin fifth century Greece (and therefore would not have been especiallyshocking to Sophocles’ audience), Antigone’s emphasis upon the resultsof such treatment – that the body as carrion would provide food forscavengers – emphasizes the particularly shameful quality of the corpsedenied burial. 13 In addition, Creon’s edict specifies that the body not becovered in a grave (μη τάφω καλύψαι); the corpse thus remains in view, asa reminder to citizens of the fate of a traitor, but also as a nagging reminderto Antigone of the dishonour directed toward her brother. Thus the dramaticstichomythia between the sisters that opens the play revolves around theethical dilemma posed by the presence (above ground) of the dead body:while Ismene protests that in burying Polynices Antigone would commit anact forbidden to the city (απόρρητον πόλει [44]), Antigone asserts that to becaught not burying him would be a betrayal to her brother (ου γαρ δηπροδούσ’ αλώσομαι [46]), one of her own (των εμών [48]). Arguing that hercrime is a hallowed one (όσια πανουργήσασ’ [74]) that the gods wouldhonour, Antigone claims that it would be especially honourable to die doingsuch a deed. When Ismene suggests that her sister is seeking to accomplishan impossible thing, Antigone retorts: “If you say that, you will behated by me, and you will justly incur the hatred of the dead man [ει ταύταλέξεις, εχθαρή μεν εξ εμού, / εχθρά δε τω θανόντι προσκείση δίκη]” (93-4).Thus, Antigone asserts that the honour of the gods protects her in buryingPolynices, even if she should die, whereas the just hatred of the dead condemnsIsmene’s refusal to act. In her passionate conviction, however, Antigoneurges Ismene not to maintain a protective silence about her transgression,but rather to proclaim her crime to all, a request that Ismene respondsto with clear misgiving.Creon’s entrance, in which he takes up the thread of Ismene’s argument,is directly preceded by the parodos describing, as Mark Griffith’scommentary points out, “what Polynices had represented while he lived – ahideous threat to his whole community.” 14 That a chorus made up ofTheban elders, leading citizens of the city of Thebes, delivers this warningre-emphasizes the political nature of the problem of Polynices’ corpse. The

░ Mourning the Public Body 37chorus’ concern with the polis thus sets the stage for Creon’s claim, followingthis chorus, that he enacts his laws for the good of the city. In his firstspeech (162-210), Creon describes the needs of the city as his first priority,clearly establishing that this takes precedence even over the ties of a lovedone, since such dear attachments, he argues, can only be formed in theluxury of a well-run city. The greatness of Thebes, he continues, can be attributedto the effectiveness of the laws (nomoi, 191) of this hierarchy, lawsthat privilege the city over personal feelings.Creon’s emphasis upon the priority of the city over the personal makeshis laws, of course, radically incommensurable with Antigone’s emphaticassertion that her ties to her brother precede any other consideration, evenconcern for her own life. Creon proposes that his civic laws take precedenceover Antigone’s individual ties to her family, raising an ethical conflictthat seems to present an opposition between societal structures, such asthe law and the city, and the desires of the individual, such as home andfamily. Thus, the play has become for many commentators a paradigm ofthe ethical dilemma of the individual in society. 15 Critics find expressed inAntigone a tension between a range of dialectical oppositions, including thelaw of the polis and the law of the oikos, the law of men and the law of thegods, civil law and natural law, techne and nature – with Antigone’s revoltassociated with family, nature, the worship of the divine. Feminist criticsfind in Antigone a distinctly feminine heroine, overturning the patriarchy in apassionate subversion of the order of the law; in these readings, Antigone’sdesires cause disruptions that can break apart the regimes of Creon, Aristotle,and all of dialectical philosophy. Yet what is this nature, this passion,this desire, that would be incorporated into a conception of ethics, specificallythe ethical conflict at the heart of Antigone? In these ethical readingsof the play, Antigone is seen to personify or enact limits which are particularlyhuman aspects of existence in opposition to the societal constructionof the polis and the laws that correspond to it. At the heart of these terms ofconflict, however, lies the compulsion that initially provides the catalyst fortheir production. While the dialectical approaches noted here appropriatelydraw out possible terms of conflict within the play, none address the persistentand haunting figure that prompts these oppositions: the corpse ofPolynices, a representation of the human at its most extremely inhuman.Mourning and BurialThe guard who arrives to report the initial transgression of Creon’sedict – the discovery that someone has buried Polynices’ corpse – stateshis case nervously and briefly, afraid that he will suffer blame for delivering

38Jennifer Ballengee░the bad news. Significantly, in his initial statement of the problem, he caststhe burial itself in metaphorical terms: “Someone has just gone off afterburying the body, sprinkling its flesh with thirsty dust and performing thenecessary rites [τον νεκρό τις αρτίως / θάψας βέβηκε καπί χρωτί διψίαν /κόνιν παλύνας καφαγιστεύσας α χρη]” (245-7). While the guard’s referenceto the proper rites of burial conveys a sense of the significant act accomplished,he expresses the physical action in terms of a metaphor: “thirstydust [κόνιν παλύνας].” Though the correspondence of these terms seemsalmost clichéd – when the ground is dry and dusty, it needs water or is“thirsty,” – Griffith suggests in his commentary that the reference to wateralso may indicate the burial ground’s need for the tears of lament. 16 Indeed,as the description of the guard goes on to indicate, Antigone’s scatteringof dust over the body, accompanied with the necessary ritual mourningrites, seems to have sufficed to protect Polynices’ body just as well as afully underground burial would. In fact, as Carol Jacobs has pointed out, theslightness of Antigone’s interaction with the physical earth echoes the lightnessof the dust on Polynices’ body: both are so light as to seem hardly existentat all. Thus, the guard marvels at how the earth about the body remainsunmarked, and at how the body has vanished despite the fact that itis only covered with a light dust: like the scattering of dust, the metaphorsuggests, rather than explicitly demonstrates, the burial of the corpse underthe earth. Significantly, also, the guard notes that the layer of dust hassomehow protected the body from being mauled by animals or birds (a factbearing the potential to especially irritate Creon, whose edict had emphasizedsuch a fate for the corpse).Antigone’s ritual burial, slight as it manifests itself physically, subvertsthe prohibition that Creon has placed on the body. In doing so, she followsa customary rite of mourning that mediates between the dead mortal andthe gods, as Bernard Knox points out:Antigone’s appeal is not general but specific. She is not opposing awhole set of unwritten laws to the written laws of the polis, nor is shepleading the force of individual conscience or universal and naturallaw. She is claiming that the age-old customary rites of mourningand burial for the dead, which are unwritten because they existedeven before the alphabet was invented or the polis organized, havethe force of law, unwritten but unfailing, which stems from the godsand which the gods enforce. 17Antigone herself, of course, claims that she performs the ritual of “burying”Polynices in the service of the laws of the gods. Yet the dusted corpse remainsin view for the guard to discover; thus the ritual Antigone performs

░ Mourning the Public Body 39affects the city, as well. When the guard brings her before Creon, chargingher with the burial, the chorus exclaims as she approaches, “Surely they donot lead you captive for disobedience to the king’s laws…? [ου δη που σε γ’απιστούσαν / τοις βασιλείοις απάγουσι νόμοις...;]” (381-2). Providing theconclusion to their choral song that has addressed the dangerous potentialof man, the choral reference to the nomoi that Antigone has broken askingly (τοις βασιλείοις νόμοις) distinguishes these prohibitions as anotherman-made thing, a product of techné, and thus good or bad only to the extentto which they carry out the justice of the gods (see especially lines365-71). Antigone reiterates this distinction shortly thereafter; when Creonclarifies with astonishment that she has dared to break his law, she replieswith a justification that places her squarely on the side of the gods:Yes, for it was not Zeus who made this proclamation, nor was it Justicewho lives with the gods below that established such laws amongmen, nor did I think your proclamations strong enough to havepower to overrule, mortal as they were, the unwritten and unfailingordinances of the gods.ου γαρ τι μοι Ζευς ην ο κηρύξας τάδε,ουδ’ η ξύνοικος των κάτω θεών Δίκητοιούσδ’ εν ανθρώποισιν ώρισεν νόμους.ουδέ σθένειν τοσούτον ωόμην τα σακηρύγμαθ’ ώστ’ άγραπτα κασφαλή θεώννόμιμα δύνασθαι θνητά γ’ όνθ’ υπερδραμείν. (450-5)Excluding Creon’s laws from the divinely ordained laws, Antigone alignsherself with rights proclaimed by either Zeus or divine Justice – which shesignificantly locates as residing with the gods below, that is, the chthonicgods, among whom Hades would be included. 18 In either case, Zeus orJustice, these divinely ordained laws seem to gain their validity in her assessmentbecause of their immortal nature: they are unwritten (άγραπτα),unlike the laws of men, which in their material (written) presence may ultimatelybe subject to temporal decay (thus her designation of them as mortal[θνητά]). The mourning that Antigone seeks to accomplish, then, echoesthe divine laws she claims to follow, inasmuch as mourning seeks to immortalize,or make present in memory, the one who has passed away.Yet the effects of this memorial ritual extend beyond Antigone’s relationto the gods; the importance of Polynices’ unburied body to the city determinesthat her actions must resonate in a public sense as well. In responseto Antigone’s claims, Creon emphasizes again his devotion to thelaws of the city, arguing their importance in terms of what lies at stake intheir being obeyed or transgressed:

40Jennifer Ballengee░But there is no worse evil than insubordination! This it is that ruinscities, this it is that destroys houses, this it is that shatters and putsto flight the warriors on its own side! But what saves the lives ofmost of those that go straight is obedience! In this way we have toprotect discipline.αναρχίας δε μείζον ουκ έστιν κακόν.αύτη πόλεις όλλυσιν, ήδ’ αναστάτουςοίκους τίθησιν, ήδε συμμάχου δορόςτροπάς καταρρήγνυσι· των δ’ ορθουμένωνσώζει τα πολλά σώμαθ’ η πειθαρχία. (672-6)For Creon, then, the laws of the city must be obeyed because they savethe citizens at all levels: in government, home and military life. In the faceof such high stakes, obedience becomes unequivocal and unquestioning;he therefore categorizes any deviance from the straight path of the law asanarchy (αναρχίας, not subordinate to the ruler or αρχή). The choice herestands framed as the stark difference between disorder and order, a distinctionat the heart of much of Sophocles’ work. 19 Creon’s fear, expressedhere, of a continuous threat to the fragile hold of absolute order manifestsitself in his extreme treatment of Polynices’ body (i.e., his emphatic desirethat the body be exposed as carrion for mutilation by animals) and his laterobsessive attempts to oppress Antigone. Such a fear gives a tenuous qualityto his rule, as if it could be subverted by the slightest deviance, the expressionof any loss of faith. Thus he declares in his decree (or so Antigonereports it) that the one burying Polynices will be subject to death by stoning.Such a death might serve as a public demonstration of the results of betrayingthe rule of Creon. 20 Even the demonstration of force and controlthat a public execution might provide, however, seems too weak an enforcementfor Creon. In a later exchange with Antigone, he extends this desireto control not only the lives but also the deaths of those who usurp hisauthority. When she asks, “Do you wish for anything more than to take meand kill me? [θέλεις τι μείζον ή κατακτείναι μ’ ελών]” (497), he replies, “NotI! When I have that, I have everything [εγώ μεν ουδέν, τουτ’ έχων άπαντ’έχω]” (498). Indeed, if he had Antigone’s death, he would have everything,for being in possession of another’s death would give him a quality similarto the gods who have a hand in fate. With this threat, Creon conflates hisown potential with that of the gods.Yet for Creon, as he demonstrates with the public spectacle of stoninghe first proposes with his edict, his power depends upon his ability to persuadehis subjects, the citizens, to invest him with it. This becomes clear ashe begins to lose the empathy of the chorus. Once Haemon appears on-

░ Mourning the Public Body 41stage and tries to convince his father to change his mind, the chorus seemsto waver in their support of Creon’s execution of Antigone, his son’s fiancée.Thus, after Haemon exits, the chorus asks Creon if he still intends tokill her; when he replies in the affirmative, they ask how he will do it, givinghim the opportunity to change his method of execution from the formerlyexpressed public stoning to a less dramatic option of burying her alive in atomb, out of sight of the city (775). Creon therefore struggles to maintainhis present power, seeking to prevent any disorder 21 in the city that mightlead to a loss of authority, by modifying his plans.The execution he therefore proposes, death by burial alive, thoughless dramatic and painful (presumably) than the first option, presents itsown set of worries to Antigone. From loudly proclaiming her part in mourningher brother, she turns to nagging worries about the chances that sheherself will be mourned by others, if she is to die alone, hidden, and possiblyforgotten in a cave: “No longer may I, poor creature, look upon the sacredeye of the shining sun; and my fate, unwept for, is lamented by nofriend [ουκέτι μοι τόδε λαμπάδος ιερόν / όμμα θέμις οράν ταλαίνα. / τον δ’εμόν πότμον αδάκρυτον / ουδείς φίλων στενάζει]” (879-82). With this complaint,Antigone shifts her focus from the consideration of her (and herbrother’s) individual relation to the gods to anxiety about her position in thepublic at her death; in other words, she worries that her memory, her reputation,will die with her. Creon responds to this concern by reaffirming herworries; although he rhetorically suggests at first that she will be mournedas a matter of course, he goes on to emphasize the isolated nature of herliving tomb, and its complete removal from those living above ground. Byremoving her body from view, Creon suggests that he will veil the sign thatwould inspire the mourning of Antigone – her corpse.With this gesture, Creon plans a similar fate for Antigone as he hasdesignated for her brother: by consigning her to a death removed (effectively)from the city, he buries the disorder of her anarchy along with her –just as he excludes the body of Polynices, who has brought disorder intothe city as a result of his uprising. 22 In each case, Creon physically removesthe disorder from the sphere of city life or action. By burying Antigonealive, Creon also hopes to remove the pollution of further disorder byavoiding the guilt of having killed her directly. Yet, in doing so, he subjectsAntigone to suffer a fate in death also similar to Polynices’: an unmourneddeath. However, in eliding the space for burial, Creon continues the cycleof disorder, thus failing to impose the order he hopes. 23The potential for disorder inherent in Creon’s treatment of corpses isrealized in Teiresias’ warning of a plague on the city resulting from Creon’streatment of Polynices: “And it is your will that has put this plague upon the

42Jennifer Ballengee░city; for our altars and our braziers, one and all, are filled with carrionbrought by birds and dogs from the unhappy son of Oedipus who fell [καιταύτα της σης εκ φρενός νοσεί πόλις. / βωμοί γαρ ημίν εσχάραι τεπαντελείς / πλήρεις υπ’ οιωνών τε και κυνών βοράς / του δυσμόρουπεπτώτος Οιδίπου γόνου]” (1015-18). In this case, the pollution of theplague on the city manifests a symptom of the problem that Creon is causing:the disruption of a custom in which women mourned for the dead, recallingtheir life as a memory that allowed the passing of the dead. It is this“law,” of course, to which Antigone refers in her claims to be doing the justthing in burying Polynices.Prohibiting the memorializing ritual of mourning that Antigone wouldperform, Creon causes a disruption that then manifests itself on the livingbody, in the form of a plague. In his rage at Antigone’s subversion, Creondisrupts the divine order of things, which leads to a disturbance in the orderof the polis, as well. The chorus addresses the problem of such violent angerin their fourth song, which revolves around a discussion of the dangerousthreat to order that passion poses:You [Eros, passion] wrench just men’s minds aside from justice, doingthem violence; it is you who have stirred up this quarrel betweenmen of the same blood. Victory goes to the visible desire that comesfrom the eyes of the beautiful bride, desire that has its throne in sovereigntybeside those of the mighty laws.συ και δικαίων αδίκουςφρένας παρασπάς επί λώβα.συ και τόδε νείκος ανδρώνξύναιμον έχεις ταράξας.νικά δ’ εναργής βλεφάρωνίμερος ευλέκτρουνύμφας, των μεγάλων πάρεδρος εν αρχαίςθεσμών. (791-9)Avoiding a direct condemnation of either Creon’s or Antigone’s violence,the chorus uses the violent conflict between Polynices and Eteocles as anexample of the damage that passion can cause, diverting men from justiceto injustice. As an example of right action, however, they provide the imageof the desire emanating from the eyes of a bride, who in occupying the customaryposition for the female in society therefore follows the “mighty laws”(θεσμών), that is, those that are established. Having confirmed this precept,the chorus can then accuse Antigone on the grounds of the hubristicfolly to which her passion has led her, as well as for the established lawsthat her father broke before her: “Advancing to the extreme of daring, you

░ Mourning the Public Body 43stumbled against the lofty altar of Justice, my child! And you are payingsome torment [inherited] from your father [προβάσ’ επ’ άσχατον θράσους /υψηλόν ες Δίκας βάθρον / προσέπεσες, ω τέκνον, ποδί. / πατρώον δ’εκτίνεις τιν’ άθλον]” (853-6). 24 Not only has Antigone gone too far in pursuitof her own desires, the chorus argues, but she also suffers in repayment,as a pay off or vengeance, for her father’s crime. The chorus here accusesAntigone of acting against divine justice, as a result of her own passion andher father’s incest. Antigone takes up only the second of the accusationsagainst her (one of which, ironically, her father might also be accused),seeing her own predicament as punishment for the fate cursed upon her byOedipus:You have touched on a thought most painful for me, the fate of myfather, thrice renewed, and the whole of our destiny, that of the famousLabdacids. Ah, the disaster of marriage with his mother, andmy father’s incestuous couplings with his ill-fated mother! From whatparents was I born, miserable one! To them I go, to live with them,accursed, unmarried! Ah, brother who made a disastrous marriage,in your death you have destroyed my life!έψαυσας αλγεινοτάταςεμοί μερίμνας,πατρός τριπολίστου οίιτουτου τε πρόπαντοςαμετέρου πότμουκλεινοίς Λαβδακίδαισιν.ιώ ματρώαι λέκτρων ά-ται κοιμήματά τ’ αυτογάννητ’εμώ πατρί δυσμόρου ματρός·οίων εγώ ποθ’ α ταλαίφρων έφυν·προς ους αραίος άγαμος άδ’εγώ μέτοικος έρχομαι.ιώ δυσπότμων κασίγνητεγάμων κυρήσας,θανών έτ’ ούσαν κατήναρές με. (857-71)Providing the fullest reference in the play to her father’s crime, Antigonespecifically describes Oedipus’ transgressions of established law: not onlydid he marry his own mother, but he had children from this incestuous coupling.By leaving out the other aspect of Oedipus’ crime, his murder of hisfather (i.e., the shedding of kindred blood that Creon is trying to avoid byburying Antigone alive), Antigone’s speech depicts Oedipus’ crime as oneof pollution: by committing incest and bearing children who are also his sib-

44Jennifer Ballengee░lings, Oedipus has prevented, in a sense, the passage of time, the movementforward of generations. Thus Oedipus’ offence against the laws of thegods and society is here raised in terms of temporal disorder – a corruptionof time, a failure to pass on, that makes the memorializing of mourning impossible.25 These are the transgressions for which the gods will make Antigonesuffer, as both the chorus and Antigone suggest, providing a demonstrationof Antigone’s suffering as a lesson about breaking established lawsand creating divine disorder (or stumbling against the altar of Justice), justas Creon sought to make a demonstration of his own order by means of hispunishment of both Polynices’ and Antigone’s bodies. Such a reading iscorroborated by the language the chorus uses above to refer to the debt ofsuffering that Antigone owes: coupled with the idea of paying a penalty, 26άθλος acquires the sense of not only a struggle or contest, but even a tormentor ordeal. Through suffering some torment or punishment, the chorusand Antigone’s response imply, the debt owed for causing such disordermight be paid and order be restored. The punishment of Antigone will providea meaning or value for Oedipus’ past life, a painful labour whose significanceexceeds the limits of her corpse.Punishment and SpectacleElaborating upon the significance of suffering punishments, the fifth song ofthe chorus (944-87) describes a series of punishments: the tomblike imprisonmentof Danae, 27 the rocky imprisonment of Lycurgus, 28 and theblinding of the sons of Phineus. 29 Avoiding a consideration of responsibilityor guilt, the chorus focuses on the process of suffering punishment, concludingwith the notion that inescapable Fate manifests itself in each ofthese examples. In this sense, the punishments stand as evidence of boththe ineluctable nature of the difficulties Fate imposes, but also of the powerof Fate, in its ability to punish without mercy.In a more immediate sense, Teiresias prophecies a similar case of thepunishing payment of vengeance when he warns Creon of the exchange ofcorpses that his hubristic actions will provoke:Then know well that you shall not accomplish many racing coursesof the sun, and in that lapse of time you shall give in exchange forcorpses the corpse of one from your own loins, in return for havinghurled below one of those above, blasphemously lodging a livingperson in a tomb, and you have kept here something belonging tothe gods below, a corpse deprived, unburied, unholy. Neither younor the gods above have any part in this, but you have inflicted itupon them! On account of this there lie in wait for you the doers of

░ Mourning the Public Body 45outrage who in the end destroy, the Erinyes of Hades and the gods,so that you will be caught up in these same evils.αλλ’ ευ γε τοι κάτισθι μη πολλούς έτιτρόχους αμιλλητήρας ηλίου τελών,εν οίσι των σων αυτός εκ σπλάγχνων ένανέκυν νεκρών αμοιβόν αντιδούς έση,ανθ’ ων έχεις μεν των άνω βαλών κάτω,ψυχήν γ’ ατίμως εν τάφω κατοικίσας,έχεις δε των κάτωθεν ενθάδ’ αυ θεώνάμοιρον, ακτέριστον, ανόσιον νέκυν.ων ούτε σοι μέτεστιν ούτε τοις άνωθεοίσιν, αλλ’ εκ σου βιάζονται τάαδε.τούτων σε λωβητήρες υστεροφθόροιλοχώσιν Άιδου και θεών Ερινύες,εν τοίσιν αυτοίς τοίσδε ληφθήναι κακοίς. (1064-76)Teiresias’ warning raises the future curse of Creon in terms of antidote(from the verb αντιδίδωμι [1067] derives the noun αντίδοτος, somethinggiven in remedy, an antidote): the corpse that the gods will demand fromCreon will be given in payment for the disorder he has created by the mismanagementof corpses (not only has he refused to bury a dead body, buthe also gives a living body burial). In this way, then, Creon will provide anantidote to the plague caused by unburied corpses from which the city suffers.Referring to this plague on the city again on lines 1081-3, Teiresiasemphasizes how the cosmic disorder that Creon has caused resulted in adisorder manifested in the city. With this, Creon assumes the position inwhich he has placed Antigone, the cause of disorder in the polis; the spectacleof punishment with which he has threatened her hence becomes aspectacle of punishment under which he must suffer.Creon finally responds to this final warning of Teiresias, and exits thestage intending to bury the corpse and then release Antigone. Nevertheless,less than one hundred lines later, a messenger arrives to announcethe payment of the antidote, the death of Creon’s only son Haemon, who,he announces, has died by his own hand, “in anger against his father forthe murder he committed [αυτός προς αυτού, πατρί μηνίσας φόνου]”(1177). He describes to the chorus how he, along with several of Creon’sother attendants, heard a cry issue from the cave as they followed Creontoward it, intending to release Antigone. Worried at its portent, Creon urgedhis attendants forward to see whether he feared correctly that the voice issuedfrom his son Haemon. At their master’s orders, the messenger describes,he and his peers looked in on a tragic scene of loss: Antigone

46Jennifer Ballengee░hanging by the neck and Haemon clinging to her waist, lamenting her deathcaused by his father. When Creon finally approached, the messenger continues,Haemon lunged at him with the sword, missed and then drove it intohimself, finally achieving a sort of union with Antigone in his death throes:Still living, he clasped the maiden in the bend of his feeble arm, andpouring forth a sharp jet of blood, he stained her white cheek. Helay, a corpse holding a corpse, having achieved his marriage rites,poor fellow, in the house of Hades, having shown by how much theworst evil among mortals is bad counsel.ες δ’ υγρόναγκών’ έτ’ έμφρων παρθένω προσπτύσσεταικαι φυσιών οξείαν εκβάλλει ροήνλευκή παρειά ποινίου σταλάγματος·κείται δε νεκρός περί νεκρώ, τα νυμφικάτέλη λαχών δείλαιος εν γ’ Άιδου δόμοις,δείξας εν ανθρώποισι την αβουλίανόσω μέγιστον ανδρίι πρόσκειται κακόν. (1236-43)In death, Haemon and Antigone rejoin society through their achievement ofthe marriage rites (τα νυμφικά τέλη λαχών), resolving the passion-inducedmistakes described by the chorus in lines 791-4 (and, even in dying, realigningtheir desire within socially and divinely approved parameters, asdoes the bride described by the chorus in lines 795-9, quoted above). Inaddition, though, the scene of Haemon’s dying provides a lesson, as well: it“shows” or displays (δείκνυμι) to the witnessing phalanx of guards (and, viathe witness’s report, the chorus of Theban citizens and the audience, too)the extent to which “bad counsel” is the worst of human evils.The paradigmatic and gruesome suffering of Haemon’s death throesresonates in his dead body when Creon appears later, bearing it onstage.The chorus responds to his entrance: “Here comes the king himself, bearingin his arms a conspicuous memorial; if we may say so, his ruin camenot from others, but from his own failing [και μην όδ’ άναξ αυτός εφήκει /μνήμ’ επίσημον δια χειρός έχων, / ει θέμις ειπείν, ουκ αλλοτρίαν / άτην, αλλ’αυτός αμαρτών]” (1257-60). 30 Thus, the chorus provides a narrative descriptionof Creon’s appearance on stage, explaining the deictic significanceof Haemon’s corpse: it functions as a distinguishing mark(επίσημος), a mimetic sign or reminder (μνήμη) of being guilty (αμαρτάνω).Not only does the body Creon carries bear a lesson for himself, however;the reminder, displayed in his arms onstage (in front of the palace doorsthat would have been depicted at the back of the stage), 31 speaks to thecity as well. As Segal explains, “The term ‘conspicuous memorial’ … refers

░ Mourning the Public Body 47specifically to the commemorative ceremonies of the public funeral and theentombment of warriors who have fallen in behalf of the city.” 32 Thus, thecorpse of Haemon, exhibited in the arms of his father the king, bears alongwith it the meaning of his life in death: the mourning prohibited by Creon’sedict returned to the city in a public mark of mourning.Creon’s antidote has yet to take effect, however: the exchange ofcorpses continues only a few lines later, with the messenger’s announcementof the suicide of the queen, Eurydice. 33 Enhancing the exhibition ofHaemon’s body in Creon’s arms, the corpse of Eurydice also appears displayedprominently on the stage, as the chorus indicates in their exclamation:,“You can see it! It is no longer hidden indoors [οράν πάρεστιν. ου γαρεν μυχοίς έτι]” (1293). Most commentators agree that this scene wouldhave been staged with Eurydice’s body then appearing onstage on the ekkuklema,a mechanized wheeled platform that would have been pushedonto the centre of the stage, probably through the opening of the palacedoors at the back. 34 The corpse thus presents a dramatic spectacle overwhich the messenger describes the manner of her death as Creon lamentshis fate.As in the case of Haemon, the messenger describes the details of Eurydice’sdeath: hurling curses upon her husband, the killer of her son, Eurydicecopied the method of Haemon’s death, “so that she experienced thesuffering of her son [όπως / παιδός τόδ’ ήσθετ’ οξυκώκυτον πάθος]” (1315-6). With this double death, Creon finally recognizes his culpability in thedownfall of his family, his ineluctable guilt: “Ah me, this can never be transferredto any other mortal, acquitting me! For it was I that killed you, unhappyone, I, I speak the truth! [ώμοι μοι, τάδ’ ουκ επ’ άλλον βροτών / εμάςαρμόσει ποτ’ εξ αιτίας. / εγώ γαρ σ’, εγώ σ’ έκανον, ω μέλεος, / εγώ, φάμ’έτυμον]” (1317-20). Creon’s formulation of this lament in terms of an accusationor charge (αιτία) that he can never escape echoes the accusationthat the messenger utters upon announcing the death of Eurydice: “Youwere reproached by the dead as guilty of those deaths and these [ως αιτίανγε τώνδε κακείνων έχων / προς της θανούσης τήσδ’ επεσκήπτου μόρων]”(1312-3). Thus, the description that follows of Eurydice’s death, coupledwith the display of her corpse alongside Haemon’s onstage, calls an accusationupon Creon. It is this guilt that Creon then assumes when he recognizeshis actions as cause of Eurydice’s and Haemon’s deaths.Creon reemphasizes the losses he has suffered as he leaves thestage at the end of the play, though his words begin to turn responsibilityfor his suffering away from himself and onto fate. While his speech marksthe presence of the corpses next to him, his lament also indicates thatthere is something more that is unrecognizable to him:

48Jennifer Ballengee░Lead me out of the way, useless man that I am, who killed you, myson, not by my own will, and you here too, ah, miserable one; I donot know which to look on, which way to lean; for all that is in myhands has gone awry, and fate hard to deal with has leapt upon myhead.άγοιτ’ αν μάταιον άνδρ’ εκποδών,ος, ω παι, σε τ’ ουχ εκών κατέκανονσε τ’ αυ τάνδ’, ώμοι μέλεος, ουδ’ έχωπρος πότερον ίδω, πα κλιθώ. πάντα γαρλέχρια ταν χεροίν, τα δ’ επί κρατί μοιπότμος δυσκόμιστος εισήλατο. (1339-46)As Griffith points out, Creon’s speech suggests a contrast between what isvisible (the dead bodies of Haemon and Eurydice) and what is invisible (themysterious but inescapable hand of fate). Creon’s struggle with seeingsuch a spectacle also puts an emphasis upon his pain in witnessing the resultsof his folly; thus Creon assumes the position of witness that theguards, chorus, and audience have previously occupied (and continue toperform in this scene). The spectacle of dead bodies before him forces himto bear witness to what they represent – in this case, his complicity in theirdeath. The accusation against Creon, then, is something that he witnessesalongside the others: embodied in the corpses of Haemon and Eurydiceare the signs of his guilt.Yet, as Antigone points out previously in the play, a dead body, beingdead, cannot bear witness (“The dead body will not bear witness to that [ουμαρτυρήσει ταύθ’ ο κατθανών νέκυς]” [515]). How, then, can a corpse deliveran accusation of guilt against another? For the corpse of Antigone, aswell as that of Haemon, Eurydice, and Polynices, it is the narrative surroundingthe corpse that communicates the meaning of it. In other words,the corpse alone does not convey the meaning, but something more embodiedin it does so. The sight of the dead body makes present a past life;the end of a life provides a frame for considering that life’s significance (asignificance that is worked through in mourning). However, as long as liferemains, as long as life continues to unfold, the ultimate fate or significanceof that life remains unknown. Ruing the fate of Creon, the messenger refersto this temporal distinction just before announcing Haemon’s death:“there is no state of human life that I would praise or blame as though it hadcome to a stop; for fortune makes straight and fortune brings down the fortunateor the unfortunate man at all times [ουκ έσθ’ οποίον στάντ’ ανανθρώπου βίον / ούτ’ αινέσαιμ’ αν ούτε μεμψαίμην ποτέ. / τύχη γαρ ορθοίκαι τύχη καταρρέπει / τον ευτυχούντα τον τε δυστυχούντ’ αεί]” (1156-9).

░ Mourning the Public Body 49The meaning of a life unravels as it passes; the only unchanging life is adead one. Thus the synthesis of the passing events of life can only bemade after death: for example, in the interpretation of mourning – or, likewise,in the narrative accounts of the messenger.The messenger’s speech above suggests that a difference betweenmortal and immortal is in the subjection of mortals to a mysterious fate thatalways surprises man with fortune or failure – that works upon man’s life, inother words, outside of his control. For this reason, the only way to escapechange or fate in life is death. Once death has occurred, mourning or a narrativemight take up the death, and the past life that it marks, and give itmeaning. In seeking to control the deaths of others, Creon might thus imposehis own meaning upon them. The effective potential in the display orspectacle of corpses has already been suggested in connection withCreon’s treatment of the corpse of Polynices. Creon raises the possibilitythat such a display could be directed against another person when he angrilythreatens his son with witnessing the death of his fiancée: “Bring thehateful creature, so that she may die at once close at hand, in the sight ofher bridegroom! [άγετε το μίσος, ως κατ’ όμματ’ αυτίκα / παρόντι θνήσκηπλησία τω νυμφίω]” (760-1). Perceiving that he has lost the support of evenhis own son, Creon furiously proposes to punish him for his betrayal bymurdering his beloved right in front of his eyes. This seems to be a case,then, in which a corpse is meant to provide retribution; by means of his abilityto take life away, Creon will suggest the necessity of supporting the authorityof the king, “paying back” Haemon for his hint of insubordination.Thus, Creon’s threat to Haemon involves more than the simple presentationof Antigone’s dead corpse for him to witness, but the action of herbeing killed in front of him. It is in the process of being deprived of life thatAntigone’s death will gain meaning for Haemon – a punishing meaning,Creon hopes. In this sense, the tormented struggle in payment for justice ofwhich the chorus warns Antigone (in lines 853-6, quoted above) becomesthe meaning of her death, which evolves, as suffering, in the process ofmourning.Torture, punishment, and controlThe significance of the threatened torture of Antigone echoes a moresweeping warning that Creon delivers before the guard and the chorus ofelderly Theban citizens only a few lines before this exchange. Convincedthat the criminal burying of Polynices manifests a money-driven conspiracyagainst him, Creon asserts his authority by issuing a general threat of punishmentto all present. Since, in this case, Creon expresses the terms of

50Jennifer Ballengee░the conspiracy as monetary, the sense of this imminent punishment as“payment” appears clearly: “But those who to earn their fee have contrivedto do this thing have ensured that in time they will pay the penalty [οσοι δεμισθαρνουντες ηνυσαν ταδε, / χρονω ποτ’ εξεπραξαν ως δουναι δικην]”(302-3). In this exchange, Creon suggests that justice will necessarily beeffected upon the conspirators; the threat of punishment that immediatelyfollows links this retribution directly to the torture that those will suffer whochoose the profits of conspiracy over bending to the king’s authority. As heexclaims in threatening fury to the citizen chorus and the guard, “If you donot find the author of this burial and reveal him to my eyes, a single Hadesshall not suffice for you, before all have been strung up alive to expose thisinsolence [ει μη τον αυτόχειρα τούδε του τάφου / ευρόντες εκφανείτ’ εςοφθαλμούς εμούς, / ουχ υμίν Άιδης μούνος αρκέσει, πριν αν / ζώντεςκρεμαστοί τήνδε δηλώσηθ’ ύβριν]” (306-9). Here, not only does Creonthreaten his subjects with torture, 35 but he marks the method of torture as apublic display of their crimes. Those not complying with his edict will manifestor exhibit (δηλόω) the extent of their hubris (i.e., the folly of usurpingCreon’s authority) by means of their public spectacle of their torture (beinghung out alive [ζώντες κρεμαστοί] and, presumably, suffering the correspondingpunishments). Thus, Creon proposes to bring before the polis avisual reminder of the results of breaking his laws.In addition to the public spectacle of torture as retribution for subvertinghis authority, Creon also implies with this threat that he will control themanner of their dying (i.e., they will not merely suffer a simple trip to Hades).With this claim, Creon assumes a position that supersedes the limitsof the mortal; for, as the chorus that follows this scene indicates in its “odeto man,” death presents the most clearly insurpassable limit to mankind,despite all of his skill in thought and tekhne: “only from Hades shall he applyno means of flight [Άιδα μόνον / φεύξιν ουκ επάξεται.]” (361-2). Thislimitation of mortals occurs in the midst of a song glorifying man’s great potentialof creation. Thus, the subjection to death appears as a limit point formankind; despite their cleverness with laws and technology, mortals remaininescapably subject to death. With his suggestion that he might control theworking of death upon others through subjecting men to his laws – in themost extreme sense, by means of punishing torture and a tormented death– Creon raises himself beyond the bounds of mortals, toward the immortals.For the divinities, in their eternal existence, remain exempt from thedeath that stands at the limit of mortal life. The third choral song emphasizesthis immortal timelessness, in regard to Zeus and his laws:Zeus, what arrogance of men could restrict your power? Neither

░ Mourning the Public Body 51sleep the all-conquering nor the unwearying months of the gods defeatsit, but as a ruler time cannot age, you occupy the dazzlingglare of Olympus. For present, future, and past this law shall suffice:to none among mortals shall great wealth come without disaster.τεάν, Ζεύ, δύνασιν τις ανδρώνυπερβασία κατάσχοι;ταν ούθ’ ύπνος αίρει ποθ’ ο παντογήρωςούτ’ ακάματοι θεώνμήνες, αγήρως δε χρόνω δυνάσταςκατέχεις Ολύμπουμαρμαρόεσσαν αίγλαν.το τ’ έπειτα και το μέλλονκαι το πριν επαρκέσεινόμος όδ’. ουδέν έρπειθνατών βίοτος πάμπολυς εκτός άτας. (604-14)The chorus suggests that the law of Zeus remains, along with the god, infinitely,beyond temporal limitations or the efforts of gods or man to defeat it.Recalling Creon’s hubristic nomoi with this remark, the chorus then goesfurther to specify the nature of this eternal law of Zeus, foreshadowingCreon’s own defeat. For the essence of Zeus’ law, the song indicates, emphasizeschange: if a mortal holds wealth, inevitably he will lose it. The divinelaw thus demonstrates its unique superiority in precisely what it portendsfor mortals: eternal and unchanging, divine law specifies that mortalsmust always be subject to change.Not only are mortals consigned to change, however, but, as the songgoes on to describe, they are subject to being ignorant of when or how thatchange will occur: “For widely wandering hope brings profit to many men,but to many the deception of thoughtless longings; and a man knows nothingwhen it comes upon him, until he scalds his foot in blazing fire [α γαρ δηπολύπλαγκτος ελ- / πίς πολλοις μεν όνησις ανδρών, / πολλοίς δ’ απάτακουφονόων ερώτων· / ειδότι δ’ ουδέν έρπει, / πριν πυρί θερμώ πόδα τιςπροσαύση]” (615-9). Thus, the inevitability of change in human life raisesthe necessity for reminders. As the exposed corpse of Polynices mightserve to remind Theban citizens of both Polynices’ crimes against the cityand of Creon’s authority as ruler, the suffering of Antigone and Creon – asuffering made material by the spectacle of the corpses that surround them– serves as evidence of their “crimes.” While the dead bodies, in theirinsistent presence, bear witness to the Theban citizens and the audience ofthe tension between the laws of gods and of men, the suffering of Creonand Antigone recalls the persistent limit of mortal life, which unfolds as it

52Jennifer Ballengee░passes away.While the presence of the corpse persistently reminds those who witnessit to mourn publicly, the living body that suffers unto death evokes aneven greater meaning: the irresolution of that mourning. With the torture heinflicts, Creon addresses the transgressive thought or idea by means of thebody; he inscribes punishment, vengeance, or, in other words, justice, invisible marks which will endure, along with the body, even after death. Thephysical presence of the body seems to lend the certainty of its physicalpermanence to the intangible idea inscribed upon it. Used in this way, thematerial body is set apart from itself, objectified; its physical elements,which, in their presence seem unchanging, offer themselves as materialsupon which the invisible workings of a permanent spiritual antidote mightbe demonstrated.The pain of a punishment meant to evoke justice suggests a complicatedinterrelation between the body and the spirit; the messenger alludesto their peculiar bearing on each other in his evocation of the survival of anunhappy life: “For when a man’s pleasures have abandoned him, I do notconsider him a living being, but an animated corpse [και γαρ ηδοναί / ότανπροδώσιν ανδρός, ου τίθημ’ εγώ / ζην τούτον, αλλ’ έμψυχον ηγούμαινεκρόν]” (1165-7). Not only is the unchanging man a dead man, but theman without pleasure is dead, as well. This sentiment adds to the mysteriouselement of fate in mortal life an invisible quality that animates the body:without it, the body becomes devoid of meaning or intention, merely ananimated corpse.Such a possibility implies a gap in the living mortal between the bodyand the spirit – that which feels pleasure or bends to fate – hidden within. 36Sophocles raises the consideration of a difference between the body andthe mind or heart – that is, an “inner” sense – in the first angry exchangebetween Creon and the guard who brings news of Polynices’ burial:Creon: Do you not know even now how your words pain me?Guard: Is it your ears or your soul that feels the pain?Creon: Why do you try to measure where my pain is?Guard: The doer pains your heart, but I your ears.Creon: Ah, you are a chatterer by nature, it is clear! (trans. mod.)ΚΡΕΩΝ. ουκ οίσθα και νυν ως ανιαρώς λέγεις?ΦΥΛΑΞ. εν τοίσιν ώσιν ή ’πι τη ψυχή δάκνη?ΚΡΕΩΝ. τι δε ρυθμίζεις την εμήν λύπην όπου?ΦΥΛΑΞ. ο δρων σ’ ανιά τας φρένας, τα δ’ ώτ’ εγώ.ΚΡΕΩΝ. οίμ’ ως λάλημα, δήλον, εκπεφυκός ει. (316-20)Acknowledging that he causes Creon discomfort with his words, the guard

░ Mourning the Public Body 53attempts to distinguish the sort of pain he causes; while Creon resists theattempt to locate it, the guard insists on differentiating between the bodilypain that he inflicts on Creon’s ears and a different sort of pain caused bythe one doing the crime he has reported. This other pain attacks, the guardinsists initially, the psychē (ψυχή) – the soul, spirit, or mind – or, as he nextproposes, the “heart” or phrēn (φρην). Although Creon responds by disregardingthis distinction, the guard’s protestation implies a difference betweentwo types of pain – bodily pain and that which is less easily measuredor located: pain to the psychē, heart, mind, understanding, phrēn. Hisattempt to locate Creon’s pain thus appears clearly as an attempt to claimhimself as inflicting the lesser of the two sorts of pain: bodily. Yet this defenseof himself also suggests that Creon (mistakenly) treats him as if hewere imposing the more serious sort of pain, to the psychē or phrēn.Creon’s last comment before exiting the stage confirms this fear, as hethreatens the guard, once again, with torture: “But if you do not reveal thedoers to me, you shall testify that low desire for profit is the cause of pain[ει δε ταύτα μη / φανείτε μοι τους δρώντας, εξερείθ’ ότι / τα δειλά κέρδηπημονάς εργάζεται]” (324-6). Coupled with the pain that Creon threatens toinflict, what the guard utters (εξερέω) will bear witness to what his maneuveringshave accomplished: that pain (πήμα) he suffers. The pain in thisexchange functions both as a demonstration of punishment for the guard’scrimes and as a verification of the crimes themselves. With this threat,Creon aims bodily torment at the aspect of the guard that exceeds hisbody, his psyche, which (Creon hopes) will remember his crimes as hisbody suffers for them. In inflicting the torture which will compel the guard totestify to his guilt before witnesses, Creon will exert his authority over boththe guard and those to whom the guard, by means of his pain, will confessto his guilt – that is, in Creon’s terms, his transgressions against the city.In Antigone, Creon’s hubristic pursuit of power, which emphasizes theproblem of establishing and maintaining the law in the city-state, manifestsa tension between the individual and the public citizen of the polis.Christian Meier sees in Creon’s tyrannical actions a comment by Sophocleson a potential problem in democratic, fifth-century Athens: “justice had nowbecome a matter of free-willed … decision-making.” 37 In his use of thebody, both living and dead, Creon creates the impression of certainauthority by playing uncertain ideas out upon the physical presence of thebody. Expressing a similar concern, yet in less specifically political terms,Lesky also suggests that a central concern of this play remains thisproblem of certainty, “a tension that must have been felt in a time that sawboth the completion of the Parthenon and the beginning of Sophism.” 38Indeed, in its spectacle of suffering and death, the tragedy itself also

54Jennifer Ballengee░imposes its own meaning upon these bodies placed upon the stage; asSegal suggests, “Tragic art enables the polis to confront the contradictionswhich man’s place in nature poses.” 39Tragedy expresses the failure in communication of such contradictionsby bridging them over with a correspondence of language and gesture. Aswe have seen, the tension between nature and technē, between theindividual and the city, arises from an excess that resists containment ineither category: the body. In both cases, the conflation between a tormentand death whose outcome is meant to indicate justice depends upon theinescapable persistence of the changeable body, enduring suffering to theend and remaining after death. The perseverence of the body, in otherwords, determines its value as antidote or demonstrative proof, enabling itto function not only as a reminder of what has passed but as an apparent“proof” of what is present. With mourning, the unique physicality of thecorpse integrates the span of the passing of an individual, mortal life intothe enduring presence of the collective public, of the polis.Towson Universityjballeng@towson.eduNOTES1 Translation modified. Greek texts of all plays by Sophocles cited in this essay arefrom the Oxford Classical Texts edition, edited by Hugh Lloyd-Jones and N.G.Wilson (Oxford U P, 1990). English translations of the Oedipus at Colonus andAntigone are quoted from the Loeb editions, ed. and tr. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Cambridge,MA: Harvard U P, 1994).2 When he arrives in the grove of the Furies at the beginning of the play, Oedipushimself refers to the conclusion of his life as literally a “καταστροφήν” (103).3 Passages in English from Aristotle’s Poetics are from the translation of RichardJanko (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987). Greek text is from the Oxford edition, ed.D.W. Lucas (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968).4 Poetics, D. W. Lucas, ed. and commentary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968).5 Though, as Lucas and others point out, the text of this passage is uncertain andspurious, the turn that Aristotle makes here remains, regardless, an emphasisupon language and rhetoric in tragedy.6 Margins of Philosophy, tr. Alan Bass (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982), pp. 232-3.7 Lowell Edmunds, Theatrical Space and Historical Place in Sophocles’ Oedipus atColonus (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), p. 3.8 William Blake Tyrell and Larry J. Bennett provide a helpful study of the results ofthe transference of funeral rituals from individual and family custom to a public rite

░ Mourning the Public Body 55(Recapturing Sophocles’ Antigone [Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield,1998]); see especially pp. 5-15.9 According to the myth, the significance of Oedipus’ political crimes is made clear inthe previous public "outing" of them, when he discovers he is married to hismother (as depicted by Sophocles in Oedipus Rex).10 Though written, of course, years before Sophocles’ plays that describe theseevents.11 The chorus’ laments on lines 1257-60 and 1293, as well as Creon’s speech, line1299 and lines 1341-6, deictically and verbally indicate the visible presence of thecorpse onstage. Mark Griffiths also suggests this in his commentary (Sophocles.Antigone, Mark Griffiths, ed. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999]:354).12 Simon Goldhill’s discussion of rhetorical display and the polis, and the correspondingassociation of vision and knowledge, has been a great help to me inconsidering the spectacle of punishment in these plays (“Programme notes,” PerformanceCulture and Athenian Democracy, eds. Simon Goldhill and Robin Osborne[Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999], pp. 1-29).13 A very prominent example of this fear, of course, appears at the beginning of theIliad (I.1-5), as well as at the end, with the provocation for Priam to recover Hector’sbody (in Book XXIV).14 Sophocles, Antigone, ed. and trans. Mark Griffith (Cambridge: Cambridge UP,1999), p. 139.15 Simon Goldhill has noted the opposition of polis (the city) and oikos (home andfamily), arguing that for Antigone philos is an appeal to the oikos. Reading herloyalty to the oikos as a manifestation of independence, power, and authority,Goldhill notes that such an assertion would have been perceived as particularlyproblematic for a woman, because of her inevitable participation in, and dependenceupon, a network of relations in the family and polis. This raises, he suggests,an important challenge to Antigone, one to which we will return later: “For in democraticAthens, an essential demand of the ideology of city life is the mutual interdependenceof citizens” (Reading Greek Tragedy [Cambridge: Cambridge U P,1986], p. 91). The opposition raised by the conflict between Antigone and Creon,in other words, forces a consideration of the conflicts of interest between the oikosand the polis.Identifying Creon with the city, as well, Albin Lesky (Greek Tragic Poetry,trans. Matthew Dillon [New Haven: Yale U P, 1983]) shifts the stakes of the oppositionby emphasizing Antigone’s claims to be doing the will of the gods by buryingher brother. Lesky points out that Creon’s assessment of the city’s primary importanceoverturns even the traditional primacy of the gods: “When [Creon] says ofthe polis (189): ηδ’ έστιν η σώζουσα (it is she who saves us), this signifies a secularizationthat no longer recognizes any absolute value higher than the state”(135). Thus, Lesky sees in the play a struggle between man (Creon) and the gods(Antigone). While Creon stubbornly enforces his man-made laws, Antigone bearswitness to the “unwritten laws” of the gods (141). In her attachment to the corpseof her brother, Lesky sees Antigone as actually ascribing to immortal, unearthly,

56Jennifer Ballengee░divine laws.Such a dialectic suggests the ethical struggle that Hegel sees enacted in thetragedy of Antigone: as a result of action, the unspoken, unknown law is broken,giving rise to the ethical conflict. Of course, Antigone, for her part, is aware of thecivil law that she breaks, but she transgresses the law because she perceives it tobe violent and wrong. Nevertheless, by knowingly breaking the law, her action becomesfor Hegel more inexcusable, her guilt more severe; it is for this reason,Hegel argues with a quote from the play, that she must suffer: “Because we sufferwe acknowledge we have erred” (Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller [Oxford:Oxford UP, 1977], p. 284 [quoted from Antigone, l. 926]). In this sense, Antigone’ssuffering demonstrates her individual guilt in the ethical order. In her oppositionto the laws of Creon, Antigone thus appears as aligned with the natural laws(as opposed to the sort of man-made laws that the second choral song, the firststasimon, the “Ode to Man,” describes [332-75]), or with nature, in general.Hence, Charles Segal explains, “In the great fifth-century debate between natureand convention, physis [nature or the natural qualities, form] and nomos [law, usage,custom], Antigone stands on the side of nature. She defends those relationsand aspects of life that man possesses by the given conditions of his birth againstthose which he creates by strength and force” (Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretationof Sophocles [Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1981], p. 155). In her individualopposition to Creon’s political laws, Antigone thus appears as a naturalforce whose struggle results from an encounter with the techne of society.In this sense, Antigone as representative of the natural laws is sometimesseen as a feminine force, rebelling against the laws of the patriarchal society. Thisis the Carol Jacobs’ reading; she finds in Antigone a revolutionary female figure,following and critiquing Hegel’s reading of her character. Jacobs describes theterms of the dialectic which Hegel finds manifested in the play as those of gender:“The stakes for Hegel … are sexual difference, the relation between family andstate, and the movement from matriarchy to patriarchy in the pagan world” (“DustingAntigone”, MLN 111.5 [1996], p. 889). For Jacobs, Antigone reflects both herfemale status and her (related) connection to nature or natural law in her approachto the earth – that is, by the manner in which she buries Polynices. AlthoughCreon excuses his intention to execute his son’s fiancée by asserting that thereare other fields to plow (569), Antigone, Jacobs points out, works the earth differently,by not breaking it, or marking it as hers, but rather by just dusting Polynices’body with it. In this reading, then, Antigone poses a threat to the male system,making the mark that cannot be located, in a strange sort of écriture fémininetransferred to the fifth-century ritual of burial. Jacobs contends, in other words,that the unintelligibility of Antigone’s action, its refusal to fit into any given traditionor law, provides it with the ability to subvert not only the male system but the conceptof opposed poles of conflict, in general: “Antigone, indeed, changes andtransforms the concept of ethics; it perverts the universal and its promise of property:it perverts as well any fixed concept of revolution against patriarchy” (911).Antigone, seen as allied with nature, not only subverts the nomoi of the dominantsystem (that is, Thebes under Creon), but in doing so disrupts the limits of each ofthe terms of opposition as well.Cynthia Willett, in her own reading of Hegel’s reading of Antigone, also ascribesa wide-ranging disruption to the manner in which Antigone, or her actions,

░ Mourning the Public Body 57resists the terms of the dominant model. For Willett, however, the laws that Antigonesubverts through her actions in the play are both the laws of Hegel’s dialecticand the rules of tragedy Aristotle prescribes in his Poetics. Tragic drama, she suggests,with its reversals and discoveries, parallels the dialectic form of Hegel. Followingthis scheme, then, dialectic depends upon a cathartic moment like tragedy:“dialectic demands the catharsis, or purging, of emotion from educated spirit”(“Hegel, Antigone, and the Possibility of Ecstatic Dialogue” [Philosophy and Literature(Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press) 1990: 14], p. 268). Yet, she argues,catharsis proposes a purging of desire that is no more possible in dialecticthan in tragedy. Because of this, Willett seeks to find in her exploration of Antigonea reconception of tragedy “that is not cathartic but ecstatic” (268). Willett demarcatesclearly the relation between suffering and ethics as Hegel conceives of it:Tragedy ends in the incipient reconciliation of the ethical powers which comeinto conflict. … Tragic pathos, or suffering, brings each hero to recognize the opposingethical vision which concludes a play. As the choruses of Sophocles’ playsproclaim, tragedy engenders learning through suffering. (271)Thus suffering brings about the self-knowledge that enables the ethical selfconsciousnessthat Hegel finds in tragedy. In taking up the agon or conflict andsuffering through it, the tragic hero suffers a reversal of what appears to be true;the resolution of the tragedy conveys the recognition of this lesson. In dialecticalterms, then, catharsis is “the systematic expulsion of what cannot be taken up intopure thought” (273). Given this, Willett argues that dialectic proceeds at eachstage by a forgetting (that is, a purging out) of what remains incommensurate withthe absolute totality of thought. Willett identifies this forgotten element as desire.While Hegel will argue that, “The relationship between the brother and sister alonesatisfies the requirement that ethical duty to the family is pure of the vagaries oraccidental attractions of natural desire” (273), Willett points to events in the playthat indicate that Antigone’s passionate feelings for her brother transgress Hegel’sclaim by stemming from love. In addition, Willett argues, Antigone’s “worship ofdeath” carries erotic overtones and at several moments in the play she manifestsa maternal instinct. These factors enable Willett to claim that “The agony of Antigoneintimates that the righteous defense of ethical duty originates not purely in asense of duty but in a subjective passion that determines the performance of duty”(275). Such an assertion, she insists, appears clearly in Creon’s own inability toavoid passion; he himself becomes enraged, or passionate, in his attempts toquell Antigone’s passion. For this reason, Willett proposes to reread the tragedyAntigone and Hegel’s dialectic, allowing both to retain desire, in an ecstatic ratherthan cathartic pursuit of knowledge. In doing so, she hopes to “refigure a women’sdialectic” that allows for an ecstatic conception of tragedy, an excess of desire inthe dialectical relation of tragedy (and philosophy): “Antigone’s dialectic mediatesthe engagement of wife and mother within an ethics that no longer expunges subjectivefeeling from duty” (282). For Willett, then, the possibility of including desirein the function of tragedy or philosophy becomes aligned with the feminine; in herfeminine, maternal desire, Antigone suggests the possibility for an ecstatic pursuitof truth that includes “subjective feeling” or desire in its scheme and thereby obviatesforgetting. Willett’s reading draws a parallel between the “rules” of dialectic,the form of tragedy, and Creon’s laws, as well. By emphasizing the limitationswhich Creon’s laws impose on Antigone’s “desire” – laws that Creon himself, she

58Jennifer Ballengee░notes, cannot help but transgress – Willett suggests that the play describes a conflictbetween individual desire and the order of the polis (as well as between individualdesire and the order of philosophy).In a slightly different perception of an opposition between reason and passionin Antigone, Mary Whitlock Blundell sees the conflict personified in Creon, whoundermines his own rational principles with a passionate pursuit of power. ForBlundell, too, Creon’s submission to passion re-emphasizes the driving force ofpassion for Antigone. In this manner, she sees the tragedy as manifesting the interplayof reason and passion: “Thus passion as well as mortality sets limits to thepower of human reason” (Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study inSophocles and Greek Ethics [Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989], p. 143).16 Griffith, Antigone, pp. 167-8.17 Bernard Knox, The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy (Berkeley: Uof California P, 1964), p. 97.18 On line 519, she claims that Hades demands the laws she follows.19 For Sophocles’ concern with order, rhythm, balance, and the problem of disorder,see especially H.D.F. Kitto, Greek Tragedy: A Literary Study (N.Y.: Doubleday andCompany, 1954), pp. 148-55; and Charles Segal, Sophocles’ Tragic World: Divinity,Nature, Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1995), especially pp. 142-3.20 Antigone, in her recounting of the edict (35-6) stresses the public nature of theexecution, ending the phrase and line with εν πόλει. Griffith feels that her languagehere echoes the formal language of an actual edict, except for in the use ofφονόω, which typically designates a more violent death such as murder, ratherthan judicial execution (see Griffith’s commentary on lines 35-6).21 Segal considers this need to avoid disorder as part of the impetus behind Creon’sprohibition against mourning Polynices: “Women’s lament helps the dead makethe proper transition from the realm of the living to the other world but is also perceivedas a source of emotional violence and disorder. It is associated with amaenadlike (sic) release of uncontrollable and disturbing emotions; and in its callfor vengeance it can also lead to an unpredictable and uncontrollable cycle ofvendettas” (Sophocles’ Tragic World, p. 119).22 Creon accuses Antigone of being disorderly (άκοσμος) in his conversation withHaemon (730). Much earlier, on line 172, Creon refers to the violence of thebrothers against each other as a “pollution” (μίασμα).23 Tyrell and Bennett suggest that the public appropriation of funeral rites created atension between government and family: “The public funeral exacerbated the antagonismof the dêmos and the family over funeral celebrations by separating thedead from their families” (Recapturing Sophocles’ Antigone, p. 9). In this sense,Creon may be seen as creating additional tension or disorder by removing theright to burial from Antigone and taking it on for himself.24 Translation modified (following Griffith).25 The temporal disorder of incest makes the mourning of Oedipus seem impossible,as Antigone complains in Oedipus at Colonus, quoted at the beginning. The symptomof Oedipus’ crime, a plague on Thebes, recalls the plague that Teiresiaswarns Creon against causing. The symptoms of the plague or pollution in each

░ Mourning the Public Body 59case are the same – the stagnation of time, the cessation of reproduction, the inabilityto move forward. Thus the plagues that correspond to Oedipus’ and Creon’scrimes suggest in their nature the inability to mourn, the inability to remember, thefailure to pass into history.26 Griffith: “εκτινω δικην / τισιν = ‘pay the penalty’” (272).27 Danae is unjustly imprisoned by her father.28 Lycurgus is punished with imprisonment (and perhaps a madness that drove himto kill his own children) for attacking Dionysos.29 The sons of Phineus are blinded by their stepmother, Eidothea, who stabbed theireyes out in vengeance against their mother, Phineus’ first wife, Kleopatra.30 Translation modified, incorporating Segal’s interpretation of μνήμ’ επίσημον as“conspicuous memorial” (see infra, n. 31).31 For staging of this scene, see Rush Rehm, Greek Tragic Theater (London andN.Y.: Routledge, 1992), especially p. 37; and Tyrell and Bennett, RecapturingSophocles’ Antigone, especially pp. 148-51.32 Segal, Sophocles’ Tragic World, p. 120.33 Segal suggests that Eurydice’s suicide is her way of mourning Haemon; thus, hesuggests, this reverses “Creon’s victory over Antigone [i.e., his prevention of hermourning Polynices] in the first half of the play” (Sophocles’ Tragic World, p. 121).Conversely, Tyrell and Bennett argue that in her suicide, “Eurydice has silencedherself; she will not mourn his [Creon’s] son for him. This is the dikê, the penalty,that Eurydice extracts from Creon … Eurydice gives Creon the woman he wanted,a silenced woman who refuses to mourn a philos, and gains for Antigone thevengeance she prayed for, a silent funeral for Creon” (Recapturing Sophocles’ Antigone,p. 151). Though a very dramatic interpretation, Tyrell and Bennett’s readingfails to account, as Segal’s does, for the performative aspects of the play,which contradict the idea of such a “silent funeral.” In either case, Eurydice’s suicidegains significance in its relation to mourning.34 Griffith disagrees with this, suggesting that Eurydice’s body probably would havesimply been carried onstage and lain next to Haemon’s (p. 349-350). In eithercase, at any rate, the corpses present a remarkable spectacle accompanyingCreon’s rueful speech.35 Griffith notes of this passage: “Hanging a man from a gibbet or board, and eitherleaving him to die of starvation and exposure, or beating him to death … was afamiliar mode of execution, at least for low-class criminals and traitors” (Antigone,p.176).36 This difference resonates with Creon’s distinction between the visible corpses ofHaemon and Eurydice and the invisible hand of fate (1339-46; see, also, discussionearlier).37 Christian Meier, The Political Art of Greek Tragedy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP,1993), p. 198.38 Lesky, Greek Tragic Poetry, p. 143.39 Segal, Tragedy and Civilization, p. 206.

A Danish Antigone: The Legacy of Ancient Greek Consciousnessin the Fragmentation of Modern TragedySabina Sestigiani“Stay happy, then, dear Antigone! We wish you a longlife, as meaningful as a deep sigh. May no forgetfulnessrob you of anything! May the daily bitterness ofsorrow be offered to you abundantly!”Kierkegaard, “The Unhappiest One”, Either/OrIn Søren Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, 1 the engaging analysis of the conceptof the tragic in ancient and modern dramas hinges on Kierkegaard’spoetic invention of the figure of a new Antigone and the shift in her subjectivity.Such analysis moves from the unquestioning acceptance of fate inSophocles’s Antigone to the self-reflective brooding of Kierkegaard’s creation.Kierkegaard’s illustration of the tragic derives from a mixture of thecharacteristics of ancient and modern dramas. His Antigone incarnates thepeculiarities of both: necessity of action and self-subjectivity. The fictitiousauthor of Either/Or, Part I that goes under the name of A, the Aesthete,reads the story of Antigone before a meeting of the Symparanekromenoi,the “Society of the Buried Lives.” 2 A imagines himself among a group of individualswho are leading lives spiritually dead or alienated within society.They become the discreet spectators of a most secretive representation: aCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/sestigiani.pdf

░ A Danish Antigone 61revisited version of Antigone. This ironic parable in the romantic mode belongsto the genre that Novalis named “literary Saturnalia.” 3 It is a fragment,a shred of theatre that can be viewed with the mind’s eye but not entirelygrasped because it depicts a “nebulous” 4 and most reserved modernheroine. The story of the new Antigone and her proverbial inwardness echoKierkegaard’s biography and his obsession for silence and indirect discourse.How not to think of Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms such as Frater Taciturnusor Johannes de Silentio, ironically alluding to a silent form of wisdom?The puppeteer pulls his Antigone by a string of silence in a theatre ofthe hereafter mirroring Antigone’s living burial in a sort of teatrum mundi.In this article I will discuss the discrepancy between the definition ofthe tragic hero in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling 5 and Either/Or. I willargue that although both works were published in 1843, the analysis of thetragic heroine of Antigone in Either/Or is more nuanced than that of thetragic (ethical) hero in Fear and Trembling. The tragic heroine in Either/Orseems projected toward an overcoming of the ethical sphere. The tragic(ethical) hero of Fear and Trembling moves entirely in the sphere of theethical and the tragic results from a conflict between two ethical spheres. InEither/Or, before introducing Antigone, A presents to the foreground twokinds of tragic heroes: the ancient and the modern. The ancient hero is theshadow of fate, the modern is a free willed character who defies his destinyand moves in the sphere of the ethical. The tragic (ethical) hero of Fear andTrembling seems close to the tragic modern hero outlined in Either/Or,whereas he seems to have little in common with the fated hero of the ancientworld, crystallized in the aesthetic sphere. The responsibilities of boththe tragic (ethical) hero of Fear and Trembling and the modern hero of Either/Orcan be traced in the ethical sphere: they are the result of an act offree will. I will analyse these two typologies of tragic heroes in the third sectionof the present article. In Either/Or, A proposes the model of the trulytragic hero/heroine: his Antigone. She oscillates between the two realms ofthe ancient and the modern: she is a self-reflected character who is embeddedin her “substantial determinant,” 6 namely her fate. With his Antigone,A enacts a critique of the fragmentation of the modern world and ofthe unauthentic modern tragedy as its paradigmatic product.I will also argue that the coexistence of “fate” and “character” in thenarration of Antigone by A is a literary device that enables Kierkegaard togive voice to some autobiographical events under disguise. A seems to beaware of the impossible resurrection of the ancient Greek consciousnessas he produces a fragment of a performance for a most private audience,the “Fellowship of the Dead.” 7

62Sabina Sestigiani░The Ancient and the Modern WorldThe dissertation on the tragic in ancient and modern dramas signed byA precedes his story of Antigone. A describes ancient tragedies as permeatedwith a profound feeling of sorrow in contrast to the feeling of pain thatemerges from modern tragedies. The world of ancient Greece was highlygoverned by what A calls “substantial categories” 8 – namely the state, family,fatum. Sorrow is the feeling aroused in the spectator following the fall ofthe hero or heroine due to the guilt inscribed in their genetic legacy. Butcan one be guilty if the guilt is inherited? Society in ancient Greece was organisedin such a way that every individual was born with a destiny engravedin their skin. They are embedded in their substantial categories tothe extent that they suffer their fatal destiny without questioning whether itcould have been otherwise. Sorrow is the silent acceptance of one’s destinyas the result of the guilt inscribed in one’s genetic legacy. But guilt isnot simply inherited; it is dictated by a compulsion to atone for the ancestors’errors. It is the sense of belonging that drives the hero or heroine to filialpiety. Blood binds individuals of ancient Greece in a chain of sin anddeferential atonement, where atonement is a practice of paying homage, ofbringing flowers to the father’s tomb. “There is a degree of ambiguity concerninginherited guilt for it is dependent not upon some action of later generations,but upon their attitude to their forbears.” 9 The nature of guilt inancient Greek tragedies is very ambiguous. It implies guilt and guiltlessnessat once as it would be a contradiction in terms to be guilty by fate.According to A, modern society’s determinants are self-consciousnessand reflexive subjectivity. Pain is the feeling that arises in the spectator followinga reflection upon the suffering of the hero. In modern tragedies, thehero falls just as in ancient tragedies, but he does so entirely on his owndeeds. He is subjectively reflected in himself and this reflection has reflectedhim out of every immediate relation to state, kindred, fate and evenout of his own past life. 10 The modern individual is isolated and desperatein his own solitude. The brooding modern hero fights on his own, in isolation.Modern tragedy is about responsibility and acceptance of guilt. Thehero is not allowed to fall back into the comforting idea that his errors aredictated by his inescapable destiny. Having cut any ties with his family, thestate and his destiny (fatum), he acts on his own, asserting his independencefrom his history. He performs acrobatics without a safety net. If hefalls, no family, no state and no fatum will offer him any consoling embrace.The modern hero ethically reflects on his own deeds and takes responsibilityfor them. The hero becomes a character, an individual that creates hisown fate. A indicates a danger in modern society’s propensity for extreme

░ A Danish Antigone 63isolation and describes as comical its attempt to assert a too distinct independencefrom universal commonalities. 11 The comical results from the individualtrying to assert one’s individuality, one’s self-subjectivity and independencefrom fatum: one’s attempt to be absolute, failing to admit one’sown relativity. According to A, the authentic tragic is not to be found inmodern tragedies as “character” seems to be entirely separated from “fate:”the tragic moves toward the comic instead.Guilt in “Fate and Character”The eternal question of whether “character” can govern “fate,” or, viceversa, is tackled by Walter Benjamin in his “Fate and Character.” 12 Hespeaks of the comical move of the individual who believes that his actionsare free, while acting according to substantial determinants. Therefore, believingin the prominence of his character over his fate, he comically deludeshimself. Fate and character are bound together; the freedom ofmovement of each is marked by one another’s position: they are destinedto revolve around one another. “The character trait ... is the sun of individualityin the colourless (anonymous) sky of man, which casts the shadow ofthe comic action. (This places Cohen’s profound dictum that every tragicaction, however sublimely it strides upon its cothurnus, casts a comicshadow, in its most appropriate context).” 13 Benjamin’s quotation is a glossto A’s belief that the essence of the tragic, springing from a sublation of ancientand modern tragedies, resides in a blend of sorrow and pain, of “fate”and “character.”The juxtaposition of “fate” and “character” implies a different conceptof guilt in the ancient and the modern tragedy. Fate is an ongoing temporalitythat resists any form of interruption questioning its inevitability. If eventsare ruled by fate, events could not be otherwise. Regardless of what the individualdoes, he is undone by fate. The decision of the individual does notmatter, the event is unavoidable. Fate does not admit that it could havebeen otherwise. In events dictated by fate, therefore, there is no guilt, or atleast, guilt is of a very ambiguous kind. There is the guilt in sharing a commondestiny bound to lineage, or state, but no guilt is caused by a faux pasor a decision taken by the hero. Ancient Greek tragedies – lacking selfsubjectivityand inwardness – relate to the eternal and the possible throughexternal and accidental means. Fate responds to the anxiety of the pagans– it placates their fear of the possible by speaking through oracles. Thusthe ancients set their subjectivity outside of themselves. If anxiety is “dialecticallydefined as fate,” 14 it is impossible to arrive at the concepts of guiltand sin as this would lead to the contradicting affirmation that one becomes

64Sabina Sestigiani░guilty by fate. Sophocles’s Antigone is all immersed in the present and certainlyher anxiety concerning her fate can be traced back to the same oraclethat spoke to her father. Her subjectivity is entirely external and preordainedby her descent.If we are to accept that the hero is able to, and does make, a decision,two different temporal structures present themselves: choice and guilt. Thechance that the action could have been different provokes the guilt. Decisionis the moment which could always have been otherwise. Hence, thehero is responsible for the action. If something could not have been otherwise,there is not a decision and no guilt. Good sense falls out of the gods.In modern tragedies the idea of decision, and guilt that might ensue an unwisechoice, is sharply delineated. The individual demonstrates a selfsubjectiveattitude and reveals anxiety for one’s own potential existence.Potentiality implies the future, and in fact anxiety is about a future – not actual– event. “A person is thus anxious about ‘nothing’, ‘nothing’ as understoodas the non-actual, the possible whose actualization lies in the future.But this possibility does not belong to the external world; it is always one’sown.” 15A’s Antigone experiences anxiety about “nothing.” Anxiety gives herinsight into her father’s incestuous plight. Yet, the triggering object of anxietyis an intangible suspicion, and the relation of anxiety to it is nothing. A’sAntigone loves and fears the object of her anxiety: her father’s incest. AsKierkegaard says, “there is nothing in the world more ambiguous” 16 thanthe double movement of fear and love toward the object of one’s anxiety.By anxiously desiring what she fears to be true, Antigone becomes guilty.“But anxiety has an added factor that makes it cling even harder to its object,for it both loves and fears it.” 17 A’s Antigone reflects on and broodsover the future. Her subjectivity is entirely inward.Andrew Benjamin refers to Sophocles’s Antigone as a passage fromantiquity to modernity for “its elimination of the work of fate.” 18 The playthus represents a “refusal of reference to destiny, it allows for the advent ofcosmopolitanism.” 19 In the public sphere of modern society, the disappearanceof fate is the starting point for the acknowledgment of responsibilities.Wisdom is the human contribution to the thriving of democracy. The finallines of the Antigone’s chorus express the nature of Creon’s mistake: lackof wisdom. Fate is not involved in Creon’s fall, the chorus suggests. His attemptto ascribe his own error to the gods is a refusal to take responsibility,to account for his own deed. In other words, Creon clings to antiquity. He isunwilling to abandon the unaware state typical of the ancients.Good sense is by far the chief part of happiness; and we must notbe impious toward the gods. The great words of boasters are always

░ A Danish Antigone 65punished with great blows, and as they grow old teach them wisdom.20The very last lines of the play uttered by the chorus set Sophocles’s play ina middle position between “fate and character,” making thus a leap towardsmodernity. As A states, the tragic is an ambivalent promiscuity of both ancientand modern tragedy, where both stances co-exist, ambiguously. Butwhereas Andrew Benjamin identifies the blend of antiquity and modernity inthe conflicting perspectives of Creon and the chorus, A invokes the blend ofguiltlessness and responsibility, necessity and possibility within the hero’sconsciousness to form a genuine tragic protagonist. As Mark Taylor remarks,“ancient and modern tragedies err in opposite directions. Ancienttragedy conceives the self primarily in terms of necessity; the hero is a sufferer.Modern tragedy conceives the self fully in terms of possibility, and thefreedom to actualize possibility; the hero is an actor. As a matter of fact,both elements, necessity and possibility, must be acknowledged in theself’s constitution. The self is both a sufferer and an actor. To stress eitherfactor to the exclusion of the other is to present an unbalanced view of selfhood.”21 A’s Antigone personifies this tragic consciousness. She attains theperfection of tragic selfhood. But the tragic balance appears just in order toclaim its impossibility and to fracture the heroine.The Greek Antigone:A Tragic (Ethical) Heroine with Subjective TruthIn creating a new Antigone, A presents the difficult task of dealing withtwo literary figures at the same time. A’s Antigone is a shadowy figure thatneeds her illuminated alter-ego in order to become visible. The Greek Antigonegives away her life defying the king of Thebes’s edict. She buries thedead body of her brother and is condemned to being buried alive. Creon’slaw seems unjust, leaving unburied a corpse and ordering the burial of aliving creature. But one must comply with the law and Antigone, in refusingto do so, embraces a choice that is entirely the result of her “subjectivetruth.” Hers is a passionate commitment to truth, hers is a decision forwhich she is willing to live and die. 22 Kierkegaard insists on the importanceof choice as a means to acquire one’s own self. He writes in his journal: “Itis a question of understanding my destiny, of seeing what the Deity reallywants me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find theidea for which I can live and die.” 23 The truth of the decision is given by thepassion one puts in what one takes up; in fact “what is important in choosingis not so much to choose the right thing as the energy, the earnestness,

66Sabina Sestigiani░and the pathos with which one chooses.” 24 Antigone is jealous of her destiny.She clings to her choice, unwilling to share it with anyone else who, inso doing, might diminish the uniqueness of her gesture. And she is awarethat this very choice of hers is what defines the essence of her life: “Hadesand those below know to whom the deed belongs! And I do not tolerate aloved one who shows her love only in words ... Do not try to share mydeath, and do not claim as your own something you never put a hand to!My death will be enough.” 25According to Kierkegaard’s definition in Fear and Trembling, the GreekAntigone could be read as a true tragic (ethical) heroine. 26 Antigone’s act,although scornful of Creon’s edict, can be justified within the ethical, in sofar as she is loyal to the idea of showing respect towards her own stock:“There is no shame in showing regard for those of one’s own stock ... Itwas not a slave, but my brother who had died.” 27 Her deed is an expressionof the ethical life and the city of Thebes applauds Antigone’s deed. Aswe hear from Haemon: “the city is lamenting for this girl, saying that nowoman ever deserved it less, but that she is to perish miserably for actionsthat are glorious, she who did not allow her own brother who had fallen inthe slaughter to remain unburied or to be destroyed by savage dogs orbirds.” 28The tragic hero/heroine takes personal responsibility into the publicsphere of language, and justification is what distinguishes this ethicalhero/heroine from the silence of A’s Antigone. Sophocles’s Antigone explainsher position and the reasons behind her choice. “But when I comethere, I am confident that I shall come dear to my father, dear to you, mymother, and dear to you, my own brother; since when you died it was I thatwith my own hands washed you and adorned you and poured libations onyour graves; and now, Polynices, for burying your body I get this reward!Yet in the eyes of the wise I did well to honour you.” 29 Antigone has thecourage to perform the sacrifice of her own life. The tragic appears from themoment she sacrifices the aesthetic sphere of her life – namely she givesup her life – in order to gain the ethical sphere for the whole society. 30 Renouncingher life is instrumental to honouring her brother’s memory. Shehas the courage to perform the sacrifice “for the well being of the whole” 31– that is to respect a common ideal of loyalty toward family bonds. Antigoneis ready to give up forever the finite and the particular for ethical reasons.The tragic (ethical) heroine Antigone is not in the religious sphere, 32 shedoes not conceive a dimension beyond the earthly, where she could hopeto regain what she gave up. Although it is a noble gesture, it is devoid ofspirituality. But the play has multi-layered realms of power.If we keep bearing in mind the definition of the tragic (ethical) hero of

░ A Danish Antigone 67Fear and Trembling, Antigone’s choice is a true and ethical decision in thesphere of her very personal perception of reality. Antigone’s singularityclashes with Creon when she defies his edict. What seemed just and ethicalthen, becomes outside the law under the light of another sphere,namely Creon’s. Antigone claims that she is acting in the name of the gods,in the name of some unwritten law that is other than Creon’s. She claims todepict her choice with a religious motive although her choice is basicallythe result of a conflict with Creon’s law. If we are to take literally the clashbetween the commandments of the gods and the prescriptions of the citylaw, Antigone somehow reminds us of Kierkegaard’s “Knight of Faith” 33 inso far as she perpetrates a so called “teleological suspension of the ethical.”Is Antigone really doing her deed because instructed to do so by thegods or is she using the gods to justify her choice? There is no evidence inSophocles’s text that Antigone has been asked to perform her brother’sburial by the gods. It seems that she covers her deed with a divine order sothat she can be more authoritative. In fact, Antigone does not expect to receivethe finite back, as a true “Knight of Faith” would. She gives it away forgood. She decides to die in order to pay homage to the memory of herbrother, in order to do justice to her ancestors.If the Greek Antigone is read according to the tragic (ethical) hero ofFear and Trembling – implying that the tragic conflict of the play is of anethical order – this makes her close to the modern world and the vision ofthe tragic typical of the modern drama analysed by A. If this is the case,Antigone is ethically guilty, just like Creon, and fate would have only a verymarginal implication in the tragic conflict. But for Kierkegaard, this is amodern misreading of the tragedy. Free will unbound of substantial categoriesunleashes pain – the feeling of modern tragedies.Despite being published in the same year as Fear and Trembling, 34 Either/Orpresents a different analysis of the tragic hero when discussingSophocles’s Antigone. It seems in conflict with the thesis of the former text.Antigone’s fate is not a result of her own freely chosen deed – it does notpertain to the ethical – but it is preordained by her place in her family, bythe fate that is her family’s fate. It is an ambiguous and inherited guilt, notthe modern guilt of ethical decision and responsibility. This is a critique ofthe modern world and the vision of the tragic (ethical) hero that Kierkegaardanalyses in Fear and Trembling through the voice of one of his pseudonyms– Johannes de Silentio. As A states considering Sophocles’s Antigone:“If this is viewed as an isolated fact, as a collision between sisterlylove and piety and an arbitrary human injunction, Antigone would cease tobe a Greek tragedy; it would be an altogether modern tragic theme.” 35Sophocles’s Antigone decides to bury her brother in defiance of the Gen-

68Sabina Sestigiani░eral’s injunction, but in so doing she is not choosing freely, this is “not somuch a free act as a fateful necessity, which visits the iniquities of the fathersupon the children.” 36 Antigone is doomed to act as she does, she isfated. She is not subjective enough to question whether it could have beenotherwise. The dominant tone to the soul is sorrow.A’s Antigone: A Secret Brought to the GraveIn the second part of “The Tragic in Ancient Drama Reflected in theTragic in Modern Drama,” A addresses directly the society of the Symparanekromenoi37 and introduces his heroine, Antigone. We are suddenlyaware that we are not the only spectators, but we are sharing the performancewith a chorus – the society – that has just been disclosed by thespeaker. By uttering the name of “the Fellowship of the Dead,” he drawsthe heavy curtains of the stage and admits us to a very secretive theatrearena. The discreet chorus is a group that has refused to live within societyand has retired to a sort of a demimonde, an enclave where people are initiatedto secrets otherwise unknown. The peculiarity of the society is itslove for the fragment, for “the glinting transiency.” 38 It offers a slantedglance on the world, artificially recreating a portion of its magic without attemptingto reproduce it in its entirety. This microcosm of society can onlygrasp a shred, a spark of ideas. The fullness of accomplished literary worksis not the ambition of the society as it wishes to allude without entirely revealing.Unfinished works are like ruins, the society cherishes them becausethey convey an element of the past. Works under the guise of ruinsbecome thus present in the past. The story of Antigone is evoked as if byconjuration to grasp a secret that the heroine hides within. The society isthirsty for sharing concealed grief and secrets not confessed. It evokesthings secret by means of magic and incantations, even when death hasburied them from our view to relive them again. 39 A is fascinated with Antigone;as someone literally buried alive she echoes perfectly the spirit of theassociation. We guess that the fascination is also shared by every othersingle member of the society: everyone is invited to feel free to love her intheir own way. The indistinctness of her depiction allows this. But wouldthere be any other way to represent artistically “reflective grief”? And trulyfor our Antigone “the stage is inside, not outside; it is a spiritual stage.” 40A introduces his Antigone to the chorus. Her story deviates from theGreek Antigone, in so far as her subjectivity shifts from external to inward.The Danish Antigone becomes an internal and self-reflective character,moving from fatalism to auto-determinism. Yet, she does not give up entirelyher trail of Greek consciousness. In fact, she embodies the idea of the

░ A Danish Antigone 69tragic of both ancient and modern dramas for her experiencing both sorrowand pain. Antigone is “the daughter of sorrow” wearing “a dowry of pain asher outfit.” 41 She is a direct descendant of the Greek consciousness, boundto her sorrowful fate for being Oedipus’s daughter. At the same time shepains for her plight in a modern, self-reflective fashion.Antigone is the only one who is aware of her father’s incestuous state.Antigone is shrouded in her silence. She is proud of her secret and sheknows that she has been selected to save the honour of the lineage ofOedipus. Her family bonds are tainted by her father’s error and she acceptsthe consequences – to be buried alive – silently and unquestioningly. Thepast is a legacy that is not conceivable to reject. The result is profound sorrow.The doubt over Oedipus’s incest instilled anxiety in Antigone. The secrecyof her condition generates a self-reflective pain that does not desireto be seen by others. It is the modernity of this attitude that arouses pain.A’s Antigone is modern because self-reflective, because of her silentbrooding and suffering. The modernity of A’s Antigone is also highlightedby her interior conflict: respect for her father would require that she doesnot share her secret with anyone, yet, not revealing her real essence to herbeloved Haemon would mean doing injustice to the depth of her love. Onlyin death can she find peace. In A’s Antigone the conflict is thus moved froma confrontation between Creon/Antigone to a self-reflected inner conflictwithin the persona of Antigone.Antigone is a fragment, a ruin of history and in virtue of this fact she ispresent in the past – a particle of a lost whole. The tragic in modern dramathat A juxtaposes to the tragic in ancient drama is also hosted by a fragmentedsociety that has lost its ties to history. Modernity has accentuatedthe concept of the individual’s responsibility, thus his/her prominence as a“character,” as a pure fragment of a society once whole. Both Antigonesare marked by a distinct demarcation of external and internal dimensions:“The one (Sophocles’s) is dominated by external forces, yet remains innocentlycarefree within; the other (A’s) is not bound by any external actionsdemanded of her, but she is utterly and painfully bound by inner anxiety.The common element is that both are victims of the contradiction betweenexternality and inwardness, between the objective relations that constitutefate for the Greek and subjective uncertainty and guilt that are the modern’sprison.” 42A depicts Antigone with venerating religious attributes. This mode isnot new; it suffices to think of Hegel’s tone in his Lectures on the History ofPhilosophy, where he celebrates the “celestial Antigone, the most resplendent[herrlichste] figure ever to have appeared on earth.” 43 Antigone is “thevirgo mater.” 44 She is pregnant with her secret and she conceals it under

70Sabina Sestigiani░her heart. She has swallowed her secret and it has now become part of hercorporeality. Transparency is the consistency of her sorrowful pain. Antigoneis assailed by anxiety that instils doubts about her father’s incest.Anxiety about “nothing” – understood as the non-actual, the possible – begetsher secret that is imploded silence. Her secret gives life and death atthe same time in so far as it represents at once her impalpable essenceand the interior conflict that leads her to death.Antigone’s silence is witness to a heroic gesture – the renunciation ofthe joys and passions of finite existence for some “higher cause.” She renouncesher life to honour her brother and guard her father’s secret. Thischoice is unspeakable and must remain silent, because it is loaded with analmost religious significance. Silence and indirect speech are distinguishingfeatures of the entire work of Kierkegaard. It is not surprising that Antigone’sbehaviour has an affinity with the silence of the “Knight of InfiniteResignation” heralded by Johannes de Silentio in Fear and Trembling. 45“Her thoughts are my thoughts”Why does Kierkegaard need to create a new character in order to elucidatethe differences between ancient and modern tragedy and thus theessence of the tragic? Was he perhaps trying to create a character thatwould help him to understand and keep at bay his own personal tragedy?Kierkegaard creates his own Antigone as a sort of guise of his being. Antigonebecomes his literary alter-ego, his literary creature that allows Kierkegaardto live his life a second time, taking the time to explain, to reveal hispain to the spectators. Kierkegaard’s life had been deeply signed by hisabandonment of his beloved Regine Olsen for mysterious and apparentlyconcealed reasons. Seemingly, he also shared a “terrible” secret concerninghis father. Like A’s Antigone, he could not reveal it to his belovedRegine for fear of not being understood; like A’s Antigone, he could notconceive of not sharing the most intimate essence of his soul with his beloved:“In the marriage ceremony I must take an oath – therefore I dare notconceal anything. On the other hand, there are things I just cannot tell her.The fact that the divine enters into marriage is my ruin.” 46 Allegedly, he forsookRegine in order to keep his father’s secret: “But if I were to explainmyself I would have had to initiate her into terrible things, my relationship tofather, his melancholy, the eternal night brooding deep inside me, my goingastray … and where was I to find a roof when I knew or suspected that theonly man I had admired for his strength and power wavered?” 47 Kierkegaardseems to be speaking through his Antigone: “Her thoughts are mythoughts.” 48 He had to renounce Regine; Antigone had to forsake Haemon.

