I may assume other disguises

I woke up this morning with these two lines repeating in my head (clearly, I cannot escape Pale Fire even in my sleeping hours. I’m worried). Except that I was not thinking about them as two separate lines: they were replaying through my thoughts as one continuous line. I will pause here to say that I know little to nothing about poetry or verse form, and so, was separating the first and the second lines as I recited them to myself when clearly there is no punctuation to require my doing so.

Thanks goodness in a state of drowsy dreaming/awakening, I was enlightened.

So instead of reading:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

By the false azure in the windowpane

I may now read:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain by the false azure in the windowpane

…

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain by the false azure in the windowpane

How could I not have recognized this before? I certainly realized that the waxwing was slain by the windowpane (by flying into it, if we are to read this literally), and perhaps attracted by what was seen illuminated in the window. But to highlight the section this way further affirms the connection to Narcissus and the novel’s obsession with sameness, with mirroring, and how desire for/attraction to that sameness ultimately leads to the waxwings death and Kinbote’s suicide.

The waxwing is characterized by its soft, silky plumage delicately accented with red: an exceptionally beautiful specimen. It is appropriate that such a bird (also hailing from northern forests) be slain by the false azure in the windowpane, as Narcissus was by his reflection in the azure of the water. 

(As a quick note, I stumbled upon a blog that said this of the first lines of Shade's poem and of waxwings:  "I may not have picked up on it when I first read Pale Fire as an undergraduate, but these lines now present me with an allegory: even after death, the artist lives on -- achieves a kind of immortality -- within the mirror of art. But this allegorical interpretation can't exhaust the vividness and sensual appeal of the waxwing's markings and the subtle gradations of its colors.")

Narcissus desired himself so greatly that nothing could intercede to alter his inevitable fate.

“Unknowingly he desires himself, and the one who praises is himself praised, and, while he courts, is courted, so that, equally, he inflames and burns.” (poetryintranslation.com)

Transfixed by the image, the false/elusive replication of himself, Narcissus begins to physically waste away, to metamorphose.

“As he sees all this reflected in the dissolving waves, he can bear it no longer, but as yellow wax melts in a light flame, as morning frost thaws in the sun, so he is weakened and melted by love, and worn away little by little by the hidden fire. He no longer retains his colour, the white mingled with red, no longer has life and strength, and that form so pleasing to look at, nor has he that body which Echo loved.” (poetryintranslation.com)

In the commentary to line 1000, Kinbote says: “I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist” (300). Suggesting he may turn up on another campus as a happy, heterosexual male, or write a motion picture, or stage play, or travel back to Zembla, or cower in a madhouse (to summarize and skip important details, of course). “But whatever happens, wherever the scene is laid, somebody, somewhere, will quietly set out—somebody has already set out” (301). Whatever happens, Kinbote’s life will only rotate a degree, change a shade or a grade from what was laid out in the novel, because he encompasses everything. Sailing back to Zembla or huddling and groaning in a madhouse are both levels of Kinbote’s (and Pale Fire’s) reality(ies).

And when a “bigger, more respectable, more competent Gradus” arrives on the scene—which he is presently doing—Kinbote will merely fall into another dimension of the reality that he has created. We feel that the story continues, because it does. As the last line ties into the first, and the commentary is proceeded by the index, which dumps us back into the commentary, which has us flipping the pages of our book back and forth interminably…our reading of the novel is endless.

Kinbote is reflected on the page as the false azure is reflected in the windowpane, as narcissus is reflected in the water and ultimately in the daffodil, and the author of the poem Pale Fire is reflected as the shadow of the waxwing. 

Brianna's memory house

Homosexuality and the False Azure

 

   On Thursday, Sarah discussed that she was revolving between two different topics explored in her blog for her final paper. The first being homosexuality in Pale Fire and the connections to the myth of Orpheus, as well as to Proust and Socrates; the second, of Echo and Narcissus as the revolving myth around which to interpret the structure of mirrors and reflection in Nabokov’s art.

