burning daylight volume 3 digital edition

8/12/2019 Burning Daylight Volume 3 Digital Edition

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Burning Daylight

Volume III

2014


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Burning DaylightVolume III

Department of EnglishSonoma State University

2014


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Burning Daylight is an annual scholarly journal,published through Sonoma State Universitys

Department of English graduate program, dedicated toproviding a place for up-and-coming voices in the fieldof literature. We publish original critical and theoretical

essays from B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. students thatrepresent the current work, trends, and thoughts in

literary criticism, composition, and rhetoric.


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Letter from the Editor

I have had the unique privilege to be part of Burning Daylightfrom the beginning first as a reviewer, then as managingeditor and finally now as editor. Over these first three yearsI have watched Burning Daylight progress tremendously in

expanding the horizons of student academic writers by offeringnew voices a professional peer-reviewed publication throughwhich their fresh, unique perspectives can be heard. In this

volume we are pleased to present four papers from diverse pointsof view and subject matter written by authors from places as far

flung as Harvard University, University of Alabama atBirmingham and National aiwan Normal University or as near

to us as our own Sonoma State University. Burning Daylight

plays an increasingly vital role in the diversifying and strength-ening the field and academia as a whole. I am proud of how farthis publication has come and anticipate its continuing ascent

and future success with much excitement.

Michaela Spangenburg, Editor

Burning Daylight is eternally grateful for the support ofDr. Ruben Armiana, Dr. Andrew Rogerson, the English

Department at Sonoma State University andAssociated Students.


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Burning Daylight Staff

EditorMichaela Spangenburg

Managing EditorsJulie Anne eixeira

Melissa Vogt

Specialized EditorsHarker Brautighan

Jordan Grout

ReviewersErica Darby BuckhoStephen Cosgrove

A.L. Evins

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Catherine Kroll

FoundersNicole De Leon and Matthew E. Martin

Layout and Cover DesignMichaela Spangenburg

Cover ArtMark Flores


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able of Contents

Lethal Film: Te Cine-phile/Cine-fetish of Infinite Jest

Julia Alekseyeva

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Parallel Universe: As I Lay Dying and Te Odyssey

Michael Pitts

25

Freeing the Body: Body Imagination and Intertextuality

in Susan SontagsAlice in Bed: A Play

Yen-Chi Wu

43

Iago, Nature, and Society: Iagos Destruction of ruth

through Nature Metaphors and Manipulation

ara Bowers

59


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Julia Alekseyevais a fourth year

PhD Candidate in Comparative Literatureat Harvard University


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Lethal Film: Te Cine-phile/Cine-fetish of Infinite Jest

One might say that David Foster Wallaces magnum opus Infinite

Jestrevolves around the topic of digital media. Te title itself comes from thename of a film described in the book, but not just any filma lethal film

so mind-numbingly great, so hypnotic that it immediately turns its viewer

into a vegetable, incapable of tearing her eyes off the screen. Discourses

concerning cinephilia abound throughout the text; some characters produce

and make films, and some have an encyclopedic knowledge of films to the

point of cine-obsession. Starting with a brief summary of various, specific

definitions of the term cinephilia, this paper approaches the text of Infinite

Jestthrough the theoretical approach of film and media studies in an

attempt to delineate the line between classical cinephilia, the cinema buff,and cine-fetishism, to discover at what point a procreative film-love becomes

nihilistic, obsessive, or psychotic in Wallaces work. However, cinephilia and

film-art paradoxically also prove to have a redemptive quality in Wallace,

one which in fact fights againstthis dystopian vision. Although the use

of film and media studies to approach Wallaces novel might at first seem

strange, I feel that because filmespecially avant-garde art filmis at the

very center of the text, Wallaces novel begs for a film-centric analysis. By

looking at the obsession with (digital) media in Infinite Jest, my paper shows

how film, and cinephilia in particular, inevitably reveals aspects of human

identity that have hitherto been ignored.

Cinephilia, the state of film-love, has been researched to such an

extreme that it demonstrates a clear anxiety over the film researchers own


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nearly pathological cinephilia. As Mary Ann Doane writes, Cinephilia is

usually considered a somewhat marginalized, furtive, even illicit relation

to the cinema rather than a theoretical stance (225). Indeed, it appears

that almost every major theorist of the silver screen has attempted to

define cinephilia in an attempt to neutralize the private fetishization of

film worksas if, by theorizing and compartmentalizing different types

of cinephilia, ones own personal obsession is erased of any malicious

or aberrant intent. However, on another level from mere film love, the

obsession with film might turn sour and fetishistic, if not worse. What

if, as in David Foster Wallaces work Infinite Jest, the love of cinema was

even lethal? What if there came a work of art which was so psychologically

compellingin Walter Benjamins terms, one might even say so

innervatingthat one is physically incapable of tearing ones eyes away?

Film theorists approach to cinephilia tends to vary widely, but can

perhaps be summarized by separating the analysis of cinephilia into two

overarching approaches that might be called the utopian and dystopian. Te

utopian approach is the definition of cinephilia as a procreative, sincere love

of cinema, which, although occasionally lapsing into obsession, is by nature

a beneficial force in which even fetishisms fit into a nearly utopian structure.

Such is the cinephilia of Walter Benjamin in One Way Streetand Christian

Keathleys in Cinephilia and History. Keathley approaches cinephilia withthe rhetoric of individual pleasure and personal testimony, seeing these as

key elements of all cinephilic writing.(19) Tis approach fully recognizes

cinephilia as a fetish of sorts, but nonetheless finds it essential for a serious


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interest in cinema.

Conversely, cinephilia as seen by theorists such as Susan Sontag

and Paul Willemen, is haunted by ones libidinal, emotional, and affectiveattachment to a medium, according to Hagener and Valck (19). Such

is the dystopian variety of cinephilia, a fear of ones own fetishization

of film. Interestingly, both Keathley and Willemen find in cinephilia

the fetishization of the moment, and that cinephiles find theirpunctum

via discrete fragments only.Tis brand of cinephilic discourse also fears

cinephilia as an elitistcinema, a cinema-love that has forfeited Benjamins

concept of play and has become constricted and overly focused on the

archival. Tus, Annette Michelsons analysis of the Anthology Film Archive

also fits comfortably into this dystopian category. She writes:

In this theatre, devoted to the museologically inflected

constitution, preservation, and exhibition of a canonically

conceived history of the cinema generated in the

continuity of an international cinematic avant-garde,subtitles were not used. For foreign-language films of both

silent and sound eras, translations of titles and of dialogue

were available in printed translation, for no extraneous

element, either visual or aural, be it that of the subtitle,

was permitted to intrude within the pristine integrity

of the image. Moreover, the current vogue of musical

accompaniment for silent film involved in the search

for a restored historical authenticity of projection was


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here banned on the grounds that such accompaniment

including that of specially or originally commissioned

scores had been primarily the response to the demands of

exhibitors, and not necessarily structurally intrinsic to the

authors filmic project. (5)

Te tone here is quite critical of cinephilia. For Michelson, the projection

should not hold a veil of authenticity and should focus increasingly less

on the auteur-based importance of the filmic project. Tis dystopian

cinephilia of museological preservation invokes the classical cinephiles

obsession with the authenticity of the image. In opposition to this,

Michelson wishes to veer into the direction of subtitles and translations,

musical accompaniment, and the freedom of post-classical cinephiliasdigital and free-flowing interface, as well as a Benjaminian sense of play,

with the importance placed on individual sensation.

Although Walter Benjamin is fully lodged into the modernist

utopian view of cinema as medium-of-the-future, and does not discuss thefilm-fetish, his early theoretical writings on cinema prefigure a later, more

postmodern approach. Miriam Bratu Hansen writes that Benjamins early

concept of innervation is essential in understanding his view of how cinema

is able to dazzle and bewitch the viewer in a way that no medium has ever

done before, in which we recover sensory affect in the age of mechanical

reproduction. Innervation is a neurophysiological process that mediates

between internal and external, psychic and motoric, human and mechanical

registers, and it is of course cinema that is capable of this sort of mediation


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(313). Via mediation and interplay between the cinematic object and the

viewers sensory perception, cinema is thus capable of transforming the

human mind, and therefore life itself.

