Orientalist Interpretations of the Gothic in "The Bloody Chamber"

by Jordan Kasko

 
While in the process of researching, cogitating upon, and writing this essay, I took various opportunities to discuss my subject matter with others. Almost invariably, my sounding board would seem puzzled as to how I could connect the Gothic (and I’m sure that each person has a slightly different concept of what the Gothic actually is) with the Orientalism of Edward Said and his protégés. For those that are familiar with both the literary style and the theory, however, the stretch shouldn’t seem too great: the darkness, mystery, and superstition of the Gothic lends itself well to the Occident’s interpretation of the Orient, even if the majority of Gothic stories are set in the Western world. Additionally, the true Gothic – the romance; the woman leaving her home for a strange, faraway castle or mansion with its secrecy and apprehension – reflects a journey to the East, to the unknown, to the land of the fantastical and occasionally horrific. Particularly, the man who draws the woman away – usually a Byronic character of sorts, hero or villain as he may be – mirrors the Orient because of his magnetic, sexual, opaque, and mystical personality. It is my intention to show that, by utilizing the Western paradox of fear of and obsession with the Orient in its role as the “Other,” Angela Carter creates the Gothic in her story “The Bloody Romance.”

Obviously, this application of Orientalism to the Gothic through Carter’s story is merely a case study; I believe that Gothic writers constantly utilize Orientalism to create many of the Gothic’s essential characteristics. First, there is the movement at the beginning of a tale to a foreign abode. Carter wastes no time setting up this premise: at the end of the first paragraph, she describes her character taking a train “away from Paris, away from girlhood, away from the white, enclosed quietude of my mother’s apartment, into the unguessable country of marriage” (7). Her diction is symbolic here: though the protagonist is merely moving to another part of France, her marriage is an “unguessable country,” not unlike those countries of the East which Westerners could barely fathom. She does not know what to expect, and she can only understand it through her Parisian eyes. In addition, there is the word “white,” which seems to add nothing more to the sentence (beyond, perhaps, revealing the proclivity of Gothic writers towards endless adjectives) other than a sense of race. If her home in Paris was white, and she is departing it, then the assumption is made that she is moving somewhere that is not white. Somewhere that is black, perhaps – an allusion to the bleak Gothic as well as to the racist “Other” that lives outside of the Western world. The “Other” that was “born” in a “marvelous castle” (9) which she now approaches as if it were a foreign land.

Secondly, the descriptions of both the castle and the man in “The Bloody Chamber” are blatantly idealized in a tradition that nearly screams of Orientalism. The mansion has a “faery solitude;” it is “a mysterious, amphibious place, contravening the materiality of both earth and the waves;” it is a “lovely, sad, sea-siren of a place” (13). It is full of Eastern books (17), china cabinets (20), and “Russian leather” (12) – in fact, one could almost imagine it as a Turkish khan or an Indian palace. When the narrator describes “gold bath taps” (24), she is talking about them in terms of a strange luxury, one that exemplifies the extreme wealth of the Marquis, something often associated with the nobles of the East. Money sets a man apart from his peers; it makes him unreachable and unknowable on many levels, adding to the Orientalist view of the Bluebeard-character in “The Bloody Chamber.”

Further, the antagonist is portrayed as a bearing a “male scent of leather and spices” (8); his eyes are “dark and motionless as those eyes the ancient Egyptians painted upon their sarcophagi” (12). His face is “like a mask” (9), and the narrator cannot even describe him in terms of humanity: the analogy she uses for her husband is a “cobra-headed, funereal [lily]” (9). All of these descriptors are archetypal views of the East from the West’s perspective. The East contained spices and rich scents; they were traded to Europe in vast amounts. If a European’s only experience with the East was by way of a bottle of perfume or a sip of tea, wouldn’t he associate these pungent and fragrant smells with the faraway lands? The narrator’s comparison of the Marquis’ face with “a mask,” particularly an Egyptian death mask, adds to the morbidity and esoteric mysticism of the antagonist. Finally, a lily, while not necessarily a symbol of the East (it is native to both Asia and Europe, though many lilies in Europe were of the Asian variety [Explanation: Lily]), is depicted as one through the descriptor “cobra-headed.” Cobras were, of course, most often associated with the Middle East and/or India.

