The gothic form represents a melodramatic struggle between good and evil. It is no coincidence that it rose to prominence in Western culture during the 18th century, the so-called Age of Reason in Europe and America, when science, facts, logic, and rationality were held up as authoritative guides to truth and action. As a species, our future progress was unlimited if we would only be led by our rational nature, which takes its place within a rationally ordered universe.
Easier said than done, claims the gothic tale. What if the universe is not rational; what if our human nature is not rational?
Instead of a universe ruled by the supernatural powers of religion (which the Age of Reason presumably had debunked), gothic writers projected a universe in which secular forms of the supernatural—ghosts, monsters, etc.—and (in anticipation of the Freudian Id) a fundamentally irrational human nature assert power over the rational surface of the world.
The classic gothic tale leaves us in terror, not only of the supernatural threats that might be “out there,” but also of the irrational forces “in here.” The detective story, on the other hand, reassures us that rationality, in the form of the carefully observant, thoroughly logical detective, can overcome those dark, destructive forces of nature both within and without. (See previous post.)
Dracula, published at the end of the 19th century, continues both traditions—questioning the power of rationality while at the same time asserting it and thereby capturing the continuing cultural anxiety over the nature of our universe and ourselves. Though their sources and methods are hardly scientific in modern terms, Dr. Seward and Professor Van Helsing are the knowledge experts, who use their expertise to overcome Dracula, but, of course, they cannot protect all of us from all the irrationality that stalks the earth, including the irrationality within our own psyches.
The continuing popularity of the vampire figure testifies to our ongoing cultural anxiety over the power of rationality to save us and over our own human nature. It is notable that in the gothic tradition, the battle between good and evil is presented, not in religious or moralistic terms, but rather in terms of the rational and the irrational. Religious morality has been replaced by more intellectual, psychological, and practical approaches to good and evil.
Nowhere does this create more anxiety than in the realms of human sexuality and the changing roles of women. (See next post.)
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Dracula I
This blog began with the gothic genre (August, ‘09) and several posts on Frankenstein. A year later I found myself reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) because it came as a free e-book on my Barnes & Noble Nook.
Frankenstein is more true to the original gothic form because the “monster” escapes after leaving a trail of destruction. Dracula is himself destroyed in the end of his novel and thus aligns with the detective story, which was invented by Edgar Allen Poe earlier in the 19th century. The gothic tale, of course, was also a favorite form for Poe.
Both forms typically begin in a familiar (if perhaps ominous) setting in ordinary reality. Then there is an encounter with the irrational—a crime, monster, supernatural event, violent act, or other frightening, unexplainable occurrence—followed by a suspenseful struggle between the forces of the rational “good” and the irrational “evil.” The gothic “horror story” typically ends with the rational protagonist barely escaping destruction or ending up either dead or insane. In either case, the irrational “evil” is still at large. In the detective story, the rational detective solves the crime and the irrational perpetrator is captured, punished, or killed.
Dracula is finally destroyed, not by a “detective” in the classic sense but by a group of well-meaning men, including a vampire expert and a doctor, who, like the classic detective, eventually outsmart him and track him down. One of the young men dies in the struggle, however, and his wife has already been turned into a vampire and herself destroyed by the band of vampire hunters, including himself.
Though Dracula is destroyed, the world is hardly free of vampires, so, while the novel ends with the defeat of one irrational “evil,” there is still a lot more of it lurking out there, as in the traditional gothic form. The reader is thus left with an unsettling combination of reassurance that there are “experts” who can destroy “evil” and terror that they can never put a final end to it.
Both the gothic tale and the detective story pit the irriational against the rational, and both forms embody an ongoing debate over human nature. Are we rational animals, whose higher thinking ability can save us from our destructive irrationality? Or, will our lower, animal nature always reassert its power over our rational selves? (see next post).
Frankenstein is more true to the original gothic form because the “monster” escapes after leaving a trail of destruction. Dracula is himself destroyed in the end of his novel and thus aligns with the detective story, which was invented by Edgar Allen Poe earlier in the 19th century. The gothic tale, of course, was also a favorite form for Poe.