Tis is quite the task for cinema to follow, and Hansen is quite

keen in seeing Benjamins concept of innervation as a hugely mystical and

utopian vision. She writes, In Benjamins messianically inflected science-

fiction scenario, technology not only transforms but has the capacity to

redress the discrepancies of human existence and history (322). Te use of

science-fiction as a means for describing Benjamins theories is quite telling,

and there is certainly a fantastical, utopian side to this transformative,

deeply penetrating side of cinema. Nonetheless, interestingly, it is not

fantasy but science fictiona genre that tends to connote more dystopianthan utopian perspectives. One cannot help but wonder at the dark side of

this concept of innervationif a human was so deeply affected by cinema,

so beheld by magic and wonder, that she is rendered immobile?

Te imaginary film Infinite Jest, from the dystopian novel of thissame name, toys with the idea of this immobility. Film and digital art is at

the center of the work. In a novel of over 1,000 pages, which also includes

thousands of footnotes and over 100 pages of endnotes, the longest endnote

is an eight-and-a-half page filmography of the films aprs-garde auteur

filmmaker and father of the protagonist, James O. Incandenza. Likewise,

film is mentioned on almost every page of the novel and almost all of the

main characters are explicitly related to the filmmaking or film-loving

enterprise. Indeed, the themes of the text can be condensed into two


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separate addictions: drug use and film. James Incandenza is an auteur

filmmaker who dreams, perhaps ironically (it is never quite clear), of

creating a perfect cinemaa film which becomes Infinite Jest, his last film,

also dubbed variously as the Entertainment and the samizdat. However,

Incandenza does not allow anyone to view this film and it is buried with

him after his suicide. Te use of the term samizdat is interesting: it is the

term used for dissident activity in the Soviet bloc countries in which banned

publications were reproduced and transmitted by hand (etymologically it

means to make by oneself or self-made: sam izdat); this gives both the

novel Infinite Jest and the imaginary film version a peculiar political flavor.

Indeed, the novel is hardly devoid of politics; after Incandenzas untimely

death, Canadian terrorists then unearth this lethal cinema and mail it to

unsuspecting American citizens, who, upon viewing the cartridge (as

digital media are called in the novel), turn into hypnotized vegetables,

unable to tear their eyes away from the screen.

Te film Infinite Jest is composed of three parts which play on

loop, and opens with Joellea girl described as impossibly and hideously

beautifulgoing through a revolving door. As she circles around she sees

someone she knows and to meet up with that person, she pushes further

around while that person also continues to go around, an establishing shot

which, according to N. Katherine Hayles, makes clear the importance of

recursive loops to the films design (692). Te second part consists of her

sitting naked at a table, patiently explaining to an unseen listener that she is

Death, and the way Death works is to have the woman who kills you in one


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life come back as your mother in the next life. Tis sets up the next part of

the film, the third and last segment, which uses a newly invented lens with a

milky, circular resolution that is supposed to mimic the sight of a newborn

child. Here, the hideously beautiful Joelle is nude, hugely pregnant, and

peers into the camera lens as one would a bassinet. She then apologizes to

the camera, over and over again.

According to Hayless postmodern and posthumanist reading of the

film, this entertainment taps into the deep psychic structures of the viewer,

causing a recursive feedback loop of pleasure supply and demand (692).She

then likens this entrancing enrapturement of Wallaces Entertainment to

science journalist Charles Ostmans theories of a commercial technology

[which] will use the recursive feedback loops of intelligent agent programsto suture the consumer tightly into a circuit of pleasure, selling product

and experience together as a commodity so compelling, enriching and

rewarding that youll want to come back for more(683). For Ostman, the

future of technology resides in sensory amplification; recalling the sensory

amplification of Benjaminian innervation here specifically relates to the

addicting quality of virtual environments.

According to Frank Louis Cioffi, this same addicting quality is

inherent in the physical act of reading Infinite Jest, a text that to Cioffi is not

a novel, nor even what he calls a hypertext, but an encyclopedic heaping

(161). Infinite Jestis capable of mesmerizing the reader because, due to the

novels various diverging plot points and sheer difficulty, the plot becomes

co-created by the reader and thus has the power to bind. Cioffi writes:


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One is longing to know what will happen to this or

that character, what strange new twist will emerge, or

how one plot will ultimately intersect with the others

reading Infinite Jesthas the effect of dividing the readers

consciousness to such an extent that the novel stuns and

mesmerizes by blurring the boundary between a real

world and a fictive one. (162-163)

Reading Infinite Jestthus performs the exact activity that Wallace is

describing with the film of the same name: a dividing of the readers

consciousness, a nearly pathological merging of the reader/film-viewers

mind with the virtual text presented before them. Again, Benjaminian

innervation is taken to its logical end, in which the real and fictive worldsare blurred. Te novels innervating qualities are presented as a kind of

drug fix, but interestingly enough, a fix of which the reader is consciously

and constantly being made aware (so much of the novel, after all, is about

addiction itself). Cioffi writes that the reader must come to a self-

conscious realization that his behavior resembles that of the drug addicts

Wallaces novel focuses on(170). Tere is thus an inherent difference in the

film and novel Infinite Jest, since the human-vegetables who view the film do

not come to such a realization. Te viewers are not self-conscious addicts,

but have fully surrendered themselves to their substance of choice, the

Entertainment.

Although theorists such as Cioffi point to a self-conscious addiction

that the process of reading the book creates, the totalizing nature of Infinite


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Jestis far more critical of contemporary society, and far more openly

dystopian, than the fictional film of Infinite Jest. Although Wallace never

reveals why his fictional film was titled as such by the Incandenza, its only

actress, Joelle, assumes that Incandenzas quest for a perfect cinema was

entirely ironic, and that the films capability to stun and mesmerize is in

itself an ironic effect. Te film Infinite Jestmight have been, at most, an

ironic gesture rather than a truly critical work of art.

Not so, however, for Infinite Jestthe novel. Although the novel

describes a dystopian landscapethe literal meaning of dystopia, a

counterpart to the concept of utopia and conceived by John Stuart Mill, is

an imaginary bad place or bad no-wherelike other works of dystopian

cinema and literature, it is not unhopeful for the human beings abilityto change the dystopia circumstances imposed upon her, and therefore

not a nihilistic text. Rather, in Infinite Jestwe see what Paul Giles and N.

Katherine Hayles dubbed Wallaces posthumanism, and what Robert L.

McLaughlin called post-postmodernism. According to Giles, Wallaces

fiction seeks to construct a more affective version of posthumanism, where

the kind of flattened postmodern vistas familiar from the works of, say, Don

DeLillo are crossed with a more traditional investment in human emotion

and sentiment(330). Giles rightly points to the investment in emotion

and sentiment in Wallace. Where Giles, Hayles, and McLaughlins disparate

analyses of Infinite Jestintersect is in their claim that Infinite Jests dystopian

landscape suggests a return to a grand narrativeone founded on basic

human emotion and our relationships to one another.


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As McLaughlin writes, [Post-postmodernism works] by engaging

the language-based nature of its operations, to make us newly aware of the

reality that has been made for us and to remind usbecause we live in a

culture where were encouraged to forgetthat other realities are possible

(67).Indeed, McLaughlin is quick to highlight that this grand narrative

is not a reconstruction of the modernist grand narrative; it does not seek

to rectify anything per se, but to make us newly aware of other realities

and possibilities.

One might think here of Slovenian philosopher Slavoj

Zizeks text, In Defense of Lost Causes, and Zizeks insistence on rethinking

the grand narratives of the twentieth century, or French philosopher Alain

Badious concept of a fidelity to an event that constitutes his Ethicsboth

theories of what McLaughlin might call post-postmodernism. A work such

as Infinite Jestis post-postmodern because it disavows ironic detachment

and emphasizes the necessary re-emersion of a grand narrative of human

empathy. Te work is also, importantly, posthumanist; according to Wallace,

it is necessarily within the technological interface networks that have

enveloped usevidenced by the crucial role of cinematic cartridges in the

society of Infinite Jest, and the screens of the contemporary 21stcentury

that humanity must find a way to return to basic human interaction.

According to Hayles, authenticity in this vision is based on the recognition

of profound interconnections that bind human beings together; we escape

from the Entertainment by recognizing our responsibilities to each othera

constructive approach to posthumanism (696).