As if these copious depictions of the castle and the man were not enough to create a vision of the Orient in the reader, Carter goes even further. Because of their sexual conservatism, much of it religiously influenced, the West identified the East with liberal eroticism and sensuality, believing them to be much more open about nudity and sex. Thus, two Eastern concepts – the Turkish bathhouse and the polygynous harem – specifically entranced the Occident. While the bath is only hinted at in “The Bloody Chamber” (23-24, 33), the concept of the harem is a motif in the story. The heroine is well aware that her husband has been “married three times” before her, and that she is merely “join[ing] this gallery of beautiful women” (10). She is obsessed with finding out as much as she can about his previous wives (26), and when the narrator discovers the “bloody chamber” itself, with his deceased harem of wives, Carter invokes a cultural image of Henry VIII or, alternately, Bluebeard, the story that “The Bloody Chamber” is modeled after. Further, the bedroom where the narrator loses her virginity is covered with “a dozen” (15) mirrors, multiplying the virgin bride by twelve, a fact that is not lost on the Marquis. “I have acquired a whole harem for myself!” (14) he says, and the reader sees him as an Eastern Sultan, both because of his inferred polygamy and because of his wealth. He is as “rich as Croesus” (10) – an ancient Turkish king, predictably.

Speaking of mirrors, there is one more subject I would like to touch on before I discuss how all of these Orientalist images create the Gothic in Carter’s story . Namely, the notion of the Hegelian “Other,” and how the narrator of “The Bloody Chamber” defines herself in relation to her husband. She is only a “child” (7) at the beginning of the story, “seventeen and [knowing] nothing of the world” (9). In a Lacanian setting, she achieves self-awareness through mirrors, both at the playhouse to see Tristan and in her bridal bed. In the playhouse, she sees
him watching me in the gilded mirrors with the assessing eye of a connoisseur inspecting horseflesh …

When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me, my pale face, the way the muscles in my neck stuck out like thin wire … And, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away. (11)

She can only begin to build a self-image when she sees herself through his eyes, and because he is the Byronic character of darkness and corruption, the reflection on herself is parallel to him. She goes even further in the bedroom, defining herself Orientally in terms of her husband – the “Other” – by reversing the sexual and stylistic aspects of Orientalism. The narrator says, “I saw, in the mirror … the child with her sticklike limbs, naked but for her button boots, her gloves … and the old, monocled lecher who examined her, limb by limb. He in his London tailoring; she, bare as a lamb chop. Most pornographic of all confrontations” (15). She compares her nudity and vulnerability to his high-class gentility, swapping the East/West binary momentarily in order to define herself as the antithesis of her husband.

In fact, this is the root of Orientalism: some sort of a priori knowledge that all of the Orient is similar and, as a whole, is fundamentally antithetical to the Occident. The West comes to define itself, partially or mostly, as what the East is not. The West sees the East as intriguing yet subversively corruptive, and is therefore equally in love with it and afraid of it. Sound familiar? That’s the basis of the cultural draw toward the genres of Horror and the Gothic. Carter exploits this in “The Bloody Chamber” by painting her settings and characters in essentially Oriental terms. The movement to an extrinsic setting that is wholly congruent with traditional views of the East unsettles the reader; it creates a sense of exoticism and even barbarianism on an internal and perhaps unconscious level because of the reader’s cultural clichés. Carter further disturbs her readers by making her antagonist, the core of the horror, only superficially European. He is a “mysterious being” (22), wealthy and Sultan-like, a Byronic villain that is intended to scare the reader. Without the Eastern je ne sais quoi, however, he would merely be Rochester in Jane Eyre: dark and mysterious but not overly frightening. Lastly, by seeing the Marquis as capable of counterfeiting the Westerner and possibly corrupting the heroine through her definition of herself, the reader is rattled on a psychological level. Without these Oriental elements that prey on the West’s preconceived cultural assumptions and notions of the East, “The Bloody Chamber” would not agitate the reader, through the Gothic, as effectively.


Works Cited:

"Explanation: Lily." Wonder Flowers. Web. 10 Mar. 2010.


~03/10

The Zen of Haiku

The Zen of Haiku
by Jordan Kasko

“Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don’t make sense
Refrigerator”
-haiku from threadless.com t-shirt

I have known the basic definition of a haiku since I can remember. In its simplest form, it is a good version of poetry for kids to read or write. It consists of three lines: the first contains five syllables, the second seven, and the third five again. A haiku does not need to rhyme, nor does it require punctuation or any sense of strict grammatical structure. That was all I knew about haiku. But if one paragraph would suffice to describe this form of Japanese poetry, it would not be a good subject for an inquisitive paper.

