Estudos Germânicos Belo Horizonte V.9

ESTUDOS GERMÂNICOS

N» 1 — LITERATURA

N° 2 — LÍNGUA

1. Editor

Aimara da Cunha Resende

CO-EDITORES

Elisa Cristina de Procnça Rodrigues CalloGeorg OttcHerzila Maria de Lima Bastos

Júnia de Castro Magalhães AlvesMaria da Conceição Magalhães Vaz de Mello

CONSELHO EDITORIAL

Dcrnadina da Silveira Pinheiro (UFRJ)Clcusa Vieira de Aguiar (UFMC)Erwin Thcodor Roscnthal (USP)Georg Ottc (UFMG)Heloísa Doxwcll (UFPc)Júlio César Machado Pinto (UFMG)Júnia de Castro Magalhães Alves (UFMG)Luiz Paulo da Moita Lopes (UFRJ)Marco Antônio Oliveira (UFMG)Maríada Conceição Magalhães Vaz de Mello (UFMG)Solangc Ribeiro de Oliveira (UFOP)Stcla Bcatris Torres Amold (UFMG)

2. Periodicidade anual

ISSN 0101-837 X

N* 1 p. 01 DEZ. 1988

SUMÁRIO

APRESENTAÇÃO 5

Path of Disclosureand Dlscourse: Joyce*s THE SISTERS 6

APeirceanReadingofÒ"NeüTsEMPERORJONES 11

The Absence of the Rose: Emily. Faulkner and the Reader 18

Descentrando a Critica: a Literatura das Minorias 22

GestureandStyleinTHEMOVIEGOER 30

The Price of Duty in Hemingway'sTHE FIFTH COLUMN 38

Estudos Germânicos Belo Horizonte V. 9 N° 1 p. 03 DEZ. 1988

1

APRESENTAÇÃO

0 VOLUME

Ovolume 9 de ESTUDOS GERMÂNICOS sai apenas como fasciculorelativo à literatura, ou seja. o n91.0 próximo volume, de n910. deverá ternovamenteos doisfasciculos.cujos temas centrais serào Texto/Contexto",para o n9 1 (Literatura) e 'Lingüística Aplicada ao Ensino de LínguaEstrangeira" para on-2 (Língua).

O presente fasciculo engloba três aspectos dos estudos literários: ostrês artigos iniciais se apoiam no processo da escritura, buscando o sentidoatravés da análise da narração, no primeiro: do efeito semiótico e do uso designos icônicos. indiciais e simbólicos, no segundo; e do uso de pressupostos teóricos peircianos e lacanianos visando â elucidação de aspectos doprocesso de literatura do texto literário, no terceiro.

Os dois artigos seguintes tratam de leituras das diferenças sociais.Aqui o foco são os grupos minoritários: o negro e a mulher.

O último artigo trata do envolvimento político/ideológico do autor esua relação com o trabalho de criação.

Esperando reencontrar-nos brevemente com nossos leitores, novolume n9 10, aqui lhes entregamos este fasciculo.

O EDITOR

Estudos Germânicos Belo Horizonte V. 9 N91 p.5 DEZ. 1988

Summary

Thepurpose ofíhis paper is toshí/l lhe focus oj the currentreadings of Joyce's TheSistersfrom discourse to narration, by regarding it as ajourney oja voice in search ofa truly expressive lacutionallonality.

_ # fl CenteredPaths ofDisclosure »« «*

•J story sprocess

of enunciation, this essayseeks to demonstrate

and Dlscourse: ^^^^p"0and ma/ce some sense

out oj his utterance, lhe sub-

Joyce's The Sisters J~*

Os Caminhos da Revelação edo Discurso: The Sisters, deJoyce

Die wege der Enthüllung undder Rede: The Sisters von

Joyce

Luiz Alberto de MIRANDA

Estudos Germânicos Belo Horizonte V.9

tion in The

Sisters

ends up enlrapped by/in lhevery silence Jrom which heIried lo sei himself free,through narralion.