░ A Danish Antigone 71In his journal, in the process of working on his Antigone, Kierkegaardwonders whether he should change Antigone for a male hero. He lingers ina draft particularly indebted to his biography: “No doubt I could bring myAntigone to a conclusion if I let her be a man. He forsook his beloved becausehe could not hold on to her along with his private agony … Thisscandal outraged the family: a brother, for example, came forward as anavenger; I would then have my hero fall in a duel.” 49 He yields to the temptationof indulging in a poetic self-explanation of his crucial choice in life. 50He does it wearing the mask of indirect discourse. Kierkegaard protects thetruth of a decision that, because of its singularity, demands secrecy. “Whathave I lost, alas, how could you know or understand? This is a subject onwhich you had better stay silent.” 51 Speaking would require suspendingone’s own absolute singularity, one’s own uniqueness to share a generalityof ethics that requires justifying and accounting for one’s decisions and actions.According to Jacques Derrida, speaking equals to entering the realmof ethics and Kierkegaard cannot resist this temptation entirely: he lets hissoul speak through Antigone’s voice. 52 She has confessed Kierkegaard hersecret; she has murmured it in a loving embrace. 53 Antigone’s story isswathed in a veil of secret and cannot be acted on stage, because it remainsunsaid. A’s version of Antigone can only be performed before the“Society of the Buried Lives:” it is an inward theatre. Through A’s Antigone,Kierkegaard expresses his yearning to represent his life, but he does sofrom a slanted perspective: his point of view is hidden behind a ventriloquistpuppet. Antigone is the poetic invention that springs from his imploded silence.He considers silence a sign of wisdom, the shield that protects an internalstorm. “I am unconditionally the most silent person in this age. Silenceconcealed in silence is suspect, arouses suspicion, almost as if onewere bearing witness to something, at least to the fact that one is silent. Butsilence hidden is the most definitive talent for conversation – now there’s silencefor you!” 54But there is also another aspect to Kierkegaard’s Antigone. Kierkegaardis aware that the modern era has lost the Greek consciousness thatwould enable us to understand properly the profound sorrow in Greek tragedy.In other words, the modern spectator has lost compassion andKierkegaard believes that the modern age has no great real sympathy withthe Greek tragedy: “Our age has lost all the substantial categories of family,state, kindred ... the spectator has lost compassion, but in a subjective wayand also in an objective sense compassion is the authentic expression ofthe tragic.” 55 His Antigone presents the vestiges of the ancient Greek consciousness,while at the same time engaging us in a modern self-subjectiveanalysis. In other words, Kierkegaard creates his Antigone to artificially re-

72Sabina Sestigiani░produce in our society an extinct consciousness so fundamental to thetragic. Kierkegaard has created his character for his imaginary fellowship,the Symparanekromenoi, and we are left to speculate as to the reasonswhy he decided not to produce it for the real stage: “Perhaps Kierkegaarddiscovered that he had no talent for writing dialogue or drama. In any case,in not producing the tragedy, the Aesthete is at least true to his own character– while arguing that ancient times cannot be repristinated, he succeedsin repristinating them – in aesthetic contemplation.” 56CodaThe vicinity of the definition of the tragic (ethical) hero in Fear andTrembling and A’s analysis of the modern tragic hero is a reflection ofKierkegaard’s critique of the modern world and its fragmentation. The tragic(ethical) hero of Fear and Trembling is juxtaposed to the Knights of InfiniteResignation and of Faith, both paradigmatic of a religious dimension of existence.Like the modern tragic hero in Either/Or, he is entirely imbued withthe ethical and does not know the infinite gentleness of tragedy. 57 The truetragic afflatus that arises from A’s dissertation – a blend of fate and character– has a somewhat religious ascendance. Although Either/Or analysesthe aesthetic and the ethical spheres of existence, A hints at the consolingsphere of the religious as the final movement of the tragic. 58 It is the secondmovement of the genuine tragic hero, who embraces the consolingidea of belonging to a universal sinfulness after having experienced theharshness of the ethical, namely the share of responsibilities for his acts. Itis a fatherly love that all embraces “by means of continuity.” 59 This movementback to fate after having felt the ethical, is taken up by A’s Antigone.This makes her the quintessential tragic heroine. A’s Antigone is also a poeticalinvention, a fragment of theatre. She enables Kierkegaard to give anindirect voice to some episodes of his life. “The society of the Buried Lives,”the stage where her story is performed, seems to allude to the fact that theresurrection of her Greek consciousness can only take place in the theatreof the half dead.Monash Universitysabina.sestigiani@arts.monash.edu.auNOTES1 Søren Kierkegaard, “The Tragic in Ancient Drama Reflected in the Tragic in Mod-

░ A Danish Antigone 73ern Drama”, Either/Or, Part I, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton:Princeton UP, 1987), pp. 139-64.2 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 623, n.1.3 See George Steiner, Antigones (New Haven: Yale UP, 1984), p. 53.4 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 153.5 Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, trans. Alastair Hannay (Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1985).6 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 143.7 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 137.8 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 150.9 John A. Norris, “The Validity of A’s View of Tragedy with Particular Reference toIbsen’s Brand”, in ed. Robert L. Perkins International Kierkegaard Commentary Either/OrPart I (Macon: Mercer UP, 1995), p. 147.10 See Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 143.11 See Steiner, Antigones, p. 56: “Pure isolation is at once comical and desperate, aformidable premonition of the Kafka-Beckett aesthetic.”12 Walter Benjamin, “Fate and Character”, Selected Writings, vol. I (Cambridge,Mass.: Belknap, 1996).13 Benjamin, “Fate and Character”, p. 206.14 Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically OrientingDeliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, trans. Reidar Thomte andAlbert B. Anderson (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980), p. 96.15 Dan Magurshak, “The Concept of Anxiety: The Keystone of the Kierkegaard-Heidegger Relationship”, in ed. Robert L. Perkins, International KierkegaardCommentary: The Concept of Anxiety (Macon: Mercer UP, 1995), p. 173. SeeKierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, p. 41.16 Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, p. 43.17 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 155.18 Andrew Benjamin, “Where Philosophy Begins: The Event of Plurality”, Philosophy’sLiterature (Manchester: Clinamen, 2001), p. 37.19 Benjamin, “Where Philosophy Begins”, p. 37.20 Sophocles, Antigone, trans. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP,1994), p. 127.21 Mark C. Taylor, Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship: A Study of Time andthe Self (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1975), p. 150, n. 49.22 Sophocles, Antigone, p. 11: “It is honourable for me to do this and die.”23 Søren Kierkegaard, Papers and Journals: A Selection, trans. Alastair Hannay(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996), p. 32.24 Søren Kierkegaard, “The Balance Between the Esthetic and the Ethical in the Developmentof the Personality”, Either/Or, Part II, Edited and Translated by Howard

74Sabina Sestigiani░V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987), p. 167.25 Sophocles, Antigone, p. 53.26 See Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, pp. 86-9. Johannes de Silentio indicatesAgamemnon, Jephthah and Brutus as examples of tragic (ethical) heroes. Allthree operate a sacrifice for the well being of society. They give up the aestheticsphere of their lives in order to gain the ethical.27 Sophocles, Antigone, pp. 49-51.28 Sophocles, Antigone, p. 67.29 Sophocles, Antigone, p. 87.30 See Kierkegaard, “The Balance between Esthetic and Ethical”, pp. 168-9.31 Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 86.32 The tragic (ethical) hero belongs to the ethical sphere of existence. It is juxtaposedto “The Knights of Infinite Resignation and Faith.” Both knights move in thereligious sphere.33 See Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 70. Kierkegaard describes the Knight ofFaith as someone who has renounced the finite and the particular for some highercause. The Knight of Faith is firm in his paradoxical belief that on the strength ofthe absurd he will receive the finite back, though perhaps, in some transfiguredform. The Knight of Faith “has made and is at every moment making the movementof infinity. He drains in infinite resignation the deep sorrow of existence, heknows the bliss of infinity, he has felt the pain of renouncing everything, whateveris most precious in the world, and yet to him finitude tastes just as good as to onewho has never known anything higher ... [T]he whole earthly form he presents is anew creation on the strength of the absurd. He is continually making the movementof infinity, but he makes it with such accuracy and poise that he is continuallygetting finitude out of it.” The temptation in Antigone, as for Abraham – the Knightof Faith for antonomasia – is the ethical itself which would keep Antigone from doingthe gods’ will and comply with Creon’s edict.34 Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling was signed by the pseudonymous Johannesde Silentio, and Either/Or I-II by Victor Eremita. Both were published in 1843.35 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 156.36 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 156.37 See Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, pp. 153, 157.38 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 152.39 See Kierkegaard, “Silhouettes”, Either/Or, Part I, pp. 175-6.40 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 157.41 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 153.42 Stephen N. Dunning, Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Inwardness (Princeton: PrincetonUP, 1985), pp. 40-1.43 Quoted in Steiner, Antigones, p. 40.44 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 158.

░ A Danish Antigone 7545 According to Kierkegaard, the Knight of Infinite Resignation has a recognisablyheroic quality. This can both be recognised as requiring courage, and be judgedas ethically admirable. The spiritual inspiration of the knight’s choices renders theirvoicing an almost impossible task to perform. His deeds are, therefore, marked bya silence that is imbued with other-worldly significance, almost religious.46 Kierkegaard, Papers and Journals, p. 160.47 Kierkegaard, Papers and Journals, pp. 159-60.48 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 153.49 Kierkegaard, Papers and Journals, p. 146.50 See Steiner, Antigones, p. 63: “The autobiographical content, the vehemence andconcreteness of self-projection which inform Kierkegaard’s reading of ‘Antigone’,are beyond doubt.”51 Kierkegaard, Papers and Journals, p. 140.52 See Jacques Derrida, “Whom to Give to (knowing Not to Know)”, Kierkegaard: ACritical Reader, eds. Jonathan Rée and Jane Chamberlain (Oxford: Blackwell,1998), pp. 156-7. See also Jean-Luc Nancy, The Inoperative Community (Minneapolis:U of Minnesota P, 1991), p. 61: “The singular being appears to othersingular beings; it is communicated to them in the singular. It is a contact, it is acontagion: a touching, the transmission of a trembling at the edge of being, thecommunication of a passion that makes us fellows, or the communication of thepassion to be fellows, to be in common.”53 See Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 153.54 Kierkegaard, Papers and Journals, p. 603.55 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 149.56 Clyde Holler, “Tragedy in the Context of Kierkegaard’s Either/Or”, in InternationalKierkegaard Commentary: Either/Or Part I, p. 140.57 See Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 146.58 See Søren Kierkegaard, “The Point of View for my Work as an Author”, The Pointof View, trans. Howard V. and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1998), p.35: “When I began Either/Or … I was potentialiter [in potentiality] as deeply influencedby the religious as I ever became. … Here lies Either/Or. It was a poeticalemptying, which did not, however, go further than the ethical. Personally, I was farfrom tranquilly wanting to summon existence back to marriage, I who religiouslywas already in the monastery – an idea concealed in the pseudonym Victor-Eremita [the Hermit] … Strictly speaking, Either/Or was written in a monastery.”Thus, Kierkegaard’s choice for the pseudonym Victor Eremita, who signed as the“editor” of Either/Or, a work which discusses the Aesthetic and Ethical spheres,betrays the coexistence of a parallel point of view, namely the patently Religious.59 Kierkegaard, “Tragic”, p. 146.

Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy:Hegel’s AntigoneRhonda KhatabWithin literary theory and philosophical discourse, Sophocles’ Antigonehas been a significant source of questions pertaining to the relationshipof individual and state. Indeed, the Antigone figures prominently in thecontext of Hegel’s account of “The Ethical Order,” 1 which represents theconflict between the spheres of Divine and Human Law, with reference tothe tragic as reflected within Greek ethical life. Following an interpretationof this section on “The Ethical Order,” this paper undertakes a more engagedreading of Hegel’s account of the Antigone, in critical juxtapositionwith a re-reading of Sophocles’ Antigone. In challenging contrast to Hegel’saccount of the tragedy, this interpretation of the play gives emphasis to theargument that the conflict presented in Antigone foreshadows that betweenindividual subjective will and communal right that becomes the definingproblem (both politically, and philosophically) of modernity.In the Section on Spirituality of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, selfconsciousnessendeavours to surpass an essentially particular existence,in actively seeking to realise itself at the level of the universal. The universalbecomes, for it, a law, and in adhering to this law, self-consciousness israised to the universal principle of individuality. We have thus entered thedomain of ethical life, wherein the formation of Spirit is underway in the dynamicbetween the universal as abstract law, and the individual, as its de-COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/khatab.pdf

░ Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy 77terminate embodiment. Hegel will demonstrate that the dialectical structureof identity and opposition, which underlies the whole of human consciousness,also extends to the larger sphere of ethical life. Thus, contradictionand division are inherent within ethical life, and become manifest as a conflictbetween two opposing powers, through the actions of individuals. In achapter entitled “The Ethical Order,” 2 Hegel models this dialectic of Spiritupon the narrative and thematic structure of Greek tragic drama. Of specialinterest for Hegel, is the Sophoclean tragedy, Antigone, in which contradictionis seen to have its grounding within the spiritual differences immanentto ethical life.So as to set the stage upon which the tragic formation of Spirit is to berepresented, a brief reiteration of the dialectical journey of consciousnessup until the tragic moment is instigated is in order. By the end of the sectionon Reason, which precedes that dedicated to the formation of Spirit withinthe ethical world, man comes to the realisation that all of reality is determinedby the very same principle of rationality which structures consciousnessitself. By this stage in its trajectory, consciousness has endured varioustransitions and has now attained (principally through the transformationachieved through the master and slave dialectic) the capacity for conceptualthought and, furthermore, recognises the transformational power ofthought itself. Man has therefore come to the realisation that “Reason is thecertainty of consciousness that it is all reality.” 3 Owing to an encounter withotherness, man has been raised out of his particularity and is now capable,as a universal consciousness, of universal reflection.Despite having formed a relation with the universal by means of conceptualthought, this relation is, nevertheless, at this stage, rather rudimentary.The potential for universal self-consciousness lies dormant within theabstraction of pure thought, which unites the individual with the universal tothe detriment of his particular existence as an individual will. 4 As will becomeapparent in the following Section on Spirit, action is the source of defenceagainst the reductionism of abstract thought: it is that through whichthe individual will asserts itself as a dynamic force within the universal. Universalself-consciousness is merely conceptualised through reflexivethought, and only fully realised through action. 5In Hegel’s studies on Spirituality, individuality experiments with severaldistinct forms of consciousness in an effort to determine the true aspirationof its work. Through its experiences, it learns that its action attains thegreatest significance at the level of the universal. 6 Following this realisation,there comes about a convergence of particular objectives into theunity of a universal object. This transfer of aims coincides with the first positingof Spirit, which, at this incipient stage of its path of realisation, is not

78Rhonda Khatab░yet actual self-consciousness, but is, rather, objectively and immediatelyidentified with the universal self in the social principle. 7Corresponding with this is a shift in the metaphysical ontology of theindividuality which is raised from the position of a particular, self-identical,self-immanent being limited unto itself, to a universal self engaged in relationto an external world as other. 8 This supersession has thus created thepossibility for a new mode of being: a transcendent existence sustainedwithin a larger social sphere constituted by the coalescence of particularindividuality immediately with the universal principle. 9 This transcendentcommunity whose needs are reflected in the action of its individuals constitutesthe primary model of an “ethical world.” Within this sphere there takesplace the development of an “ethical consciousness” in direct relation to anabsolute authoritative principle: the laws and customs of the community,which comprise its ethical substance. 10 Yet, self-consciousness is, at thisstage, not as yet absolute, in that its identity lies purely in objective being. 11The ethical consciousness is as yet given by an immediate identificationwith an objective principle – “the formal universality of legality or law” –categorically taken to be its own truth. 12 This ‘fragmented’ mode of being ofindividuality submerged within social substance is overcome through selfknowledge:Spirit “must advance to the consciousness of what it is immediately,must leave behind it the beauty of ethical life, and … attain to aknowledge of itself.” 13Thus Hegel leads us into the domain of Spirit as that in which consciousnesshas attained a state of self-awareness as an actuality that existswithin an historical structure. At this juncture, the dialectical formationof Spirit finds grounding in universal history, the major developments ofwhich are scrutinised by Hegel and upon which is modelled the dialecticalprogress of consciousness towards the realisation of subjectivity. The developmentof Absolute Spirit divides into three phases: immediate spirit,self-alienated spirit, and self-certain spirit, which are perceived by Hegel ascorresponding to three distinct epochs in universal history (and thus threediverse historical forms): the ancient Greek world, the age of the RomanEmpire, and the modern world. 14Hegel firstly analyses the structure of the Greek polis, and demonstrateswhy it is that this beautiful unity had, of necessity, to disintegrate.The beautiful ethical life, of which is paradigmatic the world of ancientGreece, was a harmony sustained by an “immanent Objective morality,” oran ethic of immediate identification with and dependence upon the universalsubstantial principle of the State. 15 For Hegel, this immersion in socialsubstance corresponded to a form of consciousness deficient in the capacityfor reflection upon the laws and customs of the society, which were ac-

░ Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy 79cepted without further analysis. 16The Greek democratic city-state is for Hegel an expression of “immediateSpirit” in that it was founded upon this form of “Objective Morality,”which found its source in the “Objective Will” of its citizens who, as such,were unconscious of their particular interests, and thus whose actions exclusivelyreflected the external reality. 17 Within this historical form, consciousnessof the ethical substance – the social laws and customs – is immediate,subjectivity has not yet asserted itself as the critical power of thenegative, and thus Hegel perceives the dynamic between consciousnessand substance as being undeveloped. 18 For Hegel, this phase of democraticstatehood wherein the ethical order exists as a given is, for all itsbeauty, a depiction of political stagnation corresponding, moreover, to aportrait of the individual as deficient in moral reflexivity. 19For Hegel, the paradigm of the Greek polis, the harmonious existenceof which – and, equally, its inevitable demise – was the result of an absenceof reflexive subjectivity, attests to his dialectic in revealing that unitycannot subsist without the presence of contradiction. 20 The non-reciprocaldynamic that is, for Hegel, inherent to this ancient form of democracybrings to the fore the ethical dilemma whose resolution becomes Hegel’smain undertaking, as that concerning the feasibility of conciliation betweenthe subjective will of the individual and the collective right of the community.Hegel demonstrates how the perfect synthesis of the Greek polis could notwithstand the self-conscious will of the subject, which inevitably had to assertitself among its citizens, and how the repressed, or as yet unrealised,element of subjective will, when raised to consciousness, “could not manifestitself … otherwise than as a destructive element.” 21 Hegel representsthis dilemma and resulting conflict within the context of tragic drama.In “The Ethical Order,” Hegel firstly prepares the mise-en-scène for theimpending tragic conflict, at the heart of which exists this critical dividewithin ethical life between subjective and objective will, specific and genericidentity, individual and universal consciousness. This division is rearticulatedin terms of the language and metaphor of tragic drama, as that betweenhuman and divine law.With an eye to enhancing the representation of the rationale underlyingthis division, and of the qualitative differences of these distinct aspectsof ethical life, let us refer for the moment to this notion of ethics and its relatedterms in Hegelian thought. Broadly speaking, the term ethical life (Sittlichkeit)refers to the system of customary laws of a society. 22 Although theGerman Sittlichkeit can convey both the sense of ethics and of morality,nevertheless for Hegel, the distinction between these terms is essential.Hegel thus sets up this distinction as one between the immediacy of ethical

80Rhonda Khatab░life whereby ethical customs and norms are accepted as given (a definitionfor which he reserves the word Sittlichkeit), and individual morality, basedon one’s rationality and subjective conscience (conveyed by the word Moralität).23 Hegel associates morality with a more advanced form of selfconsciousnessthan that relevant to Greek ethical life. 24 These terms do notcorrespond to absolutely disparate functions within Hegel’s system, but operateas dialectical complements within his model of the modern state, inwhich subjective autonomy is reconciled with objective freedom, and lawsare accepted only by virtue of their rational justifiability. 25With these definitions in mind, we return now to the “Ethical Order,” inwhich the sphere of ethics resolves itself into the duality of a law of individualityand a law of universality. The “superficial antithesis” thus emergesas a discord between two distinct universals, or value systems: the incontrovertible,unwritten law of the gods, and the manifest ethical power ofhumanity, which is the conscious sphere of action. This division betweenDivine and Human Law is further developed as one between the sphere ofthe family, devoted to the cultivation of the inner essence of the individual,and the domain of the state, committed to the ideal of a common ethicalsubstance, and to the realisation of objective freedom among the populace.In as much as the family is dedicated to the individual in principle, thisnatural ethical community is responsible for his preservation beyond his lifeas a citizen of the state. Hegel illustrates the special significance of the burialrites of the ancient Greek world in these terms. The obligatory deathrites performed by the relatives of a deceased family member had the capacityto bestow honour on the latter by imbuing his life with significance.This conscious act on the part of the family corresponded to the salvationof the deceased from the contingency of death as a natural event, by theraising of this contingency to universal necessity. 26 In the ethical life of ancientGreece in particular, where subjective spirit was not recognised, thedeath rites were crucial to the survival of the individual beyond his lifewithin the community. The symbolic power of the burial rites raised the individualfrom the reality of death into the self-conscious dimension of metaphor,thereby reinventing him in the form of a concept. By the symbolicforce of this gesture, death itself is recuperated, sublated into selfconsciousexistence, and the individual whose life is complete attains thestatus of spiritual universality.Hegel demonstrates the mutual interdependence of these two spheresof the Human and the Divine. 27 The family provides the citizens for the defenceof the state, which offers the family protection in its turn. For the harmoniousfunctioning of this dynamic, each domain must recognise that itsown capacity is dependent upon this interchange with the opposing force,

░ Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy 81and subsequently acknowledge its debt to its counterpart in its law and indeed. 28 Hegel describes a form of society in which each force is reconciledto the other, the state of self-certain Spirit to which the dialectic advances:“the ethical substance, as containing self-consciousness which has beingfor itself and is united with its concept, is the actual spirit of a family and apeople.” 29 In tragic drama, however, these two laws are in opposition. Thisdynamic of antagonism is dramatised through individual characters.Hegel’s meticulous analyses of the figure of the tragic character elucidatehis abstract formulations of the concepts of individuality, particularity,the subject, and the will, by providing a medium through which these intangibleessences are allowed to come into being. Within the ethical realm,this figure gives voice and form to the notion of the ethical consciousness,and is that through which the collision of universal laws is played out. Inancient tragedy, the universal powers of the gods find their medium of activerealisation in the particular and subjective totality of the individual agentas character. 30 The tragic character, as the concrete representation of anabsolute ideal, is therefore essentially determined by a specific disposition,which becomes manifest through his ‘firmness of decision’, and premeditatedaction. This inherently fixed character coincides, for Hegel, with theethical consciousness in so far as it is even now immediately identified withone universal will (to the exclusion of another), and is, therefore, disposedto a onesidedness of decision and of action. The ethical consciousness, inthe “immediate firmness of decision,” is sure of its obligation and duty, thusdecidedly adhering essentially to one of either the divine or the humanlaw. 31 Hegel calls attention to the unreflexive condition of this ‘decision’,which is essentially immediately or ‘naturally’ determined and necessary,rather than an “accident of circumstances or choice.” 32 Self-consciousnessis at this stage, undivided, and cannot as yet recognise the essentiality ofboth the human and the divine law, and is given only to one. 33 “The ethicalconsciousness, because it is decisively for one of the two powers, is essentiallycharacter.” 34Self-consciousness is here entirely consumed by ethical pathos, bywhich is determined character. An ethical pathos is such forasmuch as it isin accordance with a universal law and is therefore justified. The word pathosdescribes a spiritual temperament free from “all accident of circumstanceand particular peculiarities of personality,” and must not be confusedwith the erratic passions of the heart. 35 Pathos is the objective powerof a divinity transplanted into the individual, and is that which underlies hiswill, and comes on the scene as a rationally justified, consciously deliberate,free-willed act. 36 In that it involves conscious deliberation and rationaljudgement, it results in an overmastery of the passions. As evidenced by

82Rhonda Khatab░the fully expressive, intractable spirit of the figure of Antigone, her actioncould not be described as one of ‘wanton’ defiance (although it appearsthus to Creon). 37 In Hegel’s eyes, hers was a conscious, wilful act, motivatedby the pathos of a “holy sisterly love.” 38 Antigone knows immediatelywhat she must do in order to honour the bond of kinship, and Creon likewiseis determined and swift in his decision.According to Hegel, this immediacy of decision coincides with theemergence of a purely individual self-consciousness out of a state of insignificantrepose. At this moment, the situation for collision is established, aseach individual can only act in accordance with what it knows. Since eachis undivided within itself, and is an absolute totality unto itself, it is inevitableto have conflict. With the gods of the underworld on one side, and Zeus,the dominating power over communal life on the other, there occurs a clashof pathei, and the protagonists are stimulated into action.Thus far, these deliberations have mapped out the properly ethicalconditions for a collision. Ethical consciousness has, having sensed a contradictionin the sphere of ethical life, reflected back into its own law, andnow stands divided from the other. By means of action, the universal powersrise up in opposition against one another, becoming embroiled in a fatefulconflict. The deed instils a moment of exclusionary difference within theethical structure, thereby activating the negative movement of the dialectic.Hegel recognises that “collision has its basis in a transgression.” 39 So,the question then arises, with regards to the Antigone, as to who was theperpetrator of this initial causative transgression. Is there a clearly identifiableantagonist as such? To whom does the action proper belong, and towhom the reaction? Once this problem is posed, we become embroiled inthe convolutions of a history of previous other collisions, 40 as that betweenCreon and Polynices, for example. What becomes apparent to us from thisis the circularity of the relationship of cause and effect, action and reaction,within the realm of ethics. 41 The difficulty here lies in the fact that we, whowitness the conflict from an outside position, cannot with absolute determinacyidentify one protagonist as the wrongdoer. In Hegel’s eyes, they areboth culpable, however, as shall be seen, each is culpable in a purely ethical,and rational sense. From a position of Absolute ethics, two laws havebeen violated, where they should have been honoured. Hegel considersthem both responsible. Antigone should have honoured the communityfrom which she chose instead to alienate herself, by obeying the King’scommand, and Creon should have respected the sacred bond of kinshipand not denied its observance. 42The event of trangression in the Antigone is twofold, certainly, and yetthis is precisely why it is that the notion of wrong is not applicable. The no-

░ Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy 83tions of wrong and right are brought into play only if the situation is lookedat from a ‘human’ point of view, for this is the sphere of Abstract Right. Intragic drama, as Hegel understands it, there is a transition in values fromabstract right, to morality, and from morality to a model of Absolute ethicallife. 43 The emergence of determinate and particular ethical consciousnessas individuality signals the transition from right to morality. Within the moralsphere, there is an apparent duality of values, which becomes manifest inthe rift created between state and individual. Here, the notions of right andwrong, as given by the universal will of the state, become meaningless tothe self-determined will of the individual. 44 Thus, from the viewpoint of morality,“the laws of the state cannot claim to extend to a person’s dispositions,for in the moral sphere, I exist [only] for myself, and force is meaninglessin this context.” 45Within the context of tragedy, the word ‘transgression’ is divorced fromthe dichotomy of right and wrong, good and evil. 46 For Hegel, moreover,the transgressive act constitutes an essential moment in the formation ofsubjectivity. The individual gives expression to himself, realises himself,through his act. 47 Thus, in Hegel, action belongs to the sphere of morality,within the field of ethics. This is so, insofar as morality corresponds to freedomof the subjective will: “the expression of the will as subjective or moralis action.” 48 Furthermore, the action is morally justified in so far as it correspondsto one’s purpose or object. 49Hegel’s profound interest in the tragic character and its “firmness ofdecision,” relates to his aspiration for an absolutely rational model of subjectivity,whereby subject and object are fully determined for each other.Thus is the case with the Greek plastic figure, for which “the bond betweenthe subject and what he wills as his object remains indissoluble.” 50 This figuredemonstrates, for Hegel, the subjective depth of personality. 51 Oedipus,with his “plasticity of consciousness,” constitutes such a figure. Althoughfrom a spectatorial perspective it is evident that his fated deed isisolated from his will, Oedipus, lacking the capacity for self-reflection, is unableto distinguish his purely subjective self-consciousness from what hisdeed objectively amounts to. 52However, can the dauntless Antigone herself be identified with thisclassic ‘plastic’ figure, which for Hegel is the archetypical character of thetragic drama of antiquity? Let us contemplate her character in light ofHegel’s definitions, given above. Certainly, Antigone possesses an unwaveringresolve, and an “absolute firmness of decision.” Clearly, the purposeintended by her subjective will corresponds to her act: she carries out thedeed as she had proclaimed she would – “I shall bury him.” 53 Her decisionto honour Polynices by delivering him to the hidden world of Shades is en-

84Rhonda Khatab░tirely rational in that it is in accordance with what she knows to be her dutyin the eyes of the universal law: the unwritten law ordained by Hades. 54However, Hegel’s analysis of the nature of the ethical consciousnesswithin the medium of tragedy in “The Ethical Order” does not do justice tothe spirit of Antigone. To further explicate this claim, it is the notion of immediacyattributed to the ethical consciousness’ commitment to the law,which seems to be discordant with the reflective, and discerning voice ofAntigone. Her decision is ‘immediate’ in the sense that it involves no vacillationwhatsoever. However, it is not without reflection, nor is she merelyhalf-conscious of the situation at hand at the moment when she resolves toact, hence her decision is not immediate in the properly Hegelian sense.This is evidenced by the consciousness she has of the duality of ethical life,demonstrated by the conscious equivocality of her words when she describesthe deed she is to perform as “a crime that is holy.” 55 Antigonedeems Creon’s proclamation forbidding the burial of her brother to be withoutjustification, the result of a capricious and coercive power: “but he hasno right to keep me from my own!” 56 The body of Polynices marks a zoneof collision, with Creon adamant that as a criminal body, it belongs to thestate, whilst Antigone believes she, by virtue of their consanguinity, shouldbe allowed to observe her rightful duty towards her dead brother. Despiteher knowledge of her rights and her duty, however, Antigone is not closedto the possibility that she may, indeed, be the wrongdoer. 57 However, in“The Ethical Order,” this moment of reflexivity attributable to Antigone isomitted, given that Hegel presents the ethical consciousness as being utterlyrestricted in its capacity to recognise the validity of any other law butits own. 58 To the contrary, Antigone is not, like the Greek plastic character,categorically blind to the possibility that there may exist another valid law,although she identifies with one law in particular, and experiences her willto act in accordance with this law as a rational necessity. The Hegelian accountof the ethical consciousness, however, limits the scope for such aninterpretation, and thus forgoes the means by which the Antigone transcendsthe context of Greek ethical life to which it has been ascribed.Although the ontology of the ethical consciousness as described in“The Ethical Order” does not represent the full complexity of the characterof Antigone, Hegel does, nevertheless, demonstrate in his writings on Aestheticshis appreciation of the variation of the Greek tragic character. In particular,he formulates a distinction between the figures of Antigone andOedipus, based on the relation of subjective will to objective consequence,thus demonstrating by means of this comparison the complexity of the notionsof transgression, and culpability, in light of the problem of intention.Hegel’s profound interest in the figure of Antigone, in particular has to do

░ Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy 85with the nature of her act as pertains to her subjective purpose, and intention,as measures of responsibility.In the case of Oedipus, his actions, which ultimately amount to thedeeds of incest and parricide, are unconscious transgressions. Oedipusacted unknowingly, his transgressive deed does not correspond to the purposewilled through his initial act. By virtue of the principle of ‘the Right ofknowledge,’ which stipulates that “I can be made accountable for a deedonly if my will was responsible for it,” Oedipus’ transgression should nothave been imputed to him, for “I can be made responsible only for what Iknew of the circumstances.” 59 Hegel attributes Oedipus’ blinkered imputationof his transgression to himself, to the failure of the heroic selfconsciousnessto reflect on the distinction between deed, as externalevent, and action, as purpose and consciousness of the circumstances. 60In contrast, Antigone acted wilfully, and with full consciousness thather deed would transgress the law of the State: “and yet you dared totransgress these laws? … ‘Yes’.” 61 In consideration of the principles aforementioned,Antigone is, in the eyes of the spectator, indisputably culpable.One may, nevertheless, in her defence argue that although she is consciousof her transgression even in the act, she does not believe it to be aviolation as such of a universal law, as Creon’s proclamations, in her conviction,do not merit such a status. One may contend that Antigone actednot out of vengeance, 62 but in defence of her rightful obligation to the law ofkinship. However, to appreciate the full significance of this drama, it is necessaryto rethink Antigone’s relation to law, beyond the rigorously definedterms of Hegel’s analysis.For Hegel, state and individual (and equally the abstract relation ofuniversal and particular) do not exist as mutually exclusive entities or ideals,but are fundamentally interdependent. 63 This interaction is representedby Hegel as conditioned by the terms of kinship, which constitutes the limit,as a structure of both division and permeation, between the spheres of thefamilial / cultural and the political. 64 This division is, for Hegel, an inherentlygendered one, the power of the feminine standing for the law of kinship, thestate and the right to citizenship corresponding to the masculine element. 65Just as the familial law effects its substantial existence within the community,the preservation and perpetuation of the community is dependentupon the structure of kinship. 66 This structure is consolidated, specifically,in the relationship of brother and sister, which, for Hegel, epitomises thestructure of kinship in its most pure and equilibrious form, by virtue of itsbeing a relation devoid of desire. 67 This relationship constitutes the dynamicof legitimate recognition upon which community is founded. 68Despite his acknowledgment of the mutual interdependency of the two

86Rhonda Khatab░spheres of ethical life, Hegel nevertheless maintains the ‘rebellious’ principleof individuality supported by kinship in a relation of subordination to theuniversal principle, and to the state, as “the highest form of consciousness.”69 For Hegel, this interdependency does not constitute a viable formof social existence, but is, rather, rearticulated as a conflict of powers whichis inevitably resolved in the dissolution of immediate ethical life, giving wayto a new form of social substance, structured by universal unity over andabove individuality. 70 It is apparent from this line of argument, then, thatAntigone’s demise is read by Hegel as a necessary measure for the establishmentof legitimate authority in the overcoming of kinship by the state. 71Alternatively, the significance of Antigone’s transgressive act may be understoodin terms of its critical role in the legitimation of state law, the tenabilityof which would be unsustainable in its absence. This view would reinforcea true interdependency between kinship and state as a permanentand necessary social dynamic, and challenge the dialectical requirementfor the supersession and assimilation of the subordinate term to the dominantcategory (of kinship to state; of transgression to law), with the alternativepossibility of the negotiability of these terms.Judith Butler, in her most discerning reading of Antigone in Antigone’sClaim, demonstrates the intricacy of the relation of kinship to the state, bydrawing attention to the inextricability of the language of Antigone’s assertionof her act, from the language of sovereign power. 72 Confronted withButler’s reading of the figure of Antigone as transgressive equally of theboundaries of state and of kinship, Hegel’s rigorous distinction betweenthese categories is destabilised. 73 Antigone’s claim is spoken in the languageof the state, and yet remains inassimilable to its terms; she is thuspositioned outside the law of the polis, and yet it is she without whom thislaw would be unsustainable. 74 Butler’s interpretation therefore problematisesHegel’s categorical assignation of Antigone to the divine law of kinship,and furthermore, compels a rethinking of the common reading of Antigoneas a prepolitical figure. 75 Indeed, in the “Ethical Order,” kinship is consignedto the realm of the unconscious, where it remains as an “inner feeling”that is “exempt from an existence in the real world,” and the power ofthe feminine demoted to a merely “intuitive awareness” of what is ethical. 76In intriguing contrast, Butler’s critique makes possible a reading of the figureof Antigone as politically significant in her paradoxical relation to law, asengaged, without being absorbed in it, and precisely by virtue of theequivocity of her claim, by which is challenged the very structure of limitationthrough which the political is defined.As Hegel understands it in “The Ethical Order,” the Antigone does notdepict a conflict between the state and the individual per se, but is, from a

░ Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy 87more comprehensive outlook, a conflict of powers, represented by individuals.The conflict of powers, therefore, does not occur in the space betweentwo discrete elements of being, but essentially arises within the individual,as a necessary element of the dynamic of his being in the world. Hegel’s interestin analysing the Antigone, lies not in establishing the guilt or innocenceof either of the protagonists, but in revealing this underlying conflictof powers as a necessary event in the formation of ethical life.Without wishing to contradict this claim, it must be stated that it is preciselythe motif of guilt in tragic drama, which Hegel finds to be the mostfascinating. This distinctively Hegelian notion of guilt, nevertheless, doesnot in any sense correspond to the value-laden dichotomy, innocence /guilt: “the tragic heroes are just as much innocent as guilty.” 77 For Hegel,action, all action, gives rise to guilt: “innocence, therefore, is merely nonaction.”78 Not even the unwitting Oedipus, though his unwilled act cannotrightly be imputed to him, is completely exempt from responsibility for theconsequences of his action. Hegel maintains this contention in accordancewith the distinction he develops between purpose and intention in his theoryof morality. The transition from purpose to intention consists in the individualgaining an awareness of the universal nature of the individual deed.This involves the realisation that my purely individual and immediate actionnecessarily results in consequences, which I may or may not have foreseen,on a universal scale. 79 The alteration effected within the externalworld as a result of one’s deed, is irretrievable, undeniable, and thereforeguilt is inevitable. 80Hegel explains the conditions giving rise to guilt in the “The Ethical Order,”in a subsection entitled “Ethical Action: Human and Divine Knowledge,Guilt and Destiny.” The ethical consciousness, by its own hand, unavoidablyincurs guilt in that the act, as the manifestation and assertion ofparticularity, necessarily corresponds solely to one law, to the exclusionand desecration of the other law. To this end, Antigone’s bold act is alsotantamount to a form of “defiance of the universal,” though in a more definitivesense than that seen in the case of Oedipus. 81 Hegel does not, however,abandon to ambiguity the question of guilt as that incurred through aconscious and wilful deed, as compared to one that was quite unconsciouson the part of the performer.But the ethical consciousness is more complete, its guilt more inexcusable,if it knows beforehand the law and the power which it opposes,if it takes them to be violence and wrong, to be ethical merelyby accident, and, like Antigone, knowingly commits the crime. 82It follows, then, that Antigone, must indeed be culpable, and in a more ulti-

88Rhonda Khatab░mate sense than was Oedipus, and that she must, according to Hegel, acknowledgeher guilt, and thus concede to a recognition of the legitimacy ofthe opposite law. 83 Without hesitation, she acknowledges her responsibilityfor the deed, since it was committed by her very own knowing hand: “I saythat I did it and I do not deny it.” 84 Quite the reverse, however, being inpossession of the insight which was lacking in Oedipus, she is not preparedto accept such guilt unconditionally. In her discerning mind, action does notcategorically amount to crime, and therefore does not necessarily incurguilt. Her words resonate with a brazen rationality as she reflects uponthese circumstances:What justice of the gods have I transgressed? … For by acting piouslyI have been convicted of impiety. Well, if this is approvedamong the gods, I should forgive them for what I have suffered, sinceI have done wrong; but if they are the wrongdoers, may they not sufferworse evils than those they are unjustly inflicting upon me! 85How is it that Antigone, despite having knowingly defied an opposing ethicallaw, is not plagued by an unpardonable guilt, as Hegel reasons sheought to be? It is Hegel’s own text which, far from contradicting Antigone’sspirited reaction, casts light upon this apparent deviation. Ethical action, asHegel explains, is crucial to the formation of a self-conscious subject. In orderto gain the capacity for self-reflection, consciousness essentially needsto double up upon itself, according to Hegel’s dialectical theory of alterity.Within the ethical sphere, such a schism within consciousness occurs atthe moment of acting: “the action is itself this splitting into two.” 86 The dialecticof suffering activated by the deed, painfully reshapes the individualinto a self-conscious self.For Hegel, guilt is the manifestation of this consequential split ontologyof the conscious self. For the Greek tragedians and for Hegel, the metaphorof guilt is significant to this context. If understood as ‘self-reproach’, itcan be regarded as an instrument of self-reflexivity. 87 Indeed, prefiguringthe concept of the self-conscious individual, Hegel associates the instanceof guilt with the claim to right, albeit a claim that is not explicitly asserted,according to Hegel, but which remains implicit in the consciousness ofguilt. 88 Remarkably, although Antigone is not beset by guilt, despite this,she does defend her right, and quite explicitly so. Antigone, having attainedthe capacity for self-reflection through her action, is concerned to questionthe justness of the condemnation ordained upon her by Creon, in considerationof her rights and duties as a sister. Furthermore, she is compelledto assess critically the rightfulness of her own action, with respect to thelaw which she opposes. This reflection on her part constitutes another mo-

░ Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy 89ment of aberrancy in comparison to the rigorously circumscribed role towhich she is consigned by Hegel, and signifies another instance, in additionto that identified by Butler, wherein Antigone resorts to the language andlogic of sovereign power, to gain perspective on her deed, demonstratingyet again that the status of Antigone is not unproblematically inscribedwithin the sphere of kinship. The figure of Antigone thus articulates a selfreflexivemode of being that is a more pronounced prefigurement of theself-conscious individual, and the notions of freedom of will and recognitionof right it entails, than Hegel envisions. In acting, she is not consumed byguilt, she seizes and implements it, reflects upon it, and attaches conditionsto it. Antigone herself understands the necessary relation between the experienceof guilt, and the culpability of the will: she attains a rational conceptionof guilt. Oedipus, by contrast experiences a sense of remorsewhich is, essentially, disassociated with his willing self, and therefore hisexperience of guilt is irrational, guilt is in his case a false notion.In his interpretation of tragic drama, Hegel observes that the elementof guilt, as intertwined with the notion of destiny, plays a key role in thecancellation of conflict and the restoration of harmonious ethical life. To acknowledgeone’s guilt, is equally to recognise in one’s fate the consequenceof one’s (mis)conduct: “because we suffer we acknowledge wehave erred.” 89 To acknowledge one’s guilt is thereby to acknowledge theopposite law, whose violation by your own hand causes you such remorse.The one who experiences guilt now recognises the division within ethicallife between the two laws, each of the same essential nature, and internalisesthis division as an insurmountable contradiction which ultimately destroysthe individual as such.Fate comes on the scene as an abstract universal power that surpassesboth the particularity of men and of gods alike, it is the negativepower of an eternal necessity that overrides both human and divine law. 90This force comes to life as a consequence of the event of transgression,“fate drives individuality back within its limits and destroys it if these arecrossed.” 91 In Greek tragedy, the absolute power of fate coincides with thefunction of an eternal justice within ethical life. Fate establishes equilibriumwithin the ethical world, in assigning equal validity to both powers that werein conflict. Hegel envisages this reconciliation as taking effect among thespectators of tragic drama, to whom the fate of the characters appears as“absolute rationality,” true justice which cannot but result in the satisfactionof the spirit. 92 The Antigone represents this idea of a self-compelled fate,by situating the conflict between the two mutually supporting powers ofethical life. Within this conflict, therefore, there is “immanent in both” Antigoneand Creon something that they violate that they should be honouring,

90Rhonda Khatab░so they are destroyed by something “intrinsic to their own actual being.” 93To be subject to fate, one must have attained a degree of selfconsciousness.94 Hegel distinguishes between several notions of fate correspondingto varying degrees of self-consciousness. For the purposes ofdemonstrating the transition represented by the Antigone from the idea offate as ‘blind’ necessity, to the notion of a rational necessity, we shall onceagain compare the example of Oedipus with that of Antigone.Hegel defines necessity as the “union of possibility and actuality.” 95This is a definition of the objective form of necessity, through the eyes of aself-conscious individual, however, necessity appears in a different form. Inthe process of ‘blind’, or uncomprehended necessity, the final cause is notexplicitly known to consciousness. Necessity appears as rational and is‘seeing,’ or understood, if, on the other hand, the end of action correspondsto what has been foreknown and forewilled. 96 The latter form involves anethical engagement, on the part of the fated one, with the question of hisfate, the former does not enter into the field of the ethical.The problem posed in “The Ethical Order,” centres around this issue ofthe ethical, as it pertains to the self-conscious individual’s reflection uponthe actual. Conflict arises as a reaction to the detection of a discrepancybetween these two provinces, which the reflective self-consciousness perceivesas a contradiction between what is, and what ought to be. The unreflectiveconsciousness, contrastingly, is blind to the difference betweenpossibility and actuality, and cannot distinguish what ought to be from whatis. Oedipus, from this perspective, lacks a critical competence for discrimination,he lacks an ethical consciousness, and hence is without choice. Heaccepts with resignation his irrational fate as his actuality with an acquiescent,it is so. 97 According to Hegel, the antithesis created as a result of reflectivedifferentiation on the part of the ethical consciousness, is surmountedby a reconciliation, and not at all by a resignation. By acknowledging,through guilt, the opposite law as its actuality, the ethical consciousnessis reconciled with the notion that what is ethical must be actual. 98Hegel draws on this idea of a rational fate, to develop further his theoryof freedom. Freedom, as the essence of Spirit, is self-contained existence:“I am free … when my existence depends upon myself.” 99 Necessity,as pure self-reciprocation, or infinite negative self-relation, is Freedomin truth. 100 Freedom consists in the realisation that one’s fate is, of necessity,the outcome of oneself. Hegel believes that to live by such a principleis to spare oneself the consciousness of having suffered a wrong, in timesof adversity. To stand free, therefore, one must learn to bear one’s guilt. 101This idea of rational necessity thus corresponds with the movement of selfreconciliationimmanent within consciousness. Hegel also develops a no-

░ Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy 91tion of justice inspired by Sophoclean tragedy, by which true justice is to befound in the reconciling of oneself to one’s fate.But, does this reconciliation occur in the character of Antigone? For,when she learns of the fate she is condemned to suffer, she does not endeavourto reconcile herself to it. She does not say “all is as it ought to be,”but, rather, she declares “that ought to be!” Nevertheless, she does notseek consolation, nor does she desire to escape this most dreadful of fates.What, in the seeing eyes of Antigone, is the most iniquitous and deceitfulinjustice, is the possibility that this fate which she is to suffer, may or maynot be her own. “But if they are the wrongdoers”: Antigone thus refuses tobear a guilt that is foreign to her, refuses even the prospect of it. To freeherself from this injustice, she self-consciously creates a fate for herselfthat is truly her own, and takes her own life by her own hand: self-sacrificepar excellence. A denouement as just, as it is tragic.To conclude, Hegel makes use of the tragic model to present the ethicaldilemma that necessarily becomes manifest between subjective will andobjective law, as that concerning the mutual demand for justification. Thetragic genre dramatises this problem in terms of a conflictual dynamic betweentwo opposing manifestations of the ethical. The Antigone is, forHegel, the “most magnificent and satisfying work of art” 102 of the tragicgenre, in that it distinctly features the act of a rational being as being themost divisive, and yet also most significant event within ethical life. Throughhis forewilled deed, the individual comes to the realisation that his existenceis, fundamentally, self-determined, and therefore rational. This journeyof self-reflection is represented in terms of the reconciliation of the individualwith his fate. The tragic art form, therefore, dramatises the dialecticaltrajectory of the subject’s rational self-realisation as a determinate existence.This notwithstanding, to do justice to the particular instance ofSophocles’ Antigone, would entail acknowledgment of the reductive factorsimplicated in an entirely Hegelian reading of the play, which forgoes theprospect that Antigone transcends its context in Greek ethics, and equally,forgoes the possibility for a comparatively more modern interpretation ofthe play.Monash UniversityRhonda.Khatab@arts.monash.edu.auNOTES1 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford:Oxford UP, 1977).

92Rhonda Khatab░2 Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §§444-83, pp. 266-94.3 Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §233, p. 140.4 See Jean Hyppolite, Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit,trans. Samuel Cherniak and John Heckman (Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1974),p. 322; Charles Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne: CambridgeUP, 1975), p. 166.5 See Hyppolite, Genesis and Structure, p. 322.6 See Taylor, Hegel, p. 168.7 The term Spirit in Hegel’s Phenomenology properly refers to a state of existence,an underlying mode of consciousness that is intrinsic to all rational beings. Thus,the sense of Spirit first becomes significant with the introduction of the universalself, by which individuality gains a consciousness of itself in immediate identificationwithin the social sphere. In its immersion in social substance, the nature of individualityis “such that its being is the action of the single individual and of all individualsand whose action is immediately for others, or is a ‘matter in hand’ and issuch only as the action of each and everyone: the essence which is the essenceof all beings, viz. spiritual essence”; “The pure ‘matter in hand’ itself is what wasdefined as ‘the category,’ being that is the ‘I’ or ‘I’ that is being, but in the form ofthought which is still distinguished from actual self-consciousness” (Phenomenologyof Spirit, §418, p. 252); see also §438, p. 263: “this is spiritual essence that isin and for itself, but which is not yet consciousness of itself.”8 See Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §398, p. 237-8; §438, p. 263.9 See Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §418, p.252.10 See Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §420, p. 253.11 See Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §438, p. 263.12 See Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §438, p. 263: “This still abstract determinationwhich constitutes ‘the matter in hand’ itself is at first only spiritual essence,and its consciousness [only] a formal knowing of it.”; and, §442, p. 265: “the livingethical world is Spirit in its truth. When Spirit first arrives at an abstract knowledgeof its essence, ethical life is submerged in the formal universality of legality or law.”13 Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §441, p. 265.14 See Taylor, Hegel, pp. 172-8 ; Hyppolite, Genesis and Structure, p. 326.15 See Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J.Sibree (New York: Dover Publications,1956), pp. 250-2.16 See Hegel, The Philosophy of History, p. 253.17 See Hegel, The Philosophy of History, p. 252.18 See Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §438, p. 263: “this consciousness, as a particularindividual, is still in fact distinct from substance.”Within this mode of ethical life, Hegel argues, reflexive subjectivity is not yet historicallydeveloped.19 See Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §354, p. 541; The Philosophy of Right,“Second Part: Morality.”

░ Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy 9320 More specifically, in the context of society, contradiction arises via the manifestationor assertion of subjective will, by which is introduced a ‘corruptive element’into the unity of State, and are set the conditions whereby, “the individual findshimself in a position to bring everything to the test of his own conscience, even indefiance of the existing constitution” (Hegel, Philosophy of History, p. 253).21 Hegel, The Philosophy of History, p. 252. For Hegel, subjective reflection posedthe threat of ruin to the Greek state – then established upon ‘Objective Will’, or an‘immanent Objective Morality’ – in that: “When reflection once comes into play, theinquiry is started whether the Principles of Law (das Recht) cannot be improved.Instead of holding by the existing state of things, internal conviction is relied upon;and thus begins a subjective independent Freedom, in which the individual findshimself in a position to bring everything to the test of his own conscience, even indefiance of the existing constitution” (pp. 252-3).22 Cf. Michael Inwood, A Hegel Dictionary (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), p. 93; see alsoHyppolite, Genesis and Structure, p. 337.23 See Inwood, A Hegel Dictionary, pp. 91-2; Hegel develops this distinction betweenethical order and abstract morality in The Philosophy of Right, trans. H. B.Nisbet, ed. Allen W. Wood (Cambridge UP, 1991), parts 2 and 3.24 Cf. Inwood, A Hegel Dictionary, p. 191.25 Cf. Inwood, A Hegel Dictionary, p. 93.26 See Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §452, pp. 270-1: “This universality which theindividual as such attains is pure being, death; it is a state which has beenreached immediately, in the course of Nature, not the result of an action consciouslydone. The duty of the member of a Family is on that account to add thisaspect, in order that the individual’s ultimate being, too, shall not belong solely toNature and remain something irrational, but shall be something done, and the rightof consciousness asserted to it”; “Blood-relationship supplements, then, the abstractnatural process by adding to it the movement of consciousness, interruptingthe work of Nature and rescuing the blood-relation from destruction; or better, becausedestruction is necessary, the passage of the blood-relation into mere being,it takes on itself the act of destruction. … the Family keeps away from the deadthis dishonouring of him by unconscious appetites and abstract entities, and putsits own action in their place.”27 See Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, §460, p. 276: “Just as the Family … possessesin the community its substance and enduring being, so, conversely, thecommunity possesses in the Family the formal element of its actual existence, andin the divine law its power and authentication. Neither of the two is by itself absolutelyvalid; human law proceeds in its living process from the divine, and law validon earth from that of the nether world, the conscious from the unconscious, mediationfrom immediacy – and equally returns whence it came. The power of thenether world, on the other hand, has its actual existence on earth; through consciousness,it becomes existence and activity.”28 In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel perceives the identity of the universal and theparticular will (which, in abstract terms correspond to the domain of the state, andthe familial realm, respectively) necessarily to involve the coincidence of the no-

94Rhonda Khatab░tions of duty and right. In the ethical realm, “a human being has rights in so far ashe has duties, and duties in so far as he has rights” (§155, p. 197). This ethicaleconomy of reciprocity was merely implicit within the structure of Greek ethical life,and would have needed consciously to be realised in order that the function of thisdynamic actualise itself in the preservation of the ancient state. It is precisely thisblindness to the coincidence of duty and right that is the represented as tragic inGreek drama, and, according to Hegel, in the Antigone, in particular.29 See Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, §156, p. 197.30 See Hegel, On Tragedy, eds. Anne and Henry Paolucci (New York: Harper &Row,1962), p. 152; Hegel, Aesthetics, volumes I and II, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford:Clarendon, 1975), I: 236: “The gods become human ‘pathos’, and ‘pathos’ in concreteactivity is the human character.”31 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §465, p. 280.32 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §465, p. 280: “This immediate firmness of decision issomething implicit, and therefore has at the same time the significance of a naturalbeing as we have seen. Nature, not the accident of circumstances or choice, assignsone sex to one law, the other to the other law.”33 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §466, p. 280: “The ethical consciousness, because itis decisively for one of the two powers, is essentially character; it does not acceptthat both have the same essential nature.”34 Hegel, Phenomenology, §466, p. 280.35 See Hegel, On Tragedy, p. 292.36 See Hegel, Aesthetics, I: 232.37 Hegel describes the disparity in perspective as to right and wrong, between individualand state, and, furthermore, remarks on the unequal authority of statepower: “Since it sees right only on one side and wrong on the other, that consciousnesswhich belongs to the divine law sees in the other side only the violenceof human caprice, while that which holds to human law sees in the otheronly the self-will and disobedience of the individual who insists on being his ownauthority. For the commands of government have a universal, public meaningopen to the light of day; the will of the other law, however, is locked up in thedarkness of the nether regions, and in its outer existence manifests as the will ofan isolated individual which, as contradicting the first, is a wanton outrage” (Phenomenology,§466, 280).38 See Hegel, Aesthetics, I: 232.39 Hegel, Aesthetics, I: 204.40 See Hegel, Aesthetics, I: 218.41 Hegel expounds the circular relationship of cause and effect in the Logic, trans.William Wallace (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), §154, p. 217: “the rectilinear movementout from causes to effects, and from effects to causes, is bent round andback into itself, and thus the progress ad infinitum of causes and effects is, reallyand truly suspended.”42 See Hegel, Aesthetics, II: 1217.

░ Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy 9543 In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel expounds the interrelated institutional spheresof Abstract Right, Morality, and Ethical Life.44 In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel makes a distinction between right and morality,the former pertaining to state power, the latter pertaining to the individual will(§94A, p. 121).45 See Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §94A, p. 121.46 See Hegel, Aesthetics, II: 1212, “In Greek tragedy … the occasion for collisions isproduced by the moral justification of a specific act, and not at all by an evil will, acrime, or infamy. … For evil in the abstract has no truth in itself and is of no interest.”47 See Hegel, Aesthetics, I: 219, “Action is the clearest revelation of the individual.”48 See Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §113, p. 140.49 According to Hegel, individuality arrives at a moral relation to the world through arecognition and acknowledgement of its agency and realisation that its agencyand duty coincide. See Phenomenology, §616, p.374: “In the moral view of theworld we see … consciousness itself consciously produce its object; we see that itneither encounters the object as something alien to it, nor does the object comebefore it in an unconscious manner … for it knows itself to be the active agent thatproduces it”; §637, p. 387: “the content of the moral action is the doer’s own immediateindividuality; and the form of that content is just this self as a pure movement,viz. as [the individual’s] knowing or his own conviction”; §638, p. 387: “thisself, qua a pure self-identical knowing, is the absolute universal, so that just thisknowing, as its own knowing, as conviction, is duty. Duty is no longer the universalthat stands over against the self; on the contrary, it is known to have no validitywhen thus separated. It is now the law that exists for the sake of the self, not theself that exists for the sake of the law.”50 See Hegel, Aesthetics, II: 1214.51 See Hegel, Aesthetics, II: 1215.52 See Hegel, Aesthetics, II: 1214.53 Sophocles, Antigone, trans. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP,1994), p. 1054 For Hegel, the ethical consciousness, of which the tragic character is representative,is ethical in so far as its “deed, the shape in which it actualises itself, shall benothing else but what it knows” (Phenomenology, §467, p. 281).55 Sophocles, Antigone, p. 11.56 Sophocles, Antigone, Antigone addresses Creon with this confrontational claim: “Iwould say that all these men would approve this, if it were not that fear shuts theirmouths. But kingship is fortunate in many ways, and in particular it has power todo and say what it wishes” (p. 49).57 See Sophocles, Antigone, p. 89.58 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §466, p. 280: “The ethical consciousness, because itis decisively for one of the two powers … does not accept that both have the sameessential nature. For this reason, the opposition between them appears as an un-

96Rhonda Khatab░fortunate collision of duty merely with a reality which possesses no rights of itsown. … Since it sees right only on one side and wrong on the other, that consciousnesswhich belongs to the divine law sees in the other side only the violenceof human caprice, while that which holds to human law sees in the otheronly the self-will and disobedience of the individual who insists on being his ownauthority.”59 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §117, p. 144; §118A, p. 146. The principle of ‘theRight of knowledge’ is the translation of ‘Recht des Wissens’ (Inwood, A HegelDictionary, p. 192).60 See Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §118A, p. 146. This form of consciousness correspondsto Greek ethical life or Sittlichkeit.61 Sophocles, Antigone, pp. 43-4.62 Compare Hegel, Phenomenology, §462, p. 277.63 This, for Hegel, constitutes an “absolute relation:” “the true and absolute relation isthat the one really does illumine the other; each has a living bearing on the other,and each is the other’s serious fate. The absolute relation, then, is set forth intragedy” (from the essay on Natural Law, trans. T. M. Knox [U of Pennsylvania P,1975], p. 108).64 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §458, p. 275.65 The division between Divine and Human Law becomes explicitly gendered in thesection of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit entitled “The Ethical World. Humanand Divine Law: Man and Woman.”66 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §460, p. 276.67 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §457, pp. 274-5; Judith Butler offers a critical interpretationof the gender difference structuring Hegel’s reading of Antigone. Specifically,in Hegel’s emphasis on the blood relation of brother and sister as one devoidof desire, Butler interprets the implicit contention that the prohibition againstincest reinforces the structure of kinship (see Antigone’s Claim: Kinship BetweenLife and Death [New York: Columbia UP, 2000], p. 13). Operating with her novelversion of the figure of Antigone as transgressive – taking into account the incestuousconvolutions of her ancestry – of the ideal structure of kinship, rather thanas categorically representative of these norms, Butler is lead to question the wayin which socially idealised forms of kinship are instituted and legitimated as ethicalstructures constituting the basis of modern “cultural intelligibility.”68 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §457, p. 275: it is interesting to note the evident discrepancyhere between the model of recognition put forth in “Lordship and Bondage”(see §167, pp.104-5) in which desire features as a necessary precondition,as compared to the apparent prohibition of desire as the factor which disqualifiesand renders impossible recognition: “The brother, however, is for the sister a passive,similar being in general; the recognition of herself in him is pure and unmixedwith any natural desire.” For a discussion of this variance, see Butler, Antigone’sClaim, pp. 13-4.69 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §473, p. 286; §474, p. 286; §475, p. 288: “Thecommunity, however, can only maintain itself by suppressing this spirit of individu-

░ Ethical Consciousness in the Spirit of Tragedy 97alism.”70 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §§472-7, pp. 284-90.71 See Butler, Antigone’s Claim, p. 29.72 See Butler, Antigone’s Claim, chapter 1, “Antigone’s Claim”; Antigone “speaks inpublic, precisely when she ought to be sequestered to the private domain,” (p. 4);“She attempts to speak in the political sphere in the language of sovereignty thatis the instrument of political power” (p. 29); which leads Butler to question, “whatsort of political speech is this that transgresses the very boundaries of the political,which sets into scandalous motion the boundary by which her speech ought to becontained?” (p. 4); “Her words … are chiasmically related to the vernacular of sovereignpower, speaking in and against it, delivering and defying imperatives at thesame time, inhabiting the language of sovereignty at the very moment in whichshe opposes sovereign power and is excluded from its terms” (p. 28).73 In Butler’s reading, in Antigone’s Claim, “not only does the state presuppose kinshipand kinship presuppose the state but ‘acts’ that are performed in the name ofthe one principle take place in the idiom of the other, confounding the distinctionbetween the two at a rhetorical level and thus bringing into crisis the stability of theconceptual distinction between them” (p. 11); “Opposing Antigone to Creon as theencounter between the forces of kinship and those of state power fails to take intoaccount the ways in which Antigone has already departed from kinship, herself thedaughter of an incestuous bond” (p. 5-6).74 See Butler, Antigone’s Claim, p. 4: “She is outside the terms of the polis, but sheis, as it were, an outside without which the polis could not be”; pp. 28, 30; see alsopp. 67-8 (and esp. note 6, pp. 94-5) on “the structural necessity of perversion tothe law.”75 See Butler, Antigone’s Claim, p. 2.76 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §450, p. 268 and §457, p. 274.77 See Hegel, Aesthetics, II: 1214. The tragic genre represented by the Antigoneconceptualises conflict not as that arising between forces of good and evil, but asthat which, of necessity, arises within a structure wherein two powers, each ofthem self-justifying, are in action.78 Hegel, Phenomenology, §468, p. 282.79 See Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §118A, p. 146: “What is at issue here is not theindividual aspect but the whole, which concerns not the determinate character ofthe particular action but its universal nature. The transition from purpose to intentionconsists, then, in the fact that I ought to be aware not only of my individual action,but also of the universal which is associated with it. When it emerges in thismanner, the universal is what I have willed, i.e. my intention.”80 In the subsection of “The Ethical Order” entitled, “Ethical Action. Human and DivineKnowledge. Guilt and Destiny,” Hegel demonstrates action incurs guilt regardlessof whether or not the doer was fully conscious: “the one character, likethe other is split up into a conscious and an unconscious part; and since each itselfcalls forth this opposition and its not-knowing is, through the deed, its own affair,each is responsible for the guilt which destroys it” (Phenomenology, §472, p.

98Rhonda Khatab░285). The deed, once accomplished is irreversible, regardless of whether or notthe doer was aware of his action: “for the accomplished deed is the removal of theantithesis between the knowing self and the actuality confronting it.” Thus, “thedoer cannot deny the crime or his guilt” (§469, p. 283). Hegel does, however, seethe contrast between the nature of guilt as resulting from a deed that was willed,and one that was not.81 Taylor, Hegel, p. 17482 Hegel, Phenomenology, §470, p. 284.83 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §470, p. 284: “The ethical consciousness must, onaccount of its deed, acknowledge its opposite as its own actuality, must acknowledgeits guilt.”84 Sophocles, Antigone, p. 43.85 Sophocles, Antigone, p. 89.86 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §468, p. 282.87 Indeed, the awareness of guilt sets the conditions for reflection upon one’s deed,or in Hegel’s words, guilt takes effect such that “the deed is brought out into thelight of day, as something in which the conscious is bound up with the unconscious”(Phenomenology, §469, p. 283).88 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §470, p. 284; within the context of ancient Greek Sittlichkeit,the notion of right is to be distinguished from the modern conception ofabstract right, which is intelligible to a “consciously free will” (see Hegel, Philosophyof Right, “First Part: Abstract Right,” §35, p. 37).89 Sophocles, Antigone, cited in Hegel, Phenomenology, §470, p. 284.90 See Hegel, Aesthetics, I: 503.91 See Hegel, Aesthetics, II: 1216.92 See Hegel, Aesthetics, II: 1215.93 See Hegel, Aesthetics, II:1218.94 Cf. Inwood, A Hegel Dictionary, pp. 102-395 See Hegel, Hegel’s Logic, §147, pp. 207-8. Hegel elaborates upon this definitionthus: “developed actuality, as the coincident alternation of inner and outer, the alternationof their opposite motions combined into a single motion, is Necessity.”96 See Hegel, Logic, §147A, p. 209.97 Hegel, in the Logic (§147A, p. 210) remarks on the mentality of the ‘ancient mind’:“in the ancient mind the feeling was more of the following kind: Because such athing is, it is, and as it is, so it ought to be.”98 See Hegel, Phenomenology, §470, p. 284.99 Hegel, The Philosophy of History, p. 17.100 See Hegel, Logic, §157-8, pp. 219-20.101 See Hegel, Logic, §147A, pp. 210-1.102 Hegel, Aesthetics, II: 1218.

The Precedence of Citation:On Brecht’s The Antigone of SophoclesRobert Savage[W]e dream of originality and autonomy; we believe to besaying all kinds of new things and, still, all this is reaction, asit were, a mild revenge against the slavery with which wehave behaved toward antiquity.Hölderlin, “The Perspective From Which We Haveto Look at Antiquity” 1IIn the beginning was the citation: The Antigone of Sophocles. Adaptedfor the stage from Hölderlin’s translation. By attributing Antigone to a singleauthor, the title encloses every word that follows within a pair of invisiblequotation marks. Even Brecht’s interpolations, those amendments and sectionsof newly-added dialogue which allow one to speak of “Brecht’s Antigone”as a play in its own right, 2 will have been indirect quotations from themaster script, paraphrastic marginalia to an urtext twice removed. The titlethus disables in advance the charge of plagiarism (the illicit denial of citation)which had been leveled against him in the past on account of his selfprofessedlaxness in matters of intellectual property. 3 Since its 1948 premierein the Swiss town of Chur, The Antigone of Sophocles has neverfound its way into the Brecht canon, even though the case could be madeCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/savage.pdf

100Robert Savage░that it is no more derivative, no less authentically Brechtian a productionthan, say, The Threepenny Opera. 4 One need look no further than the titleto understand why. It defines Brecht’s task, not as one of rewriting Antigone,in a manner akin to Jean Anouilh’s famous wartime production inParis, but of reciting it for the modern stage. Anouilh had retold the story ina racy, colloquial speech that paid little heed to the letter of Sophocles’drama, preferring to treat the text of the tragedy as the dispensable vehiclefor the mythic narrative at its core. 5 Brecht’s title, by contrast, announceshis intention to decontextualize and recontextualize – to re-site – words thatalready have a history of their own, and so to establish, through that act ofselective translation, a continuity with the time and place of recital. Beforeany particular content, The Antigone of Sophocles affirms a line of tradition(and not just any line, either, but the most redolent imaginable, that of the“tyranny of Greece over Germany” 6 ), and it affirms tradition as such, if by‘tradition’ we mean the present-day citability of texts that belong to a bygoneera. This should make us wary of placing undue emphasis onBrecht’s denial, made shortly before he set to work on Hölderlin’s translation,that “something like a german literature” had survived Hitler’s war. 7Brecht’s self-effacing nod to Sophocles is nonetheless ambiguous: itcan equally be read as a distancing gesture. A cited textual tradition or traditionaltext is, by definition, not one’s own, and therefore never simplygoes without saying. Drawing upon a vast stockpile of endlessly recyclable(re)sources, the recitalist enjoys a certain liberty with regard to the materialhe chooses to cite, for which he knows someone else to be accountable.Pushed to insouciance, the citation avails itself as a self-disavowing comicdevice, as witnessed by its rise to prominence in the German novel sinceWieland. 8 At the same time, the recitalist incurs the responsibility of inventingtradition each time anew by striking a distinction between what is stillcitable, and by that measure canonic, and what is out-of-date or better reservedfor later use. Like Mr Peachum from The Threepenny Opera, herecognizes that the same phrases which yesterday moved an audience totears may have become jaded and utterly ineffective overnight: “What’s theuse of the finest and most stirring sayings painted on the most enticingboards if they get used up so quickly?” 9 And he draws from this the conclusionthat sometimes a citation needs to be tampered with in order to prolongits shelf life.Any decision to cite one text over another demonstrates that the socalledErbe or national literary heritage, which the likes of Johannes R. Becherand Georg Lukács had defended during the war and now thought toadminister as its sole legitimate heirs, 10 was never theirs to begin with. Thechoice of a citation, unlike the bequest of an inheritance, is contingent and

░ The Precedence of Citation 101non-binding. Why is Brecht citing Sophocles’ play here, and not someother? Under what conditions is he citing it, and to what ends? Why cite atall? Such questions are not extrinsic to the title, which Adorno rightly regardsas the microcosm of the work. 11 In the space opened up between citation(énoncé) and recital (énonciation), between the play by Sophoclesand the play that cites the play by Sophocles, the person who is recitingwins the freedom to reflect upon, criticize, or reject what she is saying. Torecite lines that are not one’s own is to act. The title thus draws attention tothe play’s status as a performance of Antigone, counter-acting the theatricalillusion which for the course of the presentation suspends the ontologicaldifference between an actor and the role she occupies. One cannottake at face value the convictions, feelings or intentions expressed insomeone’s words if it is simultaneously made clear that that person hasborrowed those words from someone else.Further, the elevation of an author’s name to the title of a productionvacates the space ordinarily reserved for acknowledging his entitlement tothe play. If Sophocles owns Antigone, who owns The Antigone of Sophocles?Not Brecht, surely, otherwise the title would be meaningless or disingenuous;but not Sophocles, either, for then the authorship of the titlewould still remain unaccounted for. By invoking what Brecht once called“the question of ownership, which in the bourgeoisie, even as far as spiritualmatters are concerned, plays a (quite bizarre) role,” the citation ofownership in the title problematizes the ownership of citation. 12 The citedword, like the loan-word, has been removed from its native context withoutyet settling in to its new environment. Its strangeness, marked by the typographical,verbal or gestural acknowledgement that it belongs elsewhere, isnever absolute: the citation is required here and now, in this passage, tohelp secure my argument or to plug a gap created by the inadequacy of mypowers of expression, and is therefore always on the way to becoming myown. 13 Split between its original and current contexts, the citation belongsnowhere, too, since it can in principle be transplanted to any other setting.In his adaptation of the first choral stasimon (pollà tà deiná…), Brecht introducesan excursus on property relations that suggests a radical solution tothe titular aporia. Man, the Chorus of Elders proclaims, cannot fill his bellyby himself, “but the wall / He erects around his property, and the wall / Mustbe torn down!” 14 Do these lines, which resituate Antigone through the indirectcitation of Rousseau and Marx, 15 invite us to tear down the wallerected in the title? Could and should the Antigone of Sophocles be collectivizedinto our Antigone (and who might this collective include: the audience,the Germans, the ‘workers of the world’, das Volk)? Or does the inappropriabilityof the citation – no matter how much I identify with them, the

102Robert Savage░words I quote will always bear the trace of another – make such questionsinappropriate? In short, is it possible to continue a tradition without first takingpossession of it?The problems of citation raised in the title become particularly acute,and acutely political, once it is considered that the Antigone ascribed toSophocles refers as much to the eponymous heroine as to the play inwhich she stars. In 1948, the year of the production, Antigone was beingrefashioned in Germany as a paragon of those civic and moral virtueswhich had been sorely wanting under the Third Reich, and would need tobe inculcated in the next generation were the disasters of the past not to berepeated. Educational authorities on both sides of the newly-hung Iron Curtainseized upon the tragedy as a relatively non-controversial, potentiallycathartic contribution to the process of denazification. In the wake of thedictatorship, Creon’s insistence on patriotic duty over private scruple nolonger seemed, as it still had for Hegel, equally defensible a position as Antigone’sappeal to the unwritten laws of heaven. 16 For many, it stirred upinstead fresh memories of the man who had overseen the execution of millionsin the name of a national exigency that brooked no opposition. In PartThree of his epic novel of exile November 1918, written during the siege ofStalingrad, Alfred Döblin had seen the spirit of Antigone incarnated in thecommunist revolutionary and martyr Rosa Luxemburg. 17 His friend Brechtwent a step further, depicting the ruler of Thebes as a tyrant and clown addressedby his lackeys as “Mein Führer” (changed from “My king”). 18 Perhapsunwittingly, he was following the example furnished by Hölderlin, forwhom Antigone embodies a “form of reason” that is resolutely “political,namely republican.” 19At stake in the title, then, is the possibility of adopting Antigone as thefigurehead of a new Germany, ‘Antigone’ now understood as a citablecharacter-type instantiating the values of anti-fascist resistance. Brechtraises this possibility in his foreword to the Antigonemodell 1948 – the verytitle of the book in which he published the play seems to recommend her asa role model – but he dismisses it just as quickly: “The drama of Antigonewas selected for the following theatrical endeavour because its content ensuredit a certain actuality and because it set interesting formal tasks. Asfar as the political content is concerned, the analogies to the present, whichafter the thoroughgoing rationalisation [of the fable] had become surprisinglypowerful, proved disadvantageous on the whole: the great figure ofresistance in the ancient drama does not represent the fighters of the Germanresistance who must appear most important to us.” 20 This exclusion ofAntigone from the elaborate system of correspondences established in theadaptation comes as something of a surprise, and goes some way to ex-

░ The Precedence of Citation 103plaining why the play failed to resonate with contemporary audiences. ForBrecht, Antigone was a scion of the Theban ruling elite, driven by conscience,insight and religious custom to betray her class interest, but shewas not the true representative of her people. That part, which would eventuallybe cast in The Days of the Commune, is still missing from the ancientdrama: “Antigone’s deed can only consist in helping the enemy [i.e. Argos,the city against which Creon is waging an imperialist war], which is hermoral contribution; she, too, has eaten all too long of the bread which wasbaked in the dark.” 21 The inverted commas have hardened here into scarequotes: Antigone, still schackled to the mind-forged manacles of her timeand class, is better left to Sophocles, after all.Yet this passage, which seems to bring her closer to Count Stauffenbergthan to Red Rosa, needs to be read in conjunction with a short poemappended by Brecht to the programme booklet: 22AntigoneKomm aus dem Dämmer und gehVor uns her eine ZeitFreundliche, mit dem leichten SchrittDer ganz Bestimmten, schrecklichDen Schrecklichen.Abgewandte, ich weissWie du den Tod gefürchtet hast, aberMehr noch fürchtest duUnwürdig Leben.Und ließest den MächtigenNichts durch, und glichst dichMit den Verwirrern nicht aus, noch jeVergassest du Schimpf und über der Untat wuchsIhnen kein Gras.Salut!AntigoneCome out of the twilightAnd walk before us a while,Kind one, with the light step

104Robert Savage░Of one whose mind is fully made up, terribleTo the terrible.You who turn away, I knowHow you feared death, butStill more you fearUnworthy life.And you let the powerful get awayWith nothing, and did not reconcile yourselfWith the bewilderers, nor did you everForget affront and let the dust settleOn the misdeed.Salut!The sober disavowal of Antigone in the foreword and the enthusiasticavowal of Antigone in the poem reflect the double nature of the citation asestrangement and repetitive renewal. For whereas Brecht maintains in theforeword that the “historical remoteness” of the play forbids an “identificationwith the main character,” hence that Antigone is citable only as belongingto Sophocles and cannot be translated without remainder into the present,in the poem he lends her story a perennial topicality bordering on thetimeless. 23 The citation distances, but it can also bridge that distancethrough the recurrence of the once-said in the now-time of the speaker; itdemythologizes by confining a legend or saying (Sage) to the moment andagent of its fixation in writing, and it preserves myth by re-presenting it toan audience that may yet recognize, in its fading letters, the refracted imageof its own condition. Brecht’s vacillation between emphasizing Antigone’sexemplariness for the revolution and her unsuitability for exemplification,which Jan Knopf puts down to a change of heart, in truth expressesa tension in the citation itself. 24This tension is already apparent in the poem which dispenses with thedetour of a byline to call Antigone directly by name, so addressing her as afree agent whom no man is entitled to claim as his chattel. For what exactlyis the twilight from which she is invited to emerge? Is it the barbaric dawn ofthe West? Is it the haze of interpretations and mystifications that had gatheredaround her over the centuries, shrouding what Brecht calls the “highlyrealistic popular legend” at the core of the play? 25 Or is it simply the sepulchralgloom to which Creon had banished her? Should we join BernardKnox in reading the appeal to Antigone as a lament for the failure of ordinaryGermans under Hitler to step onto the political stage, thereby forsakingthe everyday anonymity in which they hoped to escape detection? 26 Or

░ The Precedence of Citation 105is she called forth instead to illuminate the crepuscular entr’acte in whichthe Germans found themselves at the time of the production, three yearsafter the collapse of the Third Reich and twenty months before the foundationof the GDR – to “go before us” in this obscure state as a beacon oflight, blazing with the same fierce spirit that once brought a tyrant to hisknees? The technique of citation resolves the hermeneutic dilemma, not bymaking disappear the shadow of the past, but by causing it to appear assuch; it trains the spotlight on Antigone, not that she may communicate withus face to face, but that we may see and salute her in her inimitable aversion.It is no accident that the poem whose title summons her to unmediatedpresence should go on to apostrophize her as “Abgewandte,” literally“averted one” (and it should be remembered that in Antigone’s mothertongue, an apo-strophe is, literally, a turning away). Does not every citationlikewise turn toward a figure that is turned away from it? Might not the citationbe the figure of this deviant form of address, as Sibylle Benninghof-Lühl has suggested? 27The O.E.D. reminds us that to cite is not only “to quote (a passage,book, or author); gen. with implication of adducing as an authority”; it isalso, and in the first place, “to summon officially to appear in court of law.” 28The relationship between poem and play is accordingly that between Antigone’sinitial citation from backstage and her subsequent testimony beforethe tribunal of posterity. Like Brecht’s earlier drama The Trial of Lucullus,The Antigone of Sophocles restages the trial (or stages the retrial) of the titlecharacter. 29 Illuminated from this angle, the poem’s opening injunctioncan be seen to bring into focus the essential difference between Brecht’sand Lacan’s recension of the myth. For Lacan, Antigone places herself outsidethe symbolic network which structures and organizes the everyday lifeof the polis. She incarnates the death drive at its purest and most destructive,the suicidal impulse to transgress all socio-symbolic limits that carriesher to an impossible zero-position beyond the reach of the law; 30 or asCreon puts it in Anouilh’s production: “Ce qui importait pour elle, c’est derefuser et de mourir.” 31 For Brecht, the obverse is true: Try as she might totarry in the shadowy realm of atè, Antigone cannot avoid interpellation bythe symbolic order. Her situation is not that of someone who is alreadydead while still alive, as Lacan maintains; rather, some two and a half millenniaafter being removed from sight, she still finds herself prevented fromdying by the fascinated gaze of the big Other, the invisible public whichcommands her to perform in a space of absolute visibility. Her attempt toescape through suicide the punishment imposed by Creon is thus undertakenin vain: she is in truth condemned to a fate worse than death, that ofa “buried life with a good roof for shelter,” as Creon puts it; that is to say, a