Though I cannot read Japanese, I thought knowing the kanji for the word would help so I could begin to immerse myself in this noble form of poetry. The word haiku (俳句) has only been around since the end of the 19th century, but it has a grand ancestry dating back more than a thousand years (Society). It originated in a Japanese poetic form called the tanka (Society), which used a set system of on and/or ji, similar to syllables in English, as the primary organization for the poetry. In Japanese, on means “sound” and ji means “character.” Either term, the combination onji, or the word mora represent the Japanese equivalent of the syllable. As Dr. Gilbert explains, “English speakers divide words into syllables while Japanese speakers divide words into morae. Due to this difference, a native speaker of English divides 'London' into two syllables, while a native speaker of Japanese considers the word as consisting of four morae. [lo/n/do/n] . . . Mora is considered as a timing unit, especially within the larger context of words” (Gilbert). On-setsu, on the other hand, is the Japanese term for the English syllable, of which modern English haiku are composed (Gilbert). Because each separate sound is an onji in Japanese, original haiku are much shorter than American haikus, which use American syllables and thus can be comprised of more words.

With a pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 onji per line, the tanka, or “short renga,” evolved into the primary form of Japanese poetry somewhere between the 9th and 12th centuries C.E. The beginning 5-7-5 unit of the tanka is called the maeku, and was frequently the beginning of a “call and answer” type of poetry, with the first person writing the maeku and the second responding with the 7-7 part of the tanka, called a tsukeku (literally, “added verse”). These short renga “touched on religious or courtly themes, and were often grouped together in large chains called ‘chōrenga’” (Wikipedia). Multiple authors would frequently contribute to one chōrenga, each composing several tanka (Society). In early times, the long renga sometimes reached 100, 1000, or even 10,000 links. It went through several adaptations and sets of rules, and one popular form that evolved was the haikai no renga or simply haikai (俳諧の連歌), a form utilizing humor and wit (Renga). The first passage of the renga developed increasing importance, as it set the stage for the rest of the poem, and was called a hokku. Late 17th-century poet haikai poet Matsuo Bashō, recognized as one of the greatest Japanese poets, popularized the haikai form and his hokku were the forerunners of the modern haiku. In the latter half of the 19th century, the poet Masaoka Shiki officially separated the hokku from the tanka and a new form of poetry, the haiku, was born (Society).

Having finished a summary of the history of the haiku, enough for a basic understanding of its roots, I decided to turn my attention to the poetic devices used in haiku, the subject matter, and other details of the poems themselves. Upon finding whole books dedicated to these subjects, however, I realized that any information I can fit into a term paper will be wanting in substance because of necessary brevity. One might presume that a three-line poem takes hardly any forethought and no time to write; one would be wrong. If the poetry of haiku were the Earth, understanding the form and the history would barely delve into the topsoil, much less reach the mantle. In fact, the Japanese say that it takes 20 years to be able to write haiku or renga with ease (Finlay). My intention of writing some haiku for an addition to the appendix of this paper now seems futile. Reading the “Haiku Guidelines” section of Finlay’s book, I started to understand the state of mind and spirituality of haiku poets. The guidelines included, “haiku arises out of unguardedness, occurring when the writer is least identified with the idea of being a poet,” “haiku should follow their readers rather than lead them,” “a haiku should convey atmosphere and depth without being overtly philosophical or sentimental,” and “the best haiku hint at something beyond” (Finlay).

“Haiku,” R.H. Blyth says, “are to be understood from the Zen point of view.” Zen, in his book, is defined as a state of mind based upon thirteen qualities, including selflessness, graceful acceptance, wordlessness, simplicity, courage, and love. Blyth’s books on haiku were some of the first Western books that delved deeply into the subject, and many Japanese and English writers have agreed with his evaluations. Daisetz Suzuki, a Japanese writer, added the idea that in addition to Zen, “a haiku does not express ideas but…puts forward images reflecting intuitions” (Sato). Blyth further calls haiku a state of “temporary enlightenment.” I am beginning to understand how Zen poetry is so different from Western poetry. If I want to write a sonnet, I take out my rhyming dictionary, invent a subject (usually love), and begin to write in iambic pentameter. If I want to write a haiku, however, I must open myself to the world, forget that I am a writer, become one with nature, and still retain the presence of mind to scribble a few noble lines.

Setting aside the spirituality of Zen for a moment, there are certain poetic techniques that are commonly found in haiku. Humor and puns, for example, are everpresent, despite the seriousness of the style of poetry. “Brevity,” Blyth says, “is called the soul of wit.” Haiku concentrate on quality rather than quantity. Onomatopoeia is frequent in both original Japanese haiku and English haiku; not only does the imitation of sound correspond with writing in communion with nature, but Japanese is the most onomatopoeic language (Blyth). Personally, I noticed through reading hundreds of haiku that parataxis was the most common poetic device used. “Tension and contrast between images,” says Finlay, are necessary ingredients. In fact, many of the haiku that I read are two juxtaposed images that feed off of each other. The poet Baiko’s “death poem,” an type of haiku that is usually written as close as possible to death, says, “Plum petals falling/ I look up--the sky,/ a clear crisp moon.” Plum petals would not usually be placed so closely to a clear evening, but “death poems” are frequently centered on the day or time of year that the poet died, and Baiko died in February (Hoffmann). The beautiful night sky set next to the petals falling from a flower creates an otherworldly image, unique to haiku. The wording is simple, lacking flowery terms or complex metaphors that might distract the reader from the natural meaning of the objects or beings in the poem. This strategy is almost nonexistent in Western literature (Missias).