Resumo

A finalidade deste IrabaUio émudar o foco da leitura doconto The Sisters. de James

Joyce. do discurso para anarração, considerando-ocomo a jornada de uma vozrumo a uma tonalidade

locucional verdadeiramente

expressiva. Centrado no processo enuncialivo do conto,este ensaio procurademonstrar que, na tentativade domeslicar a linguagem ede impor sentido à suaelocução, o sujeito daenunciação em The Sistersacaba preso no/pelo própriosilêncio de que pretendia selivrar através da narração.

N9 1

The purpose of this paper is tooíTer one more contribution tothe sludy of the enuncialive

process of James Joyce's TheSisters. the opening story inDubliners. To attain this goal. I shallfocus my attention on the overallconfiguration of the youngnarrator's utterance. which I regardas a literary rendillon of anadolescenfs struggle for self-dis-closure and apperception developedalong lhe path ofdiscourse. Startingout wilh lhe narrative voice's flam-boyanl display of locutional indeter-minacy and undecidabilily — In theopening senlence of the story andthroughoul its first paragraph.respectively — I intend to examinefour major aspecls of lhe enuncialive process of The sisters: the pacladult-wriler/boy-narrator. ils im-plications and consequenccs: theespecial kind of epiphany the storydisplays: lhe "cleavage" in lhe sub-jecl of lhe enunciation and hisfailure in transcending" himself orhis own discourse: and last. but not

least. the enlrapping force of thethree kcy signifiers of lhe text —paralysis. gnomon and stmony —which. emerging from the lhematiclevei of lhe story. set up a "prisonhouse of language" for the narralor,laying lheir imprinl bolh on lhetexfs slruclural configuration andon ils narraüonal effecl.

No essay on The sisters canoverlook the complexity of the texfsfirst paragraph or the intriguing am-biguily of ils first senlence. Like lheopening ofProusfs AIarecherchedulemps pcrdu. the inilial Unes ofThesisters are a stylistic "lour-de-force". and many crilics havepointed out the similarities betweenthe two passages. There are.however. slriking differences between them. especially in regard lolhe control each narrative voice has

over ils material.

In Prousfs long first paragraph.the first-person narralor uses lheimperfecl tense lo evoke some ofhisbcdlime rituais as a child. and "

' Universidade Federal de Goiás

p.6-10 DEZ. 1988

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

encounlers no difficulty in articulat-ing lhe feelings he used lo ex-perience whenever he found himselfcaught up on lhe threshold betweensleep and alertness. In Joyce's. lhenarrative voice sounds ralher

hesitant in ils choice of verb tenses.

Unable to start wilh a clear-cut view

of the incident, it mixes past-perfectand present tenses. that is,lhoughts and perceptions occurringat lhe moment of lhe narration

("Now I knew... Now it sounded")with aclions or altitudes occurredeilher in a recent ("Night afler nightI had passed... and studied") or in aremole past ("He had often said...and I had thought"). The end resultis a truncated. tentative utterance.which gives us "the paliem of anexperience as it actually is tomemory or observation .1

The loculional tonality of eachtexfs first senlence is also diflerenl.

"Longtemps je me suis couché debonne heure"2 is an utterance thatleaves no doubt as to when and bywhom it is produced. The same can-nol be said of the first senlence in

The sisters ("There was no hope forhim this time: it was the third

slroke.").3 Enlirely composed ofmonosyllables. and fully illuslrativeof a narrative voice's altempl toovercome speechlessness. this senlence lacks overt specificily in termsofboth voice and referent. and con-slilutes an exlremely odd starl for astory in which character and nar-rator are one and the same figure. Incontrast to the opening sentence ofProusfs work, which definitelypoinls to a past hábil and paves lheway for a recolleclion of past inci-dents, the first sentence inDübliners combines reiteralion and

finalization. for il consisls of theculmination (in the present) of a se-quence of repeated facls (occurredin the pasl). With its two impersonalconslructions. ils Ihird personpronoun and its deictic reference totime, the opening utterance of Thesisters brings the immediate sllua-lion of bolh leller and character to

the foreground of the diegetic space;and in its ambiguity, narrational innature. it anticipates one of thebasic issues of lhe story's enuncia-tive project: the relationship be-

Iween reporting self and experienc-ing self.