Both forms typically begin in a familiar (if perhaps ominous) setting in ordinary reality. Then there is an encounter with the irrational—a crime, monster, supernatural event, violent act, or other frightening, unexplainable occurrence—followed by a suspenseful struggle between the forces of the rational “good” and the irrational “evil.” The gothic “horror story” typically ends with the rational protagonist barely escaping destruction or ending up either dead or insane. In either case, the irrational “evil” is still at large. In the detective story, the rational detective solves the crime and the irrational perpetrator is captured, punished, or killed.
Dracula is finally destroyed, not by a “detective” in the classic sense but by a group of well-meaning men, including a vampire expert and a doctor, who, like the classic detective, eventually outsmart him and track him down. One of the young men dies in the struggle, however, and his wife has already been turned into a vampire and herself destroyed by the band of vampire hunters, including himself.
Though Dracula is destroyed, the world is hardly free of vampires, so, while the novel ends with the defeat of one irrational “evil,” there is still a lot more of it lurking out there, as in the traditional gothic form. The reader is thus left with an unsettling combination of reassurance that there are “experts” who can destroy “evil” and terror that they can never put a final end to it.
Both the gothic tale and the detective story pit the irriational against the rational, and both forms embody an ongoing debate over human nature. Are we rational animals, whose higher thinking ability can save us from our destructive irrationality? Or, will our lower, animal nature always reassert its power over our rational selves? (see next post).
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Infidel
If you are an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-mosque-at-ground-zero type, you will love this 2007 autobiography by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. If you are a liberal, progressive believer in cultural diversity, religious freedom, and inclusion, as I am, you may find yourself sorely challenged.
Presented as a personal narrative, Infidel tells the story of Ali’s Muslim upbringing in Africa and Saudi Arabia, including her genital “excision” as a child; her abuse from both mother and grandmother; her subordination as a woman; her treatment as a sexual object on her wedding night; her escape from an attempted forced marriage (after her previous one was ruled invalid); her education and liberation in Western Europe; her co-creation of the film Submission, protesting the treatment of women under Islam; her escape from death threats, and her continued life under armed protection from those threats.
The title of the book focuses on Ali's identity as a Muslim who has renounced Islam as both a religion and a culture. In much of the narrative, however, she portrays herself as a victim of Islam who vacillates between submission and resistance before “converting” to a Western cultural identity, embracing political and religious freedom, women’s equality, and secular education.
As a convert to Western culture, Ali claims that, based on her experience of both, Western culture is superior to Islamic culture. She then goes on to directly challenge Western cultural relativism and tolerance of practices such as female genital “excisions,” forced marriages, and honor killings based on respect for cultural difference.
Is Ali’s experience under Islam typical or does she generalize her narrow experience to all Muslims? Why does she paint Islam in such extreme terms as a violent and backward religion, despite exceptions documented in her own narrative? Why does she discount the presence and power of moderate Muslims? Is she exacting vengeance for her own ill treatment by her family or has her experience in the West liberated her from the mental shackles of her upbringing? Are Islamic and Western cultures merely different but equal, or is one superior to the other, as some adherents of each would claim? Is there middle ground between absolute claims of cultural superiority and relativistic claims that there are no moral values that transcend religion and culture?
Regardless of how one answers these questions, Infidel will lend credibility to anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-mosque-at-ground-zero sentiments and sorely challenge liberal, relativistic, culturally inclusive world views.
In terms of literary value Infidel is not one of those non-fiction prose works written in a literary or poetic style. Generally servicable and rhetorically effective, the writing seems less literary than one might expect from a personal narrative, with all the expressive opportunities that that form allows. While well-written, the book seems more focused on information and persuasion than on expression or imaginative literary display.
Presented as a personal narrative, Infidel tells the story of Ali’s Muslim upbringing in Africa and Saudi Arabia, including her genital “excision” as a child; her abuse from both mother and grandmother; her subordination as a woman; her treatment as a sexual object on her wedding night; her escape from an attempted forced marriage (after her previous one was ruled invalid); her education and liberation in Western Europe; her co-creation of the film Submission, protesting the treatment of women under Islam; her escape from death threats, and her continued life under armed protection from those threats.
