Like climbing Jacob’s ladder: An art-based exploration of the comprehensive exam process
Jacob's Ladder: A Mythological Analysis
Transcript of Jacob's Ladder: A Mythological Analysis
Introduction Jacob’s Ladder, tells us the story of a Vietnam war veteran. The whole movie is introduced to us as Jacob came back from the war and this is his post war trauma process. But as narrative tells us at the end, we’re watching the journey of Jacob’s death. Under the influence of a LSD based drug, Jacob is seeing this visions, as he slowly dying. So basically movie takes place in 3 different time and space slots. One of them is the real war adventure, that takes place during Jacob’s journey to death. Jacob needs to be unconscious to get into that time and space. When he’s unconscious, we’re always seeing a war scene after that. It’s basically when he manages to wake up in real world (which is the war that he’s dying in), he got to be unconscious or sleeping in his Katabasis. Katabasis is a journey of death. It’s a descent to the underworld. It’s either a living person that goes into Hades and tries to bring something back, or it’s a shade that slowly reaches to it’s death. In this case, it’s Jacob who’s reaching slowly to death. But he needs some closure and he has problems of letting go, just like major Katabasis story character; Orpheus. On the other hand, what Narcisus lives inside his mind can be described as Katabasis. Narcisus, who fells in love with his own reflection and gets into a coma insantly, is stuck into his head and he can’t get out of there. Narcisus’s situation can be explained as a bad trip, which is generally referred to LSD and other kind of psychedelic drugs. Let’s remember that, Jacob is having these visions that we watch as his “new life after the war”, because of a LSD trip. So if what Narcisus’s going through in his head can be referred as Katabasis, the time slot of actual war scenes are definetly the ones which we can see Jacob having his trip. The second time and space slot is Jacob’s visions, or in this case we can say that his journey. Considering that we’re watching the journey of Jacob getting closures and slowly reaches to his death in each closure he gets. The third time and space slot is a little harder to explain but Jacob gets in there 3 times. It’s the scenes where he’s with his family. But in order to get that space in time, Jacob needs to have a near death experience in his Katabasis journey. Which lets him to see his family and pay his dues to them, letting things go. These scenes comes right after Jacob’s having his near death experience and he wakes up. Expect the last scene at the end, where he finally finds his son and got out of his Katabasis journey with a ladder. In this essay, i’m going to discuss the war scenes as metamorphosis, because these are the ones that we see Jacob getting into his trip and while in his trip. The life that he imagines inside his mind, when he’s actually fighting for death, is going to be explained as Katabasis. And the scenes which he’s constantly waking up to another time and space slots like he’s reborning in them, will be discussed as rebirth images.
Mythological Reading Movie starts with the war scene that Jacob and his friends get attacked. Scene opens with helicopters that carrying dead bodies over the sea. They are like as Hermes described in old paintings; flying away with shades over the rivers of Hades.
When we cut to the Jacob’s brothers in arms, we see them sleeping/unconscious. Which may be seen as they’re in the beginning of their trip. As Narcisus is referred as “being paralyzed”, they’re kind of looking like that.
As the scene continues, they’re smoking weed. They’re talking about it like it’s something else and it’s strong. Since weed is a drug that elevates the effects of LSD, they’re accelerating the process of getting high on it. Just like backing up this idea, they find themselves suddenly under attack. Which is a sign for us that the trip has started. Instead of watching a graphic war scene, we’re mostly seeing Jacob and his friends holding their heads, throwing up and getting in a trance state where they shake constantly or spin like crazy.
As a discussed earlier, getting in a trance mode, or basically being under the influence of a drug referred as Narcisus which experiences metamorphosis. We can see even by this images that they’re getting into a another state of mind. They’re entering the process where they’re going to live a trip inside of their head and of course some of them are not even be able to live it because they’re going to be dead.
The scene ends when Jacob is stabbed with a knife by an unknown person. We don’t see his face, it’s a POV shot and it gets close to Jacob and stabs him. The violence caused by the knife, makes Jacob wake up in another world, which is going to be his Katabasis. Jacob wakes up in a metro station.”Underground” is often used for metro services. It’s basically underground tunnels, that can be seen as a image of Katabasis.
The station also represented as closed. Jacob tries and couldn’t find the exit, every door is closed. Like no one knows how to get into or get out of Hades, it does not have a map. Nobody knows the roads and ways of Hades, because it’s the journey that it’s important.