Nature, as I have explained already, plays a major role in the Zen of Japanese poetry. One aspect of the natural world, though, is the primary theme of traditional haiku: the seasons. Before modern times, all haiku were organized into categories based upon the five Japanese seasons of spring, summer, autumn, winter, and the new year. In ancient haiku, there is almost always a “season word” in the poem; if the word is not a direct mention of the season, it is an idea or noun that can be identified with a certain time of year. These “orientation words,” so called because they place the poem in what are almost separate Japanese genres, usually concern the sky, elements, geography, temples, animals, or plants. Modern haiku, particularly English haiku, do not always have this important connection with nature (Blyth). Our words for certain animals or aspects of nature do not necessarily correspond with certain seasons like the Japanese ones do (Missias). When Issa, one of the most famous haiku poets, says, “A night boat/ Sails away/ Illuminated by a wildfire,” we know he speaks of spring, for what other season would contain a “night boat”? When Kubota Mantarō writes, “What a cooling sight--/ To see a young maid/ Tying up her narrow sash,” we know it is cooling because it is summer. Lastly, it could be no season but winter when Katō Kōko sees, “Through the branches of a tree/ Utterly leafless/ The sky deepens” (Miura).

Perhaps the most famous haiku ever, and Japan’s most popular poem, is Matsuo Bashō’s frog poem (Bashō). (古池や 蛙飛びこむ 水の音) in kanji, “Furuike ya/ kawazu tobikomu/ mizu no oto” in romaji (the language of Japan in the Western alphabet), or “An old pond:/ a frog jumps in--/ the sound of water” in plain English. This is merely one interpretation; there are one hundred different translations in Sato’s “One Hundred Frogs,” alone (a select few can be found in the appendix). Some follow the Western 5-7-5-syllable haiku, some aim for a strict translation, and some are creative in their own right. The poem is deceptively simple. In haiku, every word means something; an “old pond” is completely different from a “pond,” and a “the sound of water” is nowhere near the same thing as “splash” - which would have been onomatopoeia had it been included. In fact, some translations of “the frog poem” do use onomatopoeic words, but many of these are because of liberties taken by the translator (Sato). On an objective level, I notice a controlling noun in each line: “pond,” “frog,” and “water.” The poem is both visual and aural, as we see the frog jump in and we hear the splash. The scene is set by the pond and the frog; the latter suggests it is near twilight in warm weather, for that is when frogs venture out. Subjectively, I identify this with a backyard, a lily pad, and a spring of such Zen that the simple action of a frog leaping into the pond is noticeable and seems to represent the serenity of a balanced life. On an informed level, little is known about the writing of this particular haiku, but Matsuo Bashō lived from 1644 to 1694 and his most frequent subject was spring (Bashō). The “frog poem” was written in 1686, and evidently became immediately popular after it was published in 1688 (Ueda).

One of the translations listed in the appendix is Allen Ginsberg’s. Modernist poets and particularly the beat writers were strongly influenced by haiku. The first appearance of its imprint on Western culture was through the Imagist poets in the early 20th century (Wikipedia). Ezra Pound’s two-line poem “In a Station of the Metro,” in particular, showcases strong haiku influences, containing the parataxis of representative images, a certain spirituality, and the brevity which is more important to haiku than the exact 5-7-5 syllable count. The traditional Japanese form reappears decades later at the inception of the beat movement. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Gary Snyder all were influenced by R.H. Blyth’s 1949 books on haiku, two of which I was able to find in the library on campus and use as sources. Ginsberg published haiku throughout his career, Snyder was given an international award for his contribution to worldwide understanding of haiku, and Kerouac wrote a few books in the style. Kerouac also promoted the idea that a Western haiku need not depend upon a specific syllable count (withwords). Because our syllables are so different from the Japanese onji, a 5-7-5 poem is arguably untrue to the original style. The root of a haiku is not in the structure, but in the soul of the poem and the idea behind it. Kerouac suggested that three short lines be used, but beyond that, the poem be left up to the creative control of the writer (withwords). Modern haiku sometimes use the 5-7-5 syllable count, but more often than not they simply utilize the root idea of the poem.