106Robert Savage░life in the theatre. 32 After taking her final curtain call, she withdraws to thetwilight zone whence she came, there to languish in silence until her nextcitation.What could break her out of the loop in which she is caught, which is,precisely, that of mythic repetition? At the height of her cross-examinationby Creon, already sensing the crypt looming before her, Antigone cries out(to the Elders, who are refusing to listen? or to the audience, which is powerlessto intervene?): “But I call upon you to help me in distress / And, in sodoing, help yourselves.” 33 On the level of the citation, her plea registers theforlornness of her plight to the same extent that it is doomed to ineffectuality.If Antigone’s fate is already scripted, as textual authority and the laws ofthe polis join Creon in stipulating, if recourse to an appellate court is out ofthe question, then her petition loses all sense of urgency and becomessusceptible to its transfiguration unto innocuousness. Like the deathbedspeech of St Joan of the Stockyards, it can be brushed aside by beingmade to signify nothing more threatening than the last sigh of a beautifulsoul. This is of course the (non-)reaction of the Elders, for whom Antigoneis simply playing her preordained part in a spectacle that will culminate inher immurement, when they will be relieved of the obligation to lend her anear. Their recognition of the theatricality of her cry for help entrenches themin their position as voyeurs at the very moment she is demanding that theyabandon it. In this respect, the Elders function as stand-ins for the theatregoersin front of them, whose response to the desperate entreaties of theheroine is to remain motionless in their seats, looking on in silence as sheis dragged off by the palace guards. 34 On the level of the recital, however,which is that of a theatricality to the second degree (the performance of aperformance), her words exert a more subversive influence. They remindthe audience, long since inured to the inexorability of tragedy, of the individualand collective responsibility it bears for the perpetuance of the conditionsunder which tragedy is still possible. We, the people, are shown to beno less implicated in the show trial we are witnessing than is Antigone herself.At this moment, the contemplative attitude with which we have drawnpleasure from her impending sacrifice becomes tendentially (and tendentiously!)inseparable from the culpability incurred by those who stood bywhile the horror unfolded. The roles of spectator and accused have undergonea dramatic reversal. Antigone, once cited, cites us in return, andagainst her damning indictment there can, in 1948, be no appeal: “So youlet it happen. And hold your tongues before him. / Let it not be forgotten!” 35

░ The Precedence of Citation 107IIBrecht’s ambivalence regarding the appropriability of Antigone afterthe catastrophe is already thematized in the prelude (Vorspiel) to the play,set in Berlin during the last month of the war. Returning to their flat after anight spent in an air-raid shelter, two nameless sisters notice that someonehas paid a visit while they were out: the door stands ajar, fresh footprintsdisturb the dust, and in the corner of the room they find a knapsack, withham and bread inside. The second sister, who will soon step into the role ofAntigone, realizes that their brother must have returned from the front: “Andwe embraced and were glad / For our brother was in the war and he waswell.” 36 Suddenly they hear a blood-curdling scream from outside. The secondsister wants to investigate, but is held back with the warning: “whoeverwants to see will be seen.” As they get ready for their day shift in a localfactory, the first sister, later Ismene, sees her brother’s military overcoathanging in the cupboard. She concludes that he must have deserted fromthe army: “And we laughed and were glad: / Our brother was out of the war.He was well.” Once again a terrifying cry interrupts their celebrations. Thistime “Sister Two” ignores her sibling’s advice and leaves the flat to find herbrother strung up outside, apparently lifeless: “Sister, they have hangedhim, / That’s why he cried out for us.” The second sister is about to cut himdown and try to resuscitate him when an SS man appears and accusesthem of consorting with the “people’s traitor” he has just executed. The firstsister replies – and the echoes of the passion play, of Peter’s denial ofChrist and of the two Marys weeping at the foot of the cross, are too strongnot to be overheard – “Dear sir, do not punish us / For we do not know thisman.” 37 The Vorspiel ends with a question mark: will the second sister riskher life in a foolhardy attempt to free her brother, who is probably dead anyway,or will she follow her sister’s example in passively acquiescing to hismurder?The function of this prelude, according to Brecht, is to set a “point oftopicality” and to “sketch the subjective problem.” 38 (One might add that itdoes so in adapting the conventions of Greek tragedy to a modern setting.The reversal of fortune in the Vorspiel, the dashing of the sisters’ expectanthappiness at its height, the cruel irony that their brother is being executedat precisely the moment when, for the first time since he left for the front,they believe him to be safe from harm, their lack of understanding [diánoia]which at the same time is an ethical failing – all these motifs accord surprisinglywell with the Aristotelian account of tragedy from which Brecht waspolemically distancing himself at the time.) 39 It is not difficult to trace theparallels between the wartime drama in Berlin and the tragedy about to

108Robert Savage░transpire in Thebes, especially when we learn in the next scene that thetraitor Polynices, like the brother in the prelude, has deserted from thefront. In Brecht’s version, Creon has conscripted the young men of Thebesto invade the distant city of Argos – “a Stalingrad of today” 40 – and rob it ofits mineral wealth. Fleeing the battlefield after seeing his brother fall incombat, Polynices returns to his home town, only to be hacked to piecesoutside the city gates on Creon’s orders. Antigone’s decision to bury hismangled corpse in defiance of Creon’s edict is thus as much a symbolicprotest against the latter’s gross mismanagement of the state as it is an actof familial piety. In the prelude, the second sister stands on the threshold ofan analogous decision. All the other players in the scene have alreadyslipped into their later roles; she alone is poised to become her future self,contemplating the step into open rebellion but not yet prepared to take it.This is presumably the subjective problem to which Brecht refers.But is her translation into Antigone at all possible? As Brecht was wellaware, the similarities between the sister’s situation and Antigone’s breakdown upon closer inspection. Were she to disobey the SS thug, her likelyreward would be a bullet in the back of the head, not a public forum atwhich to speak out against Hitler’s tyranny. The suffering inflicted upon anindividual in Greek tragedy has the potential to inaugurate a turning in thehistorical destiny of his or her people; that unleashed by the German catastrophemerely adds to the statistics. Dürrenmatt’s remark that today, Creonwould get his secretary to dispose of Antigone is apposite here. 41 Thewoman’s complicity in her brother’s murder, subjectively indicated by herinitial heedlessness to his cries for help and objectively corroborated by herdaily service to the total war economy, means that a failure to act nowwould be no less disastrous than rash defiance. Yet because the selfsacrificedemanded by her situation will not have been tragic, but utterlymeaningless, her best efforts to emulate Antigone are doomed to fall shortof their target. As that illustrious proper name recedes ever deeper into thepluperfect, the anonymous “Sister Two” is left stranded in a traumatic present,bereft of any precedent to guide her conduct. Brecht has no choicebut to discontinue the scene here: to show her assuming the mantle of Antigonewould be to forfeit credibility; to show her refusing it would be toabandon hope. The freeze frame at the moment of (in)decision, followed bythe cut to ancient Thebes, offers the protagonist an escape from a predicamentthat admits of no individual solution. 42 The stalled actualization ofthe Antigone myth makes way for its distanced repetition qua citation: “TheAntigone drama then unfurls the whole narrative objectively, on the foreignlevel of the ruling class.” 43If the last lines of the Vorspiel cast into doubt the project of updating

░ The Precedence of Citation 109Antigone for the new Germanies that have emerged, rather by default thanby design, from out of the ruins of fascist dictatorship, its first lines shedlight on the considerations that motivated Brecht to recite this particularplay at this time and at this stage in his career. The opening quatrain introducestwo motifs that will be of cardinal importance, those of homecomingand daybreak:Tagesanbruch. Zwei Schwestern kommen aus dem Luftschutzkellerzurück in ihre Wohnung.DIE ERSTEUnd als wir kamen aus dem LuftschutzkellerUnd es war unversehrt das Haus und hellerAls von der Früh, vom Feuer gegenüber, daWar es meine Schwester, die zuerst es sah.Daybreak. Two sisters return from the air-raid shelter to their flat.SISTER ONEAnd as we came from out of the air-raid shelterAnd the house was unscathed and brighterFrom the fire opposite than from the daybreak, thenIt was my sister who saw it first.The long night of terror appears to be over, a new day is dawning, both sistershave survived their ordeal and their house stands intact. Yet the catastrophewhich is about to befall them, dimly foreshadowed in the proleptic “it”of line four, takes place on the level of syntax in the very sentence expressingthe hope that the perils and dangers of the night have been put behindthem. In the context of the first couplet, the word “brighter” (heller) stands incontrast to an earlier, darker time: the house is brighter than when the sistersleft it for the air-raid shelter. The comparative first emerges in its true,sinister meaning in the enjambement connecting lines two and three. Theword which suggested a fresh start is now revealed to be the very opposite,for the brighter light bathing the house has been spent by the conflagrationacross the street caused by the night-time bombing, not by the morningsun. The Nazi Götterdämmerung, which reached its hellish apotheosis atjust this time, “April 1945,” and in just this city, overpowers the false dawnof a new era, dragging the optimistic first couplet back into the nightmarefrom which its speaker thought herself provisionally secure.Brecht had sketched this apocalyptic scenario once before, in a diaryentry from August 1943: “One’s heart stops beating when one reads about

110Robert Savage░the air bombardments on Berlin. Because they are not connected with anymilitary operations, one sees no end to the war, only an end to Germany.” 44The theme of inauthentic daybreak added to the 1948 version preemptsone of the most important changes made to Sophocles’ fable in the adaptation.In the Antigone of Sophocles the war against Argos is already won,and the war-weary citizens of Thebes would like nothing better than to forgetabout the bloodshed and return to their everyday lives. The first choralode begins with the image of the rising sun banishing the spectres of theforegoing night: “Glory! – great beam of the sun, brightest of all / that everrose on the seven gates of Thebes, / you burn through night at last!” 45 Onlyagainst this background is the chorus’ initial support of Creon comprehensible,even sympathetic. Antigone threatens to reignite the internecine strifethat had almost destroyed Thebes, which is why Creon is entirely within hisrights when he orders her to be caved in for refusing to accede to his demands.In Brecht’s version, by contrast, the war is not yet over, it merelyappears to be so. Upon his first entrance, Creon orchestrates a triumphalprocession to divert attention from the fact that his campaign against Argosis consuming ever more material and human resources, with no foreseeableend to the hostilities. While Creon crows his success before the chorusof old men, Tiresias, despite his blindness, is perceptive enough to realizethat the metal lacquer coating the victory columns is “thin indeed.” 46Like the sisters whose premature rejoicing drowns out the cries for helpcoming from outside, the elders are as much the authors as the victims oftheir delusion. Tiresias’ clear-sighted analysis of the city’s plight indicatesthat they accept Creon’s lies only because they do not want to open theireyes. This crucial change to Sophocles’ conception is already prefigured inthe opening lines of the Vorspiel. The night in the air-raid shelter which thesisters have survived can be read as a symbol of Hitler’s suicidal war, thebrighter light that greets them as they emerge from the bunker as the signthat it has finally come to an end. That this sign proves in line three to bedeceptive, that the war has in fact entered its most desperate and dangerousstage, shows clearly enough the Vorspiel’s function as a harbinger ofevents to come.The theme of daybreak needs to be read in conjunction with its counterpart.The precarious situation outlined in the quatrain – namely, one ofcoming home to find the destructive legacy of fascism (the rampant fire) stillvirulently active in the guise of a fresh start (the morning light) – correspondsexactly to Brecht’s view of his own situation in returning to theGerman theatre scene in 1948; both motifs, that of homecoming and that ofan illusory (literally scheinhaft) beginning, are to be found in neither of hispre-texts. It might be recalled that his return to the German-speaking world

░ The Precedence of Citation 111had by his own admission “driven” him to undertake the play, his first sincethe end of the war. The opening lines of the Vorspiel can accordingly beunderstood not just as a coded anticipation of the adaptation’s plot, butequally as a meta-commentary on the conditions of its reception as theywere perceived by Brecht at the time of writing. Brecht expands upon theseconditions at the beginning of his foreword to the Antigonemodell 1948, in apassage that could almost be taken for an explication of the sister’s parable:47 The total material and spiritual breakdown has doubtless created avague thirst for the new in our unhappy, hapless-making land, andas far as art is concerned, it is ... gearing up to try out new thingshere and there. But because there seems to be a lot of confusionabout what is old and what new, and because fear of the return ofthe old is mixed up with fear of the advent of the new, and because,furthermore, the defeated are in many places being instructed toovercome solely the mental and spiritual aspects of Nazism, artistswould do well not blindly to place their trust in the assertion that thenew is welcome. […] Thus it may prove difficult, precisely in the timeof reconstruction, to make progressive art. This should spur us on.Brecht is arguing here neither for a return to the discredited old, nor for acult of the new under whose auspices the old will continue to flourish, butfor a new relationship between old and new. 48 While the foreword does notgo into this relationship in any detail, The Antigone of Sophocles is evidentlymeant to represent just such a progressive dramaturgy which steersa course between artistic recidivism and innovation for innovation’s sake;hence the need for citation as a self-conscious deportment toward a nationalrepertory which, while deeply compromised by thirteen years of“Göring theater,” still contains too much of value to warrant its outright rejection.49The Vorspiel ends as it began, with a demonstration of the supremacyof old over new, night over day, hellfire over regenerative light. The secondsister, like art after the catastrophe, is left paralysed by her inability to find areliable point of orientation. “Nonetheless, art can only orient itself by progressing,and it must ... emerge from the state of waiting for action to thatof action itself, and in the general decay set to work at some place orother.” 50 By the next scene, she is suddenly at this ‘someplace’ which couldbe any place, even “in front of Creon’s palace,” urging to rebellion a womanwho, just minutes before, was wringing her hands in despair, addressingher by name in a strange and archaic tongue: “Sister, Ismene, twinnedsprig / Of Oedipus’ bough ....” 51 Citation makes it possible.

112Robert Savage░IIIThe paradigm of citation briefly sketched by Brecht in the foreword,and ushered in by the frustrated attempt at mythic re-enactment in the Vorspiel,determines the changes made to Hölderlin’s translation in the adaptationitself. This, my central claim regarding The Antigone of Sophocles, maystrike the reader as being contradictory. After all, what sense does it maketo talk of citation when, as Hans Bunge has calculated, Brecht left only19.5% of Hölderlin’s verses untouched, adopting a further 32.3% almostunchanged? What of the remaining 48.2%, which Brecht either subjected tosubstantial revision or dropped altogether, not to mention the numerousnew verses he penned for the production? 52 It is certainly true that if onedefines citation as the exact replication of a given wording, the concept willbe of limited value in understanding the play. Then one would also beforced to dismiss Brecht’s title as a fraudulent attempt to pass off asSophocles’ the caprices of his own dramaturgical fancy. But my point is thatthe play draws attention to the fact that no citation, and be it even the mostfastidious or comprehensive, takes place without an element of distortion(or interpretation, depending on one’s perspective). The risk of beingquoted out of context is not only inherent to every utterance, it is the conditionof its being quoted at all. By citing Hölderlin in other words, Brechtbrings to the surface of the text the ordinarily inconspicuous process oftransformation which a source undergoes whenever it is deployed in a differentcontext, whereby the original context is acknowledged to be themore or less speculative hypostasis of later citations. ‘(Re-)Translation’might seem to describe more fittingly what Brecht is doing here, but it is toobroad a term to account for the distancing effects he aims at in the production,nor does it capture the performativity specific to the citation, its inseparabilityfrom the here and now of its recital.Brecht discusses the relationship between his citation and the sourcefrom which it derives its authority, but whose ‘solid letter’ 53 it repeatedly violates,in a letter sent from the workshop to his son Stefan. “The changeswhich compelled me to write entirely new sections,” he explains there, “aredone in order to cut out the Greek ‘moira’ (the fateful); that is to say, I amattempting to push through to the underlying folktale [Volkslegende].” 54 Farfrom superimposing the image of his own time on events of long ago, assome critics argue, 55 Brecht maintains that his alterations and expurgationsare derived from – are literally dictated by – an antecedent recitation. Inbreaking the spell cast by myth, his rationalization of the fable lays bare itslong-concealed substrate. (Needless to say, this conflation of terminus adquem with terminus a quo is itself a mythic, indeed typically Romantic

░ The Precedence of Citation 113move). Like Hölderlin before him, Brecht thus refuses to concede that hemay have distorted the substance of the play through his interventions. Allappearances to the contrary, the process of citation continues unabated,indeed with a greater degree of fidelity than ever before. Both Hölderlin andBrecht purport to have liberated the quintessence of the tragedy, the onethrough a translational procedure aimed at rekindling the primordial, heavenlyfire which barely flickers through Sophocles’ verse, the other through acitational procedure aimed at recurring to its more fundamental hypotext. 56Both see themselves pursuing an archaeological, although by no meansantiquarian agenda. The tale of Antigone, they insist, was already partiallyoccluded in the Sophoclean ‘original’, itself the first surviving deposit in atextual palimpsest covering a foundation that is anonymous, authorless,and long since effaced – if indeed it ever existed. For in the absence ofhard documentary evidence, who can vouch for this autochthonous prehistory,57 or refute Hellmut Flashar’s suspicion that we are dealing herewith another of Brecht’s tall stories? 58 Who can tell the difference betweencitation and confabulation once the cited source has gone irretrievablymissing?When adaptation is equated with adequation to a legendary ur-text,origin is the goal. Benjamin chose this Karl Kraus quote as the motto for hisfourteenth thesis on the philosophy of history, in which the act of citation islikened to a “tiger’s leap” that seizes hold of the “actual present, no matterwhere it moves in the thickets of long ago.” 59 Brecht was probably familiarwith Thesis XIV, either through his conversations with Benjamin in the late1930s, when it was first put to paper, or through its posthumous publicationin 1944. At any rate, the concepts developed there aptly summarize hispractice in The Antigone of Sophocles. The tiger’s leap is dramatized in thesudden transition from Berlin to Thebes at the end of the Vorspiel. It disruptsthe continuity of linear narrative (in Benjamin’s words: it blasts openthe continuum of history) by ripping out of context the material upon whichit pounces, in this case the Antigone of Sophocles, and arranging it in anew, unforeseen constellation. 60 In the now-time of citation, which is alsothe time of the stage, disparate temporalities are juxtaposed in a configurationthat is one of neither simple supersession nor simple retrogression.Taking up the metaphor of the public spectacle, Benjamin adds that theleap lands “in an arena in which the ruling class gives the commands.” Inthe production in Chur, this is the space in which Creon and his cast(e)hold sway, symbolically demarcated by a row of four totem-poles crestedwith horses’ skulls; the people remains silent and invisible throughout. Atavismand actualization, like derivation and innovation, are fused together inthe sign of an immutable barbarism, “given that we still have the idolized

114Robert Savage░state of class warfare!” 61 The doctrine of progress, enshrined as socialistorthodoxy in the state Brecht would shortly make his own, has been relinquishedin this, his last production of exile – without, as we will see, havingbeen replaced by the platitude that there can be nothing new under thesun.One would nonetheless be mistaken to confuse Brecht’s mission toexcavate the popular legend with the putative recuperation of some greatand unsurpassable origin. What lies at the beginning, before Antigone embarksupon her remarkable literary and philosophical career, is not the singularityof an epochal event (and be it ever so ripe with futurity), but the pluralityof folktale, with its plethora of minimal variations and embellishments;not Antigone as she appears for the first time on stage, resplendent in theafterglow of creation, but Antigone in the obscurity from which Sophoclesplucked her. The origin of the origin is lost in common speech, dispersed inthe breath of a thousand retellings that are coeval, immemorial, and equally(in)authentic. The origin of the origin, that is to say, is itself a citation, thescene of an infinite regress rather than of ultimate referential certainty. Theradicality of this position becomes apparent once its corollary is taken intoaccount: if the origin is secondary, the secondary is original; Brecht anticipatesDerrida in deconstructing their opposition. Citation is therewith freedfrom a slavish adherence to scripture and elevated to an art form in its ownright. The Antigone ascribed to Sophocles is also a play by Brecht. In orderto keep functioning, however, the act of citation still requires the regulativeidea of an ur-text. Without such an idea, it risks lapsing into the bourgeoisideology of creative genius against which it was directed in the first place.When there is nothing outside the citation, there is no such thing as citation,all distinctions based on text-genetic priority having faded intoequiprimordiality. This is why Brecht is compelled to rewrite the origin undererasure, holding fast to the goal of a return to the source while all but admittingthat this source is the figment of the citations to which it gives rise.In the same letter to his son, Brecht remarks: “Used is the Hölderlinian(fairly faithful) translation from the Greek; it has something Hegelian aboutit that you’ll probably recognise, and a Swabian popular gestus [Volksgestus]that you probably won’t (the ‘people’s grammar’ extends right into thehighly artistic choruses!).” Around the same time, he transcribed several ofHölderlin’s more pungent swabianisms into his work journal, all of which heretained in the adaptation itself, notwithstanding his audience’s potentialunfamiliarity with the idiom. 62 To a certain extent, his enthusiasm may beattributed to his fierce and lifelong attachment to his native Swabia, 63doubtless consolidated by his reunion in Chur with his boyhood friend Neher.64 Brecht felt “right at home” in the translation, as he noted in his jour-

░ The Precedence of Citation 115nal, in part because he was able to hear the distant echo of his youth in itsunusual mix of “Swabian intonations and grammar school Latin constructions.”65 Of greater significance than any affinity based on the accident ofbirth, however, was his professional interest in exploiting such colloquialturns of phrase for the pseudo-ethnographic, anti-classicistic tendencywhich characterized the production as a whole (as well as, behind it, thebroader project of epic theatre schematized a few months later in the ShortOrganon). By leavening high tragedy with south German dialect, practicallyan example of the V-Effect before the letter, Hölderlin succeeded in recapturingsomething of that earthy, vernacular quality which had suffered fromthe folktale’s transformation into Literature, and gone entirely missing fromthe polished translations that had since established themselves in the repertory.Hölderlin’s erratic, frequently erroneous version struck Brecht as being“fairly faithful,” then, not because it accurately rendered the nuances ofSophocles’ Greek into modern German – Brecht lacked the philologicalacumen to ascertain whether this was the case, and the pedantry to care –but because he thought it best approximated to the rough-hewn, archaicand specifically oral linguistic gestus proper to its hypotext. 66Brecht’s citation may accordingly be read as an attempt to rehabilitatethe Heimatdichter Hölderlin in the wake of the latter’s nationalist appropriationduring the Second World War. Like Heidegger, who also seized on thisaspect of Hölderlin’s poetry, Brecht sensed the regenerative potential of alanguage steeped in an ordinarily suppressed and silenced regional culture;like Heidegger, he rejected the smoothly sublime High Germanbrought to the height of its expressive power by Hölderlin’s contemporaries.67 However, their differences in this regard should not be passed overtoo quickly. Brecht’s attitude of “grateful malice” (to borrow Walter Jens’phrase) 68 toward his place of birth is irreconcilable with what Peter Sloterdijkcalls Heidegger’s “will to tarry in his natal space,” 69 not least becausebitter experience had taught him what it was like to have his countrymenturn against him. In the first scene of the adaptation, Ismene tries to dissuadeher grief-stricken sister from breaking Creon’s prohibition on burialby appealing to her sense of civic belonging, which she insists will prove tobe stronger, and more enduring, than the anger she currently feels aboutthe infamy done to their brother. Antigone’s place, she pleads, is in Thebesand amongst the living; “the old / homely elms and rooftops” will soon reemergethrough her “veil of tears” to assuage her pain. The wistful imageevoked by these words, which are to be found nowhere in Sophocles, is notthat of an ancient cityscape, but the remembered Augsburg of Brecht’syouth, with its lovely baroque skyline and elm-lined river. It is as if Brecht,poised on the brink of return from exile, were allowing himself a brief retro-

116Robert Savage░spective glance at the life that might have been his had he followed Ismene’sadvice, the snug security he might have enjoyed had he chosen,like his compatriot from Meßkirch, to stay put in the provinces. But Ismeneis cast in the role of the temptress here, and Antigone’s response – “I hateyou” – is unparalleled in its bluntness (compare Hölderlin: “If you shouldsay such a thing, I would hate you”). 70 This is as close as we will evercome to a real-life dialogue between Heidegger and Brecht, whom we mustimagine standing in front of Hitler’s palace, circa 1934, as they deliverthese lines: the former justifying his decision to spend the years of nationalawakening ensconced in “Alemanian-Swabian rootedness in the nativesoil,” as he put it in the same year; 71 the latter refusing to heed the call ofthe origin if it means falling silent before a political regime he knows to beabhorrent. At the end of the conversation, Heidegger retreats upriver tostage his fantasy of beautiful dwelling along the sanitized, sanctified andde-urbanized banks of the Danube. 72 Brecht, meanwhile, locates his Marxistplay firmly within the walls of the polis, amidst a bloody power strugglebeing waged between a proto-fascist military oligarchy and a dissidentsplinter faction that has aligned itself with the enemy.All the changes made to Hölderlin’s translation in the name of its rationalizationserve to accentuate this political dimension; I will restrict myselfto outlining the most significant. Following Brecht’s operation to excisethe Greek moira from the play, the blind augur Tiresias employs his reasonalone, rather than his prophetic gifts, to divine that something is rotten inthe state of Thebes. The people is reported to be aghast less at the severityof the punishment meted out by Creon – this is a side issue for Brecht –as at the more comprehensive failure of his rule, which has left themblighted with poverty and burdened with an unwinnable war. Creon’s attemptto intimidate the populace by making an example of Antigone is boththe sign and consequence of that failure, not its root cause. Haimon informshis father in Hölderlin’s version “how the city is full of mourning forthe virgin” 73 ; this is generalized and sharpened by Brecht to “Know that thecity is full of inner disquiet.” 74 The chorus of elders undergoes a similar‘transmotivation’ in Brecht’s hypertext, revealing itself to be far more interestedin the material gains it expects from the sack of Argos than in anymartial glory. 75 Hölderlin’s chorus proclaims with patriotic pride: “But illustriousVictory has arrived, / Favourable to Thebes, rich in wagons.” 76 Brechthas at the same point: “But lucrative Victory has arrived, / Favourable toThebans rich in wagons.” 77 Whereas victory was once perceived to benefitthe entire polis, it now only adds to the coffers of those who are wealthyenough as it is: the elders themselves. Brazenly identifying their particularinterests with the greater good of Thebes, the big property owners confirm

░ The Precedence of Citation 117Marx’s maxim that the leading ideas of a given age are ever the ideas ofthe ruling class. To concentrate the audience’s attention still further on thepolitical drama, and to prevent its sympathies gravitating toward Creon atthe end, Brecht also jettisons the figure of Euridyce, the tyrant’s wife. Antigone’sparting words to the chorus make explicit the lesson he hopes tocommunicate by eliminating the metaphysical backdrop from the play (orrather, as Werner Frick comments, substituting for it a Marxist moira): 78 “Donot, I beg you, speak of fate. / That I know. Of that speaks / He who dispatchesme, guiltless; weave / Him a fate!” 79 The infernal machine of tragedyhas not been set in motion for the amusement of the gods, as Cocteauwould have it, but by a human hand, and for all-too-human purposes. 80Although such emendations to the plot are motivated by the impulse toshow that man is the author of his own destiny, 81 their cumulative effect isto minimize the influence of individual actions upon the affairs of state.Asked why she seems so intent on stirring up trouble, Brecht’s Antigonevolunteers the lapidary response: “Just to set an example.” 82 By her ownadmission, her rebellion is a symbolic gesture that serves at best to illustrateand bring into focus the broader tensions that riddle the body politic; initself, it changes nothing. Creon’s fate has long since been decided byforces beyond her control, as Tiresias is the first to grasp. By the end of theplay, the Elders who had backed Creon to power, distant relatives of theChicago cauliflower moguls of Arturo Ui, have deserted their man as theresurgent army of Argos nears the city gates. Thebes faces absolute ruin:“The city is over and done with for us, used to reins and / Without reins.” 83The parallels to Germany’s own ‘zero hour’ hardly need stressing.It is important that this dress rehearsal for the apocalypse be read inthe proper light. If the meaning of any citation is determined as much by themanner of its deployment as by its propositional content, then the semipermeableborders which separate it from the discourse in which it is embedded– the margins between proper and borrowed speech, as it were –deserve particular attention. They provide instruction on the speaker’scomportment toward the cited material, as well as on how he expects anaudience to receive it: with approval or scepticism, in deference or disdain,as confirmation or provocation. The prelude which precedes and preparesthe citation ends, as we have seen, with a crisis of indecision. More specifically,it sets up a double bind situation in which the second sister is confrontedwith the necessity and impossibility of becoming Antigone. A choicehas to be made; a choice cannot be made; incipit citatio. The Antigone ofSophocles is thus introduced as a citation of precedent. A precedent caseis cited whenever a decision has to be reached for which normative guidelinesare lacking. It operates on the assumption of a structural homology

118Robert Savage░between past and present situations, without which the precedent wouldprove incapable of providing useful counsel: the sister’s dilemma (and, behindit, that of the audience of 1948) is to be construed as being comparableto Antigone’s. At the same time, the current situation must be experiencedin its historical discontinuity, as a genuine predicament, for the needfor a precedent to arise in the first place: her dilemma, along with that of theaudience, is also unlike Antigone’s. Were the horizon of possibilities alreadycircumscribed by the ever-same, were we able to discern, in the infinitevariety of human endeavour, nothing other than the permutations ofmythic invariance, there would be no point ransacking the archives of culturalmemory in search of cases similar in kind to help guide our conduct,for we would have no alternative but to act the way we do. Brecht’s citationof Antigone as a precedent for postwar Germany, far from forcing the conclusionthat things are predestined to remain much the way they alwayshave been (the cynical plus ça change muttered by the onlooker to thetragedy of history), necessarily implies that the future still stands wideopen.We should bear this in mind when making sense of the last lines of theplay, spoken by the Elders as the city comes crashing down around them:“For time is short / Catastrophe is all around, and it never suffices / to liveon, thoughtless and easy, / From connivance to sacrilege and / To growwise in old age.” 84 Hölderlin ends on the exact opposite note, offering theconsolation that while the blows dealt by the gods may have destroyed theruling family, “they have taught us in old age to think.” 85 By denying hischorus the benefit of such hindsight, Brecht ensures that the ‘great disorder’which set the city on the course to self-destruction will survive rightdown to the present day. The cuts he made to the fable point to the existenceof underlying laws of history which will continue to demand the sacrificeof countless unnamed Antigones, including the second sister, so longas Creon and his ilk remain in charge. We still have tragedy, Brecht seemsto be saying, because those who bear witness to it – the theatre-going publicno less than the chorus of ancients – fail to grow wise after the event.Through their tacit consent, the metaphorical devastation of the house ofThebes comes full circle in the literal devastation of the houses of Berlin.Crucially, however, the “catastrophe” posited as inescapable from withinthe immanence of the citation appears as the result of a choice whenviewed from the standpoint of the recitalist. The fact that the Elders’ fatalisticcredo is given the final word in the play challenges the audience to seeto it that it not have the final word elsewhere, thereby overturning theprecedent of myth cited in (and as) the (genre of) tragedy. The selfsametime of eternal return, which the old men of Thebes believe to be too fleet-

░ The Precedence of Citation 119ing to permit reflection, provides the essential counterpart and foil to therevolutionary project of a ‘great order’, whose realization depends upon uslearning from the mistakes of the past. 86 So regarded, the playwright’s innermostconcern is to issue a caveat powerful enough to abolish the needfor subsequent recitals of the trial of Antigone: “…”– end of citation.IVThe paradigm of citation developed in The Antigone of Sophocles hasbeen examined under its three constitutive aspects. By way of conclusion,these may be summarized as follows:1. Conceived in spatial terms, citation, like translation, enacts a processof decontextualizing recontextualization, such that the verygivenness of the chosen text is revealed to be the after-effect of itsoriginary dislocation (a dis-location at, and of, the origin). “Quotation,”writes Edward Said, “is a constant reminder that writing is aform of displacement.” 87 He might well have cited The Antigone ofSophocles in support of this claim. The site proper to the play is neitherThebes, its point of departure, nor Berlin, its provisional destination,but a habitable inbetween called Chur. The matter of citationconstantly finds itself held up at such way stations, where its transitfrom terminal to terminal is both frustrated and impelled by the impossibilityof its assimilation without remainder into a new setting.This indwelling itineracy, which is both the condition and the index ofits citability, makes its every sojourn a stopover from the start. As arhetorical topos, the citation is as far removed from a free-floatingutopianism as from the nativist dream of rootedness to a privilegedplace. It is an émigré much like Brecht, forced to set up houseamidst strangers while waiting with half-unpacked bags for the nexttrain out of town. After paying a visit to Brecht’s apartment in Züricharound the time of the adaptation, Max Frisch noted in his diary:“Everything is set up so that he could leave within forty-eight hours;unhomely.” 88 Citation, the portmanteau tradition of the intellectual inexile, belongs at the heart of this scene of non-belonging.2. Considered in its temporal dimension, the act of citation brings aboutthe estrangement in repetition of its signified. The multiple versionsof the play which jostle together in the ‘final’ performance script – ascript which eschews precisely the historical-philosophical categoryof finality – are fused into a single horizon during the recital, resulting

120Robert Savage░in a virtual simultaneity of Antigones past and present. At the sametime, and in the same time, we have seen how Brecht reiterates theplay in such a manner as to distance it from the immediate concernsof his audience – not because such concerns were a matter of indifferenceto him, but because he thought they were best to be addressedby avoiding the false actualization of the myth. Antigone iscited not as the heroine of the current historical moment, as Wagnerhad cited her exactly a century before, at another turning point inGerman (and European) history, but as the heroine of a bygone historicalmoment, and she is to be treated with due caution. 893. In legal parlance, citation designates a summons to adjudication.Brecht’s citation of Antigone transforms the stage into a brightly-litcourtroom, the actors into witnesses called forth from the ‘twilight’ toread aloud from their age-old affidavits, and the public into jurorscharged with determining the pertinence of the myth to postwar Germany.Such a concept of citation stands at odds with the idealistdoctrine which holds the autonomy of art and the disinterestednessof aesthetic judgement to be sacrosanct. The evidence presented inthe theatre subserves a verdict that lies outside the domain of artand beyond the jurisdiction of the playwright. It falls in the sphere ofsocial praxis: the (re)actions of the public will decide whether thecatastrophic precedent cited by Brecht is to be upheld in future.Consequently, the meaning of the citation qua speech act will dependupon the response it elicits from those for whom it is recited.Brecht’s task – one that is both modest and immeasurably ambitious– is to precipitate the decision by heightening their awareness of thestakes involved.Monash UniversityRobert.Savage@arts.monash.edu.auNOTES1 Friedrich Hölderlin, Essays and Letters on Theory, tr. Thomas Pfau (Albany: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1988), p. 39.2 “One may speak of a premiere,” argued Bruno Snell after the premiere, “for BertBrecht has ... made such far-reaching changes to Sophocles’ structure andHölderlin’s diction that in essential parts a new Antigone has arisen.” Cited inWerner Hecht, Brechts Antigone des Sophokles (FfM: Suhrkamp, 1988), p. 205.3 See Brecht’s 1929 fragment “Plagiat als Kunst”, in Brecht, ed. Werner Hecht et al.,

░ The Precedence of Citation 121Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe (FfM: Suhrkamp, 1988-1998), Volume 21, p. 318; henceforth cited as BFA.4 For example, Die Antigone des Sophokles is missing from the standard onevolumeedition of Brecht’s plays; see Die Stücke von Bertolt Brecht in einem Band(FfM: Suhrkamp, 1981). Fredric Jameson has remarked that in a sense: “everythingin Brecht is plagiarism in one way or another.” Jameson, Brecht and Method(London: Verso, 1998), p. 105.5 Anouilh’s play, which profiles Antigone’s wittingly absurd defiance of her uncle’sedict against the background of a kitschy upper middle-class soap opera, can beregarded as a counter-pole to Brecht’s adaptation. Whereas Anouilh presents Antigoneas a compulsive nay-sayer whose death drive Créon, despite his best efforts,proves unable to check, Brecht derives her rebellion from her rational insightinto the strategies of exploitation and military aggression that allow a hated tyrantto cling to power. Anouilh privatises and psychologises, even pathologises, herdeed; Brecht construes it as a symbolic protest against a proto-fascist regime.Volker Riedel concludes: “Whether Brecht consciously directed his adaptationagainst Anouilh is not clear from the sources; factually, however, it is ... a first andparticularly striking testimonial to the contradictory relationship of the socialist andthe late bourgeois reception of classical antiquity.” Riedel, “Antigone-Rezeption inder DDR”, in Hecht, Brechts Antigone des Sophokles, p. 269. See also JeanAnoilh, Antigone (Paris: Le Table Ronde, 1946).6 The phrase is E.M. Butler’s; see her eponymous The Tyranny of Greece overGermany (London: Macmillan, 1935).7 BFA 27, p. 227.8 See Herman Meyer, Das Zitat in der Erzählkunst. Zur Geschichte und Poetik deseuropäischen Romans (FfM: Fischer, 1988).9 BFA 2, pp. 233-34; Brecht, Plays Volume I (London: Methuen, 1960), p. 102.10 In 1938, at the height of the realism debate, Eisler’s selective, supposedly disrespectfultreatment of the Erbe had come under fire from Lukács, who accused himof handling the “illustrious literary past of the German people” with arrogance andcontempt. Lukács, “Es geht um den Realismus”, in Essays über den Realismus(Neuwied and Berlin: Luchterhand, 1971), p. 339. At the time, Brecht haddefended Eisler with a wit all the more caustic because not intended for the publiceye; see BFA 22/1, pp. 420-21. See also Helen Fehervary, Hölderlin and the Left.The Search for a Dialectic of Art and Life (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1977), p. 50.11 Theodor W. Adorno, tr. Shierry Weber Nicholsen, Notes to Literature, Volume 2(New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 4.12 BFA 21, p. 285.13 See Hermann Meyer, Das Zitat in der Erzählkunst, p. 12.14 BFA 8, p. 209.15 “The first man who, having fenced off a plot of land, thought of saying ‘This ismine’ and found people simple enough to believe him was the real founder of civilsociety.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Discourse on the Origin and Foundations ofInequality Among Men” in Rousseau, eds. Alan Ritter and Julia Bodanella, Rous-

122Robert Savage░seau’s Political Writings (New York: Norton, 1988), p. 34.16 “The antinomy of two equally justified principles”, argues Hegel, “constitutes theessence of tragedy.” See also George Steiner, Antigones (Oxford: Oxford UP,1984), p. 288: “The full meaning of Creon’s deeds (errors) has come home to usas it cannot have to any spectator or reader before our present danger.”17 See Alfred Döblin, November 1918. Dritter Teil. Karl und Rosa (Munich: dtv,1978), esp. Book VIII (“Auf den Spuren der Antigone”, “König Kreon”).18 BFA 8, p. 205; Hölderlin, Sämtliche Werke, eds. Friedrich Beissner and AdolfBeck (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1943-1985), Volume 5, p. 232; henceforth cited asSW.19 Hölderlin, Essays and Letters on Theory, p. 115.20 BFA 25, p. 74.21 BFA 27, p. 264.22 BFA 15, p. 191. I have borrowed the first four lines of the English translation fromBernard Knox’s “Introduction” to Sophocles, tr. Robert Fagles, The Theban Plays(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), p. 37.23 BFA 25, p. 75.24 Knopf argues that by 1949, when Brecht was working on the foreword, his conceptionof Antigone had shifted from one of popular resistance to one of inneraristocraticstruggle. Jan Knopf, Brecht-Handbuch: Theater (Stuttgart: Metzler,1980), p. 274.25 BFA 27, p. 255.26 Knox, “Introduction”, p. 37. See also the entries in Brecht’s journal from the lastmonths of the war: “Still nothing from Upper Silesia about the stance of the workers”;“ruins and no sigh of life from the workers.” BFA 27, pp. 219, 221.27 See Sibylle Benninghoff-Lühl, “Figuren des Zitats”: Eine Untersuchung zur Funktionsweiseübertragener Rede (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1998), p. 26.28 Mr Peachum is also familiar with this meaning. In 1948, the same year he citedAntigone, Brecht added a new strophe to Peachum’s Morität: “And the fish, theydisappear / yet to the sorrow of the court: / One cites the shark at the end / yet theshark knows of nothing.” BFA 2, p. 309.29 In the poem, however, the tables have been turned: Antigone is now called up asa witness for the prosecution, while her one-time accusers themselves stand accusedof having perpetrated a “misdeed”.30 Lacan’s interpretation is to be found in Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of JacquesLacan, Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis 1959-1960, ed. Jacques-AlainMiller, tr. Dennis Porter (New York: Norton, 1992), pp. 243-87.31 Jean Anouilh, Antigone (Paris: Le Table Ronde, 1946), p. 102.32 Sophocles, The Theban Plays, p. 104. In Brecht’s production, Antigone enduresher time of trial with the listlessness of an actress worn down by umpteen performancesof the role that made her famous. Brecht’s instruction to Weigel thatshe speak her lines as if citing them, coupled with the fact that she was conspicu-

░ The Precedence of Citation 123ously far too old for a part meant to be played by a girl (in Sophocles’ play, Antigoneis persistently referred to as ή παις ), captures exactly this sense of wearyroutine. Exiled to a provincial theatre and in the twilight phase of her career, Antigoneis now simply going through the motions.33 BFA 8, p. 213. Brecht’s notes to the production, published in the Antigonemodell,stipulate that this, her most impassioned appeal, is to be spoken “like a citation.”BFA 25, p. 104.34 In a revised version of the prologue written for a later production, the actor whoplays the part of Tiresias, the personification of omniscience, urges the audience“To search your consciences for similar deeds / Of the recent past or the omission/ Of similar deeds.” BFA 8, p. 242.35 BFA 8, p. 213.36 BFA 8, pp. 195-96.37 BFA 8, p. 198.38 BFA 25, pp. 74-5.39 It remains unclear, however, whether the sisters will attain the insight into theirmistake prescribed by Aristotle in the wake of the peripeteia. Brecht’s conceptionof didactic drama dictates that it is up to the audience to reflect upon the situationin which the protagonists find themselves hopelessly embroiled: the likes ofMother Courage are condemned to repeat their errors because they will neverlearn for themselves. See Aristotle, Poetics, §11. The Kleines Organon, also composedduring Brecht’s sojourn in Switzerland, was directed against a dominantstrand of Aristotle reception, inherited from French neo-classicism, rather thanagainst Aristotle himself. There is no evidence that Brecht ever read a line of thePoetics.40 BFA 24, p. 350. Ronald Gray aptly calls Brecht’s Creon “a flatly rapacious caricatureof Hitler.” Gray, Brecht (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1961), p. 95.41 Quoted in Steiner, Antigones, 194.42 Adorno observes that the liquidation of the individual under late capitalist conditionsof production compels Brecht to fall back on pre-modern fables: “Brechtneeded those wild old-fashioned times nonetheless, as an image of the presentday, for he himself well knew that the society of his own time could no longer begrasped directly in terms of human beings and things.” Adorno, Notes to LiteratureVolume 2, p. 86.43 BFA 25, p. 75.44 BFA 27, p. 168.45 Sophocles, The Theban Plays, p. 65.46 BFA 8, p. 231.47 BFA 25, p. 73. See also Brecht’s journal entry from August 5, 1940; BFA 26, p.409.48 See Hans Mayer, Brecht (FfM: Suhrkamp, 1996), p. 110.49 BFA 25, p. 73.

124Robert Savage░50 BFA 25, p. 73.51 BFA 8, p. 200.52 Hans Bunge, Antigone-Modell 1948 von Bertolt Brecht und Caspar Neher: ZurPraxis und Theorie des epischen (dialektischen) Theaters Bertolt Brechts (Greifswald:Diss., 1957). Pohl remarks that these figures seem “rather too precise consideringthe philologically complicated state of affairs.” Rainer Pohl, Strukturelementeund Entwicklung von Pathosformen in der Dramensprache Bertold Brechts(Bonn: Bouvier, 1969), p. 165.53 SW 2, p. 172.54 BFA 29, p. 440. The letter was written some time in December 1948. See also hisentry in the Arbeitsjournal from December 16: “Bit by bit, as the adaptation of thescenes continues apace, the highly realistic popular legend emerges from out ofthe ideological fog.” BFA 27, p. 255.55 Hellmuth Karasek, for example, considers Brecht’s historical parables to be“translated examples of acute and current problems into different times and culturalconditions, whose different constitutions they are neither willing nor or able totake into account.” Hellmuth Karasek, Bertolt Brecht. Der jüngste Fall eines Theaterklassikers(München: Kindler, 1978), p. 99.56 On Hölderlin’s “return to the occult source”, see Steiner, Antigones, pp. 74-75. Iborrow the terms ‘hypotext’ and ‘hypertext’ from Gérard Genette, tr. WolframBayer and Dieter Hornig, Palimpseste. Die Literatur auf zweiter Stufe (FfM:Suhrkamp, 1993), p. 14.57 See Hans Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos (FfM: Suhrkamp, 1977), p. 28.58 Flashar argues that the true relationship between the original Antigone legendand its revision by Sophocles is exactly the reverse of that assumed by Brecht:“Only with Sophocles does the mythic material become a political play with anidea of the polis and a situation of conflict in human society.” Hellmut Flashar,Inszenierung der Antike. Das griechische Drama auf der Bühne der Neuzeit,1585-1990 (München: C.H. Beck, 1991), p. 190.59 Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, eds. Rolf Tiedemann and HerrmannSchweppenhäuser (FfM: Suhrkamp, 1974), I.2, p. 701.60 See Andrew Benjamin, “Being Roman Now: The Time of Fashion. A Commentaryon Walter Benjamin’s ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ XIV”, Thesis Eleven75 (2003), pp. 39-53, here p. 45.61 BFA 27, p. 261.62 BFA 27, pp. 258-59. Berlau recalled in her memoirs: “He took the ‘Antigone’ formore than just a literary translation. If only because of the ‘Swabian linguistic gestus’,which Brecht constantly pointed out to me during readings, Hölderlin’s textwas for him ‘the most powerful and most amusing.’” Ruth Berlau, ed. Hans Bunge,Brechts Lai-Tu. Erinnerungen und Notate von Ruth Berlau (Darmstadt: Luchterhand,1985), p. 210. Even the adaptation’s departures from the text are couchedin a pseudo-Hölderlinian style, establishing a continuity of tone which smoothsover the deep cuts inflicted upon the fable. Several commentators have noted theextent to which Brecht remains faithful to the arcane diction of the translation.

░ The Precedence of Citation 125Reinhold Grimm, for instance, remarks that the rationalization of the fable “by nomeans comes across as violent,” finding the reason in the “linguistic affinity of theSwabian Brecht with the Swabian Hölderlin.” Reinhold Grimm, Brecht und dieWeltliteratur (Nürnberg: Verlag Hans Carl, 1961), p. 39.63 See Werner Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Bertolt Brecht. Erster Band (FfM:Suhrkamp, 1987), p. 11; André Müller and Gerd Semmer, Geschichten vom HerrnBrecht. 99 Brecht-Anekdoten, (FfM: Insel, 1967), p. 31.64 Hans Curjel, who commissioned the adaptation, speculated in 1961: “The little oldtown of Chur might have seemed familiar to the Augsburger Brecht.” Cited inHecht, Brechts Antigone des Sophokles, p. 188.65 BFA 27, p. 255.66 See Ulrich Weisstein, “Imitation, Stylization, and Adaptation: The Language ofBrecht’s Antigone and its relation to Hölderlin’s version of Sophocles”, GermanQuarterly 46 (1973), p. 590: “Hölderlin’s equivalents often (and characteristically)carry an archaic flavor which restores metaphorical meaning in a drama that isotherwise relatively poor in imagery. This is one trait of the 1803 Antigone whichmust have attracted Brecht, who in all likelihood saw the possibility of equatinglinguistic archaism with socio-political barbarism.”67 Knopf detects in Brecht, beginning with The Antigone of Sophocles, a “differentiationbeween Schiller/Goethe on the one hand ... and Hölderlin on the other.”Knopf, Brecht-Handbuch: Theater, p. 276.68 Walter Jens, Statt einer Literaturgeschichte (Tübingen: Neske, 1957), p. 227.69 Peter Sloterdijk, Nicht gerettet. Versuche nach Heidegger (FfM: Suhrkamp, 2001),p. 51.70 SW 5, p. 209.71 Martin Heidegger, Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens (= GA13) (FfM: Klostermann,1983), p. 11.72 See Heidegger’s dialogue “Das abendländische Gespräch”, composed from 1946to 1948; Heidegger, Zu Hölderlin. Griechenlandreisen (=GA75) (FfM: Klostermann,2000).73 SW 5, p. 233.74 SW 5, p. 254; BFA 8, p. 220.75 See Genette, Palimpseste, p. 440.76 SW 5, p. 211.77 BFA 8, p. 203. See also the ensuing victory address by Creon: “You men, let it beknown: Argos / Is no more. Reckoning [Abrechnung] was / Complete.” BFA 8, p.203. Brecht’s retrospective projection of the language of fascist genocide(Abrechnung is taken from the vocabulary of a desk-top murderer) upon themythic ruler of an ancient Greek city-state is not dissimilar to the manner in whichHorkheimer and Adorno telescope bourgeois categories of self-understandingonto the figure of Odysseus: it provokes the shock of recognition from across avast historical distance.78 Werner Frick, ‘Die mythische Methode.’ Komparatistische Studien zur Transfor-

126Robert Savage░mation der griechischen Tragödie im Drama der klassischen Moderne (Tübingen:Max Niemeyer, 1998), pp. 542-51.79 BFA 8, p. 227.80 Jean Cocteau, “La Machine Infernale”, in Œuvres Complètes de Jean Cocteau.Volume V (Genève: Marguerat, 1948), p. 190.81 See BFA 24, p. 350.82 BFA 8, p. 212.83 BFA 8, p. 240.84 BFA 8, p. 241.85 SW 5, p. 262.86 See Dieter Baldo, Bertolt Brechts ‘Antigonemodell 1948’. Theaterarbeit nach demFaschismus (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein Verlag, 1987), pp. 17-8.87 Edward Said, Beginnings. Intention and Method (New York: Basic Books, 1975),p. 22.88 Max Frisch, Gesammelte Werke in zeitlicher Folge. Band II (FfM: Suhrkamp,1976), p. 597.89 See Richard Wagner, tr. William Ashton Ellis, Opera and Drama (Lincoln: U NebraskaP, 1995), p. 190: “O holy Antigone! on thee I cry! Let wave thy banner, thatbeneath it we destroy and yet redeem!”

No Longer Lost for WordsAntigone’s AfterlifeAlison ForsythWhy Revisit Classics Like Antigone?Sophocles’ dramatic depiction of the myth of Antigone (441 BC) hasundergone a range of theatrical reincarnations over the centuries, from thetellingly entitled Antigone ou le piete by Robert Garnier (1580) to versionsand free translations by Vittorio Alfieri (1783), Friedrich Hölderin (1804),Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1808), Walter Hasenclaver (1917), Jean Cocteau(1922), Jean Anouilh (1943), Bertolt Brecht (1948, an adaptation thatwas to be further re-adapted by Judith Malina in 1967), Tom Paulin (1984),Athol Fugard (1974), Miro Gavran (1990) and Seamus Heaney (2004) – toname just a few. It is the contention of this analysis that dramatic reinterpretationsof Sophocles’ Antigone have fallen into two very distinct phases;firstly those comprising predominantly reverential appropriations of the ancientclassic which tap into the source text’s cultural cachet to bolster thecultural, religious and political aims of the society in which it was currentlybeing performed; and secondly, the post 1945 appropriations. It is the secondphase that will provide the particular focus for this discussion.During the twentieth century and in particular since the Second WorldWar, Antigone was to be the subject of a marked interpretative transformation.This transformation was in the guise of adaptations and re-workingswhich attempted to liberate the source text from what was increasinglyCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/forsyth.pdf

128Alison Forsyth░deemed to be centuries of interpretative distortion, containment and stasisin the service of the ideological and moral beliefs at the centre of the Westernliberal humanist tradition. Following a brief overview of the way in whichAntigone was to experience an unrelenting campaign of appropriative christianization,particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, thisarticle will focus upon two key but contrasting examples of post-war adaptationsthat contest the earlier canonical reading practices which sought totrain and thus constrain Antigone’s “voice.” The two post-war adaptations tobe focused on are Brecht’s inspired and contemplative “model” warningagainst totalitarianism past, present and future and Athol Fugard’s anti-Apartheid protest drama, The Island.Adapting and Reinterpreting The ClassicsJonathan Miller has commented upon the “afterlife” of works of art,and how this mark of endurance cannot always be best nourished by later(and indeed often unrealisable) slavish reconstruction as “there comes apoint in the life of any cultural artefact, whether a play or a painting, whenthe continued existence of the physical token that represents it does notnecessarily mean that the original identity of the work survives.” 1 In this respect,Miller is equating adaptation and creative appropriation to a type ofperformative re-reading, a process whereby certain aspects of the artworkmay be highlighted or obscured according to the concerns of the interpretativecommunity which scrutinizes them. Similarly, Roland Barthes urgentlyendorses this kind of interpretative practice, particularly for a world that heperceives to be increasingly media saturated and in which the accelerationof information even extends to our “message” gathering reception of thosetexts at the very centre of the Western canon:Rereading, an operation contrary to the commercial and ideologicalhabits of our society which would have us “throw away” the storyonce it has been consumed (“devoured”) so that we can then moveonto another story, buy another book. 2Classics, like Antigone, are so implicated in our cultural tradition and historythat very often they provide eminently suitable sites for not only aestheticbut also socio-cultural re-investigation and re-reading. Indeed, processes ofadaptation and re-interpretation in relation to such eminent texts are at thevery root of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s espousal of “effective history” throughwhich our traditions, our past, might reveal something to ourselves of ourpresent predicament. 3 Walter Benjamin, years earlier, also highlighted thenecessity for a dialogic encounter between past and present:

░ No Longer Lost for Words 129It is not a question of presenting written works in the context of theirtime but of articulating the time, which grasps them – namely ours –in the time in which they originated. 4In this respect, classics like Antigone, are more than a mere text; they arethe textual manifestations of tradition which, whether we read the texts ornot, have shaped and formed our cultural situation and which thus representan inescapably strong and irresistible pull on our cultural consciousnessin the present. Arguably, our hermeneutic responsibility is to engagein dialogue with these classics, and thereby to initiate a conversation betweenthe past and the present. Great texts/artworks are not the cultural artefactsthat espouse eternal verities; rather, they are those in which subsequentgenerations are able to find a living significance for themselves. Byway of performatively re-reading or creatively appropriating such canonicalworks emergent and hitherto untapped meanings in such classics are elicited.As Joel Weinsheimer astutely suggests, “the full process of interpretingthe classic consists in a reciprocal questioning, a dialogue whereby theinterpreter too becomes interpreted.” 5 Appropriations of a work like Antigoneare reflective of a hermeneutic responsibility on the part of the dramatist,and by extension the audience/reader, to recognize his or her ownsituated and contingent historical interpretative position. Once such an interpretativeresponsibility is assumed, the classic is liberated from past historicalassociations and evaluations for a different and, most importantly,significant understanding in the present. As Jonathan Miller points out, “it isnot the meaning of the text that changes with the passage of time but itssignificance. The mere fact that a modern reader can recognize implicationswhich would have been unrecognizable to the original author does notimply that the meaning has altered.” 6A further dimension to take into account when discussing our receptionof later reinterpretations of Sophocles’ Antigone is the source text’smythical origins, which provide a suitably vague sense of creation that potentiallyliberates our ability to re-interpret the work. This is a point raised byIsabel Capeloa Gil: “myths describe a meaningful collectively important realityand are multi-significant. In Levy-Strauss’ opinion, this feature not onlyenables but also causes new readings of old myths in ever changingtime/space coordinates.” 7 Similarly, Michael J. Walton also observes thepolysemic power of myth, which, he states, “becomes personal by virtue ofits universality, inviting decodings tied to each new occasion or circumstance.Myth can reveal you to yourself.” 8 Indeed, Hans Blumenberg hassuggested how the mythical foundations of plays like Antigone provide uswith a symbolic framework within which current issues may be examinedalong philosophical, literary, historical, economical and social lines. 9 Such

130Alison Forsyth░reworking, Blumenberg suggests, may take the form of two opposing interpretativestrategies – affirmative or subversive. Gil refines this distinction byidentifying the former strategy as one that views mythical narratives astruthful and she cites the major exponents of such an approach as Wagner,Nietzsche and Hubner. The latter subversive approach is, according to Gil,characterised by interpretation that brings mythical stories to immanenceby denying their truthful basis as defined by Weber’s concepts of Entzauberung.Although this analysis of the way in which reinterpretations ofthe Antigonal myth fall into two antithetical categories is quite convincing,the very clear chronological divide between the re-interpretations of Sophocles’play cannot be dismissed. Such a historically interpretative chasm betweenpre-twentieth century and post-twentieth century appropriations, andmost notably, those written post 1945, further illustrates a distinction betweenaffirmative or subversive readings. However, in addition, a chronologicalawareness of adaptations’ production highlights the way those writtenduring the twentieth century and later were often oppositional negotiationswith the earlier re-interpretations which sought to expose their constrainingeffect upon the source text. These re-appropriations are oftenacutely intertextual with a critical edge and none more so than those whichfocus upon Sophocles’ Antigone.Following the crisis of conscience that followed the end of the war andthe horrifying realisation of the unimaginable, the Holocaust, the West’shitherto uncontested philosophical, social, political and cultural values wereto undergo a rigorous intellectual interrogation at all levels. Many artistsstrove for new modes of articulation and new forms of expression. Ironically,one way in which many dramatists sought to understand the worldwas to revisit the ancients, to embark upon a creative return to the classicsthat contested the received, often reified interpretations and hermeneuticstasis that had contained such works during the many centuries prior to thehorrors of the Second World War. Such a post-bellum hermeneutic returnwas no less apparent than with Sophocles’ Antigone. This resurgence of interestin the play was partly due to its central concern with post-war strifeand reprisal, but also because it captured the nightmarish imaginings of aworld that had lost its sense of moral anchorage, a post-Holocaust existencethat was compelled to reassess its once unquestioned certaintiesand faith in progress.The unseen but highly complex social dynamic that operates behindcultural evaluation, and the way in which a certain work, like Sophocles’Antigone, might possess an uncanny significance for an audience or readershipcenturies later is noteworthy. Herrnstein Smith observes such aprocess as being “in accord with the changing interests and other values of

░ No Longer Lost for Words 131a community, various potential meanings of a work will become more orless visible (or ‘realisable’) and the visibility – and hence value – of thework for that community will change accordingly.” 10 Post war, it wouldseem, the significance of Antigone was to resonate loud and clear.Antigone as Christian MartyrAlthough homage, in the form of rewriting or adapting the cultural cornerstonesof the Western dramatic canon, has long been practised and exercised,it is what George Steiner identifies as the peculiarly and “radicallytransformative” nature of the re-interpretations of Antigone that make an investigationinto the play and indeed the leading protagonist’s after-life sovery compelling. 11 Unlike Medea or Electra, not only has this particular ancientplay been re-contextualised, modernised and creatively allegorised –it has became subject to hermeneutic manipulation and even bowdlerizationin the service of the Manichean cosmology of the Judea-Christian tradition.Examples of such an ideological superimposition upon the play aremanifold, such as Percy Bysshe Shelley’s reference to the “godlike” Antigonein a letter to John Gisborne in 1812, and De Quincey’s exclamatorypraise for the central protagonist as, “Holy heathen! … idolatrous yet Christianlady, that in the spirit of martyrdom trodst alone the yawning billows ofthe grave.” 12 Indeed, by the time of the French Revolution, the figure of Antigonebecame “talismanic to the European spirit,” as she was re-cast in arole that confirmed her Promethean status as the ceaselessly oppressedrebel, the ever struggling underdog and the unrelenting champion of thepowerless – an uncompromizingly sympathetic, but nonetheless eternallysuffering characterisation. 13 Subsequently, Antigone, the play, has been instrumentalin propounding and disseminating ethical precepts and moralvalues that were not known at the times of its material production in the fifthcentury BC. As a result, the play has often been reinterpreted in the serviceof ideologies far removed from the philosophical context of ancient Greece:Why did Barthelemy choose just this tragedy for seminal reference?Why did Shelley, Hegel, Hebbel see in the mythical persona of Antigonethe ‘highest presence’ to have entered the world of men? Whatintention attaches to the repeated hints (in de Quincey, in Kierkegaard,they are more than hints) that Antigone is understood as acounterpart to Christ, as God’s child and messenger before Revelation?14The almost casual hermeneutic elision of the tortuously ambiguous strugglebetween conscience and state in the source text into a later iconographic

132Alison Forsyth░representation of Christian martyrdom was still to be in evidence well intothe twentieth century and was reflected in the writings of critics and philosophersalike:Among the Greek poets, Sophocles is the one whose quality of inspirationis the most visibly Christian and perhaps the most pure (heis, to my knowledge, much more Christian than any other tragic poetof the last twenty centuries. This Christian quality is generally recognisedin the tragedy of Antigone, which might be an illustration of thesaying: We ought to obey God, rather than men. 15However, as Charles W. Oudemans observes, it is unlikely that the Greekswould have “recognized the essentially romantic problem of the individualin revolt against the state.” 16 The ancients’ response to the outspokenwoman depicted in Sophocles’ play would have been far more complicatedand shaped by current philosophical concepts, including that of the pharmakon.The concept of the pharmakon, that is, the expulsion of poison toelicit a cure, was closely linked to the practice of ostracism in fifth centuryAthens, whereby the very crimes which are ultimately held against the ostracisedwere at the same time born of the very superior qualities whichraised him or her above “the common herd.” The pharmakon highlights theintrinsic ambiguity at the centre of Greek thought, wholly devoid of reductivelyconditioned notions of good and evil, and very much of topical concernat the time the play was first performed. At that time, Athens was experiencinga time of tumultuous change, resulting in a marked clash betweenthe ancient forms of religious thought and the new ideas relating tothe development of the law and new political practices. This conflict wasplayed out at the ancient dramatic festivals, through plays such as Sophocles’Antigone, and it is the centrality of concepts such as the pharmakon inthe source text that have been subject to subsequent distortion and omissionwith later christianised appropriations. The complexities of characterembodied in the original play have often been reinterpreted in such a waythat only the “remedy” of idealistic Christian utopianism is fore-groundedand the representation of the power of the spirit of good to overcome evilthrough suffering is artificially emphasized. However, as Jaques Derridaobserves, this ill-balanced interpretation totally distorts the original ancientconcept and its meaning:The common translation of pharmakon by remedy – a beneficentdrug – is not of course accurate. Not only can pharmakon reallymean remedy and thus erase, on a certain surface of its functioning,the ambiguity of its meaning. … Its translation by “remedy” nonethelesserases, in going outside the Greek language, the other pole re-

░ No Longer Lost for Words 133served in the word pharmakon. It cancels out the resources of ambiguityand makes more difficult, if not impossible, an understanding ofthe context. 17For Derrida, the pharmakon has been devalued and misrepresented bysubsequent interpretations. Indeed, it is clear to see how translations haveoverlooked the ambiguity of this central concept in Greek culture and art, inpreference for interpretative closure and hermeneutic resolution, contributedto the ease of its disappearance form later christianising interpretations.However, the text does not permit us to see Antigone in such simplisticterms, merely as a noble heroine who acts righteously and dies for herbeliefs. Instead, it clearly confronts and focuses on the dilemma presentedby the seemingly irreconcilable conflicting loyalties to the state and to thefamily, polis and oikos, presented in the play. The struggle of evenlymatched principles which lies at the very heart of the concept of the pharmakonwas central to the ancient Athenian experience, and, as such, wasfar removed from what was to become little more than the dramaturgicalreaffirmation of pre-ordained moralistic tenets about good and evil.Certainly, popular ideas about women would have influenced ancientopinion about Antigone and it is highly likely that the unmarried protagonistwould have been viewed by the all-male audience as conforming to thestereotype of emotional, irrational female virgin and that she might evenhave been considered a histrionic “menace to society.” 18 Just as theeponymous heroine’s unmarried status may have depicted her in a particularlight to the spectators at the theatre, similarly her name – Anti-gone or“anti-generation” – could have immediately suggested something unnaturalor perverse to an Athenian all-male audience. However, the rich polyvalenceof Antigone’s name cannot be underestimated, for not only does“anti” suggest “in opposition to” but also “in compensation of.” Critics suchas Stathis Gourgouris, see the etymological polyphony of the name as furtheremphasizing the irreconcilable battle at the heart of the play, for itseems to suggest that Antigone could be in opposition to progeny simultaneousto her being a “replacement” mother for her dead brother and her incestuouslycreated, disintegrating family. Indeed, it has been suggestedthat the best to way to summon up the contradictory nature of Antigone’sname is by way of the phrase, “generated in place of another” or “born tooppose.” However, over and above the intriguing and ongoing debateabout the meaning of Antigone’s name, the conflict between state and familybecomes all the more complex, for we are presented with a betrothed,much loved and fiercely principled young woman who in order to honourher ties of kinship denies herself husband, family life, future progeny andgenerational continuity for her noble line. In her strict, pious devotion to the

134Alison Forsyth░gods of death and burial, and indeed at the risk of her own life, Antigone issimultaneously refusing to acknowledge the equally important facets ofthose same gods: birth and renewal. This dichotomy makes it far less easyto see Antigone as purely a victim to patriarchal tyranny, and it makes usrecognise that “the fact that she has much of the right on her side does notmean she has all the right.” 19 Whether loyalty to the state superseded therigid adherence to the family was very much a live issue of debate for fifthcentury Athenians. Increasingly, as David Wiles points out, the establishmentof Athenian democracy rested in part on breaking down allegiance tothe oikos, in favour of unstinting support for the polis, and “in Greek democraticsociety ties of the family have to be subordinated to those sociallyconstructed ties which constitute the political system.” 20Reflective of the changing nature of society at that time, Sophoclesseems to critique the developing Athenian civic ideology that was often soforcibly represented in the pre-play ceremonies that took place in the theatreof the day. Such ritual at the dramatic competitions was used to boast ofthe wealth, power and civilized laws of Athens, and to encourage the citizensto endorse the democratic ideals that lay behind daily city operations.Conversely, however, ancient theatre was a debating forum par excellence,and it would be fair to surmise that Sophocles took advantage of this as“theatre was both an act of worship of a god and a kind of surrogate politicalassembly, it was in its nature to explore this middle ground between ritual,family and politics.” 21With the onset of the Second World War, followed by the myriad horrorsthrown up by a divided Europe and the aftermath of the Holocaust, reinterpretationsof Antigone were to assume a less overtly tendentious andoversimplified slant than those appropriations previously outlined, that hadpredominated since the French Revolution. Antigone as little more than abasic Christian triumphalist narrative, that piously celebrated the laudableconstancy of human suffering for the “good,” no longer filled the spiritualand ethical vacuum left by l’univers concentrationnaire. Thus, post-war appropriationsof Antigone sought to recapture the philosophical conundrumof the pharmakon at the core of Sophocles’ play, but for very topical issuesin the present. The compelling ambiguity of the source text was in tune withthe zeitgeist of a post-Holocaust world confronted by the unrepresentable,the inarticulable, the unimaginable. This, I would argue, would be the secondand long-awaited phase of Antigone’s “afterlife” – one that reinvestedthe classic with its original ambiguity, liberating it from the teleological certaintiesof redemptive narratives which Phillip Cohen characterizes asthose with the propensity to:Ease the pain of lived contradictions, furnishing missing links be-

░ No Longer Lost for Words 135tween origins and destinies, stitching together scattered historiesinto a singular totalising consciousness. 22Consequently, the character that had provided such an eloquently affirmativemouthpiece for the moralising tenets of a prevailing and dominant ideology,once again became as belligerent, as irrepressibly subversive anddangerously radical as the day she defied Creon’s unyielding edict. The oftenhazardous and certainly never-ending struggle of conscience, representedby both the play and character of Antigone, had re-entered thestage.“The Model” and Brecht’s AntigoneBertolt Brecht’s re-incarnation of Antigone was very much motivatedby the situation that he found himself in at that time – amidst the aftermathof global conflict and confronted by the seemingly insurmountable challengesof a post-war defeated Germany. Although written post-war, in1948, the action of the play commences three years earlier, during thedeath throes of the war and just as Antigone and Ismene discover theirbrother Polynices has been summarily executed as a traitor. Immediately,Brecht re-invests the Sophoclean play with the ethical complexities abouttreachery, partisanship, loyalty and recrimination often thrown up by internationalconflict and in so doing the war which led to the argument overPolynices’ burial rites is emphasised far more so than in the source text. Asthe manipulative but desperate Creon attempts to delude his own peopleinto believing in the war with promises of booty and reward, despite the factthat crucial battles are still taking place and remain far from resolved, ourattention is focused upon the human cost of war, rather than issues surroundingvictory and defeat. The play emphasises the way in which theyoung are sacrificed to satisfy the misguided principles or dangerous apathyof the aged. This theme is not only reinforced by the early death of Antigone,but also the needless death of two sons, the defiant Haemon andthe compliant Megareus, which in turn serves as a reminder of the earlierfatal demise of two contrasting brothers, Eteokles and Polynikes. The repetitiveemphasis on the sibling pairs in Brecht’s drama – Antigone and Ismene,Haemon and Megereus, Eteocles and Polynikes – serves to diminishthe christianizing message of right and wrong that has been symbolizedfor so long by the ostensible conflict between Antigone and Creon. Past,present and future are summoned up in this reworking as Brecht looksrather gingerly to a future that was being shaped daily by the menacinglyrigid and intransigent competing ideologies of the Cold War and, by extension,the increasing threat of a resultant nuclear catastrophe. Indeed, the

136Alison Forsyth░play probes into the way in which future generations can be destroyed bypersuasive dogma, political sophistry and oral tradition (a quite differentslant on the power of speech in the play). This is clearly suggested by theincreasingly embattled leader’s manipulative attempts to drown out anysound of perceived dissent be it from messengers (25), the Elders (32),Haemon, his son (42), Tiresias, the prophet (50) or indeed Antigone (28). 23Brecht suggests that, in Thebes, negotiation based upon understanding isdiscouraged in place of clear-cut and easily labelled ideological stancesthat consolidate self-perpetuating division and conflict. Thus, as opposed tosimply regurgitating the moralistically inspired notion of the struggle betweenclear cut good (Antigone) and evil (Creon), Brecht provides a farmore subtle warning against the failure to negotiate, to compromise, and toopenly discuss different standpoints and beliefs.Over and above redrafting Sophocles’ masterpiece to forewarn of theexcesses of political dogma in the present and for the future, Brecht’s overtacknowledgment to war and its aftermath is a focus of the play not only ona thematic level but also with respect to his dramaturgical method andform. Indeed, it was in response to the cultural disarray in post-war Germanythat he formulated his concept of “The Dramatic Model” and his decisionto return to the ancient dramas for inspiration. Brecht was also adamantthat post-war art of all kinds be used to purify language and culturefrom nazi heritage. The concept of Sprachswaschung or washing Germany’simmediate “cultural” past away, lies at the root of Brecht’s return toancient models and myth – such as that provided by Antigone – the mythand Sophocles’ play. Indeed, the dramatist commented upon the urgencyhe felt to return to ancient models to articulate post-bellum confusion, asopposed to utilising the source text to propose any celebratory but quite artificialdivide between victory and defeat, the past and future, tradition andnovelty. The confusion of post-war Germany, a nation trying to retrievesome sense out of the destructive impact of a tyrannical leadership, is centralto this re-interpretation, as opposed to being an invocation of theSophoclean tragedy through which to enunciate a reductively victorioustone about the destruction of the nazi regime. The detection of a sober reconciliatorytone in the play is borne out by Brecht’s own, albeit rather ambiguouslyphrased, words:The great character of the resister in the old play does not representthe German resistance fighters who necessarily seem most importantto us. It was not the occasion for a poetic tribute to them. 24Brecht’s concept of “the model” encapsulates his view that instead of feverishlyembracing anything of novelty in an effort to discard the wretched past

░ No Longer Lost for Words 137that created nazism, those working towards a new post war cultural life inGermany would be “well advised not to rely blindly on the assurance thatnew ideas are welcome.” 25 Undoubtedly, the dramatist believed there wasroom to create new ideas, but new ideas that resulted from negotiating withpast models in a productive and radical way. Antigone’s warning to Ismene“when we forget the past the past returns,” 26 dramatically emphasizes thisview. Brecht’s approach to what he termed the “masterful treatment of amodel” was not reconstruction, but a productive archaeological explorationthat aimed to make something in the present from the fragmentary detritusof the past. Benjamin’s analogy of the past, including past cultural works,as being at its potentially most productive when in a state of ruin is echoedhere. In a similar vein, Brecht considered “the model” as the aestheticequivalent to “the architect’s plans [which despite the destruction of ahouse or site] it seems, never get lost,” and to which we can make imaginativeand productive reference following a time of cultural dislocation. 27Typically, Brecht’s Antigone is depicted as an average person caughtup in the terrifying maelstrom that swept across Nazi Germany – not ahero, not extraordinary, not exemplary – just an individual with enoughcourage to confront Creon’s dictatorship, but whose defiant gestures aretragically unsuccessful. The eponymous heroine is introduced as “TheSecond” of two sisters hiding in an air-raid shelter in Berlin, 1945, who unwittinglyhear the murder of their brother. The play emphasises the ordinary,the commonplace and the humanity of Antigone, and, somewhatironically with respect to Brecht’s oft-stated dramatic aims, this permits agreater degree of empathy for Antigone on the part of an average audiencemember. The anonymous label, “The Second,” reinforces a sense of theaverage and the typical at the most extreme of times and in the midst ofwar – the great leveller. Also, we are left uncertain whether Antigone andIsmene are sisters of a German soldier fighting the allies, or whether hewas a partisan fighting with the allies, an uncertainty that pales into insignificanceas the play’s polemical stance unfolds. In the light of the increasinglyapparent ideological rift between East and West at the time of writing,it is hardly a surprise that the diminution of true democratic debate, past,present and future, is the central object of Brecht’s critique in his reappropriation.Indeed, the play’s resounding emphasis upon the pit-falls ofpolitical rigidity, fuelled by the power-crazed leaders who we permit to rule,is compellingly encapsulated by Antigone’s warning that “he who seekspower is drinking salt water. He cannot keep it down, yet has to drink more.I am not the first sacrifice, nor the last.” 28 Also, this caveat is summed upby Haemon’s poetic plea against the unnatural rigidity of dictatorship:HAEMON: Look, when the rain-swollen brook gushes

138Alison Forsyth░Past the trees, how all those that bendAre spared, but the unyielding are broken. Or when a laden shipSpreads out her sails and won’t slacken,Bending back from the rower’s bench,How it must end in shipwreck. 29Such hauntingly expressive words refocuses our attention away from thespecific conflict between Creon and Antigone to the wider ramifications,past and future, of undiluted power and war-mongering, and how our unnaturalacquiescence to such political situations is little less than infanticide.The maniacal leadership that was to result in the deaths of so manymillions under a range of artificially constructed precepts and exuberantlyverbose justifications during the Second World War reverberates throughouta play that steadfastly refuses to attribute any particular guilt or innocenceto those caught up in the conflict. As Creon turns his increasinglyuncontained wrath upon Antigone, Ismene, Tiresias, the Messenger andHaemon, the many sections of society that were to be labelled and addedto the ever-increasing number of casualties and victims of the nazi regimeare symbolically recalled and the horrifying roll-call of persecution and murderis highlighted. Celebration or retrospective triumphalism is not conjuredup by Brecht in this play which presents the pathos filled demise of thehouse of Labdacus, as Creon exits “holding nothing more in his hands thana bloodstained cloth,” from the body of his own dead son. Self-consciouslyand sheep-like “the Elders” admit that “we follow him still, and its all downhill.”30 The Elders’ exit serves as a chilling dramaturgical testimony to theway in which the young are so often sacrificed for the sins of their fathersand their silent followers who in an act of true self-immolation sublimate notonly their voice but also their mind to the state.In Sophocles’ play, Creon learns, to his own devastating cost, that thelaws of kinship that he respects with regard to his own civic power, he neglectswith regard to his own house. Acting as the authoritarian chief of thefamily, he violates the sanctity of that larger oikos of which Antigone is apart, by denying her marriage to Haemon and thus, future family life. However,it is important to note that Sophocles, and Brecht afterwards, do notallow us to comfortably assert that either Creon or Antigone is completelyjustified in their actions. Each encounters “laws” and justice that destroy hisor her own cherished and exclusive view. Creon’s refusal of the rights ofthe household and family culminate in his loss of both, and thus he comesto realise their importance to civic life. For Antigone, she is condemned todeath by the very civic laws she disregards and she too is forced to acknowledgetheir value. By her death, Antigone, whom Ismene warns is “toostrict,” 31 is ensuring the extinction of the oikos to which she so devotedly

░ No Longer Lost for Words 139shows allegiance, and thus she returns to her dead parents “cursed tolodge without a husband.” 32 In a perverse distortion of her designated rolein Athenian society, she marries herself only to death, and therefore puts astop to the continuation of the family line. This complex philosophical aporia,this moral gridlock, created just as much by Antigone as it is by Creon,is articulated by the unheeded words of the prophet Teiresias, in Sophocles’version, “self-will can turn out to be foolishness.” 33 Brecht re-focusesus away from the interpretative stasis that has for so long painted Antigoneas innocent martyr sacrificed to satisfy the bloodlust of a brutal regime. Insteadof utilising the source text to compose a modern day paean to hisown personal and political ideal of a just and righteous cause, Brecht advocatesthe need to respect and thus to vigilantly protect the necessarystruggle at the heart of democracy. Regardless of political persuasion,Brecht asserts, this necessary struggle must never be suppressed bydogma, raw might or unwieldy power. Such a call to be ever alert to thediminution of basic rights, for comrade and enemy alike, is made all themore poignant if we consider how Brecht had been summoned to theHUAC interrogations held in America, immediately prior to the compositionof his own version of Antigone. In many respects, it is reasonable to suggestthat, above all else, it was this harrowing experience of “democracy” inaction, in a post-war United States gripped by anti-communist hysteria, thatwas to be the defining inspiration for his highly philosophical, as opposed totriumphalist, post-war treatment of Sophocles’ classic.Thus, in keeping with the polemical knot at the centre of the sourcetext, Brecht replaces any reductive apportioning of blame in his play, with acompellingly clear advocacy for freedom of thought and expression at alltimes, and in all contexts. Brecht’s Antigone, like the source text, is a pleafor voice par excellence. However, the play is not only advocating for thevoice of an iconographic “good” character called Antigone, but rather for allwho are denied expression of thought and expression by a crushinglydominant ideology that seeks to silence alterity, difference and potentialdialogue.Apartheid, Antigone and “Life Art”The Island (a play initially devised in 1973 by Athol Fugard, John Kaniand Winston Ntshona during the Apartheid regime) is an example of whatWalter Benjamin identified as “revolutionary nostalgia.” 34 In accordancewith Benjamin’s thesis, The Island marks a return to the Western liberalhumanist literary tradition in order to articulate a critique of dominant conceptualand ideological notions about the “tradition of the oppressed” which

140Alison Forsyth░had subsumed and rationalised Antigone over the centuries. Benjaminwarned against hermeneutic stasis, which anaesthetises against real lifesuffering and can misleadingly result in responding to “the tradition of theoppressed,” as the norm, and which thus no longer prompts action, butrather perpetuates inaction. 35 Benjamin recognised that when reading becomesritualised, as is the case with many of the classics, including Antigone,the suffering depicted in such works becomes aestheticised, andthus distanced from the realities of daily praxis. In this way, the experienceof, for example, Sophocles’ play is supplanted by a ritualised reception ofan iconographic and perversely romanticised representation of the interminable,and by extension, accepted struggle of the oppressed. The audience/readerthus becomes strangely inured and comfortable with this aestheticizeddepiction of suffering. Over the centuries, “Antigone” has come toassume an iconographic status as the martyred champion of the oppressed,and, by transplanting this image of Western liberal humanism toan Apartheid-riven South Africa, Fugard questions the way the reception ofthe classics can often degenerate into a tacit cultural endorsement of sufferingand injustice under the euphemistic guise of a textual “tradition” ofthe oppressed. In this way, Fugard returns to one of the most well-knownplays in the Western canon, but more importantly he revisits the christianisedinterpretation that had been superimposed upon the reception of thatplay with an acutely critical voice – in order to highlight the moral flaws andethical insubstantiality of such canonised reading practices for and in anApartheid-riven South Africa. How, ask Fugard, Kani and Ntshona, could ablack South African version of Antigone’s suffering be deemed saintly, nobleand thus “acceptable” when thousands upon thousands were incarcerated,beaten, humiliated and murdered purely on the basis of their skincolour?The Island exposes the finite nature of redemptive and triumphalistnarratives as well as revealing the way in which racism operates by a processof the projection of values by those in power upon those who are powerless,often in the guise of virtue. As Philip Cohen points out:Every time a literary critic claims a universal ethical, moral or emotionalinstance in a piece of English literature, he or she colludes inthe violence of the colonial legacy in which the European value ortruth is defined as a universal one. 36Indeed, Bhekizizwe Petersen has commented upon the process of culturalprojection onto the indigenous population in South Africa during the earlyyears of the separatist and Apartheid regime:The pedagogic appeal of performance for missionaries and liberal

