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The (Un)Traditionalist: Clive Barker’s Devil 197that should release or condemn the Devil consists of the Devil’s attorney(Sam Kyle), the judge (Felix Potter) and two female prosecutors, CatherineLamb and Jane Beck. If one studies the specific role of the demonic in theplay, the nature of the trial alters: the real judgement is made by the reader,or by the audience – only they are able to perceive the invisible role that theDevil is given in scenes like the one quoted above. The play opens up a discursivespace that invites the reader to re-evaluate and reflect on the role ofevil in our history. In the next scene the Devil meets with the second prosecutor,Jane, and they have a twisted love scene: misunderstandings, crosstalkand misunderstanding each other’s words (or understanding them insurprising new ways) – this is the simultaneously tragic and comic horizonof communication where the Devil is most at his own. 19 In his relations withthe humans the Devil is consistently articulated as being morally ambivalent.In this example this means simultaneous and contradictory relationships tosexuality: at first the Devil plays the traditional role of Tempter. He seducesthe two actors into a (homo)sexual relationship, and thus propagates (in thetraditional, moralistic sense) immorality and depravity. Then he reacts toJane’s unwilling attraction to himself with a confused exchange of words.(“JANE BECK: Wait: you are telling me you’re in love with me? THE DEVIL:No, I thought you – [...] There seems to be a misunderstanding.” 20 ) The rejectionand temptation are connected by the Devil’s only soliloquy. This offersthe audience an “authentic” glimpse into the Devil’s perception and attitudeto humans. As the Devil, however, is constantly characterised as a greatliar, we can never be certain of these shows of emotion.THE DEVIL: I’ve seen men and women in the throes of bubonic plague, lyingbeside each other on diseased blankets under a dirty lamp, suddenlyovercome with passion for each other’s bodies, sores notwithstanding.I’ve seen them grind their last moments away, grunting out their lives,then collapsing on to each other, dead. When that’s the way most ofyou touch Heaven, if at all, how can you believe that I, who didn’t makeyou, am more malicious than the God who did? 21The sexual body appears here as the grotesque body of the “low” demonictradition: a body transformed by disease and overcome by lust. Asthe Devil (speaking from his immortal position as a fallen angel) degradeshumans into mindless animals, he mixes the “high” with the “low” demonic.The description of men and women making love on their deathbed romanticallyelevates sexual desire into an answer for death’s absurdity. The sexual19 Many writers have noted the suggestive parallelism between the demonic traditionand the displacing and “disseminating” effects of language, especially the written language.(See the discussion of the “devil’s language” and demonic polyphony in chapterthree.) Barker’s play toys with this thematics: language can be very slippery and if we areusing language to construct our identities or to build human relationships, they can bevery slippery, too. (See also Derrida 1972/1981.)20 HD, 318.21Ibid., 317.
198Demonic Texts and Textual Demonsact is a way to touch Heaven, and perhaps the only way that exists. The sinful,human body that tempts people to forget their spirituality has here gonethrough a demonic inversion. The specific target is the ascetic tradition ofChristianity that can be traced back to Paul and his writings in the New Testament(e.g. “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by theSpirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live”). 22 The fallen angelostensibly pities the grotesque sight of diseased humans copulating intheir throes of death – but the situation hides a double irony. As he uses the“high” discourse and starts talking about Heaven, the Devil is also forced toface his loss. A fallen angel is dismissed from Heaven, and the “way of theflesh” might be the only way for himself, as well. The boundary betweendemon and human starts to erode.This indeed seems to be the case. The first flashback scene into the historyof the Devil goes back to the day Lucifer was cast down from heavenwith the other rebel angels. With ironic realism this event is meticulouslypinpointed in place and time: November 1212 B.C.E., in the area that is nowknown as Russia. Barker’s rewriting of the myth is emphatically corporeal;the Devil is naked and his wounds are bleeding – his wings have been tornoff. He is treated by Ulla Shim (a tough, practical woman who intended tofeed her pigs with Lucifer’s body if he were dead) and her retarded daughter,Pia. Pia teaches the Devil knots, and the Devil teaches her words. Knots andwords become intermingled as Pia wants to make love: the Devil has forgottenthe meaning of words like “Heaven” but as their bodies are tightly tiedtogether, he remembers. The ambiguous thematic bond between sex, deathand Heaven is repeated here as well; the Devil accidentally strangles Pia withthe rope she carried on her neck as they are making love. 23The intimate connection between the Devil and the humans is linkedwith the problem of making moral judgements in a world without pure andabsolute ideals, and, on the other hand, with the shared desire to crossboundaries. Sex and death are such liminal moments in the play, and thecombination of both marks the Devil’s ambivalent role as a desirable andfrightening transgressive figure. “He’s [a] monster: The Devil himself. Ofcourse I want him,” is how Jane Beck explains this paradox. 24 The dual natureof a monster is here very acutely felt. Stallybrass and White commentthat the “grotesque physical body is invoked both defensively and offensivelybecause it is not simply a powerful image but fundamentally constitutiveof the categorical sets through which we live and make sense of theworld.” 25 In “The History of the Devil” the role of this specific “monster” issubtle – as he is associated with death, cruelty and suffering, he breaksthrough the limit between life and death. But as an immortal creature who isfighting for his right to return into Heaven, he also carries opposite mean-22 Rom. 8:13.23HD, 278-79.24 Ibid., 351.25Stallybrass - White 1986/1993, 23.
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Note on this editi
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TAMPERE STUDIES INLITERATURE AND TE
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Tampere Studies in Literature and T
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ments, and also such further lines
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IllustrationsCover: “Possessed Re
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The BeginningsAnd Jesus asked him,
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The Beginnings 3mons form an import
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The Beginnings 5negative, demonic a
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The Beginnings 7chapter four), but
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The Beginnings 9scious conflict, fo
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The Beginnings 11that is produced o
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The Beginnings 13The History of the
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The Beginnings 15emphasised that su
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The Beginnings 17turalism,” but i
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The Beginnings 19the materials I ha
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1. The Ancestry of the DemonicÑH.
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 25ness
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 31It sh
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 33of th
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 35able
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 37The f
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 39and t
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 41- in
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 43Chris
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 49serpe
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 51tween
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2. The Demonic in the SelfBut ancie
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The Demonic in the Self 55Individua
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The Demonic in the Self 57should be
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The Demonic in the Self 61A number
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The Demonic in the Self 63tion. 36
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The Demonic in the Self 65the nethe
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The Demonic in the Self 67sciousnes
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The Demonic in the Self 69influence
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The Demonic in the Self 71LEADER:Yo
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The Demonic in the Self 73Particula
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The Demonic in the Self 75NIETZSCHE
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The Demonic in the Self 77ing into
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The Demonic in the Self 79Nietzsche
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3. Unravelling the Demonic TextThe
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 83in o
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 85othe
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 87stru
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 89ies,
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 91open
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 95both
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PART II
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114Demonic Texts and Textual Demons
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The EpilogueIf there are answers to
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BibliographyA note on this bibliogr
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Index2001: A Space Odyssey; 207abje
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