Tis last point is best illustrated by the character Mario in Infinite


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Jest. Mario is the middle child of the filmmaker Incandenza, and the one to

whom he is closest. Mario has a physical and perhaps mental disability of

grotesque proportions that are never specifically elucidated in the text, and

which the reader must herself imagine. Or, conversely, the description of

Marios disabilities are often drowned in such overwhelming and neologism-

filled scientific jargon, that any real descriptor is impossible to discern.

His most important characteristic is a profound love of filmmaking and

cinema. Even with an alleged mental disability, he has seen his fathers films

innumerable times and is able to make highly sophisticated observations

about them. Most importantly, however, he films nearly everything he

seesso often, in fact, that he is only able to walk with a camera strapped

to his body: a technological innovation of his fathers. Mario Incandenza

thus becomes a kind of postmodern chimera, a half-human, half-movie

camera whose physical capabilities are limited while his cinematographic

and lens-manipulating abilities are apparently quite excellent.

Interestingly, outside of his predilection for filmmaking, Mario

is best characterized by a strange ability to empathize and relate to other

people. He is one of the few people whom Hal Incandenza, the novels

protagonist, admires and loves, and perhaps because of his grotesque

innocence and friendliness, he is never treated as disabled by his

community. Tis grotesque friendliness is perfectly illustrated in the second

to last scene of the novel, in which a religious, male college student, in order

to prove his faith in the human condition and human empathy to his older

brother, pretends to be homeless and spends several months begging outside


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of a Boston train station. Instead of begging for food or money, he only begs

for human touch, asking passersby to please touch my hand in order to

demonstrate some basic human empathetic capabilities. Months go by and

the boy is not touched by a single person, while his faith diminishes and his

religious belief grows nihilistic. At long last, it is in fact Mario Incandenza

who, demonstrating this superhuman empathetic capability, touches him,

and the formerly religious boys faith in human empathy (if not religion)

is restored. It is thus within the postmodern chimera of Mario Incandenza

that Wallace locates humanity within a dystopian universe.

According to Paul Giles, Yet to be a human being in Wallaces

world is not simply to relapse into a sclerotic humanism; instead, it is to

search for fragments of authentic personality amidst the razzmatazz ofscientific jargon and hip-hop slang, so that a novel such as Infinite Jest might

be said to involve a putative humanization of the digital sensibility (335-

336). Such a humanization of the digital is illustrated by Mario, the only

character where fragments of authentic personality are to be found. It is

therefore immensely important that this most selfless and empathizing of

Wallaces characters is also a kind of posthuman cyborg, and that, counter to

most dystopian novels and films, it is the cyborg that is the most essentially

human character. Interestingly, Mario also becomes a representation

of the utopian approach to cinephilia, refusing to see his fathers films as

merely ironic, instead finding them emotionally compelling. In addition,

because the novels last scene ends in medias res, the last concluding image

that the reader brings back with her is that of Mario touching the hand of


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a homeless man, perhaps the only uplifting scene in the whole text. David

Foster Wallaces often-quoted interview response, fictions about what

it is to be a fucking human (quoted by Giles 335-336), is thus perfectly

applicable to his oeuvre, and it is this concern for human emotion and

interpersonal relation that marks post-postmodernism and its return to

grand narrative.

How, then, does this new grand narrative, arriving at the cusp

of the 21stcentury, relate to cinephilic practices? Giles writes, Wallace

takes the new worlds of computer science and global media as givens,

but he seeks to open up spaces within these abstract grids of information

technology where human emotion and identity can be explored (341).

One might say that, as evidenced by the half-camera Mario, these humanempathetic qualities are found within the construct of utopian cinephilia.

Rather than the archive-based, classical cinephilia that Michelson found so

overly fetishistic, and, one might say, so lethal, Marios cinephilia is all-

embracinga cinephilia that is, quite literally in Marios case, attached to

the human body. Marios very bodily cinephilia makes tangible the concept

of Benjaminian innervation, a cinema able to bring emotion back into the

dulled human sensorium of our (post) modern world.


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Works Cited

Cioffi, Frank Louis. An Anguish Become Ting: Narrative as Performance

in David Foster Wallaces Infinite Jest. Narrative8:2 (May 2000):161-181.

Doane, Mary Ann. Te Instant and the Archive. Te Emergence of

Cinematic ime: Modernity, Contingency, the Archive. Cambridge:

Harvard UP, 2002. 206-232 + 262-266.

Giles, Paul. Sentimental Posthumanism: David Foster Wallace. wentieth

Century Literature52:3 (Fall 2007): 327-344.

Hagener, Malte and Valck, Marijke de. Cinephilia in ransition.Mind the

Screen: Media Concepts According to Tomas Elsaesser. Amsterdam:

Amsterdam UP, 2008. 19-31.

Hansen, Miriam Bratu. Benjamin and Cinema: Not a One-Way Street.

Critical Inquiry 2 (Winter 1999): 306-343.

Hayles, N. Katherine. Te Illusion of Autonomy and the Fact of

Recursivity: Virtual Ecologies, Entertainment, and Infinite Jest.

New Literary History30:3 (Summer 1999): 675-697.

Keathley, Christian. Cinephilia and History, or Te Wind in the rees.

Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2006.

McLaughlin, Robert L. Post-Postmodern Discontent: Contemporary

Fiction and the Social World. symplok12:1/2 (2004): 53-68.


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Michelson, Annette. Gnosis and Iconoclasm: A Case Study of Cinephilia.

October, Vol. 83 (Winter, 1998): 3-18.


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Michael Pittsis transitioning into doctoral work

after completing his masters in English with aconcentration in American literature

from the University of Alabama at Birmingham


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Parallel Universe:As I Lay DyingandTe Odyssey

Returning from the rojan War, King Agamemnon greets his

family as a hero and chief of spoils. Tis seemingly glorious victory comesto an abrupt end at the hand of his wife and her lover revenging the

sacramental murder of their daughter. Speaking to Odysseus sent by Circe

to the underworld, Agamemnon recounts that as he lay dying his wife,

Clytemnestra, turned her face aside, and could not even bring herself

to shut his eyes or mouth in preparation for the afterlife (Aeschylus

151). Faulkner chooses a very disastrous scene from the classic epic, Te

Odyssey, to set the pace forAs I Lay Dying a novel concerning a rural

family embarking upon a dark, modern epic. Tis choice to reference the

tragic implosion of an illustrious family shows in many ways the writerssubscription to the modernistic philosophy of literature. By analyzing

this echo of classical writing, the nature of this literary connection will be

examined within the context of the modern novel. Specifically, Faulkners

use of literary cubism and the mythic method will be considered while

analyzing the parallel qualities of the characters from each text. Tis

connection enhances a central theme of the novel concerning the Southern

family unit and its implosion in the modern South.

Adopting the mythical method promulgated by .S. Eliot and made

famous by Te Waste Landand Joyces Ulysses, Faulkner builds a framework

within which his modern tale may thrive and grow. Resulting from a loss of

faith in the contemporary novel, this writing method seeks to work within

a classical framework not similar to the perceived disorderly style of the


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modern world. Citing the works of W.B. Yeats, Eliot describes this manner

of writing as a simple way of ordering, of controlling, of giving a shape and

a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is

contemporary history (177). It is important to point out that this writing

technique does not seek to produce a carbon copy of classical texts. By

nurturing its roots in this archaic soil, the author is able to produce a novel

that critiques the modern plight of man and draws various comparisons

between modern and classical society.

In a recent essay analyzing Eliots view toward the use of this

method, scholar James Nohrnberg contends that the greatest works rooted

in this theory of writing subordinate correspondence with (and allusion to)

a mythic or archaic or legendary original to their own particular histories,even while they allusively and wittily maintain contact and correspondence

with a specific and select archetypal narrative as it were a scripture

overtly or covertly acknowledged or disclosed by the story during the course

of its own telling (272). Other scholars such as Philip Rule point out

that the novel bears many connections to the Old estament, namely its

spirit of despair, hope, endurance tensions as old as mankindwith

which man faces the darkness and mystery of the world around him (120).

Similar to Faulkners hinting nature inAbsalom, Absalom!, this title provides

the clue necessary to connect the text to its ancient source. Considering

the way in which Faulkner subtly discloses the archaic original to his

modern story, the importance of this source may be easily overlooked but

nonetheless provides invaluable insight to the overall meaning and purpose


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of the text.