“Haiku,” as Missias says, “is a way of seeing the world.” This idea has captured the Western imagination, jaded with the outbreak of trite and meaningless poetry like the Genteel poetry of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. The outbreak of haiku followed directly in the footsteps of the Transcendentalists, like Thoreau and Whitman, who advocated a state of mind similar to Zen. The popularity of haiku may have also gained momentum after World War II because of an American cultural enchantment with Japan. In 1963, American Haiku, the first magazine devoted entirely to English-language haiku, was published in Platteville, Wisconsin. By the 1970s, haiku looked to have left a lasting influence on modern English poetry. In fact, it is possible that the haiku is the most widespread specific form of poetry still in usage as of the 21st century (Swede).

Bringing my brief study of haiku to current times, I will halt it. There are many long tomes on the subject, monthly and annual magazines in publication, and a never-ending supply of poetry to read. I may only have grazed the surface of the style, but I learned much about the history behind the haiku, the techniques used, the connection with Zen, and the adaptation into modern English literature. All information aside, though, I would like to claim that the most interesting and important part of my research on haiku was the sheer amount of poetry I read. I found poems (the best of which I included in the appendix) that spoke to my soul and that I will probably mutter at inopportune moments in the future, causing passers-by to think me schizophrenic. To analyze poetry is educational, to derive from it influences that will affect my writing is helpful, but simply to find and read new and amazing poems is transcendent.

Appendix: Assorted Haiku

Along this road
Goes no one,
This autumn eve.
-Matsuo Bashō

Should I take it in my hand,
it would disappear with my hot tears,
like the frost of autumn.
-Matsuo Bashō

Not this human sadness,
cuckoo,
but your solitary cry.
-Matsuo Bashō

World like a dewdrop
though it's only a dewdrop
even so, even so.
-Kobayashi Issa

No sign
in the cicada’s song
that it will soon be gone
-Aki-no-Bo

People, when you see the smoke,
do not think
it is fields they’re burning
-Baika

A short night
wakes me from a dream
that seemed so long
-Yuyu

O snail
Climb Mount Fuji,
But slowly, slowly!
-Kobayashi Issa

Snow in my shoe
Abandoned
Sparrow's nest
-Jack Kerouac

A bitter morning:
Sparrows sitting together
Without any necks.
-James W. Hackett

Over the wintry
forest, winds howl in rage
with no leaves to blow.
-Natsume Soseki

Some translations of Bashō’s “frog poem”:

The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!
-Translated by Alan Watts

Listen! a frog
Jumping into the stillness
Of an ancient pond!
-Translated by Dorothy Britton

The old pond
A frog jumped in,
Kerplunk!
-Translated by Allen Ginsberg

pond
frog
plop!
-Translated by James Kirkup

There once was a curious frog
Who sat by a pond on a log
And, to see what resulted,
In the pond catapulted
With a water-noise heard round the bog.
-Translated by Alfred H. Marks


Bibliography:

Blyth, R.H. “Haiku, Volume One: Eastern Culture.” Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press, 1949.

Blyth, R.H. “Haiku, Volume Two: Spring.” Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press, 1949.

“Book of Haikus by Jack Kerouac.” haikuworld.org. 27 April 2008.
http://www.haikuworld.org/books/kerouac.html

Finlay, Alec. “Verse Chain: Sharing Haiku and Renga.” Edinborough: Morning Star Publications, 2003.

Gilbert, Richard. “Stalking the Wild Onji: The Search for Current Linguistic Terms Used in Japanese Poetry Circles.” ahapoetry.com. 22 April 2008. http://www.ahapoetry.com/wildonji.htm

“Haiku.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 22 April 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku

“History of Haiku.” Haiku Society: Haikus and Haiku Information. 22 April 2008.
http://www.haikusociety.com/historyofhaiku/

Hoffmann, Yoel, ed. “Japanese Death Poems.” Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Co., Inc, 1986.

King, Dan. “Japanese Literature Second Midterm.” danking.org. 27 April 2008.
http://www.danking.org/evergreen/Fall_2002/JapaneseLit/basho.html

“Matsuo Bashō: Frog Haiku.” Bureau of Public Secrets. 26 April 2008.
http://www.bopsecrets-org.pem.data393.net/gateway/passages/basho-frog.htm

Missias, A.C. “Contemporary Haiku: Origins and New Directions.” webdelsol.com. 25 April 2008. http://webdelsol.com/Perihelion/acmarticle.htm

Miura, Yuzuru, tr. “Classic Haiku: A Master’s Selection.” Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Co., Inc, 1991.

“Renga: Encyclopedia II - Renga - History.” The Global Oneness Commitment. 23 April 2008.
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Renga_-_History/id/4707327

Sato, Hiroaki. “One Hundred Frogs: From Renga to Haiku to English.” New York: Weatherhill, 1983.