Jacob sees people like shades inside metro vagons. At first, he sees them in the vagon that he wakes up, and then in the metro that he almost got killed by it. Shades are referred as souls that seeks freedom inside Hades. You can see them wondering around, not talking or doing anything. Just taking their journey of death, like the others. The shades that Jacob sees are not talking to him in this scene, one of them clearly just stares at him. He sees shades with demonic tails, and people that tries to get away from their vagon. As represented in many paintings, these symbolizes diferrent stages of the shades. Some of them going directly to the heart, some of them travelling like Jacob.
Also Jacob sees a person who’s operating the metro. Not like other shades but with a grey masked, faceless thing. It can be referred as Charon who’s responsible for accompany shades inside the rivers of Hades. Let’s remember that we have to pay “pennies” to pay the metro, just like we have to pay Charon (the ferryman) with pennies as well.
And at last, this scene is full of drug references. One of them describes using drugs as living in hell. Using a drug got Jacob into this journey at first place. Hades is often described as hell, of course it’s not the Hades that mirrors hell, but the journey itself. But Hades means underworld and it’s reference is “hell” in this movie’s world because it’s the era of “binary opposition”. Because of the drug he used, he got into this Katabasis, which is introduced to us by this metro (underground) scene.
In the scene that follows, we see Jacob getting home. This is the first scene that we see Jezebel, his girlfriend. Jezebel is a mysterious character because they may have got no history before the war. Jacob imagines her as his girlfriend inside his LSD trip. Jezebel can be seen as his “female companion”, referring the article “Katabasis in Cinema” by Erling B. Holtsmark: “The usual purpose of the journey is to obtain spiritual or material wealth – wisdom, gold, flocks or some other form of treasure – or to rescue friend or friends, often woman or wife. The katabatic hero is often accompanied and helped by a companion (who may be female)” Jacob is trying to rescue his son because he can’t let go of his death and what it did to his family. Also he’s trying to get the wisdom of what’s happening to him. The female companion, which is Jezebel, is here to help our Katabatic hero. She’s generally can be seen as a sexy and half naked woman, but at other times she’s trying to help Jacob, even though he goes insane, she never leaves him. Since this relationship is just a thing that Jacob created in his head, it’s impossible for hear to leave in a sense. This detail is also a proof of Jacob’s katabatic journey. As the scene continues, they got into shower together. We see a war flashback that comes after that. In which we can see that water is dropping to Jacob’s face while he’s lying on the ground unconsciously. The rain that starts at real-‐life is mirrored by shower scene.
Jacob wakes up in his bed. There is a strong white light coming to his face and he wokes up terrified. It’s almost like he got back to consciousness for a brief amount of time and because he must continue his journey, “they” bring him back. Let’s remember that everytime we get back to war scenes, Jacob needs to wake up somewhere in his Katabatic journey. Considering that he’s waking up to it, this can be easily function as “reborn in Katabasis”.
As the scene continues, Jacob talks to Jezebel and she tells him that one of his children dropped of some pictures. As Jacob look through the pictures and smiles to good memories, he stops when it comes to his dead child, Gabe. Since i explained Jacob’s journey as a Katabatic one, he must get through some of the rivers. As he starts to cry when he sees Gabe’s picture and he doesn’t even know why he’s crying (later in the scene he’s going the deny that he was crying), it’s a symbol of the river “acheron”. Which consists a constant sadness, even without knowing why. He’s somehow feeling responsible for Gabe’s death and he’s still in the mourning period. In the next scene, we see Jacob is driving in his work vehicle. He’s a postman. He sings inside the car and his singing voice is quite well. Let’s take a moment here to remember that Jacob’s last name is “Singer”. Orpheus, is also known with his magical talent for music. That can be taken as a reference to the myth. Jacob’s back is hurting so he goes to his personal doctor, Louie. As Louie repair his body, Jacob gets into a war flashback because of a hard move from the doctor. After he wakes up from the flashback (which is also a rebirth inside his katabatic journey) he states that Louie looks like an angel. I think that, Louie can be referred as a symbol of Hermes. First of all, he’s a doctor, and Hermes is often symbolized by two snakes with a stick, which is a symbol for medicine nowadays. Louie helps Jacob to recover from his medical status, so he can
continue to his katabatic Journey. Also at last, Hermes is the figure that later in other religions referred as “angel”.