The title of the book focuses on Ali's identity as a Muslim who has renounced Islam as both a religion and a culture. In much of the narrative, however, she portrays herself as a victim of Islam who vacillates between submission and resistance before “converting” to a Western cultural identity, embracing political and religious freedom, women’s equality, and secular education.
As a convert to Western culture, Ali claims that, based on her experience of both, Western culture is superior to Islamic culture. She then goes on to directly challenge Western cultural relativism and tolerance of practices such as female genital “excisions,” forced marriages, and honor killings based on respect for cultural difference.
Is Ali’s experience under Islam typical or does she generalize her narrow experience to all Muslims? Why does she paint Islam in such extreme terms as a violent and backward religion, despite exceptions documented in her own narrative? Why does she discount the presence and power of moderate Muslims? Is she exacting vengeance for her own ill treatment by her family or has her experience in the West liberated her from the mental shackles of her upbringing? Are Islamic and Western cultures merely different but equal, or is one superior to the other, as some adherents of each would claim? Is there middle ground between absolute claims of cultural superiority and relativistic claims that there are no moral values that transcend religion and culture?
Regardless of how one answers these questions, Infidel will lend credibility to anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-mosque-at-ground-zero sentiments and sorely challenge liberal, relativistic, culturally inclusive world views.
In terms of literary value Infidel is not one of those non-fiction prose works written in a literary or poetic style. Generally servicable and rhetorically effective, the writing seems less literary than one might expect from a personal narrative, with all the expressive opportunities that that form allows. While well-written, the book seems more focused on information and persuasion than on expression or imaginative literary display.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
*Tortilla Flat* and the Ambiguity of Literature
What distinguishes “literature” from “ordinary” language? It’s not just a matter of fiction vs. non-fiction or poetry vs. prose. Fiction can be based on fact and non-fiction can be written in a “literary” style; prose can be poetic and poetry can be prosaic.
Literary language is heightened language, elevated, more figurative, connotative, and ambiguous. Even literature that uses colloquial language does so in a way that sets it apart from everyday speech. Similarly, a literary narrative, whether fantastic or realistic, is larger than life, more selective, more concentrated, and/or more grandiose. Even “realistic” fiction requires certain elements of romance in order to give it compelling interest. And literary non-fiction uses language that is more expressive than factual.
Another characteristic of literature that distinguishes it from ordinary language is ambiguity. Non-literary prose is more denotative, transparent, and communicative of a clear message, whereas literature is more opaque, more figurative, and more open to multiple meanings.
Sometimes those multiple meanings seem to completely contradict each other. A Deconstructionist would say that all texts inevitably, irresolvably contradict themselves, but literary texts (ironically) are more obviously ambiguous, whereas non-literary language appears at least to be more definitive.
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck is a work of fiction that presents a group of California “paisanos” in a humorously sympathetic light and simultaneously mocks them by comparing these unlikely heroes to King Arthur’s knights and by satirizing their elaborate rationalizations for sloth, drunkenness, lust, deception, and violence, to name a few of their typical behaviors.
When Danny returns from World War I to discover he has inherited some property, he attracts a number of hangers-on who create a community of irresponsible, pleasure-seeking, though largely harmless, wastrels. Danny’s property, like Arthur’s Round Table, becomes the center of this all-male community for whom women are either sexual objects or damsels in distress.
Ironically the burden of being a property owner leads Danny to depression and possibly suicide. With Danny’s death comes the end of the community and the camaraderie, as the paisanos disperse and “no two walked together.” Property is thus the basis for both the beginning and the end of their temporary social utopia. The fleeting enjoyment of freedom, community, and pleasure is followed by inevitable decline and fall.
Is the novel a socially conscious celebration of the paisano underclass or is it a satire on their wasted lives and their ambivalent relationship to property? Does Danny’s apotheosis as a mythic hero in the local imagination represent a redemptive conclusion or is it a satire on the human ability to create a grandiose fantasy out of a mundane and paltry reality?
Can the novel be read as a modern retelling of ancient myth, with its cycle of creation, fertility, quest and triumph, followed by decline, death, and rebirth, or is it a kind of mock epic that makes the paisanos look ridiculous by comparison to the mythic heroes?
The issue of whether such questions represent the irresolvable contradiction of textuality, as the Deconstructionists would have it, or the complexities of human experience captured in literary form is yet another ambiguity at the heart of literary study.