Te nature of this correspondence between new and old yields

still contrasting opinions over the purpose or meaning of the modern epicbookend. In her careful analysis of the connection between Faulkner and

Homer, scholar Doreen Fowler proposes that this connection signifies the

death of the mother as the truly original myth of Western civilization. Te

connection then betweenAs I Lay Dyingand the death of Agamemnon

is significant in that it retells this story of matricide within the scope of

the modern world. According to Fowler, Faulkner titled his novelAs I

Lay Dyingbecause this allusion to Agamemnons murder evokes matricide

and a mothers revenge (316). While there is truth in this claim, this

proposition too conservatively limits the meaning of the text as it ignoresa greater theme conveyed in its pages: the implosion of the modern family.

Hauntingly similar to its classical counterpart, the House of Atreus, the

Bundren family is destroyed from within by its own members. It is a story

of the demise of the modern family and cannot be limited to the western

significance of Addie Bundrens death. Understanding the limitations of this

interpretation, this article further develops the key point that the mythical

method is being used within the pages of this text in order to add breadth

and depth to the story of the Bundren family and their slow, haunting

funeral march.

Among the countless meanings and facets of the text, this

connection to the classical also highlights the attempt to assert the primacy

of the father and to dematerialize the world with the mother as the central


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project of patriarchal structure (Fowler 319). By considering the echoes

of the classical myth of matricide, it is made clear that the traditional

patriarchy survives with the death of the mother. In order for the traditional

way of life and order to continue, her life must end as a sacrifice for those

connected to her. Tis idea of matricide shifts from the classical to modern

as her perspective clearly poses a belief that her life has been drained

from her veins by her offspring. Tis matricide is the cause of friction

and destruction within the family as each member fights to understand

their relationship to the family and their deceased mother. Tis limited

perception of the mythical meaning of the text highlights what Nohrnberg

views as the central problem with the literary uses of myth which just

like interpretations, stabilize it, by specifying a given myths meaning, even

as they also problematize it, insofar as they depart from or advance upon

previously received meanings, and so call them into question (20). Since

Faulkners use of the mythical method does not clearly depart from the

meaning of the original text, it can be assumed that his retelling of the epic

is also centered upon the destruction of the family and not specifically the

matricide of Addie Bundren. Te text seeks instead to highlight the demise

of the modern family from within its own borders.

Tis connection between the classical and modern also highlights

an important characteristic possessed by the text. As Michael Millgate points

out in his offering concerning the portrayal of the South in literature, there

is a popular misconception that Faulkner was essentially a simple country

boy unaccountably struck by the divine fire and with some fluctuations of


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current and that he wrote of his native environment, its obsessions, and

its problems, not of choice but of necessity, because he could do no other

(33). While Faulkner clearly had a unique gift, his work is not restricted to

a Southern tradition but echoes across cultural and historical boundaries

and has its roots at the birth of Western civilization. Although set in the

American South, the novel exists within a fictional time and place and

serves, at its root, as a medium by which its creator, the author, may spin

a modern mythos in which the struggle of man is the central focal point

not the historical or regional accuracy of the works passages. Faulkner

explains this transition from the actual to the apocryphal as a means to

create a cosmos of his own. In this created realm, he explains, I can move

these people around like God, not only in space but in time too (Millgate

37). Similar to the classical poet, he creates his own private world not

entirely dissimilar to that from which he lives in order to raise and wield

characters who will act as members of a modern tragedy. Tis role of the

author as creator and god echoes the gods of Greek mythology and their

role in the creation and destruction of man. As a playwright or storyteller

of myth, classical figures such as Homer and Aeschylus play a similar role

in the creation and demise of their characters. While each characters fate is

determined by the forces within the story, it is the author who ultimately

exercises power of this universe between the pages.

Te mythical story of the House of Atreus is one dominated by

carnage, revenge, and tragedy. Beginning with the revenge of the Athenian

people, which fueled the rojan War, the family is divided by the actions


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of the patriarchal leader, Agamemnon. His sacrifice of his daughter,

Iphigenia, and taking of Cassandra as his concubine are believed to be

the main reasons for the murderous revenge of his wife, Clytemnestra.

Analyzing the actions and characters of this classical story, several similarities

quickly surface that Faulkner echoes in his novel. Tese similarities are not

directly parallel to the classical text but, instead, merely adopt this original

as a framework within which the tragedy may breathe life. Key to this

reading are the similarities between Cassandra and Addie Bundren, and

Agamemnon and Anse Bundren, respectively. In an analysis of Cassandra

as the feminine corrective in this myth, Andrea Doyle of the University of

Johannesburg describes Cassandra as the most complex character of the

story, maintaining the characteristics of three core archetypes: the Virgin

Bride, the Sacrificial Virgin, and the Wife (57). Similar to the case of Addie

Bundren, Cassandra is removed from her home and relocated to a foreign

land in which she is expected to adopt the role of noble wife and sacrificial

partner. Her purpose and desires are subordinated to those of her husband,

Agamemnon a man who, similar to Anse, places his trust and blame on

the gods of fate.

Te key to both Addie and Cassandras disillusioned notions of

the spiritual world involves their sexual and spiritual experiences. Both

feel they have been tricked by their perceived purposes and have lost

their identities as a result. ormented by her connection with Apollo

and resulting punishment, Cassandra, like Addie, is fated to perceive the

true nature of things while living an empty existence. During the siege


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of roy, Cassandra is granted the power of prophecy by the god Apollo

but, as a result of her betrayal of him, is cursed so that no one hearing

her prophetic statements will believe their validity. Tis curse echoes the

resentment of both Cassandra and Addie toward the futility of language

and words. Realizing the negating reaction of those around them, both

become reclusive and passive to the actions of those dominating their lives.

Remarking on the futility of words and communication, Addie Bundren

laments that at the time of the birth of her first child, she had been used

to words for a long time and that words was like the others: just a shape

to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldnt need a word for

that anymore than for pride and fear (Faulkner 164). Disenchanted with

the words of both god and man, these abused female counterparts adopt

apathetic attitudes towards the course of their lives.

Faulkner also adopts the love of mother and child from this myth,

incorporating the jealous and betrayed characteristics of Clytemnestra into

the relationship between Jewel and Addie. Like Agamemnon, Anse is willing

to sacrifice the well-being of his own children in order to achieve a goal he

believes to be noble. Responding to this neglect, Addie withholds the one

thing she is able to protect from her husband her devotion. Her infidelity

and the resulting birth of Jewel mimic the actions of Clytemnestra the

core difference being that Addie dies in anguish in place of her husband.

It is crucial to highlight the mutual hatred of words both Jewel and Addie

share. Both are outsiders in their home and do not believe the words of

their family nor the notion that love abides in this house far from the shores


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of where they believe they belong. Te story of Addie Bundren and her

place in Faulkners novel also brings up the question of the texts focus and

purpose with consideration for the archaic source.

Te search for the focal character in Faulkners novel often produces

varying results from the scholarly world. Many scholars believe Addie

Bundren to be the pivotal character of the text, representing the struggle

against the tyrannical patriarch of the family. In a recent article from Te

University of Ottawa, Marc Hewson argues that, although she dies fairly

early on, the importance of intuitive love and of languages inadequacy to

express it that she instills in her sons solidifies her position at the novels

center (551). However, a close read of the text demonstrates her isolation

from the family with the exception of Jewel. While this detachment isa reaction to the overbearing and foolish nature of her husband, she

nevertheless does not maintain a position of intimate love or connection

with most of her family members, negating the support for this particular

claim that she is the central character of the novel. A second major

contributing factor to this argument is the title of the novel. Many members

of the academic community argue that the title informs the reader of the

focal character. While this claim appears sound and somewhat obvious, a

closer analysis of the classical text reveals that Faulkner may have chosen this

title for a starkly different purpose.

Tis reference to the classical text or point of mythic interference is

unique among other works of the mythic method in that it only references

the original in its title (Nohrnberg 274). While works such as Ulyssesand


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Te Wastelandcontain numerous references to their classical sources,As I

Lay Dyingonly contains one overt reference to Te Odyssey, leaving many

critics to ponder its significance. An interesting parallel that, as Eliot

points out, demonstrates the effectiveness of the mythic method is the

way in which both the classical and contemporary stories are presented.