As it comes to the war scene, we see that other soldiers finds Jacob’s body into the woods. One of them is saying “I think he’s still alive”. We don’t see Jacob but we can understand that he’s in a kind of a coma because the soldier says that “he thinks” Jacob is still alive. Which is a clear image of Narcisus, as i discussed earlier, being in a trance state. We see that Jacob wakes up to his katabatic journey, so the world that he’s living inside his head. In the scene that follows, we see Jacob’s walking in the street and suddenly a black car is start to follow him. Following is actually not the right word, because they are basically chasing him, so he runs from them. The car can be referred as Hades’s “horse carriage” in which he abducts Persephone. Later in the movie, there’s a abduction scene with this car too. But as far as this scene goes, we see 3 men inside the car, which is a symbol of Cerberus, 3 headed dog who protects Hades. We can’t see Hades because he’s “unseen”. So it’s protectors following Jacob may mean that death is following him. Also, Jacob sees shades inside the car when the car passes by him.
In the next scene, Jacob gets into a hospital. He tries to find his old doctor, but nobody remembers him and they don’t even got Jacob’s records. His identity is kind of erased in here. This hospital scene can be referred as the river “lethe” which consists of forgetting or to be forget. Jacob’s records can’t be found, as he continues to push the nurse in charge to find the doctor. And at this particular scene, Jacob is still seeing shades. He see the nurse as a shade with some kind of malfunction on her head.
In the next scene, we see Jezebel and Jacob laying in their bed half-‐naked. Once again, Jezebel is represented as a symbol of sexuality and desire. Jacob talks about the things he saw. He calls them “creatures”. As an interesting reference, Jezebel says that : “Creatures? New York is filled with creatures.” Referring New York as Hades, that is full with shades, demons and creatures, is way to explain the New York that Jacob created in his mind. The scene is followed by a party scene, which seems to be taking place in a “underground” place. It’s dark, as a place and as describing the people in it. There are two important things happening in this party sequence which can be considered a reference to the katabatic journey. First one is the part where a gypsy read his hand for fortune telling. When she gets into the life subject, she looks at his hand and says that “according to this, you’re already dead”. Since it’s the journey to his death, it’s true that what gypsy says. This proves that he’s dead and this is a whole another world that we’re watching. The second is the part in which Jacob starts to see shades and creatures again. He losts his mind when he starts to see them. First he see a faceless man looking right at him, then a demon-‐like creature having sex with Jezebel. He fells off on the stage and screams constantly until he’s passed out. Which him passing out connects us to an another war scene. When he gets unconscious in Katabasis, he gains consciousness in another level.
In the war scene, soldiers that found him states that “his guts are hanging out” so they got to get them back inside. Jacob’s bad health situation mirrors itself as he wakes up once again (reborns in Katabasis) in his home. Jacob is sick and he has high fever. Jezebel calls the doctor but there’s no time. She needs to put Jacob into freezing water in order to make him live. Water can be seen as a rebirth image from the myth of Aphrodite. Aphrodite was born in water, the name means “born from foams”. Cronos castrates Uranus, and with the blood that falls into the sea, Aphrodite borns. The image of Aphrodite can be seen as “rising with the help of others”. In the famous painting of Botticelli, we can see that there are characters helping her to rise. In Jacob’s case, Jezebel calls out everyone that she can find in the apartment. Suddenly there are lot of people helping her putting Jacob into the bathtub. As Jacob’s yelling “you’re killing me!”, we cut into the next scene.
In the next scene, he wokes up beside his ex-‐wife, Sarah. Even his dead kid is alive and comes into the room. We can understand that Jacob has gone to whole another level. But this time, consciousness is not the key. Jacob, has to live a near death experience to get into this level. I prefer to explain these scenes where he finally finds his family as Jacob’s “letting go” scenes. He’s still in need of their love and wants to hear that he’s being loved by them. His family is the one thing he cannot let go, but he needs to if he wants to be freed from this katabatic journey and finally, be dead. He talks about the things that happened in his katabatic journey as a dream. He remembers every detail, he talks about creatures and how good was Jezebel in bed. But this is just another reality that Jacob’s mind has created.
Jacob wakes up in the same bathtub, unconscious. First, the shot is a close up to his eyes, then camera backs up and we can see that he’s laying in the water. Waking up in water is a clear metaphor of rebirth. As we know that he’s just been in a near death experience and they manage to bring him back, it becomes more than a metaphor. Even when a wakes up, there’s a doctor in the place and he tells him that “you’re lucky, you must have friends in higher places”. Which is a clear sign that Jacob’s been gone for a while, then reborned again.