The first aspect of the enunciation of The sisters to be dealt wilh

In this paper is precisely the oneraised by the story's first senlenceand paragraph: the relationship between reporting self and experienc-ing self. To analyze this relationshipis to refer to the pact between writerand narralor. for it is this pact thatdetermines the place. time andstance from which the story's enunciation stems. as well as lhe overall

design — trace or finalily — lhat itsnarrative voice performs andachieves.

There is no doubt that, in The

sisters. narrative action and narrational act are not simultaneous.

Narrating self and experiencing selfare differenl subjects. or ai leastdifferent slances ofthe same subjec-tivity. Yet. this is not to say that thesubject of the enunciation in Thesisters is an adult looking back lo achildhood experience — whichwould be a gross misconstruction ofthe texfs enunciative process. It isobvious that there is an adult

presiding over the entire composi-lion: but this adult chooses to dis-guise himself as an adolescent narralor and to become the main

character in the story. Therefore. itcould be said that lhe enunciative

project of The sisters belongs lo amature subject (orself) whochoosesto play lhe part of immature narralor (reporting self) so that the feelings of the thirteen-year-old boy hewas (experiencing self) may come tothe foreground of the diegetic space.

The dlsguise adopted is quiteeffective. Even in lhe earliest verslon

of the story. published in the Irishhomeslead in 1904. lhe juveniletonality of lhe narrative voice can bepromptly perceived.

There. the opening lines of thestory read as follows:

T/iree nighls in succession 1had Jound myself in GreatBrüain Street at í/iaí hour, asifby providence. Tivee nights Ihad raised my eyes to thatlighted square of window and

Paths ofDisclosure and Discourse: Joyces The Sisters

speculaled. I seemed to under-stand that ü would occur atnight. But in spite oj theprovidence which had led myJeet and inspite ojthe reverentcuriosity qfmy eyes, I had dis-covered noihing.

The "unknowing" position ofthe narrative voice in the quotationabove shows that, as early as thefirst version of the story. the pactbetween adult writer and boy narralor had already been establishedand was already at work. Accordingto this pact. lhe adult yields to theboy the right to narrate. and doesnot allow his adult consciousness to

intrude in lhe narration.

The result of this process is adisruplion of the conventional narrative norms. according to which anarration must be sparing, straight-forward and coherent. so lhat it canperform Its function properly. Theboy's narration, however. is neilhera straightforward nor a sparing one.He does not spare words. or goesstraight to the point. His narrationunfolds itself slowly and gradually,as though it were searching for itsoriginal motivation. or its remotestroot — the sensation of perplexitythat assailed the boy when he heardlhe reticent comment of the priesfsslster on her brolher's slate of mindbefore his death. Also. the boy's narration lacks coherence. in the tradi-tional sense. The sisters becomescoherent as a narration only insofaras it unfolds itself: and it is this veryunfolding that provides it with itsnarrative slatus and allows it to im-

pose itself as narralion.

Therefore. it could be said that.in making the narrative voice of hisreporting self that of an adolescent.the adult writer tums himself intoan incompetent. almost impotentnarralor. incapable of verbalizingthe "epiphanic" experience he livedthrough. The master of dictiondeliberately becomes a master ofinter-diction (of "diclion-between"."half-diction") and also of interdic-tion (diction of interruption.prohibition. paralysis). In fact. asthe young narrator of The sisters isunable lo detach himself from the

emolion in which he has been

caught up. he cannol see himselfexcepl wilh lhe eyes of lhe sentientself who experiences lhat emolion.By presenling his image "in im-mediale relalion lo himself" alone.he ends up producing a lyrical ul-terance — an utterance lhat. seek-ing lo rearticulale an experience notso much lo disclose its meaning asto recapture its revelalion. suils per-fectly Joyce's purpose, which ismore lo cryslallize a vislon than lomanufacture a plot.