Using a form of literary cubism, Faulkner crafts a complicated narrative

told through the eyes of fifteen separate narrators who, from their distinct

vantage points, interpret meaning in contrasting ways. Tis format echoes

the manner in which the reader of the classical text receives the tragic story

of Agamemnon. Tis story is not presented to the reader by an omniscient

narrator but is recounted with considerable bias by a character involved

in the tragic sequence, Agamemnon. Tis same story is chronicled in

Te Agamemnon by Aeschylus, using the omniscient narrator, but is not

the source of Faulkners text. Te use of the chosen text forms a bridge

with Faulkners work and illustrates another achievement made while

incorporating the mythic method the link of narrative style with the

classical source. Considering this facet of the text, the option of Addie

Bundren as focal character of the novel once more comes under criticism.

While the focus of the contemporary work necessitates scholarly

deliberation, few scholars dispute the focus of Te Odysseyor the identity

of its main protagonist. As a classic tragedy, the source text clearly points

to Odysseus as its protagonist and hero. Te story of Agamemnon is so

far removed from its plot that no one would consider him to be a main

character. Accepting the connection between the story of Odysseus and


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the play by Aeschylus chronicling the tragic demise of Agamemnon, it is

reasonable to consider the perspective and format of the play to decipher its

focus. Given the classical perspective of the text and its relationship to the

other plays included in the Oresteiatrilogy, it is clear that the focus of the

text is not upon Agamemnon. Scholars such as Rachel Wolfe believe the

main driving force of the play to be Clytemnestra, whose role as a woman,

tyrant, mother, and murderess dominates the drama (692). Considering

the nature of the play as only a member of a greater work, many scholars

equally contend that the main character of the story is Orestes. However,

this perspective does not account for the focus given to each character

involved in the plot and ultimately falls short. Te focal point of the play

is the family and its implosion under the burden of revenge and familial

hatred. Te House of Atreus again is the subject of this Grecian tragedy as

its members rage war against each other in hopes of relief.

Te parallels between the Bundren family and the House of Atreus

strongly demonstrate the reliance of the contemporary text upon the

classical. Compared often to the eagle and snake in mythology, the members

of Atreus fought bitterly among themselves and with others to serve the

purpose of Zeus. Ironically, it was the gods desire to see the fall of both

roy and the Atreus family, and his desires were fulfilled once the ravenous

desires of each member were properly manipulated. Tese deceitful actions

do not stop after the fall of roy or the murder of Agamemnon. Using their

son, Orestes, as a vessel of retribution for the murder of a loyal servant,

Zeus orchestrates the matricide of Clytemnestra, the snake of the House


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of Atreus. Tus, the revenge of a mother for the murder of her daughter is

attained by her son.

Te dysfunctional characters of this mythical family are drawn uponin Faulkners work. While asserting their presence in the contemporary

text, they do not fully restrict or govern the characters of the contemporary

counter piece. As previously discussed, there are multiple connections

between the adult characters in both novels. Te children of both Atreus

and the Bundrens are also broadly united by the turbulent essence of

their families and the strong influence their faith has upon their fate. Te

relationship between Jewel and Darl, one of the most conflicting of the

story, begins the novel and acts as a driving force throughout the story.

While Jewel is a motivating and relentless factor behind the familys journey,Darl acts, according to scholar Elizabeth Hayes, as the journeys saboteur,

in part because his detachment allows him to recognize the journeys

ludicrous and painful qualities, and in part because his role as saboteur

places him in direct opposition to Jewel (49). Te conflict between these

two characters is perhaps the most heightened of the text. Darls obsessive

observance of his brothers attributes and features demonstrates his innate

ability to perceive truth in a family denoted by chaotic, insane notions.

Understanding the true nature of Jewels background, Darl continuously

chides his brother and moves him to anger throughout the text. It is

purposeful that these two brothers are introduced in the opening chapter

as Darl watches and analyzes his brother. He compares him to a cigar store

Indian with his pale eyes like wood set into his wooden face and records


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Te presence of fate and foretelling is a key factor of both mythical

literature and its contemporary counterpart. Ruled by their visceral passions

and lusts, Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus use the bidding of the

gods as a loophole for the immorality of their actions. After upsetting the

goddess Artemis, Agamemnon sacrifices the life of his daughter in a bargain

for safe passage to roy. Tis quest itself acts as a symbol of arrogance and

pride as they seek to destroy Paris for escaping with the wife of his brother.

Remarking on this situation, Clytemnestra explains that to take such an

action would be to trade something held most dear for something of no

value. Anse is prideful as a result of his faith and paradoxical belief in Gods

injustice and intention to make all things equal in the afterlife. Anse is

convinced that God and man have forsaken him and he places his faith in

the hope that equality will one day be achieved.

Perhaps the character from Faulkners novel most dependent upon

fate is the young and foolish Dewey Dell. Deciding her actions by the

outcome of an arbitrary game, she places herself in the arms of fate and does

not accept blame for the final result. Considering the options before her, she

states it was full when we came to the end of the row and I could not help

it (Faulkner 26). Tis reluctance to take responsibility for the future echoes

the childish actions of the archaic counterpart. Dewey Dell, exemplifying

the classical dependence on a supernatural will, believes that this game she

has devised while in the cotton field will act as a sign from God, dictating

her course of actions and relationship with others. Similar to the characters

found in theOresteia trilogy, she believes herself to be innocent of any


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self-destructive actions and does not blame any other person for her state.

Her dependence upon the spiritual world is made clear in reaction to this

situation. Like Cora ull and her father, Anse, she piously places no blame

on her fellow man or herself. As a mortal, her life is in the hands of her

god who has apparently decided that pregnancy belongs in her future. Tis

comparative dependence upon fate and the spiritual world bridges the

modern and classical texts and demonstrates the continued plight of the

modern man echoing the misfortunes of the ancient past.

Te many parallels between the two texts point to a greater

purpose than any central character or action. As Nohrnberg points out, it

is important when discussing a text grounded in this method of writing

to pinpoint some places in the texts of select fictions where the crossoverbetween ancient myth and modern novel occurs (272). Specifically, the

reader needs to analyze the portion of Faulkners text where coincident

hereupon turns into design; the fiction loses its innocence or naivet

and becomes ironic in so far as this form of obliquity entails a double

consciousness (Nohrnberg 272). Tis feeling of dj vu is found at the

climax of the tragic novel as Darl is forced to leave his family after burning

the barn. Similar to the modern text, the son of Agamemnon, Orestes, has

been sent into exile and is separated from his family. Te crucial connection

made in this passage is the symbolic destruction of the Southern livelihood.

As the House of Atreus symbolizes the classical culture of the mythical text,

the barn of the Southern family represents the fortune and well-being of the

Southern familial culture. Tis is the story of the modern Southern family


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and the challenges they face both individually and as a unit. Te South is

changing and the strain of this shift is felt most of all upon the family unit.

Te Bundren family, like the House of Atreus, is brought to its demise by

violence, deceit and insanity.

By utilizing the mythical method and modern writing methods

such as stream of consciousness and, specifically, literary cubism, Faulkner

was able to present a text that, according to Eliot, is able to face the anarchic

atmosphere of the modern world. Rooted in the classical tradition and

bridged to the plight of the modern Southerner, the novel successfully

reveals several central issues plaguing Southern culture. Te connections

observed between the characters and drama of the texts demonstrates the

aesthetic value of this writing method. By analyzing classical references laidforth in the text and within the context of modern and classical cultures, a

core meaning of the novel may be further investigated.


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Works Cited

Aeschylus. Te Oresteia. New York: Dell, 1965. Print.

Chappel, Deborah K. Pa Says: Te Rhetoric of Faulkners Anse Bundren.

Te Mississippi Quarterly44.3 (1991): 273. Print.

Doyle, Andrea. Cassandra: Feminine Corrective in AeschylussAgamemnon.

Acta Classica51 (2008): 57. Print.

Eliot, S. Ulysses, Order, and Myth. New York: Dial Publishing Co., 1923.

Print.

Faulkner, William.As I Lay Dying. New York: Random House, 1957. Print.

Fowler, Doreen. Matricide and the Mothers Revenge:As I Lay Dying. Te

Faulkner Journal4.2 (1989): 113-25. Print.

Hayes, Elizabeth. ension Between Darl and Jewel. Te Southern Literary

Journal24.2 (1992): 49. Print.