   As we have come to learn, everything in Pale Fire is relevant to EVERYTHING. It is no an imposition for us to make connections between two entities of a seemingly distant nature (“feigned remoteness”). So how could I be surprised to stumble upon an essay that directly links the myth of Narcissus and narcissism to homosexuality in Kinbote’s character and, more importantly, the art of Nabokov.

   In the chapter ‘Queer, Queer Vladimir’ from his book Reflecting Narcissus: a queer aesthetic, Steven Bruhm relates the desire of sameness to an inherently narcissistic persona. Through the achievement of or engagement in sameness, or homosexuality, one simultaneously relegates oneself to the periphery of acceptable social behavior. The desire for sameness produces an insurmountable difference, as Kinbote constantly experiences.

  

“What we think of as homophobia is often really heterophobia, the fear of difference…For Nabokov, narcissism is as much a national expression of homophobia as it is a sexual psychodynamic” (Sedgwick in Bruhm).

 

   Kinbote’s recollections and commentary on “Shade’s poem” are so narrow and convoluted, we realize, because he is interpreting the world through a narcissistic lens. The lens of the artist.

 

“Narcissism is unhealthy when a person's entire behaviour, be it fair or foul, is geared towards ensuring others meet their needs and justify their belief in their inflated self image. This self image is a "false self" and it can be extremely pleasant, charming and intoxicating covering a multitude of insecurities and bad traits” (echo.me.uk).

   The “false self” or image of Charles the Beloved is constructed as a guise for Kinbote’s insanity (or Botkin’s genius).  Is not every single line of the poem twisted somehow in the commentary to serve some purpose of Kinbote’s? Shade is reflected upon in the poem, but is displaced as the speaker by Kinbote.

“Kinbote uses external objects--other people, Shade's poem--"in the service of the self and of the maintenance of its instinctual investment." Indeed, this instinctual investment is figured in a scene that literally appropriates the Narcissus myth: having escaped revolutionary Zembla, Charles traverses the countryside in a red sweater. His supporters stymie the Shadows by donning red sweaters as well, so that the real king cannot be detected in the context of widespread public masquerade (one thinks here of the King of Norway who, along with his subjects, wore Stars of David to confuse the Nazis). However, there is some suggestion that the villainous Gradus too may be wearing a red sweater, and so the enemy and the hero have become indistinguishable. During the escape, Charles comes to a pond and, looking into it, first sees a "counterfeit king" reflected--who is actually, he then realizes, standing on the ledge above him. This reflection--either enemy or supporter or self--soon gives way to "a genuine reflection, much larger and clearer than the one that had deceived him" (143)” (excerpted from Bruhm).

   That instance is perhaps the most literal allusion to the Narcissus myth, but reflection, in both the literal and suggestive sense, engulfs the novel. As Bruhm points to in another fascinating discovery that I can’t help but share:

“Kinbote "resembles" not only King Charles but also Gradus, the revolutionary murderer with whom he shares a birthday, a homeland, and a physiognomy (all Zemblans look alike). The King's bedroom mirror, the very signifier of his identity, was made by Sudarg of Bokay, "Jacob Gradus" spelled backwards (111). The word "kinbote," we are told, is Zemblan for "regicide" (267). And in a way, Kinbote's distortion of Shade's poem kills the author as Jack Gray kills the man”.

   Of course, reflection is alluded to in the first two haunting lines of the poem:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

By the false azure in the windowpane

   If we think of shadows as a type of duplication, extension, or reflection of the self (after all, it is literally a projection of oneself), then you can see these two lines as a direct metaphor for a reflection in the water. The azure in the windowpane is analogous to a blue body of water, and it is false because a window reflects like a body of water, yet it is not. It is an illusion. A huge, gaping illusion. And perhaps, the most vulnerable, stripped bare reflection in the entirety of Pale Fire.

After reading Pale Fire, it becomes clear that reflection is not merely an element of the novel…it IS the novel.