As I used the adjeclive"epiphanic". I think lhat, at thispoint. a review of lhe Joycean con-cepls of eplclesis and epiphany is inorder. for bolh are essenlial to theunderstandlngofJoyce's slories. in-cluding lhe one under considera-tion.

According to Peler Garrei.epiclesis is lhe invocalion the priestmakes lo lhe Holy Ghost. ai themoment oflhe Consecralion, so thatbread and wine may lurn inlo lhebody and blood ofChrist. respeclive-ly. The term epiphany appears forlhe first time in Slephen hero. wherelhe narralor defines It as "a suddenspiritual manifesta tion, whether inlhe vulgarity of speech or gesiure orin a memorable phase of the minditself."5

Each of the slories in Dublinersis an epiclesis— the transformationofa "slice of life" inlo an arl object.a "Ihing of beauty". And each oflhem features. ai lhe cenler of itsthemalic proposllion, an epipliany— a moment of clairvoyance orperplexity. Involving eilher character or reader or bolh. Yel. most of

Joyce's "epiphany-orienled" crilics6fail to emphasize lhat. in making hisnotion of epiphany lhe basicthemalic component of his earlyshorl slory colleclion.Joyce crealednot only an "epiphany-cenlered"narrative form, but also an"epiphany-cenlered" narralionalmethod. The concepl of epiphanyserves to designale nol only lhethematic nucleus ofJoyce's slories.but also lheir narrative slruclureand lheir narralional effecl. II is asthough the epiphany could "leak"from lhe lhemalic levei of a story

8

through lhe slruclural lo the narralional.

It should be stressed. however.

lhat in some slories. lhe epipliany ischaracterized by a "hole" or "lack"—and becomes lhe revelalion of an

absence ralher lhan the presence ofa revelalion. eilher for character orreader or bolh. This is preciselywhat occurs in The sisters. As lhe

boy narrator fails to verbalize his"epiphanic" experience. the reader isprevented from sharing it; and is ledto experience lhe epiphany of a lack(nol a lack of epiphany). of absence,of silence. In this respecl. the reac-lion of the reader to lhe boy's narra-lion is similar lo lhat of the boy toElisa's relicenl commenl.

Now, we shall lurn our alten-

lion lo the boy narrator. the actualsubject of the lexfs enunciation. InThe sisters, the narralor seems lobe speaking from Iwo places/limessimulianeously, or oscillaling between two stances or stages of his"I". Since his enunciative gesiureoccurs shortly afler the epiphany heexperiences. there is a "cleavage" or"splil" in lhe subject of lhe enunciation. Slriclly speaking. the narrativevoice in The sisters comes from two

Ts:" The "I" of the moment of lhe

enunciation and the "1" of the mo

ment of the epiphany. The tensefluclualion in the first paragraph ofthe story illuslrates this assertion infull. The "I" of the moment of lheenunciation engages himself in anact of narration in an altempl torecapture, through discourse. hisolher self— thal is. the "I" he was atlhe moment of the epiphany. Selfapproprialion and apperception islhe primary objective of the boy'snarration. and the feature thal

makes il similar to a psychoanalyticsession in which only lhe analysandis present. Opening his way alongthe path ofdiscourse. he purporls loeffecl a self-disclosure that wouldlake him back lo lhe lime/place ofhis "epiphanic" experience. In olherwords. he is seeking to link narral-ing selfand experiencing self. lhe "I"he is now (at the moment of thenarralional act) with the "I" he wasthen (at the moment of lhe narrativeaclion). lo be able lo verbalize his

experience in full. In his longing foror nostalgia of oneness and com-plelcness. lhe boy narrator seeks toharmonize epiphanic perplexity andnarralional alertness past sensalionand present enunciation. in order lofashion a paradisical. ideal self. infull possession of an equallyparadisical. ideal "logos".