░ No Longer Lost for Words 141whites was that it seemed amenable to the transmission of Christian‘civilized’ ideals and values. Furthermore, theatre could be lockedinto their political and social projects. The stock themes of Theatrein-Educationin mission schools were those of repentance, charactertraining, habits of industry, diligence, thrift and obedience. 37In this respect, The Island’s return to the ancient play by Sophocles is astrategy to critique all shades of imperialism, be it born of brute conquest orresulting from distortedly misguided and overarching cultural paternalism.The re-invocation of a play, which had become synonymous with martyrdomand the skewed piety behind the tradition of the oppressed, in order torecount the very real situation of black South African political prisoners,demands a hermeneutic reassessment on our part. In this way, we arecompelled to recognize the way in which the very foundations of our culturalheritage have often been implicated and used as justification for atrocityand persecution. Fugard draws our attention to the missionary qualitywith which imperialist educators introduced christian interpretative stasis,such as their appropriation of Antigone, to South Africa, and how theythereby indirectly provided an interpretative justification for what was toevolve into Apartheid – adding weight to Jean Paul Sartre’s sobering viewthat often “humanism is the counterpart of racism: it is a practice of exclusion.”38 Thus, active remembrance of the archetypal and iconographical“tradition of the oppressed,” which had come to be represented by Antigone,is situated in violent opposition to the political present experienced inSouth Africa under Apartheid in this play. The result of such a defiant juxtapositionis to actively deconstruct one of the grand recits enshrined in theWestern liberal humanist tradition in order to draw our attention to the limitsof such narratives. In a sense, one could say that The Island dramaturgicallyimposes upon a Western euro-centric audience a process that GayatriChakravorty Spivak has described as “unlearning privileged discourse.” 39The voice of Antigone, the character, reverberates throughout the narrativestructure of The Island, on a number of levels. Firstly, the play positsthat there are countless Antigones by suggesting she represents all theblack political prisoners who were incarcerated for speaking out against theState during Apartheid. However, on another level the play centres aroundtwo fictional characters – “John” and “Winston” – who besides suffering thedaily humiliations and torture of prison life in the notorious detention centreRobben Island, are forced to entertain their unseen captors with a makeshiftproduction of Antigone. This meta-theatric dimension to the play,which later transforms us from mere spectators into the very captors whodemand to see the play, is a central device through which the audience arecompelled to re-consider not only Antigone, but also the canonised reading

142Alison Forsyth░practices that have been superimposed upon the play and unquestioninglyperpetuated over the centuries. The third way in which Antigone is reinvokedis through the actors and co-devisers of the play, John Kani andWinston Ntshona. Both actor/devisers are presented as almost indistinguishablefrom their characters “John” and “Winston,” not only through therepetition of names, but also as black actors who were forced to work insecret for fear of imprisonment, and who had experienced first hand thebrutality of a regime that imprisoned fellow actors for performing Antigoneto audiences in the culturally excluded black townships. Their suffering atthe hands of the State is inextricably linked to and represented through thedegradation suffered by the characters they play, and it is such a very firmautobiographical link that makes this version of Antigone much more than apolitically inspired representation of injustice – it is “life art.” In the contextof the play’s original performance, Kani and Ntshona present their lives onstage, unscripted, as black men who are at that very moment, politicallyand culturally oppressed. This is most movingly suggested in the mimedbut physically demanding opening sequence of the play that depicts Johnand Winston carrying out spirit-crushing tasks in the prison courtyard. Thescript does not designate a set time for this sequence, leaving John Kaniand Winston Ntshona with the decision as to how long the audience will besubjected to watching a deafeningly silent parody of not only their characters’Sisyphian punishment, but a symbolic re-enactment of their ownseemingly never ending, often hopeless and frequently unacknowledgedstruggle against Apartheid. In this way, Fugard et al utilise the power ofdrama to make us feel uncomfortable, uneasy and even guilty.The reception history of the play (and by play, I am referring to thesource text as well as the adaptation) is part of the subsequent dramaturgicaleffect of The Island. The play has literally broken free of the silenceimposed by not only the South African censorship laws, but also more importantlythe constraints of the piously framed canonised reading practiceswith which we cast Antigone as the “noble” embodiment of the “tradition ofthe oppressed.” In this respect, the close intertwining of an ancient dramaticprotagonist who dies for speaking out and the real life experiences ofthose like Kani and Ntshona, as suggested in The Island, re-invests ourexperience of the play not only with the authentically tragic proportions ofthe source text, but also with the identifiably realist effect of a play thatmakes us reassess our ethical and hermeneutic standpoint in and for thepresent. Such “life art” is imbued with authentic and real voices, and by extension,it reinvigorates Antigone, the character, with the terrifying and exhilaratingpower with which she once challenged authority.Ultimately, The Island far exceeds the considerable rigours of adapting

░ No Longer Lost for Words 143an ancient play for a modern day audience, for it is a revivification. Fugard,Kani and Ntshona present us with the reclamation of “life” on a number oflevels, textual, cultural and political, by repossessing Antigone for and astheir own story. As Shoshona Felman and Dori Laub point out, with respectto the articulation of trauma:Repossessing one’s life story through giving testimony is itself aform of action, of change, which one has to actually pass through, inorder to continue and complete the process of survival after liberation.The event must be reclaimed because even if successfully repressed,it nevertheless invariably plays a decisive formative role inwho one comes to be and how one comes to live one’s life. 40True to the testimonial spirit of The Island, voice and speaking are givenparticular prominence throughout the play, alluding not only to Creon’s silencingtactics in the source text, but also directly referring to the policy ofdenying all black South Africans any political and cultural expression duringthe Apartheid years. One example of the way in which the struggle thatJohn and Winston undergo to find a “voice” is the telephone game they devise,and through which they enjoy imaginary conversations with their familieswhen locked up in their cell. Conversely, the oratorical “voice” of John’sstaged ‘Creon’ is utilised to parody political sophistry. The effect of suchparody is to emphasise the way in which the most abhorrent and heinous ofideas can be made to sound appealing and even attractive through theadept manipulation of words and voice. John’s parodic rendition of Creon’soratory is one that demotes the misguided but often eloquent patriot of thesource text to being on a par with an unsophisticated and patronising touringevangelist. The finely tuned polemical balance between Antigone andCreon in the source text, is now, with close reference to the intertextualchristianisation of the play, thus shown to be of little consequence whenapplied to the horrific injustice of Apartheid.Sophocles’ “play” as presented by John and Winston is not an exemplumof the nobility of suffering, for such an interpretation is exposed as asham, and most powerfully so when Winston reassumes his own rejuvenatedsense of identity at the end of the play within the play:[Tearing off his wig and confronting the audience as Winston, notAntigone.]WINSTON: Gods of our Fathers! My Land! My Home! Time waits nolonger. I go now to my living death, because I honoured those thingsto which honour belongs. 41A potent irony in The Island is that Winston’s journey toward a new found

144Alison Forsyth░self-awareness of his own subjectivity is shaped as a result of his short relationshipwith the character of “Antigone.” In an ingenious reworking of oneof the central concerns of the source text – the denial of future progeny –Fugard utilises the source text in his play as the impetus for a new bornsense of self-determination on the part of the black South African politicalprisoner who has been cast in the role of “Antigone.” This moment ofepiphany for Winston takes place as he glances into his water bucket, onlyto see and be disgusted by his image – an emasculated, wig-donning caricature:[He is now at the cell door. He listens, then moves over to the wig onthe floor and circles it. He finally picks it up. Moves back to the celldoor to make sure no one is coming. The water bucket gives him anidea. He puts on the wig and after some difficulty manages to seehis reflection in the water. A good laugh, which he cuts off abruptly.He moves around the cell trying out a few of Antigone’s poses. Noneof them work. He feels a fool. He finally tears off the wig and throwsit down on the floor with disgust.] 42Winston’s disgust and abjection at the “Antigone” confronting him implicitlysuggests the birth of independent subjectivity as defined by Julia Kristeva’sabjection theory. Unlike Lacan’s mirror-stage, Kristeva identifies a primalrepression of undifferentiated being called the chora, prior to the mirrorstage. Before abjection, when the child is immersed in the chora, being isundifferentiated, and it is only through a process of abjection, that is, expellingthe mother’s body from its own self, that the child begins to form personalboundaries and then can experience mirror identification with alienimages:If it be true that the abject simultaneously beseeches and pulverizesthe subject, one can understand that it is experienced at the peak ofits strength when that subject, weary of fruitless attempts to identifywith something on the outside, finds the impossible within; when itfinds that the impossible constitutes its very being, that is none otherthan the abject. 43Similarly, Winston’s sense of abjection is so great when he sees hisreflection, he rejects the disguise offered to him by the “nanny” state anddiscards the mantle indicative of the teleology of the oppressed. Just asthis rejection represents a burgeoning sense of subjectivity and self-hoodon the part of Winston, it also symbolically represents the nascent freeSouth Africa in evolution. In effect, the disguise of Antigone is understoodfor what it is by Winston, to such an extent that his newly discovered sense

░ No Longer Lost for Words 145of identity is revealed to us by his failure to “play” the part at the end of theplay. In this respect, the self-effacement represented by the mirror image inthe cell water bucket has reasserted in Winston a new sense of self-hood.This process is almost like rebirth in the face of imminent disappearancethrough assimilation, for as Gadamer states:The ideal copy would be a mirror image, for its being really doesdisappear; it exists only for someone looking into the mirror, and isnothing beyond its appearance. But in fact it is not a picture or acopy at all, for it has not separate existence. 44However, by the end of his performance, Winston’s claim for a “separateexistence” releases the double edged pharmakon of the source text’s Antigone,who, as opposed to assuming the role of martyr promulgated byChristian interpretative stasis, re-emerges and gives voice to the liberatedAntigone that Winston has become. It is the pharmakon, as represented byAntigone, which subsequently provides the psychological poison to elicitthe cure of a sense of self-hood and identity in Winston. It is the pharmakonthat facilitates his recognition that he is the “Antigone” that will not be silenced,that will not be immured by the frames of reference of an unjust interpretativestasis.* * *The christianised interpretative tradition that was constructed aroundour reception of Antigone for so many centuries, eventually crumbled underthe weight of the horrifyingly momentous experiences of the twentieth centuryand beyond. Once again, our own uncertainties, doubts and fears inthe present have led us to listen to the complexities of the source text. Thecelebratory pious depiction of the Sophoclean character, so beloved by theRomantics, no longer resonates for a world in which racism, persecution,terrorism, freedom fighting, state murder and genocide continues to takeplace, often in the name of religion. During the twentieth century and particularlysince 1945, Antigone’s vocal range has once again tested our resolveto listen. Her many cadences, be they healing, accusatory or bereaved,are testimony to the enduring allure of Sophocles’ Antigone fordramatists today, and indeed they provide reaffirmation that after centuriesof interpretative stasis, Antigone is now most certainly not lost for words.Maurice Blanchot’s evocative description of the potential of the classics toengage our imagination today provides a particularly apposite conclusion tothis discussion of Antigone past, present and future: “What makes themseductive is … the future of what they say. Their fascination is due not totheir current song but to what it promises to be.” 45

146Alison Forsyth░University of Wales, Aberystwythalf@aber.ac.ukNOTES1 Jonathan Miller, Subsequent Performances (New York: Viking, 1986), p. 28.2 Roland Barthes, S/Z, trans. Richard Millar (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974), p. 15.3 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer (London:Sheed and Ward, 1989), p. 15.4 Walter Benjamin, “Thesis on the Philosophy of History,” Illuminations, ed. HannahArendt, trans. Harry Zohn (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970) p. 219.5 Joel Weinsheimer, Gadamer’s Hermeneutics: A Reading of Gadamer’s Truth andMethod (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1985),p.129.6 Miller, Subsequent Performances, p. 71.7 Isabel Capeloa Gil, “Antigone and Cassandra: Gender and Nationalism in GermanLiterature,” Orbis Litterarum, 55/2 (2000), p. 119.8 Michael J. Walton, “Hit or Myth: The Greeks and Irish Drama,” Amid our Troubles:Irish Versions of Greek Tragedy, eds. Marianne Macdonald and Michael J. Walton(London: Methuen, 2002), p. 4.9 Hans Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986), p. 10.10 Barbara Hernnstein Smith, Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives forCritical Theory (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1988), p. 10.11 George Steiner, Antigones: The Antigone Myth in Western Literature, Art andThought (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989), p. 139.12 Thomas De Quincey, De Quincey’s Works (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black,1863), p. 65.13 Steiner, Antigones, p. 7.14 Steiner, Antigones, p. 19.15 Simone Weil, Intimations of Christianity Amongst the Ancient Greeks, trans. E CGeissbuhler (New York: Beacon Press, 1958), p. 9.16 Charles. W. Oudemans, Tragic Ambiguity: Anthropology, Philosophy and Sophocles’Antigone (Leiden and New York: E. J. Brill, 1987), p. 3.17 Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (London: Athlone Press,1981), p. 97.18 Paul Cartledge, “Deep Plays: Theatre as Process in Greek Civic Life,” The CambridgeCompanion to Greek Tragedy, ed. P. E. Easterling (Cambridge: CambridgeUP, 1997), p. 30.19 Charles Segal, Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles (Oklahoma:Oklahoma UP, 1999), p. 168.20 David Wiles, An Introduction to Greek Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge UP,

░ No Longer Lost for Words 1471992), p. 67.21 Wiles, An Introduction to Greek Theatre, p. 77.22 Phillip Cohen, “It’s Racism what Dunnit – Hidden Narratives in Theories of Racism,”in Race, Culture and “difference,” eds. James Donald and Ali Rattansi (London:Sage, 1992), p. 74.23 Bertolt Brecht, Antigone, trans. Judith Malina (New York: First Applause, 1990),pp. 25, 32, 42, 50, and 28 respectively.24 Brecht, “Masterful Treatment of The Model,” Brecht on Theatre: The Developmentof an Aesthetic, ed. John Willett (London: Methuen, 1994), p. 210.25 Brecht, “Masterful Treatment of the Model,” p. 209.26 Brecht, Antigone, p. 18.27 Brecht, “Masterful Treatment of the Model”, p. 209.28 Brecht, Antigone, p. 3.29 Brecht, Antigone, p. 42.30 Brecht, Antigone, p. 64.31 Brecht, Antigone, p. 36.32 Brecht, Antigone, p. 47.33 Sophocles, The Theban Plays, trans. A. L. Brown (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 74.34 Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 2.35 Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 211.36 Cohen, Race, Culture and “difference,” p. 248.37 Bhekizizwe Petersen, “Apartheid and the Political Imagination in Black South AfricanTheatre,” Politics, Power and Performance: Theatre, Poetry and Song inSouth Africa, ed. Liz Gunner (Johannesburg: Witswatersrand Unversity Press,1994), p. 36.38 Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason I: Theory of Practical Ensembles,trans. Alan Sheridan Smith (London: New Left Books, 1976), p. 762.39 Gayarti Chakravorty Spivak, “Criticism, Feminism and The Institution,” The PostcolonialCritic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, ed. Sarah Harsym (New York:Routledge, 1990), p. 9.40 Shoshona Felman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature,Psychoanalysis and History (New York: Routledge 1992), p. 85.41 Athol Fugard, The Township Plays (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993), p. 226.42 Athol Fugard, The Township Plays, p. 211.43 Julia Kristva, Powers of Horror: An Essay in Abjection (New York: Columbia UP,1982), p. 5.44 Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 138.45 Maurice Blanchot, The Infinite Conversation, trans. Susan Hanson (Minneapolis:Minnesota UP, 1993), p. 41.

Irish Antigones:Burying the Colonial SymptomKelly YoungerThe word “tragedy,” as Irish critic Shaun Richards points out, “is a termfrequently used to describe the contemporary Northern Irish situation. It isapplied both by newspaper headline writers trying to express the sense offutility and loss at the brutal extinction of individual lives and by commentatorsattempting to convey a sense of the country and its history in moregeneral terms.” 1 Since identifying this particular use of the word, it has becomeclear that the Irish are not referring to tragedy in general, but toGreek tragedy in particular. For example, Deaglán de Bréadun writes inThe Irish Times: “The whole community knows outright disaster was onlynarrowly averted at Drumcree last year [1996]. There is also a terriblecreeping feeling that Drumcree Three will be upon us soon and that, like aGreek tragedy, this time disaster is inevitable.” 2 Another article the followingyear, on Sinn Fein’s exclusion from the 1998 Peace Process, reported:“One long-distance peace processor lamented that today’s events were‘like a Greek tragedy. You can see the end coming but you can’t do anythingabout it.’” 3This “language of exhausted fatalism” 4 is not unfamiliar to the Irish,and offers an explanation for the more than twenty Irish authors who havetranslated, produced, or adapted over two dozen Irish versions of Greektragedies in the last century alone. 5 Irish poets have translated the trage-COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/younger.pdf

░ Irish Antigones 149dies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, yet all with a distinctly Irishstamp. Moreover, these Irish-Greek (or Hiberno-Hellenic) adaptations all, inone way or another, comment upon and question the instability of twentieth-centuryIreland – the people, the poets, and the divided country.Of all the Greek tragedies available for translation and adaptation, twoin particular offer an insight into the Irish perception of self and nation: onefor its peculiar paucity, the other for its abundance. The Oedipus Rex is notonly the first Greek tragedy to appear on the professional Irish stage, but itis also the least performed. Its first run was its last. The Antigone, on theother hand, arises again and again in Ireland, at one point appearing fourtimes by four different authors in the very same year. Lacan explains the attraction:We know very well that over and beyond the dialogue, over and beyondthe question of family and country, over and beyond the moralizingarguments, it is Antigone herself who fascinates us, Antigone inher unbearable splendour. She has a quality that both attracts usand startles us, in the sense of intimidates us; this terrible, self-willedvictim disturbs us. 6But why are the Irish drawn to her in particular, and why have the Irishgiven preference to Antigone over Oedipus?In this article, I will argue that the Irish were drawn to this dutifuldaughter because of their familiarity with her predicament. By predicamentI refer to Judith Butler’s description: “Antigone appropriates the stance andidiom of the one she opposes, assumes Creon’s sovereignty, even claimsthe glory that is destined for her brother, and lives out a strange loyalty toher father, bound as she is to him through his curse.” 7 The Irish, similarly,have appropriated the “stance and idiom” of the one they opposed (i.e.,England) while simultaneously living out a “strange loyalty” to the English,bound as they were through the curse of their colonial past. This past, consistingof futile attempts to overthrow the colonizer, explains why the Irishwere not drawn toward productions of the Oedipus. For nearly eighthundredyears of English colonization, political patricide had proven impossible.The Antigone, therefore, becomes a symptom of this failure to decolonize.Moreover, it changes the course of Irish drama in the twentiethcentury by taking on two forms: first, a kind of analogue deferral of actualproductions of the Oedipus play (resolving into an affinity for melancholycomedies) and second, the symptomatic staging and re-staging of the Antigoneas a rebellious, political, and anti-Oedipal drama.In order to understand this problematic relationship between Oedipusand Antigone, we must first turn to the most important voice of early 20 th

150Kelly Younger░Century Irish letters. In the winter of 1904, W.B. Yeats began work on hisversion of King Oedipus for the new Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and “was allthe more enthusiastic about it because the play was banned in London.” 8By 1905, Oliver St John Gogarty provided Yeats with a verse translation ofthe play, but Yeats disapproved of it. Yeats turned then to the English classicistGilbert Murray for a translation, but Murray refused. He said:I will not translate the Oedipus Rex for the Irish Theatre, because itis a play with nothing Irish about it: no religion, not one beautiful action,hardly a stroke of poetry. Even the good things that have to bedone in order to make the plot work are done through mere loss oftemper. The spiritual tragedy is never faced or understood: all thestress is laid on the mere external uncleanness. Sophocles no doubtdid many bad things in his life. I would not try to shield him from justblame. But in this case I am sure, he was in a trance and his bodywas possessed by a series of devils … It has splendid acting qualitiesas an acting play, but all of the most English-French-Germansort; it is all construction and no spirit. 9It is interesting that Murray denied Yeats request on the grounds that Oedipus“is a play with nothing Irish about it,” yet he considers it to have “splendidacting qualities” for English, French, or German actors. Murray suggested,instead, that Yeats perform Prometheus, the Persae, or Antigone atthe Abbey – plays “with a seditious innuendo.” 10 In other words, rebelliousplays for the rebel Irish.Yeats “lost interest in the project” late in 1910 when “the English censorwithdrew his ban on the play.” 11 Yeats became discouraged not justbecause of the lifting of the ban, but from news that someone else – someonewho knew Greek very well – had already gained the Lord Chamberlain’spermission to produce their new version of Oedipus. The translator?Gilbert Murray. 12 In a disappointed and hurt voice, Yeats informs LadyGregory of the news: “So you were right. … They will do it better than wewill – alas.” 13In his “Plain Man’s Oedipus” published in the New York Times on 15January 1933, Yeats is more specific as to his motivation for producing anOedipus for the Irish National Theatre and his hopeful results:When I first lectured in America thirty years ago, I heard at the Universityof Notre Dame that they played Oedipus the King. That playwas forbidden by the English censorship on the ground of its immorality;Oedipus commits incest; but if a Catholic university could performit in America my own theatre could perform it in Ireland. Irelandhad no censorship, and a successful performance might make her

░ Irish Antigones 151proud of her freedom say even, perhaps, “I have an old historical religionmoulded to the body of man like an old suit of clothes, and amtherefore free.” 14The Greek tragedy of Oedipus, then, would not only establish the new AbbeyTheatre, but it would enable the Irish to the thumb their noses at theEnglish; it would ultimately free Ireland of its historical, political, and religiousshackles. Quite a claim for a play. But just when the Irish productionwas about to go through, it fell to pieces and the English production took tothe stage. This situation is not merely an historical disaster, however, but arecapitulation of a personal, and deeply Irish version of the Oedipal complex.Declan Kiberd, in his excellent Inventing Ireland, offers an analysis ofIreland’s revolution in Oedipal terms. He writes:In societies on the brink of revolution, the relation between fathersand sons is reversed. The Irish risorgimento was, among otherthings, a revolt by angry sons against discredited fathers. The fathershad lost face, either because they had compromised with theoccupying English in return for safe positions as policemen or pettyclerks, or because they had retreated into a demeaning cycle of alcoholismand unemployment. The Irish father was often a defeatedman, whose wife frequently won the bread and usurped domesticpower, while the priest usurped his spiritual authority. Most fathersaccepted the English occupiers as part of the “given” and warnedtheir sons against revolt. …In a colony the revolt by a son against a father is a meaninglessgesture, because it can have no social effect. Since the natives donot have their hands on the levers of power, such a revolt can neitherrefurbish nor renew social institutions. … When the sons ofeach generation rebelled, they soon saw the meaninglessness oftheir gesture and lapsed back into family life, as into “a haven in aheartless world”: yet it was a haven that, in every respect, reflectedthe disorder of the outside colonial dispensation. The compromisedor broken father could provide no convincing image of authority. InMemmi’s words: “It is the impossibility of enjoying a complete sociallife which maintains vigour in the family and pulls the individual backto that more restricted cell which saves and smothers him.” All thatremains is for the son, thus emasculated, to take the place of theweak and ineffectual father. 15Kiberd’s interpretation of the male Irish condition leads to an Oedipal complex,only on a national scale. England metaphorically plays the role of

152Kelly Younger░Laius (the Father) while Ireland plays Oedipus (the Son). Moreover, theruler (distant yet authoritative) emasculates the ruled (powerless yet rebellious).One paradox, however, complicates the situation for Ireland: theIrish father is also a colonised son. The Irish son, as a result, has two fathers,neither of whom he can rebel against. One is too powerful, the othertoo weak. Patricide, though desirable, is therefore impossible.During the Irish literary renaissance, this failed Oedipal theme surfacedagain and again in the works of many formative writers, includingPearse, Kavanagh, and O’Casey. The most notable treatment, however, isJ.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World where Christy Mahon winsthe hearts of a County Mayo village after killing his own father. Pegeen iswooed away from the inept Shawn Keogh by Mahon’s defiant act. The villagerssoon learn that the father-killing is a lie, and turn on Mahon for makingthem believe he was anything other than a servile child (like the rest ofthem). Joyce, as well, “chronicles a whole series of unreliable, inadequateor absent fathers, priests and authority figures.” 16 He takes the theme astep further, however, and suggests that an absent father is actually preferableto an authoritative one. As a result, the son can freely re-invent himself.Just as Mahon metaphorically killed his father in order to create a newmythological self, Stephen Dedalus of Ulysses is “himself his own father,”“made not begotten.” 17 Kiberd notes:What was written, again and again through the Irish revival, wasan Anti-Oedipus, which saw the ancient tale not as awful tragedy butas happy comedy. True, the children of Oedipus felt the pangs offear and guilt which assailed the scattered offspring of Old Mahon –but Christy’s comic patricide makes History possible. The ensuingsearch for a father-surrogate may be rooted in a desire to erase thememory of the necessary patricide … but no surrogate and no actualfather can suffice for the child who must invent a self. …That said, it should be added that this constant preoccupationwith father-figures in revival texts is the tell-tale sign of a societywhich is unsure of itself and of its ultimate destiny. Its rebellions areconducted not so much against authority figures as against theirpalpable absence. These gestures rehearse not the erosion ofpower so much as the search for a true authority, and in them willlurk the danger of re-Oedipalization. 18The irony of the Oedpial situation, then, is that patricide is necessary forhistorical progress. The Irish, it seems, viewed this complex as a melancholiccomedy because the fathers could not be found; Irish sons had to inventauthoritative Irish fathers before they could kill them.

░ Irish Antigones 153This tradition of failed or deferred attempts at oedipalization eventuallyproduced a symptomatic abundance of Antigones in Ireland. In 1984, fourIrish Antigones emerged from her stony tomb, and all written within monthsof each other: Brendan Kennelly’s Antigone, Aidan Carl Mathew’s Antigone,Tom Paulin’s The Riot Act, and Pat Murphy’s film Ann Devlin. AnthonyRoche and Christopher Murray each offer explanations for the fourAntigones of 1984. For Roche, it is the “difficult balance between the claimsof the status quo and the urge to revolution, between the need to build stablepolitical structures and maintain tribal loyalties [that is] particularlyfraught and precarious in the Irish context.” 19 Roche then draws upon thelegacy of a Gaelic past – referring to the Brehon laws, the traditional Irishfamily structure, and the former “centrality of woman to the culture” 20 – toshow how well Antigone transfers into an Irish milieu. Roche concludes thatAntigones “were never more needed than at present, when every statementfrom [Irish] political and church leaders carries with it the implicit injunction:‘Antigones, lie down.’” 21Murray goes a step further and explicitly identifies these political andreligious ‘injunctions.’ He says:[1984] was the year of the New Ireland Forum Report; the year ofthe Criminal Justice Bill; the year of the Kerry Babies’ Case; the yearafter the failure of the abortion debate and the year before its sequel,the debate on divorce which ended in a crushing defeat for liberalopinion in Ireland. 1984, accordingly, was an appropriate year forAntigone to walk forth and state her ‘non serviam’ to the Irish establishment,with the understanding that the establishment would not,could not, be shaken from its position. 22For Murray, these “Orwellian year” events “attracted [Irish poets] to the Antigonemyth through an apocalyptic vision of political and social events inIreland, North and South, in 1984.” 23The first Antigone we will investigate was written by Brendan Kennelly(b. 1936). Kennelly’s version is interesting because he emphasizes not onlyAntigone’s rebellious quest for articulate action, but her sister Ismene’s inabilityto rebel. Traditionally, the two sisters are categorised in much thesame way as Antigone and Creon. Ismene is afraid of Creon’s word, andtherefore will not act. She chooses to obey civil law rather than the ancientlaws of kinship. Ismene is all talk, and no action. Kennelly, however, in hisIrish version of the tragedy, moves us beyond these restrictive categories.Ismene is usually the conservative litmus for Antigone’s radical demeanour,but Kennelly merits her more dignity. She is not a coward. She does notlove her unburied brother any less than Antigone. She is equally trapped in

154Kelly Younger░her own marginality. Ismene, just as Antigone, struggles to find words thatexpress her own experience. She says:Antigone, not a single word of friends,Not a single happy or miserable word,Has reached meSince we two sistersWere robbed of our two brothers,Killed in a single day.Since the Argive host fledI might as well be deadBecause I know nothing more,Not, as I have said, one solitary word. 24Ismene, like her sister, is without ‘words.’ The two women struggle to find alanguage of their own. Antigone may have remarked that ‘word and deed’were one in her, but when her grief comes to a head, she is inarticulate.When the Guard describes Antigone burying her brother, he says “Shegave a sharp cry / Like a wounded bird … She cried beyond all bounds ofwords.” 25 Here, Antigone is without words because she cannot find theproper male-vocabulary to express her experience. 26 Language is lost toher. She must create her own. And yet how possible was it in Ireland at thattime to create a distinct, non-violent, or safe language. The “very day [Kennelly’s]Antigone opened at the Peacock [Theatre in Dublin] saw a huge funeralfor a dead IRA man in Monaghan.” 27Aidan Carl Mathews (b. 1956) produced an Antigone as well in 1984,yet in contrast to Kennelly’s version, his is more ironic, humorous, and theatrical.His drama is set in “Ireland in the 1980s B.C., soon after Sparta hasentered the war on the German side.” 28 His setting reveals his affinity forGreek, German, and Irish history as well as suggests the postmodern collapseof time. Mathews, like Kennelly, makes several important adjustmentsto the ancient script. For example, Haemon becomes HeMan, Creonbecomes a fascist dictator, Eteocles’ name is changed to Peteocles, orPetey. It is highly significant that Mathews changes Eteocles’ name (soboth brother’s names begin with the letter ‘P’), because at one point Antigonewrites a ‘P’ on a wall as graffiti – a symbolic act of burying or markingthe death of both brothers. Moreover, Mathews plays with the notion thatthese characters have been playing their roles for 2000 years, and they aresimply worn out. The Chorus opens the play by saying: “I’ll come in here, I’lltraipse around, I’ll say my lines – I got the most fuckin’ difficult lines in thewhole thing – I’ll do my party piece, scrub down, and fuck off home again,O.K.?” 29 Clearly not a direct translation, yet at the same time, it is obviously

░ Irish Antigones 155written in Irish colloquialism. The play’s most radical departure from theoriginal text comes in Antigone’s final speech. She says to the audience:Do any of you know Polyneices? Polyneices? Please. Please tellthem. Please stop them doing this. (Chorus attempts to muffle hermouth with his hand. She bites, he strikes her.) Jesus, my nose isbleeding. Stop it please. Tell them. Tell them. They’ll come for thewoman down the street. Will you tell them then? They’ll come foryour next door neighbour. Will you tell them then? They’ll come foryou. And after that, when there’s nobody left, they’ll come for themselves.30This passage is significant not only for its metatheatricality, but because theattempt to silence Antigone takes place at a time in Ireland when Antigonelikefigures were speaking out on abortion, divorce, and Catholic misogyny.The Chorus, who remains cynical throughout, closes the play by commenting:“They say to me: You’re a middle-of-the-roader, Chorus. And they’renot bein’ nice. But I ask you, I ask you … what is the most dangerous placeto be? It’s not the fuckin’ footpath. It’s the guy in the middle of the road whogets mowed down.” 31Tom Paulin (b. 1949) offers the most modified and controversial Irishadaptation of the Antigone. This highly political Belfast poet frequentlywrites in a thick, Northern Irish vernacular, and that fact leads to interestinginterpretations of his play The Riot Act: After Antigone (1984). While hemaintains the traditional conflicts of Antigone (i.e. man vs. woman, age vs.youth, society vs. individual), his version has a distinct Irish parallel. Creon,in the play, resembles a British politician in Northern Ireland during theThatcherite era. He sustains the political parallels through British and Ulsteraccents, yet his version appears to celebrate materialistic endeavoursrather than the philosophical undertakings of Sophocles’ drama. Paulindoes not include any mention of man’s responsibility to be moral. In theend, Creon is destroyed, but his stubbornness takes on the air of the deadlockthat faced Northern Ireland at the time. His Chorus ends the dramawith:There is no happiness, but there can be wisdom.Revere the gods; revere them always.When men get proud, they hurl hard words, then suffer for it.Let them grow old and take no harm yet: they still get punished.It teaches them. It teaches us. 32Yet we are left to wonder who ‘they’ are – the Irish or the English, the moralor the amoral? Moreover, who is ‘them’ and who is ‘us’? Paulin leaves us in

156Kelly Younger░a dead-lock – in a stale-mate without an answer – probably because in1984, there was no answer in sight for the troubled North.The fourth, and final, Antigone of 1984 is the film Anne Devlin by PatMurphy. Briefly, it is the dramatisation of the life of a housekeeper namedAnne Devlin who worked for the historical Robert Emmet (a member of theUnited Irishmen who, after the failure of the rebellion of 1803, was executedby British soldiers). The film opens with Anne wiping dust away froma dead male’s body, and preparing it for a proper Catholic burial. When theBritish forces intervene, she, as expected, rebels against them. Major Sirr,the Creon figure once again portrayed as British, serves as the symbolicLaw to Anne’s “disengagement from the fatally compromised, taintedspeech of male power in which the Irish and British sides have both engagedand to which her actions, questions, and final refusal to speak havebeen a consistent challenge.” 33 The most moving image of the entire film,however, comes when Anne, in her imprisonment, holds the body of heryounger brother in her arms. This mixed image of rebellion in defeat createsand further propagates “the colonial legacy of sentimentality and abjectvictimage.” 34 Moreover, it offers an image of irresistible suffering; asymptom of yet another failed attempt at oedipalization.If we accept the earlier proposal that the Irish son was fated to becomethe ineffectual Irish father, then we begin to understand why Irish audiencesrelated with these rebellious Irish Antigones. By employing the Lacaniannotion of the Father as Law, we see the inability of the Law to fullycastrate the Irish subject and define the subject’s symbolic role in the world.This application makes for a reading of the Antigone where Creon, be hethe authoritative Catholic Church, the Irish father, or the English colonizer,is attempting to represent the kind of lingering tribalism and irrational coreof resistance to symbolization.We may come even closer to understanding these Irish Antigones ifwe look at her in terms of the dutiful daughter faced with submission to theFather’s Law. This dutiful daughter may submit, as Elizabeth Grosz outlines,in various ways: “a submission to the oedipalization of desire, to thepatriarchal denigration of her corporeality and pleasure, to a femininity definedas passive, castrated, superficial, seductive, narcissistic; or even asubmission through what appears to be resistance to the oedipal law, i.e.,the so-called ‘masculinity complex.’” 35 It is clear that Oedipus’ other daughter,Ismene, opts for the former while Antigone chooses the latter. By resistingoedipalization, Antigone the daughter attempts to appropriate the masculinepower hitherto denied the feminized and colonized Irish son.The attempt, however, always fails. That is the tragedy. It also repeatsitself. That is the symptom. The Irish subject, therefore, relishes in passive

░ Irish Antigones 157narcissism, not from despair or apathy, but from a pleasure taken in irresistiblesuffering. In other words, the feminized Irish male identifies with Antigone’smasculinity complex – desiring it himself – but recognizes the futilityand consequences of such resistance in the enduring colonial matrix.Moreover, this Irish subject prefers to remain within that realm of narcisisticvictimization, i.e. forever licking his own wounds. Antigone the character,therefore, represents the strength for political insurgency and the potencyof individual resistance that was denied to the Irish by the English. At thesame time, according to the relentless plot, her character must be sacrificedand the play must conclude with the victimization of her body, the castrationof her voice, and the burial of her resistance. The drama demands areturn to repression and passivity – the state of the Irish in 1984 under theirchurch, their state, their history. Antigone serves, then, as an outlet inwhich the Irish not only identify with her defiant nature, but canonize her asa martyr for the Republic. The tension formalized in this vision of the rebel/victimsignifies less an egoistic compensation for political impotence,than an enjoyment of living within the boundaries of symptomatic suffering.But why would the Irish desire to hold onto the symptoms of colonizationwhen they are no longer a colony? Why find jouissance in victimizationif victimhood no longer applies? Although the Republic of Ireland has beendecolonized for almost a century, the presence of the occupiers remainsboth in mind (i.e., through the English language) and in proximity (i.e.,Northern Ireland). The North, especially during the mid-1980s, continued toplay the traditional role of an English Creon to the Republican Antigone. Itserved as a continual reminder of a colonial past, yet because its presencecould neither be denied nor ignored, Irish Antigones continued to play theworn out, failed, and futile attempt at masculinity in the face of colonization.And the Irish, at the time, continued to buy into it because they foundpleasure in such a dramatic display of failure. They desired her ability to resist,but took delight in her failure and fell back into their own familiar spaceof narcissistic passivity – a space no longer necessary in their post-colonialsituation. If what constitutes a symptom is that one believes in it, it is alsothe belief in it that draws one to revisit, repeat, and redramatize thetrauma/tragedy.It took over a decade for a new Irish Antigone to appear who, I believe,stops buying into her symptomatic situation. An Antigone finally emergedwho is able to locate the unavoidable trauma of colonization and tragedyinto the childish, beautiful, and even transcendentally incestuous body ofPolyneices himself. Perhaps it is the cultural, political, and economic stabilityIreland experienced during the end of the twentieth century – in conjunctionwith the Good Friday peace agreement between North and South –

158Kelly Younger░that finally created a space for a new Antigone. Irish poet Catherine PhilMcCarthy filled this new space with her poem “Antigone”:What kind of fury made yousteal out at dawnand again at noonhardly seeingwhere you were going,your head down,to seek out his bodyleft past the cityfor carrion?When you found itexposed to the skiesyou laid it outwith bare handslike the child who playedin the sand atburying her brother,as he shut his laughing eyestight to waitmotionlesswhile the fine dust fallson the honey brown skinof his legs,pale valley of his neckon ribs of divine hair. 36With this poem, McCarthy does two important and radical things. First, sheasks Antigone the question: ‘Why did you do it?’ Such a simple question,yet no one – not even the Irish writers discussed above – ever really askedthat of Antigone. As the result of centuries of traditional criticism, Antigone’sactions are often written off as fraternal love or respect for divine law.McCarthy, however, acknowledges that sense of mystery in this particularcharacter’s actions. Much like Lacan’s discussion of James Joyce’s writingin terms of the sinthome – that is an “‘artificial’ self creation” as a means ofinventing “a new way of using language to organize enjoyment” 37 – Mac-Carthy transports the burial back to Antigone’s childhood, creating an imageof a young brother and sister playing in a sandbox or on the beach.There is a sense of laughter, childish innocence, and tanned skin. Accordingto the Irish critic Fintan O’Toole, “there is not and never has been apure, universal text of Antigone divorced from contemporary politics. The

░ Irish Antigones 159effort to construct one now is as appropriate as taking the figs out of the figrolls.” 38 Yet in eight stanzas, McCarthy does what countless men have triedto do in their own translations or adaptations of the Antigone: she takes thefigs out of the fig rolls; she removes Antigone from the political arena, andtransforms the burial of her brother from a political, defiant, riotous act intoa synthesis of the Imaginary, Real, and Symbolic. If the Irish symptom is areturn of the repressed signifier of their colonization, MacCarthy’s poemchallenges the Irish not to cure this symptom – for as we know, a symptomcan never fully be cured, only partially analyzed – but to identify that sympotmaticregion where the undissolvable sinthome can be enjoyed as achildlike, playful act of poetry.Just recently, The Abbey Theatre commissioned a play by SeamusHeaney to mark the centenary celebration of the Irish National Theatre. Tomark one hundred years of Irish drama, the theatre did not request a revivalof an Irish play nor even a new – specifically Irish – drama that wouldspeak to a contemporary audience. Instead, they commissioned a newtranslation of the Antigone. Heaney’s play, retitled The Burial at Thebes, issignificant for two reasons. First, obviously, because it shows that Antigonecontinues to resurface and fascinate the Irish. Second, because of all theIrish versions of Antigone, Heaney’s is the most Greek and the least Irish.There are very few Irish colloquialisms in the language of the play and noreal departures from the original that would hint at an Irish subtext. It is aclose, faithful, and academic adaptation. Antigone, finally, crosses the Irishstage solely as a Greek heroine in a Greek tragedy, not an Irish one.At her final exit, on the way to her own burial, Heaney has his Antigoneproclaim:Now gods of Thebes, look down.Through my native streets and fieldsI’m being marched away.And never, you men of Thebes,Forget what you saw today:Oedipus’s daughter,The last of his royal houseCondemned. And condemned for what?For practising devotion,For a reverence that was right. 39The stage direction then reads: “Antigone is led out.” 40 This particular Antigoneis an attempt to lead her out of Ireland as well. Heaney’s title, TheBurial at Thebes, refers both to the burial of Polyneices and to the burial ofAntigone. It is a burial, however, that is elsewhere; not in Ireland, but at

160Kelly Younger░Thebes where the children of Oedipus originated. The hope is that she, asa symbol of the colonial symptom, will remain buried. The return of the repressed,however, is a powerful exhumer. How and when the next Antigonereturns to the Emerald Isle, therefore, remains to be seen.Loyola Marymount Universitykyounger@lmu.eduNOTES1 Sean Richards, “In the Border Country: Greek Tragedy and Contemporary IrishDrama”, Cedric Barfoot and Rias van den Doel (eds.) Ritual Remembering: History,Myth and Politics in Anglo-Irish Drama (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 1995),p. 191.2 Deaglán de Bréadun, “Orange factions struggle at the edge of the abyss,” The IrishTimes (5 April 1997), p. A1.3 Deaglán de Bréadun, “Sinn Fein exclusion is likely to be short,” The Irish Times(16 February 1998), p. A3.4 Eammon Hughes, “‘Introduction: Northern Ireland – Border Country”, in EammonHughes (ed.), Culture and Politics in Northern Ireland (Buckingham: Open UniversityPress, 1991), pp. 7-9.5 See Kelly Younger, Irish Adaptations of Greek Tragedies: Dionysus in Ireland(Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001).6 Jacques Lacan, Seminar VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-1960. Ed.Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Dennis Porter (New York: W.W. Norton and Company,1997), p. 247.7 Judith Butler, Antigone’s Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2000), p. 23.8 Brian Arkins, Builders of My Soul: Greek and Roman Themes in Yeats (GerrardsCross: Colin Smythe Publishers, 1990), pp. 127-8.9 Joseph Hone, W.B. Yeats: 1865-1939 (London: Penguin Books, 1942), p. 257.10 Hone, W.B. Yeats, p. 257.11 Frederic Grab, “Yeats’s King Oedipus”, Journal of English and Germanic Philology,LXXI (1972), p. 339.12 See Murray’s letters to Harley Granville Barker Barker in C.B. Purdom, HarleyGranville Barker (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1955), pp. 112-16.13 Collection of Michael Yeats; National Library of Ireland Manuscript 18689 referencedin David Clark and James McGuire, W.B. Yeats: The Writing of Sophocles’King Oedipus (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1989), pp. 17-8.14 W.B. Yeats, “Plain Man’s Oedipus,” New York Times (15 January 1933).

░ Irish Antigones 16115 Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation (London:Vintage, 1996), pp. 380-1.16 Kiberd, Inventing, p. 381.17 Kiberd, Inventing, p. 385.18 Kiberd, Inventing, p. 388-9.19 Anthony Roche, “Ireland’s Antigones: Tragedy North and South” in Michael Kenneally(ed.), Cultural Contexts and Literary Idioms in Contemporary Irish Literature(Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe Publishers, 1988), pp. 249-50.20 Roche, “Ireland’s Antigones”, p. 250. For a discussion of the Brehon laws and ancientIrish women’s rights, see Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race(36 th ed., Old Greenwich: Gramercy, 1982) pp. 129-41 and Patrick Power, Sexand Marriage in Ancient Ireland (2 nd ed., Chester Springs: Dufour Editions, 1997).21 Roche, “Ireland’s Antigones”, p. 250.22 Christopher Murray, “Three Irish Antigones” in Jacqueline Genet and Richard AlanCave (eds.) Perspectives of Irish Drama and Theatre (Gerrards Cross: ColinSmythe Publishers, 1991), p. 129. For a thorough telling of these events, seeTony Gray, Ireland This Century (London: Little Brown and Company, 1994), pp.309-16.23 Roche, “Ireland’s Antigones”, p. 250.24 Brendan Kennelly, Antigone (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1986), p. 7.25 Kennelly, Antigone, pp. 20-1.26 Cf. Eurydice’s silent exit before her suicide. The Chorus says: “Why has Eurydiceleft without a word?” The Messenger responds: “I don’t know. Perhaps to grieve inprivate” (Kennelly, Antigone, p. 46). It is appropriate to point out that Sophoclesgives Eurydice 9 lines (1183-1192), while Kennelly writes her over 60 lines, plusan invented scene between herself and an attendant.27 Colm Toibin, “Oh, oh, Antigone,” The Independent on Sunday (London 4 May1986), p. E1. He is referring to the following from the Guard’s opening speech: “Isaid to myself ‘You eejit, you’re / Going to your doom.’ / And I said to myself‘What, you old slowcoach!’” (Kennelly, Antigone, p. 14).28 Aidan Carl Mathews, Antigone (unpublished script 1984), p. 1.29 Mathews, Antigone, p. 1.30 Mathews, Antigone, p. 58.31 Mathews, Antigone, p. 60.32 Tom Paulin, The Riot Act: After Antigone (London: Faber and Faber, 1985), p. 63.33 Roche, “Ireland’s Antigones”, p. 249.34 Roche, “Ireland’s Antigones”, p. 249.35 Elizabeth Grosz, Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction (New York: Routledge,1990), p. 150.36 Catharine Phil McCarthy, “Antigone” from The Blue Globe (Belfast: BlackstaffPress, 1998), pp. 81-2.

162Kelly Younger░37 Dylan Evans, Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge,1996), p. 190.38 Fintan O’Toole, “Struggling with the Greeks” in The Sunday Tribune (4 May 1986),p. C6.39 Seamus Heaney, The Burial at Thebes: Sophocles’ Antigone (London: Faber andFaber, 2004), p. 41.40 Heaney, Burial, p. 41.

GENERAL ARTICLES

Imperial Therapy: Mark Twain and the Discourseof National Consciousness in Innocents AbroadDaniel McKay“It may be thought that I am prejudiced. Perhaps I am. I would beashamed of myself if I were not.” 1 When Mark Twain (Samuel LanghorneClemens, 1835-1910) undertook correspondence for San Francisco’s AltaCalifornia on a $1250 trip to Europe and the Holy Land in 1867 he had anestablished reputation as a humorist and was on the cusp of making thetransition from journalist to author. Innocents Abroad, “an unvarnishedtale” 2 published in 1869 and sewn together with questionable regard forcoherence or thematic consistency, sold thirty-one thousand copies in oneyear. Only Uncle Tom’s Cabin had done better, as Twain himself noted.What made his work such a success? “This book is the record of a pleasuretrip” (I, xxi), Twain declared, yet there had already been innumerablepleasure trips and by more established authors than he.The multiplicity and seemingly contradictory narrative stances in Innocentsmakes any essentialist reading hard to establish and what onestance purports is as likely and easy to prove as any other. In the mainthough, two bodies of criticism have prevailed hitherto, one seeing the textas flawed by internal discontinuities, the other perceiving that disjointednarration need not preclude a unified authorial consciousness. 3 It is mycontention that Twain most likely wrote with at least five entirely separatepurposes in mind, none of which coexisted simultaneously:COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue10/mckay.pdf

░ Imperial Therapy 165i. The profit, reputation and contractual fulfilment to be had in writingc. 1500 words to newspapers daily.ii. The demonstrable acquisition of high society vocabulary and culturalregard commended by Mrs. Fairbanks and Olivia Langdom. 4iii.iv.An arrant attack upon Presbyterianism.A break with the codified genre of travel writing.v. The promotion of Twain as healer of a wounded nation.Point v) has gone largely neglected by critics. Yet Twain’s role as a unifierin post Civil-War society, as projector of national identity abroad for thebenefit of domestic patriotism, and as healer of war-torn America is a cornerstoneto our understanding Innocents. As shall be seen, shades of mental/nationalinjury coexist in the text, alongside a humorous (and sometimesnot-so-humorous) denigration of foreigners. The resultant implied superiorityof America and Americans, notwithstanding Twain’s passing jabs atthem and in spite of their bloody internecine conflict, is what I term “imperialtherapy.”This idea involves not the erection of a new multidisciplinary sociopoliticalconstruct, but more a counter-reaction to the prevalent Eurocentricworld view already in place. In other words, it is a revisionist stance. Thereader’s recognition of European hegemony with regard to cultural discourseis taken for granted by Twain, or rather he seeks to displace its apparentimmovability in the American social mindset. As Edward W. Saidnotes, “to have knowledge of … a thing is to dominate it, to have authorityover it,” 5 and Twain, unrepentantly prejudiced, is the self-acknowledgedpurveyor of authoritative, possessive standpoints. In Innocents, as we shallsee, humour becomes the all-powerful tool of the seer viewing the seen,playfully mulling the object’s importance and ultimately redirecting it to thenarrator’s area of perceived (and most often lowered) importance. “Imperialtherapy” indicates something of the reason for this in terms of national identityat home and the comfort to be had in patriotism reflected upon the extra-Americanworld (along with encompassing the process itself as one ofobjectifying Europe a propos America).Forrest G. Robinson usefully notes that “movement toward the ‘positive’pole of one cultural axis inevitably involves simultaneous movementtoward the ‘negative’ pole of another.” 6 In other words, one cannot complimentor criticise a foreign people without implying either deficit or surplus inone’s own culture. A realignment such as this concerned Twain very much,carrying with him as he did the knowledge that Europeans had long passedjudgement upon his “rapacious and ruthless developing nation” 7 both mor-

166Daniel McKay░ally and culturally. To him fell the task of re-evaluating the American psycheand satisfying a readership which was “avid, newly lettered, newly leisured,the beneficiaries of a democratised culture.” 8Yet equipoise between a culturally arrogant Europe and resurgentAmerica was never on the literary agenda; Lynn asserts that Innocentsgives us “the American: newborn, not yet come of age, but neverthelessprepared to … judge all the nations of earth by his own.” 9 In Innocents,Europe as perceived through Twain undergoes a readjusted interpretationvia realism coupled with satirical exaggeration. The reviewer writing underthe pseudonym Folio notes that Twain “saw things as they were, not asthey [had] been described by poets and romancers” 10 and yet Twain whollyredefines what is seen, as shown in the episode with the guide in Rome:We came very near expressing interest, sometimes – even admiration– it was very hard to keep from it. We succeeded though. Nobodyelse ever did, in the Vatican museums. The guide was bewildered– nonplussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinarythings, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was afailure; we never showed any interest in anything. (I, 306)In this passage, the self-other dyad is most apparent. For Twain and hisgroup are cultural insiders, privy to “the subtleties of the American joke” involvingan imposition of humour inevitably lost on European minds. Thusthe group’s own identity is maintained and enforced through their isolationistbantering and consequent refusal to engage in cultural reciprocity. Thishumour has the added effect of reversing standard roles – it is the guide,not they, who becomes the cultural outsider: “If he does not enjoy it, somuch the worse for him. We do” (I, 302). Any reader would have sensedthis barrier of comical yet calculated difference and “the implication that thehistory of Europe is but a burden to be cast off by the man of the newworld.” 11 Humour, then, becomes a codified tool of amendment in redressingEurope’s suffocating cultural dominion, refusing to accede to it, andpromoting “an attitude of national assurance and confidence which neitherthe nation nor its travellers had had before the war.” 12Such apparent levity represented Twain’s subtlest manifestation of imperialtherapy. Robert A. Wiggins puts it plainly when he reveals Twain’seulogising of the noble savage:The humour in The Innocents Abroad is founded upon this assumptionof folk superiority. The elemental mind is somehow superior tothe more complex but morally corrupt civilised mind. 13This is all too apparent when Twain declares: “These creatures [guides]

░ Imperial Therapy 167never suspect – they have no idea of a sarcasm” (I, 301). In other areas hisrole as travel writer allows him to dispense with humour altogether and acrass cultural narcissism usurps the comedy. Ultimately, in the aftermath ofCivil War, the capacity to comprehend historical meaning (through memory)becomes the property of Americans, and guides, as delegates of old pre-U.S. European society, become unwelcome impostors:If they would only show you a masterpiece of art, or a venerabletomb, or a prison-house, or a battle-field, hallowed by touchingmemories … it would not be so bad. But they interrupt every dream.(I, 180)Guides, under the universal cognomen of “Ferguson,” are perceived notonly as functional illiterates but as divorced from all that they seek to represent.This is clear in Twain’s refusal to divulge his admiration for artworkexcept, of course, to his readers. We alone are privy to what his “shrewdpair of American eyes” 14 fixates upon and the intimacy established is directlyrelative to the distance – i.e. negative difference – between Twainand his host cultures. The humorist has made a smooth transition to theimperialist, appropriating all that is deemed essentially American – humourand historical appreciation – and, by the time he reaches Constantinople,Twain no longer has need of even a peripheral dialogue with the people butbegins at once with an attack on indigenous appearance: “There was nofreak in dress too crazy to be indulged in; no absurdity too absurd to be tolerated;no frenzy in ragged diabolism too fantastic to be attempted” (II, 67).A transition in cultural evaluation takes place throughout the trip, withthe textual journey paralleling the journey itself. J. DeLancey Fergusonstates that “the continuity of the Innocents is the continuity of the tour it records,nothing more.” 15 However, I would hold that there is a unity to Innocentsand it rests in the replacement of the humorist’s banter with thefranker prejudices of the travel writer as a tool of imperial discourse. WhileTwain starts from an amusingly superior stance, he shifts toward the disparaginglyaloof and finally, at Endor, all pretence at impartiality isshrugged away:They do not mind dirt; they do not mind rags; they do not mind vermin;they do not mind barbarous ignorance and savagery; they donot mind a reasonable degree of starvation, but they do like to bepure and holy before their god, whoever he may be. (II, 227)Implicit is the idea of America as unpolluted, fully enlightened and gracedwith a clean bill of health sadly lacking in the Old World. By this time, thenarrator’s voice is free of any semblance of relative thinking (i.e. suspend-

168Daniel McKay░ing judgement and recognising “other” criteria for self-evaluation) and hisjudgements fall hard and severe, a fact which sits uncomfortably with NearEastern critics even to this day. 16 Such totalising depreciation is earlier predictedin the imperialist paradigm employed in Morocco:I have caught a glimpse of the faces of several Moorish women (forthey are only human, and will expose their faces for the admirationof a Christian dog when no male Moor is by), and I am full of venerationfor the wisdom that leads them to cover up such atrocious ugliness.(I, 75)As Blunt notes, the unveiling of a woman is symbolic of a country acquiescingin colonisation and the influx of Western civilisation. 17 This action, orthe encouragement of it by Twain, must be seen in the established traditionof colonialist discourse.References to the veil were typically constructed around the topos ofthe sensual Orient and therefore, by implication, loaded images redolentwith sexuality and allurement. William Dean Howells had stated that “thereis very little to say of The Innocents Abroad which is not of the most obviousand easy description.” 18 Yet Twain’s unmasking of the Oriental woman(and, by default, the Orient itself) to find only disappointment sets up aparadigm shift loaded with undertones which were anything but obvious.No longer is the veil seen as masking anything desirable – no longer is theOld World itself desirable – and, in speaking of the inferiority of Frenchwomen as opposed to American women, Twain concludes: “I feel, now, likea man who has redeemed a failing reputation” (I, 148). One might point outthe necessity to distinguish between perceptions of Europe and the NearEast, yet Twain’s destruction of such topoi comes early on in the European(i.e. pre-Holy Land) stage of his journey and can therefore be contextualisedas a theme applicable to the European region as much as any. Muchof Innocents is constructed around this redemption of the homelandthrough despoiling foreign myths, and, by reversing the established toposof revered Old World sophistication, Twain effectively moves one step furthertoward asserting the positive pole of his native culture.Synchronous with this idea comes a disengagement with associationism,“the notion that a writer could endow a landscape [and people] withaesthetic value by evoking images of past events connected with it.” 19Twain made this break clear by crafting Innocents as “an act of irreverencetoward Europe and the past.” 20 Writers such as “Cooper, Hawthorne, andEmerson … had seen and lamented the American tendency to stand in impotentawe of Europe, and they particularly resented the European affectationof superiority to Americans.” 21 Responding to this, Innocents recounts

░ Imperial Therapy 169the entry to Horta thus:A swarm of swarthy, noisy, lying, shoulder-shrugging, gesticulatingPortuguese boatmen, with brass rings in their ears, and fraud in theirhearts, climbed the ship’s sides. (I, 35-6)Any romantic idealism is at once discounted, Twain’s sceptical tone makinga complete break with the sentimentalism we might have presumed forthcoming.Clearly one of the great attractions of Innocents to contemporaryreaders was the book’s complete upending of traditional idealisation.The inferiority of Horta’s defences relative to American naval power isfocused on next. This projection of America as technologically superior andof Europe as industrially/technologically backward is a running theme. Forexample, in regard to France, Twain states that “we are not infatuated withthese French railway-cars” (I, 98) and later it is presented as wondrous thatmany American streets are twice as wide as the Jordan (II, 342). ShouldEurope present cutting-edge industry, then Twain is complimentary but incredulous:“As for the railways – we have none like them. The cars slide assmoothly along as if they were on runners” (I, 262). That Europe could possesssuch transportation systems is deemed hardly credible but, unconvincedthat such discoveries imply shared national qualities, Twain later reestablishesthe perceived contrast:The Popes have long been the patrons and preservers of art, just asour new, practical Republic is the encourager and upholder of mechanics.In their Vatican is stored up all that is curious and beautifulin art; in our Patent Office is hoarded all that is curious or useful inmechanics. (II, 8)The reader is thus assured that while Europe monopolises history, Americais the pioneer of progressive mechanisation. Here, being the beneficiary ofindustrialisation is seen as incompatible with boundless heritage. One cannothave both and, by deemphasising this possibility, Twain once more reassureshis readership that America is modernising while anything vaguelysimilar or better in Europe is an abnormality. Much later, there also comesa telling description of Galilee:If these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness, thatnever, never do shake the glare from their harsh outlines, and fadeand faint into vague perspective; that melancholy ruin of Capernaeum;this stupid village of Tiberias, slumbering under its six funerealplumes of palms … if these things are not food for rock me tosleep, mother, none exist, I think. (II, 239)

170Daniel McKay░That the land is negatively described in terms of absence rather than presence,and the village as dormant and apathetic, touches upon the “capitalistvanguard” 22 rhetoric of the type that sees no worth in landscape beyondindustrial potential or the lack of it. At an extreme, this viewpoint highlightsraw materials over appreciation of the aesthetic and although Twain nevergoes this far, his geographical comparisons betray overt colonialist language.Leslie A. Fiedler reminds us that Twain “had lived in a landscape soterrifyingly beautiful … that beside it the scenery of the Old World wasbound to seem pallid, domesticated, dwarfed.” 23 It is indeed likely that“what is said is most naturally said” 24 and that Twain recounted these detailsout of genuine bemusement, yet they occur frequently:The Tiber, that celebrated river of ours [sic], which stretches itsmighty course almost two hundred miles, and which a lad canscarcely throw a stone across at Rome, is not so long, nor yet sowide, as the American Mississippi – nor yet the Ohio, nor even theHudson. (I, 280)Innocents, meant less for the educated and well-travelled, was “bought andread and laughed over by ‘the belly and members,’ as [Twain] put it –Americans in small towns and farms all over the country.” 25 These peopleneeded clear points of comparison (e.g. Samaria to Rhode Island: II, 283)and, as long as associationism, with all its implied romanticism, was castaside, Twain was free to indulge in purely dimensional comparisons. Thishe does a great deal. At Como, considering the lake, he exclaims: “how dullits waters are compared with the wonderful transparence of Lake Tahoe” (I,203). Then, speaking of the Arno: “It would be a very plausible river if theywould pump some water into it” (I, 253). When he describes Magdala as“thoroughly Syrian … thoroughly ugly, and cramped, squalid, uncomfortable,and filthy” (II, 233), the colonial dominance over the foreign is observed.America, by contrast, must be sanitary, new, Anglo-Saxon andspacious. Here, Twain is not only “applying the standard of Nevada to historicalEurope,” 26 but establishing a clear-cut difference favouring Americangeography in every way. Upon entry into the Holy Land, relative thinkinghas entirely departed from Twain’s culture-shocked discourse: “Such roastingheat, such oppressive solitude, and such dismal desolation cannotsurely exist elsewhere on earth” (II, 352, my emphases). As to why suchextreme language should be employed at this point, one may speculatethat a combination of factors came into play. The disparity between his expectationsand the reality, the taxing climate and the duration of the journeyitself must all have contributed.Despite his apparent break with associationism, Twain resorted to lit-

░ Imperial Therapy 171erary pastiche by inserting passages which clearly were ascribing historicallyromantic images to landscapes. It has been noted that “the poses thenarrator strikes … vary so widely that no single one can be called typical ofall the rest” 27 and that “Innocents Abroad has over nine thousand wordsborrowed from books, letters and notices of various sorts.” 28 Thus the passageconcerning Venice is clearly reliant upon cultural familiarity:Under the charitable moon her stained palaces are white again, theirbattered sculptures are hidden in the shadows, and the old cityseems crowned once more with the grandeur that was hers fivehundred years ago. It is easy, then, to fancy, to people these silentcanals with plumed gallants and fair ladies. (I, 223)The oft-quoted Sphinx passage (II, 382-3), as with the above, was lateradded and is strongly influenced by sentimentalist writing such as that ofWilliam C. Prime. Bret Harte noted that “when Mark Twain is not simulatingindignation, he is really sentimental.” 29 This is clear when Twain describesVesuvius as “a circular ditch” but then seems to switch register by notinghow “the sun burst through the morning mists and … topped Vesuvius likea jewelled crown!” (II, 30). Such anomalous insertions arise elsewhere andyet it is likely that these inconsistencies are not representative of the styleoriginally intended. Indeed, since the American Publishing Company ofHartford required a book of two volumes, Twain had to fill out his correspondencewith additional material 30 and “the changes he made in revisionwere dictated … by his effort to become the kind of writer he thought [hiswife Livy] wanted him to be.” 31 Of necessity then, Twain “is committed to aseries of exaggerated poses,” 32 ranging from realism/colonial discourse forthe purposes of readership to associationism/padding to please his futurewife and publishers. There is also the possibility that, despite his humorist’smandate to destabilise conventions, Twain may have had a genuinely ambivalentresponse to the scenes he encountered.Whatever the intent, such disjointed stances create a “nervous, attimes even frantic rhythm” 33 which Henry B. Wonham believes part of a“game of juxtaposition.” 34 Robinson, however, criticises Wonham, whohas nothing to say about the numerous, much more mingled, and oftenbaffling passages – eruptions of anger, dismay, disenchantment,and horror – in which the traveller’s feelings are evidently less controlledand much less easily brought into alignment with criticalschemes featuring self-conscious authorial design. 35But literary intentionality is not incompatible with the mental instability suggestedby Robinson. We have already seen how Twain employed and

172Daniel McKay░lapsed into colonialist rhetoric for the purposes of aggrandising Americaand that this was especially welcome and/or necessary following April1865, when U.S. citizens were ready to receive “an American point of viewtoward Europe as opposed to a Southern, Western or New England pointof view.” 36 The instances of disequilibrium can be seen as both indicative ofpost Civil-War shock and as literary techniques in their own right. Robinson’sargument rests on the premise that mental disturbance leads to a totaldisability in authorial design. I propose that Twain may indeed have undergoneserious psychic disturbance during and following the Civil War.While, later in the century, Stephen Crane was able to compose harrowingscenes in The Red Badge Of Courage without having taken any part himself,Twain was able to fully incorporate both his childhood experiences andmorbid fixations as textual elements with which his readership would likelyhave identified. Indeed, the abruptness of the grim passages seems verymuch akin to a type of shellshock flashback, e.g. his visit to the Parismorgue:On a slanting stone lay a drowned man, naked, swollen, purple;clasping the fragment of a broken bush with a grip which death hadso petrified that human strength could not unloose it – mute witnessof the last despairing effort to save the life that was doomed beyondall help. (I, 127)Such imagery would have been familiar to the veteran section of theAmerican population and Twain’s pondering hardly an uncommon experiencein much of the rest. Later, speaking of a gondola, he writes, “it wasmore like a hearse than anything else” (I, 219) and, looking at a tear jug inPisa, holds that “it spoke to us in a language of its own; and with a pathosmore tender than any words might bring” (I, 259). Twain is clearly identifyingwith life-departure imagery and the bond between author and reader isa private one – as distanced from people in the locality as it is from us today.A type of transcultural appropriation takes place at these moments.Scenes of pathos and morbidity, viewed through Twain, are perceived interminology uniquely self-referential. Twain becomes, in the main, alone inhis reactions and, by extension, so is the reader. Just as humour haderected a difference between the American and the European, so thescenes of despondency do likewise. A system of transference is erectedwhereby Europe presents to Twain various images which invite a sorrowfulfree association. He interprets these, sometimes personally – as in thememory of the corpse in his father’s office (I, 173-4) – but more often ingenerally dolorous language with which the contemporary reader, through

░ Imperial Therapy 173the immediacy of the Civil War, can equate and thus appropriate as a personallyresounding image-emotion-memory. That Europe does not andcannot experience such thoughts is indicative of the erection of differencein Twain’s discourse and, accordingly, the narrative employs an imagebasedacquisition. America no longer takes art or culture from Europe onEuropean terms, but reinterprets the proffered experiences to accord withAmerican history. This is best shown at Jerusalem when, in the midst ofscepticism about the crucifixion’s locality, Twain suddenly switches tone toone of acceptance based on the War of Independence: “there will be novestige of Bunker Hill Monument left, but America will still know where thebattle was fought” (II, 313). Only war can make the improbable seem whollylikely and, in this sense, becomes a currency which lends credence to anything.In conjunction with this is the deprecation of Twain’s sycophantic companions,“the pilgrims,” for here too he chooses a portrayal with a fixedmeaning for his readership. Much has been said on Twain’s antipathy towardreligion but such critiques have been more concerned with Twain visà-visthe established church than to religion in general. 37 The pilgrims –made distinct, by literalist religious belief, from the pilgrimage in whichTwain himself was on – according to my reading, are literary devices inwhich the America/Europe divide is embodied. The act of despoliation, akey element to this, is focused on in many areas: “The incorrigible pilgrimshave come in with their pockets full of specimens broken from the ruins” (II,196). It is shortly after this that Twain appends: “The ruins here are not veryinteresting.” From this we may gather that it is less the damage to themonuments than the act itself which annoys him. In other words, it is thedeed, not the damage, which he abhors. Later, prior to detailing the ultimatesacrilege of defacing the Sphinx, Twain says:There are some things which, for the credit of America, should beleft unsaid, perhaps; but … for the real benefit of Americans, oughtto have prominent notice. (II, 384-5)We are therefore to understand his comments as instructive. Undoubtedlythere is, in Twain, a real sense of righteous outrage but, coincident withthis, is the symbol of the pilgrims as part of latter-day America. This polarityis summarised as follows:America vs. Old America“Sinners” vs. PilgrimsU.S. Patriotism vs. Veneration (of the Old World)Observation vs. Participation

174Daniel McKay░Put simply, the act of exporting things from Europe, of filling the void inone’s own civilisation by taking specimens/cultural pointers from another, istoo indicative of historical vacancy in America for Twain to feel comfortable.The pilgrims’ expropriation of religion and Old World culture, itself epitomisedin the specimens, causes the pilgrims to represent an outdatedmode of veneration in place of patriotism. For Twain, art in Europe is not tobe automatically hallowed but to be downplayed as ignoble, as HarrietBeecher Stowe had written before the war:There are more pretty pictures, and popular lithographs, from Francethan from any other country in the world; but it produces very little ofthe deepest and highest style of art. 38The absolute idolatry espoused by the pilgrims, along with their characteristicneed to take Europe back to America, is shunned in Innocents as an obsoletestyle. The symbolism of pilgrims as the antithesis of national allegiancedeepens when we note how they quote from books discarded byTwain: “The pilgrims will tell of Palestine … not as it appeared to them, butas it appeared to Thompson” (II, 244).The pilgrims, then, do not observe except to confirm and conform.They have, in short, come to personify the old formula of unquestioningveneration and, in Twain’s world, such fawning is unbecoming to the revivednation. Viewed this way, the scene of their haggling for passageacross a river and subsequent argument becomes an allegory for the CivilWar itself: “how the pilgrims abused each other! Each said it was theother’s fault, and each in turn denied it” (II, 227). Economics is a key motivation;they lose sight of their goal and lapse into internecine struggle. All ofthis is hypocritical: just as America had attempted to distance itself fromEuropean corruption so the pilgrims attack avarice. Each proves guilty ofthe selfsame faults and, as a consequence, innocence is lost. Twain’sgroup represent the New World: distanced from Europe, objectifying it andcritiquing it from the point of view of unlearned “innocents” as bold in theirrejection of literary influences as they are in their espousal of patrioticprejudice. In this context, Innocents forms “a very lively portrait of the uncultivatedAmerican tourist” 39 who, by his rejection of antebellum humility,frees the readership from the conventions of the United States as culturalsuppliant and allows for the transparent and unabashed partiality we haveseen thus far.Remarks in SummaryMark Twain, as I have argued, had no single narrative purpose per se

░ Imperial Therapy 175but employed a broad spectrum of knowledge, reactions, prejudices andpunch lines all contributory and complementary to their own separate vignettes.The humour, overall, is “at the expense both of the Old World andthe New” 40 and yet is frequently less an end in itself than a method for shiftingthe interpretation of American culture markedly toward the favoured.Said notes that “culture is a sort of theatre where various political and ideologicalcauses engage one another.” 41 In this vein, we may state that no interculturalcommentary is free of ulterior motive, and imperial therapy,founded upon a conscious interpretive readjustment of all things Europeanand dispensing with literary conventionalism, celebrated an “innocent” perspectivefree of all constraints, even impartiality.This revisionist position may be seen as both conscious and unconscious.Where Twain undermines the European/Old World cultural hegemonyhe is overtly nationalistic. Where the observations call up resonancesfrom home this seems a different, more faltering kind of appropriation.Overall, both approaches resulted from and addressed the impact of theCivil War which “produced a vast impatience with rhetorics that bore no relationto experience.” 42 Innocents, though humorous, cannot be categoricallybranded as such; in Twain’s “pleasure tour through modes of narration,”43 a travelogue develops which employs the subtlest imperial impulsesin conjunction with such comical declamations as: “We always took care tomake it understood that we were Americans – Americans!” (II, 401). Thecomical elements both promote and mask the imperialist inclination at workand, where humour leaves off, symbolism, interpretative geography, sombrecontemplation and the [America as] technology vs. [Europe as] historydialectic take over.Purdue Universitydmckay@dogmail.orgNOTES1 Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad, Vol. II (New York: Harper, 1929), p. 19. All in-textparenthetical references are to Twain’s Innocents Abroad.2 Anonymous, Review of The Innocents Abroad, Nation (New York), IX, September2, 1869, p. 194.3 Forrest G. Robinson, “Patterns of Consciousness in The Innocents Abroad,”American Literature, 58:1 (1986), passim.4 Robert Edison Lee, From West To East (Illinois: U of Illinois P, 1966), passim.5 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, [1978] 1995), p. 32.

176Daniel McKay░6 Robinson, “Patterns of Consciousness,” p. 58.7 Shirley Foster and Sara Mills, An Anthology of Women’s Travel Writing (Manchester:Manchester UP, 2002), p. 19.8 Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain (London: Jonathan Cape, 1967), p.57.9 Kenneth S. Lynn, Mark Twain and Southwestern Humour (Massachusetts: Little,Brown & Company, 1959), p. 151.10 Tom Folio, Evening Transcript (Boston), p. 1.11 Henry Nash Smith, Mark Twain: The Development of a Writer (Massachusetts:Harvard UP, 1962), p. 31.12 James M. Cox, Mark Twain: The Fate Of Humour (New Jersey: Princeton UP,1966), p. 38.13 Robert A. Wiggins, Mark Twain: Jackleg Novelist (Washington: U of WashingtonP, 1964), p. 85.14 Anonymous, Review of The Innocents Abroad, Buffalo Express (Buffalo), October16, 1869, quoted in Louis J. Budd, Critical Essays on Mark Twain, 1867-1910(Massachusetts: G. K. Hall & Co., 1982), p. 20.15 J. DeLancey Ferguson, Mark Twain: Man and Legend (New York: Russell & Russell,1966), p. 137.16 Muhammed Raji Zughoul, “The Emperor and the Sultan in Mark Twain: How Innocentwere the ‘Innocents’?,” Journal of American Studies of Turkey, 11 (2000),Passim.17 Alison Blunt, Travel, Gender & Imperialism (New York: Guilford, 1994), p. 29.18 William Dean Howells, “Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad”, Atlantic Monthly(Boston), XXIV, December 1869, p. 764.19 Smith, Mark Twain, p. 26.20 Smith, Mark Twain, p. 37.21 Cox, Mark Twain, p. 38.22 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London:Routledge, 1992), p. 148.23 Leslie A. Fiedler, “An American Abroad,” Partisan Review, (Winter, 1966), p. 47.24 Anonymous, Review of The Innocents Abroad, Packard's Monthly: The YoungMen's Magazine (New York), II, October 1869, p. 318.25 William H. Gibson, The Art Of Mark Twain (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1976), p. 34.26 Anonymous, Review of The Innocents Abroad, The Athenaeum (London), No.2239, September 24, 1870, p. 395.27 Robert Regan, Uncompromising Heroes: Mark Twain And His Characters (California:U of California P, 1966), p. 50.28 Minnie M. Brashear, Mark Twain: Son Of Missouri (New York: Russell & Russell,1964), p. 197.

░ Imperial Therapy 17729 Bret Harte, Overland Monthly (San Francisco), IV, January 1870, p. 100.30 Philip S. Foner, Mark Twain Social Critic (New York: International Publishers,1966), p. 24.31 Smith, Mark Twain, p. 24.32 Henry B. Wonham, Mark Twain and the Art of the Tall Tale (Oxford: Oxford UP,1993), p. 87.33 Robinson, “Patterns of Consciousness,” p. 51.34 Wonham, Mark Twain, p. 88.35 Forrest G. Robinson, “‘An Unconscious and Profitable Cerebration’: Mark Twainand Literary Intentionality,” Nineteenth-Century Literature, 50:3 (1993), p. 37336 Cox, Mark Twain, p. 38.37 Foner, Mark Twain, p. 102.38 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (London: SampsonLow, 1854), p. 354.39 Anonymous, Review of The Innocents Abroad, Saturday Review (London), XXX,October 8, 1870, p. 468.40 Margaret Drabble, English Literature (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996), p. 502.41 Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage, 1993), p. xiv.42 Lynn, Mark Twain, p. 152.43 Bruce Michaelson, “Mark Twain The Tourist: The Form of Innocents Abroad,”American Literature, 49:3 (1977), p. 395.