Swede, George. “Haiku in English in North America.” Haiku Canada Newsletter, vol. 10, no. 2, January 1997 and vol. 10, no. 3, March 1997. 27 April 2008.
http://raysweb.net/fall-haiku/pages/swede.html

Ueda, Makoto. “Matsuo Bashō.” Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1982.
“A very brief history of the english language haiku.” withwords.co.uk. 27 April 2008.
http://www.withwords.co.uk/history.html


~04/29/08

The Symbolism of Blood in The Kite Runner

The Symbolism of Blood in The Kite Runner
an essay by Jordan Kasko

Blood seems to be ubiquitous in Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner. Most of the important scenes in the book, from the kite tournament in Kabul to the final confrontation with Assef to Sohrab’s attempted suicide, involve blood. These scenes always seem to occur when there is some kind of connection or disconnection between the main characters; perhaps blood is the symbol of that connection. It certainly connects human beings to life, and when we lose our blood, we weaken and die.

The central connection in the book is between Amir and Hassan. This is, significantly, a blood connection in more ways than one, since they are half-brothers. Well before this is revealed, however, Amir is cut by the glass-covered tar on their kite as they fly in the tournament, he “had Hassan hold the string and sucked the blood dry,” effectively sharing blood with Hassan (64). This tournament is their last true connection as friends, as Hassan offers to run the last kite “for you a thousand times over!” before being beaten and raped by Assef and his cronies. Blood appears on both blood-brothers in this scene, as “tiny drops…fell from between [Hassan’s] legs and stained the snow black (78), and Amir bites “down on [his] fist, hard enough to draw blood from the knuckles” (77). Here is their disconnect; here is where the friends lose their friendship. And months later, when Amir attempts to prod Hassan into beating him so the narrator can forgive himself, Amir pelts Hassan with pomegranates, which cause Hassan to be “smeared in red like he’d been shot by a firing squad.” Hassan even crushes a pomegranate on his own head, “red dripping down his face like blood” (93). However, pomegranate juice only symbolizes blood; it is not blood, and therefore there is no re-connection between the brothers.

But Amir and Hassan aren’t the only two characters whose connection or disconnection is symbolized by blood. Despite the narrator’s claim that he and Baba were on “such better terms in the U.S.” (302), their relations continually improve throughout their escape from Afghanistan, which culminates in Kamal’s father’s suicide before both of their eyes. Amir says he will “never forget…the spray of red” when Kamal’s father shoots himself (124), and it is at this moment that Amir and Baba seem to start to become equals. Not only does the event help Amir on his road to maturity, but both father and son see what a father might do when he loses his son, and both are bound closer because of their experience. Rahim Khan’s final letter to Amir also expresses their friendship in terms of blood when Rahim writes “my heart bled for you” to describe his sympathy for Amir’s unfulfilled desire for love from Baba.

The story’s villain, fittingly, loves blood. Besides the rape of Hassan, Assef enjoys pelting adulterers to death with stones, turning them into “bloodied corpses” (272), and massacring Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif as “God’s work” (277). Interestingly, if tangentially, when Amir remembers his wife Soraya handing him a newspaper article on the massacre, “her face [was] bloodless.” Perhaps her blood empathized with the loss of blood in Afghanistan. Assef also loves Amir’s blood – he nearly beats him to death – and Amir has a flashback to the pomegranates from 26 years before, and laughs, because finally his blood has been spilled, and he feels some relief from his guilt (289).

At this final connection and disconnection between Amir and Assef, Amir also forges a connection through blood with Sohrab. The boy saves Amir’s life by shooting a brass ball into Assef’s eye, turning it into a “bloody socket” (291). Amir repays Sohrab by saving his life in Islamabad when Sohrab attempts suicide with a razor (343, 350), cementing the connection of friendship, fatherhood, and blood between the two.

Finally, the symbolism of blood does not go unnoticed to the narrator. Amir has a dream on the drive to Islamabad where many of the bloody scenes in the novel are recalled, including Baba cooking a freshly killed lamb and Hassan’s bloody pants after the rape (309-310). Amir also recollects in his dream a phrase that General Taheri says to his daughter when she and Amir are considering adoption: “blood is a powerful thing, bachem, never forget that” (187). The Kite Runner echoes this sentiment throughout, using blood to symbolize the powerful connections and disconnections between the novel’s characters.