In the following scene, we see Jacob’s reading books about demons and hell. He’s trying to get information about his journey. When we see the book page he’s actually reading, it’s “Purgatorio”. Which is the first part of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. It means “Hell” in Italian language. Dante tells us one of the most popular katabatic journeys, his fictional descent into hell to find his beloved Beatrice.
Also we see images from the book.
This one is particularly showing shades. They’re laying on the floor so they must be weaker ones. In the center, there’s Dante and roman poet Virgil. Virgil accompanies him while Dante is in his katabatic journey. Other images shows basically demons which are similar as the ones that Jacob’s seeing. There are shades that can be seen in these pictures too. You can see one of them below.
Basically there is a mirroring that has been done between Dante’s story and the Jacob’s. As far as we know, they’re both katabatic heroes, accompanied by
someone and they’re both trying to find their beloved ones. Dante’s descent to hell can be seen as Jacob’s descent from the “ladder” as well. Also in this scene, we see Jezebel as a demonic creature. As Jacob get consciousness about his situation and learns more about the katabatic world that he’s living in, he begins to see things as it is.
At the end of the scene, Jacob gets a call from an old friend, who he went to Vietnam with. They meet at a bar and Paul (his friend) explains his situation as “I’m going to hell. That’s as straight as i can put it”. Let’s take in consideration that Paul is also dying in “real world” too. So he’s just like Jacob, wandering around in his own katabatic journey. He says he sees things and he’s followed by something. He’s seeing shades and he’s followed by death, which is going to come for him in the next scene. Paul is a character that can help Jacob into his journey. But a katabatic journey needs to be taken alone. Nobody can help you through it because you got to be the hero of the journey. So whenever Jacob finds help from someone, especially from their old war friends, they back out. In the next scene, we see Paul’s car explode. During his funeral, Jacob meets all of other old war friends and talks about these issues. Even some of them says that they’re seeing demons as well, when it comes to legal help, at first they want to help. But suddenly they back out, without any explanation. When Jacob needs to hear one, they respond back, “There’s nothing to do Jacob”. Other shades can’t help Jacob into his journey, because he needs to do this on his own.
Jacob and his friends seeks legal help from a lawyer. But when his friends backs out, Jacob goes to see the lawyer himself. The lawyer tells him that there’s no record of him going to Vietnam and they lied to him. This “having no record” situation we came across at the previous hospital scene, also can be referred as the river “lethe”, which consists of losing identity and memory. Right after Jacob leaves the lawyer, he gets abducted by the men in the black car. He gets abducted by 3 men. 2 of them holds him and gets him into the car and one of them is driving the car. So the image of 3 headed dog, protector of Hades, Cerberus, continues here. Also being abducted is a clear reference to the story of Persephone, who’s abducted to underworld by Hades and his horse carriage (in this case, the black car.) Jacob puts a fair fight and manages to escape the car but in the process he hurts himself very bad that he seeks medical care.
In the next scene, Jacob is in the hospital. Doctors carry him around with a stretcher. The stretcher can be seen as a “ferry” and doctors can be seen as the “ferryman”. Since you only pay them for their services and they do not care about you and your journey in life at all, in this scene doctors that carry around Jacob, can be referred as Charon, the ferryman. There’s a clear descent in this scene. As they take Jacob to x-‐ray, they start to descent to the basement floors of the hospital. As the descent begins, Jacob starts to see shades, creatures, chopped of body parts and his dead son’s bicycle (His son is dead because of a car accident, happened when he was with that bike). And at the first scenes at the hospital, we see normal colors of a hospital. But as the descent begins, the color turns into a reddish wasteland. Even blood on the walls. Finally at the end when he arrives at x-‐ray room, the doctors tells him “You can’t go home, you’re already dead”. These images and themes combined all together, once again, proves Jacob’s katabatic journey.
Jacob wakes up to his family. As I discussed earlier, he needed to have a near death experience in his katabasis to reach them, and so he had. He’s in a very bad shape and doctors gives him a month to be able to walk again. While he’s talking to his wife and she’s saying that “she still loves him”, we hear an off-‐screen sound which tells Jacob to “dream on”. It’s a creature like male voice so it’s like a warning to Jacob, this is a dream. This is also needed to be scene as a scene where Jacob finds the things he can’t let go, but it’s just another level of his mind creation.