The overall dynamics of theenunciation of The sisters thusreveals an Ego trying lo set up anencounter wilh the Id. according toFreud's prescriptlon in the third ofhis New Iniroductory Lectures onPsychoanalysis: "Wo es war soll Ichwerden".7 Yet. even if lhe Id is. asLacan would have it. that reposiloryof trulh to which the Ego shouldrelum as though il were reluminghome. lhe idea of a slabilized Ego,impermeable lo the "Ihreats" of lheId or tolally accepling of ils pluralstructures. is a utopia. The joumey"back home" is a doomed enlerprisesimply because lhe human subject"can be graspcd only as a sei oflensions. mutalions or dialeclicalupheavals. wilhin a continuous. in-lenllonal. fulure-direcled process",8which unfolds itself melonymicallyas discourse. So. lhe ideal self thesubject of lhe enunciation in Thesisters is looking for cannot befound except in the speaking subjecthe is. and lhe ideal "logos" he longsforcannot reside oulside Ihesignify-lng chaln of his own enunciation.The "diclum" thal is, lhe definitivediscourse. lies in the "dicens". thatIs. lhe searching. tentative one —which is the only one the boy narralor, as a speaking subject, canever utilize. Self-approprialionthrough disclosure and discoursedoes nol go beyond self-acceplance.For the "lack" or "gap" thal charac-terizes lhe operations of the subject"incapacilates him for selfhood. in-wardness or apperception orplenitude: il guarantees the in-dcslruclibilily of desire by keepinglhe goals of desire in perpetuaiflight .9

Joyce's The sisters has beenalso relaled to lhe theme of"transcendence". The critic PhillipHerrlng affirms:

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

like most oj"Joyce's work.Thesisters is about transcen-

dence, in this case. how ayoung boy wishes to elude lheautlxorily qfelders who unwit-tingly inhibit his spiritual andinlellectual growth.. 10

My claim is that the theme oftranscendence may be present inThe sisters. bul never with this

coloralion or on this levei. I relate il

not to lhe boy as characler. bul lolhe boy as narralor. In olher words.1 prefer lo see a gesiure lowardstranscendence on the narralional

levei of lhe text, and not on thenarrative one. Simultaneously wilhhis allempt to fill in his "gap". to"transcend" the precarlousness ofhis subjectivity. is lhe effort of lheboy narralor lo move beyond hisown discourse. lo surpass ils limils(or overcome its limitations). to"transcend" it — in order lo allain a

higher mode of expression. whichwould enable him to verbalize hisexperience in full. But lhe"transcendence" he longs for. therealm of lhe iransparent. unam-biguous "logos". cannot be reached.as long as Ego and Id continue locoexisl. To put it differently. the boynarralor seeks lo Iransccnd his dis

course in lhat he wanls his narra

tion to perfomi a traditional func-tion. which is lo narrate somelhing.to poinl to a signified. He does notknow thal there Is no signified ex-cept in lhe interplay of signifiers. no"logos" beyond discourse and nonarrative excepl In narration: for hedoes not know that there is no sta-

bilized selfhood. excepl in the subject thal manifesls ilsclf in themobilily of the signifying chain ofdiscourse. For "far from bcing anepiphenomenon of lhe signifier, lhesubject has a relalion of intcrdepcn-dence with it... both are charac-

lerized by lheir power of Indefiniteslruclural displacemenl."

This is one of the reasons whyThe sisters remains as "opaque" inils meaning as Miss Flynns reticcnlcommenl on her brolher*s mentaland spiritual confusion. In an altempl to reslore his individualily byreconsliluting the "sudden spiritualmanifeslation" thal assailed him.

the young narrator can only retracelhe steps thal led him lo the climac-tic epiphany he experienced; but heends up by narraling evenls whoseslruclural disposition reflecls thevery silence of which he wanls to ridhimself. Enoncè and ènonciation arethus blended and no meaning is lobe found behind the geslures of lhenarrative voice.