“Nothing New Under the Sun”:Postsentimental Conflict in Harriet E. Wilson’s Our NigKarsten H. PiepStorm and stress to-day rocks our little boat on themad waters of the world-sea; there is within and withoutthe sound of conflict, the burning of body andrending of soul; inspiration strives with doubt, andfaith with vain questioning.W.E.B. DuBois 1The content of a work of literature, Walter Benjamin reminds us in“The Author as Producer,” is inextricably bound up with its form. 2 Hence, itis hardly astounding that much critical attention has been focused on theproper generic classification of Harriet E. Wilson’s Our Nig (1859). 3 Thistask, though, has not been easy. Henry Louis Gates, rediscoverer and earliestcritic of Our Nig, for example, goes to great length discussing parallelsbetween Wilson’s work and Nina Baym’s ‘overplot’ of the ‘women’s novel,’before settling on reading it as a new form of distinctly African-American literaturethat combines “conventions of the sentimental novel with certainkey conventions of the slave narratives” (lii). Elizabeth Ammons, by contrast,places Our Nig squarely in the feminist tradition of the sentimentalnovel and argues that “the ideal of mother love explicit in Uncle Tom’sCabin operates implicitly in Our Nig.” 4 Contesting Ammons’ claim, EricCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/piep.pdf

░ “Nothing new under the sun” 179Gardner asserts that Our Nig is not a ‘novel of abolition’ but “a novel aboutNorthern racial issues, a young black woman’s bildungsroman, and, assuch, is far from Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” 5 Echoing some of Gardner’s points,Elizabeth Breau contends that Our Nig “is actually satiric” and thereforegives an overly “bleak picture of northern antebellum society.” 6 Foregroundingneither Bildung nor “ironic inversions” but the “politics of rage atwork in Wilson’s tale,” Julia Stern argues that Our Nig “used the sentimentalform to mask a gothic message.” 7 Rejecting Gates’ attempt to posit OurNig as “a significant beginning of an African-American literary mode, a distinctivefirst in a century of firsts,” John Ernest wants to read Wilson’s workas a traditional “blend of autobiography and fiction,” hoping to ‘re-place’ it“within the racial, gender, and economic matrix of secular history.” 8 R.J.Ellis, while accepting Gates’ assessment that Our Nig “draw[s] on the genresof sentimental fiction and abolitionist slave narrative,” stresses the waysin which the ‘hybrid’ work “fractures generic boundaries” in order to providea “full retrieval of Frado’s pain, her experience of body politics.” 9 Lastly, offeringa reading that links Our Nig to the Puritan tradition, Elizabeth Westargues that Our Nig “manipulates well-known trappings of the conversionnarrative” by telling “the story of the heroine’s failed initiation into the communityof earthly saints.” 10Aside from illustrating that classification or categorisation itself constitutesan act of interpretation, this critical disagreement about the very formof Our Nig also seems to hint at a deep conflict, or better, a whole series ofconflicts that mark its content. For whether one reads Wilson’s deceptivelyplain work as a blend of women’s novel and slave narrative, which transformsblacks into subjects (Gates), or as sentimental novel, which exposesthe oppressiveness of American patriarchy (Ammons), or as gothic novel,which undermines the ‘mother-saviour myth’ (Stern), or as testimony to‘body politics’ (Ellis), or as an inversion of the Puritan conversion narrative(West), there always seems to remain an unresolvable conflictedness atOur Nig’s core. “Our Nig’s Tale ends ambiguously, if it ends at all,” Gatesnotes (xlvii). Nothing seems to quite fit. Our Nig attempts to elicit the sympathyof both ‘coloured’ and white readers, but “is far from flattering toNortherners or abolitionists.” 11 It begins like a sentimental novel with an orphaned,friendless girl, but it “does not end either with a happy marriage orwith institutional consolidation … of the forces of good” (xlviii). It projects“maternal violence and filial terror,” yet it does not reject Uncle Tom’sCabin’s central premise of the ‘mother saviour.’ 12 Our Nig calls “for effectivecommunal action in the public sphere,” but also “elects … the moreempowering doctrine of self-reliance.” 13 The protagonist “reposes in God”and puts her trust in “God’s economy,” but she offers “no profession of

180Karsten H. Piep░faith.” 14 What is one to make of this series of formal and textual incongruities,ambiguities, even paradoxes?Wilson’s startling refusal to provide unambiguous endings or clear solutions,I suggest, is less the result of generic hybridisation than of her calculateduse of an almost Brechtian literary technique that focuses on the“blunt depiction of conditions” or Zustände rather than the elaborate developmentof plots or Handlungen. 15 In opting for a simple, episodic storylinethat ends where it begins, Wilson deliberately breaks with the linear ‘overplot’of the typical ‘women’s novel’ to foreground the “horrors of [Frado’s]condition” (128, emphasis added) that keep her in various yet recurrentstates of bondage, abuse, domination, exploitation, and servitude. OurNig’s aims are therefore at once more modest and more ambitious thanthose of the antislavery and women’s novels. For Wilson neither attemptsto reproduce nor to adapt well-known accounts of how the nation may besaved through mother-love, domesticity, repose in God, Bildung, communalaction, compassion, or self-reliance. Instead, drawing upon her own experience,Wilson endeavors to disrupt and complicate dominant narrativesof national uplift so as, firstly, to draw attention to the subtle mechanismsthat keep nominally free blacks in a condition of permanent unfreedom, andthereby, secondly, to question the bourgeois ideologies of ‘unconflictedness’that underlie such sacrosanct institutions as friendship, love, marriage,motherhood, family, and religion. Thrust into public view at a momentof great personal peril for the author, Our Nig may thus be seen as whatLauren Berlant has termed an act of ‘Diva Citizenship.’ “Flashing up andstartling the public,” Wilson, like Berlant’s ‘Divas,’ not only “renarrates thedominant history as one that the abjected people have once lived sottovoce,” but “challenges her audience to identify with the enormity of the sufferingshe has narrated and the courage she has had to produce, calling onpeople to change the social and institutional practices of citizenship towhich they currently consent.” 16 Put another way, Our Nig is not a blueprintfor easily achievable societal reforms, but a literary attempt to ‘startle’ itsreadership into recognising persistent political problems concerning race,class, and gender relations.What Wilson in her preface calls “some experiment which shall aid mein maintaining myself and child without extinguishing this feeble life,” then,is both an attempt to make the material conditions of literary productionvisible and to revise the traditional relationship between the self-exposingblack author and her passively indulgent white audience. For although OurNig, in the vein of most sentimental novels, “demand[s] sympathy and aid,”Wilson’s prefatory claim “to have purposely omitted what would most provokeshame in our good anti-slavery friends at home” conveys in no uncer-

░ “Nothing new under the sun” 181tain terms that mere charity does not absolve a sympathetic white readershipfrom what W.E.B. DuBois was later to call the political ‘burden’ that“belongs to the nation.” 17 Calling upon her “colored brethren universally”and the “good anti-slavery friends” in particular, Wilson makes clear fromthe outset that the latter can never hope to cast off “Slavery’s Shadows”without consciously and openly engaging in an economic, political, and culturalstruggle with the former (2-3).Accordingly, unlike the “slave authors” who “had to satisfy the dual expectationof shaping the random events of their lives into a meaningful andcompelling pattern, while also making the narrative of their odyssey fromslavery to freedom an emblem of every black person’s potential for highereducation and the desire to be free,” 18 Wilson intentionally thwarts her audience’ssentimental expectations of an unconflicted happy ending. Farfrom trying to ‘satisfy’ her readership with what is conventionally deemed a‘meaningful and compelling’ narrative, Wilson presents Frado’s despair atthe end of Our Nig as a mirror image of “poor” Mag’s dejection at the beginningof the novel. Substituting the linear plot of slave narratives for a cyclicalplot that begins and ends in conflict, Wilson foils sentimental notionsthat Frado can achieve freedom and happiness within the domestic worldof the novel. Instead, Wilson deprivatises Frado’s personal experience ofpersistent domination, projecting her despair back out into the publicsphere of the literary marketplace. Moving beyond the mere declaration ofFrado’s “desire to be free,” Our Nig deploys the recurrent image of theheroine’s unresolved struggles to hold the compassionate reader liable forthe larger societal conditions that ensure the exploitation and domination ofnominally free blacks under the mantle of pity and charity. The “kind friendsand purchasers” (130) are thus pushed from their role of indulgent bystandersinto that of active participants, who, willingly or not, must confrontthe ongoing political conflicts over race, class, and gender relations. In refusingto proffer ‘universalist’ resolution and to grant ‘narrative satisfaction,’the reader is thrown out of the comfortable armchair: he or she is made tosee that “a change of mind” does not “change the world.” 19Wilson’s literary technique, which deprivatises the political yet doesnot, as Stern asserts, simply “privilege … the public sphere,” 20 points to ahistorical materialist reading of her own experiences that links the conflictswithin Northern antebellum society to those of the Reconstruction period.Similar to Frederick Douglass, who ends My Bondage and My Freedomwith an image of himself as an early desegregationist, Wilson’s fictionalisedretelling of her indentured servitude portends the end of abolitionism and,from personal ‘countermemory,’ excavates the vocabulary that speaks tothe conditions of freedom rather than the mere need for escape. Thus, Wil-

182Karsten H. Piep░son’s Frado, much like the matured Douglass in My Bondage and MyFreedom, is not offered up as a pitiable figure for sympathetic identificationor well-intentioned appropriation by white liberals, but emerges as a consciousagent in the fight for black self-emancipation. Analogous to Douglass’svictory over the “slave breaker” Covey, Frado’s hard-won courage todefy Mrs. Bellmont in Chapter X represents just the first step in her questfor self-determination. In a society of “professed abolitionists,” who neither“want slaves at the South, nor niggers in their own houses, North,” Fradostill faces the more daunting tasks “to cast off the unpleasant charities ofthe public” and to demand both gainful employment and respect from thevillagers (124, 129). Genuine cooperation across class and race lines, Wilsonunderscores, can only spring from the conscious recognition of thefundamental conflicts over material and cultural property.At the risk of placing yet another ill-fitting label on Our Nig, I furthersuggest that Wilson’s work, with its cyclical plot as well as its emphasis onthe depiction of conditions or Zustände, can be read within the context ofwhat Berlant has called “postsentimentality.” 21 According to Berlant, “postsentimentalnarratives are lacerated by ambivalence,” because while they(still) desire private, sentimental solutions to persistent racial, class, andgender conflicts, they only find quarrels, strives, and disputes. Hence,“postsentimental texts withdraw from the contract that presumes consent ofthe conventionally desired outcomes of identification and empathy.” 22 Insteadof presupposing that a tacit consensus exists “about what constitutesuplift, amelioration, and emancipation,” postsentimental works describe thesteady clash of interest between individuals and groups. 23Two scenes – one from Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the other fromOur Nig – clarify the postsentimental impulse in Our Nig, which no longerpromises to solve political conflicts through escape, ‘true feelings,’ Christiancharity, marriage, or the termination of the ‘peculiar institution,’ but recastsprivate suffering as unremitting. Toward the end of Chapter XXV in UncleTom’s Cabin, Eva, marked by impending death, passes on the gospel ofChristian love and redemption to “Poor Topsy,” the maltreated black orphanchild who has hitherto resisted Aunt Ophelia’s attempts to civilise her withthe stick of a Puritan work ethic. Following a tearful exchange during whichTopsy wishes that she “could be skinned, and come white,” Eva, “with asudden outburst of feeling,” exclaims: “I love you, because you haven’t hadany father, or mother, or friends; – because you’ve been a poor andabused child! I love you, and I want you to be good.” 24 Moved by Eva’s impulsivespate of empathy Topsy finally renounces her rebelliousness: “‘O,dear Miss Eva, dear Miss Eva!’” said the child; “I will try, I will try; I neverdid care nothin’ about it before.” 25

░ “Nothing new under the sun” 183A strikingly similar scene takes place in Chapter VII of Our Nig. On astroll to the barn, James, afflicted with an incurable disease, encountersFrado, the household’s indentured servant girl whose mind and body hasbeen nearly broken under the “raw hide” of his callous mother, Mrs. Bellingham(77). Touched by the girl’s lonely sobbing – “no mother, father,brother or sister to care for me, and then it is, You lazy nigger, lazy nigger”– James takes Frado aside and “under a shady tree” assures her “that shewas not unpitied, friendless, and utterly despised; that she might hope forbetter things in the future” (75-6).Yet, unlike in Topsy’s case, James’ professions of sympathy neitherprompt a conversion experience in Frado nor move her to confess alleged“impudence” (72). Moreover, whereas Eva’s subsequent death impartsTopsy with “sensibility, hope, desire, and the striving for good,” 26 James’eventual demise only exacerbates Frado’s suspicions concerning eternallife to the point that she resolves “to give over all thought of the futureworld, and str[i]ve daily to put her anxiety far from her” (99, 104). LikeTopsy, Frado resolves to ‘strive,’ but the direction or outcome of this strivingis uncertain. In Stowe’s fictional world, an inferred consensus exists asto what it means “to be good.” This consensus is posited as the “transhistorical,”universalist knowledge of values such as empathy, meekness, maternity,and domesticity, all of which are firmly anchored in white, middleclassChristian ideology. Wilson’s novel challenges this ahistoric consent,revealing its historical constructedness when Frado contemplates a segregatedheaven or seeks to avenge Mary’s cruelties toward her (80). GivenFrado’s failed conversion to a passive acceptance of fate, it is not surprisingthat she remains an inassimilable troublemaker, offering living testimonyto capitalist exploitation as well as the racist hypocrisies of professedabolitionists. Unlike Stowe’s Africa-bound ‘train of liberated slaves,’ Wilson’sdisquieting mulatto heroine is here to stay, and so are the disquietingracial, class, and gender conflicts she embodies.More clearly than anywhere else in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the scene ofTopsy’s conversion highlights Stowe’s sentimental strategy of privatisingthe political at the very moment when the experience of private pain suggeststhe larger, socio-political mechanism of cruel domination. Eva’s “suddenoutburst of feeling” prevents any further probing into the causes ofTopsy’s racial self-hatred, abuse, exclusion, and poverty, so that Topsy’sexperience of violence becomes a formless emblem of universal pain thatproduces empathy rather than political action. Stowe’s ‘sudden’ deploymentof empathy not only overrides political or ethical motives for reforming society,but recasts them as the much more elemental promise of personal deliverance.Hence, it is no longer society but Topsy who must purge herself

184Karsten H. Piep░of sin and become ‘good.’ Only if Topsy submits herself unconditionally tothe benign authorities of Aunt Ophelia and a Christian God, Eva makesclear, may she “go to heaven at last, and be an angel forever, just as muchas [she] were white.” 27 A resolution to the political conflict over race andslavery is thus deferred to the seemingly sheltered realm of introspectiveprivacy where good deeds, obedience, and piety promise deliverance fromsocietal ills. As Berlant writes in “Poor Eliza”:when sentimentality meets politics, it uses personal stories to tell ofstructural effects, but in so doing it risks thwarting its very attempt toperform rhetorically a scene of pain that must be soothed politically.Because the ideology of true feeling cannot admit the nonuniversalityof pain, its cases become all jumbled together and the ethical imperativetoward social transformation is replaced by a civic-mindedbut passive ideal of empathy. The political as a place of acts orientedtoward publicness becomes replaced by a world of privatethoughts, leanings, and gestures. 28It is precisely in light of this “civic-minded but passive ideal of empathy”perpetuated by Stowe that Wilson’s ‘reworking’ of what Elizabeth West hasdescribed as the “traditional conversion narrative” assumes added significance.29 For Frado’s inability or unwillingness to separate Jack, Jane, orJames’ sporadic acts of kindness from Mrs. Bellmont’s relentless acts ofcruelty signal a shift from the privatisation of the political to the(re)politicisation of the private thus bringing into view the essential conflictednessof postsentimentality. While Frado wishes for her mother’s return,longs for James’ friendship, hopes for Aunt Abby’s heavenly revelation,and desires Samuel’s love, the repetition of letdowns, disappointments,and sufferings teach her that a solution to material exploitation, racialhatred, and gender discrimination cannot be found through intimacy, atleast not the white bourgeois version thereof. 30Having sketched out how Wilson’s postsentimental portrayal of Fradostrives to deprivatise the political, the second part of this essay investigatesin greater detail the ways in which Our Nig presents a ‘Diva’ reading of publicisedpersonal history that challenges liberal notions of sentimental unconflictednessand calls “on people to change the social and institutional practicesof citizenship to which they currently consent.” 31 As we shall see, Wilson’sdepiction of the “horror of [Frado’s] condition” not only startles the“gentle reader” into perceiving unresolved conflicts behind the smokescreenof sympathy, but furthermore outlines the contours of a postsentimental,postslavery mentality that demands genuine collaboration acrossrace, class, and gender lines.

░ “Nothing new under the sun” 185Marked with the racial stamp of inferiority, Frado, like her white butpermanently ostracised mother, Mag, must learn early on that conventionalnotions of friendship, motherhood, and marriage provide no redress againstprejudice, exploitation, poverty. This is a decidedly unsentimental lessonand so it seems befitting that the reader is left sad or angered rather thantearful when “lonely Mag Smith” abandons Frado, leaving her in the exploitative‘care’ of Mrs. Bellmont. Frado’s fate, though, hardly comes as asurprise. Her subsequent plight as an abused servant, unemployable labourer,deserted wife, and careworn mother is already foreshadowed inMag’s story. As Ernest points out, Mag’s descent “down the ladder of infamy”exposes the social and cultural “structures that later confine Fradoeven more tightly than they did her mother.” 32 Yet, perhaps more significantly,Mag’s firm refusal “to ask favors or friendship from a sneering world”(7) as well as her deliberate acts of social transgression also already intimatethat these societal structures of confinement are by no means uncontestableor immutable.At first, however, Mag is introduced as an orphaned girl with a “loving,trusting heart,” who falls for a nameless “charmer” because she innocentlybelieves that she may “ascend to him and become an equal” (5, 6). Herchildish hopes are, naturally, shattered and with them any prospect of respectablelife. Still trying to “regain in a measure what she had lost,” Mag issoon forced to realise that her “home” is “contaminated by the publicity ofher fall” (7). Forced into the margins of society by “foul tongues,” “avertedlooks, and “cold greetings,” Mag retreats into a “hovel,” returning to the “village”only now and then to compete with “foreigners” over scarce jobs (7,8). An increasingly “revengeful” outcast who steadfastly refuses “favors offamiliar faces,” Mag “lives for years, hugging her wrongs, but making no effortto escape”(8).It is not until her acquaintance with Jim, “a kind-hearted African,” thatMag for the first time gains a measure of control over her life, even though,or, better because it denotes “the climax of repulsion” from white society(15). As Wilson’s detailed account of Jim’s and Mag’s “courtship” shows,their eventual union represents a strategic alliance between socially stigmatisedindividuals that redefines culturally sanctioned views of love andmarriage. Though destitute, Mag – in marked contrast to her affair with thenameless “charmer” – meets Jim as “an equal,” who offers relative economiccomfort in exchange for status elevation in the form of “a white wife”(14). Notwithstanding Wilson’s suspiciously solemn explanation to the “gentlereader” that “want is a … powerful preacher and philosopher,” Jim’smarriage proposal thus not only presents Mag with a chance for economicbetterment, but, more importantly, with an opportunity to “sunder another

186Karsten H. Piep░bond which held her to her fellows” (13). Having “for years” endured thefalse and self-serving charities of “old acquaintances,” who would occasionally“call … to be favored with help of some kind,” Jim’s proposition allowsMag to free herself from “painful” and repressive social constraints (8).As Jim explains: “You’s had trial with white folks, any how. They run off andleft ye, and now none of ‘em come near ye to see if you’s dead or alive”(12).Refuting the presumed “evils of amalgamation,” Mag and Jim dutifullystand by their contractual relationship until the end. Jim “tried hard to fulfilhis promises; and furnished her with a more comfortable dwelling,” whichshe had previously declined to accept from her self-interested “old acquaintances”(8). And when Jim succumbs to consumption, Mag “nursedhim faithfully,” not out of pity, but of an acute understanding of their mutualdependence (15). Especially in light of Frado’s later struggles, Wilson’s portrayalof Mag’s and Jim’s tactical alliance takes on a political significancethat connects the book’s private world with the public world. For in starkcontrast to Frado’s subsequent relationships with James or the aptlynamed Mrs. Hoggs, Mag’s and Jim’s pact points to a form of genuine interracialcooperation that is anchored in the open negotiation of conflicting interestsas well as a recognition of mutual dependence.As Wilson is quick to show, however, in the face of overbearing racism,the hope for genuine interracial cooperation remains limited. AfterJim’s death, Mag enters “the darkness of perpetual infamy” when she consortswith Seth Shipley, Jim’s former business partner. Yet, unlike SusanRowson’s Charlotte Temple or other countless tragic heroines of sentimentalnovels, Mag manages to survive even in utter infamy, largely becauseshe feels no longer bound by the strict mores and customs of the dominantculture. Wilson explains: “She had ceased to feel the gushings of penitence;she had crushed the sharp agonies of an awakened conscience. …She asked not the rite of civilization or Christianity” (16). Finally, when circumstancesagain worsen, Mag feels compelled to break the last societaltaboo and consents to sending Frado into indentured servitude.“The great evil in this book,” Gates comments, “is poverty, both thedesperation it inflicts as well as the evils it implicitly sanctions” (xlvi). WhileGates’s observation is certainly accurate, the scene of Frado’s abandonmentserves as more than a bitter indictment against economic and socialinjustices. Breaking the silence on the collapse of maternal care in the faceof exceedingly adverse conditions long before Toni Morrison would publishBeloved, Wilson thematises the postsentimental conflictedness that seemsto have marked quite a few relationships between black (slave) girls andtheir desperate mothers. As Stern remarks, “in the antebellum period it was

░ “Nothing new under the sun” 187not uncommon for poor free black single mothers to bind their children intoindentured servitude.” 33 Yet, Wilson’s aim here is not so much to simplydescribe ‘cultural practices of the time’ as to stress that mother-child relationsdo not afford an autonomous private sphere, wherein the inherent andirreconcilable conflicts of society can be resolved. It is through this earlyidentification of postsentimental conflictedness, then, that Wilson can representFrado as the inversion of the tragic mulatto of convention, who, likeher mother, learns to reject mollifying charities and to claim agency overher own life. 34The most ferocious antagonist Frado faces during her indentured servitudeis unquestionably Mrs. Bellmont, whose avarice and cruelty, as Ammonsconcedes, mocks the 19 th century “myth of the mother-savior, of thesuperiority of maternal values.” 35 “Wholly imbued with southern principles,”Mrs. Bellmont treats ‘Nig’ worse than many a plantation mistress wouldtreat a domestic slave, steadily “multiplying her labor” and frequently beatingher into submission with “the raw hide” (3, 30). Frado is bound intosubmissive servitude not by Mrs. Bellmont’s consistent use of physicalforce alone, though. Even more confining are the calculated acts of kindness,sporadically conferred upon her by the feminised Mr. Bellmont, invalidJane, careless Jack, absent James, and pious Aunt Abby. Grateful forthe smallest token of friendship, love, and acceptance from her kinder, gentlersuperiors, Frado endures Mrs. Bellmont’s ‘raw-hide’ and Mary’s scoffsalmost beyond the breaking point. Only gradually does Frado internaliseher mother’s lesson that in order to attain a measure of free agency withina world of covert self-interests, she has to resist idle professions of sympathy,assuaging charities, and promises of heavenly salvation. Similar toDouglass, Frado eventually recognises that she was “under the influence ofsomething like a slavish adoration of” her supposed friends, 36 from whose“memories” she quickly “passed” (131).Although everyone in the family, save Mary, objects to Mrs. Bellmont’scruelties, neither Jack, nor James, nor Mr. Bellmont do anything to stop it.Characteristically, the latter’s response to his wife’s abuse of Frado is totake a walk. As Frado, wrongly accused of having pushed Mary into acreek, is about to receive “a good whipping,” Mr. Bellmont flatly declares “Ishall not punish her … and left the house, as he usually did when a tempestthreatened to envelop him” (34). Fully aware that these “kitchenscenes” of domestic violence are daily occurrences within their house yettoo complacent to avert them, the Bellmont men now and again opt to reprievetheir consciences through little acts of benevolence toward Frado(66). Thus, finding Frado on the floor following the aforementioned beating,“her mouth wedged apart, her face swollen, and full of pain,” Jack is so

188Karsten H. Piep░overcome by tearful pity that he brings “her some supper, t[akes] her to herroom,” comforts her, and sits “by her till she f[alls] asleep” (36). What ismore, the next day he takes “her with him to the field” and buys “her a dog,which became a great favorite of both” (37). For a brief moment, Frado experiencesgenuine happiness and friendship. “But it could not be so generally,”and before long, “she must return … to her household duties,” toilingas an unpaid servant for the entire family (37). Unwittingly or not, Jack’sself-serving act of charity thus coaxes Frado into a situation, wherein shefeels compelled to endure her continued exploitation gratefully.In a similar vein, Frado becomes “an object of interest to James” neitherbecause he is opposed to her status of a quasi-slave nor because hebelieves in the equal treatment of blacks, but because he resents the particular“cruelty of his mother” (50). Not surprisingly, James’s rare interventionson her behalf, such as his offer of temporary protection from hismother’s whip, are usually coupled with exhortations that “she must try tobe a good girl” (50). Just as Eva’s sudden outpouring of sentiment inStowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin entices Topsy “to behave” and to fulfill herhousehold duties, James’s attention wheedles Frado into silent acceptanceof her servitude. The sheer “remembrance of his kindness,” Wilson writes,“cheered her through many weary month, and an occasional word to her inletters to Jack, were like ‘cold water to a thirsty soul’” (52). Inspired by thefutile hope that “he would … remove her from such severe treatment asshe was subjected to,” Frado takes on the “additional burdens laid on hersince his return” without complaint. “She must now milk the cows,” herd thesheep, “harness the horse for Mary and her mother to ride, go to mill, inshort, do the work of a boy, could one be procured to endure the tirades ofMrs. Bellmont” (52-3). Obviously James’s ‘kindness’ comes at a heavyprice.That James’s concern for the improvement of her ‘spiritual condition’ isnot only self-interested, but effectively prolongs Frado’s passive submissivenessbecomes apparent when declining health forces him and his newwife to return home. Though James compels his mother to permit Frado toeat at the family table, he remains “cautious about pressing too closely herclaims on his mother, as it would increase the burdened one he so anxiouslywished to relieve” (70). Instead of openly supporting her against hismother, he “cheered her on with the hope of returning with his family, whenhe recovered sufficiently” (70). Notwithstanding James’s repeated assurancesthat “there were thousands upon thousands who favored the elevationof her race, disapproving of oppression in all its forms,” Frado’s “newhopes and aspirations” are soon dashed (76). For aside from her regularduties, she now also has to attend to the invalid James. “The calls upon

░ “Nothing new under the sun” 189Frado were consequently more frequent, her nights less tranquil. Herhealth was impaired by lifting the sick man, and by drudgery in the kitchen.… She was at last so much reduced as to be unable to stand erect for anygreat length of time” (81-2).“Becoming seriously ill,” Frado eagerly seeks consolation in the religiousdiscourse of James and Aunt Abby, “who kindly directed her toChrist, and instructed her in the way of salvation” (86). Tormented bythoughts of “doubt and sin which clouded her soul,” Frado eventuallycomes to see James as a sort of saviour figure. “As James approachedthat blessed world, she felt a strong desire to follow, and be with one whowas such a dear, kind friend” (87, 85). Under his, Aunt Abby’s, and the minister’s“instructions,” Frado becomes “a believer in a future existence,”where she may “cast off the fetters of sin, and rise to the communion ofsaints” (87). Under the influence of James and Aunt Abby, who tirelesslycounsel patience and nonresistance, Frado “continue[s], as usual, her labors,”hoping “to share the abode of James” in the hereafter (84-5).James’s death, however, abruptly halts her incipient conversion experience.On the verge of leaping after him into the grave, she suddenlyrealises that “she was not fit to die. She could not go where he was if shedid. She did not love God; she did not serve him or know how to” (99). Releasedfrom James’s spell, her old doubt that the Christian promise of salvation“was all for white people” becomes certainty, as “[h]er mistressgrasping her raw-hide, caused a longer flow of tears, and wounded a spiritthat was craving healing mercies” (84, 101).As indicated earlier, Wilson’s deliberate move to overturn Frado’s anticipatedconversion just at the point where she seems willing to sacrificeherself in accordance with James’s doctrine of nonresistance and passivesuffering, not only exposes “the failure of Christianity to stand as a critiqueof white hegemonic ideals,” but, more broadly, constitutes a postsentimentalattack against white liberal notions of compassion, charity, and uplift. 37Before Frado can become an independent agent in the political and economicstruggle for black emancipation, she has to throw off the speciousideology of compassion that on the one hand absolves a white bourgeoisiefrom political responsibility and on the other reinvests it with the moral supremacythat legitimises existing conditions of black servitude. 38Notably, it is only after James’s death that Frado musters enoughcourage to openly challenge Mrs. Bellmont. Returning from an errand tofetch wood, Frado is scolded for “not returning as soon as Mrs. B. calculated”(105). But just as the evil mistress is about to administer physicalpunishment, Frado shouts: “‘Stop!… strike me, and I’ll never work a mite foryou;’ and throwing down what she had gathered, stood like one who feels

190Karsten H. Piep░the stirring of free and independent thoughts” (105). Of course, as in Douglass’case, this single act of defiance by and in itself does not lead to physicalfreedom. Yet, “the stirring of free and independent thoughts” signalsthat Frado no longer pins her hopes to the promised aid of charitable masters,but instead begins to actively confront the powers that be. Henceforth,Frado’s overjoyed reaction to “the astounding news” of “Mary’s untimelydeath,” shocking as it may seem to Aunt Abby and the “gentle reader,”marks her successful conversion from an object of sentimental piety to asubject of postsentimental resistance. 39 Thus, having cast off James’s hollowdictum of Christian empathy, which “was all for white people” to beginwith, Frado plots her way to freedom, resolves “to flee,” and even “contemplatedadministering poison to her mistress” (84, 108).Frado’s eventual release from bondage does not clear the path towardfreedom, of course. In keeping with her aim to illuminate the socioeconomicconditions that permanently relegate free blacks to the fringes ofsociety, Wilson adds a depiction of Frado’s post-servitude struggles to eekout a living. In contrasting the genuine help Frado receives from Mrs.Moore, Mrs. Hale, and two nameless friends with the false charities Mrs.Hoggs bestows upon her and Samuel’s antislavery profiteering, Wilson outlinesthe contours of a postsentimental, postslavery cooperation betweenand among racial lines that acknowledges both persistent conflicts of interestsand mutual interdependence.Frado’s first summer after release from bondage “passed pleasantly,”as Mrs. Moore affords her gainful employment from which both partiesbenefit (117). Soon, however, Frado’s lingering illness catches up with herand when “the kind Mrs. Hale” falls sick too, she is “removed to the home oftwo maidens, (old,) who had principle enough to be willing to earn themoney a charitable public disburses” (122). As earlier under the protectionof “kind” James, under the self-serving care of these two old maidens,Frado’s physical condition actually deteriorates. Matters take a turn for theworse, when, two years later, Frado is given into the care of the greedyMrs. Hoggs, “a lover of gold and silver,” who asks “the favor of filling hercoffers by caring for the sick” (122). Once again leveling a postsentimentalattack against the uncritical notion of public compassion, Wilson uses thisscene to expose the specious nature of charities that fill the coffers of thelower middle class, while keeping the destitute in a permanent state ofhelpless confinement. And just in case one might doubt that this system ofcalculated charity primarily aims at confining needy mulatto girls, Mrs. Hoggreports Frado to the “town officers as an impostor,” after the latter hadtaken up needle work in an attempt to “yet help herself” (123).True aid, Wilson highlights toward the end of the penultimate chapter,

░ “Nothing new under the sun” 191originates in the recognition of difference as well as a shared humanity,from whence it proceeds to promote self-help and self-improvement.Hence, even though Mrs. Moore had seen better days herself, she resolvesto assist Frado, not because she is suddenly overwhelmed by pity, but because“she felt humanity required her to” do so. Unlike James or AuntAbby, whose sympathy toward Frado sprung from pure emotion, Mrs.Moore’s decision to assist Frado is reason-based, rooted less in religiousbeliefs than in humanitarian principles. Not surprisingly, with Mrs. Moore’ssupport Frado first regains a measure of health and then once more resolves“to take care of herself, to cast off the unpleasant charities of thepublic” (124). Of course, “black, feeble and poor,” Frado by now is only tooaware of the obstacles that race and class prejudices pose to her advancement.Yet, having learned that independence requires collaboration,Frado puts her trust in a more practical-minded God and before long finds“a plain, simple woman, who could see merit beneath a dark skin” (124).The “plain, simple woman” not only agrees to instruct her “with the needle,”but “also to teach her the value of useful books” (124). As a result of thiscooperation between the “simple” white woman and the “invalid mulatto,”Frado feels “herself capable of elevation” for the first time (124). Workinghard and maintaining “a devout and Christian exterior” for the benefit of “thevillagers,” Frado passes “months of quiet, growing in the confidence of herneighbors and new found friends” (125).Alas, Our Nig does not conclude with this serene picture of “quiet” andrelative contentment. In fact, rather than “winding up … the matter,” the finalchapter yet again complicates Frado’s troubles. Wilson’s terse descriptionof Frado’s short marriage with a “professed fugitive … from slavery,”which leaves her, like her mother, abandoned with child and “nearly prostrated,”once again obliges the “gentle reader” to discard all sentimentalideas and to recognise the unresolved race, class, and gender conflicts thatswelter underneath his or her very own nose (126, 127). Hence, the “silentsympathy” that initially attracted Frado to the “fine, straight negro” soonproves deceptive, as Samuel prolongs his “‘lectures’” on the abolitionist circuit“often for weeks” and eventually “embarked at sea, with the disclosurethat he had never seen the South, and that his illiterate harangues werehumbugs for hungry abolitionists” (128). As nearly all commentators havenoted, Wilson’s portrayal of Samuel as a con artist, who makes a living byflattering the “thousands who favored the elevation” of blacks yet refuse “toadmit one through the front door,” constitutes her most unequivocal indictmentagainst white hypocrisy and self-righteousness (76, 129). Equally unambiguously,though, Samuel’s scheming and irresponsible behavior furthermorerepudiates notions, according to which love and marriage afford

192Karsten H. Piep░women with fulfillment and protection. For not only does Frado find her“feelings of trust” shattered, she is also “again thrown upon the public forsustenance” and – not unlike “poor Mag” before her – forced to leave herbaby boy “in charge of a Mrs. Capon” (128, 129). The sentimental investmentin love and marriage, Wilson makes clear, is no substitute for the recognitionof mutual dependency as well as a firm commitment to reciprocalaid.Wilson ultimately abstains from offering any clear solutions to the persistentrace, class, and gender conflicts that her heroine embodies. Our Nigends where it begins; namely, with the continual struggle for survival andacceptance. The reader catches a last glimpse of Frado, “busily employedin preparing her merchandise; sallying forth to encounter many frowns, butsome kind friends and purchasers” (130). Yet, as we have seen, it is preciselyWilson’s postsentimental refusal to supply either an unambiguouslytragic or a decidedly happy ending that preserves the political double thrustof Our Nig. For on the one hand, Frado’s hard-won realisation that blindfaith in the sentimental promise of deliverance through motherhood, domesticity,compassion, friendship, and Christianity will invariably result inself-destruction of the oppressed, testifies to the necessity of open conflict.On the other hand, though, Wilson’s exposure of the subtle mechanismsthat preserve old modes of exploitation under the new guise of compassion,underscores that the dominant culture will never cast off “Slavery’sShadows,” unless it recognises that its own fate lies in the hands of the oppressedand eventually commits itself to genuine cooperation across race,class, and gender lines.Miami Universitypiepkh@muohio.eduNOTES1 W.E.B. DuBois, “The Souls of Black Folks,” in Three Negro Classics, ed. JohnHope Franklin (New York: Avon, 1999), 219.2 Walter Benjamin, “Der Autor als Produzent,” in Versuche über Brecht, ed. RolfTiedmann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993), 101-20.3 Harriet E. Wilson, Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, ed. HenryLouis Gates (New York: Vintage Books, 1983). All in-text parenthetical referencesare to this book, including those to Gates’ “Introduction.”4 Elizabeth Ammons, “Stowe’s Dream of the Mother-Savior: Uncle Tom’s Cabin andAmerican Women Writers Before the 1920s,” in New Essays on Uncle Tom’s

░ “Nothing new under the sun” 193Cabin, ed. Eric Sundquist (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986), 183.5 Eric Gardner, “‘This Attempt of Their Sister:’ Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig from Printerto Readers,” The New England Quarterly, 66.2 (1993), 242.6 Elizabeth Breau, “Identifying Satire: ‘Our Nig,’” Callaloo, 16.2 (1993), 465.7 Julia Stern, “Excavating Genre in Our Nig,” American Literature, 67 (1995), 439,441.8 John Ernest, Resistance and Reformation in Nineteenth Century African-AmericanLiterature: Brown, Wilson, Jacobs, Delany, Douglass, and Harper (Jackson: UP ofMississippi, 1995), 56-7.9 R.J. Ellis, “Body Politics and the Body Politic in William Wells Brown’s Clotel andHarriet Wilson’s Our Nig,” in Soft Canons: American Women Writers and the MasculineTraditions, ed. Karen Kilcup (Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1999), 99-100.10 Elizabeth West, “Reworking the Conversion Narrative: Race and Christianity inOur Nig,” Melus, 24.2 (1999), 3.11 Gardner, “‘This Attempt of Their Sister,’” 242.12 Stern, “Excavating Genre in Our Nig,” 448; Ammons, “Stowe’s Dream of theMother-Savior,” 188.13 Stern, “Excavating Genre in Our Nig,” 453; West, “Reworking the Conversion Narrative,”23.14 See, e.g., Katherine Clay Bassard, “‘Beyond Mortal Vision:’ Harriet E. Wilson’sOur Nig and the American Racial Dream-Text,” in Female Subjectivity in Black andWhite, eds. Elizabeth Abel et al. (Berkeley: U of California P, 1997), 189; Ernest,Resistance and Reformation in Nineteenth Century African-American Literature,70; West, “Reworking the Conversion Narrative,” 22.15 Benjamin, “Der Autor als Produzent,” 116.16 Lauren Berlant, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sexand Citizenship (Durham: Duke UP, 1997), 223.17 DuBois, “The Souls of Black Folks,” 251.18 Henry Louis Gates, “Introduction,” in The Classic Slave Narratives, ed. HenryLouis Gates (New York: Mentor, 1989), x.19 Lauren Berlant, “Poor Eliza,” American Literature, 70.3 (1998), 641.20 Stern, “Excavating Genre in Our Nig,” 440.21 Berlant, “Poor Eliza,” 641.22 Berlant, “Poor Eliza,” 642.23 Berlant, “Poor Eliza,” 648.24 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (New York: Norton, 1994), 245.25 Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 246.26 Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 267.27 Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 246.28 Berlant, “Poor Eliza,” 640.

194Karsten H. Piep░29 West, “Reworking the Conversion Narrative,” 4.30 Representing her personal history of crisis as symptomatic of the violent tensionswithin society, Wilson’s Frado resembles Walter Benjamin’s ‘Angelus Novus’: “Hisfaced turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees onesingle catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it infront of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make wholewhat has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caughtin his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. Thisstorm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while thepile of debris before him grows skyward” (“Thesis on the Philosophy of History” inIlluminations, ed. Hannah Arendt [New York: Schocken Books, 1985], 257-8). Likethe angel of history, a matured Frado can perceive the past only as a reappearanceof neglect, abuse, exploitation, and violence. But even though she “give[s]over all thought of the future world,” Frado must follow “the way” “God prepares,”“resolutely” avoiding the “[t]raps slyly laid by the vicious to ensnare her” (104, 124,129).31 Berlant, The Queen, 223.32 Ernest, Resistance and Reformation in Nineteenth Century African-American Literature,60.33 Stern, “Excavating Genre in Our Nig,” 446.34 As Elizabeth Fox-Genovese notes, “[w]here the tragic mulatto is patient and longsuffering,Frado is angry and rebellious.” And “[u]nlike the mulatto heroine, Fradoexposes the internal scares that her experience has traced in her mind”: Fox-Genovese, “‘To Weave It Into the Literature of the Country:’ Epic and Fictions ofAfrican American Women,” in Poetics of the Americas: Race, Founding, and Textuality,eds. Bainard Cowan and Jefferson Humphries (Baton Rouge: LouisianaState UP, 1997), 42.35 Ammons, “Stowe’s Dream of the Mother-Savior,” 182.36 Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (Salem: Ayer Publishers,1984), 394, emphasis added.37 West, “Reworking the Conversion Narrative,” 16.38 Thus, unlike Stowe’s heaven-bound Uncle Tom, Frado suddenly realises thatturning herself into “a martyr” would be nothing more than a politically ineffective,self-destructive gesture of defeat (83).39 As Gates observes, it is this “transformation from black-as-object into the blackas-subject”that attests to a newfound “will to power” (“Introduction,” lv).

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Nature of Time and Spacein Contemporary InstallationVictoria BakerThe role of time and space in contemporary art is not a simplistic linearrelationship. Instead it is a complex network, where every aspect of timewithin an artwork is reliant on the surrounding space, or vice versa. In fact Ibelieve that the relationship between time, space and contemporary art isas complex and diverse as the terms time and space themselves. This articlepresents an overview of my current research, and introduces the integralterminology and methodology. Therefore, some concepts are not dealtwith as extensively as I might otherwise wish and I am only able to summarisethis relationship between time, space and contemporary art. Initially, inorder to understand the complexity of this network, a causal model representingthe full life-space of an artwork will be briefly introduced. The key todeconstructing these complex relationships is to identify the suitable terminology,therefore I will utilize the dual concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic toidentify time and space, and to enable a deconstruction of contemporary artwork. Examples of installations featured in the 2004 Biennale of Sydney willbe used and due to word constraints this article will briefly consider the genericconcept of contemporary installation. The methodology presented canbe effectively applied to the deconstruction of any contemporary medium.COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/baker.pdf

196Victoria Baker░Causal ModelThe success of this method of deconstruction relies on a number offactors, however the key lies in the consideration of the full life span of anart work This life-span is a series of causal or hierarchical events, each oneleading to the next. Although there are many more possible stages, thereare at least four generic elements in every work (figure 1).ConceptionCreationDiscursive SpaceArchivalFigure 1 – Causal ModelThese stages are closely based on the model proposed by GrahamCoulter-Smith in his 1986 article, “Criticising Peter Tyndall.” 1 Focusing onthe ideology surrounding the work of Peter Tyndall, Coulter-Smith developsGreimas’ ‘Actant Model’, and uses this as a basic framework on which tobase his analytical model of narrative within art. Coulter-Smith focuses onthe active role of the critic, and parallels this with the primary process, thecreation of the artwork (figure 2). 2PrimaryProcessArtworkHumankindCriticalModelViewerDominantIdeologyFigure 2 – Coulter-Smith’s ModelCoulter-Smith’s model does not adequately allow for the necessaryemphasis on the causal production of an artwork, although through its nonlinearconstruction it emphasises the cyclic and continuous nature of theprocess. As important as this continuum is, it is however essential to focuson the hierarchy of actions. The causal model (figure 1) is represented hereas four simple stages, yet each stage does not necessarily need to be concludedbefore completion of the first, every stage can be repeated and allstages involve complex issues of both time and space. Simply described,the conception stage is the event at which motivation for the creation of an

░ Intrinsic and Extrinsic Nature of Time and Space 197artwork occurs. There is no timeframe to limit this gestation period, indeedthe development of concept will probably evolve well into the creationstage. However, it is not possible to reach the creation stage without buildingupon ideas or decisions formed within the concept stage and it is in thisway that this model is hierarchical. The creation stage is the making of theobject, the installing of an exhibition, and incorporates any action that leadsto the completion of the object. Discursive Space exists when a discourseis created between viewer and object. This concept will be dealt with indepth in the discussion of the extrinsic. Finally, the archival stage includesall the documentation, deconstruction, academic discourse, and of coursethe archiving of an artwork. This stage is in many ways optional, for example,art movements such as the land art of the 1960s and 1970s and performanceart, whose objects or events are not always recorded or archived,do not necessarily need to reach this final stage. The discussion on discursivespace further explains the significance of the archival stage.The causal model has been introduced here for two purposes, initiallyto allow for a discussion of the overall life-span of an artwork using the languageof time, and secondly to create a framework within which it is possibleto base a more complex analysis of contemporary art. As mentioned,each stage, although simply represented, is in fact an intricate network oftime and space. The concept and creation stages are primarily representedby the intrinsic, while the discursive space and the deconstruction stagesare dominated by the extrinsic. These two terms allow for a discussion oftime and space within contemporary art, without relying on the traditionaldichotomy of space and time or loaded terminology such as “space-time.”Intrinsic and ExtrinsicThe terms intrinsic and extrinsic are based on the pedagogical conceptsof intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation for students. 3 Extrinsicmotivation refers to an educator’s use of external rewards to motivate students,intrinsic motivation refers to the student motivating themselvesthrough feelings of enjoyment and satisfaction. These terms were adoptedbecause unlike words such as open/shut and inside/outside they are notladen with social implications and do not automatically imply a vehementdialectic opposition and are often used in conjunction with one another.These issues of metaphor and social implication are cited by GastonBachelard in The Poetics of Space, as one of his reasons for selecting theterms inside and outside. 4 I have avoided using the terms outside and insideas I feel that both are diametrically opposed and are not flexibleenough to allow for the existence of a cooperative relationship. The idea of

198Victoria Baker░inherent and not inherent is implied strongly when considering the intrinsicand extrinsic nature of a work. The intrinsic connotes values that are tosome extent independent to the surrounding environment and are an inherentquality within every artwork. The intrinsic attributes of an artwork arepresent without the interaction of a viewer and therefore exist when discursivespace is not occurring. The extrinsic aspect of any work is not inherentin the sense that it relies on the actions of an external agent, usually aviewer. Although this externalisation implies that the extrinsic is an accessoryto the object, the degree to which an artwork is exposed to any externalelement or agent is so great, that it is impossible to consider the objectwithout this aspect. By definition, the extrinsic has its origin outside the object,however in the application of extrinsic to art one must consider the externalas a catalyst. In this sense both the object and the agent (either inthe form of viewer or society) are essential elements of the extrinsic, andwhen considered together they are the fundamental properties of discursivespace. Although these terms imply opposing positions, (inherent or not inherent),and initially appear diametrically opposed, the intrinsic and extrinsicare paradoxically complementary elements. Furthermore they are bothessential elements in every work of art. Deconstruction of an object orevent with only one of these aspects would be incomplete; indeed it is therelationship between the intrinsic elements and the extrinsic elements thatfully reveals the characteristics of time and space within the object. Thismethod of deconstruction has been utilized by a number of researchers,notably Michel de Certeau’s 1988 research, The Practice of Everyday Life,in which instability is contrasted with stability. 5 Deconstruction through theisolation of distinct characteristics is an essential element in Mark Wigley’sphilosophical investigation, The Architecture of Deconstruction. 6 In identifyingthe primary features of architecture, Wigley places a similar emphasison ornament as we find in the application of the extrinsic. Ornament andstructure are two aspects of the same object, and the ornament is controlledby the structure to which it is attached. Wigley goes on to discussthe nature of bonds and support as they move further away from theirfoundation. Although he is discussing physical aspects of architecture,there is a parallel between the relationships of the fundament (directlylinked to structure)/ ornament and the intrinsic/extrinsic. This correlation willbe explored as an element of discursive space and reproduction. JacquesLacan’s “mirror stage” again uses a similar method of identifying separateelements and their subsequent application to a process of deconstruction. 7His theories are particularly relevant to the complex intrinsic and narrativethat will be dealt with at length later.The elemental nature of time is emphasised by Jan Faye, in the intro-

░ Intrinsic and Extrinsic Nature of Time and Space 199duction to the edited book, Perspectives on time:Time seems to be a fundamental concept which we have to acceptas a precondition of our understanding of our own life and the wholeuniverse around us. … Even if we cannot provide a formal definitionof time, something instructive and important about time can alwaysbe said concerning how it is related to other fundamental conceptslike space, event, thing, causation, free will and human experience. 8By deconstructing contemporary installation through the framework of theintrinsic and the extrinsic it is possible to isolate this fundamental nature oftime and to then consider the active role it plays both within the artwork itselfand within subsequent discourse. The role of space is as fundamentalto the existence of any artwork as time, indeed the complex relationship betweentime and space means that each element can rarely be consideredwithout regard to the other. The visual arts is a spatial pursuit, a fact that isemphasised in contemporary installation, where location and site are adominating aspect of the work itself. Space and location as essential factorsof contemporary installation can be considered as an example of theintrinsic and extrinsic functioning in conjunction. As noted by Faye, perhapsthe most problematic characteristic of considering time and space in contemporaryinstallation, is the indefinable nature of almost all the terms involved.There is no basic definition or social understanding of time, there isalso no simple definition of space. These terms can be defined within a scientificclassification, the psychological genus and a social-cultural sense.However, when they are applied to contemporary art, to gain a true understandingof their functions one must consider all definitions and implicationsof these terms simultaneously, and this is where problems begin to occur. Ifone cannot rely on the solid and definable nature of the terms that are beingused, then analysis becomes an almost impossible task. This problemmight be negotiable if the other terms we are considering were not equallyas problematic. The definition of contemporary art is just as, if not more,elusive than the terms time and space; even to hazard the task of creatinga working definition is a thesis in itself. Through the identification andanalysis of simple concepts intrinsic and extrinsic, it is possible to create aterminology and methodology that enables a deconstruction of the role andevidence of time and space in contemporary art. The installations discussedare works selected from the 2004 Biennale of Sydney.Simple IntrinsicThe simple intrinsic is used to consider each individual object or ele-

200Victoria Baker░ment independently of the whole installation. The complexity of this taskdepends greatly on the installation in question. Contemporary installation isa fertile area for the simple intrinsic, as there is much diversity in the constructionof installations. Contemporary installation can utilise numerous differentdisciplines such as: video, performance, accumulation, appropriation,parody and many more devices. Aspects of an individual object that can beconsidered through the framework created by simple intrinsic may includeany conscious choice the artist has made during either the making or collectingof individual objects. Again the diversity of installation becomesrelevant, for some installations, lighting, sound or space amongst manyother variables, may need to be considered as individual objects and as activeparts of the installation. However, for other installations lighting, soundand space may be incidental elements and best considered during the investigationof the complex intrinsic or the extrinsic. As individual elementsof the whole installation are considered through simple intrinsic framework,the conception stage and the creation stage as identified in the causalmodel are of primary concern.Blocks of cheese are featured in Pessimism no more (2002) byPravdoliub Ivanov. 9 Some holes in each block of cheese have been bandagedup, and a single piece of cheese is placed on a plate that is thenplaced on a desk. The sequence is repeated to form the installation. Consideringthis work in terms of simple intrinsic, the individual object can beinitially considered as the cheese. The inclusion of a perishable object createsa temporal framework for the work, this manifestation of the installationcan exist only as long as the cheese survives. 10 The work is not staticas the organic cheese will alter with the passage of time. The unexpectedinteraction between the bandages and the holes in the cheese highlight theholes as a spatial void, and the absence of cheese becomes an activespace within the object. The absurdity of placing bandages over an expectfeature of the cheese creates a parody through which meaning can be constructedand has created a new focus for the deconstruction. The simple intrinsiccan once again be extended to consider the table on which thecheese, bandages and plates are placed. Again the unexpected nature ofthe object becomes the vessel for meaning. Although each of the “cheese,bandage, plate and table” objects occupy a set space there is no use madeof the void beneath the tables. The exhibition space is a variable entity andnot a set parameter of the object, (the dimensions of the work are variable)therefore it will be considered as an element of simple extrinsic. Each individualelement identified has unique aspects of time and space that becomeapparent through systematic deconstruction.

░ Intrinsic and Extrinsic Nature of Time and Space 201Complex IntrinsicIn the case of installation, the primary function of complex intrinsic is toconsider the effects of the combined individual elements identified throughthe simple intrinsic. The complex intrinsic is situated within the stages ofconception and creation of the causal model. The use of complex intrinsicallows the identification of concerns such as: the cumulative effect createdby the arrangement of individual elements and objects, sound, lighting, andthe use of space (space as an aspect of site will be further discussed as anelement of complementary intrinsic and extrinsic). The installation of objectsis an essential element in the creation of meaning with a contemporaryinstallation. Video installation regularly uses carefully selected spacesand synchronised time to install the individual video elements of an installation.11 There is an important distinction between the role of the artist andcurator, just as there is a distinction between installation and series. Thedisplay of individual pieces in a series is not the same as a deliberate unificationof individual elements to create an installation. In the case of installation,all elements are working together to form a single entity, whereas exhibitionsand series are a collection of complete works with some link orcommonalities. This distinction is essential when considering complex intrinsic,as this deconstructive tool can be as effectively applied to a seriesas it can to an installation.Considering complex intrinsic elements within Pessimism no more allowsfor the identification of complex spatial relationships resulting fromcumulation and the placement of individual entities. Ivanov’s installationdominated an area within the MCA whose primary function was a transitionspace between the elevator and the main exhibition spaces. The tableswere deliberately placed to force viewers to negotiate the room in a mannerdictated by the artist. Utilizing the site the “cheese, bandage, plate and table”objects were effectively incorporated into an unexpected spatial arrangement,enhancing the meaning created in each individual object. Therepetition of the objects reinforces the unexpected relationships of the singleelements. In this installation, the complex intrinsic emphasises the spatialnature of the installation, however the cumulative effect of multiplepieces of cheese slowly aging in the gallery does call attention to the temporalnature of the work. Jimmie Durham’s Still Life with Stone and Car,has only very simple individual elements (boulder with face painted and redcar), the metaphor is primarily derived from the interaction of these objects.12 Elements of site and physical location are incidental to meaning,the paradox inherent to this installation is apparent regardless of location,indeed it is difficult to imagine a setting where the combination of these two

202Victoria Baker░objects in this particular manner could not be considered absurd. The temporalnature of this work is complex; the act of dropping the boulder on thecar became a performance and the resulting still life only physically existedfor the duration of the exhibition. The roles of time and space in this installationare fluctuating; initially during the performance (or installation) of thiswork, time became the domination factor, the installation resulting from thisperformance was dominated by space through the physical presence of thepassive object.Simple ExtrinsicAlthough affected by the results of the creation of an object, the simpleextrinsic occurs when an active element in the form of an agent is introduced.Simple extrinsic is concerned with identifying the results of viewerinteraction and viewer interpretation. It is this way strongly related to semioticsand the conclusions drawn are based on subjective responses, withoutcomes at times dependent on individual viewer responses. For the firsttime, the conscious choices made by the artist in the conception stage andrealised in the creation stage are considered passive signifiers. They arerelevant only to the extent that they direct the viewer’s construction ofmeaning and are the controlling elements of interaction. The simple extrinsicis always a present action, as it occurs during interaction with the installation.Simple extrinsic is in this sense opposed to both simple and complexintrinsic as the former is the event that occurs only with the completion ofthe latter.Viewer interaction with Pravdoliub Ivanov’s Pessimism no more, createsan interesting example of the simple extrinsic. Initially discourse is irrevocablycontrolled by the artist’s placement of the individual object andthe selection of the exhibition space. The positioning of the collection of tablesin a transition space forces this involuntary interaction and thus we seeelements of the simple extrinsic. Interactive elements in installation create asituation where the objects are active components of the discourse created.In this case the temporal nature of this interaction is simply an extension ofthe viewer / object discourse. The interactive nature of Project for Sydneyby Thomas Mulcaire and Amanda Rodrigues Alves creates an extension ofthe simple intrinsic. 13 By inviting the viewer to take the A1 posters as mementoof the work, the artists are essentially expanding the physical spaceof the artwork. With the retention of an element of the artwork, the viewerhas the potential for continual discourse with the object. This indefinitely extendsthe potential “present” that is essential to the simple extrinsic.Through the distribution of the posters, the time and space surrounding this

░ Intrinsic and Extrinsic Nature of Time and Space 203work have essentially become simultaneously static and unbounded. Thissituation is mimicked in Rubens Mano’s Visor, where the performance ofthe work occurred away from the gallery but the visors featured in this performancewere freely distributed during the biennale. 14 The time and spaceof this interaction within both these works is removed from reference to theflow of physical time or restrictions of physical presence of the installation.Complex ExtrinsicViewer constructed meaning can be extended to include narrative. Thepotential of a narrative in installation is incorporated into individual elementsor into the installation as a whole by the artist during the creationphase. However, as with simple extrinsic an external agent is required as acatalyst in order for the narrative to emerge. There must be a common socialdialogue between object and agent for the occurrence of a discourseresulting in narrative. Complex extrinsic with regard to narrative is reliant onthe presence of a common social language. The agent brings a personalhistory and knowledge to the installation allowing the emergence of a narrative.Although this discourse occurs in the presence of the installation, itis situated in the imagination of the viewer. Rosalind Krauss’ interpretationof Lacan’s “mirror-stage” provides a method to identify elements of timewithin this narrative.The Imaginary is in the realm of fantasy, specified as a-temporal,because it is disengaged from the conditions of history. For the child,a sense of history, both his own and particularly that of others,wholly independent of himself, comes only with the full acquisition oflanguage. Language presents him with an historical framework preexistentto his own being. Following the designation of spoken orwritten language as constituted of that type of sign called the symbol,Lacan names this stage of development the Symbolic and opposesit to the Imaginary. 15Although the imagined narrative is a-temporal and occurs in the mindspace of the agent, there are more complex relationships of time and spaceat play. The discourse occurs in the presence of the object and is thereforedirectly linked to a physical space and time. The narrative itself is beingimagined in the present, it is however relying on the agent’s prior knowledge,so is in this sense dominated by the past.Sherre DeLys and Joan Grounds’ site specific, sound installation Gargalesis2004 is an example of narrative as an element of complex extrinsic.16 The institutional critique offered by the recording simulating white-ant

204Victoria Baker░conversations, created a narrative that was accessible only to those familiarwith the terminology of the termites. Success of the simulation relied onthe viewers’ ability to allow themselves to be convinced of the plausibility ofan absurd event, an event that saw white-ants discussing the concerns ofthe institution and art world. The role of the imagination in this piece wasexaggerated by the artists referencing only indexical signs of white-antsand not featuring the insects themselves. The complex extrinsic only existedwhile the viewer was directly engaging with the work by listening intosimulated conversations. At another level, narrative within the installationwas constructed by the juxtaposition of a termite mound placed on the lushgrass outside the MCA. The success of this dislocation relied on a viewer’spre-existing knowledge. Finally, the social critique of the work, the underminingof the foundations of art through these conversations was a narrativeprimarily accessible to those viewers with knowledge of the contemporaryart world. The construction of narrative within any installation requiresan active discourse between object and viewer. More so than within theconstruction of meaning, narrative is a product of a common social language.Through recognised symbolism, the artist can deliberately evoke aviewer’s memory, triggering a narrative; this narrative can then be constructedby the viewer and not a direct reference to a known story. GordonHookey’s installation Paranoia Annoy Ya relied on the political knowledgeof the viewer for narrative to be created. 17 To gain a full understanding ofthe symbolism within the work the viewer was also required to be familiarwith images of contemporary Australian popular culture. Hookey’s narrativecombined regions of linear progression and spatially dominated areas. TheAboriginal plight over the last 200 years was documented, as was a protestover Australia’s current relationship with the United States of America. Thiselement of the installation showed a linear progression of historical events,however the adjacent panels portrayed representations of seemingly temporallyunrelated images. Objects included in this complex installation engagedthe viewer in a complementary narrative.Discursive SpaceThe interaction between viewer and installation that occurs in bothsimple and complex extrinsic create a discourse best described as discursivespace. Discursive space allows for the continuation of the discoursebeyond the present, and is therefore not subject to the limitations placed onthe extrinsic. Indeed it is not necessary that discursive space occur as aphysical action and therefore hold certain similarities to Lacan’s imaginaryin his “mirror stage.” It is possible to argue that discursive space can occur

░ Intrinsic and Extrinsic Nature of Time and Space 205exclusively within the mind of a viewer. The state of discursive space becomesprogressively more abstract and subjective the further it is removedfrom the physical reality of the object. Unlike Lacan I feel that this is not ana-temporal experience, instead that it is bound in absolute time and space.Let us propose that discursive space is triggered by the reflection of anagent on a work they have just viewed. The memory will retain certain intrinsicelements which are interpreted through the framework of the extrinsic.The actual simple extrinsic experience may have lasted no more than 4minutes, however the discursive space created by this initial experiencelasts for the duration of the reflective experience. Again, let us postulatethat our agent, inspired by the installation, purchases a book or image ofthe object. While reading the text and reflecting on their experience theagent will again encounter discursive space with the object. This space isno longer bound by the physical presence of the installation; as it is occurringin the “imaginary,” it is not bound by the causal and temporal laws surroundingreality. As our agent becomes more detached from the physicalpresence of the object, the discursive space relies more heavily on thememory and the interpretation of the installation, becoming ever more subjective.If the agent has assimilated the visual memory of the object, an imageor reproduction may no longer be necessary to trigger the occurrenceof discursive space. The final stage of the causal model, the archival stage,is represented by this subjective discursive space. This stage implies notonly the physical archiving of an object, but also the continuing storage andretrieval of the object in the mind of the agent. The role of discursive spaceis essential to contemporary installation. Consider Lim Tzay Chuen’s eventspecific installation A Proposition: 18 this work is no longer accessible exceptthrough documentation. 19 The simple and complex extrinsic occurredwhen the instructions were filled, at the announcement of the winner and atthe subsequent exhibition. This, like many contemporary installations canonly be engaged with discursive space. The concept of discursive spacebuilds on information gained through the intrinsic and interaction of the extrinsicforming a discourse between viewer and object that exists outsidethe direct constraints of physical time and space.Complementary Intrinsic and ExtrinsicThe terms intrinsic and extrinsic are not automatically mutually exclusive.All applications of the extrinsic rely on information presented in the intrinsicelements, however some aspects of contemporary installation requirea continuous exchange between these two elements. With contemporaryinstallation and the growing importance of site, the role of space has

206Victoria Baker░become increasingly complex. Miwon Kwon discusses this shift in her bookOne Place After Another:Emerging out of the lessons of minimalism, site-specific art was initiallybased in a phenomenological or experiential understanding ofthe site, defined primarily as an agglomeration of the actual physicalattributes of a particular location. … Then, through the materialist investigationsof institutional critique, the site was reconfigured as arelay or network in interrelated spaces. 20When site and location of an installation directly affect the meaning or narrative,the site itself becomes an element of the complementary intrinsicand extrinsic. This arises because the site is an intrinsic element of thework, yet when the extrinsic examination occurs it is occurring within the locationof the installation. This is a subtle distinction and best exploredthrough an example installation. Koo Jeong-a’s 2004 installation Untitled 21saw the artists living in the Glasshouse of the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardensduring the creation stage. In this installation the role of site is solinked with the meaning that the artist actively interacted with it and the siteitself guided the creation process. The significance of site to this installationis further enhanced when the Glasshouse itself is considered. As an extrinsicelement, discourse with the work is only achieved when the viewer entersthe Glasshouse; in doing so he is effectively entering the artwork itselfand becoming a component of it. The structure of the glasshouse is an intrinsicelement of the work and as important as any other object within theexhibition. Koo Jeong-a initially uses site as an active element in the creationprocess, and then simultaneously as a component of both intrinsic andextrinsic, thus in this installation site becomes complementary intrinsic andextrinsic.Concluding RemarksThis article has considered the methods of identifying time and spacewithin contemporary installation. This has been achieved initially throughthe use of a generic causal model, used to describe the life-span of an artwork,and subsequently through the introduction of the terms intrinsic andextrinsic. The simple and complex components of these terms have beenbriefly discussed, allowing condensed examples of deconstruction and thedescription of inherent examples of time and space in selected installations.Although this article goes no further than basic description, the identificationof the elements of time and space are only the foundation of this research.The significance of the time and space identified lies in their asso-

░ Intrinsic and Extrinsic Nature of Time and Space 207ciation with contemporary social theory. The acknowledgment of a particularinstallation’s utilisation of time or space is only significant when consideredas indexical to broader social concepts. This methodology allows forquestions such as, “what does this evidence indicate about contemporarysociety?” and “how does this reflect contemporary society?” This method ofdeconstruction makes such questions accessible. This article has presenteda condensed argument for intrinsic and extrinsic deconstruction,and only briefly examined the concept of discursive space. Additionally, ithas only considered contemporary installation, taking examples exclusivelyfrom the 2004 Biennale of Sydney. The methodology introduced in this articlewhen developed fully, can be applied to any medium and is not limitedto examples of Western contemporary art. When this methodology is thoroughlyutilized it will allow for genuine comparisons of time and space bothbetween individual work, between styles and between cultures, makingpossible subsequent related social comparisons.Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydneyvbaker@bigpond.net.auNOTES1 Graham Coulter-Smith, “Criticising Peter Tyndall: Politics Versus Play in PostmodernCriticism”, in Practices of Criticism in Australia (Parkville, Vic.: Art Associationof Australia, 1986), pp. 19-27.2 Coulter-Smith, “Criticising Peter Tyndall”, p. 20.3 Dennis McInerney and Valentina McInerney, Educational Psychology: ConstructingLearning (Sydney : Prentice Hall, 1994).4 Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas (Boston: Beacon,1994) p. 212.5 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley:U of California P, 1988).6 Mark Wigley, The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt (Cambridge,Mass.: MIT, 1993), pp. 11-7.7 Rosalind E. Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 1987), pp. 197-8.8 Jan Faye, Perspectives on time (Boston: Kluwer, 1997), p. 1.9 Pravdoliub Ivanov, Pessimism no more (installation), 2002/2004, cheese, plasters,bandage, plates, tables, dimensions variable (2004 Biennale of Sydney, Museumof Contemporary Art).10 This work was remade for the 2004 Biennale of Sydney.

208Victoria Baker░11 Examples of this synchronicity are: Javier Téllez, The Passion of Joan of Arc (RozelleHospital), 2004, 16mm film transferred to DVD, two DVD projectors, threecinema curtains, hospital linens, furniture, dimensions variable (2004 Biennale ofSydney, Museum of Contemporary Art); and Amilcar Packer, Video #02, 2002,DVD–video installation, five DVD players, five projectors, five pairs of speakers,five amplifiers, carpet, baseboards, door-boards, painted walls dimensions variable(2004 Biennale of Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art).12 Jimmie Durham, Still Life with Stone and Car, 2004, car, granite boulder, acrylicpaint (2004 Biennale of Sydney, Sydney Opera House).13 Thomas Mulcaire and Amanda Rodrigues Alves, Project for Sydney, 2004, two A1posters, installation view (2004 Biennale of Sydney, Art Gallery of New SouthWales).14 Rubens Mano, Visor, 2004 Plastic tubes, eye masks, 10,000 tubes, dimensionsvariable (2004 Biennale of Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art).15 Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde, pp. 197-8.16 Sherre DeLys and Joan Grounds, Gargalesis 2004, Installation of simulatedwhite-ant mound, steel, concrete, foam, oxides, pigment, builder's paper, speakers,DVD, 700x220x120cm (2004 Biennale of Sydney, Museum of ContemporaryArt).17 Gordon Hookey, Paranoia Annoy Ya, 2004, Oil on Linen, paper, wire, cloth, foundobjects, ready-mades, textcrete, cement fondue, wood, dimensions variable; threepanels at 2743x4013mm and one at 660x4496mm (2004 Biennale of Sydney, Museumof Contemporary Art).18 Lim Tzay Chuen, A Proposition, An open proposition by the artist for public participation,5 June 2004 (2004 Biennale of Sydney, Artspace).19 The debates surrounding the reconstruction and reinstallation of temporary installations,and also nomadic trends in contemporary art are relevant; however I feelthat they are peripheral to the current discussion.20 Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2002), p. 3.21 Koo Jeong-a, Untitled, 2004, Installation: Mixed media, found objects, dimensionsvariable (2004 Biennale of Sydney, Royal Botanic Gardens).

Writing the Subject:Virginia Woolf and ClothesCarolyn AbbsVirginia Woolf had a fascination with clothes and textiles. She wroteabout clothes in her diaries, fiction and non-fiction and she even wrote forVogue magazine – the editor was a friend. 1 There may have been some influencefrom William Morris’s designs and tapestries, the Omega workshopsof the time, Serge Diaghilev and costume designs for the BalletsRusses, and we know that she worked needlepoint with her sister VanessaBell. However, in regard to writing the subject, it was more than a merefascination with clothes: she recognized the important link between clothesand the body. The other aspect of her life and work of relevance here is herintrigue with childhood and childhood experience – particularly the memoryof her mother. I am interested in the way Woolf’s fascination with clothesand intrigue are entwined with childhood experience and memory in herwork. In this paper, I suggest that Virginia Woolf has a method of writingthe subject that involves clothes and textiles. The method stems from herautobiographical writing, in particular the childhood memory of her mother,and is carried through into her novelistic practice. I will argue that Woolf isable to fictionalize/ re-work memory as perception of the body by involving“clothes and textiles”; 2 that is, she understands a confluence between bodyand clothes which she writes via the nonverbal and, in particular, the tactileto create the subject in her writing practice. It is this confluence which I un-COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/abbs.pdf

210Carolyn Abbs░derstand as “writing the subject.”The “confluence” of body and clothes can be defined as Flugel does inThe Psychology of Clothes. Clothes create a variety of illusions such as todo with status, power, size, space and so on, according to Flugel, but thevery fundamental importance of clothes is the illusion of the identity betweenbody and clothes. This however is no more than an effect known toAnd,psychologists as “confluence.” In this illusion, the mind fails to distinguishtwo things which under other circumstances are easily keptapart. … The extension of the total (human) figure, really due toclothes, is unconsciously attributed to the body that wears them, asbeing the more vital and interesting portion of the whole. 3Apart from face and hands – which, it is true, are the most sociallyexpressive parts of our anatomy, and to which we have learnt to devotean especially alert attention – what we actually see and react toare, not the bodies, but the clothes of those about us. 4This paper will commence with an analysis of certain detail in Woolf’s autobiographicalwork “A Sketch of the Past” and then define what I see as herextension of Bergson’s theory of memory. This will then enable me to discussher method of writing the subject as a political ficto-performative subjectin her novelistic practice.Autobiographical WritingsAs mentioned above, Woolf’s ability to fictionalize memory as perceptionseems to be developed from, and to begin with, a conceptual understandingof the memory of her mother. The following analysis of three briefmoments from Woolf’s autobiographical work “A Sketch of the Past” shouldhelp us to begin to understand this concept.I begin: the first memory. This was of red and purple flowers on ablack background − my mother’s dress; and she was either in a trainor in an omnibus, and I was on her lap. I therefore saw the flowersshe was wearing very close; and can still see purple and red andblue, I think, against the black; they must have been anemones, Isuppose. 5Certainly there she was, in the very centre of that great Cathedralspace which was childhood; there she was from the very first. Myfirst memory is of her lap; the scratch of some beads on her dress

░ Writing the Subject 211comes back to me as I pressed my cheek against it. Then I see herin her white dressing gown on the balcony; and the passion flowerwith the purple star on its petals. Her voice is still faintly in my ears −decided quick; and in particular the little drops with which laughended – three diminishing ahs … ‘Ah-ah-ah …’ I sometimes end alaugh that way myself. And I see her hands, like Adrian’s, with thevery individual square-tipped finger, each finger with a waist to it,and the nail broadening out. (My own are the same size all the way,so that I can slip a ring over my thumb.) She had three rings; a diamondring, an emerald ring, and an opal ring. … 6Also I hear the tinkle of her bracelets, made of twisted silver... I donot think that I separated her face from that general being; or fromher whole body. 7I want to argue that the clothes and, in particular, the fabric of her mother’sclothes in these quotations, play a role in conveying the childhood memory.It is important to note the emphasis upon the fact that it is “the first memory,”for Woolf was forever striving to achieve that first memory as far backas possible before adulthood and experience of life diluted and inhibitedher feelings. In the first quote it is the memory of proximity with her mother;she is “sitting on her lap.” What is interesting about this piece is the way itplays with the visual in the cinematic sense, initially, to exhibit visual closeness.The filmic type of close-up of the flowers on the dress sets up a myopicfocus so that there is a nearness that is both emotional and physical.The colours on the dress produce a certain painterly effect and rhythm ofthe body – “red and purple.” Next, the blackness of the background of theflowers on the dress provides a void so that there is the feeling of beingalone with the flowers, that is, immersed in the rhythm and separate fromthe rest of the world. The mother is her world. These flowers then procure avirtual life in the present when in retrospect the child subject proposes thatthese flowers must have been anemones. They become real flowers sothat the olfactory comes into play; we smell the perfume of the flowers becausewe are as if so near. In consequence, the perfume of the flowers isthen super-imposed upon the mother and becomes as if the mother's perfume.And as part of the dress, the perfume and flowers cause the dress(to which she is close) to be the mother. That is, there is a confluence betweenher body and dress. The activation of the proximal sense betweenmother and child is juxtaposed against the indefinite sense of place: “shewas either in a train or in an omnibus,” so that emphasis is of being on herlap. Even the fact of the anemones is not absolutely clear if we take intoaccount the concluding adjunct of “I suppose.” The indefiniteness of de-

212Carolyn Abbs░scription could be regarded as a painterly blurring type of Post-Impressionistic effect, but it should not be left at the aesthetic level of interpretation.Part of the reason is that the inexactness of vision produces acorporeality of indefiniteness that, for Woolf, provided the impetus for theproduction of ficto-performative subjects, as will be shown in due course.The second quotation is once again about “first memory” and mediatedin terms of the aesthetics of the fragmented dream space, or cinematicmontage, while maintaining an emphasis on proximity betweenmother and child, both near and far. The montage shifts between close-upand long shots putting emphasis, once again, upon the proximity that isboth emotional as well as physical. Even the long shot of the dressinggownimplies an intimate knowledge of the tactile feeling of the cloth due tothe understanding produced in the following close-up. While the mother isdescribed as “the centre of that great Cathedral space of childhood,” as ifboth physically as well as spiritually towering over the child, it is not theverbal that directly confirms presence. Rather, it is the visual image of theMadonna and child (created through the verbal) that conveys emotion, anda certain awesome spirituality out of a visual painterly aspect. However, Iargue that it is the cloth of the dressing-gown that summons the child tobecome enfolded so there is a fluid type of merging, between child, motherand cloth.Next, it is the beads on the dress that not only cause the felt, tactile,presence of the mother but simultaneously dispel the spiritual myth. As displeasure,the scratch of the beads is as if a reprimand from the mother –“the scratch of some beads on her dress comes back to me as I pressedmy cheek against it.” The mother is now a human mother as opposed to amythical figure in that she is denied spiritual “perfection.” Instead, she reprimandsthe child, causing pain, which contritely, reinforces the recollectedcloseness. Similarly, while the vision of the mother “in her white dressinggownon the balcony” depicts a certain ethereal presence, it is the followingclose-up of “the passion flower with the purple star on its petals” that refocusesthe mother as bodily rhythm. Her presence is confirmed by the recalledlaughter which is then superimposed upon a self as if it is her laughternow or at least an inherited laughter. The comparison of the hands ispertinent, that is, between Adrian, the mother and the self, But it should bestressed that it is the jewellery that not only enables presence but, far moreimportantly, it enables the “other’s” hand to feel like her own. There is amerging of selves, a linking caused by the rings that once again producethe feeling of putting on the rings while recalling the other hands. “And I seeher hands, like Adrian’s, with the very individual square-tipped finger, eachfinger with a waist to it, and the nail broadening out. (My own are the same

░ Writing the Subject 213size all the way, so that I can slip a ring over my thumb.) She had threerings; a diamond ring, an emerald ring, and an opal ring.”In the third quote, the tinkling sound of her mother’s bracelets is verymuch her sound as was her laughter. She has a general being that is amerging of bracelets, face and whole body. Yet it is the fact that they aremade of twisted silver that gives the impression of the child twisting thebracelets on the mother’s arm; or her own arm. It is a strong tactile and performativeimage.Also I hear the tinkle of her bracelets, made of twisted silver... I donot think that I separated her face from that general being; or fromher whole body. 8There is a persistent activation of multiple senses – visual, auditory, olfactory,tactile – in Woolf’s autobiographical work and I am interested in howshe reworks this method in her fiction. I shall argue, as stated earlier, thatWoolf creates the subject via clothes and textiles due to her understandingof the confluence of clothes and the body; and that she includes her ownexperiential ficto-autobiographical memory. In other words, I maintain thatWoolf fictionalizes memory as perception and, in particular the intenselyemotional memory of her mother in order to create the subject. It will beproductive now to define some understanding of Woolf’s philosophy ofmemory.Memory: Beyond BergsonWith regard to memory, Woolf is most often read as a Bergsonian orfollower of Proust. While she did perhaps work with some ideas that weresimilar to that of Bergson’s, it is a mistake to regard her merely as a Bergsonian.9 The main difference is that she worked with recollected memory inthe manner of childhood feelings and sensations and it is in this respectthat she is considered to be Proustian. However, it seems that Woolf extendsthe aims of Proust to include the political. While Proust is famous forrecalling the sensation of childhood, such as in the well-known petite madeleineepisode, 10 Woolf recovers childhood feelings and fictionalizes (reworks)them so as to mediate certain sensations that create the subject asa politics of the body in writing. Her achievements in this regard are complexand partly to do with an understanding of writing itself but also with theway she comprehends memory; and in many ways an extension of Bergson’sideas on memory as well as Proustian memory. Let us begin with thethoughts of Bergson that are relevant.Bergson proposes that there are three aspects of memory: pure mem-

214Carolyn Abbs░ory, memory-image, and perception. He posits that pure memory andmemory-images are realized from the Perception of the present.Whenever we are trying to recover a recollection, to call up someperiod of our history, we become conscious of an act sui generis bywhich we detach ourselves from the present in order to replace ourselves,first in the past in general, then in a certain region of the past– a work of adjustment, something like the focussing of a camera.But our recollection still remains virtual; we simply prepare ourselvesto receive it by adopting the appropriate attitude. Little by little itcomes into view like a condensing cloud; from the virtual state itpasses into the actual; and as its outlines become more distinct andits surface takes on colour, it tends to imitate perception. But it remainsattached to the past by its deepest roots. 11Virginia Woolf had a keen interest in cinema 12 and we can see that sheworks with traits of the cinema in her writing such as, for instance, closeupsenable things to “come into view” and imitate perception. Yet, it is inthe previous sentence, where Bergson says that we “prepare ourselves tosee it by appropriating the right attitude,” that we begin to see how Woolfdiffers. It seems there are two main differences between Woolf and Bergson.The first is that the adopted appropriate attitude, for Woolf, is specificand one of childhood feelings and sensations. So far we have only seenthis childhood attitude in relation to the memory of her mother. I now wantto work towards arguing that in her fictional writing, that is, in the presentationof subjects, she also applies a similar attitude of childhood in order tocreate the uninhibited closeness which children so often live in relation toothers. The second difference is related to the first in that Woolf does indeedappropriate the Proustian attitude of the recollection of a broad rangeof childhood sensations, whereas Bergson seems to want to put the mainemphasis upon the visual. For instance, Bergson stresses the visual focussingin the latter part of the above quote. “Little by little it comes into viewlike a condensing cloud; from the virtual state it passes into the actual; andas its outlines become more distinct and its surface takes on colour, ittends to imitate perception.” (Woolf does not rely merely on the visual butworks with multiple senses.) This is in fact partly the reason that Bergsonthen argues for the impossibility of pure memory because we are inclinedto adopt a memory-image that in effect denies or obliterates pure memorybecause of perception.If it is the remembered image that we are considering, we are biddento take it already made, realized in a weak perception, and to shutour eyes to the pure memory which this image has progressively de-

░ Writing the Subject 215veloped. In the rivalry which associationism thus sets up betweenthe stable and the unstable, perception is bound to expel the memory-image,and the memory-image to expel pure memory. And thusthe pure memory disappears altogether. 13A memory-image does indeed expel pure memory because it obliterates, orat least works instead of pure memory, as in representation, and thus causinga barrier between the past and present. Bergson states that “To pictureis not to remember.” 14 And memory-image type of writing was, of course,part of the aesthetics of realism. As a modernist, Woolf aims rather, to presentthe subject as one who feels and, although she does produce images,they are not reliant on the visual as in direct delineation and nor are theyreliant on the verbal, albeit through the verbal. Thus the type of perceptionnow differs. Bergson argues that we cannot know the past unless we putourselves in it (which, of course, we cannot do in any literal sense) but, aswe have seen, Woolf manages to re-create the feeling of being in the past.Yet, with regard to writing the body as movement, Woolf does followBergson, to a certain extent, in the way he understands the present and indeedpast to be a determination of a future.[W]hat I call “my present” has one foot in my past and another in myfuture … next, because this moment is impending over the future: itis to the future that I am tending. … The psychical state, then, that Icall my “present,” must be both a perception of the immediate pastand a determination of the immediate future … my present consistsin a joint system of sensations and movements. … my present consistsin the consciousness that I have of my body. 15Woolf’s difference, however, is fundamental because Bergson can only understandthe body in the present. He does not realize that the body of thepast can live by another means such as in writing.My actual sensations occupy definite portions of the surface of mybody; pure memory, on the other hand, interests no part of my body.No doubt, it will beget sensations as it materializes; but at that verymoment it will cease to be a memory and pass into the state of apresent thing, something actually lived. 16Bergson fails to realize that in pure memory the body cannot play a role.The problem, or at least his difference, is that Bergson, unlike Woolf, isnot referring to a specific type of language with the use of multiple sensesto convey memory. Woolf does not tell all in terms of language but, rather,part of her strategy is to activate multiple senses – such as the visual, haptic,auditory and so on – via and through language to the extent that the

216Carolyn Abbs░nonverbal dominates. Not only does she create a corporeal presence of hermother in her autobiographical writing (as demonstrated above) but, shealso carries this through to her novelistic practice in that she fictionalizesmemory as perception via the nonverbal and at times the non-visual. Thistype of writing differs because, by focussing on multiple senses, the languageoperates with what might be described as a certain “literary aphasia”17 in that it feels, it touches, it hears and so on, and develops an alterity18 of the subject. It is by no means an objective representation but instead,a very private and secret memory that cannot be created in ordinaryeveryday language. By working with the nonverbal she is able to achieveher aim of writing the body. While it is construed from the fictionalization ofmemory in perception, it is through the inclusion of the aesthetic dimensionsof clothes and textiles that she writes the political. I want to arguenow that for Woolf there is a domination of the tactile. In this regard, let usnow look a little more at the importance of the tactile in memory in order tounderstand how memory becomes fictionalized/re-written as perceptionand produces the body.Memory: The TactileMy point now is that the tactile is very much to do with memory. Earlierin the paper, we discussed some of Woolf’s autobiographical writing. I nowwant to take a step further and define how she transforms her ability towrite about the “closeness” of her mother into the creation of a selfhoodand indeed other subjects. It is to do with her ability to fictionalize memoryas perception, but the transformation has specificities of the tactile as wellas complexities that will need unpacking. In terms of the subject and bodilycloseness, Woolf works with the nonverbal with a specific emphasis uponthe tactile. As Horst Ruthrof has argued in The Body in Language, when wego beyond ordinary syntax “we step into the sign systems of the body.” 19That is, when we work with other senses beyond the verbal and understandby a form of “perceptual or quasi-perceptual” fantasy which is inherentlytactile, olfactory and so on: the corporeal signified is the “linguistic signifieractivated by nonverbal signs.” 20 Woolf is profoundly aware of the rememberednon-linguistic sensations of childhood.I am hardly aware of myself, but only of sensation. I am only thecontainer of the feeling of ecstasy, of the feeling of rapture. Perhapsthis is characteristic of all childhood memories; perhaps it accountsfor their strength. Later we add to feelings much that makes themmore complex; and therefore less strong; or if not less strong lessisolated, less complete. 21

░ Writing the Subject 217This is a very personal perspective on memory with a profundity of sensationand feeling. In a memory of St Ives, we can note, in particular, howWoolf stresses that it is not possible to describe (in language) the “rapture”and yet the sense of “rapture” is excessive.The next memory − all these colour-and-sound memories hang togetherat St Ives – was much more robust; it was highly sensual. Itwas later. It still makes me feel warm; as if everything were ripe;humming; sunny; smelling so many smells at once; and all making awhole that even now makes me stop – as I stopped then going downto the beach; I stopped at the top to look down at the gardens. Theywere sunk beneath the road. The apples were on a level with one’shead. The gardens gave off a murmur of bees; the apples were redand gold; there were also pink flowers; and grey and silver leaves.The buzz, the croon, the smell, all seemed to press voluptuouslyagainst some membrane; not to burst it; but to hum round one sucha complete rapture of pleasure that I stopped, smelt; looked. Butagain I cannot describe the rapture. It was rapture rather than ecstasy.22There is the emphasis on “colour and sound memories” that hang together,but what does this emphasis do but activate other senses such as the haptic,olfactory, proximal and tactile so that we understand that none operateon their own nor rely on the verbal for meaning. However, it is this lateralmeans of making meaning via a multitude of senses that accrues the dominanceof the tactile and in turn seems to be the understanding of rapture.Notice how she stops to touch, as if it is to stop time, to form a repetition, aperpetuation, to install the feeling of rapture as tactile.Next, I want to look at a couple of Woolf’s childhood memories of oldwomen because I think that they exemplify how Woolf begins to developthe tactile sense of the subject. These are instances, where we can recognizea potential for the transition from memory per se towards the fictionalizationor (re)writing memory as perception. The recollection of the first oldwoman is interesting for the way the writing works specifically with the nonverbaland texture in relation to clothes and the body.The Queen’s Gate old woman was an elongated emaciated figurewith a goat-like face, yellow and pockmarked. She sold nuts andboot-laces, I think … She always sat, and wore a shawl and had tome a faint, obliterated, debased likeness to Granny; whose face waselongated too, but she wore a very soft shawl, like tapioca pudding,over her head, and it was fastened by an amethyst brooch set inpearls. 23

218Carolyn Abbs░Understanding is in terms of texture here and causes the tactile to dominate.The “goat-like face” of the old woman that is “yellow and pockmarked”gives the impression that her face is almost furry and nobbled likea goat. The amethyst brooch is proximally very close with its detail of thepearls. But it is not so much that the brooch is seen as a cinematic close-up(although this does play a minor role) but, rather, it is the texture of thebrooch with its smoothness of the pearls that becomes super-imposedupon the old woman’s face. There is, thus, a sense of childhood’s uninhibitedrapture, as if she touches the face in awe and dispels the vision of whatmight be, from an adult’s point of view, an otherwise rather unattractivepockmarked face. The face then has an exquisite jewel-like texture. Next,and perhaps what is even more important, is the tactile softness of theshawl. While the reference to tapioca pudding may add the feeling ofwarmth and satiated comfort, it is the texture of softness that causes a certainyielding of response: 24 a certain humble relation between child andsubject that is taken even further in the next excerpt. There is an inducedperformance of the subject by the child, who as such re-enacts the oldwoman’s spiderly gait, by the means of focusing upon the tactile sense oftextures.One more caricature comes into mind; though pity entered into thisone. I am thinking of Justine Nonon. She was immensely old. Littlehairs sprouted on her long bony chin. She was a hunchback; andwalked like a spider, feeling her way with her long dry fingers fromone chair to another. Most of the time she sat in the arm-chair besidethe fire. I used to sit on her knee; and her knee jogged up anddown; and she sang in hoarse cracked voice ‘Ron ron ron – et plonplon plon −’ and then her knee gave and I was tumbled onto thefloor. She was French; she had been with the Thackerays. She onlycame to us on visits. She lived by herself at Shepherd’s Bush; andused to bring Adrian a glass jar of honey. I got the notion that shewas extremely poor. 25While it can be argued that the presence of this old woman is accrued viamultiple nonverbal means such as rhythm, the auditory (in particular the intonation),the visual and so on, it is pertinent to argue that it is the tactilesense of texture that causes the intimacy. In other words, it is because thechild-subject mimics the old woman (as a performance of the subject) thatthere is an inference of the chair as tactile. Note how she felt her way “withher long dry fingers from one chair to another.” Not only is it the texture ofher skin but the texture of the cloth on the backs of the chairs that createsthe child-like fun of enacting the spiderly gait. It is to do with the understood

░ Writing the Subject 219bodily connection between subject and cloth that is the tactile response.However, I suggest that not only does Woolf create fictional subjects frommemory per se but that she also creates the subject as a selfhood throughthe means of clothes. That is, she recalls the tactile experience or memoryperception of clothes to produce a ficto-self as subject in writing.Clothes and the Ficto-Performative SelfHowever, Woolf was not only able to develop a highly sensitive understandingof the feeling of wearing clothes but, also, she was well aware ofthe power and opportunities, or the potential detriment and shame, thatclothes could give an individual. While others have discussed this diverseinterest as a double consciousness, 26 I am interested in, and will focus on,the means in which Woolf produces the subject as a self via clothes. Thus,I am taking the idea of corporeality of the subject a step further to see howWoolf presents the self as a body consciousness. She sought to researchthe matter further and in a diary entry dated Thursday 14 th May 1925 wrote:But I must remember to write about my clothes next time I have animpulse to write. My love of clothes interests me profoundly; only it isnot love; & what it is I must discover. 27At times, she presents the subject by the way a subject feels wearing certaintypes of clothes so there is a corporeal feeling of being a subject as aself. Such a concept can be extended to say that the subject as a self iscreated by a performance, a consciousness, which is enhanced by clothesand textiles. In a diary entry dated Monday 27 th April, 1925 we can observeher interest in different levels of consciousness.But my present reflection is that people have any number of statesof consciousness: &c. I should like to investigate the party consciousness,the frock consciousness &c. 28Yet, she still works with memory. As opposed to being the memory of hermother recalled so as to produce a bodily closeness of an other subject, wenow work towards understanding her means of creating a self as subject inwriting. This is an intimate knowledge of a selfhood and thus a greatercloseness than we have seen so far. Because we are dealing with feelingsthat we might consider to be of the specific, as well as non-specific, it isworthwhile running through some of the layers of consciousness to do withthe wearing of clothes. Again, I shall first return to a “Sketch of the Past”where Woolf speaks of the shame that can be related to the wearing of certainclothes.