In the next scene, Louis (which I discussed as a symbolism of Hermes earlier) gets into the hospital and checks out Jacob by force. Saying “you call this modern medicine? This is barbaric!” Louis takes Jacob into his own office and helps him there. In this scene, Louis still can be seen as a reference to Hermes (because of the discussions I made before). Also, when Jacob says that he’s dying and he’s in hell, Louis responds back: “… Echart saw hell too. You know what he said? He said the only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won’t let go of your life. Your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they’re not punishing you. They are freeing your soul. So the way he sees it, if you frightened of dying and you’re holding on, you’ll see devils tearing your life away. But if you’ve made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.” Basically, Louie explains the whole movie in one dialogue. Jacob is afraid of dying and there is his family that he’s afraid to let go. So he’s trying to hold on to this life, even in his head, in pure imagination. He sees demons because he’s not made his peace yet. But after this talk, Jacob is going to find a way to make his peace. Once again, as a helper of the journey, Louis strikes back as the figure of Hermes. Louis manages to get Jacob on his feet, while other doctors gave him a month.
There’s a rebirth motif in this scene. When Louis finishes his work with Louis, he wants to see if he can stand up. So he rises the stretcher that Jacob’s laying on and asks him to stand on his own. It’s a still image but the chair is rising slowly. And at the end of the scene, Jacob manages to stand up, fully recovered and ready to continue his katabatic journey.
In the following scene, Jacob gets home and looks through his Vietnam souvenirs. Inside of that, he finds a old note from his dead son, Gabe. Which connects us to the flashback scene, in which Jacob finally confronts the death of his child. After the talk he had with Louie about letting go and freeing his soul from the earth, he’s finally confronting this death and how it actually happened. When we exit the flashback, we see Jacob staring in the mirror in a trance state, not moving. He’s stuck in his head and he’s experiencing a “closure” moment that he never experienced before. As her sons image can be seen blurry into the mirror, he wakes up from his mental status and looks into the mirror. So when he sees the “echo” from the past in his reflection, he looks to it. Let’s remember that Echo is the lover of Narcisus. He finds Narcisus half dead, looking into his reflection. Echo loves Narcisus and tries to get his attention. He tries to get his attention by getting into the reflection and be a part of it.
When he finally manages to confront his worst memory, that’s time he’s ready for the information that is going to get him out of this katabatic journey. He reaches the answer that he’s been searching for throughout the movie. A man calls his home and asks him to meet. It’s the man that created the drug. The drug is called “the ladder”, which is referred “a trip with the ladder, down to the base of the fear”. This journey is also referred as a “descent” by the creator of the drug. So the drug itself creates the descent. Also LSD is a drug that often described as “taking a spiritual journey” . As far as we know, katabatic journey is the one of the most spiritual journeys as well. As Jacob’s katabatic journey comes to an end, in the next scene we see him running in the street, full of fog. Let’s remember that Hades island is the place where you can get if you follow the rivers correctly. And the island is described as “surrounded by fog”. In this case, Jacob’s closer to the island so it’s foggy now. Describing the arrival to Hades Island.
He goes to his family’s place. There is nobody there. It’s like they disappeared, because there are still half eaten food and drinks on the table. Assuming Jacob’s much closer to death, all of the memories and people starts to disappear from the world. Jacob falls asleep on the couch. Just right before he fells asleep, we hear Doctor Louis’s speech about “letting go” once again. When Jacob opens his eyes, he sees his dead son Gabe, sitting at the bottom stair of the staircase.
Jacob gets close to him. Gabe says “let’s go up”. As they go up, a bright light conquers the whole universe. It’s like the light that heroes see when they’re exiting Hades so finishing their katabatic journey. It’s like sun is shining and you can see it inside the cave, so you start to walk towards the light. In this case, Jacob finally reunites with his son and confronts his death. That’s when he and his son gets to ascend and leave this world properly.
In the next (and the last) scene, we see Jacob is laying on a stretcher. He’s in Vietnam. Fellow soldiers announce that he’s dead. One of them says “Put up a hell of a fight though”. Well, the fight that he’s talking about is what we actually watched throughout the movie. A katabatic journey, like any bad stage of life, is a fight as well. So we can say that we watched “hell of a fight” of Jacob’s. Considering that he finished his katabatic journey, it was worth fighting for.
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