Hewson, Marc. My Children were of Me Alone: Te Maternal Influence

in FaulknersAs I Lay Dying. Te Mississippi Quarterly 53.4 (2000):

551. Print.

Homer. Te Odyssey. New York: Penguin. Print.

Millgate, Michael. Faulkners Portrayal of the South. Readings on William

Faulkner. Ed. Clarice Swisher, Bruno Leone, Bonnie Szumski, and

Brenda Stalcup. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 1998. 32-38. Print.


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Nohrnberg, James. Te Mythical Method in Song and Saga, Verse and Prose:

Part 2. Forum for World Literature Studies2.2 (2010): 270. Print.

Rule, Philip C. Te Old estament themes in As I Lay Dying. Readingson William Faulkner. Ed. Clarice Swisher, Bruno Leone, Bonnie

Szumski, and Brenda Stalcup. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 1998.

32-38. Print.

Wolfe, Rachel M.E. Woman, yrant, Mother, Murderess: An Exploration ofthe Mythic Character of Clytemnestra in All Her Forms. Womens

Studies38.6 (2009): 692-719. Print.


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Yen-Chi Wuis a doctoral student at

aiwans National aiwan Normal University


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imagination, in which she roams the streets in Rome. Terefore, in sharp

contrast to Carrolls Alice whose changeable body shrinks and enlarges and

whose neck elongates, Sontag presents a most physically confined Alice: sick

in bed, with multiple layers of mattresses on top of her (AB7). Significantly,

in the afterword to her play, Sontag alludes to Virginia Woolfs A Room of

Ones Own, in which Woolf also proposes a hypothetical question: what

should have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister,

called Judith[?] (46). o this question, Woolf offers a gloomier picture; for a

woman in Shakespeares time, pursuing a literary dream is simply impossible.

Woolf wrote:

For it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl

who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted

and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her

own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a

certainty[emphasis added]. (49)

Woolf s imagination of the physically and mentally troubled female artist in

an accommodating time certainly applies to the historical Alice James, who

suffered from both hysteria and cancer. Sontags astute allusion to Woolfs

imagination adds another layer of intertextuality to Sontags play. Via Woolf,

writing in the 1920s, Sontag, writing in the 1990s, connects Alice James

in the nineteenth century with Woolfs imagined Judith Shakespeare in thesixteenth century. Sontags play thus weaves a delicate feminist intertextuality

in her fantasy play.

Tis essay, drawing from the theory of intertextuality, argues that Sontag

borrows the trope of body from Carrolls fantasy book, and with a feminist

twist, renders her protagonist Alice James as a metaphor2 that exposes the

2 Admittedly, to posit a historical figure as a metaphor is semantically question-able. I choose to use this term as an allusion to Sontags Illness as Metaphor, in which Sontagexamines the metaphorical meanings associated with certain illness. Here, Sontags treatmentof metaphor is akin to a more general idea of symbolic meaning or cultural representation.For the purpose of this essay, I will follow Sontags use of metaphor in her book, which I willdiscuss in later sections in relation to her play.


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societal repression of the female body in the Victorian era.

Feminist Intertextuality: Weaving the ext

Te term intertextuality first appeared in 1960s France when post-structuralism was at its height. It was an idea that aims to challenge a texts

independent meaning.3 Seeing a text as produced in relation to other

texts, the theory argues that to interpret a text is to trace the network of

textual relations. Terefore, the idea of intertextuality not only undermines

the fixed meaning in a text, but also challenges the ways readers read, and

writers write. As Graham Allen states rather grandly in his critical monographIntertextuality: the term intertextuality promotes a new vision of meaning,

and thus of authorship and reading: a vision resistant to ingrained notions

of originality, uniqueness, singularity and autonomy (6). In other words,

foregrounding inter-textual relations, the idea of intertextuality not only

unchains the meanings of a text, it also liberates and complicates both reading

and writing: readers no longer just sit down in front of a text and try to uncoverthe ingrained meaning in a text; they can now take a more active role and

develop meanings from the textual relations. Writers, on the other hand, can

no longer claim originality, for their work is inevitably produced in relation

to previous texts. Intertextualitys new vision of meaning, authorship and

reading are equally crucial. For the purpose of this essay, however, I will focus

on intertextualitys vision of authorship to examine how Sontag, as a femalewriter, reacts to the theory of intertextuality.

Accentuating intertextual relations, the theory of intertextuality

resists a texts originality and uniqueness. New writers in particular find it

difficult to assert their works originality, because they are faced with the

greatest writers and the greatest work that had come before them. Tey

cannot help but feel they have come to the game too late. Nevertheless, this

3 Julia Kristeva has been credited as the one who coined the term intertextuality.Nevertheless, Kristeva owed much to previous theorists, such as Ferdinand de Saussureslinguistic theory, M. M. Bakhtins dialogism and Roland Barthess theorization of text. See

Allen.


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inevitable belatedness induces different reactions from male and female

writers. Harold Bloom, combining intertextuality with Freudian theories,

contends that writers would feel anxieties of influence toward their literary

forefathers, as the latter writers are unable to claim priority (12). Using

Freudian ideas, however, Bloom falls short of gender perspective, as he sees

the relationship between early writers and their predecessors only in terms of

father and son (11), thus excluding the female experience. From a feminist

perspective, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar contend that Blooms lack of

gender perspective reveals exactly the male dominance and conceptualization

of literary genealogy. Tey propose that, unlike their male counterparts who

suffer from the anxiety of influence, female writers would feel anxiety

of authorship (49). Female writers, according to Gilbert and Gubar, were

unable to take up the pen, which, like penis, is symbolic of male generative

power (6). Hence, female writers anxiety of authorship is a radical fear

that she cannot create, that because she can never become a precursor the act

of writing will isolate or destroy her (49). o counter this anxiety, a female

writer usually begins her struggle by actively seeking a female precursor

(49). Terefore, intertextuality is perceived in drastically different terms by

male and female writers; as Gilbert and Gubar brilliantly put it: Te son of

many fathers, todays male writer feels hopelessly belated; the daughter of too

few mothers, todays female writer feels that she is helping to create a viable

tradition which is at last definitively emerging (50). In short, intertextuality,

as perceived by a female writer, is a helpful means to claiming lineage to

her literary mothers, and to being part of a female writing tradition in the

making. Graham Allen further argues, the notion of intertextuality, with

its connotations of webs and weaving, constitutes an opportunity for such

a feminization of the symbolics of the act of writing (146). Tat is, the

feminist take on intertextuality has created its own symbol of writing; instead

of taking up the phallus-pen to write a work, a female writer weaves her

text. Such a feminist intertextuality is prominent in Susan Sontags Alice in

Bed, as Sontag puts the historical Alice James in the center of her play and

weaves a text that honors her literary mothers and sisters.


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InAlice in Bed, Sontag borrows from Lewis CarrollsAlices Adventures

in Wonderland and re-creates her version of the mad tea party, at which

Sontag summons ghosts of female literary figures to consult her heroine Alice

James. Te party guests include Margaret Fuller, one of the first American

feminist activists, Emily Dickinson, the genius female poet recluse, Myrtha,

the vengeful Queen of the Wilis from Giselle, and from Parsifal the guilt-

ridden Kundry who takes on the role of dormouse and sleeps through the

tea party. In a sense, Sontags female version of the mad tea party becomes a

literal representation of feminist intertextuality, where the literary mothers

are convened to console their daughter Alice. More significantly, in this scene,

Sontags Alice James becomes a double of the child protagonist in Lewis

Carrolls fantasy tale, through a shared name.

Alice as Metaphor

Te fact that Sontags heroine and Carrolls child-protagonist share

the same name has been considered a happy coincidence (Walker 143).Nevertheless, considering the cultural context, the two womens shared

name is not so coincidental after all. Carrolls muse for theAlicebooks is his

childhood friend, Alice Pleasance Liddell, who was a close contemporary to

Alice James. Alice James was born in 1848 and died of breast cancer in 1892.