Literary language is heightened language, elevated, more figurative, connotative, and ambiguous. Even literature that uses colloquial language does so in a way that sets it apart from everyday speech. Similarly, a literary narrative, whether fantastic or realistic, is larger than life, more selective, more concentrated, and/or more grandiose. Even “realistic” fiction requires certain elements of romance in order to give it compelling interest. And literary non-fiction uses language that is more expressive than factual.
Another characteristic of literature that distinguishes it from ordinary language is ambiguity. Non-literary prose is more denotative, transparent, and communicative of a clear message, whereas literature is more opaque, more figurative, and more open to multiple meanings.
Sometimes those multiple meanings seem to completely contradict each other. A Deconstructionist would say that all texts inevitably, irresolvably contradict themselves, but literary texts (ironically) are more obviously ambiguous, whereas non-literary language appears at least to be more definitive.
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck is a work of fiction that presents a group of California “paisanos” in a humorously sympathetic light and simultaneously mocks them by comparing these unlikely heroes to King Arthur’s knights and by satirizing their elaborate rationalizations for sloth, drunkenness, lust, deception, and violence, to name a few of their typical behaviors.
When Danny returns from World War I to discover he has inherited some property, he attracts a number of hangers-on who create a community of irresponsible, pleasure-seeking, though largely harmless, wastrels. Danny’s property, like Arthur’s Round Table, becomes the center of this all-male community for whom women are either sexual objects or damsels in distress.
Ironically the burden of being a property owner leads Danny to depression and possibly suicide. With Danny’s death comes the end of the community and the camaraderie, as the paisanos disperse and “no two walked together.” Property is thus the basis for both the beginning and the end of their temporary social utopia. The fleeting enjoyment of freedom, community, and pleasure is followed by inevitable decline and fall.
Is the novel a socially conscious celebration of the paisano underclass or is it a satire on their wasted lives and their ambivalent relationship to property? Does Danny’s apotheosis as a mythic hero in the local imagination represent a redemptive conclusion or is it a satire on the human ability to create a grandiose fantasy out of a mundane and paltry reality?
Can the novel be read as a modern retelling of ancient myth, with its cycle of creation, fertility, quest and triumph, followed by decline, death, and rebirth, or is it a kind of mock epic that makes the paisanos look ridiculous by comparison to the mythic heroes?
The issue of whether such questions represent the irresolvable contradiction of textuality, as the Deconstructionists would have it, or the complexities of human experience captured in literary form is yet another ambiguity at the heart of literary study.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
The Power of Poetry
In addition to the power of poetry to create pleasure and appreciation (see previous posts), there is the power of poetry to motivate and inspire, to change consciousness, shape attitudes and even influence behavior.
Each of the haiku quoted in the June 13 post focuses the mind on an image and a vicarious experience which has the power to heighten our sensitivity to the world around us. Poetry can enhance our consciousness of what we observe on a daily basis.
Similarly the poem “Design” by Robert Frost (June 29) may make it impossible for us to look at a white flower, a spider or a moth in quite the same way again. Even more, though, Frost’s poem disrupts the popular view of nature’s innocence and challenges us to confront the predatory behavior at the heart of surviving and thriving in nature. Pretty sentiments about nature’s beauty are dramatically exposed as naïve and superficial. The darker truth that life feeds on life is conveyed with chilling effect. A sentimentalist about nature would be seriously challenged.
“The Woman Hanging from the 13th Floor Window" (July10), depending on how it’s read and by whom, can equally challenge the conservative who opposes government programs to help the poor and protect the environment and the liberal who supports them. Likewise, it can challenge the believer in a random universe, the believer in a universe governed by a grand plan, or the proponent of human free agency.
One of my graduate school professors used to love to quote the following lines from W.H. Auden as an example of unmatched beauty in poetic expression:
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
The rhythm and sound effects, the elevated language, and the timeless images of human limitation and transcendence powerfully and poignantly convey the universal human dilemma of aspiration in perpetual tension with mortality.