220Carolyn Abbs░Vanessa and I were both what was called tomboys. … Perhapstherefore to have been found looking in the glass would have beenagainst our tomboy code. But I think that my feeling of shame went agreat deal deeper. … Everything to do with dress – to be fitted, tocome into a room wearing a new dress – still frightens me; at leastmakes me shy, self-conscious uncomfortable. …Yet femininity wasvery strong in our family. We were famous for our beauty – mymother’s beauty, Stella’s beauty, gave me as early as I can remember,pride and pleasure. What then gave me this feeling of shame,unless it were that I inherited some opposite instinct? My father wasspartan. 29The shame here is like a torment imposed upon the body and exemplifiesthe confluence between body and clothes in that, as is stated, shame is“everything to do with dress – to be fitted, to come into a room wearing anew dress” and so on. But what is of particular interest here is the way itgives the memory of the intimate feelings of the shame of the body. Thisshame has perhaps a causal history to do with the sexual abuse Woolf receivedas a child and more general “bourgeois Victorian taboos surroundingthe body.” 30 But we can also observe that she put such experience towork in her philosophy of the subject – as a fictionalization/re-working ofmemory as perception. The feelings of the subject are expressed in a nonverbalmanner (and indeed via clothes) in that the fear and shame is describedin terms of the tactile: to be fitted; to be touched. In addition thesubject is not the one that looks but rather, the feeling of being observed isportrayed by movement of the body: “to come into a room” as if with loweredeyes. This excerpt from “A Sketch” can almost be regarded as a prototypeof the short story “The New Dress” although as we shall see thenonverbal, theoretical aspect is extended. We have in this story the senseof a performance of what Hermione Lee has called a “secret self.” 31 Thereis a sense of being the subject that differs from being near other subjectssuch as was described in relation to Woolf’s mother because there is accessto her thoughts.[O]h these men, oh these women were thinking – “What’s Mabelwearing? What a fright she looks! What a hideous new dress!”… But she dared not look in the glass. She could not face thewhole horror − the pale yellow, idiotically old-fashioned silk dresswith its long skirt and its high sleeves and its waist and all the thingsthat looked so charming in the fashion book, but not on her, notamong all these ordinary people. She felt like a dressmaker’sdummy standing there, for young people to stick pins into. 32

░ Writing the Subject 221It is not so much how she feels, but rather that her feelings are portrayedby nonverbal emotions and sensations. The visual delineation is limited inthat she does not look (in the glass) nor is the fact that she is being lookedat defined in a verbal manner. Instead, it is the tactile that produces thefeeling of a self and once again it is the bodily aspect of language thatgives meaning. There is the tactile feeling of wearing the silk dress, whichcould otherwise be sensual if the sensuality was not diminished by the lackof power which is signified as above by the lowering of the eyes that merelynotices the “long skirt.” The painful situation is then metaphorically summarisedby the pins that are stuck into her as if she were a dressmaker’sdummy. In other words, it is the feeling of immobility that is so disempoweringand this immobility and shame is caused by the particular dress. However,Woolf was, of course, not writing about the disempowerment ofwomen but, rather, the empowerment of women as subjects and this example,we might say, highlights the important link between clothes and thebody.In a manner similar to how Flugel was interested in how clothes couldempower the body, Woolf also used clothing to enable the subject to performin an empowering manner. According to Flugel, “clothing, by adding tothe apparent size of the body in one way or another, gives us an increasedsense of power, a sense of extension of our bodily self – ultimately by enablingus to fill more space.” 33 Whereas in the previous example Woolf’ssubject has limited space and little or no extension of the body (as in theappropriation of further bodily space with clothes), at other times she mobilizesthe body and extends space with the use of clothes. Watch how notonly is space made for Ottoline in the diary entry here dated Friday 13 thFebruary, 1920 – “I must spare a phrase [space]” – but also how the colourof the dress dominates the room; it is brought close by the tactile sense ofthe silk. “I must spare a phrase for the sealing wax green of Ottoline’sdress. This bright silk stood out over genuine crinoline. She did control theroom on account of it.” 34 This diary entry is perhaps a memory ripe forWoolf to fictionalize as perception but there is often an overlap betweenWoolf’s fictional writing and non-fiction. It is as if she practiced her fiction inthe diaries. The difference in the diary entry here, for instance, is that shetells us that Ottoline controlled the room on account of the dress whereas inthe fictional texts the meaning is more likely to be conveyed via the nonverbalsuch as in the next excerpt from “The New Dress.”Miss Milan’s little workroom was really terribly hot, stuffy, sordid. Itsmelt of clothes and cabbage cooking; and yet when Miss Milan putthe glass in her hand, and she looked at herself with the dress on,finished, an extraordinary bliss shot through her heart. Suffused with

222Carolyn Abbs░light, she sprang into existence. 35Boredom and the unpleasantness of the situation (being fitted for clothesas mentioned earlier as well as the smell of cabbage cooking) precede thedelight of the empowered performance of the subject as she looks in themirror when the dress is finished. However, it is the fact that she becomesmobile as well as that she extends her space that it is empowering. “[A]nextraordinary bliss shot through her heart. Suffused with light she spranginto existence.” 36 The created energy is created by the tactile feel of thedress and brings awareness and connectedness of the body. The body isthe dress. The dress is movement: the mobile body is performativity due tothe confluence of dress and body. Woolf works with the confluence of bodyand clothes to fictionalize memory and experience of sensation as perception.As we have seen in the last quote from “A Sketch of the Past,” it is thememory of the feeling of lightness of body and movement that certainclothes give, as opposed to the inflicted humiliation by others. Note how inthe concluding lines of the story “The New Dress” the movement and fluidswirl of cloth create the feeling of not only presence but in addition the feelingof almost being the subject who wraps herself, round and round in thecloak.“Lies, lies, lies!” she said to herself, going downstairs, and “Right inthe saucer!” she said to herself as he thanked Mrs Barnet for helpingher and wrapped herself, round and round and round, in the Chinesecloak she had worn these twenty years. 37There is the creation of selfhood, which is tactile and cocoon-like but, alsowith the sensation of a type of unfolding free movement.Thus it can be seen that Virginia Woolf’s interest in clothes and textilesand childhood memory are entwined in her work. Not only does she understandthe confluence between body and clothes, but she is able to fictionalizememory as perception. It seems that she has developed this method ofwriting the subject from her autobiographical writings, in particular those involvingthe memory of her mother. Woolf’s understanding of memory, then,goes beyond Bergson’s theory to include multiple nonverbal senses,through the verbal, with an emphasis on the tactile. By implementing thismethod in her novelistic practice she is able to create the ficto-performativesubject.Curtin University of Technologyc.abbs@exchange.curtin.edu.au

░ Writing the Subject 223NOTES1 I am disrupting the notion that Woolf wrote for Vogue purely for financial reasons,suggesting that it was perhaps in addition an interest and gave impetus for andfurthered her politico-creative writing practice.2 I shall be making no clear boundaries between “clothes and textiles” and will includejewellery in this category.3 J.C. Flugel, The Psychology of Clothes (London: Hogarth Press, 1971), p. 36.4 Flugel, Psychology, p. 15.5 Virginia Woolf, “A Sketch of the Past”, Moments of Being (San Diego: HarcourtBrace, 1985), p. 64.6 Woolf, “A Sketch”, p. 81.7 Woolf, “A Sketch”, p. 82.8 Woolf, “A Sketch”, p. 82.9 We cannot be sure that Woolf did actually read Bergson, but this is not my concern.Rather, I am interested in the similarity of some of her ideas on memory.However, we do know that Proust read Bergson and that Woolf did read Proust,so the influence may have been indirect.10 See Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past: 1, trans. C.K. Scott Moncrieffand Terence Kilmartin (Hammondsworth: Penguin, 1989), pp. 48-51, where thesubject recalls the childhood memory of the taste of the “petites madeleines” givento him by his mother.11 Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, trans. Nancy Margaret Paul and W. ScottPalmer (New York: Allen & Unwin. 1970), p. 171.12 See for instance, Virginia Wolf’s essay, “The Cinema”, The Crowded Dance ofModern Day Life (Hamondsworth: Penguin, 1993); see also my paper on Woolfand the cinema, Carolyn Abbs, “Virginia Woolf and Gilles Deleuze: Cinematic e-motion and the Mobile Subject”, Interactive Media: E-Journal of the NationalAcademy of Screen and Sound, 1 (2005), Murdoch University, date of access:28.3.05, http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/nass/nass_current_issue.htm; and, seemany instances in Woolf’s diaries.13 Bergson, Matter, p.172.14 Bergson, Matter, pp. 173-4.15 Bergson, Matter, p. 177.16 Bergson, Matter, p. 179.17 I am not using the term “literary aphasia” in any medical or clinical sense but as ameans of referring to a disruption of the linguistic. I am suggesting that, when VirginiaWoolf works with multiple senses in writing to create the visual, auditory,haptic and so on, she operates with a form of “literary aphasia” and disrupts the

224Carolyn Abbs░ordinary (prose) use of language so that it leans towards “poetic” language. Forfurther explanation of this type of language see Roman Jakobson, “On the Relationbetween Visual and Auditory Signs”, Selected Writings, vol. 2 (The Hague:Mouton, 1971), pp. 345-59; Jakobson, Fundamentals of Language (The Hague:Mouton, 1971). And, in particular, Roman Jakobson, “The Metaphoric and MetonymicPoles”, Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader, ed. D. Lodge (London:Longman, 1989), pp. 57-61, for a discussion on clinical aphasia in children wherehe argues that the metaphoric pole links to poetic language. From this perspective,“literary aphasia” is poetic and linguistic.18 By the use of the term “alterity” here I am merely referring to the “otherness” of thesubject in that the subject’s feelings are understood as if from her point of view.19 Horst Ruthrof, The Body in Language (London: Cassell, 2000), p. 99.20 Ruthrof, The Body, p.103.21 Woolf, “A Sketch”, p. 67.22 Woolf, “A Sketch”, p. 66.23 Woolf, “A Sketch”, p. 75.24 Gail Jones writes of softness in relation to textiles, stating that the art critic MaxKosloff in an essay entitled “The Poetics of Softness” (although writing aboutsculpture) “sought to examine how engagement with yielding substance evokes aparticular field of sensibility and response. Softness, he suggests, ‘Mimes a kind ofsurrender to the natural condition that pulls bodies down.’ In the best sense, then,the soft edges yielding, pressure, gravity, even fatigue; that is to say it correspondsin certain hypothetical ways to haptic intuitions – to the flexible, the organic,the elastic, the impressionable, and most of all, to the depredation of time.This might suggest why works of cloth, ‘miming surrender,’ so often suggest pathosand sentimentality. The connection is a subtle one. … It also connects, albeitobliquely, tropes of mortality, artifice and the precariousness of selfhood.” SeeGail Jones, “Four Meditations on the Poetics of Cloth”, From Within: Jane WhiteleyWorks in Cloth (Fremantle, Western Australia: Art on the Move, 1999), pp. 7-8.25 Woolf, “A Sketch”, p. 74.26 See Lisa Cohen, “Frock Consciousness: Virginia Woolf, the Open Secret, and theLanguage of Fashion”, Fashion Theory, 3.2 (1999), pp. 149-74; and Molly Hite,“Virginia Woolf’s Two Bodies”, Genders 31 (2000), pp. 1-22.27 Woolf, The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume Three: 1925-1930, ed. Anne OlivierBell (San Diego Harcourt Brace, 1980), p. 21.28 Woolf, Diary, vol. 3, p. 12.29 Woolf, “A Sketch”, p. 68.30 Sidonie Smith, Subjectivity, Identity and the Body: Women’s AutobiographicalPractices in the Twentieth Century (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1993), p. 89.31 I am referring here to the introductory theme of Hermione Lee’s edited book ofshort stories The Secret Self: A Century of Short Stories by Women (London:Phoenix Giants, 1995).32 Virginia Woolf, “The New Dress”, The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf,

░ Writing the Subject 225ed. Susan Dick (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1989), pp. 171-2.33 Flugel, Psychology, p. 34.34 Woolf, The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume Two: 1920-1924, ed. Anne Olivier Bell(San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1980), pp. 19-20.35 Woolf, “New Dress”, p. 172.36 Woolf, “New Dress”, p.172.37 Woolf, “New Dress”, p. 177.

REVIEW ARTICLE

The Woman-Object’s Glorious New ClothesLiz Conor. The Spectacular Modern Woman: Feminine Visibility inthe 1920s. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004. ISBN 0 253 21670 2.Juliette Peers. The Fashion Doll: From Bébé Jumeau to Barbie.Oxford and New York: Berg, 2004. ISBN 1 85973 743 9.Robyn Walton“Dolls raise so many issues about the representation and cultural positioningof the feminine in society,” writes Juliette Peers in the “Introduction”to her book The Fashion Doll (Peers: 8). Liz Conor might well have begunher text about feminine visibility by using the same statement, substitutingfor “dolls” the words “mass media images of women.” “Appearance” and“appearing,” in their multiple meanings, are also key words for both authors.Peers’s primary interest is fashionably dressed dolls’ appearance(looks) and appearance (emergence) in the market-place, while Conorelaborates on the emergence of the “new formation of subjectivity” shecalls the Modern Appearing Woman in the technologically enhanced ocularfield of the 1920s.Discussing these two books in terms of their covers is a temptation notto be resisted since each text is so much about representation. Appropriately,a photographic image of a woman or an inorganic 3D representationof a woman occupies each cover. The front of Peers’s book shows a stylishlydressed young woman ostensibly adjusting her underwear in thecompany of an up-to-date doll; the front of Conor’s is occupied by theglamorously painted face of a store display dummy or mannequin. Accord-COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/walton.pdf

228Robyn Walton░ing to captions within the texts, the sepia-toned picture of the young womanwas reproduced on a French postcard during the 1920s while the face belongsto a replica of a 1920s mannequin. 1 It is disappointing that neither authorwent out of her way to date and contextualise her image more precisely.(I date both as c.1927.) 2 However it has to be conceded that intentionalityraises its head here: it is likely that final cover image decisionswere made by overseas publishers and may not have coincided with theauthors’ preferences for what are effectively their own store window displays.Nevertheless, both images have plenty to say to browsers and seriousreaders of cultural history, visual sociology and gender studies abouthow the feminine was (and is) represented in Western market economies.On Peers’s cover the postcard has been cropped so that the pert dollpropped up on the dressing table is relegated to a corner, the focal point ofthe image then becoming the crotch of the young woman completing hertoilette in the supposed privacy of her boudoir. Sitting with one knee raisedhigh and the heel of her Mary Jane shoe supported by a pulled-out drawer,the woman inspects the hem of her knickers. There is a naughty display ofthe bare flesh above her stocking tops and a teasing shielding of the geni-

░ The Woman-Object’s Glorious New Clothes 229tals by means of fabric and hand. Is this a case of bait and switch packagingby Peers’s publishers? The strategy is perhaps defensible on theground that it demonstrates how an alluring image works to engage thesenses, provoking the casual browser to pay attention, touch or imaginetouching, and ultimately buy a product or service. Any adult viewer of thePeers cover image must be aware of the longstanding association of desirablewomen with lovely dolls and the implied suggestion that women maybe rated in terms of their attractiveness and cuteness. 3 Postcards like theone on Peers’s cover, along with others more risqué, had a lineage extendingback to the Second Empire; 4 and inevitably the boundaries of the populationsof intended purchasers and intended or incidental viewers were attimes blurry. 5The figure of a child or young woman with a doll also has things to sayto the viewer about his or her bodily sense of self, the natural versus the inventedchild, and the child as representing one’s interiority, the deepestplace inside, the self perhaps lost or repressed. A doll may function as aperson’s infant, confidante, alter ego, pet substitute, fantasy/sex object,decorative feature or sign of somewhat precious sophistication or patrioticloyalty. To the extent that the fashionably dressed, cute doll was a stylised,infantilised miniature of its owner, it invited a diminishing reading of theowner and her peers. And it was a sign of its times. Nineteen twentiesdolls, for instance, were “the annunciatory angels of popular culture,” asPeers nicely puts it (Peers: 134). They were offered in the market-placealongside scores of doll-like toys and partial dolls incorporated into householditems – all variously sentimental, comical, whimsical and grotesque.“These novelties were a vernacular expression of the vastly different outlookand experience of postwar society, and the supercession of the moodsand demeanour of the Edwardian and Victorian eras,” Peers summarises ina sentence typical of her prose style here (Peers: 130).By the 1920s adolescent and girl consumer demographics were increasinglydifferentiated from each other and from the adult market, with increasingsexualisation of childhood and precocious adoption of quicklychanging fashions. Conor’s book surprised me with the complementary informationthat many of the Flappers were teenagers or even children. TheFlapper’s tubular body shape was informed by that of the lanky premenarchalgirl, and her movements were characteristically youthful, rapid andreckless, “like the whirring movements of a clockwork toy, or even thespasmodic jerks of a just decapitated creature,” as Australian author DulcieDeamer put it (Conor: 215).Peers notes the links in the 1920s between dolls, graphics in the popularmedia and the new art form of animation. She mentions cartoon charac-

230Robyn Walton░ters such as Felix the Cat being reproduced in all manner of materials, butomits the most commercially successful representation of a human female,Betty Boop. 6 On and off during the 1910s and 1920s it was fashionable foradults to wear doll motifs in accessories, to carry dolls or teddy bears, todecorate house and car interiors with dolls, and to feature novelty toys andchildish fancy-dress in social gatherings. 7 Peers does not allow herself thespace to thoroughly account for this faux juvenileness but briefly refers tothe horrors of the Great War, the destabilisation of European society andthe dissident expressiveness of Dadaist and Surrealist artworks which incorporatedmutilated and disassembled dolls and mannequins in shockingways. 8Transferring our gaze to the mannequin on Conor’s cover we openourselves to a close-up demonstration of how to apply the coloured cosmeticsthat were coming into everyday use in the 1920s, ceasing to beluxuries as women’s discretionary purchasing power increased, mass productionlowered prices and international trade in non-essentials picked up,and ceasing to be morally objectionable as Victorian attitudes relaxed. 9 Did

░ The Woman-Object’s Glorious New Clothes 231the costly, rigorous and time-consuming self-care routines of beauty cultureconstitute a re-subduing of the so recently and incompletely emancipatedwoman? Was women’s autonomy being channelled into obsession withconforming to new bodily ideals, thereby producing a form of selfoppressionat odds with general feminine aspirations to acquire still greaterlatitude in the public domain? To her credit Conor grapples with differingresponses to such questions, especially in her chapter on the Flapper.The finely modelled and coloured head on Conor’s cover wears ahaunting expression and is intriguingly layered with cultural references. Thelean face has a cool, immaculate beauty. The skin appears poreless,sealed against intrusion. Although the mannequin’s irises are not blue, herarching, symmetrical eyebrows and perfectly straight nose are true to astylised northern European ideal of beauty. A pleated white covering resemblinga turban fits closely to the mannequin’s head, while curls kick upon her cheeks with the geometric precision of chorus dancers’ legs.It is probable that the demeanour and overtly cosmeticised look ofConor’s mannequin was a replication of what was being popularised onscreen in the second half of the 1920s. These woman-objects were not thewinsome Cinderellas and ingenue-vamps of the early 1920s. They representedwomen in transition, becomingly presented women becoming moreindependent, which is very much Conor’s theme. 10 This facial look persistedthrough into the talkies of the 1930s, although lips thinned, mouthswidened, and Garboesque hauteur and inferred spirituality increased. 11Obviously the dark-ringed eyes and strongly coloured lips which hadserved a practical highlighting purpose on male as well as female actors inthe early days of silent moving pictures (c.1912) were not going to be rapidlyabandoned, since additionally they drew attention to secondary sexualcharacteristics.If window shoppers did not read an impeccably groomed mannequinlike this one as an acceptable model for everyday girls, 12 then they mayhave regarded it with trepidation as a worldly, out-there New Woman in fullpossession of her own house keys, motorcar keys and cigarettes. 13 Tothose with a resistant attitude to stand-alone women this mannequin couldeven have represented a chilling, cruelly self-involved goddess-matriarchfrom an occult-scientific new world order, a descendant of those devastatingfemmes fatale conjured up in the nineteenth century. With her flattened,elongated body, the Art Deco fantasy female could look almost androgynous,a fusion of the phallic and the feminine, of machine-made straightlines and sharp points with convexities and concavities. Inevitably, consciousnessof mechanisation was provoked in the viewer, especially sincesuch abstracted simulacra were being made by way of new technological

232Robyn Walton░know-how which was reported to the public and some of which was knownto be owned and operated by women. 14***Now that we have looked at the front covers, what can be observedabout the other elements framing and shaping these two texts? How effectivelydo they guide the reader into these books’ densely packed assembliesof (arguably trivial) historical facts, factoids and opinions?Peers’s succinct encyclopaedic survey of fashion doll production, merchandisingand consumption spans more than one hundred and fifty years,from mid-nineteenth century Paris to twenty-first century USA. Her subtitle,From Bébé Jumeau to Barbie, undersells in that coverage begins beforethe Jumeau firm (founded 1843) made its first Bébé in 1876 and continuesfor almost forty-five years beyond the launching of Barbie in 1959. In herclosing pages Peers notes the booming 2002 Australian sales figures for athen new US doll range, Bratz, alongside the Mattel corporation’s struggleto update and create successors for the aging Barbie. Mattel’s new lines atthat time were the My Scene dolls (“think Spice Girls and Japanese animation,”i.e. larger head, almond-shaped eyes and numerous accessories)pitched to young girls in the KGOY (kids growing older younger) category,the Modern Circle dolls pitched to older girls and the young women whowere fans of television shows such as Sex and the City, and the multiethnicFlāvas range (Peers: 192-3). 15 As it has turned out, the large, up-todateand quite sexy Bratz range has stolen so many sales from Barbie thathad Peers been releasing her book now and directing it to the rising generationof readers she might have considered sub-titling it From BébéJumeau to Bratz.Assuming a readership sufficiently fascinated by doll history to contendwith 200-odd pages of closely worded prose with only about 20 scatteredblack and white illustrations, Peers does not spend time justifying herchoice of subject. In this she differs from the author of another recent bookon dolls, A. F. Robertson, an American anthropologist. Robertson tells herreaders she persevered with her inquiry into porcelain dolls and the womenwho collect them despite one colleague’s comment that her subject was“nauseating,” another’s that “everything about these dolls is a lie” and athird’s that “[I] could never bring [my]self to care about what seems to be arelatively arbitrary feature of western U.S. culture in the late twentieth century.”16Peers characterises her work here as empirical historicism. Her trajectory,she writes, was shaped opportunistically rather than by a pre-

░ The Woman-Object’s Glorious New Clothes 233determined methodology or theoretical framework. She proceeds chronologicallywithout any overarching theory or even a suite of conclusions.Readers hoping for a sustained attempt to integrate critical theory with selecteddata will appreciate more Conor’s book.While limiting her scope to those areas of doll culture which can bedescribed as “white Eurocentric cultural experience,” Peers does mentiontwo-way East-West trafficking in dolls and the modification of North Americandolls for Asian and South and Central American markets (Peers: 4-5,12-3, 192-3). She acknowledges that her narrative could have been extendedto take in ethnicity, postcolonialism and Othering, just as – spacepermitting – it could have covered the erotic, censorship, early childhoodeducation, body image, collectors’ psychology and numerous other issues.One aspect Peers does include is women’s agency in doll production andrelated businesses. Her positively toned emphasis on women’s commercialcreativity and entrepreneurship leaves little room, she acknowledges, forthose negative feminist critiques of doll culture that spell out “harsh, reductivelessons for oppressed females” (Peers: 9).Peers’s literature review readily shows there is space for an academictreatment such as hers. Her sharp comments on collectors’ limiting rangeof interests (“narrow, arid codified knowledges”) parallel Conor’s frustrationwith 1980s feminism’s failure to recognise “underlying questions about therelation between visual representation and gendered identity” (Peers: 5;Conor: xiv). So far as theorising goes, Peers all but dispenses with it. RolandBarthes’s writing on French children’s socialisation through toys findsits way into the text, but only within an epigraph from an American academic’sessay on Barbie; and Walter Benjamin’s writing on collecting is referredto in a footnote dealing with another author’s work (Peers: 97, 196-7). Susan Stewart’s thoughts on collecting would have been apposite sinceshe concentrates on leisure and fantasy areas often dominated by girls andwomen (doll houses, models, souvenirs, fairies, manikins and dressed-upchildren) in relation to nostalgia, longing and conservatism. 17 Performanceis another aspect that is under-played. Typically Peers mentions it onlywhen it appears in others’ publications – for example, the “performance ofhigh fashion amongst young [French] children” as deplored by the British-Australian authors and illustrators of a 1903 book (Peers: 85-6).Now that the philosophy and performance of beauty have made astrong return to the area of feminist inquiry readers might expect the abstractterminology of aesthetics to recur in Peers’s text. It does not. Rather,Peers stays with historic instances. The index entry “Woman as sign of the‘beautiful’” takes us to the nineteenth-century Bébé, “radiating supreme,compelling beauty,” and to similar images in painting. Peers highlights peri-

234Robyn Walton░ods when girls’ admiration of and desire to emulate certain publicly laudedbeauties were of indisputable cultural significance and had long-term repercussions.For example, in Second Empire France the Empress Eugénie– frequently photographed and painted – not only raised standards of personalattractiveness and stylish dressing but inspired the ongoing creationof dolls with beautiful faces and haute couture wardrobes (Peers: 56-7).“Sign” is a word favoured but loosely used by Peers. Various dolls aresaid to be signs of class distinctions, excess, the city, order, status, SecondWorld War atrocities and the Other. Fashion can be a sign of class difference,female transgression and the modern. Haute Couture (French) is asign of femininity, humanity and Paris. The removable tight sweaters andshort skirts of Lilli, the German predecessor of Barbie, could be valued aidsfor men who wanted “a sexual come-on to randy girl friends,” according toa male commentator, yet – Peers adds – they could also be deplored forsuggesting “foolishness or excess in … women,” such preoccupation withfashion being “a sign of women’s unsuitability for public life” (Peers: 140). 18“Barbie, and women as falsehood” in Peers’s index refers to an article byWendy Varney in Arena in which, according to Peers’s reading, the Barbiedoll is associated with femininity and frivolity. “[F]emale insufficiency, consumerism,fashion and Barbie” are regarded as mutually interchangeable:“each is a sign of the other and each is to be resisted equally” (Peers:101). 19 Evidently Varney, if not Peers herself, runs the risk of collapsingcategories.“Woman as unstable” takes us to several tendentiously toned discussions.After quoting some mid-nineteenth-century male commentators’ objectionsto dolls which they regarded as a moral hazard to impressionableyoung women and girls, Peers remarks: “Often those who define or calibratean ‘appropriate’ level of sexual content in a given doll are masculine,as with the department store buyers who rejected Barbie in 1959. Perhapsthe issue being protected is male privilege as much as female purity?”(Peers: 64).In the early Victorian period, according to Peers, there was a blurringof existential assumptions. In texts and visual narratives the inanimate dolltook on lifelikeness. It was regarded as living, in need of nurture, and capableof possessing other cultural artefacts and functioning independently inits own (fantasised) sphere (Peers: 28). Although Peers does not mentionBaudrillard here, the reader may think of the applicability of his notion of thehyperreal to dolls, as well as to toys, gadgets, anime and online entertainments.20A parallel discussion opens up the question of a possible gender dividewithin doll making and designing. Peers cites cases to refute this sup-

░ The Woman-Object’s Glorious New Clothes 235posed divide, but then credits women with being responsible for “the mostdramatic technical advances in doll construction and the most extravagantplacement of the doll as an object of beauty, serving the gaze and visualpleasure.” In fact the entire history of commercial doll making and marketinghas been shadowed, Peers tells us, by anxieties about women’s potentialneglect of home and mothering, anxieties summed up in the “tensionbetween differing functions of the doll as maternal trainer for domestic dutiesand the superficiality of the luxurious doll, whose raison d’être is towear glorious clothes” (Peers: 35-6).***Conor goes to eastern-states Australian periodicals for the majority ofher archival material illustrating 1920s public representations of women, butalso crosses the Pacific to the USA and occasionally alludes to the Britishexperience. Each keyword in her title and subtitle – spectacular, modern,woman, feminine, visibility – carries a weight of referents. Inevitably somequestions are begged, observations selectively invoked, interpretationsskewed, oppositions left unexplored. For example, if we accept that therewas noteworthy feminine visibility in the 1920s – that “roaring” decadepopularly identified with the visual emblem of the slim young woman dancing,smoking, drinking, partying, nightclubbing, motoring, diving, playingsports and generally seizing the day and night – then we may immediatelywonder: what of masculine visibility? And was there “feminine invisibility”before the 1920s?Within her text Conor proves ready to address the second of thesequestions by pointing to the new technologies which made possible or enhancedpublic visibility of women and things gendered feminine in the1920s. But male visibility remains beyond her scope – which is not to saythat males are excluded from these pages. Of the many 1920s cartoons,advertisements, films, newsreels, theatrical productions, artworks, merchandisingdisplays, photographs, verses, lyrics, prose fictions and piecesof journalism cited in relation to female visibility, a majority were created,edited and promulgated by men. The male viewpoint is everywhere in thisbook, as is male intervention. Much as Conor is keen to celebrate 1920swomen’s increasing public presence, she is frequently obliged to contendwith obstructive and mocking male opinions from that time and to acknowledgecertain men’s crucial roles in facilitating women’s progress into publicparticipation.Subjectivity, identity, modernity, appearing, performance, image andobjectification are collapsed together here in a way which, to my mind,

236Robyn Walton░makes this book’s argument circular, and I was still finding it difficult goingwhen I reached Conor’s “Conclusion.” A return to the more colloquiallyworded, self-reflective “Preface” helped me disentangle Conor’s thesis.Conor begins by noting the popular – but, according to her, little examined– assumption that feminine visibility has political significance. She asks:“When did the visibility of women become important?” before discussingher own conflicting experiences during the 1980s, when she dressed inretro glamour style.When, why and even whether Conor specifically chose to research the1920s remains unclear, as does what she was initially looking for in the 60-odd periodicals she studied. The closest she comes to explaining is to alludeto her “hunch” that “the modern industrialised production of images …forged a new relation between feminine visibility and public visibility.” Modernity,she believes, intensified the visual scene and spectacularisedwomen within it. In a “dramatic historical shift,” 1920s women were “invitedto articulate themselves as modern subjects by constituting themselves asspectacles.” Consequently, feminine subjectivity came to be increasinglyperformed within the visual register (Conor: xiii-xvi).These statements are best read in conjunction with a few sentences inConor’s “Conclusion”: “This book was intended to be not an argument forthe importance of visibility, but rather a cultural history of how visibility becameimportant. [Film pioneer] Lev Kuleshov was prescient when he stated… that modern image production had enabled him to create a new woman.But this new woman was more than a composite of montaged body parts:she represented the newly emerged subject position of the modern appearingwoman, who was produced, as Kuleshov’s [film] woman was, within thealtered visual conditions of the modern perceptual field” (Conor: 254).This dating and line of argument will doubtless appeal to those focusedon the early twentieth century and on cinema and other visual media;however those with greater knowledge of nineteenth century culturalhistory will think of earlier phenomena which constitute stumbling blocks toConor’s claims for the exceptional character of the 1920s. Too many of ushave been unduly influenced by the plethora of American research focusingon the early twentieth-century products of US capitalism, Hollywood films inparticular.Once Conor gets into her fine collection of media material her writingbecomes less congested. Despite her introductory disquisition on “appearing,”Conor does not in fact directly substitute “appearing” for “spectacularisation”in the chapters that follow, possibly because the un-English phrase“the appearing of women” would not play. And whoever made the final decisionon her title has opted – wisely I think if sales matter – for the lively

░ The Woman-Object’s Glorious New Clothes 237wordplay of “Spectacular Modern Woman” over “Modern AppearingWoman.”Conor’s organising principle in the body of her text is the typology, althoughshe concedes the approach has its shortcomings. We are all familiarwith snappy lists presented in the popular media, and Conor gives a1919 instance from the prurient Truth newspaper, in which “Tarts aboutTown,” young single women living unsupervised in the city, are characterisedas Flappers, Love Birds and Privateers (Conor: 53, and 268 n. 56). Weare also familiar with academic studies structured around purportedly representativetypes, and again Conor mentions an instance, Pamela Niehoff’sdescription of the New Woman under four headings, the flapper, the modernleisured woman, the thinking woman and the resourceful woman(Conor: 267 n. 40). However, it is to a third kind of list, the physiology of urbantypes, that Conor admits indebtedness.The male flâneur having been one early type, Conor gives space tothe ongoing quest to retrospectively identify female equivalents. She citesAnke Gleber’s conclusion that only inside cinemas could women enjoyspectatorship, and in an endnote refers to “the invisible status of the femaleflâneur in the literature of modernity” as an outcome of females’ “excessivespectacularisation as woman-on-the-street” (Conor: 15-8; 258 n.1; 259 n.10). It is surprising that in the course of her reading Conor did not comeacross sufficient cases of female spectatorship to question Gleber et al. Inthe course of my background reading for this essay I noticed a few womenwho might be described as flâneurs and one (in Paris in 1912) who waslater explicitly described as “a born flâneuse or saunterer” by her companionof the time. 21 My working conclusion: go to female writers of the past forrecognition of fellow out-and-about women as observers rather than objectsfor ogling and censorious comment.A first glance at Conor’s own typology suggests she has separated outfive types of actual women (the so-called City Girl, Screen-Struck Girl,Beauty Contestant, Flapper and Primitive) and one artificial, the store Mannequin.However, when we reflect that Conor’s examples of the first fivetypes are all drawn from media depictions, we realise that in fact she ispresenting six representations. So far, so reader-friendly. The closest typologyto Conor’s that I know of is in Barbara Sato’s The New JapaneseWoman (2003). Sato’s chief source of information is Japanese women’smass-circulation magazines of the interwar period. She uses evidence fromthese periodicals to argue for the emergence in Japanese cities in theinterwar years of certain new representations of women similar to those alreadyrecognised in Europe and America. She concentrates on threemodes of self-presentation, “each of which offered Japanese women new

238Robyn Walton░identities in the 1920s.” They are: “the bobbed-haired, short-skirted moderngirl (modan gāru); the self-motivated housewife (shufu); and the rational,extroverted professional working woman (shokugyō fujin).” 22Conor’s use of typing is strengthened by the fact that she places eachtype in a setting. She uses the performance-related, Butlerian term “scene”in preference to alternate metaphors such as field, area or arena. The Metropolitan,Cinematic, Commodity, Photographic and Heterosexual Leisurescenes, each lightly sketched in, fit with Conor’s visual and transformationalemphases; but the formula wobbles when it comes to placing representationsof Indigenous Australians, East Asians, people of African descent andother supposed “Primitives” in the diffuse and time-delimited “Late ColonialScene.”Conor’s scenes are outside the home (or, in the Indigenous case, at aphysical and/or psychological remove from the home territory). Her highfunctioning urban subjects have acquired the psychological freedom andearning capacity to be out-and-about. One factor facilitating this transitionwas access to trustworthy, mass-produced and easily purchasable (if expensive)sanitary protection. Conor devotes the opening six pages of hersecond chapter to this development, which worldwide made women’sphysical participation in public activities far easier. However, she concentrateson product origins and the need for inconspicuousness, relegating toan endnote the fact of “women’s new mobility in the public realm as travellers,professionals, students, consumers, shop girls and factory hands.”Unless one reads attentively, then, one is left puzzling why this material isbeing presented at all (Conor: 265 n. 2).Another reservation – which applies more generally to both books –concerns the question of whether religion-related taboos were easing asWestern society became more secular. Did the greater freedom of participationfacilitated by sanitary pads coincide with lessening of religio-culturalrestrictions on menstruating women? Both authors seem to assume conditionsof increasing secularisation, or at least religious nominalism, withoutweighing the importance of this trend in permitting greater feminine visibility(and audibility), relaxation of dress codes and rising purchasing power.Clergy and Christian denominations are mentioned fleetingly as wowsers orvoices of social conscience, depending upon the commentator’s point ofview – for example, Peers reports a claim that the Salvation Army wasamongst groups critical of the New Look after the Second World War, andConor reports Australian clergy joining in campaigns against the influx ofAmerican films promoting liberal values (Peers: 145, quoting an anonymouswriter; Conor: 84) – but there remains room for more to be said.For painterly illustrations of women’s progress out of (idealised) interi-

░ The Woman-Object’s Glorious New Clothes 239ority, I recommend the catalogue of the National Gallery of Australia’s 2004exhibition of Edwardian artworks. While many of the women subjects areplaced indoors and decoratively rendered, there is in the later paintings –particularly those by women – an absence of costly staginess. VanessaBell’s Virginia Woolf (1911-12), Laura Knight’s Self-portrait (1913), KathleenO’Connor’s Two café girls (1914) and Norah Simpson’s Studio portrait,Chelsea (1915) convey the vividly immediate and yet flat, banal characterof everyday activities. 23 Susan Sidlauskas dates the demise of the homeinterior as analogue of self to about 1914-15, when wartime bombing raidswere destroying or unroofing and exposing in cross-section previously snughouses and when Freudians were bringing the unconscious to popular attention.If a woman’s material surroundings could no longer be relied uponand no longer constituted her universe, her sense of self might have to becomeinternalised. Alternatively subjectivity might be described as becomingdecentred, displaced onto the external flow of experience. 24Conor effectively cuts in at this point to give her reading of how, ratherthan withdrawing inward or becoming merged with and dispersed throughthe outside world, women’s subjectivity self-consciously stepped out intothe postwar streets in novel forms. Peers’s doll history then modifies thestory’s trajectory through an account of the post-Second World War periodwhen there were pressures for women to leave paid employment and concentrateon childbearing and homemaking. It was against this later backdropthat many girls, products of the resultant baby boom, were presentedwith their first stylishly dressed and groomed Barbies (or in the UK Sindys)or cheaper chain-store equivalents in the early 1960s. Did these Barbiesfunction as inspirational models of womanhood or were they symptoms ofpernicious consumerist excess and suppression of non-mainstream behaviours?Peers gives more weight to the former point of view. She also pointsto how comprehensively the later Barbies and Sindys and their sisters havereflected, if not influenced, popular trends in women’s dress, employmentoptions and civic participation rates.Despite general care with chronology, neither Peers nor Conor makesclear precisely what she means by “modern,” “modernism,” “modernity” or“modernisation.” Each author is seemingly keener to get into the pleasuresof her detailed material. Perhaps bristling in anticipation of such a remark,Conor quotes Jim Collins on the tendency of commentators to make fascinationantithetical to critique: “fascination has been made to mean uncriticalacceptance, promiscuity, lack of rigour” (Conor: 305 n. 89). Peers’s understandingof modernity stretches back as far as Adelaide Huret’s innovativedolls of Second Empire Paris; Conor, paralleling this, alludes to women’sentrance into metropolitan space in the 1850s as “indicative of the modern”

240Robyn Walton░(Peers: 48-9; Conor: 47). Yet on her final page, dealing with the year 2003,Peers writes of “modern life” and “modern fashion,” while in her “Preface”Conor aligns herself with “Western feminists and modern women acrossthe [twentieth] century” and later mentions the University of Washington’sModern Girl Around the World Project, which claims on its website to be investigating“a figure who appeared around the world … in the early to midtwentieth century.” 25 Clearly all of us writing about the last 150 years inWestern societies face comparable difficulties. The lesson would seem tobe to address formal and colloquial usage differences, definitions andshades of meaning early on.Difficulties of terminology and interpretation are compounded when anauthor is looking at representations of both white and non-white women intransition between cultures and socio-economic strata. Conor implicitlyconnects events in the lives of an Aboriginal housemaid and a white Australianactress [sic] to point up how a novel experience of confronting herown visual image disturbs a woman’s self-perception – but she judges thetwo experiences by different criteria.In Hollywood in 1924, through the use of the new montage technique,the filmed legs of Lotus Thompson were grafted onto the filmed bodies ofother women on screen. Thompson, “in a poignant and desperate protest[sic],” responded by pouring acid over her legs (Conor: 1). Thompson’s reactioncould be read in diminishing terms: as commercially and technologicallynaïve, as self-punishing and self-defeating, or as the acting out in animpetuously self-dramatising fashion of conventional resistance to andsuspicion of new devices and technologies that might harm or steal one’sself/spirit or yield a picture very different to one’s pre-existing mental selfimage.The use of the images of Thompson’s legs could be read as objectificationcausing loss of self-determination. However, since the innovationwas quickly adopted by the commercial movie industry, and later generationsof actors willingly agreed to their images being distorted in variousways, Conor takes the pragmatic path of finding the good in the situation.She chooses to read Thompson’s reaction positively as an assertion, a reclamation,an intervention, a showing of “ownership of her own spectacle,”and the filmmaker’s actions as helping to facilitate “the production of a newmodern feminine subjectivity.” As a result of her reaction Thompson receivedenormous publicity, her notoriety leading to new screen roles: she“achieved the status of Screen Star” (Conor: 3 and 257n. 2).In the other case, an Aboriginal girl who had been taken from her peopleat the age of twelve and given the Anglo name Irene saw her (nondistorted)reflection in a full-length mirror for the first time. She reacted withfright and disbelief, having, according to the lady of the household, “thought

░ The Woman-Object’s Glorious New Clothes 241that she was much more handsome” (Conor: 175). Aboriginal and Islanderwomen, Conor writes, were perceived to lack modern people’s capacity toimagine themselves as under an appraising gaze and to self-consciouslystand before a mirror and adjust/manage the visual effect presented; and ifthese women did attempt to act and see in the modern Western manner,the result was comically or abjectly inept (Conor: 175-6). Conor does notenvisage Irene resisting or making some calculated intervention on her ownbehalf; Irene remains an object captured by the gaze, “unable to transcendthe racially inflected space of mimicry.” Conor seems to assume Irene’ssubsequent life was as fraught with difficulties as were the lives of manyother Indigenous women newly encountering Western technologies andtechniques: “failing to appreciate the meaning of her reflection … destinedto fail … failure to believe in themselves.” Such a woman or girl was emphatically“not modern” (Conor: 176-8).Gayatri Spivak puts it differently: in her reading the figure of the thirdworldwoman disappears as she is shuttled between tradition and modernisation,patriarchy and imperialism, subject-constitution and object-formation(Conor: 200). It is at this juncture in her discussion that I think Conor couldhave capitalised on the overlaps in interest between women’s and postcolonialstudies; instead she merely touches on some postcolonialist insights,effectively perpetuating a deficiency to which Rita Felski admitted inher The Gender of Modernity. 26Another instance of problematic reasoning associated with terminologyoccurs in chapter 7 of The Fashion Doll when Peers suddenly makes anastounding claim: dolls, she states, “are inherently postmodern rather thanmodern.” Further, dolls “suggest that postmodernist values have existed inalbeit simple forms and parallels during earlier eras and beyond the academy”(Peers: 169-70). Here I would query Peers’s logic; the subject of dollsmay be well suited to a postmodern style of analysis without all dolls thathave ever existed being recast as indicators of postmodernity. Culturaltheorists have tended to emphasise art as commodity within an environmentof flux, overlap and fluidity, and Peers follows their lead here.“[P]resentations of elite design in doll form make perfect sense,” sheclaims, in a “cultural climate” characterised by “hybridity, the creole, thetransitional, [and] the crossover.” The (alleged) increase in imbrication ofart and commerce, the increase in honesty about artworks’ status as tradeablecommodities, and the breaking down of barriers between fine arts anditems of popular and juvenile taste are all factors favouring a more matureanalysis of the doll. But need each shift in intellectual outlook necessitatere-labelling of the object of attention and the values prevailing at its time ofproduction? A doll is still a doll.

242Robyn Walton░Overall, each of these two authors stays close to her factual materialsand the immediately obvious issues they raise. And each invariably leanstoward defence of the fascinating woman-object (the fashion doll, the representationof the progressive young woman) when hostile critique threatens.If both treatments are skewed by authorial enthusiasm, this is a relativelyminor failing in light of the substantial contributions they make to culturalstudies.La Trobe Universityrobynwalton@bigpond.comNOTES1 Peers, p.132; the uncropped version of the postcard is reproduced on the samepage. Conor, p.107; Jeremy Ludowyke is credited with the photography.2 My limited research places the Peers image as having been created in the 1925-27 period and the original of the Conor mannequin as c.1927.Peers identifies the doll as a rag doll possibly by Raynal or Venus (132). Raynalproduced felt and cloth dolls advertised as of a “new kind” in Paris from 1925,and the short curly-all-over hairstyle first became common on dolls in 1924, accordingto Dorothy S., Elizabeth A. and Evelyn J. Coleman, The Collector’s Encyclopaediaof Dolls (London: Robert Hale, 1968), pp. 276, 518. A mail order catalogueput out by David Jones Ltd, Sydney, in 1926-27 offered the fuzzy-haired,solidly proportioned French novelty doll “Gaby” at a reduced price suggestive of abulk purchase of a line that was being discontinued. The pleated, dropped-waiststyle of dress worn by the young woman was fashionable around 1927: Ruth S.Countryman and Elizabeth Weiss Hopper, Women’s Wear of the 1920’s (StudioCity, CA: Players Press, 1998), p. 2.I went out to try to inspect the Conor mannequin in the ‘flesh.’ Conor’s “Acknowledgements”directed me to the Melbourne Visual Merchandising departmentof the David Jones retail chain, where I learned the face belonged to a displayhead rather than a complete human form. It had been inherited along with otherswhen David Jones had taken over the venerable Buckley and Nunn business, andit had recently been disposed of. The trail led me to a shop premises once leasedto a fashion designer, then to a temporary outlet where the designer was sellingoff stock and fittings. For a second time I was just too late: the elusive head hadbeen sold again and there was no record of the buyer. My investigations also tookme to David Jones’s Sydney archive, which I knew had acquired some of the oldartefacts from the Melbourne Buckley and Nunn store and therefore might beholding onto some comparable mannequins. No luck there, although I was able tostudy advertisements, mail-order catalogues and other records from the earlytwentieth century. The closest counterpart to the Conor mannequin I found was ina photograph of a 1927 David Jones, Sydney window display; the mannequin hada boyish crop with a triangular forelock leading the gaze down to enormously ex-

░ The Woman-Object’s Glorious New Clothes 243aggerated brows and big-lidded, slanting eyes. My thanks to David Jones’s Archivist,Barbara Horton, in Silverwater, Sydney, and to Sue Roennfeldt in DavidJones Visual Merchandising, Melbourne.3 On connotations of the words “attractive” and “cute” in relation to the appearanceof dolls and human females, see A. F. Robertson, Life Like Dolls: The CollectorDoll Phenomenon and the Lives of the Women Who Love Them (New York:Routledge, 2004), pp. 162-8, 193-205.4 See Elizabeth Anne McCauley, Industrial Madness: Commercial Photography inParis, 1848-1871 (New Haven: Yale UP, 1994), p. 8, pp. 156-7; Lynda Nead, VictorianBabylon: People, Streets, and Images in Nineteenth-Century London (NewHaven: Yale UP, 2000), pp. 149-53, p. 161, and p. 229, n. 26.5 For instance, Peers points out that in the 1920s and 1930s new fashions in Europeanunderwear were marketed by way of newsreels using an erotic mix of boudoirdolls and partly dressed live models; these were viewed by both females andmales in cinemas. Peers, p. 133.6 Boop’s sassy image (still available on merchandise, and popular with young Asianbuyers) reflects that of the real-life performers on whom she was modelled: bosomy,wise-cracking Mae West and the singer Helen Kane. However, when firstdrawn in 1930 Boop had floppy ears and a black button nose and was the love interestfor a dog. By 1932 she had taken fully human form, and by ’34 FleischerStudios, producer of the Boop cartoons, was suing a doll manufacturer for infringingits copyright. Anon, ‘Betty Boop History’, http://www.pathcom.com/~dsk/betty_boop.htm (accessed 27-11-2005). Anon., ‘Boop in Court’, Time, 19 Feb. 1934,http://www.time.com/time/archive/printout/0,23657,746979,00.html (accessed 27-11-2005).7 Novelty dolls with adult appeal had become popular before the First World War,most notably in the form of Rose O’Neill’s Kewpie (based on her press illustrations),the big-eyed, side-glancing “googly” doll, and character dolls based onWilhelm Busch’s stories. Peers, pp.130-131. Rose O’Neill conceived of the Kewpieas a naked male Cupid-Elf able to be held in a child’s hand and resisted earlymanufacturers’ attempts to alter the model’s dimensions and face. Later Kewpieswere feminised and further infantilised. She watched adults taking Kewpies homefrom resorts (“A great number of the elves were carried about with no wrapping,just for the fun of it”) and carrying Kewpies in city trains. See Rose O’Neill, TheStory of Rose O’Neill: An Autobiography, ed. Miriam Formanek-Brunell (Columbia:U of Missouri P, 1997), chapter 4, particularly pp. 94-5, 104-9, and also the “Introduction”by Formanek-Brunell. Also see Robertson, Life Like, p. 167.8 Peers, pp. 131, 133-4. Anne Marsh reproduces one such artwork, from a series byHans Bellmer, in her The Darkroom (2003). Bellmer’s series is said to have beeninspired by a performance of Offenbach’s opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann, based onthree of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s stories. Act One of this opera features a man fitted withrose-tinted glasses becoming infatuated with a beautiful “woman” who, disintegratingafter dancing, proves to be a mechanical doll. The ballet Coppelia was basedon the same Hoffmann story. Anne Marsh, The Darkroom: Photography and theTheatre of Desire (Melbourne: Macmillan, 2003), pp. 184-5 and Fig. 36; cf. Peers,p. 8 and p. 195 n. 3.

244Robyn Walton░9 Foundation, powder and rouge are simulated, also eyebrow pencil, eye shadow,kohl eyeliner and mascara or false eyelashes, although eye make-up was notgenerally accepted daywear in the 1920s. “By 1948, 80 to 90 percent of adultAmerican women used lipstick, about two-thirds used rouge, and one in four woreeye makeup.” Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture(New York: Metropolitan, 1998), p. 245.10 For a study of “the despotic face of white femininity” in recent American contextssee Camilla Griggers, Becoming-woman (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997).11 Cf. Roland Barthes’ early essay “The Face of Garbo,” in Susan Sontag, ed.,Barthes: Selected Writings (Oxford: Fontana, 1982), pp. 82-4.12 Star-struck women imitated not only actresses’ make-up and hair styles but theirclothes and accessories, as evidenced locally by newspaper reports of the CinemaFashion Shop opened within David Jones’s main Sydney store in 1933 to sellknock-offs of the latest screen outfits: David Jones’s Archive contains publicity cuttingsfrom The Telegraph [Sydney], 15 September 1933 and The Sydney Sun &Guardian, 8 July 1934. Metropolitan and regional newspapers and periodicals alsocarried fashion advice attributed to Hollywood stars, with cross-promotion to comingmovies.13 On terminology see Conor, p. 47. The term “New Woman” is generally agreed tohave been in circulation from the 1880s through to the 1910s and 1920s. On therise of the femme nouvelle in 1880s France, one English-language source is DeboraL. Silverman, Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siècle France: Politics, Psychology, andStyle (Berkeley: U of California P, 1989), chapter 4. Also see The New Womanand her Sisters: Feminism and Theatre 1850-1914, ed. Viv Gardner and SusanRutherford (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), pp. 2-6.14 Conor reports that in 1925 in America a Mrs Stubergh’s mannequins were said tobe capturing the market because they were moulded from real women (Conor:279 n. 16). An Australian firm, Wilkin & Jones, developed papier mâché figures“after the design of Vogue” in response to David Jones Ltd’s desire for “animatedand life-like” replacements for its wax dummies (Sunday News, Sydney, 7 March1926, p.12). A number of American women founded cosmetics and toiletries businessesprior to the 1920s, when the growing companies tended to be taken overby male managers – see Peiss, Hope, pp. 106-13. Peers notes that European andEuro-American women founded and retained control of a number of doll manufacturingenterprises.15 The quote about My Scene is from Claire Morgan and Alexa Moses, “Bratz Takeson Barbie in Push for Girls.” The Age [Melbourne], 16 December 2002, p. 7. ABBC television documentary released since Peers finalised her text reported thatthe Flāvas line (misspelled by Peers) flopped; it “look[ed] like Beach Boys trying todo rap,” according to toy industry analyst Sean McGowan. See Barbie’s Mid-LifeCrisis, BBC, 2004.16 Robertson, Life Like, pp. 226-7. On other objections to fashion dolls see Robertson,pp. 218-9 and Peers, pp. 105-7.17 Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir,the Collection (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1984; reissued Durham: Duke

░ The Woman-Object’s Glorious New Clothes 245UP, 1993).18 The commentator is G.Wayne Miller; see his Toy Wars: The Epic Struggle BetweenG.I. Joe, Barbie and the Companies Who Made Them (New York: TimeBooks/Random House, 1998), p. 68.19 See Varney, “Pink Paradoxes on Nevsky Prospect,” Arena 62 (2002), pp. 41-3.20 See, for example, Michel Valentin, “Transformation/Trance/In-formation: Rubik’sCube and Transformer Toy,” The Montana Professor 1.2 (1991) http://mtprof.msun.edu/Spr1991/trans.html (accessed 13-05-2005).21 O’Neill, The Story of Rose O’Neill, p. 99.22 Barbara Sato, The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women inInterwar Japan (Durham: Duke UP, 2003), p. 7. Dina Lowy’s recent research leadsher to identify certain types or stages, including a tendentious category, the TrueNew Woman. Dina B. Lowy, The Japanese “New Woman”: Contending Images ofGender and Modernity, 1910-1920 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 2002).23 Susan Hall (ed.), The Edwardians: Secrets and Desires (Canberra: National Galleryof Australia, 2004), pp. 142, 183, 200, 227.24 Susan Sidlauskas, Body, Place, and Self in Nineteenth-Century Painting (Cambridge:Cambridge UP, 2000), p. 146, drawing on Charles Taylor, Sources of theSelf: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1989), p.465. Also see review of Sidlauskas’s book by Elizabeth Mansfield, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 1.1. (2002), http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring_02/reviews/mans.html. (accessed 23-12-2004).25 See The Modern Girl Around the World project, Institute for Transnational Studies,University of Washington. http://depts.washington.edu/its/moderngirlmain.htm (accessed14-05-05). This project is a welcome corrective to those studies by juniorAmerica-centric scholars who write as if unaware of international antecedents tomodernist/feminist developments in the USA in the 1920s and who attribute subsequentinternational developments solely to American cultural influence.26 Rita Felski, The Gender of Modernity (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1995) pp.211-2. Felksi has provided the endorsement at the back cover of the Conor’sbook.

REVIEWS

Elizabeth Grosz. The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution and theUntimely. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2004. ISBN 1 74114 327 6.Elizabeth Grosz. Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power. Sydney:Allen and Unwin, 2005. ISBN 1 74114 572 4.Claire PerkinsIt is time, “a little time in the pure state,” which risesup to the surface of the screen.Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-ImageWith her two books, The Nick of Time and Time Travels, ElizabethGrosz joins those writers and thinkers for whom the phenomenon of temporalityholds a particular fascination. Grosz acknowledges early on in TheNick of Time that there are many Western philosophical traditions thatcould hold direct relevance for her attempt to reconsider the relationshipbetween time and life, but which are nonetheless neglected. She identifies,in particular, the pragmatic and phenomenological traditions, which areboth passed over in favour of the first book’s exclusive focus on CharlesDarwin, Friedrich Nietzsche and Henri Bergson, and the second’s wider,but still eclectic, additions to this trio: Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, MichelFoucault, Alfred Kinsey, William James, Luce Irigaray and MauriceMerleau-Ponty.The elision of Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger seems particularly surprising,perhaps, until the full force of the first book’s subtitle dawns: Politics,Evolution and the Untimely. If we are to properly consider time as anontological element, as Grosz’ project insists we must, it is not the reality ofCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/perkins.pdf

248Elizabeth Grosz ░time that is critical, but the peculiar qualities and characteristics that evadethe conception of reality: the untimeliness of time. Time needs to be consideredontologically, argues Grosz, in terms of its evanescence and waywardness:Time is neither fully “present”, a thing in itself, nor is it a pure abstraction,a metaphysical assumption that can be ignored in everydaypractice … We can think it only in passing moments, throughruptures, nicks, cuts, in instances of dislocation, though it containsno moments or ruptures and has no being or presence, functioningonly as continuous becoming. (2004: 5)Philosophy, as Grosz reminds us, tends to submerge time in representationsof space and matter. Life and reason attempt to control time with limitedacknowledgment of the way all forms of life necessarily organise themselvesaccording to a (conscious or unconscious) temporal economy. Allthe philosophical figures represented across the two books acknowledge,in their own ways, this organisation and the epistemological complications itimpels. Temporality is, for all, conditioned by the event, by nicks or rupturesthat emerge from the systems which aim to contain them, to incite changeand unpredictability (2004: 8).The figures across the books, and the books themselves, are linkedthen by the motivation to recognise the full force of temporality in relation tolife. This connectedness is traceable in a number of ways. Firstly, the motivationis unmistakably expressed, as already suggested, as fascination.The specific concern with time discernable in Grosz’ writing and those shediscusses means that fascination can here be productively considered inMaurice Blanchot’s sense of the term. The reconsideration of time encouragedby Grosz impels a mode of attunement which overwhelms any dialecticalcomportment to the world. Another way of conceptualising a threadacross and between the two books is to consider them as practicalDeleuzian exercises. When Grosz describes The Nick of Time as an explorationof the philosophical models that underlie much evolutionary research,it is difficult to avoid thinking foremost of the “model” of schizoanalysis.Given Deleuze’s own sustained engagements with both Nietzsche andBergson it is perhaps not surprising to find these as two of the figureswhose understanding of temporality is here central to a practical ontologyof becoming. The figure who stands out across the two books is Darwin, althoughwhat Grosz is ultimately drawing out in her engagement with hiswork is what Deleuze (with Guattari) also notices, namely just how nomadicDarwin’s contributions to an understanding of life are. The first three chap-

░ The Nick of Time and Time Travels 249ters of The Nick of Time and the second chapter (in particular) of TimeTravels explore how Darwin’s account of life can be understood as an openand generative field constituted by forces of growing complexity. The featuresof this system, in Grosz’ extrapolations, do not exhibit stasis and essence,but are more appropriately understood as “active vectors of change”(2004: 19).The exploration in the first book of the practical implications for livingbeings of their immersion in the continuous forward movement of time explicitlyoutlines an ontology of becoming. But Grosz’ concern here, as ever,is fundamentally pragmatic. In moving beyond the phenomenological traditionto consider the reality of time as constitutive of becoming and not being,she is attesting to the possibilities of practical transformation. Her engagementwith Deleuze in this first book is, in this way, an especially relevantexample of applied Deleuzianism. Dispensing with his explicit vocabulary,the concepts of openness and transformation are instead sought in thevery scientific discourse (evolution) where such a re-viewing has real powerto reconfigure the possibility of transformation in feminist, queer and antiracistdiscourses.The explicit link that Grosz makes here is to the body. The ontology oflife that she draws out in Darwin impels an understanding of bodies as beingsthat are foremost temporal, rather than spatial. In this movementGrosz readily acknowledges the ways in which she is moving beyond therelationship between biology and culture she has worked with previously.What she is also moving beyond, of course, is the still influential strangleholdthat psychoanalysis has on the biology-culture model. The biologicalbody is here explored neither as a passive receiver of cultural inscription,nor as an “alien” force which inhibits such inscription, but as an interactivesurface which gives itself up to cultural location (2004: 4). It is by reconsideringthe ways in which Darwin’s ontology posits forms of life as unavoidablyimmersed in the forward movement of temporality that this “reversal”of the biology-culture schema can be thought.Although Nietzsche and Bergson can be more readily anticipated fromthe Deleuzian impulse of the two books, their location here in relation toDarwin, to each other and to the particular temporal concerns of the projectensures some interesting juxtapositions. Having re-thought the model ofevolutionary biology in the first section of The Nick of Time, Grosz’ secondand third sections – on Nietzsche and Bergson respectively – cast the twoin a unique light which refuses the singularity of the Darwinian or Deleuzianframeworks which tend to contextualise their work. Nietzsche and Bergsonare read here through Darwin, but through a peculiarly Deleuzian Darwin.The results are dynamic: Nietzsche’s will to power, for example, when read

250Elizabeth Grosz ░in the second section as a transformation of Darwin’s ideas on the strugglefor existence, appears at once more and less bold than is typically appreciated.This ultimately, inevitably, challenges Nietzsche’s representation ofhimself as the “Anti-Darwin” (2004: 101). As “champion of the exceptional,the unique, the unrepeatable,” it emerges how Nietzsche has more, andmore unanticipated, aspects in common with Darwin than he admits. And,in turn, the conceptualisation in the third section of Nietzsche as Bergsonian(by way of his understanding of the unpredictable continuity of the future)is a characterisation itself recast by reading Bergson as “the most philosophicallyrigorous of the early twentieth-century Darwinians” (2004: 156).Across the books, these juxtapositions work to ensure that Grosz doesnot fully submit to the process she cautions against, whereby philosophysubmerges time in static representation. As an exploration of the insights ofthese diverse thinkers on temporality, Grosz’ project itself retains somethingof the unpredictable sense of the event. This is especially evident inthe two-book model itself: where the first book systematically (if, as suggested,surprisingly) investigates the cultural inheritance of the force of time(2005: 4), the second draws together eight years worth of essays which reflectmore generally on the question of time. Across the ideas and figures ofTime Travels, disjunction is less of an organising principle and more of anorganic affect: time itself rises up as the distance, and closeness, betweenthe concerns – from Darwin to the legal system to prostheses to femalesexuality. In this book, the evanescence of time is immanent; the two togetherpreserve untimeliness by working as a nick, disrupting our immersionin temporal continuity by encouraging our fascination, but never ourmastery.Monash Universitycper7@student.monash.edu

Astrid Henry. Not My Mother’s Sister: Generational Conflict andThird Wave Feminism. Bloomington: U of Indiana P, 2004.ISBN: 0253344549.Anthea TaylorIn Not My Mother’s Sister, Astrid Henry critiques the excessive use ofgenerational tropes and familial metaphors in American “third-wave” texts.Henry’s stated aim is to analyse how the mother-daughter trope has becomethe central means of figuring relationships between second-wave andthird-wave feminists in the US (2). In so doing, Not My Mother’s Sister fills asignificant critical gap within feminist textual studies, specifically in relationto the rhetoric of ‘popular’ feminist writing. Her study consists of closeanalyses of a number of US texts defined as products of third-wave feminismand which exemplify the “overmaternalization of feminism” (146). Shetrenchantly observes that such works repeatedly view feminism as a symbolicMother necessitating repudiation to permit the individuation of herwayward daughter. The feminist publications she analyses, both ‘popular’and academic (although most can be categorised as the former), are clusteredin the 1990s, the point at which she argues the third-wave becomesmost culturally visible. An Australian audience may be tempted to read thehighly visible media debates over the meaning (and ‘ownership’) of feminismin the 1990s, precipitated by the publication of Helen Garner’s TheFirst Stone, through Henry’s observations on the third-wave. However, theterm’s application and currency in Australia has been comparatively limited,either in ‘mainstream’ or academic contexts. Nonetheless, her unpacking ofgenerational tropes and maternal metaphors provides important insight intohow relationships between different cohorts of feminists are being figured.The book begins with an attempt to historicise the feminist ‘waves’COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/taylor.pdf

252Astrid Henry░phenomenon. In ‘Daughterhood is Powerful: The Emergence of Feminisms’Third Wave’ she searches for the origins of the third-wave, a critical gesturethat historians of the second-wave have shown to be fraught, particularlygiven that such stories seek to impose an unsustainable coherence andlinearity to feminist history. In Henry’s reading, the women of the third-waveseek to rehabilitate feminism (36), a gesture that requires the invocation ofa particular feminist past. The next chapter – ‘Finding Ourselves in thePast’ – offers a potted history of the US second-wave, identifying within itproblems that would be exaggerated by third-wave daughters seeking todistinguish themselves from this earlier generation. Henry explores the relationshipbetween the first- and second-waves, tracking how the lattercame to identify the former as “their history and their political foundation”(58). In taking up the wave metaphor, second-wave feminists sought toidentify with their nineteenth or early twentieth century predecessors whilesimultaneously positioning themselves as “the vanguard” (58), a processthat continues in writing of the so-called third-wave. The remainder of thebook, comprised of detailed rhetorical analysis, addresses the way thirdwaveauthors discursively construct the differences between feminists predominantlythrough the generational prism.In Henry’s analysis, the key points on which this third-wave seeks todistance itself from the second-wave as (M)Other are in attitudes to (hetero)sexuality,queer feminist identities and racial difference; chapters aredevoted to each of these issues and how they have provided the basis for adifferentiation between these two generations of feminism. Although thereare myriad similarities between the so-called “third-wave” texts she analyses,binding them is a rejection of (a particular type of) academic feminism;the third-wave seeks to establish itself as practical as opposed to theoretical– itself a highly questionable demarcation given its apparent preoccupationwith, and intervention into, the field of cultural politics. This separationis more remarkable given the continuities and points of convergence betweenthe work of feminist theorists informed by poststructuralist, postmodernand postcolonial critical discourses (produced by theorists such as JudithButler, Liz Grosz and Ien Ang) and these ‘popular’ works: the instabilityof identity, a consciousness of the exclusionary gestures of a totalisinghegemonic feminism, an emphasis on the contingencies of meaning, andan acknowledgement that cultural politics represents a key site in thestruggle over power.In each of the following chapters, she tracks the discursive ‘matricide’(10) undertaken by authors of the third-wave. Through detailed textualanalysis, Henry comprehensively demonstrates how all these forms ofthird-wave writing – pro (hetero)sex, queer and black American – tend to

░ Not My Mother’s Sister 253invoke an impossibly monolithic second-wave that must be disavowed toenable the legitimation of their own contrastingly multifaceted feminist identitiesand practices. In “Taking Feminism to Bed: The Third Wave Does theSex Wars,” Henry identifies the approach to sexuality as one of the centraldistinctions between second- and third-waves. Writers of the third-waveconsidered in this chapter, such as celebrity feminists Rene Denfeld, KatieRoiphe, Naomi Wolf and the lesser-known Merri Lisa Johnson, invariablyconceptualise its predecessor as anti-sex and puritanical. In contrast, feminism’smost recent manifestation professes to embrace (hetero)sexualityand thus is credited not with alienating contemporary young women but attractingthem. In terms of their sexual practices, these young women areavowedly heterosexual and unashamedly hedonistic; they emphasise inparticular the pleasures of penetrative sex, pleasures they suggest themisguided politics of second-wave feminism led women to surrender.Henry demonstrates that such writers construct a straw second-waveagainst which to define their form of feminism as superior and more sophisticatedand liberated, a move reliant upon a problematic teleological notionof feminism’s development.Likewise, in the proceeding chapter, “Neither My Mother Nor MyLover: Generational Relations in Queer Feminism,” Henry suggests thatyoung queer feminists commonly define themselves against a homogenised“frumpy and unsexy” (and, again, anti-phallic) generation of secondwavefeminists (124). Feminism here is seen as a “repressive and intrusiveforce” (123), impeding the sexual liberty of her self-aware daughters: “Viewingfeminism as orthodoxy, oppressor, and stern patroller of behaviourwould appear to be a generational thing, not just a straight thing” (123).Henry observes that, by figuring feminism as a puritanical Mother, thesewriters are commonly trapped in a maternity/sexuality opposition with alengthy history which is predicated on an “ideologically suspect view ofmotherhood” (183). For these third-wave queer writers, the lesbian Motherto be rejected is the purportedly asexual lesbian feminist of the secondwave(126); moreover, Henry suggests, young women reject this ‘mother’in favour of a politically loaded alliance with queer men and/or men in general.This embrace of the phallus (a term she uses interchangeably with theactual penis) is seen as a way of demonstrating that young lesbians are“not like ‘mama’” (137). Her assertion that queer feminism is definedagainst second-wave feminism through its wholesale endorsement of apro-phallic sexuality – what she calls the “celebration of penetration” (137)– serves to homogenise queer feminism (and feminists) in a way reminiscentof those writers she most heavily critiques (Wolf, Denfeld, Roiphe),who reduce a diverse second-wave feminism to a wooden caricature. This

254Astrid Henry░chapter, drawing mostly on queer-theory texts, is less convincing regardinga third-wave queer feminism that predominantly manifests in non-academicforms.In “To Be, Or Not To Be, Real: Black Feminists and the EmergingThird Wave,” the focus shifts to how young black women of the third-wave(Rebecca Walker, Joan Morgan and Shani Jamila) persistently argue thattheir version of feminism is inclusive of contradictions, tensions, ambiguitiesand multiplicities in a way that their (literal and symbolic) feminist ‘mothers’were not. For these writers, rather than being a heterogenous movement,the ‘Mother feminism’ against which they rebel is regulating, puritanicaland, most problematically, white. The texts Henry examines consistentlyinvoke the phrases “to be real” or “keeping it real,” the meanings of whichthemselves inevitably shift. Although this invocation of an authentic/inauthenticfeminism binary is unsustainable, it is nonetheless a centralrhetorical strategy used in writing by young black feminists. Henry contendsthat “within the variety of ‘reals’ being used in this writing, a representationof the feminism(s) of the past emerges, one that is clearly not real enough”(159). Like other third-wave writers, therefore, they seek to differentiatetheir own brand of feminism from a homogenous second-wave. In thischapter, texts rejecting the simplistic certainties of generational logic arealso interrogated, and their presence thus complicates the notion of a unifiedthird-wave that marks other points of Not My Mother’s Sister.In the book’s characteristic self-reflexivity, Henry is conscious thateven her own critique of the “matrophor” (the use of maternal metaphors infeminist writing) remains trapped in the logic she seeks to disavow (11).With some reservation, in the “Introduction” she confesses to an identificationwith the third-wave writers she explicitly sets out to critique (15). However,she does not argue that the third-wave is to be valued hierarchicallyover the second; unlike her generational peers, she seeks to emphasiseboth the points of continuity and the divergences between these two‘waves.’ She also astutely criticises the third-wave’s rampant “ideology ofindividualism” and emphasis on individual choice (44), and its homogenisationof a diverse second-wave. That said, whether the generation of (for?)whom she speaks (itself being quickly superseded by the next) should embracethe characterisation “third-wave” is not sufficiently tackled. For Henry,the signifier “third-wave” adequately describes a new theory, politics andpractice being embraced by young women; that is, the third-wave is anempirical phenomenon not simply a textual practice. That said, she is criticalof figuring feminism in maternal terms and emphasises the materialramifications of the deployment of generational discourses: “While feminism’sfamilial language is, in fact, figurative, the metaphors we use to de-

░ Not My Mother’s Sister 255scribe feminism have real effects in the world and in the ways that feministsdevelop intergenerational relationships and participate in intergenerationaldialogue” (182). Henry underscores the exclusions and the political consequencesof the persistent mobilisation of mother-daughter tropes within abroadly conceived feminist discourse. Like previous commentators in thisarea, she argues that positioning differences in mother-daughter termsfunctions to mask ‘real’ political differences between feminists and she emphasisesthat this figuring of internal feminist disagreements along generationallines has displaced the feminist focus from “external battles againstsexism, racism and homophobia” (183). In this vein, Henry cautiously concludesthat feminism needs to refocus its energies: “If feminism is indeedlike a family, it would be wise of us not to forget its absent father” (183). Finally,the flaws and attractions (in terms of giving young feminists a readilymarketable – if problematic – place from which to speak) inherent in generationallogic are both foregrounded throughout Not My Mother’s Sister,thus producing a critical narrative attentive to the discursive potentialities ofthe generational frame and its inherent limitations. In doing so, Not MyMother’s Sister makes an important contribution to an emergent field ofscholarship on the rhetorics of both ‘popular’ and academic feminisms.University of New South Walesantheataylor@yahoo.com.au

Avital Ronell. Test Drive.Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004. ISBN 0-252-02950-X.Faye BrinsmeadAvital Ronell has clearly been preoccupied by the unholy trinity of science,the test, and Nietzsche, particularly the Nietzsche of The Gay Science,for some time. In 2003 her intricately woven musings on this threeheadedtopic were published in two journals. 1 The articles, which can perhapsbe seen as test runs, appear in re-worked and expanded form as thecentral section of The Test Drive. Ronell states that these writings issuefrom “a philosophical need – such needs still exist – to respond to the questionof testing” (14). What drives her to take up the question of testing is itsnon-question status in philosophical circles, she says:The problem is that the test has not yet become a philosophicalquestion, although it belongs to an ever-mutating form of questioning.As that which legitimates and corroborates or, conversely, asthat which carries the considerable burden of delegitimating assumedforms of knowledge or legal, pharmaceutical, screen, andother decisive claims of an epistemological or projective order, thetest at once affirms and deprives the world of confidence; it belongsto a specific sequence of forces that not so much annihilates as itdisqualifies … think of the test as that which advances the technologicalgaze as if nothing were. (14)We (post)moderns live out our lives under the sign of the test, observesRonell. Our relation to “questions of truth, knowledge, and even reality” nowhinges on testability (17). The imperative to test pervades “everything fromrecent warfare (the unending Gulf War being a privileged example here) tourban planning, military strategy and national security, space, medical andCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/brinsmead.pdf

░ Test Drive 257reproductive technologies, the aporias of ethics, drug and polygraph testing,the steroidal tests of the Olympic Games” (18). This battery of tests notonly facilitates the ‘policing of political sites and bodies’; it affects processesof subjectivity on a deeper level, suspending the individual’s authority,pending further investigations, to vouch for the “experienceability and constitutionof reality in general” (19). Freud’s reality-test has updated and outdatedDescartes’: in the post-psychoanalytic era, reality, the real deal, reallife, or your own favourite term for the existential bottom line “has beensubmitted to various testing apparatuses whose character and significancestill need to be investigated” (19).So, Ronell resolves to probe this “complicated extravagance of testing”(19). Putting her foot on the accelerator, she drives her investigation“through the backroads of scientific investigation and diverse cartographiesof rupture” (16). Her mapmaker-in-chief is none other than “‘Fred’Nietzsche,” as she playfully calls him. This is because the said Fred opensup scientificity to a myriad of possibilities which some would deny it today:his is a scientificity that “without compromising the rigor of inquiry, would allowfor the inventiveness of science fiction, experimental art, social innovation,and, above all, a highly stylized existence ” (156). Most of all,Nietzschean science is a research programme for joyousness, and Ronellanswers its call, romping ebulliently with some of the key motifs of the workshe nicknames “Gay Sci.”The Test Drive is, at the very least, an exhilarating ride. Literary typeswill applaud as Ronell unfurls the ‘cunning sails’ of her prose, to switchfrom the road-trip metaphor to Nietzsche’s watery one in Thus SpokeZarathustra. Reviews of Ronell’s work rarely fail to mention her daredevilprose style with its constant multi-register surprises, although the surprisefactor is lessened, it must be said, if one reads her in the plural: she tendsto recycle her favourite conceits.Those test runs paid off: the central, eponymous section of The TestDrive is a fascinating engagement with The Gay Science. Nietzsche himselfonce confided to a friend that when reading he would attach his ownthoughts to the sentences of the writer in question, instantaneously erecting“a new structure on the existing pillars that presented themselves in thisway.” 2 Ronell’s reading strategy is similarly free-wheeling and productive:she can veer away from an aphorism in The Gay Science to an analysis ofhow Abraham and Job were tested by God and, in the latter case, contestedhim right back, and then proceed to pole-vault into contemporaryAmerican politics by reminding us that George W. Bush, “this little Isaac”bent on replaying the wars of his father, informed his country on 9/11 thatwhat they had just experienced was a test (167).

258Avital Ronell░Although at times The Gay Science temporarily disappears beneaththis welter of associations, at other times Ronell resuscitates its ability tomake its own claims. She points out, for example, that Nietzsche does notanticipate contemporary fears about the dehumanising possibilities of thetest. For him, the experimental impulse is predicated on strength of personalityand, more suprising still, love:Nietzschean science scorns cold objectivist observation and limpgrapples, requiring instead something on the order of an affectiveself-deposit and intense commitment. Prompting the encounter ofgreat problems with great love, scientific curiosity and experimentalimagination trace their novel routes. Nietzsche appears to envision amapping of scientific study that is auratically pulled together by thelove borne by a strong personality; buoyed by love, such a sciencecould not degenerate in principle to a hate crime against humanity.(177)The chapters preceding and following Ronell’s gay encounter withNietzschean science are arguably less successful. The later sections of thebook contain a ventriloquised meditation by Husserl – a Husserl whoquotes Derrida! – and another long examination of Nietzschean themes,this time drawn from a variety of works. The former, although undeniablycreative, smacks of gimmickry, and the latter, while rich with insights onNietzsche, seems to take us away from the problematic Ronell initially assignsherself.The early chapters cite a vast diversity of references to the test, fromancient Greek writings on the practice of testing the testimony of slaves bytorture, to Popper on falsifiability, to the Turing Test, and many, manymore. This part of the book comes off as somewhat underargued: it is asthough Ronell opens book after book for our edification, piling them one ontop of the other and pointing to sundry interesting passages, but doesn’tquite get around to putting all this embarrassment of riches to work. Thisobjection could be obtuseness on my part: she is often said to have trademarkeda unique methodological gambit by deliberately breaching the conventionalrules of engagement between the subject and the object of inquiry,stalking her putative quarry so closely that it fragilises beneath hergaze, and ours. It could be that I’m missing the point about Ronell’s tacticalevasions of the point. However, it could also be that some parts of the bookattest to the strain of the contemporary academic philosopher obliged tosubmit to the dominant form of institutional testing: perpetual publishing.

░ Test Drive 259University of New South Walesfaye.brinsmead@lexisnexis.com.auNOTES1 Avital Ronell, “Proving Grounds: On Nietzsche and the Test Drive”, MLN 118(2003), pp 653-69; Ronell, “The Experimental Disposition: Nietzsche’s Discoveryof America (Or, Why the Present Administration Sees Everything in Terms of aTest)”, American Literary History 15.3 (2003), pp 560-74.2 Quoted in Rudiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, trans ShelleyFrisch (London: Granta Books, 2002), p. 127.