Alice Liddell was born four years later than James in 1852 and enjoyed a long

life till her death in 1934. Notably, only a few years before these two womenwere born, Queen Victoria gave birth to her third child in 1843 and named

her Alice. In honor of the baby Princess, Alice became a popular girls name

in the mid-Victorian era. Although there is no direct evidence that either

Alice James or Alice Liddell was named after the Princess, there is no doubt

that they are part of the trend.4Against this backdrop, Alice is more than

4 It may worth a footnote to mention that, according to biographer Jean Strouse,Alice was the only of the five James children not named for a relative or family friend (22).Tis fact may give credibility to the idea that Alice is named in her contemporary fashion tohonor the baby Princess Alice. In addition, Alice Jamess eldest brother William is married toa woman named Alice; another of her brothers, Wilky, also names his daughter Alice (Strouse

22). Tis shows that Alice is indeed a popular girls name in the Victorian era.


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a mere girls name; it has become a cultural signifier, or a metaphor, that

represents Victorian women. Nevertheless, the two Alices with whom this

essay is concerned had very different lives. Tey represent the two different

faces of Victorian woman: the woman who enters into marriage and dutifully

plays domestic roles, and the genius woman who spends her whole life

resisting societal expectations of women.

Te younger Alice, Alice Pleasance Liddell, was born into an upper-

middle-class family. Her father was Dean of Christ Church in Oxford, where

she befriended the mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis

Carroll). Mr. and Mrs. Liddell favored marriage over education, as many

Victorian parents did, when planning their daughters future (Jones and

Gladstone 25, 158), so Alice and her sisters were educated at home. In lieu of

an eventful school life, Alice developed an interesting romance: it is generally

believed that she had a short romance with Queen Victorias eighth child,

Prince Leopold, when he studied at Oxford.5Alice was eventually married to

Reginald Hargreaves, with whom she lived a rich and comfortable country-

house life (Jones and Gladstone 158). Although her later years were marred

by the loss of two of her sons who died during World War I, Alice Liddell

dutifully played her female roles as a mother and a wife; she had a life that

Queen Victoria would have approved of.

In contrast, the elder Alice, Alice James, led an unhappy life. Te littlesister of the psychologist William and the novelist Henry James, Alice had no

worldly accomplishments in her lifetime like her two elder brothers did. She

made her name when her diary was published posthumously in the 1940s,

and was instantly lauded as a female genius and likened to Emily Dickinson

(Strouse 325). In short, as Iris Fanger suggests, Alice James is generally

remembered with a sigh for what might have been (14). With the imaginaryJudith Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson in mind, one may easily align Alice

James with her genius literary sisters whose talents were never appreciated

5 As interesting anecdotes, Prince Leopold names his daughter Alice. Alice Liddellalso names her second son Leopold after the Prince (Jones and Gladstone 160).


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cancer, neatly represents the repressed female body in Victorian era.

InAlice in Bed, Sontag presents her Alice as a bedridden patient. Her

condition is both physical and mental. She cannot and willnot leave the

bed. In addition to her immobility, Sontag deliberately makes her heroine

appear small. In the stage direction, Sontag describes her middle-aged

Alices appearance as childlike (AB7); she also designs the furniture to be

disproportionately large so that [Alice] seems very small on stage (AB78).

At one point in the play, Alice James remarks, Im trapped inside this turbid

self that suffers, that closes me in, that makes me small (AB103). In this

aspect, Sontag relates immobility to physical size as a trope to represent Alices

repression. Significantly, this trope of body is also evident in Lewis Carrolls

Alice, whose altering size is related to her frustration. Sontag suggests that

the arbitrary changes in physical size and scale of Carrolls Alice reflects

the child-protagonists perplexities about her feelings (AB 115). Tis

observation is shared by many critics, who also see Alices changing body in

Wonderland as her perplexed identity.

Alices Curious Body in Wonderland

InAlices Adventures in Wonderland, Alice undergoes twelve occasions

where she alters her size (Gardner 17; note 10).6 Critics have seen her

changing size in relation to the problem of identity. Jan Gordon, for

instance, indicates that [o]nce thrust into a strange kingdom, a relativism

of size and language forces her to be literally at sea (26). In the fantasy tale,

Alices altering size does confuse her identity. In Chapter Five of the book,

Alice seeks advice from a Caterpillar who throws the question at her: Who

areyou? (AA47), which Alice is unable to answer. She remarks that being

so many different sizes in a day is very confusing (AA48). Alices identity

crisis is further enhanced by her encounter with the Pigeon when her neck

6 Quotations ofAlices Adventures in Wonderlandare from the definitive editionof Te Annotated Alice, with introduction and notes by Martin Gardner. Citations fromCarrollsAlicebook will be referred to asAAin parentheses hereafter, while citations from

Gardners notes will be referred to under his name with the number of the note specified.


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shoots off her shoulders, reaches through the branches and startles the bird.

Upon seeing Alice, the Pigeon screams Serpent! (AA54). Despite Alices

efforts to assure the Pigeon that she is a little girl, the Pigeon insists that

she is a serpent. In the Pigeons reasoning, serpent eats eggs, and since Alice

admits that she too eats eggs, she must be a serpent. In this sense, Alices

altering body is constantly questioned and misidentified by other animals

in the wonderland. In other words, Alices adventures in the bizarre world

can be read as a girl-childs quest for identity. Notably, although Alice goes

through twelve transformations, most of time she remains smaller than her

actual size. Her smallness signifies her lack of power. Her relativism of size

therefore signifies her identity problem; she is constantly defined by others

who tell her who she is. She does not have a say in it. It is not until the end

of her dream, when Alice grows to her full size in the courtroom that she

manages to regain her power and to challenge the Queen of Hearts: Who

cares for you? [] Youre nothing but a pack of cards! (AA124). From

this scene, Nina Auerbach suggests, her sudden growth gives her the power

to break out of a dream that has become too dangerous (34). Resuming the

full size of her body, Alice regains her stable identity and becomes the child

dozing off by the riverbank.

In this reading of Alices altering body in wonderland, the relativism

of size signifies the girl-childs identity problem. In Alice in Bed, Sontag

borrows this trope of body imagination and renders it with feminist critique.

Virginia Woolf, inA Room of Ones Own, argues that [w]omen have served

all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious

power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size (35). In this

sense, the relativism of body size reflects the unequal power between men

and women. Women are made smaller to compliment mens huge egos.

Following this trope of body, Sontag makes her heroine appear smaller on

stage. Nevertheless, unlike Carrolls Alice, whose changing body wanders in

the imaginary wonderland, Sontags Alice is intended to be put on stage in

front of real audience.


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Alices Ailing Body on Stage

Susan Sontag writes in the afterword to her play, I think I have been

preparing to writeAlice in Bedall my life (AB117). Alice Jamess life story is

symbolic and inspirational for creative writing, but what is more significant

is the medium with which Sontag chooses to tell her story: the theater.

Sontag was a versatile writer: she made her name as an essayist; she wrote

award-winning novels; she also directed and wrote several plays. Julia Walker

convincingly argues that the theaterwith its ability to stage the dialectical

relationship between bodies and wordswas a principal concern of Sontags

(135). Te theater, in this sense, allows Sontag to embody her words and

thoughts on stage; the actress on stage materializes Alice Jamess ailing body

that serves metaphoric meaning. Walker argues that Sontags special interest

in theater as her artistic expression correlates with her belief that art has a

cathartic power to inspire its audience to take moral and political action

(129). In a similar vein, Robert Brustein also acknowledges Sontags choice

of theatrical presentation; he states, [o]n the page, Alice in Bedlooks slight

and underwritten, meandering, even a little precious. On the stage, it is an

engrossing and sometimes moving experience (26). In this aspect, both

Walker and Brustein consider that Alice in Bedpossesses strong power on

stage; the actresss performing body that materializes Sontags words wields a

cathartic power that could move the audience to action.

According to Walker, theater allows Sontag to explore the aspect of

active identification which concerns the ability of a work of art to engage

and activate its viewers sympathies (136). Sontags theatrical representation

of Alice Jamess ailing body invites her audience to identify with her Victorian

career invalid, and to imagine a state of freedom beyond the patriarchal

disciplines imposed on womens bodies (Walker 150). Te historical AliceJames was a victim of patriarchal discipline. In the play, Sontag tries to free

Alice from her sickly body in her imagination. In Scene Six, after the tea

party scene, Alice appears on stage in bed, but her imagination runs wild to

the streets in Rome, where Margaret Fuller, one of her consultants at the tea


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party, and her brother Henry James have traveled. In her imagination, Alice

tastes the possibility she never realized in life; in her mind, she is freed from

her bedridden body. At the end of this scene, Alice declares, I wont say how

big or how small anything is. My mind doesnt have a size. One size fits all

(AB85). Reiterating the body imagination borrowed from Carrolls fantasy

tale, Sontag has her Alice triumph over the relativism of size in her fantasy:

Alices imagination helps her battle the dire reality in which she is always

too small. However, Sontag states in her afterword to the play, the victories

of the imagination are not enough (AB117).Alice in Bed, by staging Alice

Jamess sickly body on stage, sends a strong feminist message to its audience.