   At this point, I can’t help but feel that the entire novel revolves around these two lines. That the entire novel—all the identities of Kinbote, questions of the true author, the circles that we are lead in, and the revelations that everything we are reading are mirrored constructions of some greater truth—are huge arrows pointing to these two lines, as if screaming, “It’s right here, at the very beginning, ALL of it”. After all, does not the entire rest of the novel parody and contradict itself? Constructing a tower of meaning, a labyrinth of infinite rooms, with single simple foundation for it all.

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

                                                    By the false azure in the windowpane

Tuesday's class assignment

Just a reminder, in addition to answering the questions:
                            
                               Who shot John Shade?  &  Where are the crowned jewels?

Please be prepared to answer:
                             
                               Where does the title 'Pale Fire' come from?
                                 

Ampersand

"This index card, this slender rubber band

Which always form, when dropped, an ampersand"

I walked into my boss' office today and found this lying on her desk. Not even joking. Thankfully, she was receptive of my explanation as to why I had to take a picture of it...

Cupid and Psyche

First appearing in Apuleius' The Golden Ass, Cupid and Psyche is a frame story, actually told as a digression. Lucius - who at this point is trapped in the guise of an ass - is holed up in a bandit's cave next to a young maiden who has been abducted on her wedding day and is being held randsom.  At the ceaseless and uncontrollable crying of the maiden, the "drunken and half-demented" old crone in league with the bandits and who tends to the cave, tells a fairytale to lighten her spirits.

According to Bullfinch's Mythology:

"The fable of Cupid and Psyche is usually considered allegorical. The Greek name for a butterfly is Psyche, and the same word means the soul. There is no illustration of the immortality of the soul so striking and beautiful as the butterfly, bursting on brilliant wings from the tomb in which it has lain, after a dull, grovelling, caterpillar existence, to flutter in the blaze of day and feed on the most fragrant and delicate productions of the spring. Psyche, then, is the human soul, which is purified by sufferings and misfortunes, and is thus prepared for the enjoyment of true and pure happiness."

Clearly, it is all too fitting that Nabokov was published in the entomological journal 'Psyche'.

Also, I stumbled upon an essay on Nabokov's lepidoptery titled "No Science Without Fancy, No Art Without Facts: The Lepidoptery of Vladimir Nabokov" by Steven Jay Gould - a contemporary (and antagonist) of E.O. Wilson - included in his book I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History. The title mimics Nabokov's quote: “There is no science without fancy and no art without fact”. In the essay, Gould explores Nabokov's legacy as an author-scientist and the translation of his genius between the two seemingly distant fields of literature and lepidoptery.


The essay is partially available for preview on google books (and the MSU library has copies of I Have Landed), but I think this dissection of Gould's argument in this article is a good read instead (the essay itself repeats much of the summary and quotes we've read in Nabokov's Blues):   Nabokov was right - so is Steven Jay Gould wrong? (link)

Rapunzel continued...

As William Irwin Thompson posits in Imaginary Landscape: Making Worlds of Myth and Science, “Rapunzel” is the story of sexuality. It is occupied with the central problem of how the “one becomes the two”, which encompasses not only the evolution of sexuality (biologically and mythically), but also the ultimate achievement of the stable couple.

As I mentioned, the plant Rampion Bellflower (or Campanula rapunculus) achieves the “one becoming the two” during the process of fertilization. A stem or column rises up in an attempt to attract insects to bring pollen from other plants. If no pollination occurs, the stem splits in two. The halves then curl, bringing the female stigmatic tissue in contact with the male pollen on the exterior. Each separate column has ‘collecting hairs’ to aid in the pollen collection. 

It is her own “collecting hairs” by which Rapunzel draws in the male fertility that will allow her to duplicate herself. She also uses them to draw up Frau Gothel, but it is in a manner that enables the “selfing” or perpetuation of sameness, rather than diversifying through external (male) elements. 