Matthew Sharpe. A Little Piece of the Real.London: Ashgate, 2003. ISBN 0 7546 3918 5.Geoff BoucherSlavoj Žižek is the most influential interdisciplinary thinker to haveemerged in recent times. Yet despite the importance of his intervention intocontemporary theory, reception of his work has so far been limited to somelucid introductions. Perhaps because of the astonishing breadth of knowledgedisplayed in Žižek’s writings, and the sometimes hermetic density ofhis style, many commentators have just rounded up the usual suspects –Laclau, Hegel, Lacan, then ethics and politics – and left it at that. But withthe crucial preliminary reconnaissance of the terrain now well underway,the time has come for a deeper exploration of Žižek’s work.Matthew Sharpe’s analysis of Žižek is not another introduction. To thecontrary: it is a sustained critical engagement that places Žižek’s heterogeneoustexts under the microscope of an immanent critique that is informedby an understanding of Western Marxism and German idealism. Althoughhe never rushes himself – the book contains plenty of careful exposition –Sharpe probes and sifts with a healthy impatience for the moments in Žižekthat he describes as “journalistic and ad hoc analyses”. Throughout, thework is animated by a drive towards clarity: weighing theoretical hypotheses,judging arguments and evidence, and carefully examining claims. Insteadof accepting Žižek’s sometimes contradictory self-representationsand ever-changing theoretical positions as an aleatory series of localisedinterventions, Sharpe insists on scrutinising arguments for the social theoryof contemporary capitalism that Žižek needs in order to justify his politicalstance.What makes this all the more significant is that Sharpe’s analysis is farfrom hostile. Motivated by a declared political solidarity with Žižek’s effortsto reconstruct radical theory, Sharpe takes Žižek’s claim to elaborate a re-COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/boucher.pdf

░ A little piece of the real 261invigorated Marxism very seriously indeed. His interpretation is positionedin opposition to (for instance) Ernesto Laclau’s claim that Žižek does notreally produce a political theory, but rather a psychoanalytic discoursewhich draws upon the politico-ideological field for examples. By contrastwith the depoliticising interpretation, Sharpe locates Žižek’s project withinthe lineage of Western Marxism. Predictably, he examines the Althusserianheritage and its post-Althusserian sequel, but more intriguingly, he contendsthat Žižek encounters the same problems as the first generation ofthe Frankfurt School. One of the most interesting aspects of this discussionis the comparison between Marcuse and Žižek, which suggests that the latterreinvents many of the problems of the former. Like Marcuse, Sharpecontends, once Žižek links contemporary depoliticisation to the success ofideology in securing the smooth social reproduction of a reified total system,the consequence is a dilemma – either the cynical refusal of politicalengagement, or an ultraleft voluntarism that rejects liberal democracy.Sharpe divides Žižek’s work into three complementary components: apsychoanalytically informed theory of ideology; a descriptive theory of capitalismcentred on social reproduction; and, a prescriptive political responsethat seeks to revive the fortunes of Marxism. Descriptively, Sharpe understandsŽižek’s theory of capitalism as centred on the importance of ideologyfor social reproduction. While the crucial theoretical resource forŽižek’s theory is Althusser, Sharpe highlights his debt to the problematic ofideology springing from classical Marxism. The key challenge for Žižek is toexpand the concept of ideology to explain the enlightened cynicism characteristicof the subjectivity of “post-ideological” capitalism, without voiding thecritical implications of the term in an anthropologically neutral generality.Sharpe proposes that Žižek accounts for cynical distance as the modality ofcontemporary mystification through two conceptual modifications to theMarxist theory of ideology. In the first shift, Žižek substitutes an Althusserianunderstanding of ideology as a set of meaningless, ritualisedpractices for the classical conception of “false consciousness”. But thislands Žižek with Althusser’s neutral description of ideology as an “imaginaryrelation to the real conditions of existence”. In the second shift, however,Žižek proposes that the ballast of ideology is unconscious, becausesocial identity is guaranteed through an unconscious belief in the omnipotenceof the Other. From Žižek’s Lacanian perspective, this reverses Althusser’sneutral conception of ideology into a critical position once again,since the belief in the omnipotence of the Other is a mystification. TheOther – the unified totality of ethical life, history conceptualised as a seriesof necessary stages, and so forth – “does not exist,” except in the unconsciousfantasy. Unconscious and meaningless, contemporary ideologies

262Matthew Sharpe░are immune to enlightenment critique and can only be traversed by meansof psychoanalytic politics. The centrepiece of such a politics is a reactivationof the traumatic kernel of a socio-symbolic field, the social antagonismthat is correlative to the “non-existence of the Other,” and which ideologicalfantasy serves to conceal. The risk, as Sharpe observes, is that this inflatesideology into something coextensive with the entire social formation, leavingnothing external to it that might ground a critical perspective.For Žižek, however, the outside of ideology is the Real. Characteristically,Žižek claims that “the function of ideology is not to offer us a point ofescape from our reality but to offer us the social reality itself as an escapefrom some traumatic real kernel”. In one of the best parts of the book, then,Sharpe sifts and dissects the possible referents of this term in Žižek’s work,concluding that he wants to align “the kernel of the Real” simultaneouslywith libidinal enjoyment and with class struggle. On the side of the libidinaldiscontents of ideology, Sharpe acknowledges the rhetorical and moralforce of Žižek’s argument that liberal capitalism is responsible for its “inherenttransgressions,” such as racism and fundamentalism. But this isscarcely an emancipatory opportunity, and on the side of class struggle,Žižek’s grasp of political economy is weak. Sharpe demonstrates that manyof Žižek’s efforts to politicise the economy are nothing more than leftwingjournalism and cannot be theoretically integrated into the account of howideology structures social reality. Žižek hopes to square the circle through arevival of the concept of “commodity fetishism,” as that locus in which politicaleconomy and capitalist ideology are united. It is here that Sharpeproduces a master stroke, demonstrating that it is precisely the rapturousembrace of commodity fetishism, as linked to the capitalist economy conceptualisedas a seamless totality, that lands Žižek in Marcuse’s dilemma.Provocatively, Sharpe suggests that Žižek is insufficiently dialectical.His theory depends on the category of incompleteness, not inconsistency,which entails an embrace of antinomy rather than contradiction. UnlikeMarx, then, Žižek does not regard capitalism as a system riven by classcontradictions, but as an incomplete field whose constitutive outside is socialantagonism. The consequence is that despite Žižek’s invocation ofclass struggle as the “Real of capitalism,” this takes on a very differenttheoretical value from the internal contradiction of capitalism that it is forhistorical materialism. As a kernel that remains the same despite the multiplicityof ideological permutations, social antagonism decompletes capitalismfrom the outside. This means that it is never present as such, appearingonly through substitutes – race, gender and ethnicity, for instance.While this enables Žižek to transform empirical evidence against classstruggle into evidence for its effectiveness “in the Real,” the political costs

░ A little piece of the real 263are high: in this schema, radical transformations necessarily originate outsidethe system. Politically, this is reminiscent of Marcuse, who also insistedthat capitalism is a seamless (that is, consistent) system perturbedonly at the margins, by means of radically anti-systemic (and thereforealso, anti-political) movements. “Because Žižek does not adduce any suchcategory as the Hegelian notion of contradiction, which would allow him to(claim to) discern tendencies within the current hegemony that might leadto a revolutionary change of it, it seems difficult to envisage anything politicallyredemptive coming from his theoretical endeavours,” Sharpe suggests(216). Žižek’s invocation of “class struggle” as the Real of a social antagonismthat decompletes the seamless totality is unconvincing, then, for itlacks empirical application and theoretical dynamism.Instead of regarding capitalism as contradictory, Sharpe argues, Žižekconsiders it to be antinomic. Sharpe observes that on this basis, Žižek cannotelude the political versions of the two sides of Kant’s third antinomy,namely, decisionist voluntarism or quietistic determinism. Sharpe showshow this results in a series of mutually exclusive formulations, so that Žižekcan be interpreted as both a radical democrat and an opponent of liberalparliamentarism, as a theorist of democratisation and as a supporter of theLeninist vanguard, and as a Kantian formalist and a Hegelian anti-formalist.As Sharpe proposes, although Žižek needs a political theory to provide the“outside” of ideology that would lend this term critical purchase, he does sonot so much by means of a social theory of contemporary capitalism, asthrough the elaboration of a politicised version of the Lacanian subject.Žižek’s resort to ontology to generate a redemptive politics is philosophicallyinteresting, Sharpe reasons, but politically inadequate. The detourthrough ontology, then, designed to “save the revolution,” ends by effacingthe revolutionaries, leaving only a desperate hunt for anti-systematic tendenciesin the wasteland of an antinomic, but nonetheless uncontested,multinational capitalism. While there is a bitter truth in all of this for today’sLeft, Žižek’s position is best interpreted as more of a symptom of the conjuncturethan a solution to it. Nonetheless, Sharpe concludes, Žižek is notto be dismissed. It is not only that Žižek asks all of the important questions.By highlighting the incompleteness of Žižek’s political theory, while salutingthe reconstruction of the theory of ideology by means of Lacanian psychoanalysis,Sharpe seeks to delineate the scope of Žižek’s position ratherthan to negate his contribution. Sharpe still wants his piece of the real,then, but he’ll take it with a pinch of salt.Deakin Universityboucher@deakin.edu.au

James Phillips. Heidegger’s Volk: Between National Socialism andPoetry. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2005. ISBN: 0-8047-5071-8Andrew PadgettThe space of the “in between” is a central figure in James Phillips’study of Heidegger’s Volk (“the people”). Phillips’ reading of Heideggermanages to navigate a path between so many dangerous, because dogmatic,views of his engagement with National Socialism. The picture ofHeidegger’s thought that Phillips constructs is one marked by das Fremde(the strange; the alien) and Unheimlichkeit (uncanniness, or the unhomelinessof that which lacks a home) that characterise Heidegger’s conceptionof Dasein’s poetic dwelling. The “in between” (80) which Heidegger’sthought inhabits is marked, on the one hand, by what in 1933 he saw to bethe promise of National Socialism’s appeal to “the people,” and which hestill saw in 1953 to be the movement’s “inner truth.” The other pole of the“in between” of Phillips’ study is that of Heidegger’s inevitable disillusionmentwith National Socialism, which his ontology exceeded but “could notleave… behind and cut itself off from” (53).The many faces of this “in between” are well known to Heidegger’sreaders: between presence and absence; unconcealing and concealing;visibility and invisibility; das Man (the “they” or “the One”) and the authenticSelf. Phillips’ reading of Heidegger’s engagement with National Socialismraises several more, specific to this context: Heidegger is between liberalism’sahistorical, autonomous subject and the “völkische Wissenschaft”(folkish science) of Dasein’s transcendent, co-historizing, Being-with-oneanother(25); between liberal self-assertion and death as the “unforeseeableevent of the true” (20); between the present-at-hand manifestation of apeople and a Volk who is always missing (28), or whose essence is itsconcealment (96); between a people’s sovereignty and their “essential poli-COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/padgett.pdf

░ Heidegger’s Volk 265ticality” which their sovereignty annuls; between Russia and America; betweenthe Heideggerian polis of the concealment of Being, and the NationalSocialist polis which controls Being (118); and between National Socialism,which presences the people in its vulgar biologism, and poetry, which unconcealsthe absence of the Volk (113).Faithful to Heidegger, Phillips refuses to reduce Heidegger to eitherpole of such ‘oppositions’, but maintains his reading of Heidegger’s Volk,and his engagement with National Socialism, within the “questionability” ofHeidegger’s guilt and innocence. Phillips argues that it is untenable both toexcuse Heidegger for his engagement with National Socialism and to condemnhis ontology as a racist philosophy. Since Heidegger’s notion of theVolk is one which understands “the people” to be constituted on the basisof their ontological questionability and Unheimlichkeit, and since the Volk isalways other than how it (or any political system) may seek to manifest it, itis thus anti-Heideggerian to determine Heidegger himself, either excusingor condemning his engagement with National Socialism. Phillips’ refusal tocontain Heidegger, and his seeking to maintain Heidegger’s thought withinthe uncanny openness it opens up, despite the ardour of those who seek toexcuse and condemn Heidegger, means that this study offers its reader amost accessible entry point into Heidegger’s thought.Phillips argues that it is clear that Heidegger’s disillusionment with NationalSocialism was inevitable when one contrasts the Heideggerian viewof Volk with that put forward by National Socialism. Heidegger’s view of theGerman people was one which centred on their inherent unhomeliness (19;169ff.). Phillips writes of Heidegger’s view that the German people “havestill to assert themselves as a people. More precisely, they have to assertthemselves as the people whose essence lies in the deferral of its assertionas a people present-at-hand… the homecoming of the Germans… is thefuture: the essence of the Heimat [native place] to which the German peopleis to come is not something that can ever be present-at-hand” (19).Heidegger’s Volk lies between its assertion and the deferral of its assertion.The question with which Heidegger’s Volk concerns itself (if “it” were everable to assert such a question) is of the order: “who are the German people?”In contrast, National Socialism all too readily transforms this questionto read “what are the Germans?” (36) The “unanswerable” of Heidegger’sVolk becomes the present-at-hand of “the people” of National Socialism.Thus, the tension between Heidegger’s Volk and “the people” of NationalSocialism is that the former can only raise “the question concerning the essenceof Being,” which Heidegger sees to be the “mission” of the Germanpeople, “less on behalf of other peoples than against the standardization bywhich the various peoples [the Russians and the Americans, for example]

266James Phillips░have fallen away from the possibility of grasping their own essential historicality”(33). National Socialism, in contrast, accepts “the people” as somethingpresent-at-hand, and thus all too easily reifies and standardises the“questionability” of Heidegger’s Volk.Heidegger’s disillusionment with National Socialism was inevitable,moreover, insofar as the former’s conception of the homelessness of theVolk inevitably found itself in conflict with the expanded home that NationalSocialism sought to establish for “the people”. If the politics of the former isone which resides in the “in between” and “priority” of “the decision” betweenpolitics and ontology, the politics of the latter lies in the raising of thepeople to a position of sovereignty. For Heidegger, “a people cannot find itselfeither in power or out of power, but only in that which is ontologicallyprior to power” (26). The “essential politicality” of Heidegger’s Volk is onewhich is prior to any ontic determination of political power, prior to any delineationbetween the powerful and the powerless. The “essential politicality”of Heidegger’s Volk lies between a politics which makes power possible,and a power which purports to manifest the politics of the people. Theuncanniness of Heidegger’s Volk with regards to his engagement with NationalSocialism is that it elides both power and politics in its permanentlydeferring its self-assertion, either politically or powerfully.Phillips’ reading of Heidegger’s Volk remains faithful to its intrinsic“questionability”. The view of Heidegger’s thought that Phillips proffers is,like Heidegger’s Volk, one “whose time has not yet come” (33). Phillips’book situates Heidegger between the tyranny and totalisation which hisfundamental ontology and National Socialism always threatens, and anethical thinking of Being (the perceived lack of which spurred so many ofHeidegger’s critics, most notably Levinas) which is the promise of poetry.The paradox of Heidegger’s Volk and Heidegger’s own “grotesquely sophisticated”(55) engagement with National Socialism are nowhere moreevident than in the person of Heidegger himself. The abusive biologism towhich National Socialism subjected ‘the Volk’ mirrors the abusive reductionismto which Heidegger’s critics subject his thought, when viewedthrough the prism of 1933. And just as Heidegger grew disillusioned withthe simplistic biologism of National Socialism, so too does Phillips offer aview of Heidegger’s Volk which refuses its reduction to the Heidegger of1933. 1933 provided no home or sanctuary for Heidegger’s Volk; neithercan 1933 offer a home or sanctuary to any who seek to reduce the infinitecomplexity of Heidegger’s thought, his destruction of fundamental ontology,and his insistence on the historicality and Unheimlichkeit of Dasein, to thedangerous simplicity that 1933 offers.Phillips presents a masterly and irresistibly learned reading of Heideg-

░ Heidegger’s Volk 267ger’s Volk which locates Heidegger between his engagement with the regime,and the impossibility of excusing this engagement (38-9), betweenthe “gray” “inner truth” of Heidegger’s “private National Socialism” (99) andits “outer falsehood” (40), between the regime’s polemics against liberalismand its collapse into liberalism (43). As such, Phillips offers a view of Heideggerin which he emerges somewhere between his being to the right ofthe far Right (as his criticisms of National Socialism for being too liberalsuggest), and the appearance of his Volk and Dasein to the left of the farLeft (which their destruction of presence, and the questionability and Unheimlichkeitof their ontological structure would suggest).This, in the end, is the “in between” where Heidegger must rightly appear:between what Levinas sees to be the inevitable totalisation of Beingin his fundamental ontology, and Being’s disruption and deferral of its ontologicaltotalisation in its constitution on the basis of Unheimlichkeit. Being –Volk – is always other to however either ontology or the crude biologism ofNational Socialism may seek to grasp it. As Phillips writes:What must, but cannot, be rescued in Heidegger’s abasement beforeHitler is this rupture. The intoxicated and unreserved acquiescenceto dictatorship is inseparable from the suspicion of the contradictoryreterritorialization of European identity and yet cannot be vindicatedby it. And that it cannot be vindicated by it is because thisacquiescence raises the question as such, as the proper-impropersite of Europe’s difference from dogmatism, first of all against itself.Heidegger’s people is, and is not, the people of National Socialism.(52)Heidegger’s conception of the Volk both ties him to, as well as signals hisdistance from, National Socialism. Heidegger’s Volk exists, if anywhere, inthe intimacy of this distance. And so too does his thought. Heidegger is foreverother than – between – however one may seek to judge him. As Phillipsnotes, “understanding between peoples neither levels nor codifies theirdifferences. It calls the identities of the peoples into question” (35). The majorachievement of Phillips’ book is that it calls into question the very determinatenesswhich 1933 so often imposes upon Heidegger’s thought.Phillips’ study itself opens up this space “in between” Heidegger’s innocenceand guilt, and allows his thought to once more dwell in that spacewhich is proper to it.Monash UniversityAndrew.Padgett@arts.monash.edu.au

John Sellars. The Art of Living:The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy.Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. ISBN: 0-7546-3667-4Michael FitzGeraldIt might be inferred, in either a receptive or a suspicious spirit, that themain title of John Sellars’ book suggests an intention to provide the companion-pieceto Alexander Nehamas’ hugely popular Sather lectures, of thesame name, on the figure of Socrates. Or again, an installation of the kindof programmatic research in ‘technologies of the self’ proposed, at the beginningof the 1980s, by Michel Foucault. In fact, Sellars makes no immodestclaims to intellectual patronage; he does share, however, with Nehamasthe intention of turning to philosophy’s classical heritage in order towiden and deepen contemporary perceptions of the discipline. As he summarisesin the book’s opening and closing pages, the ‘technical conceptionof philosophy’ which he argues on behalf of Stoicism would not be simplyan antiquarian relic, a naïf primitif, but the marrow of a counter-tradition takingin the humanisms of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Sellars is theauthor of the entry on Neostoicism in the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy),up to the works of Nietzsche, Foucault and Deleuze.The Art of Living is, then, as much an apology – for the coherence of acertain conception of the ‘nature and function’ of the philosophical project –as it is an admirable contribution to the literature on classical Stoicism. Thisaim relieves it of some of the formal baggage of the history of ideas: it isnot structured in continuous, longitudinal section; it does not attempt to coordinatethe intellectual data with their social, cultural and institutional milieu;nor is it presented as an exhaustive doxography of the movement.However, the extent to which Sellars is able to adduce so many facets ofCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/fitzgerald.pdf

░ The Art of Living 269the Stoic philosophical program, in a monograph committed to the expositionof just one of them, becomes an indirect testimony to the strength ofhis claim for its centrality. The point made so forcefully here is that the livedenactment of Stoic principles was not ancillary to those principles; theirwhole validity was in informing this action, and they had to be appropriated– or, in the figure which Sellars traces to Epictetus, ‘digested’ – in order toperfect it. Because of this, The Art of Living is able to provide instructive – ifnecessarily compressed – accounts of the more relevant theoretical interestsof the Stoic school: its epistemology (154-64), its cosmology and psychology(124-6), adding considerably to the breadth of the book and itsusefulness as a survey.In a significant but too brief section, Sellars presents the more explicitpoint that the well-known division of the Stoic curriculum into a physics, alogic and an ethics was “conceived as a division of philosophical discourse,not of philosophy itself … merely a question of different teaching methods”(79-81). The fact of multi-disciplinarity should at least be a pause in thecase for a unified doctrinal enterprise: the rather rarefied distinction whichSellars adduces (even granted that it is only the self-understanding of theStoics that is being elaborated here, it is not made entirely clear how philosophy‘itself’ would differ from philosophical discourse) might have beenproblematised at greater length. It is only in a later section of the book thatSellars brings into relief his key claim that the relation between ‘theory’ and‘practice’ is reproduced within each of these curricular sub-units, ratherthan between them. The Epictetan Stoic, in other words, practices a logic,practices a physics; and does so, moreover, in a manner that is articulatedin an ascetics, a regimen of logical and physical ‘exercises’ directed not atthe rote-learning of concepts but at the transformation of behaviour. Thesustained reconstruction of the Enchiridion in which Sellars illustrates thesepoints (129-46) is both highly interesting in its own right, and the stuff of amuch more satisfying response to the question of disciplinarity than hadbeen presented earlier.Only in one other section does Sellars undertake an equally frontaland comprehensive reading of a philosophical text – again, an illuminatinganalysis of Sextus Empiricus’ skeptical assault on the epistemology of anart of living, drawing on both the Hypotyposes and the Adversus Mathematicos(88-100). It is here, also, that the reader catches a glimpse of thetangled, eclectic ideological landscape of Hellenistic and later antiquity – inwhich the Stoics’ purposive application to the philosophical life may havebeen unique in degree and in elaboration, but not in kind. Sextus’ own indebtednessto this model does in fact square with Sellars’ stated focus onthe Stoics, for having most thought through – and not simply lived out – the

270John Sellars░meaning of “the relationship between philosophical discourse and one’sway of life” (10) which all the schools, in one way or another, assumed.For the most part, though, The Art of Living is organised thematically,rather than by text or author. The book’s first half (βίος and τέχνη) contextualisesthe premium placed on action and biographical detail, as a constantof the professional environment for philosophers in the ancient world.The two major sections here document the consolidation of a ‘technical’ –rather than strictly theoretical – conception of philosophy, from its emergencein the teachings of Socrates to its uptake by the Stoics. A secondpart (λόγος and άσκησις) introduces the problem of correlating theory andpractice within this conception, by setting out the interpretative controversybetween Martha Nussbaum and Foucault over the character of ancientthought. Sellars’ response is to introduce, here as elsewhere in his work, aterminological precision that neutralises the apparent differences in theirpositions; the subsequent chapters devoted to Epictetus and Marcus Aureliussubstantiate what Sellars means, in fact, by the ‘technical conception ofphilosophy’ – one neither exclusive of, nor structurally indifferent to, thecognitive rationality which, Nussbaum charges, is missing from Foucault’spicture.The scholarly apparatus includes a Greek glossary as well as a completeindex locorum, the latter of which indicates the amplitude and rigourof Sellars’ scholarship. And it is ultimately as a work of classical scholarship,and as an access to the empirical ground of 2 nd century philosophy,that The Art of Living is most effective. As a ‘contribution to contemporarydebate,’ it is so closely wedded to that empirical ground as to bring intoplay its own, sensible caveat against a notion of ‘return,’ and against thetragic scheme in which philosophy has been, from its origin, a ‘forgetting’ ofthat origin. Without seeking to lather up a manifesto from his material, Sellar’slimpid and direct text makes this an instructive and undemanding encounterwith a historical other whose distance, and difference, is never understated.Monash Universitysolniger@hotmail.com

Juliana de Nooy. Twins in Contemporary Literature andCulture: Look Twice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.ISBN 1-4039-4745-7.Dimitris VardoulakisWhat is exceptional about Juliana de Nooy’s book on the twins is theinsight that, despite the fascination exercised by the twins since ancienttime, there appears to be nothing exceptional about them. Stories abouttwins are not presentations of a curiosity or even an aberration. Rather,narratives about twins highlight difference as the condition of the possibilityof culture. This difference comes to the fore because the image of the twinsineluctably brings to mind the notion of sameness. However, as de Nooyargues throughout Twins in Contemporary Literature and Culture, samenesscan never sustain itself: even identical twins are never absolutely thesame. Thus, the twins give rise to a critique of sameness and a philosophyof difference.De Nooy’s insistence upon difference links the image of the twins withthe post-structuralist movement. (Because of this emphasis on difference,Twins in Contemporary Literature and Culture can be seen as a continuationof the previous fine monograph by de Nooy, Derrida, Kristeva and DividingLine: An Articulation of Two Theories of Difference, published in1998.) Moreover, her analysis effortlessly traverses a large array of textsacross different media. She also pursues this with reference to “contemporary”texts, that is, work produced from the end of the twentieth century.Thus, de Nooy’s book is not simply another anthological account of twinship,but an active engagement with the modern avenues that have beenopened – as well as closed – by the image of the twins. This is, then, thegreat achievement of the monograph: it makes the twins contemporary,COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/vardoulakis.pdf

272Juliana de Nooy░while at the same time investigating the notion of the contemporary by wayof the operation of the twins. This is a novel, valuable, and fascinating approach.For this approach to be made possible without lapsing into a narrativeof the twins’ cultural mastery or domination, the difference allowed by theimage of the twins must be also ascribed to the twins themselves. De Nooyis well aware of this point:their [the twins’] meaning is not fixed, is always ‘up for grabs’ to alarge extent. They are just as available to reinforce traditional dichotomiesas to undo them; they can serve to expose masqueradeas the exception or the norm, to argue for the overriding unity of theself or its fractured nature, to support a dialectical resolution of conflictor insist on the indefinite deferral of any synthesis. Their importance,then, is as sites of contestation in the struggle to claim legitimacyfor particular perspectives, and is what explains the culturalenergy they attract. (164-5, emphasis added)The twins are not used to identify the “right” or the “true” kind of narrative.Rather, the twins are shown to allow for a spacing of cultural values – includingnotions such as the “right” and the “true” – which are, nevertheless,contestable. Instead of a final synthesis, there is the unfolding of contestation.At the same time, not every site can offer the kind of resistance requiredin order for the aforementioned sites of contestation to remain open.Instead, de Nooy chooses the topoi of gender and genre to demonstratethe contemporary openness of the twins: “Rejecting the premise that thereis a single, underlying meaning to the appearance of twins in our storytelling,[Twins in Contemporary Literature and Culture] proposes an analysisin terms of particular conjunctions of gender and genre rather than treatingthe twins as a unified thematic” (xiv). Therefore, every chapter shows –from the perspective of genre and gender – the struggle between samenessand difference and how that struggle is enacted on a site that is culturallydeterminate as well as determining of culture. Thus, one chaptershows how the image of “coupledom” is traditionally given two solutions intwins stories, both of which have been expressed by E. A. Poe: either thereis an antagonism which leads to disaster, or even murder (“William Wilson”);or there is stagnation and sterility (The House of Usher”). Readingworks of the twentieth century, especially Michael Tournier’s Gemini, deNooy shows that a third alternative is possible: one that recuperates samenessso that it no longer excludes difference (45).The next chapter engages the motif of female twins or sisters who are

░ Twins in Contemporary Literature and Culture 273antithetical: the bad girl versus the good girl, the whore and the virgin – atheme which was popular in Hollywood movies in the 1940s and which returnedin the early 1990s. By showing that this distinction presupposes a“myth of choice” (61-4), de Nooy concludes that both options – the goodversus the bad girl – can be rejected (65). No such sharp dichotomies operatein stories if the gender of the siblings is male. Even when the twobrothers appear to stand for good and bad, the division is less about theiropposition and more about the way in which such an opposition can underminethe received notions of masculinity, especially by feminising themale body (69). This is particularly evident in the films about conjoinedtwins which de Nooy discusses: a brother is carried by the other brother,thus turning the fraternal to something maternal (87).The next two chapters work to undermine foundational myths aboutgender and nationhood. Chapter 5 tackles the debate about a “gay gene”and shows how this is simply a reformulation of the older nurture versusnature debate. Following Judith Butler in arguing that identity is not somethingessential, but a performative (105, 108), de Nooy shows that twinsundo the artificial distinctions which presuppose an origin: “as identicaltwins they undo the hierarchy of original and copy, being genetic copieswithout an original blueprint” (108). Further, as is demonstrated in chapter6, twins undercut the foundationalism of myths about nation-creation becausethey challenge primogeniture. Identity is not something given by astable origin, but rather, it is always in motion (132, 135).The final chapter unites the twins with the figure of the double or Doppelgänger.It is in this chapter that a possible limit of de Nooy’s book couldbe discerned. As already intimated, de Nooy emphasizes the importance ofgenre in stories about twins. Here, this emphasis comes to the fore, sincethe guiding hermeneutical tool is the doubt about whether there is a twin ora double in the story at all – e.g. in Nabokov’s Despair or Spike Jonze’s filmAdaptation. Due to this uncertainty, the generic determination is unstable,and meaning is thereby produced. However, this line of argument ultimatelyclaims that genre produces meaning, while meaning also produces genre.De Nooy constantly shows how the twin or the double is produced by thisambivalence. However, there are a number of problems with this approach:for instance, it is tautological, since every conceptual term can be shown toundermine its genre – this is the prerogative of difference upon which deNooy insists; but it can also be argued that there are no conceptual termsthat can intervene in the mise-en-abîme of genre and meaning without disruptingthis relation and hence cancelling themselves out as conceptualterms. What is lacking is an explicit argument that the genre is also producedby the conceptual term – in this case, the twins. Of course, this

274Juliana de Nooy░makes genre impossible – an errancy of meaning. However, it can be arguedthat such a contention would have squared comfortably with deNooy’s insistence on the incessant movement of identity made possible bythe twins. It would also have avoided the essentialization of the generic inthe name of the unessentializing of the genetic. Even though de Nooy impliesthroughout her study that the generic and the genetic are mutually determinable,a strong argument to this effect still appears to be lacking.Nevertheless, de Nooy’s book is a significant achievement. It demonstratesthat narratives about the twins are contemporary, and should not beconsigned to history’s cabinet of curiosities. Twins can intervene in the unfoldingof culture because they are not completely formed. Rather, theypersist in a state of transformation, ever to be elaborated. Thus, they arethe sites of contestation which are productive of modern history.Monash Universitydimitrios.vardoulakis@arts.monash.edu.au

Adrienne Munich and Melissa Bradshaw (eds).Amy Lowell, American Modern. New Brunswick:Rutgers UP, 2004. ISBN: 0-8135-3356-2.Ce RosenowFrom the publication of her first book, A Dome of Many-ColouredGlass in 1912, until her death in 1925, Amy Lowell reigned as an important,influential, and well-known modernist poet. She published eleven booksduring her lifetime, edited three volumes of the Imagist anthology, SomeImagist Poets, gave numerous well-attended readings and lectures, andregularly contributed work to leading magazines such as The AtlanticMonthly. She also helped to fund and contributed work to a variety of literarymagazines including Harriet Monroe’s Poetry. Lowell was a respectedcontemporary of the poets most often associated with the modernistmovement, whether they supported her projects and ideas or whether, likeEzra Pound, they openly expressed their irritation and frustration. In theyears just following her death, Lowell’s reputation continued to flourish withthe posthumous publication of her lectures and essays in Poetry and Poetsas well as with three additional collections of poetry, including What’sO’Clock which received the Pulitzer Prize in 1926. Given her importance asa poet, critic, and editor, the limited amount of critical attention she has receivedafter 1930 and the fact that all of her books have been out of printfor decades seem to be a glaring oversight on the part of scholars and publishers.The editors of and contributors to Amy Lowell, American Modernseek to remedy this situation by instigating a serious critical conversationabout Lowell and her work as well as by bringing many of her poems backinto print through a companion volume, Selected Poems of Amy Lowell(2003).COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/rosenow.pdf

276Adrienne Munich and Melissa Bradshaw░The editors, Adrienne Munich and Melissa Bradshaw, use the lack ofLowell scholarship and the published critiques and dismissals of her workfrom the past as a framework for the essays in this volume. In their introduction,they acknowledge that there is no single explanation for the neglectof Lowell’s work and suggest a number of possible reasons for it, includinghomophobia and Lowell’s continuous poetic experimentationamong others. In response to this neglect, the editors and contributors undertakethe monumental task of exploring “the varied contributions ofLowell as a woman poet, as a modernist, and as a significant formulator ofliterary debates about poetry and poetics in the early twentieth century. …[T]hese essays demonstrate Lowell’s centrality to current critical and theoreticaldiscussions: feminist, gay and lesbian, post-colonial, disability studies,American studies, and cultural studies” (xviii). In other words, after positingpotential reasons for neglect, the collection then demonstrates justhow significant Lowell’s life and work are to many different areas of studywhile simultaneously providing the basis for a continued scholarly discussion.The essays cover important aspects of Lowell’s life and work, includingher connections to Imagism, her literary friendships and correspondence,and her gender and sexual identity. Furthermore, they do so in away that clearly demonstrates the significance of Lowell’s work for moderniststudies and for other fields. For example, they revitalize the overworkedtopic of Imagism by considering it, in Andrew Thacker’s essay, in relationshipto Lowell’s innovation of polyphonic prose. Margaret Homans’ essaycomplicates Lowell’s extensive work on John Keats by exploring Lowell’sdesignation of Keats as a forebear of the Imagist poets. Still other essaysturn to Lowell’s literary friendships and correspondence as a way to demonstrateher centrality to the modernist movement. Jean Radford’s considerationof Lowell and Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman) and Bonnie KimeScott’s examination of Lowell’s letters to other modernists, including D. H.Lawrence, locate Lowell as a key figure in a network of modernist writers.Another group of essays considers Lowell’s poetry through the lens of lesbiandesire and in light of her lesbian relationships. In the case of LillianFaderman’s essay, “‘Which, Being Interpreted, Is as May Be, or Otherwise’:Ada Dwyer Russell in Amy Lowell’s Life and Work,” a version of an unpublishedessay that had circulated privately among Lowell scholars and hadbeen cited in their work finally becomes available to the larger academiccommunity. Faderman demonstrates, among other things, how the fortythreepoems in the “Two Speak Together” section of Pictures of the FloatingWorld reflects Lowell’s lesbian relationship with Russell.If there is one limitation to this collection, it is the omission of essays

░ Amy Lowell, American Modern 277on entire groups of poems. Specifically, Lowell’s dramatic monologues andlong narrative poems were for the most part excluded both from the selectededition of Lowell’s poems and from this collection of essays. There issome justification for such omissions. The editors note in the introductionthat scholars have not determined how best to situate these poems, whichsuggests that there is not any existing critical work available. By discussingthese omissions at some length in the introduction, the editors actually begina conversation about Lowell’s dramatic monologues and long narrativesthat may be pursued by other scholars. Even with this justification for omittingcertain poems, the specific decision to leave out Lowell’s New Englandnarratives is still regrettable. The editors explain that Lowell uses a form ofdialect that would be difficult to understand by “contemporary readers unfamiliarwith the New England accent of almost a century ago” (xv). Thisclaim seems at odds with the fact that other poems written in a variety ofdialects including that of turn-of-the-century New England continue to circulateand to receive critical consideration. The fact that Lowell’s New Englandnarratives, as the editors accurately note, are difficult and time specificis not a valid reason to exclude them.Regardless of the one limitation mentioned above, Amy Lowell, AmericanModern is a significant and long overdue publication. Readers will findit difficult not to see Lowell’s importance to the modernist movement. Theessays draw attention to the lack of scholarly work on Amy Lowell, foster acritical conversation about Lowell by making available a number of insightfulessays about her in one collection, and demonstrate not just how centralLowell’s work is to modernism but to American poetry and to poetry in general.This volume, along with its companion volume of selected poems, willhopefully and quite likely generate many more new and well-deserved studiesof Amy Lowell and her work.Clark Honors College, University of Oregonrosenow@uoregon.edu

A.L. McCann. Subtopia.Carlton North: Vulgar Press, 2005. ISBN 0 9580795 6 0.Jay ThompsonSubtopia is A.L. (Andrew) McCann’s second novel. The book initiallyappears to be a standard ‘coming-of-age’ narrative. However, it quicklytransforms itself into a treatise on a broad range of issues: suburbia, sex,politics, memory, death. The result is a dark and dense, but also highlyimaginative read that avoids clichés and provides its readers with some rich(if at times troubling) food for thought.The novel opens in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs circa 1977.Julian is a particularly morose teenager: he is obsessed with carcinogens,and his extended family’s happy façade conceals a disturbing incidence ofsexual abuse. Then he meets two individuals who might both be able tobroaden his depressing suburban existence. The first of these is MartinBernhard, a cigarette-smoking rebel who enjoys shooting model soldierswith an air-rifle. The second is Sally, an academically gifted young womanhe meets at university.As the novel progresses, Julian follows these two very different friendsto very different locations: St Kilda during the early 1980s, Germany duringthe latter part of that decade, New York during the 1990s, and then back toMelbourne. Yet it soon becomes clear that neither his friendships withthese people nor his globe-trotting will alter Julian’s morbid state of mind.As time passes, he becomes more and more preoccupied with the fact that(wherever one goes) suburbia will remain a “corpseworld” (81): that is, aworld of substance abuse and sexual gratification, unemployment andpremature death.McCann is a literary scholar, and thus highly aware of literary genresand conventions. This awareness is reflected in the way he skilfully pre-COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/thompson.pdf

░ Subtopia 279vents Subtopia from becoming “one of those redemptive, coming-of-agenarratives in which a fuck-up protagonist finally accepts his mediocrity andsuccumbs to the reality principle” (253). Instead, the novel’s protagonist,Julian, is sketched as an extraordinarily contradictory and multi-layeredcharacter. Julian is ostensibly apolitical, although (in one amusing moment)he attempts to alleviate his post-university aimlessness by planning a master’sthesis on “(t)heories of working class representation” (111). He frequentlyavoids contacting his friends and family, although he willingly takesadvantage of Martin and Sally’s hospitality when travelling overseas. Yet, atthe same time, there is no denying that he also cares deeply about thesefriends. For example, Julian seems genuine when he describes the “abandonment”that he feels after Martin dies, as well as the sense that his deceasedfriend “felt like everyone” (280).Also, throughout the novel, McCann displays an exquisite eye for detail.This is sometimes used to darkly comic effect, for example, in his caricatureof a New York diner as a nightmare world of “bull-necks, doublechins, burst capillaries and plump red faces…chewing away at mouthfuls ofsugar and fat” (216). However, also consider his more subtle (yet equallyevocative) descriptions of suburban Melbourne. These include the followingaccount of a train trip from the CBD to Moorabbin one late afternoon:The railyards, the MCG, the platforms of Richmond station filteringmiles of track, giant steel tendrils reaching to the extremities of thecity … Then Toorak, Hawksburn, Armadale, Malvern, the Caulfieldracecourse, shopping strips, speeding automobiles … Lassitude,boredom, a multitude of obstinate details crowding out thought at thearse-end of the working day, lonely wage slaves trudging home tothe sluggish rhythyms of commerce, goods and services. (65-6)I find descriptions such as this enthralling not only because I am familiarwith the geographical locations that are mentioned within them. Rather, Ifind such descriptions enthralling because they really capture the sense ofbanality, repetition and emptiness that characterises many a suburban existence.That is, they really do suggest the “corpseworld” that the fictitiousJulian is so unhappily familiar with.However, I also wonder if the portrait of suburban life offered in Subtopiamight ultimately be too bleak. In the publicity material for the book, theauthor expresses his disdain for “the idea that literature exists to reveal thebeauty of the ordinary”. I agree with McCann in this respect, and so (undoubtedly)would many literary and cultural studies theorists. Yet, I am alsoreminded of novels such as Leonie Stevens’ Nature Strip (1994) and LukeDavies’ Candy (1997). These novels (both of which, incidentally, are also

280A.L. McCann░set in Melbourne) portray suburban and urban spaces as sites of ecstasyand promise as well as disappointment, banality and morbidity. McCanndoes not achieve such a balance here, thus making his vision of the“corpseworld” appear slightly one-dimensional.Additionally, I found the sexual politics of Subtopia to be sometimesquestionable. For example, early in the novel, the teenage Julian becomesconvinced that Martin has homosexual tendencies. The latter makes a sexualadvance towards his friend, and Julian subsequently becomes “fixate(d)on all the … men” who Martin “must have fucked and sucked off in the alleywaysbehind Fitzroy Street …” (59). Yet the question of same sexattractiondisappears after this episode: Martin gets married, and Julianprovides numerous graphic accounts of sexual fantasies involving women.How exactly we are meant to read all of this is unclear. Can we read Martin’ssexual advance as another product of Julian’s paranoid imagination?Or has McCann opted not to investigate the homoerotic subtext of theyoung men’s relationship, instead concealing it behind fantasy scenes thatcould have been lifted from heterosexual male-oriented pornography?Overall, though, Subtopia is a significant contribution to the field ofAustralian literature. The novel’s portrait of the ‘suburban nightmare’ mightultimately be narrow (and heterosexist). However, throughout the text,McCann does provide some fascinating and beautifully written insights intothe bleaker side of everyday life. Also, he refuses to comfort his readerswith predictable plot devices or a cloying happy ending.University of Melbournej.thompson4@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

Clare Archer-Lean. Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Writings ofThomas King and Colin Johnson (Mudrooroo).Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006. ISBN: 0-7734-5864-6Carlo SalzaniArcher-Lean’s book is an analysis of representations and representativeness.The context is the post-colonial and post-modern end of the millenniumin settler societies like Australia and Canada, where the traditionalEurocentric notions of identity and representation are challenged by the risingvoices of Indigenous discourses. Comparing two distant and apparentlydiverse writers like the Indigenous Canadian Thomas King and the IndigenousAustralian Colin Johnson, Archer-Lean pursues the similarities thatunite their projects in undermining the past representations of Indigeneity.The differences between the two – cultural, thematic, stylistic – are thusacknowledged but partially put aside, in an attempt to focus on the ways inwhich both authors deal with the question of identity and the act of textualrepresentation. The cross-cultural analysis centres on in the two writers’common focus on semiotic fields and meta-discursive and intertextual practicesaimed at unmasking the colonial discourses. The works analysed aremainly the novels of the two authors: whereas Johnson has written alsopoetry and plays, and King film, television and radio drama scripts, Archer-Lean limits her analysis to their novelistic production. Another self-imposedlimit is in the theoretical approach: whereas the analysis draws from a widerange of theoretical sources, post-modern and feminist interpretations arealmost omitted, and post-colonial theory is used “critically” because ofKing’s and Johnson’s similar scepticism about it; post-colonial terminologylike “rehearsal,” “hybridity” and “magic realism” informs the book but is revisitedand re-appropriated.COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue10/archer-lean.pdf

282Clare Archer-Lean░A few problems arise from this methodological positioning. First of all,Archer-Lean is an Anglo-Australian scholar, a potentially problematic vantagepoint in a discussion of politics of Indigenous identity and representation.Cognisant of the risks of romaticisation and re-colonisation that awhite identity and an academic position entail, she chooses as interpretativestrategy to eschew questions of “authenticity” and “correctness” and toenter into a dialogue with the texts while acknowledging partiality and incompleteness.Another potential problem is the identity of Colin Johnson,whose “Aboriginality” was contested in 1996. The book however does notdeal with biographical questions of authenticity and identity, but ratheranalyses how these notions are challenged and undermined by the twowriters; the focus of the analysis are the texts, the textual identities establishedby the colonisers and the subversive textual strategies of the Indigenousauthors. The central notion is thus re-presentation: the hyphen rejects,on the one hand, traditionally stable and fixed representations whichhomogenise and prescribe identities, and, on the other, “the readers’ desiresfor the author to act as a ‘representative’ Indigenous person” (14).The emphasis is on the dismantling and destabilising of hierarchies and binaryoppositions (Native vs non-Native, for example) in favour of fluid, hybridand contradictory textual expressions.The central trope of both authors is identified in the need to “open upthe universe and, consequently, notions of re-presentation” (37). Politicalsubversion coincides therefore with the blurring of boundaries and theirmeanings and with the consequent legitimisation of multiple and changingIndigenous identities. King’s and Johnson’s literary oeuvre exist beyondneatly defined genres – which are legacy of the West: their narratives embracefluidity and thus reveal Indigenous realities silenced by the Westernconstruction of the Imaginary Indigenous. This “contamination” of the bordersgoes beyond a combative opposition and refuses to embrace simplecounter-discourses: the central concept is rather “re-negotiation” (44), acreative enactment that both contests colonial conceptions and representationsand operates within and beyond them. Process, border-crossing, continuousmovement work as a “frame” that includes and dissolves representation:thus “Indigenous identity becomes a space that exists simultaneouslybeyond and within geographical place” (55).King’s and Johnson’s works are analysed and compared by Archer-Lean through thematic lines: first of all their common deconstructing and reframingof colonial texts. Both authors parody and re-write North Americanand Australian classics like Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, the Lone Rangerseries and the Augustus Robinson Chronicles respectively: the image ofthe indigene in the colonial narratives is identified as the foundational con-

░ Cross-Cultural Analysis of Thomas King and Mudrooroo 283struct, satirically explored and thus exploded and re-invented. Then Archer-Lean shows how two colonial grand narratives, Christianity in King’s workand Gothicism in the case of Johnson’s, are deployed and played with bythe two authors: Christian ideology and the Gothic “sub-conscious set ofimages” (126) are unmasked as imperial tools perpetrating the colonisationprocess, but simultaneously “incorporated,” de-authorised and reappropriated.“Incorporation” is here an important concept: colonial narrativesare not merely negated, but rather appropriated in a process of resistiveempowerment that is thus performative and not prescriptive. The followingtheme is the re-inscription of the notion of “loss”: in the negotiationof contemporary identities in Canada and Australia, the “quest” for identity,deployed within concepts of time and place, becomes a “non-teleologicalprocess” (199) that eschews the idea of a destination. It is the quest itselfthat matters, a re-presentation of identity as fluidity and role-playing. Thecentral part of the book is therefore the analysis of the trickster and of tricksterdiscourse in the two authors: Archer-Lean deploys Gerald Vizenor’sconcept of the trickster to show how the trickster as playful, ambiguous andchanging character is a central figure in Indigenous writing, but also howtrickster discourse as disruption, creation, subversion and ambiguity informsand shapes King’s and Johnson’s projects as a whole. The tricksteris not representative of Indigenous life and is not involved in representation,and as such works as a contesting and contrasting discourse against theEurocentric “fixation” (and “fixing”) of the semiotic field of the indigene:chance, open-endedness, strategic repetitions abrogate any sense of closureand allow for the world “to be rebuilt endlessly” (260). The final motifanalysed is the postcolonial technique of “magic realism” as a means tocreate a pan-Indigenous and multi-layered space able to free and empowernotions of place and time.The thesis of the book thus leads the analysis beyond a simple comparativeexercise: showing how re-presentation challenges representativenessin the work of two Indigenous writers, Archer-Lean does not merely“compare” particular narrative strategies and thematic lines; the scope ofthis book is not confined within the comfortable limits of literary analysisand academic concerns. Rather, it opens up to the much more interestingand actual issue of identity “in the border condition of the twenty-first century”(36): King and Johnson are not taken as “representatives” of Indigenousidentities, or of Indigenous writers, or even of the post-colonial condition;rather, their works is read in the hope of opening up discussion anddebate about ways of re-presenting identities, about cultural, social andtextual exchange, about the politics of challenging the desire for stable,fixed and neatly identifiable positions, genres and identities. The condition

284Clare Archer-Lean░of the border and its “contamination” is shown as essential to the two Indigenouswriters, but it is also the position from where Archer-Lean writesand what she proposes as a different zone of understanding.Monash UniversityCarlo.Salzani@arts.monash.edu.au

Simon Featherstone. Postcolonial Cultures.Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2005. ISBN 0 7486 1743 4.Barbara GhattasThis book is an introductory text to postcolonial studies, with an emphasison contemporary debates. The first chapter, “The Nervous Conditionof Postcolonial Studies,” clearly outlines the complexities of the field ofpostcolonial studies. It emphasises the importance of moving away fromcritical analysis from inside the academy, and instead turning to popularculture for strategies and movements in this discourse.Featherstone writes of the heavy reliance in universities upon theworks of a small number of major writers within the academy, and the needfor greater balance in this field by highlighting the contribution to postcolonialstudies of popular musicians, dancers, film-makers, poets, performers,orators and athletes. He makes the point that the current state of postcolonialdiscourse is hierarchical, and takes into account almost exclusivelyvoices that have emerged from within the academy. He cites Edward Said,Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak as the most obvious examples of this. Hecalls for postcolonial studies to take into account the current trends in thearts and sport in order to move away from the emphasis on literature andpolitical theory that dominate the field.The three chapters that follow deal with contemporary music, performanceand film to discuss the benefit to postcolonial studies of movementsoutside the academy. In the second chapter, Featherstone uses the exampleof sociologist Paul Gilroy, who has charted the development of African,Indian and Caribbean music in Britain. The key postcolonial concept presentin this music is hybridity – the ability of artists to fuse musical styles toachieve a new sound that is representative of the diaspora in the FirstWorld. He cautions against the academy simply selecting for analysis art-COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/ghattas.pdf

286Simon Featherstone░ists who fit their arguments. Instead he calls attention to the need for theacademy to observe what is actually happening at the street level, and acknowledgingthat popular culture will for the most part resist academicanalysis by its constant change.The third chapter, “Body Cultures,” discusses not only contemporarydance but also sport as a site of discourse on the postcolonial body.Featherstone states:Body cultures of sport and dance perform the processes of postcolonialhistory. Although distinctions of aesthetic value in thesebody cultures still persist, and although the recovery of their historiesremains difficult, the movements of social dance articulate intimateand public cultural changes and exchanges. And whilst sport’s morevisible and commodified body cultures are in some ways limited intheir social narratives, particularly by their gender specificity, theirorganisational histories, their mass appeal, and their accessible archivesof photograph and film make them a valuable resource forpostcolonial studies. (94-5)One of the positive aspects of this book is that for each of his arguments,Feathestone is thorough in his analysis of how realistic, effective and usefulit will be to postcolonial studies. He prompts thinkers in the field to articulatehow postcolonial texts are chosen and the rationale behind it. Featherstonedemands in Postcolonial Cultures that we be more contemporary,open-minded and genuine in our choice of postcolonial ‘texts’.In the chapter devoted to film, Indian film-makers Mrinal Sen, Mira Nairand Aditya Chopra are examined for their different explorations of diasporicpopulations and the challenges of modernity. The chapter discusses howfilm has the capacity to engage a wider and more global audience thanother mediums, and can be a very useful way to explore postcolonial issuessuch a political history and cultural tensions. Two New Zealand films,The Piano and Once Were Warriors are discussed for their portrayal of indigenouspopulations and their use of narrative structure. Unfortunately forAustralian readers, Australian films are not included in this very brief chapter,but the discussion certainly creates interest in film as a potential way ofinvestigating postcolonialism.The following three chapters of Postcolonial Cultures are nowherenear as satisfying as the first half. Here Featherstone moves away fromcontemporary culture to provide a basic run-down of literature, history andland. “The Irrational and the Postocolonial” is a brief study of madness inpostcolonial literature, with specific reference to the seminal text BlackSkins, White Masks by Franz Fanon and novels by Jean Rhys, Bessie

░ Postcolonial Cultures 287Head and Erna Brodber. This chapter reads like a typical undergraduatepostcolonial studies reader, with its discussion of Rhys’ Wide SargassoSea, a postcolonial revision of Jane Austen’s Jane Eyre that is usually setas required reading in English courses. In this chapter Featherstone’s critiqueof Fanon and Rhys in particular is nothing new to the discipline. It actuallyserves to confuse his emphasis in the first half of the book on the importanceof new mediums and the movement away from literature.“Memory” looks at the re-writing of history from a postcolonial viewpointwith three interesting case studies: museums and public memory,UNESCO’s promotion of information technology in developing nations assource of recording cultural memories, and the post-apartheid Truth andReconciliation Commission of South Africa. “Capitalised ‘History’ becomesonly one of a number of ways of telling a story that might take as its centrea range of different social formations” (169). Despite an unoriginal introduction,the modern discussion of history and its issues are refreshing andtimely, and provide an objective view of the topic.The following chapter on land is perhaps the most relevant to Australianpostcolonial studies. In the first case study the history of land seizureby Europeans in Australia and the Caribbean is discussed in regards to thedifferences in the European and the indigenous ways of defining “space”and “place.” The following case studies reflect more contemporary landscapes,the beach and the carnival. The beach is not only the first place ofcontact between European settlers and the indigenous populations, but hasevolved into the romanticized tourist beach and the site of cross-culturalpleasure seeking in the form of the sex-tourist. Featherstone does his bestwork when he moves into contemporary areas of cultural studies and discussessites of evolving significance for the field.Despite the book’s emphasis on a movement away from the academy,the second half is very much grounded in the mediums that postcolonialstudies has traditionally investigated. Featherstone may have done betterto avoid going over old ground and realise the potential of the first half bydevoting the book solely to contemporary movements. Then he would havebeen closer to realizing his book’s aim of challenging the traditional mediumsof postcolonial studies.Monash Universitybmgha1@student.monash.edu

CREATIVE WRITING

Writings from Turkey:Rıfat Ilgaz and Sunay AkınIntroduction and translations by Burcu AlkanModern Turkish literature has produced much politically and sociallycommitted writing, with proponents such as Rõfat Ilgaz (1911-93) and SunayAkõn (b.1962).Rõfat Ilgaz was among the second generation of socially-committedpoets, following the internationally known poet Nazõm Hikmet (1902-63).Unlike Hikmet, he was not interested in political ideologies like Communism.His social writings were born from his own experiences as a teacherand a writer. While he was writing about the sufferings and inequalities ofthe people, he was not aiming for the partisanship of any ideology. Heclearly states this in his semi-autobiographical novel Karartma Geceleri:I do not know if I am exactly a leftist or not yet. If there is one thing Iknow, it is that I am on the side of the oppressed people. That thetroubles people suffer exactly fit mine. And that I see my salvation inthe salvation of the people. If these little crumbs of ideas are enoughfor me to be a leftist, I am not going to try and acquit myself at all. 1Ilgaz is a humanist as well as a social realist writer. Both as a teacher anda writer, he felt the repercussions of World War II and the 1960, 1971 and1980 coups in Turkey. His literature, reflecting such difficult times in thelives of people, made him a primary “criminal of thought” in the eyes of theCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/alkan.pdf

290Ilgaz and Akõn░police and the military – the exponents of the governing ideologies in Turkey.Ilgaz’s poems presented here are taken from his collection of poetry,Bütün Şiirleri 1927-1991 (Complete Poems 1927-1991). The first one is “InPoetry” (Şiirde) in which he defines himself and sets his priorities. 2 Ilgazbelieves that his identity as a poet should come before anything else, sothat, for him, life can gain meaning in poetry. Poetry is used not only as hisway of expressing himself as an individual, but also as a catalyst of thingsto come. His fight for a better world starts in poetry, while his sufferings, theexiles and imprisonments, come as a result of it. And as a poet who isaware of his responsibilities, he does not seem to complain much aboutthese sufferings – neither in the poems included in this study, nor in hisother works.The second poem is his last ever written, dated November 19, 1991.This very short poem is a farewell, hence the title “My Last Poem.” 3 Evenas a last poem, there is a wish to be good in something or for somebody.The unselfish goodwill of a poet, who has spent his life striving for a betterfuture for everybody, prevails.The case with “My Last Poem” was an interesting one. On the insidecover of the book, the poems was rendered as:Elime eline değsinIsõtayõm üşüdüyseLet my hand touch yoursLet me warm it if it’s coldHowever, the original manuscript – published in the collection as a facsimile– reads:Elime birine değsinIsõtayõm üşüdüyseLet my hand touch somebodyLet me warm him/her if s/he is coldThe Turkish language does not have gender-specific nouns or pronouns,but gender specification is required for English. This problem arose in thesecond version cited above. Thus, in the end, the version on the cover ofthe book was preferred, in order to bypass the problem of the pronouns.Sunay Akõn is one of the contemporary Turkish writers, who follow inthe footsteps of Hikmet and Ilgaz. 4 While his preferred genre, creative nonfiction,differs from his predecessors’, he maintains the same line of socio-

░ Writings from Turkey 291political writings. The 1980-coup in Turkey influenced him immensely as ayoung man. In his poetry and prose, he criticizes any kind of fanatic ideologywhich takes away human rights. The politics of the United States is oneof the many themes that Akõn reflects upon in his works. His opposition tothe invasion of the lands of Native American people is the same as his oppositionto what happened to the Africans, who were forced out of theirlands and brought to the Americas as slaves. His desire for fairness, equalityand liberty made him a supporter of “the coloured men” against “thewhite men.” Akõn’s reactions to political “mistakes” are not limited to thoseof American political leaders. He is a political satirist who stands against allreal “evil-doers.” His humour and his poetical sensitivity put into questionconventional “truths.”“Beating Around the Bush” was published in Onlar Hep Oradaydõ(They Have Always Been There), a collection of creative non-fiction aboutthe Native Americans. “Beating Around the Bush” begins with an anecdotalstory about an old Native American’s lesson to a youngster and ends withthe attack on the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York. 5Kõzõlderili, the word used for “Native Americans” in Turkish, literally means“red skinned,” and is, actually, a neutral term. Although, in the original, itcompliments the writer’s discussion of “white man vs. red man,” a translationwithout derogatory connotations had to be found. “American Indian” isthe most common term in English. However, in another story appearingalso in Onlar Hep Oradaydõ, Akõn sarcastically talks about the “mistake”that Columbus made, calling the natives of the newly found land “Indians”due to a geographical miscalculation. Therefore, the term “Native American”was chosen as the most suitable phrase, even though it is not colloquialEnglish usage. One should also point out that the term “Native” betterfits Akõn’s ideas, since he strongly believes that “Natives” are the righteousnative inhabitants of those lands.The title “Bush’u Bush’una Bir Savaş Daha” sounds in Turkish as if itmeans “Another War in Vain.” The phrase “Boşu Boşuna” means “in vain,”while the letter “ş” in the original spelling of “boşu boşuna,” is pronouncedas “sh.” So, the writer, instead of writing “Boşu Boşuna Bir Savaş Daha,”preferred to write “Bush’u Bush’una Bir Savaş Daha,” referring to the twopresidents of the USA, George Bush Sr. and George W. Bush. How couldthis little pun be translated without losing the context? After several trials,“Beating Around the Bush,” a phrase that became a joke among friends atIstanbul University after the doubtful election of George W. Bush in 2000,was chosen. Literally, the idiom does not have a direct relationship with thepassage or title; however, it provides a pun similar to that used by Akõn.“Beating Around the Bush” is a transformed version of “beating about the

292Ilgaz and Akõn░bush,” which literally means “not coming to a point.” However, we are comingto a certain point by using the words Bush and beating in the title, whichprovides an idea of what is coming up in the text.The translation of Ilgaz’s poems is published courtesy of Aydõn Ilgazand Çõnar Yayõncõlõk, Istanbul. The translation of “Beating around the Bush”is published courtesy of Sunay Akõn and Çõnar Yayõncõlõk.

░ Writings from Turkey 293Rıfat IlgazIN POETRYI loved the fight, in poetry firstThe freedom word by word, in poetryLine by line I loved to liveSo I loved anger and bliss...Your bright days,My optimistic friends,All, all in poetry.Whatever I’ve lost...Everything I’ve found, in poetry.Is it our love only,That precedes rhyme,There’s also exile,And imprisonment as well.MY LAST POEMLet my hand touch yoursLet me warm it if it’s coldMy last warmth shall not be wasted!

294Ilgaz and Akõn░Beating Around The BushSunay AkınThe old Native American is sitting in front of his tepee watching hisdogs fight. He says, “Look, my boy” to his grandson who approaches him,“the name of that white dog is Good and the black one is Evil.” And whenthe boy asks which one would win, the old man replies, “Whichever one Ifeed!”Peace is the only garment that looks good on humanity. It has manybuttons: democracy, human rights, equality, fellowship... That’s why it cannot be slipped off like a shirt, from the body that wears it.The United States of America is seen in this garment in the scenes ofthe 1990s. The US, which becomes the apostle of peace and democracy,takes off this peace costume with the attack on the Twin Towers of theWorld Trade Center in New York, on September 11, 2001… And suddenlyso, with no hesitation, in the blink of an eye! Actually, the garment is nottaken off, but wantonly abandoned. President Bush yells out: “We’ll find’em, hunt ’em, shoot ’em, crusade ’em!”The costume of Peace didn’t fit The Sheriff. The love of democracy,peace and fellowship was too tight for the model that made the UnitedStates what she is… The father of Bush was the same Bush who was enthronedpresident and whose first decree was to start the Gulf War…From Father Bush to Son Bush… Basically it’s just another war drumbeating around the bush.It wasn’t the first time, after September 11, that humankind faced awar. But it was the first time a war was declared without knowing againstwhom. The enemy could be anywhere the United States pointed. No onecould oppose that because the US was hit at home. The people of America,whose support couldn’t be counted on for the Vietnam, Korea and GulfWars, said “yes” to the politics of war for the second time, after the bomb-

░ Writings from Turkey 295ing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Nevertheless, with the help of Osama binLaden, the servant of the USA in Afghanistan, they managed to portray allthe Asian Muslims as “terrorists.” And the Shari’a Organizations, who arethe subcontractors of the US, promoted this. The meaning of Bush in Turkishis “Çalõ.” So is the meaning of Laden. Apparently, at the outset of the2000s, humanity is stuck between thickets… And we are a nation thatknows what to do very well behind the bushes!Spit-shinin’ his badge, Bush doesn’t wait too long to show his first target:Afghanistan! However, before his presidency, this man called “Bush”when asked on TV, where Afghanistan was, was not able to answer correctly!...On the television screen, the scenes of the people hopelessly waitingto be saved in the buildings that were hit by the hijacked Boeings and thescenes of people talking about Turkey gaining importance merged intoeach other. On one side there was the matter of life and death in the towersthat were attacked and, on the other side, there was the stock market…The stock market was gaining value against the stock of humanity.Imperialism advances across the whole world like moves on a chessboard. That’s why the outbreak of the economical crisis in Turkey beforethe attack on the World Trade Center can’t be seen as a coincidence. Theones who can’t figure out that bringing Kemal Derviş from the US and seatinghim as a minister is one of the moves that bound our arms, are theones that perceive politics as checkers rather than chess. 6One of the documents that showed how Turkey was being sold to theUnited States with the politics of 1950s was revealed in the Turkish Parliamenton July 7, 1966, at 15:00, by Haydar Tunçkanat. 7 In the report, whichwas written by an unknown “statesman” and given to Colonel Dickson, aRepresentative of the CIA in Turkey working in the American Embassy, theobstacles facing the exploitation of the country are itemized as follows:“Tough One, by putting forward, as he used to do, annoying ideas likeAtatürk’s national policy, bilateral treaties, military bases etc., is increasinghis transgressions against the government.” 8In his book, America within Turkey, Nevzat Üstün, after revealing thatthe “Tough One” mentioned in the report is İsmet İnönü, adds the following:“The traitor that wrote the report is shameless enough to describe Atatürk’snational policy as ‘annoying.’” 9The two skyscrapers of the World Trade Center in New York stoodbehind the Statue of Liberty, who holds a torch in her hands. We witnessedthe US attack Asia after September 11. Everything that happened was writtenin a poem years ago:A woman who lit the way for centuries

296Ilgaz and Akõn░Is ready to cry on the shore.Anger on her cheeks,Blood on her skirt,Fallen off her waistHer rainbow.In a sunny climeSkyscraper has closed its curtains.A flag is flutteringIn a timeless tempestThat sweeps the Asian shores.The tempest beganEven before the Books foretold;Stars would fallOn a hopeless flag fold.Let us listen to Orhan Kemal in order to learn who the writer of thispoem is: “I was with Nazõm. I was under his strong influence. Nazõmshouted, ‘Find your own voice’, and showed examples from Rõfat Ilgaz andCelal Sõlay…” 10 The person who wrote the poem about September 11 andits aftermath in a way that would make Nostradamus jealous, whom Nazõmholds up as an example, who with the honor like that of a Native AmericanChief has never given up and from whose smiling photo we take ourstrength is our valued teacher, Rõfat Ilgaz. The title of the poem is “Skyscraper”and the year it was written is 1968.Exactly 40 years to the day of the attack, on September 11, 1961,Nazõm writes his famous poem, “Autobiography”, in Berlin:At thirty they wanted to hang meAt forty eight they wanted to give me the medal of PeaceAnd so they did 11The United States’ attack on Afghanistan to catch bin Laden did notconvince any sensible person. The real target was the Middle East. And soit happened. The Israeli tanks invaded Palestine with the excuse of “huntingdown terrorists.” While I was watching the candle lit press conferenceheld in the shelter where the Palestinian leader, Arafat, was hiding, I hadthe following question in my mind: if it weren’t for the September 11, wouldthe world leave Arafat, who had won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994,alone and hopeless like this?In the first years that White Man started to spread in America, a NativeAmerican was killed in the market place where he brought the furs of the

░ Writings from Turkey 297animals he hunted. The others couldn’t understand the murder of theirfriend whose furs were stolen. Why did the White Man do that? He came tothe market place to give his furs to the White Man anyway.The market place is cursed and named “the place of the greatdrunk”…The name of that place in their language is “Manhattan,” the placewhere the World Trade Center that was destroyed on September 11 usedto stand!University of ManchesterBurcu.Alkan@postgrad.manchester.ac.ukNOTESAll notes are by Burcu Alkan.1 Rõfat Ilgaz, Karartma Geceleri (Istanbul: Çõnar, 1999), p. 29.2 Rõfat Ilgaz, “Şiirde”, ed. Aydõn Ilgaz, Bütün Şiirleri 1927-1991 (Istanbul: Çõnar2002), p. 161.3 Ilgaz, “Son Şiirim”, Bütün Şiirleri, p. 335.4 Akõn looks up to, and often references in his writings, both Hikmet and Ilgaz. Apoem by Ilgaz, and a small part of another poem by Hikmet, appear in “BeatingAround the Bush,” Akõn’s piece translated here.5 Sunay Akõn, Onlar Hep Oradaydõ (Istanbul: Çõnar, 2002), p. 48-52.6 Former World Bank economist, he was invited to Turkey to become the Minister ofEconomy.7 Former Captain, member of the Parliament and writer, an important character of1950-60s Turkey.8 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-38) was the founder and the First President of ModernTurkey (1923).9 Nevzat Üstün (1924-79) was a populist-realist writer and poet. İsmet İnönü (1884-73) was Atatürk’s close friend, soldier and statesman, the second President of theRepublic of Turkey.10 Orhan Kemal (1914-70) was a populist-realist writer. Celal Sõlay (1914-74) was apoet known with his mystic and philosophical style.11 In 1950, Hikmet shared the International Peace Prize with Pablo Neruda.

Blues for AllahAhmede Hussain1Shormi woke up from a long nap by the sound of a cat screeching.The rain had just stopped and the curtains were tightly pulled. Brightsunlight that fell on the mirror gave her face a raffish charm. There was asmall photo-frame on the bedside table. She looked much younger in blackand white, helping a toddler walk. The boy was holding a toy gun and wasstaring at the camera with a menacing look. Both of them looked forlorn,like the ice creams they consumed years ago on a holiday-trip to Cox’s Bazaar– long lost and forgotten.The cat crawled in and sat at the windowpane; its shadow fell on thePersian carpet and grew bigger as it walked past the room. Shormi got upto her feet, staggered down the room to pick up the cell. She was wearing adainty yellow sarong and a white T-shirt; and there was something abouther uncertain manner, as well as her clothes, that suggested a moth. Thecat was gone when she returned: it started raining again. Shormi smiledapprovingly as she looked through the window – she expected it to rain.It had been raining heavily too when she and Iftekhar got married fifteenyears ago. On their way home, the windshield was so blurry that thechauffeur could hardly see anything on the street.But now it was only drizzling outside and there wasn’t any cloud insight; it should stop soon. She turned the cell off and lay down with onlyCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/hussain.pdf

░ Blues for Allah 299half her body in the bed. It was getting dark outside; the yellow and redlights from the billboard entered the room. Beams of light criss-crossedover her face as she stared at the centre of the ceiling fan, large and overpowering.Small patches of silvery blue were coming out of the white centre.She turned her head left and saw the cat walk out of sight with a kitten.Suddenly the electricity went off with a loud bang from a fused transformer;the fan creaked shakily as it slowed down before coming to a completestandstill.The blind look went out of her eyes; she sprung up to fetch some candles.She could not see anything on the tea table at first, gradually thingsstarted to get visible: an empty tube of hair conditioner, packets of usedmatchboxes, a blue box and two upturned mugs. The box was wrappedwith an old newspaper. She forgot that she had stuck a safety pin on itscover the other day. Blood spewed out of her finger when she rubbed thesurface. She licked it, fidgeted across and decided to give up the search forcandles.The cell started ringing when she turned it on again. It was Nouman;"Can I talk to Mrs Ahmed?" he asked in a girly tone.She turned round and hobbled out of the room holding the phone toher ear and said, "Yeah Nam. Did you get the mail I sent?""Mum I am at the airport," he said.She knew that her son was on the phone; but she expected him to befar away, in a remote place, in a private school in London or Chelsea.Nouman had been in touch with her for the last three months, mostly byemail; she did not expect him to call her."Mum I am in Dhaka now. Are you home?" he asked."Yeah I am home. God why didn’t you tell me you were coming?" sheasked and then hurriedly added, "Nam, you just wait at the entrance and letme pick you up.""I have a friend with me mum. We will be staying at a hotel." he replied."But baba you know nothing about the country. You can stay with me, Ihave spare rooms here," she pleaded."Don’t worry Mum; we will be fine," Nouman replied and added: "Myfriend is calling, will catch you later.”She lit a cigarette after having lunch. The electricity had come back anhour ago; she reclined in the rocking chair and put the television on. Halfthe news had been finished; it was time for Business and Sports: thewoman reading the Business news looks like an actor in an ancient farce.The sound was off and she was constantly tucking strands of her hair behindher ears while staring at the audience with a bleak look. She pulled the

300Ahmede Hussain░T-shirt off and unhooked the black bra she was wearing. She wanted tosleep now. She had not had a good night’s sleep for months. Whenevershe closed her eyes, she saw the same old dream; that meadow, that blackcalf, that old woman and her shrill laughter.A truck shrieked past the house. She placed a hand under her headand switched the TV to video mode and stared at the blue screen. It washer only way of getting sleep for the last eight years. Eight years, she saidaloud and laughed. The cat was still screeching shrilly and she knew shewould not be able to sleep while it wailed on like the impending sound ofthe train that was coming across the neighbourhood. She got up andopened the window; a gush of cold wave filled the room. The train cameinto the horizon, chugging and wheezing, past the house, past the park,past the mosque. She looked down at the passengers – at their fatiguedfaces. A woman, a child on her lap, held her head out the window and vomitedon the track. Those who lay on the roof of different coaches eithergaped at the star-less sky or at the glitzy life-size photo of Pierce Brosnanon a billboard. She wondered how frail and feeble humans became on amechanised vehicle as she followed the train puff away, rattling on thetrack. At the entrance to the mosque it turned, and twisted its middle like anold man hunched by a bundle of twigs. From the back, it started to look innocent,wobbling like a baby. The cat, meanwhile, leaped up from theparapet. As she closed the window and turned round, Shormi saw the catlimp around with a broken leg. The cat did not resist when she reacheddown and took it on her lap.It was dark in the hallway; she had to hold the cat tightly to her breastwith one hand, pressing another hand on the wall as she walked by it. Anold way of walking perhaps: if you just follow the wall, you won’t bump intoanything. She proceeded further down the corridor and could now see themirror. Bunches of white flowers went up the frame of the mirror and therewas a cold reddish glow about the edges of their plastic petals. She walkeddown further left; a yellow light from the lamppost reflected in the mirror,like the nightlight she had always used when they had been together. Iftekharwould not sleep without the light on; she had always hated it, so thelow-watt lights were the only solution acceptable to both husband and wife.Still lost in thought, Shormi opened the cupboard, took out the salve andput it on the cat’s wound.She had decided to name it Bobby. The television went blank afterthirty minutes and she did not want to turn it on again. She reclined on thebed instead and lit another cigarette. The cat was lying on the tea tablenow, its head shone for an instant in the dark, as if it were just being rainedupon. She stubbed the cigarette and lay on the bed. Another truck howled

░ Blues for Allah 301past the house; and as the sound faded away, she started to count backfrom one thousand. Everything around her was gradually changing; shelooked up at the sun as a narrow line of white light fell from the sky. Shetried to change the course of the events now that the old woman startedheading towards her, silently, but with an amazing firmness in her everystep. The calf was seen in the horizon, too, looking much greyer in thewhite light. The woman got closer, opened her toothless mouth and slowlywhispered something in her ears. She did not hear anything; her dreamswere always silent, except for the laughter that inevitably followed whenshe walked her off through the meadow. Shormi, however, had not stoppedcounting backwards, but could not reach zero. She heard the sound of acar skidding off the street; someone hurled F-words at the driver. Thewords were almost unintelligible, but high-pitched enough to suggest thatsomething grotesque was happening. She put both her hands down herneck, then on her thigh. A loud bang was heard; something must havegone wrong, she thought as she got up and looked down the window.The pavement in front of her house was dark and desolate. Under thelamppost two young men were hitting the windscreen of a car with hockeysticks, their other friend, a third, pointed a dagger at the owner of the car, ayoung man with a face that looked vulnerable in the yellow light. Her eyesmoved to the car; its front window had so far put up a fierce resistance, butsoon it would break into pieces.When they were done, two of them walked closer to their friend – whowas now spinning the dagger – and whispered something in his ears. Helaughed and walked down the footpath towards the owner and repeatedlythrust the dagger into his belly. The man's torso stooped as he put both hishands on his bleeding stomach. Blood continued to ooze out from his rawflesh. And when he turned and twisted before falling on the grass by thepavement, she recalled seeing his boyish face before. In the newspapermaybe or on the university campus, where she taught literature; he couldbe one of her students she guessed. She looked at him more intently, whilethe attackers, now forming a circle, kicked him on the butt and shoulder.The man screamed and asked for help in a piercing voice but she stood silentlyin the shivering cold, now hands crossed over her chest, in aChristlike calm. The cat strode to the window and stood at her legs, lookingfixedly at her dreary face with its glowing eyes, as if trying to understandfrom it what had gone wrong.They gave up their brutal ritual when the mosque nearby started callingthe faithful to the morning prayers. She turned round and looked up atthe grandfather clock, standing tall on the floor; it was nearly dawn. Whenshe looked down again, the men were striding north, now forming a hori-

302Ahmede Hussain░zontal line, she realised she had not noticed that all three had been wearingprayer-caps all along. The golden brocade on one of the topis glitteredeven from distance. They were getting smaller as they walked further downthe crossing towards the mosque. She waited for them to disappear, put onher shalwar-kameez and hurriedly went down the pavement.She saw that the flesh across his belly was hanging open in a looseflap. Blood flowed in a sheet trickling into the man’s eyes too making hislight brown hair glisten; it dropped onto the pavement, it was everywhere.She did not know blood could be so dark, so thick, so heavy. He mutteredsomething when she walked closer to him; his eyes seemed to come out oftheir sockets with desperation as he moved his blood-soaked lips. Shormiwent down on her knees and put his head on her lap. Above them, abranch of a mango tree was suspended solemnly; in the tree, a group ofsparrows were lazily declaring the breaking of another noisy dawn. A bladeof grass fell from their nest, hovered in the air for a while, and finally restedon the dark stain of the man's nose; she carefully picked it up with a tremblinghand and called the hospital from her cell.***Shormi was hungry when she got back home late in the afternoon.The doctors would not touch the man without a No-objection Certificatefrom the police; "It's caused by a sharp knife, I think," said a pale moutheddoctor staring at the man's wounds.Another doctor, who knew Shormi before, said, "Ma'am you don't knowthis guy and neither do we. He could be a serial killer or a mugger. What ifhe turns out to be one of the people who had thrown grenades at thatmeeting? Just imagine what the police will do to us if he gets away aftertreatment and they find it out."She looked back at the man's chapped lips; he had been trying to tellher something in the ambulance. But his voice was so stifled that she hadto tell him not to talk. A familiar sense of responsibility, which she had attimes found tiring during her three years old marriage, grasped her. Shestared at the wall from which hung a long piece of cloth, "Be it a boy or agirl, one child is enough,” it urged its viewer. The pale mouthed doctormeanwhile continued chattering with a nurse, Shormi turned round andsaid to the other doctor, "Mizan, you know me, right?"Mizan nodded and tried to say something but stopped suddenly in themiddle of his sentence as Shormi continued, "I know this man well and incase the police turn up or anything goes wrong I will take the responsibility.Now please take him to the emergency before he bleeds to death.” And herwords worked like magic.

░ Blues for Allah 303Eighteen stitches were needed to close up the wound; the man criedout every time Dr Mizan put the needle into his flat stomach. She could notrecall the last time she had seen a grown man cry. The doctors said, in areassuring tone that all doctors had, that he would get well in three weeks.She felt relaxed when she walked into her room after taking a longshower. A strong smell of fried chicken and French-fries, which she hadbought on her way home and had put on the dining table, was wafting inthe air. She got dressed and smiled at Bobby, curled up on her bed, coiledlike a big rope. The window was wide open; sunlight that came through itand fell on Bobby's white fur had given the room a blanched look. She puta French fry into her mouth and sat on the bed to inspect Bobby's leg. Thecat hissed and kicked her hand with its hind legs, but she did not let go ofBobby; upon close scrutiny, she discovered that the wound had healed alot, but she also noticed that one of its paws was badly bruised. She rubbedsome antiseptic around its injured claw. The cat groaned and clutched thewhite linen with its other paw.It was early in the evening when she decided to go for a walk. Shewas typing her class-lectures on the PC and then, as soon as the grandfatherclock struck five and she had just typed "fantasies inability to overcomereality,” as if to follow a long drawn-out ritual, the power went down.She closed the book and pressed her hand on the stain on the flapper of AStreetcar Named Desire. A blob of faded red made by either ink or wine.When she had decided to start afresh and join teaching, the book was inher mind. The Head of the Department was somewhat surprised, first at hersudden decision to join the department again and then at her choice of text.He was a short middle-aged man, who had to incessantly scream to getthings done. "Shormi, I don't know what to say," he tried his best to hide hissurprise; "You were a very good teacher. I was quite shocked when youdecided to quit the varsity.” He welcomed her back, but it took her a whileto make him register that she was serious about teaching Streetcar. Hefrowned, yawned (he was getting late for his regular afternoon nap),smirked and after a brief cajoling budged.As she kneeled on the pavement where the man was stabbed, she noticedthat the place had been hurriedly washed away. Drops of water onblades of the grass were shining in the fluorescent lights like the yellowyteeth of the attackers. She looked down the street where those three menhad melted away into the fog. A large group of people was walking downthe narrow ally to say their evening prayers; some had sat at the reservoirfor their ablutions. She looked up to see the white minaret of the mosqueand glanced further up to two blue loudspeakers suspended from the tallslender tower.