These consideralions lead to

the conclusion thal the three keysignifiers of lhe story — paralysis.gnomon and simony — nol only en-capsulaie ils Ihcmalic propositionsand structurual configuration, butalso regulale its narralional design.

Paralysis. for example. lurnsout to be not only "the name of amaleficenl and sinful being", (9). butthal of an infeclious and contagiousdisease. which contaminates even

lhe voices of lhose who dare lo speakaboui il. In facl. the boy's narrationis a paralylic one. in thal it stops atthe ver>' nioment it should disclosea major revelalion. Whal was supposed to be just lhe prelude lo theverbalizai ion of a significam experience ends up replacing bolh theexperience and ils verbal rendilion:and whal was supposed lo be justan introduclion to the narrative

proper becomes lhe very corpus oflhe narrative. Also. as the reader is

denied lhe pleasure ofa satisfacloryconclusion. he becomes asparalyzed by the boy's narration aslhe boy himselfwas by the words oflhe priesfs sisier. Paralysis thusbecomes the first regulating force ofthe texfs enunciation.

The second lerm. gnomorL servesto define lhe strueture of lhe narrative. but it also poinls to thegeneraling impulse and lhe endresull of lhe narralional act. According lo VVcusíer's New World Diction-an/, a gnomon is "the pari ofa paral-lclogram remaining afler a similarparallelogram has been laken fromone of ils corners."12 In lhe sameway that "lack" or "gap" is whalmakes lhe human subject whal heis. il is a lack. a hole (lhe missingpari of the parallelogram) thatprovides lhe gnomon wilh ils "raisondelre". and makes it whal it is.Founded on the gnomonic strueture

Palhs ofDisclosure and Discourse: Joyce's The Sisters

of a speaking subject. The sisterscould only be a gnomonic utterance.In fact. the story lacks a convenlion-al ending. and derives its idenlity asa text from ihis very delail.

The word simony also lays Itsimprint on lhe narralional design oflhe text under analysis. A livegnomon himself. the subject of theenunciation in The sisters is also

guilly of the sin of simony. Allhoughhe does not sell any church goods.pardons or ofuces, he sells out hisnarration. misuses lhe sacred

material at his disposition. speaks alot but does not say much. Like thecareless priest who drops thechalice containing lhe blood ofChrist. lhe young narralor alsowasles his blood logelher wilh hiswords.

In conclusion. it could be said

thal The sisters is a moment or

place when/where the signifiersparalysis. gnomon and simony. ac-lualizing lhemselves as narration.make a loculion lurn in upon itselfand become circumloculion. To

describe lhe subject of lhe enunciation of The sisters one could use amodified version of Malcolm Bowies

rendition of Lacan*s concept ofhuman subject: as he engages himself in lhe acl of enunciation — aliterary version ofthe process oflanguage acquisition — lhe youngDubliner. inserls himself inlo lhepre-exisling symbolic order of thal"hemiplegia or paralysis whichmany consider a city". lhereby sub-milting his desire to the systemicpressures of lhat order: in choosingto narrate. he chooses language andallows his free inslinclual energiesto be operaled upon and or-ganized.

In facl. as he tries to "de-paralyze" himself by lelling a sloryabout (and out of) paralysis, lheyoung narralor in The sisters losescontrol of his discourse and reacheslhe end of his narration as paralyzedas he was before he slarted it. Thesignifier paralysis combined withgnomonand simony — which soundequally slrange and prove lo beequally powerful — imposes its ownpaliem of signification on lhenarrator's enunciative gesiure. »-

tuming his work inlo a reílection of speaking subjects, ofthe extent to hisnarrational act.This is his mis-the"deadly work" he himself longed which words made and continue lo fortune — and. paradoxically, theto look upon. In this respect, The make man, the young narralor of source from which we, as readers.sisters is an illustration of the The sisters ends up enlrapped in a derive our pleasure and gralifica-powersignifiershave overthose who "prison house of language" and tion. Qbelieve to be in full possession and acted upon by the very words hecontrol of them. Oblivious, like most believed he could domeslicate with

NOTES

1 David Dalches. Dubliners. In Twentieth cenlury interpretations qfDubliners. Peter Garret (ed.) Englewod Cllffs.NJ: Prentice Hall. Inc., 1968. p. 28. For quotalions from Thesisters refer to the 1980 Penguin edilion ofDubliners.