As we appreciate the power of the poetic composition, as we are moved to identify and sympathize with this lofty expression of our shared human condition, however, all we need ask about to bring us into a change of consciousness is the sexuality of the lovers. Most readers will assume it is a heterosexual love poem, but Auden was a gay man, and in 1937 when the poem was written a homosexual relationship was predominantly associated with sexual deviance and perversion, not to be in any way confused with the emotional grandeur or the noble tragedy of romantic love.
Yet, out of his experience as a lover of men, Auden can write a poem that captures the universal human experience of love that is both transcendent and earth-bound.
Though Auden wrote in a time when his sexual orientation had to be disguised and hidden, his poem serves to raise the experience of same sex love to that of the legendary romantic love stories to be found in heterosexual literature. Such an effect might be powerful enough to move even a homophobic religious right conservative. Or else, such an effect might require an equally powerful resistance from such a reader.
Even if the reader does not know Auden’s sexuality and reads it as a heterosexual love poem, the words complicate idealized notions of romantic love, fidelity, “til death do us part,” and unspotted beauty. At the same time that it undercuts transcendent love, it celebrates love that transcends human imperfection.
Such complexity captured in such concentrated poetic form has the power to challenge both the gay rights advocate and heterosexual marriage proponent alike.
Thus ends this series on the uses, the pleasure, and the power of poetry.
Each of the haiku quoted in the June 13 post focuses the mind on an image and a vicarious experience which has the power to heighten our sensitivity to the world around us. Poetry can enhance our consciousness of what we observe on a daily basis.
Similarly the poem “Design” by Robert Frost (June 29) may make it impossible for us to look at a white flower, a spider or a moth in quite the same way again. Even more, though, Frost’s poem disrupts the popular view of nature’s innocence and challenges us to confront the predatory behavior at the heart of surviving and thriving in nature. Pretty sentiments about nature’s beauty are dramatically exposed as naïve and superficial. The darker truth that life feeds on life is conveyed with chilling effect. A sentimentalist about nature would be seriously challenged.
“The Woman Hanging from the 13th Floor Window" (July10), depending on how it’s read and by whom, can equally challenge the conservative who opposes government programs to help the poor and protect the environment and the liberal who supports them. Likewise, it can challenge the believer in a random universe, the believer in a universe governed by a grand plan, or the proponent of human free agency.
One of my graduate school professors used to love to quote the following lines from W.H. Auden as an example of unmatched beauty in poetic expression:
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
The rhythm and sound effects, the elevated language, and the timeless images of human limitation and transcendence powerfully and poignantly convey the universal human dilemma of aspiration in perpetual tension with mortality.
As we appreciate the power of the poetic composition, as we are moved to identify and sympathize with this lofty expression of our shared human condition, however, all we need ask about to bring us into a change of consciousness is the sexuality of the lovers. Most readers will assume it is a heterosexual love poem, but Auden was a gay man, and in 1937 when the poem was written a homosexual relationship was predominantly associated with sexual deviance and perversion, not to be in any way confused with the emotional grandeur or the noble tragedy of romantic love.
Yet, out of his experience as a lover of men, Auden can write a poem that captures the universal human experience of love that is both transcendent and earth-bound.
Though Auden wrote in a time when his sexual orientation had to be disguised and hidden, his poem serves to raise the experience of same sex love to that of the legendary romantic love stories to be found in heterosexual literature. Such an effect might be powerful enough to move even a homophobic religious right conservative. Or else, such an effect might require an equally powerful resistance from such a reader.
Even if the reader does not know Auden’s sexuality and reads it as a heterosexual love poem, the words complicate idealized notions of romantic love, fidelity, “til death do us part,” and unspotted beauty. At the same time that it undercuts transcendent love, it celebrates love that transcends human imperfection.
Such complexity captured in such concentrated poetic form has the power to challenge both the gay rights advocate and heterosexual marriage proponent alike.
Thus ends this series on the uses, the pleasure, and the power of poetry.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
The Pleasure of Interpretation in Poetry: A Case Study
In the first of this series of posts on poetry (May 12), the pleasure of interpretation is compared to working a puzzle, playing a game, or solving an elaborate code. What is puzzling about "The Woman Hanging from the 13th Floor Window"(see previous post)?