*At this point, an important distinction to make is that the “old crone” in this story is distinguished as a sorceress, not an evil witch. While the latter may be dismissed for her evil intentions, the sorceress is the embodiment of ancient feminine knowledge. She is an element of the “Triple Goddess” as Robert Graves termed it, consisting of the maiden, the mother (or pregnant woman), and the crone. As Thompson points out, this pattern mimics the triangular shape of sprouting, flowering, and withering of plants.

In the face of this powerful character, both men in “Rapunzel” cower and recede. The husband figure immediately gives in to the demands of the Sorceress in return for the Rampion desired by his pregnant wife. Acting as an intermediary between the mother and the crone, the subservient persona of the husband acknowledges the powerful connection inherent in the relationship of the “Triple Goddess”, which he makes no attempt to interfere with. At this stage we see the most stable relationship existing between the mother and the crone, rather than between husband and wife; the mother gives birth to a girl, therefore the process of “selfing” is preserved.

As the stability of the mother-crone or maiden-crone is depicted in the beginning of this story, so it is inextricably linked to the most eternal mother-maiden/daughter couple in the mythological realm: Demeter and Persephone. It is only when Hades abducts Persephone and carries her to the underworld that this stability is broken.

In contrast with the husband and wife couple, the fairytale presents the Prince and Rapunzel, who do manage to overcome the ancient order and reproduce rather than clone. In a Hades-esque manner, the Prince climbs up the braided ladder of hair to “pollinate” Rapunzel—disrupting the stable environment Rapunzel inhabited, and assuming the role of male interloper.    

At the point of disruption, however, the stability has not yet fully shifted from the female-female to male-female coupling. Once Frau Gothel learns of Rapunzel’s activities with the Prince, she rends the braids from her head and casts her out, then lures the Prince up the tower with the severed braids. Upon sight of the menacing Sorceress, the Prince jumps in desperation from the tower, landing in a patch of thorns that prick his eyes and cause blindness. It is only after years of wandering and foraging for roots and berries in the wilderness that the Prince stumbles upon the wasteland to which Rapunzel, and the twins she birthed, were exiled. As her tears moisten his blinded eyes, sight (and order) is restored.

The significance of this ending is that the stable couple is only achieved when the two fluids are mixed: the higher female fluid of tears & the lower male generative fluid. In prehistoric physiology, semen and cerebral fluid were thought to be communicated through the spinal column; so one would carry one’s seed in their head (Mind babies??). This circulation of fluids occurring up and down the spinal column signals a correspondence between the higher and lower; between “male” and “female” processes. It was also believed that body fluid was full of magical powers.

In this story, we see that the male fluid of the Princes reproductive organs is able to make Rapunzel pregnant, while the female fluid produced from the eyes is able to cure male blindness. Darkness is brought to light by the illuminating tears, which are the product of a “higher knowledge” as the maiden has transformed into the mother, “one has become two”, and a figure of the “Sophia” archetype emerges. Here, we see the story progress from a weak patrilocal society, on the fringes of the Neolithic garden and ancient knowledge of women, to a stable patriarchal structure.

Last Tuesday, I alluded to the Axis Mundi in connection with the stem of the Rampion, Rapunzel’s tower, and the spine through which the male/female fluids are communicated. This connection between higher and lower realms, of heaven and earth, can be imagined as both feminine and masculine terms. It may also take the form of a natural object (tree-tree of life-, stalk (as of corn), a vine) or as a manmade construction (tower, ladder, spiral). Clearly, both are represented in “Rapunzel”.

The achievement of reproduction through sexuality, of “one becoming two”, resolves the contradiction inherent in sexuality. The central point is not that Rapunzel simply reproduces, but that she produces a girl and a boy, therefore overcoming the mother-daughter cloning that occurs in the triangle of the “Triple Goddess”. When a female can produce a male, the contradiction is resolved. In Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious, the elements of Anima and Animus (which I am only positing, as I have no expertise on the subject) mirror this reproduction on another level: “As the anima tended to appear as a relatively singular female personality, the animus may consist of a conjunction of multiple male personalities—in this way the unconscious symbolizes the fact that the animus represents a collective rather than a personal element” (Wiki). So as the development of the Anima within the male is relatively stable and singular, the development of the male Animus within the female is a conjunction of multiples.