-03/30/09

A Psychological Exploration of Richard III’s “Coward Conscience”

At the conclusion of Shakespeare’s Richard III, the title character is abandoned by his allies and his friends, and caught amidst a fierce battle without even his royal mount, he utters the famous last words, “my kingdom for a horse!” (5.4.13). Perhaps the horse did not forsake Richard, but it seems that every other character in the play does, even those Richard once considered friends - or as close as he gets to friends. And little wonder why; Richard is a “foul devil” (1.2.49), “a murth’rous villain” (1.3.133), “bloody” (3.4.103), “a hell-hound” (4.4.48), and “God’s enemy” (5.3.252), though the term “devil” crops up more often than any other (1.2.45, 1.3.117, 4.4.418, etc.). He murders on a whim, betrays even those most loyal to him (Buckingham in 4.2), and steals the throne of England from its rightful heirs, just to scratch the surface. It seems obvious why every character hates Richard with a passion by the end of the play, and there is hardly a point to exploring their acrimony. What titillates the Shakespearian theorist is attempting to understand Richard’s brain - specifically, his conscience, or lack of one. Why does he choose to be a “villain” (1.1.30), and how might this be connected to his physical deformities? Does he have a conscience, and if so, why does he ignore it? What light does his dream in Act V shed upon his soul?

Because of Richard’s profound dishonesty whenever he converses with the other characters in the play, it is necessary to focus on his monologues - which reflect his inner thoughts - in order to gain an understanding of Richard. Conveniently and appropriately, Richard III begins with that very dramatic technique, as the Duke of Gloucester summarizes the War of the Roses between Lancaster and York. By line 14, however, he confronts what the audience and the dramatic characters already see - his physical deformities. Richard is “not shap’d for sportive tricks” (1.1.14) and is “curtail’d of this fair proportion” (1.1.18). Then, in an almost metatextual moment, Richard concludes that, since he “cannot prove a lover” (1.1.28) because of his infirmity and ugliness, he is “determined to prove a villain” (1.1.29). Without further explanation, the “plots have [been] laid” (1.1.32), as has the plot of the tragedy. But why must his impairments precipitate his depravity? Perhaps, as evidenced by the juxtaposition of the “dogs bark[ing]” at him (1.1.23) and his confession to being “false, and treacherous” (1.1.37), the two are innately intertwined in the minds of many, including Richard. If he sees his own hideousness as an impetus to act hideously, the problem may lie in his self-esteem.

This interpretation is enforced by Gloucester’s monologue after his successful seduction of Lady Anne. Nearly ecstatic at his own skill at manipulation, he marvels that she will “abase her eyes on [him]” (1.2.246) despite the fact that he “halts and [is] misshapen thus” (1.2.250). Then, exclaiming that he may have “mistake[n his] person all this while” (1.2.252), he says he has “crept in favor with [himself]” (1.2.258), and desires “a looking glass,” “a score or two of tailors,” and a “fair sun” so he “may see [his] shadow” (1.2.255, 256, 263, 264). At what is the only point in the play where Richard seems happy, his gaiety is caused by feeling handsome for once. By inserting this monologue early in the play, before Richard becomes severely paranoid and completely loses himself, Shakespeare provides an insight into the character that cannot be found anywhere else. Despite the king’s profession that “Richard loves Richard” (5.3.183) near the end of the play, it seems that he does not love himself. Professor Kerry Bystrom, a Shakespearian scholar at Dartmouth, posits that this key statement is in fact Richard’s entire motivation to “[act] for his own gain” throughout the tragedy (Bystrom). However, it is more likely that Richard is in fact lying when he says he loves himself, and that his utter hate for himself - motivated by his physical appearance - is actually the reason he decides to be a “villain” and therefore undertakes and attains his advancement.

Self-loathing alone does not qualify as a conscience, however; the few moments where Richard is alone on stage must be examined further. Like many of the characters, Hastings misjudges Richard as being less devious than he is. “I think there’s never a man in Christendom/ Can lesser hide his love or hate than he,/ For by his face straight shall you know his heart” (3.4.51-53), Hastings says, blind to the irony of his statement. And like Hastings, the audience is not clued in to Richard’s thoughts from Act I through Act IV, as there is a remarkable paucity of monologues from the title character. By the time the audience is reacquainted with the mind of Gloucester, he is King Richard III (4.2), and he has abruptly changed from a successful, Machiavellian character to the epitome of a paranoid, neurotic monarch. While deceiving the populace into supporting his usurpation of the throne, Richard ironically protests that it is “against my conscience and my soul” (3.7.226) to be crowned king, showing a remarkable poise throughout that scene in his manipulation of the crowd. However, within two brief scenes, he has lost his prowess at iniquity, as evidenced by his dialogue with Buckingham. Rather than devising some devious plot to murder young Edward, he tells Buckingham, “I wish the bastards dead,/ And would have it suddenly perform’d” (4.2.17-18). There is no strategy to his cruelty now, but merely the temerity of the powerful. And finally, the audience receives a further glimpse into Richard’s subconscious - but it is as eloquent as it is insightful, which is to say, hardly. His reasoning for killing “the bastards” is that he is “so far in blood” (4.2.64) that sinning further does not matter, and he denies that there is any “tear-falling pity” (4.2.65) within himself.