It might appear at first glance to be about a suicidal woman at the moment of decision--whether to let go or climb back up--because it fits the popular image of a "jumper" from an urban skyscraper or high rise. But is she really suicidal or is this image a metaphor of hanging by a thread from her life circumstances? Why is she described as "her father's son"? Why is she depicted as a kind of earth mother ("She sees Lake Michigan lapping at the shores of/herself")? Why is it the 13th floor?
Is this a social commentary on a poor, urban, Indian welfare mother? Is it about women in general caught between victimization by nature and society on one hand and self-empowerment on the other? Is it about mother nature hanging in the balance between destruction and recovery? Is it about the universal human experience of being caught among the conflicting forces of chance, fate, and choice? One pleasure of interpretation is discovering the multiple dimensions of meaning and their interconnections.
At one level the poem encompasses all of the above interpretations. But, at another, it poses an unresolved (perhaps unresolvable) question: to what extent is the poor, Indian woman a victim of class, race, and gender oppression and to what extent is she a free agent capable of taking responsibility for her own life? To what extent is mother nature doomed to destruction by human exploitation and to what extent is she capable of resiliency, recovery, and renewal despite human destructiveness? To what extent is human fortune and misfortune the result of mere chance in a random universe, to what extent of pre-determined fate, and to what extent of our own free will and effort?
The first two questions situate us in the center of contemporary political debates about government and community support vs. personal responsibility or about environmental crisis vs. environmental resiliency. The third is an enduring philosophical debate going back to the beginning of human thought. Your interpretation may vary depending upon your political and/or philosophical beliefs. To the extent that one takes pleasure in controversy and debate, the openness of poetic interpretation can provide hours of enjoyable and stimulating argumentation.
Another pleasure in interpretation is uncovering so-called "hidden meanings." One highly speculative method of doing this is through psychoanalytic theory. "The Woman Hanging from the 13th Floor Window" might bring to mind the Freudian theory of a universal "death wish." Whatever one might think of this theory it is consistent with Freud's notion of the "pleasure principle." It seems counter-intuitive to associate death and pleasure, but the counterpart to the pleasure principle is avoidance of pain, and death is sometimes, at least in fantasy, a relief or escape from pain. Life circumstances or mental pain (depression) can somethimes be so unbearable that death becomes desirable.
Not only is the dangling woman, whether suicidal or not, flirting with death, but the poem repeatedly references her desire for escape, whether it be into fantasy ("She thinks she will be set free"), memory ("When she was young she ate wild rice..."), dreams ("That's what she wants/to have another child to hold onto in the night, to be able to fall back into dreams"), or nature ("She thinks of...waterfalls and pines...moonlight nights, and cool spring storms"). It also repeatedly hints at the pain of her life: "13th floor," "tenement building," "the two husbands she has had," "dizzy hole of water," "asphalt," "worn levis," "dangling,""cats mewing and scratching at the door," "scream," "cry," "lonliness," "discordant," "teeth break off." Sleep, dreams, oblivion, and death seem perferable to the waking reality of daily suffering.
Images of falling (into death, sleep, dreams, darkness) contrast with images of getting "up," pulling "up," folding "up," and climbing "up," just as the universal death wish is in a continual conflict with the life force, Eros, and the desire for power. Read this way, the poem becomes an allegory of the human psyche in constant tension between the desire for oblivion and the desire for consciousness.
Interpreting poetry through various theoretical lenses, whether psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminsim, or deconstruction, is the most intellectual level of pleasure afforded by the study of poetry.
It might appear at first glance to be about a suicidal woman at the moment of decision--whether to let go or climb back up--because it fits the popular image of a "jumper" from an urban skyscraper or high rise. But is she really suicidal or is this image a metaphor of hanging by a thread from her life circumstances? Why is she described as "her father's son"? Why is she depicted as a kind of earth mother ("She sees Lake Michigan lapping at the shores of/herself")? Why is it the 13th floor?
Is this a social commentary on a poor, urban, Indian welfare mother? Is it about women in general caught between victimization by nature and society on one hand and self-empowerment on the other? Is it about mother nature hanging in the balance between destruction and recovery? Is it about the universal human experience of being caught among the conflicting forces of chance, fate, and choice? One pleasure of interpretation is discovering the multiple dimensions of meaning and their interconnections.