On the biological level, when we consider the nature of sexuality, we must consider that from which out entire world evolved: cyanobacteria. As we are all aware, sex is a process by which evolution and diversification occurs, which is the product of an environment that requires diversification to survive and adapt to unstable conditions. If the environment were stable and unchanging, the need for diversification would never surface, and organisms would survive simply through asexuality. As Thompson writes:

“In the evolution of sexuality the critical event is that of the emergence of the cell with a nucleus, the eukaryotic cell. Hitherto, nature had worked through an asexual division, ad infinitum of mother-daughter cells in which each generation was exactly like the preceding one. The cell without a nucleus, the prokaryotic cell, was a stable, unchanging, and enduring system, but the cell with a nucleus introduces the radically destabilizing element of the individual” (24).

We see the appearance of sexuality is a disruption of the stable and enduring system of mother-daughter replication. The anger of the Sorceress when she finds that this order has been undermined—“I thought I had cut you off from the world, but you have betrayed me!”—is a regression to the anger of the “elementals” from whom the world was usurped by higher, sexual beings:

“The jealousy of the dwarves and “the little people” is as essential part of the animistic religion of the fairy faith, and when one realizes that these “little people” are mythopoetic perceptions of what we prefer to call bacteria, then one realizes that these “elementals” are indeed the “firstborn” creatures on this planet, and that we eukaryotic creatures of individuality, of love and death, have displaced them” (26).

So the Sorceress demands the child of the husband/wife as retribution for the ancient displacement of asexual beings; the child belongs to the sorceress, in body and in her body of knowledge, and she is repossessing that which the male has usurped.

This recalls in Norse mythology the concept of “changelings”, in which a mystical creature such as a fairy, goblin, or troll leaves an offspring of their own in place of human child. James discussed this myth during the Master Builder presentation, in which he inferred the meddling of trolls in the death of Solness’ twin boys.

Perhaps also, this retribution of the “elementals” is what Ibsen is so fearful of. They represent a regression in development, the most base function or personality of a person, which is potentially ugly and unpleasant, even deformed. They are a power that lies beneath the surface of the human world, and in Solness’ case, the human mind. 

Thompson makes another connection to the regressive tendencies of the feminine unconscious to elemental wisdom: the mother-to-be gazes back through the window to the neat rows of the walled garden containing the Rampion, and the photosynthetic membrane of cyanobacteria appears like a photograph of a walled garden with rows. The Neolithic garden is the source of the archetypal “higher knowledge” of women. This was made homage to in the rituals of the Elusianian Mysteries—the cult of Demeter and Persephone—which centered on the ancient relationship/knowledge between women and plants. During the secret initiation, something was done, shown, and said. What was “done” was the reenactment of the abduction of Persephone by Hades, and the thing that was seen was a stalk of corn (the ears of which, do not forget, have elongated stigmas that look like tufts of yellow hair).

Clearly the regularity with which this phenomenon of mother-daughter asexuality as it occurs in plants is significant. As Ashley discovered, the Parthenocissus plant literally translated into “Virgin lily” is also of this variety. It is a remnant of a past that exists now in the obscurity of plant reproduction, and in ourselves only as unconscious intuitions and cravings. This is the power (importance) of fairytale and myth, to connect us to that which we have forgotten.

What seest thou else in the dark backward and abysm of time?

             

Works Cited/Consulted

 "Anima and animus." Wikipedia, 2011. Web. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus>.

Thompson, William illiam Irwin. Imaginary Landscape, Making Worlds Of Myth And Science. Palgrave Macmillan, 1989. Print.