And hopefully, the female body will be freed, not only in imagination and on

stage, but in reality.

Intertextuality and Body Imagination

By way of feminist intertextuality, Susan Sontag links her story to

Virginia Woolfs imaginary Judith Shakespeare and Lewis Carrolls Alicein the imagined Wonderland. Te feminist intertextuality and the trope of

body allow Sontag to render Alice James with metaphoric meanings, through

which Sontag reaches back to her literary mothers, paying homage to them

and joining the delicate web of feminist intertextuality.

In the end, it is crucial to return to Carrolls Alice book and see how

Sontags feminist intertextuality might facilitate a feminist reading to Carrolls

classic childrens book. Carl Rollyson compares Alice in Bed with Alices

Adventures in Wonderlandin that, like Sontags Alice James triumphing over

her imagination, Carrolls Alice speaks to the world of imagination that saved

her from a dull and demeaning childhood (39). Jo Elwyn Jones and J. Francis

Gladstone also remind us that Alices adventures begin with boredom,

because she has nothing to do (25). A girl of Alices class in the Victorian

era is not expected to do much; as Jones and Gladstone further explain, [w]

ith marriage as their mothers only goal for them, education of girls like the

Liddell sister took a secondary place (25). In this aspect, Alices boredom

is the result of societal expectations of Victorian women; as a girl-child, her


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future has been planned for her. Terefore, Alices boredom triggers her dream

of a Wonderland where she can alter her size and experience adventures that

are impossible for her in the real world. Alices dream and imagination are

her escapes from her dreary Victorian girlhood. Significantly, in the end of

the fantasy tale, the narrative focus shifts to Alices elder sister, who in turn

dreams her little sister growing up in the future. She lovingly imagines that

Alice will share this dream of Wonderland with her little children (AA127).

In this short final scene, Alices sister is imagining Alice taking up the role of

a mother. Tis confirms the fact that Alice will grow up some day. And as an

adult woman, Alice can no longer shun the societal expectation which is the

source of her boredom, by escaping into her imaginary Wonderland.

Tis ending of the fantasy tale, with an older sisters perspective on

the younger, echoes a sense of sisterhood which is embedded in the feminist

intertextuality. Imagination offers Alice an escape from her boredom in

Alices Adventures in Wonderland and from her ailing body in Alice in Bed.

Imagination is power: it weaves feminine texts into feminist intertextuality,and it frees the female body from confining reality. But as Sontag reminds us,

the victories of imagination are not enough. Action must be taken.


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Works Cited

Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. London: Routledge, 2000.

Auerbach, Nina. Alice and Wonderland: A Curious Child.Lewis Carroll.Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. 31-52.

Bloom, Harold. Te Anxiety of Influence: A Teory of Poetry. Oxford: Oxford

UP, 1973.

Brustein, Robert. Deconstructing Susan.Te New Republic11 Dec. 2000:

25-26.

Carroll, Lewis. Te Annotated Alice:Alices Adventures in Wonderland and

Trough the Looking-Glass.Te Definitive Edition. Intro.

and Notes by Martin Gardner.New York: Norton 2000.

Fanger, Iris. Alice James Faced Life in a Nightgown. Christian Science

Monitor88.104 (1996): 14.

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. Te Madwoman in the Attic: Te

Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination.

New Haven: Yale UP, 1979.

Gordon, Jan B. TeAliceBooks and the Metaphor of Victorian

Childhood. Lewis Carroll. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea

House, 1987. 17-30.

Jones, Jo Elwyn, and J. Francis Gladstone. TeAlice Companion: A Guide

to Lewis CarrollsAliceBooks. New York: New York UP, 1998.

Rollyson, Carl. Reading Susan Sontag: A Critical Introduction to Her

Work. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001.

Sontag, Susan.Alice in Bed: A Play. 1993. London: Vintage, 1994.

---. Illness as Metaphor. New York: Vintage, 1979.


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Strouse, Jean.Alice James: A Biography. 1980. New York: New York Review

of Books, 2011.

Walker, Julia A. Sontag on Teater. Te Scandal of Susan Sontag. Ed.

Barbara Ching and Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor. New York:Columbia UP, 2009. 128-54.

Woolf, Virginia.A Room of Ones Own. 1929. New York: Harcourt, 1989.


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ara Bowersis an undergraduate student at

Sonoma State University.


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Iago, Nature, and Society: Iagos Destruction of ruth through Nature

Metaphors and Manipulation

Iago may be a villain, but every villain has a story. What drivesIagos crude nature metaphors and poisonous manipulation? As an ecocritic,

I find there are many pieces of dialogue in Othellothat stand out as relating

to nature in some way, whether it is the weather, the scenery, or animals.

With a little study it quickly becomes apparent that the majority of this

dialogue belongs to Iago. Before proceeding further, I would like to define

nature in this paper as referring to any element from the natural world,

outside of humans. In this case, nature does not pertain to natural

emotions exhibited by characters in the play, but it does include the forces

of nature; plants and animals, and could also be referred to as wildernessor the wild, (Strickler). Tis aside, there are many questions that Iagos

dialogue brings up that I would like to answer with this paper. In this work

I am exploring Iagos use of nature metaphors to gain power over both the

agency of nature that he fears and the social situations he wishes to control.

Tis manipulation of nature through metaphors mirrors Iagos manipulation

of other characters and thereby corrupts the search for truth by Desdemona

and Othello.

o begin, I want to establish a system of analysis developed by

the ecocritic Frederick Waage. Since ecocriticism is fairly undeveloped in

its theory and lacks, for the most part, terms specific to its study. Waages

system begins with choosing a topic which can be a definable entity,

process, behavior, or issue that is related to human interaction with


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the environment (140). In this paper my topics will be concerned with

process and behavior as related to Iago and his nature metaphors. o

clarify, Waage considers process to be an interactivity between entities,

including humans, in ecosystemic (or guild) relationship. and behavior

to be, action, generalized or entity-specific, within or contributory to, the

dynamic or ecosystemic process (140). From an ecocritics point of view,

one can, rather than looking specifically at the social situation that is being

created, look at how the outer, natural world is viewed, and how the natural

world is being used in relation to a social situation. While keeping this

system of analysis in mind, we will begin with the first question from above,

considering how Iago actually feels about nature.

It would seem at first that Iago is disrespectful of nature, and so heuses crude nature metaphors to disrespect the people and social situations

with which he comes in contact. Tis idea is compounded by one of

Iagos early pieces of dialogue, when he is speaking to Brabantio about

Desdemonas elopement,

youll have your daughter covered with a Barbary

Horse, youll have your nephews neigh to you,

youll have / coursers for cousins, and jennets for germans.

(I.i.109-112)

But what if there is something more to how Iago feels about nature that

shows itself more subtly in his speech? What if, he is actually spiteful of

nature; or, to use an ecocritical term; ecophobic? Simon Estok defines


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ecophobia as An irrational (often hysterical) and groundless hatred of

the natural world, or aspects of it. Such fear of the agency of Nature plays

out in many spheres (112). In addition to this definition, Estok says that

ecophobia is about power (113), which is something that Iago is very

concerned with throughout the play In every way, Iago is trying to create

and maintain power over other people in the play. He wishes to take Cassios

place in the military to displace Othello, and to ruin the happiness of all the

characters, whether directly or indirectly. He even shows us that he is clearly

aware of the harm his actions and words cause others in the line, Te Moor

already changes with my poison (III.iii.328). Iago knows his words can be

poisonous to the minds of others, but his need for control is strong. Tis

control amounts to having more power over the world he lives in, both the

natural world and society. However, there is also the aspect of phobia. At

first one might baulk at the thought of Iago fearing anything, but with a

little analysis something like fear can be discovered in Iagos speech.

If we look at Iagos nature metaphors as derogatory not just

towards people, but towards nature as w

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