At one level the poem encompasses all of the above interpretations. But, at another, it poses an unresolved (perhaps unresolvable) question: to what extent is the poor, Indian woman a victim of class, race, and gender oppression and to what extent is she a free agent capable of taking responsibility for her own life? To what extent is mother nature doomed to destruction by human exploitation and to what extent is she capable of resiliency, recovery, and renewal despite human destructiveness? To what extent is human fortune and misfortune the result of mere chance in a random universe, to what extent of pre-determined fate, and to what extent of our own free will and effort?
The first two questions situate us in the center of contemporary political debates about government and community support vs. personal responsibility or about environmental crisis vs. environmental resiliency. The third is an enduring philosophical debate going back to the beginning of human thought. Your interpretation may vary depending upon your political and/or philosophical beliefs. To the extent that one takes pleasure in controversy and debate, the openness of poetic interpretation can provide hours of enjoyable and stimulating argumentation.
Another pleasure in interpretation is uncovering so-called "hidden meanings." One highly speculative method of doing this is through psychoanalytic theory. "The Woman Hanging from the 13th Floor Window" might bring to mind the Freudian theory of a universal "death wish." Whatever one might think of this theory it is consistent with Freud's notion of the "pleasure principle." It seems counter-intuitive to associate death and pleasure, but the counterpart to the pleasure principle is avoidance of pain, and death is sometimes, at least in fantasy, a relief or escape from pain. Life circumstances or mental pain (depression) can somethimes be so unbearable that death becomes desirable.
Not only is the dangling woman, whether suicidal or not, flirting with death, but the poem repeatedly references her desire for escape, whether it be into fantasy ("She thinks she will be set free"), memory ("When she was young she ate wild rice..."), dreams ("That's what she wants/to have another child to hold onto in the night, to be able to fall back into dreams"), or nature ("She thinks of...waterfalls and pines...moonlight nights, and cool spring storms"). It also repeatedly hints at the pain of her life: "13th floor," "tenement building," "the two husbands she has had," "dizzy hole of water," "asphalt," "worn levis," "dangling,""cats mewing and scratching at the door," "scream," "cry," "lonliness," "discordant," "teeth break off." Sleep, dreams, oblivion, and death seem perferable to the waking reality of daily suffering.
Images of falling (into death, sleep, dreams, darkness) contrast with images of getting "up," pulling "up," folding "up," and climbing "up," just as the universal death wish is in a continual conflict with the life force, Eros, and the desire for power. Read this way, the poem becomes an allegory of the human psyche in constant tension between the desire for oblivion and the desire for consciousness.
Interpreting poetry through various theoretical lenses, whether psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminsim, or deconstruction, is the most intellectual level of pleasure afforded by the study of poetry.
"The Woman Hanging from the 13th Floor Window"
She is the woman hanging from the 13th floor
window. Her hands are pressed white against the
concrete moulding of the tenement building. She
hangs from the 13th floor window in east Chicago,
with a swirl of birds over her head. They could
be a halo, or a storm of glass waiting to crush her.
She thinks she will be set free.
The woman hanging from the 13th floor window
on the east side of Chicago is not alone.
She is a woman of children, of the baby, Carlos,
and of Margaret, and of Jimmy who is the oldest.
She is her mother's daughter and her father's son.
She is several pieces between the two husbands
she has had. She is all the women of the apartment
building who stand watching her, watching themselves.
When she was young she hate wild rice on scraped down
plates in warm wood rooms. It was in the farther
north and she was the baby then. They rocked her.
She sees Lake Michigan lapping at the shores of
herself. It is a dizzy hole of water and the rich
live in tall glass houses at the edge of it. In some
places Lake Michigan speaks softly, here, it just sputters
and butts itself against the asphalt. She sees
other buildings just like hers. She sees other
women hanging from many-floored windows
counting their lives in the palms of their hands,
and in the palms of their childrens' hands.
She is the woman hanging from the 13th floor window
on the Indian side of town. Her belly is soft from
her childrens' births, her worn levis swing down below
her waist, and then her feet, and then her heart.
She is dangling.
The woman hanging from the 13th floor window hears voices.