Watching Richard, the audience may begin to believe what he does. They will see him describe himself as “jolly” (4.3.43) after his wife Anne’s death and call for “a flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!” (4.4.149) to drown out Queen Elizabeth’s admonishment of himself. Whereas in the first few acts, the audience understands that Richard could have refuted all her arguments - and most likely convinced her to marry him in the process - they now see him as harried, witless, and weaker. His cruelty is no longer admirable in a sadistic way, but merely deplorable because of its unrestrained evil. In one last grand effort, Richard convinces Elizabeth at the end of Act IV to give him her daughter in marriage, but his “self-misus’d” (4.4.374) wooing seems only an echo of his previous self, ending with less of a frightened committment and more of a temporary acquiescence on the part of Elizabeth (“Write to me very shortly,/ And you shall understand from me her mind” (4.4.428-429). Richard’s growing impotence reflects the unorganized chaos of his reign, and possibly represents his lack of conscience to the audience.

Then, at the climax of the play in Act V, the ghosts of each character that Richard has murdered appear to him, cursing him and blessing his foe, Richmond. They desire to “sit heavy in [Richard’s] soul” (5.3.130) and decry him as “bloody and guilty,” ordering him to “guiltily awake” (5.3.154). Because the ghosts “came to [Richmond’s] tent” (5.3.231) too, Shakespeare seems to want the audience to believe that the ghosts are real, not figments of Richard’s conscience. Even if the ghosts themselves to not betray his conscience, the king’s monologue upon awakening reveals his soul for the first time. “Have mercy, Jesu!” (5.3.178) he exclaims, divulging that he is fearful of Judgment Day, which affirms his self-identification as a villain at the same time as it speaks loudly of a near repentance in the face of hell. He is certainly a coward, and what does a coward innately fear but himself? “Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why--/ Lest I revenge” (5.3.185-186), Richard contemplates in a bipolar manner. His self-confident mien has collapsed, leaving an admission that he “hate[s himself]/ For hateful deeds” (5.3.189-190), and that his “conscience hath a thousand several tongues” (5.3.193), which “throng to the bar, crying all, ‘Guilty! guilty!’” (5.3.199). Perhaps if this was the only evidence that Richard had a conscience, his self-hate and visions of “tongues” - the ghosts - would merely represent his cowardice in the face of a loss in battle. However, Richard confesses:

I shall despair; there is no creature loves me,

And if I die no soul will pity me.

And wherefore should they, since that I myself

Find in myself no pity to myself? (5.3.200-203)

The inner sense of right and wrong that is the hallmark of a conscience is evident in this quote. Richard understands, and likely has all along, that no-one loves him, that his death will go unmourned, and that even he himself would not love someone who had made the choices he has made.

What Richard labels a “coward conscience” (5.3.179) seems to be at work in his own psyche. A deformed man with miniscule self-esteem, he chooses to be a “villain” since he cannot be a “lover” - in other words, cannot see why anyone would love him. He commits his heinous acts with full knowledge that they are wrong. His wickedness, at first successful, causes his descent into incompetent malevolence by Act IV. Perhaps, to take the analysis one step further than it has yet meandered, Richard’s self-loathing is the reason he ignores the conscience that seems to be present in himself, calling it “a word that cowards use” (5.3.309). Perhaps his villainy is inherently masochistic; he subconsciously desires to be hated by both people and God, as he feels he already must be because of his deformities, and to be condemned to hell because he deserves nothing else. Thus he causes his own downfall - and that of many others - because of his masochistic cowardice. It is ironic that Richard continually correlates cowardice with a conscience, since the audience sees Richard as a coward, especially after his murder of Edward’s heirs in Act IV and his dream in Act V. Shakespeare seems to be implying yet again that Richard does indeed have a conscience, and knows he has one. The Bard of Avon has created a character so complex and so twisted that it is difficult to fully grasp the extent of his psychological pandemonium. That makes Richard III one of the most intriguing minds of the Shakespearian canon, perhaps of all literature, and thus an exploration or examination of his mind, soul, and conscience can never be complete.

Works Cited

Bystrom, Kerry. "Containing Richard: Richard's Loss of Self in Richard III." Dartmouth.edu. Dartmouth University, 1999. Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

Shakespeare, William. Richard III. Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. 748-804. Print.

-10/26/09