304Ahmede Hussain░Her cell rang as she remained lost in her thoughts; it was from thehospital, the man wanted to talk to her."Ma'am," he said, "Thanks for saving my life."As his words came through the cell, she mused that the man hadpulled through quite quickly considering the viciousness of the attack.2Power was still out when Shormi came back home after a long walk.Bobby sat idly on the bed watching her put on the white shirt. As she finisheddoing up the buttons it lost interest and leaped up to stretch lazily.She had changed the quilt while going out; Bobby strode down the hibiscuspattern on it and stood between the pillows. She walked to the bathroomwhile thinking about all that had happened a while ago. Immediately aftershe had finished talking to the man, Nouman called."Mum, I am fine. Can we meet tomorrow?" he asked excitedly.Shormi was buying some candles in the street; trucks howled past themakeshift-shop and she had to put a hand on the other ear to hear properly.She asked, "Where are you Nam?"There was a silence on the other side, a muffled voice in English,probably of Nouman’s friend’s; for a moment Shormi thought she had lostthe line."Nam, God, say something," she screamed.The other voice, meanwhile, argued with Nouman in a furtive manner;the boy seemed to have agreed to do something and said to Shormi, "Weare staying in a hotel mum, we are fine, don’t worry.""When do you want to meet? You and your friend can stay at myhouse," she said.The vendor put the candles and the cigarettes in a package andhunched forward to give it to her. She paid the man and walked briskly tocross the road. Silence, meanwhile, resumed on the phone again; and asthe whispering got louder and became almost audible it sounded more andmore like Ifthekhar’s voice. She knew it could not be him. Funny she hadbeen thinking about Ifthekhar for a month or so, especially since Noumanhad started contacting her through email. In her mind, she had pictured Ifthekharin London working for a multinational bank, happy and content. Sofar, Nouman had deliberately avoided talking about his father, whichShormi found rather amusing. Her eleven-year-old son had been growingup and, unlike the Ifthekhar she knew, had learnt not to poke at a healedwound.She crossed the street; Nouman replied after a brief pause, "We arefine mum"; "Can me and my friend come to your house in the evening to-

░ Blues for Allah 305morrow?" he asked.Shormi smiled at the street urchin who offered her a bunch of dahlia."Of course you can. Will your friend be there too?" she tiptoed on the streetto avoid empty potholes."Yeah, sorry for that. So, tomorrow, at six mum?" he asked."No problem," she replied."I’ll call you in the morning then," Nouman said.Later that night when she had finished typing the class-lectures,Shormi got up and randomly picked up an old-newspaper. She sat on therocking chair and sipped at her tea: Muslim Fanatics Raze an AhmadiyyaMosque; Alleged Outlaw Lynched by Mob; EU Leaders Trumpeted HistoricConstitution; Girl Raped in Kushtia. Her eyes fixed on a news piece; sandwichedbetween the news of a rape and the EU constitution lay the man’ssmiling photograph. She stared pointedly at the photo and smirked; nowshe knew where she had seen him before; he looked strong and macho ina short spiky beard. "Young Writer Gets Death Threat,” said the heading.She read on:“Young writer Nasser Hussein received a death threat today from religiouszealots. In a letter sent to Nasser’s home in Banani, Shaukat Osman,leader of a little-known group Harkat-ul-Zihad Al Islam Bangladesh(HZAIB), wrote: ‘Your days are over; get ready for the final day of judgement.’The twenty-seven-year old writer, in fact, earned the wrath of the fanatics,when his first book In the Name of Allah was published this year.The book depicts the story of a Muslim man who falls in love with a Hinduwoman and gives her shelter when riots break out.“Little has been known about the HZAIB and its elusive commanderOsman who is also known as Sheikh Farid. The group is thought to be anumbrella organisation for radical Islamic groups that operate in the country.“Meanwhile, sources in the home ministry said extra police force hadbeen deployed in and around Nasser’s home. Different political and culturalorganisations condemned the threat describing it as an attack on freespeech. Attack on intellectuals is on the rise after a small member party inthe ruling coalition government tabled a blasphemy law in the parliament.”She reclined further and put both her hands on the arms of the chair.The electricity went out with a loud bang; the cat, disturbed by the sound,sprung up and scurried to and fro on the carpet. Shormi lit a cigarette, tooka long drag and closed her eyes.***When she went to the hospital to visit him, Shormi found three policemenstanding at the cabin. She peeped into the room; Nasser was lying on

306Ahmede Hussain░the white bed in blue jeans and a black T-shirt. A nurse stood at the bedand leafed through a stack of papers. Neither of them noticed her presence;she turned round slowly and saw Dr Mizan walk down the corridorwith a file. He said Nasser was doing well and would be able to leave thehospital soon.She thanked the doctor and followed him into the cabin.Nasser was awake and smiled at her. Sunlight came through the whitecurtains in abundance; a grey shadow of the grille fell on bunches of flowersput idly on the bedside table.Shormi smiled back and sat on the chair; "So," she said, "How areyou?"Dr Mizan was talking to the nurse in a low tone while browsing throughthe pile of papers, which the woman was holding when they entered theroom. He did not take his eyes off them and said, "He is fine ma’am."Nasser smiled embarrassingly, first at the doctor then at her; she waswearing a purple sari and a blue blouse. "The room looks pretty clean," shesaid and looked at the apples on the table at the side of the flowers.The comment, it seemed, had made Dr Mizan uncomfortable; he gavethe papers back to the nurse, waved her to go and said, "The ministercame to visit Nasser sahib last night. She brought the apples."Shormi laughed and said to Nasser, "You have become quite famous;do you like apples?"He got up smirking and drank water from a plastic bottle. Mizan cameforward with the file in hand and put the back of his other hand on Nasser’sforehead."The fever has gone," the doctor said and told Shormi that he wouldbe back in an hour.She got up, thanked him again and said, "Nasser, he says you will beable to go home after two days."Shormi was thinking about Nouman, who had called early in the morningwhen she was getting ready to visit Nasser. "Mum, we are coming toyour flat in the afternoon" he said.Shormi was surprised; she said, "But, baba, you don’t know where Istay, let me go there and pick you up.""My friend knows you well," he replied and continued, "don’t ask mewho he is, but he knows you pretty well."Shormi smiled and said, "Is your friend a Bangladeshi?""Yeah mum. Don’t cook for us, we will have lunch before coming,"Nouman said.Shormi stared at her watch; she was getting late. Nasser, meanwhile,was staring at the flowers, he said, "The minister has assured me full police

░ Blues for Allah 307security. But what I really don’t get is why these people have been trying tokill me."Shormi looked up and saw Nasser get down to his feet, fumbling. "Thebook is only an excuse; religion is a mere pretext," he whispered as if talkingto himself.Shormi got up; somehow, she felt a strong affinity with Nasser. In hiseyes, she had seen a sense of vulnerability, which she was so familiar with,though she did not know the source of it. But she said, "Nasser, I have torun; getting late for an appointment."He turned round, holding an apple, and said, "Oh I am sorry."She patted his shoulder and said, "Don’t be. I will be back."When she entered the room, there was no sign of Bobby. But the catcame back later in the afternoon when Shormi was having lunch. It waslimping badly and dragging itself on the floor. She got up, half way throughher food, and walked closer to Bobby, but as soon as she reached down tograb the cat, it sprung up the window and sneaked away through the grille.Shormi sat down on a cane-stool in front of the dressing table andlooked in the mirror. While talking to Nouman in the morning, for a moment,she thought her son had been talking about Ifthekhar. Shormi opened thedrawer at the side of the table and looked down at the things: a small redbox, full of her earrings; a big make up box; an Omega watch, a gift fromIfthekhar on their second anniversary and a small revolver. The gun was licensedand it was licensed under Ifthekhar’s name; he had never used it,all the bullets were still in the chamber, unused for eight long years. Shormihad never thought of renewing the gun-permit and had not deposited thegun to the nearby police station either. She smiled and put on a pair ofclay-earrings. A shrill cry came through the window, she got up and lookeddown; it was Bobby. The cat was lying on the sunshade, licking its paws.The doorbell rang; Nouman was standing at the door hand in hand with Ifthekhar,who was smiling coyly.Shormi did not know what to say or do. An inexplicable numbness, itseemed, had grasped her as she stammered and ushered them in. Both ofthem followed her to the hallway and sat on a big sofa bed in the drawingroom.She smiled meekly at Nouman and said, "You look much taller thanyou did in the photo you sent. I have some baby-pictures of yours... I wantyou to take them; remind me to give them to you." Then she added, staringat Ifthekhar, "I forget things quite easily now-a-days."He looked around the room, as if trying to find what had gone missingsince the last time he came here. An uneasy silence followed before Noumanbroke it by saying, "Mum I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to hurt you."

308Ahmede Hussain░She said, "Never mind, Nam."Ifthekhar suddenly stopped scanning the room and asked: "How’s yourteaching going on?"That was the last thing she expected to come out from his mouth; shecould not help smiling. "Fine," she said and hurriedly added, "My maidhasn’t turned up today; let me go and fetch you some tea."Nouman got up and said, "Mum, we will have tea some other day,when we come to take the photos perhaps."She smiled and looked at Ifthekhar; he got up and was staring atBobby through the door. The cat was standing at the window of the bedroomand one of its hind legs was badly infected. Sensing human attentionit screeched and jumped to the ledge."Didn’t know that you liked cats," he said and smiled."Its legs are badly bruised, probably the cat has got gangrene," shereplied.When they were both gone, Shormi looked down the window to seeBobby. The cat was standing on the ledge and croaked weakly after seeingher. She looked at its gangrened legs – one of Bobby’s limbs was completelydecayed and the cat had to put its back on the wall for support; theother limb had started to decompose and Shormi could smell it rotting. Shecalled the cat but it only gave out a high pitched cry.Shormi did not realise that her maid had come and was standing at thewindow, gripping the grille. "Something bad will happen madam; I am quitesure about it. When cats cry, bad things happen. They come to know aboutbad things beforehand and start crying," she said ominously. She was inher mid-twenties, and was wearing a yellow Shalwar-Kameez.Shormi turned round and said, "Don’t be silly Hasna. Cats are sillyanimals, even sillier than you. How will they know about the future?"Hasna did not look at all convinced as she continued, "You knowmadam, a cat was crying near our shanty the day Karim was killed."Hasna had had numerous paramours and Shormi had caught her goingout with different men on various occasions. She had once introducedKarim to Shormi; he himself had told her that he had been a petty thief.Karim was beaten to death by a mob after being caught pickpocketing nearthe shanty. Hasna had watched the mob pin Karim down on the street andbeat him with bricks and blunt machetes. But Shormi was not thinkingabout it any more; Bobby was having a painful death and she blamed herselffor it. She put her hands into the grille and called the cat again; Hasnajoined her, but Bobby did not respond. The cat only looked up the windowand cried shrilly. Shormi turned round, gripping a bar and said, "Hasna Ican’t take this any more.”

░ Blues for Allah 309Shormi saw tears rolling down the girl’s eyes. She held Hasna’s handtightly and said, "If the cat doesn’t die by tomorrow night I will kill it with thegun.”Hasna started weeping. Shormi put her hand on her shoulder andsaid, "Listen, silly girl… I just want to relieve it of the pain." Then sheadded, "Just look at the way Bobby is crying… look…"The two women then wept, holding each other. Shormi held Hasna’shead to her neck and said, "Silly girl.” The cat screeched even louder as itstaggered around to lie on the other side of the ledge.***Power was out when Shormi woke up in the evening. Bobby was stillcrying. She put on a pair of pyjamas and a short-sleeved shirt and drank aglass of water from the bedside table. Warm sunlight came through themango tree and fell on Bobby’s decaying body. The cat looked up and triedto leap up the grille. Shormi clasped the grille as Bobby missed it and fellon the garden below the sunshade before bumping on the edge of the façadewall. She ran down the stairs, almost toppling over the white banister,and found Bobby still alive. Blood spewed out of its neck and both of thecat’s front legs had almost come out of its body. Bobby tried to get up to itsfeet when it saw Shormi walk down further towards the flowerbed. But thecat could not get up to its feet; it tumbled down and staggered on the thornysurface with its chest. She reached down, picked Bobby up, and took her tothe house.Shormi waited for Hasna to come before taking any decision aboutBobby. She had placed the cat on a rag and it had not moved since.Meanwhile, she paced around the room, holding both her hands together,praying. She was born in a Muslim family, but had abandoned the faith asshe grew up. The bell rang and, to her surprise, she found Nasser standingat the door. He had grown a beard and was wearing a white T-shirt andblue jeans."Hey," she almost screamed and said, "come in.”Shormi looked at him more closely. The long strips of thin white fabricthat had been wrapped around different parts of his body were gone. Nassersat down on the sofa bed and as if to give a reason for the visit said, "Iwas passing by and thought you might not dislike it if I drop in.”She smiled at his innocence. Bobby’s cry came out before she couldsay anything. She strode down the flat, ushering him in, and sat down onthe floor. Nasser followed her; and when he reached Bobby, said, "God…how did it happen.”Shormi did not reply; she looked pointedly at the cat’s eyes; she

310Ahmede Hussain░thought the cat had been pleading to save it from its agony. Cats did notshed tears, she knew, but she somehow felt it was telling her, begging her,with its green eyes, to rid it of the pain. She looked at Nasser, who wasstaring morosely at Bobby."Nasser, I want to kill it. Do you think it will be wrong if we kill it now,instead of let it suffer?" she asked.Nasser did not take his eyes off the cat when he replied, "No. But Idon’t know how we will do it.""I have a gun," she slowly got up and took the gun out of the drawer. "Idon’t know if it will work or not. It’s my ex-husband’s but he never used it,"she said while leaning on the wall."Do you want me to do it?" Nasser looked at her and asked."Nah," she replied and walked down slowly to the rag.Bobby stopped crying and stared at her eyes when she pointed thegun at her head. She could not fix her aim as her hands were trembling. Itwas almost dark; the electricity had not come yet and Shormi had forgottento light a candle. Beams of red, yellow and blue light came through thewindow from the billboards and fell on the two impassive human faces.Nasser came forward and put his hands around hers to help her aim.Shormi turned round, surprised, and said, "Thanks.”Nasser, now holding her hands, could hear their hearts pounding.Shormi looked at Bobby for the last time, closed her eyes and pulled thetrigger, but the thirteen-year-old lever failed to fire the gun. Bobby criedshrilly as she tried again; the gun did not let her down this time, bloodsplashed out of the cat’s head and fell all over the blue rag. Shormi, eyesstill closed, turned round, hugged him tightly and sobbed.They dug a hole at the giant trunk of the mango tree to bury Bobby.Both of them cried when she wrapped the cat in a dark chador and put it inthe hole. Nasser replaced the soil and walked back to the house with theshovel in hand. Shormi followed him and said, "You need to take ashower.”Shormi almost walked up to him when Nasser replied, "I should gohome now.”"What a day for you…" she opened the main entrance and said, "Butyour home is far away from here…""I will take a cab, don’t worry," he entered the house, following her,and said, "But I need to wash my hands first.”"Go straight and then turn left," she said and replaced the keys on thewindowsill.She put on a sari after having a shower while Nasser washed hishands in the bathroom. Electricity had come back; she went to the kitchen

░ Blues for Allah 311to make tea. Nasser, meanwhile, came back from the bathroom and stoodin front of the bookshelf; he carefully pulled a book out of the rack andleafed through it absentmindedly. A print of Jackson Pollack’s “MoonWomen” hung on the wall of the bedroom, just above the dresser. Helooked through the door, still holding the book, and gazed at the painting.A soft clatter of pots and spoons came out of the dining room, as hewent back to the book. Shormi called Nasser and told him to have a cup oftea."Were you reading something?" she asked, sipping at her tea."Not really," Nasser replied, "I was just browsing through a book.""Which one?" she asked, smiling; she was half-sure he had alreadyforgotten the book’s name."God… I forgot," he smiled meekly and sat besides her. "I feel reallysad for the cat," he continued.Shormi had cried continuously the whole evening and the bath couldnot take the signs of it away from her face: her eyes were still blood red;and there was a pinkish glow about the edges of her nose. She crossed herlegs and sipped at the tea again. Nasser thought she might start cryingagain; he put a hand on her hand and patted softly.Shormi put the cup down, looked at him and said, "Thanks."Nasser stared back at her watery eyes, held her hand and said, "Youlook good when you cry.”She smiled, a teardrop rolled down her cheeks and fell on the saucer,and said, "I know that.”Nasser laughed and said, "Let’s go for a walk."She went to the bedroom and opened a drawer at the side of thedressing table. As she was rummaging through it to find a lipstick, Noumancalled. He was sorry, he said; he should have informed her earlier that dadhad been with him, he continued. But Shormi stopped him and said it wasok. She also said that she was about to go outside with a friend, so shewould not be able to talk now. Nouman was surprised and he could nothide it; he said sorry twice before hanging up.Shormi looked at Nasser’s face as they walked down the narrowstreets. He was tall; almost six feet, she presumed; she had to move herhead up to have a look at the mole on his chin. It was almost late in theevening; the traffic on an otherwise busy street had thinned down significantly.There were hardly any passers-by, and those who were still there,waiting in queue for the last bus to come, tired and exhausted, did not evenlook at the woman in a purple sari walking by holding the hand of a manyounger than her. When she was putting on her clothes she had thoughtabout it too; if it was in the morning or in the early evening people would

312Ahmede Hussain░have ogled at her; she could not rule out the possibility of something moreobscene happening. A truck loaded with baskets-full of vegetables anddried fish shrieked past them. She held his hand firmly and said, "Dhakakills me.”He stared at her and said, "You studied in England, right?""How do you know that?" she was somehow surprised.She playfully punched on his chest; his eyes only grinned through hishorn-rimmed glasses in reply. "Oi," she said, "tell me how you know this."He continued laughing, now wholeheartedly, put his arm around herwaist and whispered in her ear, "You are so beautiful.""Hmmm," she replied.Just then a cab slowed down at them; a middle-aged face came out ofthe window and said to Shormi, "Get in the cab honey; I will give youmore."Nasser chased the yellow taxi as it speeded past them hurling moreabusive words. All of a sudden a group of men crept up on her and startedasking questions. One of them was the little boy who had sold her flowersthat day; Shormi recognised him as he came out of the throng and shouted,"Madam, what are you doing here?"Shormi could not answer; she was shivering violently. Realising thatnothing was wrong, the mob, disappointed, scattered away.Nasser was panting heavily when he came back; he said, "Bastards!"That pinkish glow about the edges of her nose-tip returned, thoughshe had put a hand on her mouth in a dazed way; both her hands were stillshivering, she still did not know what to say. Nasser held Shormi gently,stroked her back and said, "Let’s go back home." But she did not respond.Shormi, in his embrace, seemed to have shrunk. She felt relaxed; thatoverwhelming sense of insecurity that had been eating at her all theseyears melted away.Nasser kissed her forehead and muttered, "Let’s go back baby.”She smiled, looked up and said, "Oi! I was seven-years-old when youwere born."Nasser looked surprised; he tucked a strand of her hair behind herear, stroked her chin with his long fingers and asked, "How do you knowmy age?"She put her head on his chest and said, "I read it in the newspaperthat you were twenty-seven. ‘Twenty-seven year old writer gets deaththreat from zealots’ or something like that.""Hmmm… So?" he grinned and asked, taking his mouth closer to herearlobe.She pushed him away, laughing and both of them started walking back

░ Blues for Allah 313home.3The azan had just started when Shormi woke up early in the morning.She looked at Nasser; curled beside her like a baby. He turned and mutteredsomething as she raised his head up from her shoulder blade andgently placed it on the pillow. She turned round too, hugged him from theback and stroked the mole on his chin. Shormi wanted to wake him up;Hasna might come at any moment for her housekeeping chores and shedid not want the maid to find Nasser here. She rubbed the sleep from hereyes and stared at his face again – at his nose, jawbone and neck.Hasna did not turn up at work that day. Shormi, meanwhile, hadwatched television, and later stood at the window to look at the ledgewhere Bobby used to sit. She made breakfast, lit a cigarette and when theclock struck past twelve, woke him up. Nasser smiled and looked acrossher face."I am so sorry," he said and smiled.Last night when they got home Shormi gave Nasser one of Ifthekhar’sT-shirts and a pair of shorts to wear. It had been there in the chest-ofdrawersfor so many years; but they still bore his smell. She did not knowwhy she had kept his clothes for so long; Shormi had never thought thatIftekhar would come back. A common friend had been updating her regularlyabout Ifthekhar’s whereabouts, which mostly covered how he hademigrated to England and got married again. The latter was illegal asShormi and Iftekhar had not been divorced; they, in fact, were still officiallymarried.She had been surprised by Ifthekhar’s behaviour that day. Contrary towhat he had been in his last days with her, Iftekhar looked benign and mellow.Those hysterical outbursts of anger were gone, replaced by a docileexpression. She was amazed that he did not reproachfully stare at her exposednavel. She remembered how during the last few days he had franticallytalked about sins and atonement, and had blamed her for ruining hislife.Shormi recalled Nasser had said something. She smiled and said,"Get up."Iftekhar called when they were having lunch. "Something bad happenedto me Shormi," he said in a laid-back voice."I am having lunch Iftekhar," she replied and asked, "How is Nouman?""He is fine. I am just screwed up Shormi," he said, faintly trying to addup bits of emotions in his voice, "Laura left me three years ago. I quit my

314Ahmede Hussain░job.""I don’t know what to say Iftekhar," she replied. Then she added, "AndI don’t know what you want from me."Nasser leaped up, came across and put a slice of watermelon into hermouth. Shormi gave him a playful poke in the ribs; Iftekhar, meanwhile, replied,"I want to meet you Shormi… Please meet me once… Please.”Nasser came closer and whispered, "I am going down to fetch thenewspaper."Shormi nodded and said on the phone, "I don’t see the point of meetingyou."But Iftekhar insisted, "I just wanted to see you once. Please don’t beso cross."Shormi hated the idea of seeing him again, but she agreed. "All right. Iwill meet you for the last time. But don’t expect anything from me," shesaid; then added, as if to mock him, "Please don’t expect much. Thingshave gone too far."When she went back to the bedroom she found Nasser sitting on therocking chair, absentmindedly holding the newspaper. He did not finish hislunch and within moments he seemed extremely worn out. Shormi cameround and asked, "What happened?"He looked up and said nothing; as she got closer her eyes caught theheadline of the newspaper – "Zealots Declare Bounty on Young Writer’sHead," it said in a black-and-white numbness. She picked up the newspaper;Nasser did not look up, he just stared blankly at the red Persian carpet.“In an anonymous letter sent to all the major newspaper offices yesterday,the so-called Harkat-ul-Zihad Al Islam Bangladesh (HZAIB) has declareda bounty of Tk 10,000,000 ($16,66,666) for young writer NasserHussain’s head. In a fatwa issued by Shaukat Osman, the militant outfit’schief, the group said, ‘We, on behalf of the Muslims in the country, in thename of Allah the most beneficient and merciful, declare writer NasserHussain an apostate. It is now the duty of every Muslim to kill him as ourbeloved religion tells us to do so’.”An otherwise coloured front page of the Star ran a black and whiteportrait of Nasser, probably to make the news look grimmer. Newspaperscrave for and bank on morbidity, Shormi thought as she read down further:“The HZAIB, which is believed to be an umbrella organisation for allreligious extremists groups working in Bangladesh, in a previous letter sentto the dailies, had told Nasser to publicly apologise for his writing. Thegroup had also called the beleaguered writer to reconvert to Islam; Nasserhad denounced the call and had urged the group to shun the path of terrorism.

░ Blues for Allah 315“The writer was attacked last week by a group of young men on theDhaka University campus; though the police have blamed it on ‘unidentifiedmuggers’, many suspect the hands of HZAIB in the incident.“Nasser could not be contacted for comments, as he was not home.“The home ministry has beefed up security in the Banani area of thecity, especially around the writer’s home. But when contacted last night, thepolice headquarters had refused to give us any detail of its plan to reign inon the extremist group, which is blamed to have carried out numerous terroristattacks in the country.”Shormi stopped reading, looked down at Nasser and caught him lookingat her face. She put her head on his lap. He bent down, kissed her andsaid, "Baby I am so scared.”Shormi did not say anything; she kneeled on the floor, cupped hishead and kissed him. As they made love, a roaring locomotive snakedthrough the rail-line that had curved past the mosque. Inside the room, onthe CD Sting sang on:There's a little black spot on the sun todayIt's the same old thing as yesterdayThere's a black hat caught in a high tree topThere's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stopIt was National Revolution and Solidarity day today, a public holiday; herUni was closed, but they did not go out. Nasser lay down on the bed whileShormi cooked. When she was done, Shormi walked up to the bed andsaid to Nasser, "I haven’t read your masterpiece.”He smiled and said, "Don’t. You might try to kill me after reading it.Even political parties that deplored the stabbing, in the same statement,said I wrote something regretful."She laughed and said, "You don’t know…""It’s really funny, you know," he continued matter of factly, "Even theso-called liberals believed that the government did a pretty good job whenthe book was banned. Suckers!"She had been thinking about this while cooking. The big political partiesneeded general people’s vote to win the elections; and, Shormi hadthought that they could spare one or two Nassers or Humayun Azads to goto power. If public opinion ran swiftly against Nasser – which she believedwas going to happen – no one would give a damn about his plight. Voteswere all that mattered to Bangladesh’s political establishment; the socialists,she mused, were ready to make an alliance with the HZAIB if it meanta few seats in the parliament.It was late in the evening; a grey light sneaked into the bedroom.Shormi stared intensely at Nasser, who was reclining on the bed, fidgeting

316Ahmede Hussain░with a jigsaw puzzle. Shormi heard the sound of another rail wagon comingthrough as she leaped up and sat on his lap. He tried to get up to kiss her;but she pushed his shoulder down, put her head to his ear and softly said,"It’s my turn now to forget everything.”The Police’s “The King of Pain” was on repeat-mode; Sting was saying:I have stood here before inside the pouring rainWith the world turning circles running 'round my brainI guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reignBut it's my destiny to be the king of painThe song was rhythmic and steady, and shortly they had forgotten it, thesound no more of an interruption than the consistent rain.And it poured heavily all night. She almost freaked out when someonecalled up and asked for Nasser. She wanted to say no one with that namestayed here; but a sense of urgency in the caller’s tone had forced her toask back, "Who has given you this number?""Ma’am I am sorry. Dr Mizan of the Dhaka Medical gave me yournumber. My name is Inam; I am a reporter, I work with the Star. I want tointerview him," he continued, "Dr Mizan thought you might help me out."Shormi held him gently from the back while Nasser talked to the reporteron the phone."Listen… there are people out there in this country who will kill anyonewho does not subscribe to their version of the religion. Who the hell arethey to call someone a murtad or an apostate or whatever it is when the religionitself prohibits it?" he said; anger glinted in his eyes, Shormi cameforward, holding out her hands, telling him to cool down.The sound of another locomotive raging across the rail-line was heardand it started to vibrate in the room when it closed by and passed through."Listen man," the reporter said gingerly, "this would not help yourcause. They want you to apologise in public and they said that would do…""Oh come on! Why should I make an apology? And for what?" heasked defiantly, shaking with fury.Shormi put both the hands on her hip; frustrated, like a schoolteacherfaced with a transgressing pupil.Nasser continued, "If I had written anything against Islam, I wouldhave apologised to Allah. Since when have these idiots started playingGod?""God! Why can’t you be reasonable?" the man replied; he soundeddisappointed; "I don’t know you, Nasser bhai, but I loved your story. And Iwant you to be alive to write more," he went on."I don’t see the point," Nasser said, "I didn’t write anything wrong. Hin-

░ Blues for Allah 317dus are being systematically repressed everyday in this country. This is afact. They are robbed of their freedom only because they belong to the minority,only because they are Hindus. What is wrong if I write it?""No one is saying that," Inam replied. "The fanatics have popular supportyou see and are taking advantage of your callowness," he gave apause and then asked, "Are you happy with the way the government ishandling the crisis?""Why are you calling it a crisis?" Nasser shrieked on the phone, "It isnot a crisis. It can never be called a crisis. Some faggots want to kill mebecause I have exposed something in the eyes of the world that they wantto hide. And you call it an emergency? Today it’s me; tomorrow it can beyou. If you want me to feel sorry for writing a book, everyone who believesin free speech should apologise to these faggots."Inam swore loudly in exasperation.Shormi sat on the rocking chair and stared at the ceiling fan in a vacantway; she knew what was going to happen. Nasser slouched againstthe door and stared at the teeming rain through the window. For a flickeringmoment she thought of Bobby: what had the cat been thinking when theyhad both raised the gun in unison at its decomposing body?A month ago she was reading Coetzee’s Age of Iron, the story of alonely old woman in apartheid South Africa dying of cancer. In an extendedletter to her daughter Mrs Curren expresses her anger, shame and frustration.What do the dying think before they breathe the last?What goes on in a killer’s mind before he raises a blunt machete on afellow human? When the terrorists lobbed those grenades at that meeting,for a flashing moment, did they look at the people – all of those who wouldbe killed by those fruit-like bombs? Did any of them want to stop the directionof the objects they had just thrown – midway in the air, falling smoothlyin a line, like Cupid’s bow? What did they do after seeing the charred bodyof their four-year-old victim – eyes wide open, surprised by the ferocity ofpomegranates?***Silence fell as they ate supper; Nasser did not have much, all throughthe meal he fiddled with the fork and knife like a nervous schoolboy would.As she leaped up from the chair and walked into the bedroom, she knewshe did not have any word of comfort for him. But she wanted to be by hisside till the end and for that she decided not to meet Iftekhar.A narrow line of light came into the room through the bedroom door.Nasser was still awake. She sat to email Nouman."My dear Nam," she wrote and hunched over the table to abandon

318Ahmede Hussain░herself, first to a quiet, decent sobbing, then to long wails without articulation,emptying the lungs, emptying the heart.She could not write more; an inexplicable numbness, it seemed, hadgrasped her body. She got up, sat on the rocking chair and skimmedthrough the newspaper. A train of thought shuffled on, badgering her withan uneasy feeling. She knew something bad was in the offing, somethinggrotesque and grisly. She stared vacantly at the sheets of paper she wasgripping so tightly. The small print from the newspaper hurt her eyes; sherubbed them and looked at the newspaper. Everything was a blur.She waddled across and lay on the bed. Nasser was awake but he didnot move. Shormi held him from the back and touched his eyes; his eyelidsfluttered. He grasped her hand and sighed.She closed her eyes and saw Bobby walk lazily on the rag with a kitten.It was drizzling outside and would soon start pouring heavily. Shecould see a wisp of cloud shading the skyline. The sun was at its low,though it was early in the afternoon; neither of them could see anything.She and Nasser were wading through what looked like a hill of sand; thecat followed. Then the path grew musty and it started to rain heavily. Theylooked up at the sky; suddenly a flash of light came across and they had toclose their eyes, dazed and startled. When they opened their eyes an oasiswas on the horizon. They thought their steps were so light that it was possibleto fly; it was possible to be both body and spirit. Then just as suddenlyit had come into being, the oasis dissolved into a dune. Without even knowingwhere to go; where to hide themselves and from whom, a man and awoman along with their cat walked through. They walked days and nightsand at times when day and night looked and felt the same. They did notfeel sleep; neither could hunger touch them. They ate everything they goton their way; they peeled the bark of dead trees and ate beetle-grubs, andburped after having grasshoppers.They did not stop when they reached that elusive oasis. They did notcross the path of any humans; neither did they see any living being. Theyellow mosque that they came across was empty of any human presence;she saw the dead, shrouded in cerements, waiting for the funeral party toarrive.They sped out of the mosque and ran through the desert. They ran asif there was no tomorrow. As if nothing but their existence was true.ahmedehussain@gmail.com

Extract from Frank Schätzing’sTod und Teufel (Death and the Devil)translation Rhiannyn GeesonFrank Schätzing was born in Cologne, Germany. He is a Creative Director foradvertising companies and co-founder of an advertising agency in Cologne. Thebest-seller, Tod und Teufel, (Death and the Devil) an historical crime novel, is hisfirst work, published in 1995. Since then, he has published six books, the most recentof which is Der Schwarm (The Swarm), published in 2004.Tod und Teufel is set in medieval Cologne, at the time of the construction of theCologne Cathedral. The protagonist, Jacob ‘the Fox,’ petty thief and idle trickster, isthe only – and unintentional – witness to the murder of the Cathedral’s masterbuilder, and is consequently hunted by the assassin, Urquhart ‘the Wolf’. Jacob isthen drawn in to the intrigue and politics surrounding the death, and, with the help ofnewly-won friends, attempts to spoil the plot of some of the richest families in MedievalCologne, and survive the hunt of the Wolf.The excerpt below follows the exploits of the hungry Jacob, as he raids the orchardsof the Archbishop. It is as he finds the finest apples that he witnesses themurder, and is himself noticed by Urquhart. Jacob runs, and, thinking he has escaped,meets with his ailing friend Tilman. They both then visit Maria, a prostitutewith whom Jacob is friends, to share the spoils of Jacob’s raid. The excerpt endswith the seeming success of Urquhart’s hunt.(This translation is published courtesy of Hermann-Joseph Emons Verlag.)COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/Geeson.pdf

320Schätzing / Geeson░BY THE CATHEDRALIt was, of course, an insane idea.But it was set in Jacob’s head to have the most illustrious apples of allCologne in his grasp – those belonging to Konrad von Hochstaden, hisEminence, Archbishop of Cologne, Warlord by Friedrich’s grace, and, atthe same time, mentor to the opposing King, Wilhelm von Holland: in short,an extremely powerful and unpleasant person.Obtaining the apples required a visit to the Archbishop’s orchard andvivarium, which lay between Konrad’s palace and the new, soaring Cathedralchoir: or, more precisely, a little behind the two. Naturally, the groundswere surrounded by a wall and locked. In Cologne, the most bizarre storieswere told about the animals behind the walls – that Konrad kept lions, andeven an animal steeped in legend: an ‘elephantus’, with a devilishly longnose and feet like tree trunks. In reality, peacocks and pheasants lazedamongst the heavily laden fruit trees; birds that were not only beautiful, yetalso found their way into the ecclesiastical stomach when required. That,other than a few dozen squirrels, encompassed the entire wonder.The only way into Konrad’s private paradise led over the wall, and theonly place one could venture into it was through ‘Great Pinchpenny Lane.’The name was entirely inappropriate. The lane was tiny, almost a wormholebetween the Cathedral grounds and the garden. Its only reason for existingseemed to be to connect Cathedral Close to St Maria ad Gradus andthe Convent of St Margaret, both of which stood behind the apsidal chapelof the Cathedral. The lane was lined on both sides with walls so high theycould not be climbed without a ladder.Yet there was no defence. Not against Jacob the Fox.Here, a few ancient, imposing apple branches projected far out fromthe Archbishop’s garden, over the lane and the bordering construction site.The higher branches stretched tall towards the cathedral; underneath,gnarled boughs drooped down low enough into the lane that one couldreach up with both hands and effortlessly pull oneself up.He did not really have to enter the garden. On the other hand, Naturein her malice had arranged it so that the most succulent fruit were onlyavailable to those who could climb skilfully. A few tried repeatedly, but themajority then hung from the branches like bats, unable to find a firm holdbefore the guards or the Archbishop’s henchmen plucked them downagain. The theft of apples was therefore limited, and shortly beforehand,Konrad had set drastic punishments for many more offences. Since then,absolutely nothing had happened.

░ Tod und Teufel / Death and the Devil 321Jacob thought to change that.He stood under the branches and waited. By then, it was after seven,and the sun was setting. Although a black cloud-bank was closing in implacably,there was sufficient light left in the evening sky. A gusty wind sprangup. At the building site, workers laid down their tools and made their wayhomewards. It was pointless to continue in fading light: one would onlymake mistakes and have to start over again the next day. Suddenly, betweenone moment and the next, the lane was as empty as if it had beenswept clean.Jacob flexed his muscles, bent lightly at the knees and propelled himselfupwards powerfully. His hands encircled the lower bough. Withoutpausing, he brought his body up, further and higher, straddled a branch,and sat, in the next moment, in the middle of a forest of leaves.No-one had seen him. He grasped above him and made his way, handover hand, up to the second storey and was totally invisible.But Jacob saw even more, and the outlook made his heart beat faster.Around him, Nature flaunted her sumptuous abundance. Nothing inthe world could compare with these apples. He grabbed greedily; his teethsplit the firm, green skin and ripped the fruit apart. Juice spilled over hischin. The apple disappeared as if into a grinding mill; a second followed amoment later, then the stalk still remained from a third.Jacob belched loudly then stared, shocked, through the foliage to thegrounds below.No danger.He would have to suffer terrible stomach cramps, he knew: his bodyhad nothing but acid to work on. But stomach cramps stopped eventually.Now, after his first hunger had been sated, he could turn to stowing furtherspoils into his new and thankfully capacious cloak.He thought of Tilman, and of Maria, under whose roof he occasionallyfound quarters if her business allowed, or winter bit too deep. After takinginto account his own need, and laborious counting on his fingers, he arrivedat the sum of three times ten apples.Best not to waste time!For the sake of simplicity, he picked the best within his reach first.Then he saw only smaller, inferior apples within his grasp, before he hadgathered even roughly enough. He slid carefully a little further along thebranch, now hanging directly over the middle of the lane. While he heldtightly to the branch with his left hand, his other busied itself here andthere, serving him handsomely. Whole families could feed themselves onthe bounty growing here.The most enticing apples were even further away, yet he could only

322Schätzing / Geeson░reach them by venturing even further forward. He considered, for a moment,being content with what he had already plundered. But if he sat in theorchard of the Archbishop, he would be satisfied with nothing less than thatwhich Konrad himself would demand.He screwed up his eyes and crawled a little further forward. Thebranch was noticeably thinner, and projected over the grounds of the cathedral’sconstruction site.The foliage separated here, allowing a glimpse of the cathedral choir,penned in by scaffolding. Not a soul could be seen: in the morning, atcockcrow, the surrounding area would shake with lively bustle, cries, hammeringand booming, but now the area lay in an unusual, peaceful reverie.For a moment, Jacob was astonished by how close the semicircle ofthe steeple’s soaring windows and pillars appeared. Or were his sensesdeceiving him? Was it simply the enormous height that lent the marvelpresence – as if one could simply reach out and touch it? Yet it would beeven taller, more than double its current height, even without the towers!Unbelievable.And, at the moment, not important. Jacob turned his attention back tothe apples. As Maria had said, you can’t fill a belly looking at a cathedral.Precisely.In the same instant his fingers closed on a truly magnificent apple, afigure appeared suddenly, high above on the scaffolding. Jacob started,and huddled closer to the treacherous bark. Better to withdraw! But thatcould lead to danger. Best simply to stay still for a little while. The leavesovercast him with shadow so that he could see everything, but could hardlybe seen. His eyes followed the man’s progress along the planks curiously.Even from a distance, it was clear the man was expensively dressed, hiscloak exhibiting an opulent fur trimming. He walked upright, in the mannerof one familiar with command. From time to time, he shook the beams ofthe scaffolding, as if to make sure they held together. Then he laid hishands on the parapet again, and simply stared into the depths.Even though Jacob was only an idle trickster, whom nobody other thanthose of his own kind knew, he recognized the man up there inspecting hiswork. Everyone knew the cathedral’s master builder. The rumour that hehad called on the devil for his plan had preceded Gerhard Morart. Stonemasonby profession, since his memorable appointment, he had risen tobecome one of the most respected and most influential citizens; he hadbeen presented with a plot of land by the cathedral chapter, on which hehad erected a magnificent house of stone, very much in the manner of thenoble houses. He associated with the patrician families of Kone, and ofOverstolz, from Mainz. His advice was requested, his work admired and

░ Tod und Teufel / Death and the Devil 323simultaneously feared – just like the man himself. He had already becomea legend in his own lifetime, and there were not a few who believed that,with the help of the devil incarnate, he would complete the impossible workbefore his death, to then travel straight from the highest point of the cathedralto hell; the pompous, vain Konrad as companion.However, it appeared more to Jacob that the cathedral was less theresult of dark treaties, but rather more that of hard work.Meanwhile, Gerhard Morart had climbed the highest level of the scaffolding.His massive silhouette stood out blackly against the remaining lightleft of the day. The wind tore violently at his cloak. Jacob felt the first dropsof rain slap down, and shivered. Gerhard could spend the whole night upthere, if it suited him. It was time to fill his pockets and disappear as quicklyas possible.At the same moment, a second figure appeared on the scaffolding. Itseemed to Jacob that the figure had appeared as if from nowhere. Thenewcomer was far taller than Gerhard. He manifested himself so close tothe master builder that their shadows momentarily appeared to melt together.Then a shrill cry rang out, and Jacob saw Gerhard plunge through theair; past his scaffolding, pillars, and capitals; his struts and piscinas, wallsand plinths. His arms flailed wildly, and, for one terrible second, it appearedas if he were waving to Jacob in his apple tree. Then there was a muffled,dull thud as the body struck, rose up again as if seized by a giant fist, thenlay facing upwards.Jacob stared at the motionless master. It was impossible that he couldhave survived the fall. Hastily, Jacob began to push himself back, but camenot a meter further. There was a ripping noise as the branch gave way underhis weight. As if on a broomstick, he rode the brittle wood downwardsand landed in a chaos of leaves and splintered bark. Struggling, he attemptedto free himself from the confusion and gasped desperately for air.Bless the Lord and all the saints! He had fallen into the cathedral’sconstruction site. Still gasping, he rose to his feet. The fall had ripped thehat from his head. He slapped the shapeless thing back on and lookedaround wildly in all directions.Away, said a voice in his head. Away, while there’s still time. It was thesame voice that had warned him at the market that morning.Away from here!His gaze wandered to Gerhard. The bent body lay not even fifty pacesaway from him. Had he deceived himself, or had a groan sounded fromover there?He looked closer.

324Schätzing / Geeson░Gerhard is dead, said the voice.Jacob clenched his fists and felt the sweat break out. There was stilltime to depart discreetly.Then he saw the movement. Gerhard’s arm had only twitched a little,but there was no doubt that the man was still alive.A memory welled up in Jacob. It forced him back.Vanish, Fox!“Brainless cretin! Won’t you ever learn?” whispered Jacob. In longstrides, he hastened across to the choir, while the increasingly heavy rainhit him in the eyes, and fell on his knees next to the body.Gerhard stared up at the sky with glassy eyes. Water ran over his faceand through his thin hair: his fur-trimmed cap lay next to him. He did notlook at all like someone who had made a pact. It was a gentle face withdelicate features. Or better, it had been. Now the shock of nearing deathmarked his features.The chest of the master builder heaved convulsively. His lips trembled.Jacob stroked the wet hair from his forehead and bent over him.Gerhard appeared to be aware of his presence. With infinite effort heturned his head and looked at Jacob. Again his lips moved.Had he said anything?From the other side of the cathedral, voices and footsteps approached,possibly people who had heard the cry. Jacob hesitated, thenbrought his ear close to Gerhard’s mouth and closed his eyes.It was three words that Gerhard spoke, and with each syllable hebreathed out what little life remained him.Instinctively, Jacob clasped the hand of the dying man and pressed it.A thin thread of blood ran out of the corner of Gerhard’s mouth.He was dead.For heaven’s sake, move, so you can get away, pressed the voice.From above came peculiar scraping noises. Jacob stood up. Somethingwas coming down the scaffold. He tipped his head back and lookedup.His breath faltered.The big, black shadow drew nearer over the various levels. But it didn’tclimb, rather, sprang down with eerie agility, leaping deftly over the plankslike an animal. A comet’s tail of hair encircled its head.It was nearly there.Who or whatever approached, Jacob had not the least desire to furtherthe acquaintance. He turned and ran, as fast as he could. Over the courtyardof the cathedral, people were running around, calling and gesticulating.Jacob darted sideways, scurried into the shadow of an adjacent build-

░ Tod und Teufel / Death and the Devil 325ing shed, and managed to mix into the crowd from behind.Everyone was talking at the same time; someone cried out the grievousnews, and soon others carried it across the cathedral and out into thestreets.No, no one had seen him – with the exception of the shadow.Curiously enough, in this second Jacob thought of the apples. Hishands delved into the pockets of the cloak. Several were still there, had notrolled out in his fall from the tree. Good!More saved than sheer life.As inconspicuously as possible, he strolled over the courtyard andthrough the Dragon Gate. As he turned round once again, there was nothingmore to be seen of the shadowy creature from the scaffolding.Somewhat relieved, he quickened his pace and went further along BecherLane.THE SHADOWUrquhart followed him at a distance. He had pulled the cloak over hishair and was, despite his height, little more than a phantom between thebusily hurrying people, black and inconspicuous like the falling night.It would have been simplicity itself to kill the fellow there at the buildingsite. Urquhart knew that he had witnessed the murder. And yet Gerhard’sdeath must look like an accident. The master, crushed, and next to him anothercorpse with a crossbow bolt in the chest? – not at all the point of thetask. Nevertheless, he must quickly eliminate the disagreeable witness whofell so unexpectedly out of the tree, and obviously a goodly piece awayfrom the cathedral: somewhere where there were not so many peopleabout. The crossbow under his cloak was cocked, and yet the bustle of themarket quarter offered no opportunity for a clear shot. Again and again thehead of the hurrying man disappeared between passers-by going home orto Vespers, while he moved hurriedly away from the town centre.What had Gerhard whispered in to him? Had he actually said anything,or only oozed out blood between his teeth before he died? If he had spoken,then this fellow now carried a secret around with him. It could hardlybe expected that he would keep it to himself.He could ruin everything in a single blow.Urquhart moved faster, while his mind sought, with every step, to findout more about the other. Observations pooled together like coloured glassin a mosaic. The man was a redhead. With the fall from the tree the hat hadbeen ripped from his head. Urquhart had seen his shock of hair flaming inthe late light, before he had run to Gerhard. He appeared to be in excellent

326Schätzing / Geeson░physical form, certainly a quick runner. He would have to be. Whoeverhung around in the apple trees of the Archbishop these days was, withoutdoubt, a thief, and thieves either ran like hares, or swung from the gallows.This thief was, moreover, clever. The way in which he had mixed into thecrowd showed intelligence, as did the fact that he had immediately struckout into the busiest street, where it would be hard to follow him.But not for Urquhart the Shadow.There were still too many people in the streets. At the moment hecould only observe the redhead. With a little luck, and if he carried hisspoils under his cloak, he would seek out his cache, possibly the placewhere he slept. Such places were isolated. Thieves sought solitude out offear of their own kind.Unless he had a bed in a monastery. The foundations and hospitalswere hard to access. To follow him in there was more difficult.That meant there was no more time to waste.Urquhart reached under his cloak and laid his finger on the handle ofthe crossbow. They were now in the Street of Minorites, just before thecorner of Drusian Lane. On the right lay the cloister enclosure of the Minoritebrothers.And suddenly, from one moment to the next, by chance, all the peopledisappeared into one or another of the house doorways. Only occasionallycould anybody be seen scurrying here and there over the slippery ground,cowering before the rain. Then, for an instant, the street was deserted, exceptfor the hastening figure wearing the felt hat, one who had seen toomuch and heard too much.Urquhart raised the arm with the weapon.And let it sink back quickly. Too late.From a tavern across from the monastery came four men, all extremelydisreputable. One of them greeted the redhead with a loud hello.The others circled round the pair, and Urquhart saw only shoulders andbacks.He slipped into the shadows of the walls surrounding St. Minorite andwaited within earshot.“Tilman!” cried Jacob. It was his friend from the duck wallow teeteringout of the pub. Jacob was pleased. He had steered towards “The Hen” inthe hope of getting hold of Tilman before the supplies ran out. He alsoneeded to talk to someone: the shock had shaken him greatly.Tilman grinned. He did not look any better than two hours previously,but now his eyes had a feverish glaze: the effect of the alcohol was plain.The others were also beggars. Jacob knew them only by sight, exceptfor one, who shared the status muri with him. He was an unpleasant tub of

░ Tod und Teufel / Death and the Devil 327lard, with whom he had occasionally exchanged a few words, though nothingwhich he would remember.Which was understandable, since, in the language of the streets, thatindicated nothing more than that, so far, none of the cronies had bashedanother on the head over a few bites of food. Others, perhaps. The fat onetended towards that type of violence, whenever they stole something. Oflate, it was said that he had become careless. Jacob did not even give himhalf a year before his head would roll at the feet of the executioner.The brew house “The Hen” was one of those taverns that did notautomatically toss anyone out if they came dressed in rags. The poor weretolerated – as long as they could pay. Many beggars led an absolutelyhonest, God-fearing, and correspondingly short life, which was why therewas no reason not to allow them to share in the blessing of the artistry ofCologne’s breweries.Over time, however, the clientele had admittedly fallen so low, that respectablepeople no longer frequented the establishment. The publicansaw himself subjected to hostility, especially from the Minorites, whosemonastery lay directly opposite. Furthermore, the official prostitutes alsoaccused him of supporting a corner trade for the illicit whores, outwardlyrespectable female burgers, who negotiated their services with well-to-dogentlemen for good money – in secret, naturally. This deprived the officialprostitutes of their trade, which again brought down the anger of the cityexecutioner, to whom the working girls were subordinate and paid taxes.There had been repeated threats against “The Hen”, and since then,the publican had become careful. In Cleves, a master brewer had recentlybeen accused of witchcraft and had been burned at the stake. In the samenight, the venerable Minorite brothers had smeared the word ‘Cleves’ onthe door of the publican’s house in pitch. The merchant families of both thegreater and lesser proud houses of Wasserfass, considered loudly a complaintto the Holy Inquisition, after their children had seen black cats runningout of “The Hen”, while inside, the demons Abigor and Asmodius, inthe shape of indecent women, shrieked blasphemous obscenities while simultaneouslyemitting a sulphurous stink. Jacob asked himself how thechildren knew that it had been, of all things, those two particular demons,where there must be – how many of them was it? – at least ten – ten devils,he remembered; either way, it did not bode well for “The Hen”.That was apparently why they had been thrown out, Jacob learnedfrom the tub of lard. “Rubbish,” Tilman whispered. “The money was gone.You’re too late.”“Thrown out!” squealed the fat one, who had overheard, and was apparentlythe generous host.

328Schätzing / Geeson░Tilman broke into a long fit of coughing.“Whatever,” he gasped. “I’m going back to the wallow.”“Yes, lie down and die,” laughed one of the others and slapped him onthe shoulder. It was not a pleasant laugh.Jacob felt his disappointment rising. Why had the business at the cathedralhad to happen to him, of all people! The opportunity to drink somethingother than stinking water would not come by again in a hurry.Then he remembered his apples and Maria.“Come,” he said, and pulled at Tilman’s arm. The beggars cursed,since their money had not been enough to get properly drunk, and madetheir way in the other direction.“Have you got the apples?” asked Tilman breathlessly.“Here.” Jacob pulled one out. Tilman bit into it as if nothing had passedhis lips for days, which might well be the case. Behind them a late cartrumbled across the lane.“So where are we going?” he wanted to know. The last syllables weredrowned by a new fit of coughing.“Maria’s.”“See you tomorrow.” Tilman started to move away. Jacob kept hold ofhis arm and increased his pace.“You’re going nowhere. Firstly, I have to tell you and Maria an unbelievablestory.”“You and your stories. Since when have any of them ever been true?”“Secondly, you aren’t well. If you don’t find somewhere dry tonight, yousoon won’t need any more apples.”“You know that Maria can’t stand me,” Tilman objected unhappily, stillkeeping pace with Jacob.“I know that she doesn’t want to give every poor dog shelter. Butyou’re my friend, and who can say, perhaps tonight her heart, thanks to alucky stroke of providence…”“Forget your lucky stroke of providence!”“You’re coming with me!”“Yes. Yes, all right.”The oxcart clattered out of Druisian lane and blocked Urquhart’s sight.As the redhead and his companion again appeared before him, they werealready quite some distance away. A couple of Minorite brothers were evidentlyreturning from Neumarkt to St. Minorite, pulling along behind themthin wooden battens on a hand cart. Urquhart avoided them and made upsome ground, but now people were again coming out of the adjacent alleys.He would have to be patient.

░ Tod und Teufel / Death and the Devil 329Urquhart pondered. The meeting with the gang of beggars had beentoo short for the redhead to have told them anything. The one who hadgone with him was a different matter entirely. With every breath, the risk increasedthat Gerhart Morart’s last words would find a wider audience.Of course, it was just as likely that the master builder had said nothing,simply rattled and groaned, only to die. That was possible. Yet Urquhartpreferred to believe otherwise.After a few minutes, the pair turned right into Berlich, a coarse, thinlypopulated area of Cologne that was known primarily for its piggeries – andfor the corresponding odours. But some still lived here.Were they going to the girls?Urquhart stole past the small, dark, shabby houses. Further ahead, heheard someone quietly call out “Maria!”, then a door opened a crack. Theredhead and the other man squeezed inside.They had managed to give him the slip. For the time being.He considered, for a moment, the possibility of going in after them,thus solving the problem in one fell swoop. Then he decided against such amove. He did not know how many people lived in the house. It was a smallbuilding, obviously a brothel, perhaps run by a procurer. Someone staggeredout and shuffled in his direction. Not one of the ones he had followed.Evidently a merchant, richly dressed and too drunk to notice Urquhart.Mumbling to himself, the man disappeared behind a couple of sties.He looked after the man, then turned his gaze back to the house. Onthe first floor, a light flickered, and then someone shut the shutters with abang.They would have to come out at some stage.Urquhart melted into the darkness. He could wait.BERLICHIt was indeed a whorehouse. The proprietor was called Clemens Brabanterand was a thickset, good-natured character. It was his wont to carefor his customers, so to speak, with four gills of wine as entrée, from whichhe served only three. Below burned a peat fire, covering with soot theshabby room which took up the whole ground floor. Clemens himself sleptbehind a greasy curtain. Over the fire, fat, gristly meat was grilled, usuallyburnt black, apparently so that a few of the guests would bring along somethingbetter. Then, Clemens sat near the fire and turned and flipped thedelicacy attentively, so that it suited the guest’s tastes. The girls only gotsomething at the guest’s invitation. Because Clemens was, at heart, committedto morals and justice, he did not exclude himself from this rule, and

330Schätzing / Geeson░thereby held the respect of the girls – when he refrained from hitting them.The same went for the wine. In general, Clemens served the “wetLodewig”, the name in Cologne for the result of bad harvest, a sour nothing,without body or finish, that one could hardly taste, yet must pay for withconsiderable heartburn. On the other hand, there were guests for whomClemens would climb into his cellar and draw wine of a completely differentquality. In this knowledge, certain gentlemen from higher circles visitedagain and again, and Clemens’ costliest asset, the three women on the firstfloor – with the exception of one, whom the Lord God had punished withskinniness and a squint – looked uniformly voluptuous and inviting.As well as the business, two of the whores, Wilhilde and Margarethe,were married. Their husbands worked in the business houses on the Rhineas packers. Between four and six of them were needed to hold open one ofthe large sacks to be filled with salt. As a packer, one earned next to nothing,though one needed be able to do next to nothing. In the end, there wasjust enough to get by, and, together with the earnings from the whoring,there was at least enough to live rather than die.The third in Clemens’ band was generally regarded as the most beautifulin the whole Berlich area. Her name was Maria. She was twenty-one,although the rings under her eyes and the absence of a few teeth spoiledthe picture a little. Nevertheless, Maria had wonderful, silky hair and eyesas green as a cat’s under curved, Madonna-like brows. Her mouth was aflower; a canon who crept in occasionally had recently stammered drunkenlyin her ear, her breasts were the temple of delight and her lap, purgatory!In view of this, no one wondered that Maria had grown more and moreproud, and had often spoken of leaving Berlich at some time, and to wed awell-to-do man, with whom she would lead a life pleasing to God, in an attractive,solid house, without the smell of pig dung and the cries and groansfrom the neighbouring sties.Her relationship with Jacob suffered from this. At the start, she hadtaken pleasure in every gesture, every souvenir, simply in Jacob himself.Often enough, when there were no more callers for the night, he had sleptwith her in a bed. He brought her provisions, whatever he had managed tograb, and so did not have to pay, or leave afterwards. Clemens, whomJacob cleverly never forgot when he divided his spoils, permitted the arrangement,just as he did with the other two girls. Only business came first!If anyone knocked on the door late at night and desired the sins, one couldbe as married as he liked, Clemens still threw him out implacably.In the meantime, the fire between them had burned a little low. Mariastrove to higher things, and there was always trouble, since Jacob, for

░ Tod und Teufel / Death and the Devil 331some inexplicable reason, felt responsible for Tilman and always towed himalong to Berlich. Occasionally, all three slept together in the tiny chamber.Tilman did not get a turn. He could not bear Maria, and Maria would never,not even for all the money in the world, sleep with Tilman, provided that itamounted to less than a silver coin. These days, she flew into a rage whenTilman was even mentioned. Jacob knew that their association was nearingits end.Perhaps that was why he had decided, so abruptly, that Tilman shouldcome with him. If he and Maria were going to argue in any case, it shouldat least be for a good purpose. With the way Tilman looked, it would need awonder for him to recover from the terrible, bloody coughing, but Jacobwanted at least not to find him dead by the stagnant waters of the duck wallowone morning, besieged by ravens tearing at him and tugging apart hisscrawny, cold body.It was hazy in the parlour. Clemens again had something unidentifiableon the fire and sat in front of it, warming his hands. There was a terribledraft from the crannies in the window shutters. Jacob noted that theprocurer was becoming more stooped daily. Soon his hands and feet wouldmeet in a perfect circle, and he could be rolled into the stream. On thebench near the door sat Margarethe, and observed the visitors in hersquinting way, so that it was said that she was always on the lookout fortwo men simultaneously, and consequently saw none.Apart from that, the parlour was empty.“Hello, Jacob” growled Clemens.Jacob gave Margarethe a fleeting smile and dropped himself downonto one of the roughly joined stools. Only now could he feel how painfulthe bruises were from his fall. His whole body appeared to be one wholebruise “Is Maria here?”Clemens nodded grimly. “Can you afford her?”“Here.” Jacob reached into his cloak and laid three apples on the table.Clemens’ eyes opened wide. He heaved himself up from his place bythe fire and crept over. His clumsy fingers stroked almost tenderly over thesmooth skin.“Where did you get these then? There’s nothing like these to be foundat the market!”“They fell from heaven. Come on Clemens, can we go up?”“Well –“Jacob sighed, delved into his pocket and brought out another apple.“Certainly, Jacob.” The apples disappeared into a basket. “The customerhas just left, as you saw.”“Rich?”

332Schätzing / Geeson░“Not poor. But stingy. He paid the lowest rate, and for that I gave himthe Lodewig to drink. God damn me, but it seemed to satisfy him.”“And Wilhilde?”“Has a visitor.”“That’s good. Smells good, by the way, what you’ve got there on thefire.”“Yes, that’d suit you, wouldn’t it!” snapped Clemens. “It’s not for you!You can be glad I don’t shove your lousy apples up your arse!”Jacob was already on the steps up to Maria, Tilman at his heels.“If you say that once more,” he called, “you might make theArchbishop mad!”Clemens raised his eyebrows and looked over at the basket.“And don’t get her pregnant!” he called after Jacob.Tilman shook his head, unnerved, and followed Jacob to the first floor.His body shook with suppressed coughing.“Can you try not to cough for a while?” begged Jacob.“Very funny!”“All right.” He pushed open the door to Maria’s chamber.She stood at the window, a formerly white shawl around her shoulder,and was in the process of lighting a new candle. Clemens provided well forcandles. As Jacob and Tilman entered, she set the light down near the bed,reached for the window shutters and slammed them shut.The room was hardly furnished: a low table, two stools. A bed, roughlycobbled together, filled with straw, on it a matted cover, in which, as Jacobknew, lived as many lice as there were inhabitants of Cologne. Under thewindow was a chest, in which she kept her belongings. There was a dressinside, which a man whom she really liked had presented to her a fewmonths before. For the most part, he usually only talked when he visitedher. One day he had brought her the dress, left, and never appeared again.Maria didn’t even know his name. But when she put on the dress forchurch-going, it appeared to Jacob that she was more than comparable toevery other one of the respectable ladies, and he couldn’t bring himself tobe seen by her side. Then he was suddenly convinced that she would outsmartFate, and would actually find a pious and respectable man.Now the dress lay in the chest and the lid was shut. If it went the wayof the great, holy Berthold von Regensberg, she would never be able to putit on again anyway. He had, in a thunderous sermon against the dreadfulstate of affairs with regards prostitutes, ordered them all to dress themselvesin yellow and thereby reveal themselves to public scrutiny.An empty pitcher stood on the table, and an upset beaker. The drunkardhad not let her take part in his carousal.

░ Tod und Teufel / Death and the Devil 333“Have you brought something?” she asked without any further greeting.Jacob nodded mutely and laid down the apples that were left near thepitcher. She smiled and took him in her arms, without drawing him to herproperly.She did not look at Tilman. The invalid shook himself and crept over toone of the stools, where he lowered himself down as noiselessly as possible.“Something peculiar has happened to me,” said Jacob and droppedhimself onto the bed, so that the slats grated alarmingly.“And?”He stared at the ceiling.“The cathedral master builder is dead.”She sat down next to him on the edge of the bed and stroked a handthough his hair, her gaze directed at the door. Then she looked at him. Therings under her eyes were even darker than usual, but perhaps it was simplythe scanty flickering of the candle that furrowed the valleys in her features.And nonetheless, she was beautiful. Too beautiful for this life.“Yes,” she said gently, “he fell headlong into disaster.”Jacob sat up and looked at her thoughtfully.“How do you know that?”She raised her hand and pointed with her thumb at the wall. Behind itwas Wilhilde’s room.“Is that what the man in her room said?” questioned Jacob.“He came shortly before you, a linen-weaver. He’s often with Wilhilde.He began with it straight away. Had also only heard it from others who sawGerhard take a false step. Perhaps the only one in his life.” She shook herhead. “Yet God called him before his throne for that. And how many falsesteps do we take? Sometimes I don’t know why we’re on this earth.”“One second.” Jacob sat up. “Which others?”“What?” Maria appeared bewildered.“You said others had seen Gerhard take a false step.”“Yes.”“Which others?”She looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Well, the others, fullstop. The people.”“Which people?”“Heavens, Jacob! What’s so important about that?”Jacob wiped his hands over his eyes. The people –“Maria,” he said calmly, “so there are witnesses who saw how Gerhardfell to his death through his own carelessness. Is that right?”“Well, yes!”

334Schätzing / Geeson░“No!” Jacob shook his head vigorously and sprang from the bed.“That’s not right.”“What are you implying?” asked Tilman, who had to cough again, andattempted to suppress it, causing terrible sounds in his innards.Jacob laid his fingers on his temples and closed his eyes. In his mind’seye, he lived through it all again: Gerhard’s cry, the shadow, the fall and hislast words, that were as if burnt into his brain.“That’s not right,” he repeated. “The cathedral master builder, GerhardMorart, as far as we mean the same man, did not meet his death throughcarelessness, but rather, was murdered. And no one saw it other than me.There was no one.” He paused, breathed deeply, and opened his eyesagain.Both Maria and Tilman were staring at him.“I thought I was drunk, not you,” remarked Tilman.“Gerhard was killed,” said Jacob, agitated. “I was there! I was sitting inthis accursed apple tree, as this black thing appeared on the scaffoldingand pushed him over the edge.”Still there hung a breathless silence over the chamber.“Damn it, that’s how it happened!”Maria began to giggle.“You nut!”“What will you come out with next?” coughed Tilman. “That the devilcame for him?”“Shut your face!” Maria shouted at him. “You have absolutely nothingto say here, you puking spook!”“I–”“Not here!”Jacob heard their voices as if through wadding. He had reckoned oneverything, but not that they would not believe him.“– didn’t pull myself here to sit round in your whore chamber” Tilmanwas yelling. “That was Jacob’s idea! Before I take anything from you, I’drather–”“–Jacob wouldn’t have let you, but you’ve sucked him in with your ridiculouscoughing!” yelled Maria, now enraged.“What you call ridiculous will be the death of me!”“Yes, the sooner the better, but really, you’re healthier than all of us.”“Lord save me! Jacob, I’m going. I would rather die than let myself bebawled out by your whore–”“Don’t call me a whore!” screeched Maria.“Even though you are one!”“Not you. I may be one, but before I spread my legs for you, I would

░ Tod und Teufel / Death and the Devil 335rather drink out of the sewer!”“That’d be a good idea, there would be lots for you to do there, youtoothless piece of shit, you debauched attempt at temptation–”“Just don’t sprain your tongue!”“Miserable hag! I don’t want to hear any more, and nothing of thisstory of the devil!”Tilman jumped up and stormed over to the door, where he abruptly fellto his knees. Jacob hurried over and grabbed him under the arms.“Throw him out!” ordered Maria.“No.” Jacob shook his head.” “He is sick, can’t you see?”Maria crawled onto her bed and cowered there.“He should go.”She was close to breaking into tears.Tilman wheezed heavily. An ice-cold sweat shone on his upper lip.“He’s sick, Maria,” repeated Jacob gently.She stretched out both arms and spread her fingers like talons.“Then go, for all I care! Piss off!”“Maria–”“I don’t want to see you any more!”She threw her hands in front of her face and began to sob.“Maria, I –”“Out!”Jacob bowed his head.URQUHARTIn the meantime it had begun to pour with rain. All activity in Berlichhad come to an end. Here and there light penetrated through the cracks ofthe closed shutters.Urquhart waited.Suddenly the door to the whorehouse opened, and a man stormed outand along the street in the direction of the old wall. He drew his shouldershigh against the terrible weather, appearing to consist of only felt hat andcloak. But Urquhart had meticulously committed the clothes of the red-headto memory.It was time to end the tiresome business. Without particular haste, heset himself moving and followed the hurrying figureThe figure tripped over its own feet every second step, although stillmanaged to set an astonishing tempo. Urquhart decided to follow behindfor a while, until he came to rest. At some stage he would stop running atthis speed and make a halt.

336Schätzing / Geeson░It was more relaxing to kill him when he was moving less.Cloak and felt hat crossed the stagnant duck wallow and made its wayover a narrow path through the fruit gardens and vineyards. It was so darkhere that one could hardly see a hand before one’s eyes. With the exceptionof Urquhart: he could see, even in pitch black. His senses were likethose of a predator, registering every movement of the runner in front ofhim. He noted with satisfaction that the pace of the man was becomingsteadily slower. All the better. It would soon be over.He asked himself how much the red-head could have spread thenews. There was the companion, whom he had dragged into the whorehouse,apparently a friend. It would be no trouble to track him. Urquharthad memorised his features, as he followed them to Berlich, and thewhores would give him further hints. It was not, in principle, necessary totake further steps in this matter. Only the actual witness was dangerous. Abeggar with an unbelievable, second-hand story could nearly be forgotten.But certain was certain.They were now in Plack Lane, a connection between St Gereon andEigelstein, which ran parallel to the city wall. The name was all it had incommon with a lane: along its entire length, there were fewer than a halfdozenfarm buildings, otherwise trees and rows of fences lined the way,and it had now become a dangerous slide of mud and gravel. The surroundinglands mainly belonged to the rich Klockring lords, who also possessedvarious toll houses along Weiden Lane, where Plack Lane ended.The red-head apparently celebrated the status muri.Now his pace had become dragging. He braced himself with effortagainst the lashing, wet wind, and Urquhart was surprised that he hadjudged the physical strength of the figure incorrectly. The willows bowedbefore of the black, driving clouds, as if wanting to pay homage to theforces of nature. There was still not a house to be seen. Not long now, andthe man would not be able to set one leg before the other.In the next moment, he skidded and fell in the mud. Urquhart stoppedmoving.The felt hat and cloak of the sitting man covered his figure so completelythat he could have been mistaken for a large stone. Then he moved,tried to get back up.He had almost managed it.He coughed.With a few paces, Urquhart was close behind him; he raised thecrossbow, pointed it at the man’s neck and pulled the trigger. The boltpenetrated with such force that the body was hurled forward, fell hard to itsknees, collapsed, arrested in a grotesque pose, as if he were praising the

░ Tod und Teufel / Death and the Devil 337Lord.Urquhart contemplated him without particular emotion.He was neither proud of his work, nor did he regret the murder. Hefound it incomprehensible that some of those who committed similar actswould moan, or else brag afterwards. Death was unique, the end of thisman’s story. There was nothing there to change. Nothing about which itwas worthwhile to think further.He turned, and walked back in the direction Berlich.Behind him, the corpse merged with the night to a shapeless masswithout name or consequence.Monash UniversityRhiannyn.Geeson@arts.monash.edu.au

NEW EDITIONFATTYS’CyclopaediaWRITING FAT BODIESAn Encyclopaedia of Fat TheoryA concise overview of thirtyyears of critical writingsabout weight issues, tracingsignificant intersectionsand disputationsWITH CROSS-REFERENCESVANESSA RUSSELLCOLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006). © Monash University.www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue11/russell.pdf

░ Fattys’ Cyclopaedia 339INTRODUCTIONThis volume is a compendium of influential fat theorists from thepast three decades. I use “fat theory” as a unifying term for those writerswho have in common a critical investment in articulating the psychological,social, political or medical signifiers within overweight bodies.My selection of texts is based on the work’s importance upon thefield, and of those fat theorists who have shaped and challenged thisemerging critical discipline.Fat theory is eclectic and consists of writers with backgrounds inacademia, psychoanalysis, psychiatry, sociology, feminism and politicalactivism. The intellectual diversity has created a field of everexpandingand often contradictory ideological positions that continuallyredefine the conceptualisation of ‘fat.’Fattys’ Cyclopaedia traces the history of fat theory and its everchangingcritical landscape. It summarises each writer’s argumentsthen cross-references to intersections or disputations within the field. Itrust this web of ideas will provide a solid background to fat theory,amply tracking the shifting sequence of historical positions that haveinformed contemporary ‘fat’ thought.THE EDITOR.

340Vanessa Russell░WORKSBraziel, Jana Evans and Kathleen LeBesco (b. 1967 and 1970), AssistantProfessors. Eds., Bodies Out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression(2001).A collection of essays that question the ideological bases for theconstruction of fatness, in particular, the discourses that symptomatologisefatness and prevent a celebration of corpulence (2 and 8).The collection “sees fatness as constructed, and reconstructs fatnessas “the concept of obesity” (2) then interrogates this historicalconcept by “resisting the dominant discursive constructions of corpulence”(1). They argue that the “concept of obesity” has been constructedby overdetermining contradictory discourses, together withthe stereotype of the fat body as a measure of excess, and the psychologicaldiscourses that pathologise fatness (8). These discourseshave contained the fat body, whilst simultaneously erasing it, preventingtrue fat acceptance.The essays include historical accounts of the obese, such asKLEIN’S “Fat Beauty” chapter from Eat Fat; a carnivalesque constructionof the fat body in Sharon Mazer’s article on Helen Melon, the “fatlady” at Coney Island’s sideshows, and Le’a Kent’s study of the abject‘fat’ body through zines and fat activism.The essays combine to provide a divergent, yet rich, indicator offat theory’s contemporary positioning, where the concept of the fatbody is to be celebrated and no longer erased through discursivemedicalisation and commodification. Yet, by dismissing all that precededthem, Braziel and LeBesco risk dehistoricising their position andalienating the fat theory that founds their deconstructive theories.Bruch, Hilde (b. 1904), Psychiatrist. Eating Disorders: Obesity, AnorexiaNervosa, and the Person Within (1973).Bruch’s work is based on over forty years of case studies, and isthe first intimate investigation of the psychological rationales groundingobesity. Her influential study challenges the “eat less, exercise more”(121) dieting myth, and argues that dieting can cause emotional problems,including depression.Bruch’s studies find that a disordered relationship to food is relatedto family life (3). She argues that obesity has its origins in a disturbedmother–child relationship, an argument that profoundly influencesORBACH and CHERNIN (66).Her studies find that obese patients cannot identify hunger be-

░ Fattys’ Cyclopaedia 341cause they distance their consciousness from their bodies (50). Bruchwarns that no cure for obesity can be achieved without a widespread“correction of the body-image misconception” (90).Bruch co-pioneered the “physiological weight” concept, that is, aperson’s ideal weight is the stable weight at which one feels “well andhealthy” (Bruch 113): a liberating hypothesis that greatly informed fatactivism.Chernin, Kim (b. 1940), Psychological Consultant. The Obsession: Reflectionson the Tyranny of Slenderness (1981) and The Hungry Self: Women,Eating and Identity (1985).The Obsession articulates the binge-eater’s secret life. Eatingdisorders are the “hidden emotional life of a woman” (1) reactingagainst the cruel contradiction that gives women power whilst simultaneouslytaking it away (99). This book is most famous for introducingthe phrase “the tyranny of slenderness,” a phrase that no selfrespectingfat theorist fails to introduce by page four.The Hungry Self introduces the idea of “the hunger knot” (xiv), apsychoanalytic concept which reads overeating as “mother-rage”(118); an anger aimed at the mother for not providing the daughterwith “instructional mythical guidance” (52). The daughter’s relativefreedom, as compared to the limited options of her mother, inducesguilt at having been given the opportunity to surpass her mother andtranslates into overeating (49).While useful for those who fit into the demographic Chernin creates,this argument standardises the reader into having had a genericbaby-boomer childhood, and ignores the larger social forces controllingbody image.In The Beauty Myth WOLF critiques Chernin:The many theories about women’s food crises have stressedprivate psychology to the neglect of public policy, looking atwomen’s shapes to see how they express a conflict abouttheir society rather than looking at how their society makesuse of a manufactured conflict with women’s shapes. (Wolf189)Like ORBACH, Chernin’s psychoanalytic-based work has been sidelinedby contemporary theories, but marks the beginning of experimentalrisks taken in developing and establishing fat theory as a legitimatefield.

342Vanessa Russell░Hesse-Biber, Sharlene (b. 1950), Professor of Sociology. Am I ThinEnough Yet? The Cult of Thinness and the Commercialization of Identity(1996).Hesse-Biber dispenses with psychoanalytic reasoning and focuseson the covert cultural, social and political needs for fatness. Sheargues that the diet industry relies on fatness and is heavily invested inensuring that people remain fat while pushing the rhetoric of thinness.This creates an industry that relies on the weight loss and gain cyclewhere consumers pay for access to weight loss programs and exerciseequipment, then lose weight, then put the weight back on, thenpay for access to weight loss programs and exercise equipment, andso on.Hesse-Biber’s conceptualisation of the “cult of thinness” has beenpromoted by the diet industry that manipulates people to rely on consumerismto ‘save’ them from fatness: “Many women believe that inorder to lose weight they need to buy something, whether it be a pill, afood plan or membership in a self-help group” (39). By depicting fat asprofane, society – with the help of fashion and advertising – produce aclimate where weight loss is “not just a personal responsibility; it is amoral obligation” (11). Hesse-Biber writes: “As long as a womanviewed her body as an object, she was controllable, and profitable”(25).Concurring with SEID and WOLF, Hesse-Biber states that society’sauthorities in health, medicine, government, religion and educationhave reinforced the cultish imperative to be thin, “until the concept becameso self-sustaining, so internalized that no reinforcement wasnecessary” (28). BRAZIEL AND LEBESCO disagree, claiming that writerssuch as Hesse-Biber have ignored “the power and politics underlyingthe social and capitalistic constructions of corpulence and the fat body”(Braziel and LeBesco 6), which consequently, according to Braziel andLeBesco, ultimately erases the fat body (Braziel and LeBesco 7).Klein, Richard (b. 1941), Professor of French. Eat Fat (1996).Klein’s prophetic soothsaying and “scandalously wonderful”(Braziel and LeBesco 237) history of fat aims to create a healing“mandala” that triggers a reveneration of fat. He uses fetishised andaroused language to inscribe fat with sexiness (49):It’s not easy to change your image of what is beautiful and desirable,especially if those images have been programmed byyour personal history, reinforced by the social environment,and manipulated by the cynical media. (63)

░ Fattys’ Cyclopaedia 343Comparing his work to the comprehensiveness of SEID, he justifiablyterms his brief historical survey “superficial” (115) and argues that historydemonstrates that fat-vilification is a fashion that will reverse whenscarcity reoccurs.Klein attributes the modern abundance of fat to the immobility ofmodern life and the self-fulfilling hatred instilled by medical practitionersand dieticians: “Obesity may be an iatric disease – that is, onecaused by doctors, nutritionists, and health and beauty therapists”(13). The medicalisation of fat has made fat “murderous” (162) to allbut those who are feasting off its revenue.Following HESSE-BIBER, capitalism is invested in fat, which relieson consumers bingeing then rectifying their ‘sins’ by buying diet products:“Dieting is the most perfected form of consumption under conditionsof advanced capitalism, ensuring the greatest amount of businessfor everyone all around” (194).Klein’s work expands the work of fat activists such as WANN, butmoves into fetishism, and his work, although dazzling, is underscoredwith female objectification. It moves perilously close to ‘chubby chasing,’where sexual attraction is focused on the body’s ‘fat’ rather thanthe actual person.Millman, Maria (b. 1939), Sociologist. Such a Pretty Face: Being Fat inAmerica (1980).A socio-anecdotal study that uses interviews with attendees ofAmerican weight loss groups such as the National Association to AidFat Americans (NAAFA), Overeater’s Anonymous (OA), and a fatcamp for children. Through the voices of the “fat,” Millman constructs acritique of these organisations and of the dominant social attitudes towardsfat.The interviewees’ anonymity – they are given false names – provokescontent that is honest and often raw. One interviewee, “LauraCampbell,” succinctly sums up the contradictions in the NAAFA: “Mostof the people in NAAFA are not really happy – we would prefer to bethin if we could but NAAFA has helped me to learn how to manage”(14). “Campbell’s” comment suggests that fat acceptance groups areunder-scored with fat-hatred, a paradox that the work of WANN seeksto rectify.Such compelling anecdotes are widely used as the basis for otherstudies, such as SEID and CHERNIN, and demonstrate the depth of fatvilificationin late twentieth-century society.

344Vanessa Russell░Orbach, Susie (b. 1946), Psychoanalyst. Fat is a Feminist Issue (1978).Orbach’s work politicises compulsive eating and identifies unresolvedemotional difficulties as its source. Her psychological approachdirectly influenced CHERNIN, and was among the first to theorise thebenefits of fatness.Building on the studies of BRUCH, Orbach argues that fat is aphysical indicator aimed at non-verbally expressing anger towards themother (36 and 16). Women feed themselves to compensate for the“inadequate emotional feeding” (41) that they feel has been deniedthem from their mothers.Orbach broadens her argument to include the psychological benefitsof fatness, which are based in protest against a woman’s objectified,subservient positioning in modern society (35). She writes: “Every‘overweight’ woman creates a crack in the popular culture’s ability tomake us mere products” (44). Overeating is a political means for awoman to consume more than her allotted social space: “We want tolook and be substantial. We want to be bigger than society will let us.We want to take up as much space as the other sex” (35).Orbach’s work has suffered under contemporary fat theory, ashave most psychoanalytic discourses, but remains a historically influentialtext that was important in removing the blame of overeatingaway from the ‘fat,’ and also in reinscribing the traditionally maledominatedpsychoanalytical field with feminine signifiers (Cooper 87).The collapse of the psychoanalytic model is, according to BRAZIELAND LEBESCO, that it collapsed the fat body into “the traumatised body”(Braziel and LeBesco 4). Contemporary theory has a more constructiveview of the fat body and aims to “understand corpulent bodieswithout seeking any internal causal agent” (Braziel and LeBesco 4).Fat activists, such as Charlotte Cooper (1998), concur, and argue thattreating fat as a disease prevents its ‘patients’ from reconciling fat asan everyday, normal experience (Cooper 91).Seid, Roberta Pollack (b. 1945), Historian. Never Too Thin: Why WomenAre at War With Their Bodies (1989).A historical account that plots the changing social ideals of thefemale body, from antiquity to the end of the 1980s. Gathering datafrom diverse sources (medical journals, fashion magazines and parallelacademic works), Seid assembles a history that is antipathetic towardspopulist hegemony yet curiously anti-feminist.Seid argues that the “pervasiveness of the weight-loss imperative"(15), manifests in fashion, food fetishism and the “health ethic” (166),

░ Fattys’ Cyclopaedia 345contribute to a “diet-induced obesity” (32). She also argues that “feminism,”advertisements, and an impossible body ideal based on aristocraticaesthetics (131) encourage women “to search for perfection andto feel dissatisfied with what we have achieved” (254).Thus, launching an argument that WOLF strenuously counters,Seid attributes the rise of (a singular) feminism in “inadvertently” contributingto a congruent rise in eating disorders (275). Feminism, accordingto Seid, brought about the rise of the individual that in turn encouragedpersonal attributes of instability and selfishness. Accordingto Seid, in feminism “the realistic commitment was to the self” (254).Further, Seid displays a curiously misogynist attitude and suggeststhat women have been confused by media representations of themselvesas strong and confident: “Women quickly, and probably unconsciously,began to imitate the strong, confident gait, gestures, posture,and movements glorified by film stars and the women’s magazines”(259).This focus on the media’s responsibility for inducing gender-roleconfusion was continued in further fat theorists, particularly WOLF, withthe anti-feminism rectified. Seid argues that women accept their bodiesin all their differences, firmly placing the solution to fat-hatred, andthe cause in women’s hands.Wann, Marilyn (b. 1969), Fat activist. FAT?SO! (1994).FAT?SO! is a fat activist’s website and quarterly zine that challengessocial attitudes towards fat and actively subverts notions ofshame. Launched in July 1994 by editor Marilyn Wann, its streetwisetone is part educational and part left-wing rhetoric that establishes aforum for anyone to add their material and “break the taboo around fat”(Wann, Are You a Fatso??).FAT?SO! does not define the concept of ‘fat’ in terms of weightand overweight – “Anyone who can pinch an inch has a story to tell”(Write for Fat?So!) – but states that fat is a state of mind. FAT?SO!thus inadvertently contributes to the all-pervasive body ideal, whereeveryone who can ‘pinch an inch’ is classified as fat, but in Wann’sconfiguration everybody is proud of their inch.FAT?SO!’s subversion acknowledges the contradictions of fatpride, which is often based upon self-hatred, but as Wann writes, it isall about attitude:The fatso life takes attitude, it takes existential credentials (thekind that come from being an outcast and fighting self-hatredat the same time). It takes laughing at Jenny Craig commer-

346Vanessa Russell░cials and voting for the fat Elvis and still for some reason lyingabout your weight on your driver's license. (Wann, Zines andE-Zines)FAT?SO! does not offer a fetishised view of fat like KLEIN, but onewhere all people are encouraged to be politically conscious of fat discriminationand subvert the dominant view of a society that is attemptingto shame them.Wolf, Naomi (b. 1962), Feminist Scholar. The Beauty Myth (1991).Wolf argues that the rise of the women’s movement was concurrentwith an increase in eating disorders because threatened malesconstructed new ways of reasserting dominance through promotingthinness as the cultural ideal (17). Women have been indoctrinated bythe cultish techniques of brainwashing through manipulated media images(73) which commodified the female body (49) and advocated the“beauty myth” (121).The beauty myth is “a cultural fixation on female thinness,” whichWolf asserts is “not an obsession about female beauty but an obsessionabout female obedience” (187). Female obedience is enforcedthrough diminished energy, time and opportunities due to the efforts ofupholding the new beauty standard of physical fitness and eternalyouth.Wolf asserts that mind control has long-term consequences in thatit physiologically changes the workings of the brain: “The fear-of-fataspect actually changes the way the brain works. Women caught in itare subjected to classic, long-established forms of thought-control”(121). HESSE-BIBER’s work develops this hypothesis of internalisedcontrol.Wolf’s theory assumes that women suffer from low self-esteem,an assumption that is contradicted by fat activists such as WANN and,according to BRAZIEL AND LEBESCO, Wolf’s argument inhibits the celebrationof fatness.

░ Fattys’ Cyclopaedia 347BIBLIOGRAPHYBraziel, Jana Evans, and Kathleen LeBesco, eds. Bodies out of Bounds:Fatness and Transgression. Berkeley: University of California Press,2001.Bruch, Hilde. Eating Disorders: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa, and the PersonWithin. New York: Basic Books, 1973.Chernin, Kim. The Hungry Self: Women, Eating and Identity. New York:Times Books, 1985.___. The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness. NewYork: Harper & Row, 1981.Cooper, Charlotte. Fat and Proud: The Politics of Size. London: TheWomen's Press, 1998.Hesse-Biber, Sharlene. Am I Thin Enough Yet? The Cult of Thinness andthe Commercialization of Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press,1996.Klein, Richard. Eat Fat. New York: Pantheon Books, 1996.Millman, Maria. Such a Pretty Face: Being Fat in America. New York: W.W. Norton, 1980.Orbach, Susie. Fat Is a Feminist Issue. 1978. Second ed. London: ArrowBooks, 1988.Seid, Roberta Pollack. Never Too Thin: Why Women Are at War with TheirBodies. New York: Prentice Hall, 1989.Wann, Marilyn. Are You a Fatso?? 2002. World Wide Web Page. FAT?SO!Website. Available: http://www.fatso.com/quiz.html. Accessed: 23April 2005.___. Write for Fat?So! 2002. World Wide Web Page. FAT?SO! Website.Available: http://www.fatso.com/write.html. 23 April 2005.___. Zines, E-Zines: An Interview with the Creator of Fat?So! 2002. WorldWide Web Page. FAT?SO! Website. Available: http://www.zinebook.com/interv/fatso.html. Accessed: 23 April 2005.Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. London: Vintage, 1991.Melbourne Universityv.russell@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au