They come to her in the night when the lights have gone
dim. Sometimes they are little cats mewing and scraching
at the door, sometimes they are her grandmother's voice,
and sometimes they are gigantic men of light whispering
to her to get up, to get up, to get up. That's what she wants
to have another child to hold onto in the night, to be able
to fall back into dreams.
And the woman hanging from the 13th floor window
hears other voices. Some of them scream out from below
for her to jump, they would push her over. Others cry softly
on the sidewalks, pull their children up like flowers and gather
them into their arms. They would help her, like themselves.
But she is the woman hanging from the 13th floor window,
and she knows she is hanging by her own fingers, her
own skin, her own thread of indecision.
She thinks of Carlos, of Margaret, of Jimmy.
She thinks of her father and of her mother.
She thinks of all the women she has been, of all
the men. She thinks of the color of her skin, and
of Chicago streets, and of waterfalls and pines.
She thinks of moonlight nights, and of cool spring storms.
Her mind chatters like neon and northside bars.
She thinks of the 4 a.m. lonliness that has folded
her up like death, discordant, without logical and
beautiful conclusion. Her teeth break off at the edges.
She would speak
The woman hangs from the 13th floor window crying for
the lost beauty of her own life. She sees the
sun falling west over the gray plane of Chicago.
She thinks she remembers listening to her own life
break loose, as she falls from the 13th floor
window on the side of Chicago, or as she
climbs back up to claim herself again.
--Joy Harjo
window. Her hands are pressed white against the
concrete moulding of the tenement building. She
hangs from the 13th floor window in east Chicago,
with a swirl of birds over her head. They could
be a halo, or a storm of glass waiting to crush her.
She thinks she will be set free.
The woman hanging from the 13th floor window
on the east side of Chicago is not alone.
She is a woman of children, of the baby, Carlos,
and of Margaret, and of Jimmy who is the oldest.
She is her mother's daughter and her father's son.
She is several pieces between the two husbands
she has had. She is all the women of the apartment
building who stand watching her, watching themselves.
When she was young she hate wild rice on scraped down
plates in warm wood rooms. It was in the farther
north and she was the baby then. They rocked her.
She sees Lake Michigan lapping at the shores of
herself. It is a dizzy hole of water and the rich
live in tall glass houses at the edge of it. In some
places Lake Michigan speaks softly, here, it just sputters
and butts itself against the asphalt. She sees
other buildings just like hers. She sees other
women hanging from many-floored windows
counting their lives in the palms of their hands,
and in the palms of their childrens' hands.
She is the woman hanging from the 13th floor window
on the Indian side of town. Her belly is soft from
her childrens' births, her worn levis swing down below
her waist, and then her feet, and then her heart.
She is dangling.
The woman hanging from the 13th floor window hears voices.
They come to her in the night when the lights have gone
dim. Sometimes they are little cats mewing and scraching
at the door, sometimes they are her grandmother's voice,
and sometimes they are gigantic men of light whispering
to her to get up, to get up, to get up. That's what she wants
to have another child to hold onto in the night, to be able
to fall back into dreams.
And the woman hanging from the 13th floor window
hears other voices. Some of them scream out from below
for her to jump, they would push her over. Others cry softly
on the sidewalks, pull their children up like flowers and gather
them into their arms. They would help her, like themselves.
But she is the woman hanging from the 13th floor window,
and she knows she is hanging by her own fingers, her
own skin, her own thread of indecision.
She thinks of Carlos, of Margaret, of Jimmy.
She thinks of her father and of her mother.
She thinks of all the women she has been, of all
the men. She thinks of the color of her skin, and
of Chicago streets, and of waterfalls and pines.
She thinks of moonlight nights, and of cool spring storms.
Her mind chatters like neon and northside bars.
She thinks of the 4 a.m. lonliness that has folded
her up like death, discordant, without logical and
beautiful conclusion. Her teeth break off at the edges.
She would speak
The woman hangs from the 13th floor window crying for
the lost beauty of her own life. She sees the
sun falling west over the gray plane of Chicago.
She thinks she remembers listening to her own life
break loose, as she falls from the 13th floor
window on the side of Chicago, or as she
climbs back up to claim herself again.
--Joy Harjo
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