2 First senlence of Mareei Prousfs A Ia recherche du tempsperdu.Cf. Mareei Proust. A Ia recherchedu tempsperdu. Paris: Gallimard. 1954, p. 3.

3 James Joyce. Dubliners. New York. NY: Penguin. 1980, p. 9.

4 Marvin Magalaner, Time qfapprenliceship: the flclion of the young James Joyce. London, Abelard Schuman,1959. In this book. Magalaner presents an exlendedanalylical appreciation ofJoyce's revisions of Thesisters, alongwith a facsimile oflhe first version oflhe story. The reader should referlo Magalaner's workfor a more detalled trealment of this issue.

5 Peter Garret, Introduction, Tu>enlt'eíh cenlury interpretations qfDubliners. p. 11.

6 Among these, I include HarryLevin. Anlhony Burgess and James R. Baker.

7 Sigmund Freud. The major works ojSigmund Freud. Chicago; III: Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc.. 1971, p. 840.

8 Malcolm Bowie. Jacques Lacan. In Structuralism and since. John Sturrock. (ed.). London: Oxford UniversilyPress. 1979. p. 131.

9 Bowie. p. 134.

10 Phillip Herring, Strueture and meaning in The sisters. The seventh ofJoyce. Bernard Benstock, (ed.).Bloomington. Indiana. Indiana Univ. Press. 1982, p. 131-144.

11 Bowie. p. 132.

12 Cf. Webstefs New World Diciionary (College Edition). New York. NY: World Publishing Co.. 1968. p. 619.

13 Bowie. p. 126.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BENSTOCK. Bernard. The seventh ojJoyce. Bloomington, Indiana, Universily Press, 1982.

FREUD, Sigmund. The major works ojSigmund Freud. Chicago. Illinois, Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc.. 1971.

GARRET. Peter (ed.). Twenlieth cenlury interpretations qfDubliners. Englewood Cliffs. NJ, Prentice Hall Inc..1968.

JOYCE, James. Dubliners. New York. NY, Penguin Books. 1980.

MAGALANER. Marvin. Time qfapprenliceship: the fiction of the young Joyce. London. Abelard Schuman. 1959.

PROUST, Mareei. A Ia recherche du temps perdu. Paris. Gallimard. 1954, 4 volumes.

STURROCK, John (ed.). Structuralism and since. London, Oxford Universily Press, 1979.

Re vista de Estudos Germânicos

•h

ofO'Neül's

Summary

The article aims at showing,through an analysis of thesemiotic effects of the use oficonic, indexical and symbolicsigns in theplay, that 0'Neill'swork has to do prímarily withthe blurred boundaries be

tween the actual and the_, imag-

leading [™hdedomain

ofa synthesis ofthe real andthe illusory.

Resumo

O artigo demonstra, atravésda análise do efeitosemiólico do uso de

signos icõnicos, indiciais e simbólicos

na peça EmperorJones. que esta obra de 0'Neilllida principalmente com asconfusas fronteiras entre oreal e o imaginado, com oterritório da síntese entre a

ilusão e a realidade.

Emperor Jones

(1920)

Uma leitura peirciana deEmperor Jones de 0'Neill

0'Neills Emperor Jones mitPeirce Gelesen

Fred M. CLARK

n examinalion of lhe criticai

bibliography of 0'NeiU's workireveals various generations of

different criticai approaches. Histheater as a whole and the in

dividual plays have been analyzedfrom a number of possible points ofview — lhe psychological, theliterary, lhe sociologlcal, lhe theatri-cal. Each crllic, with the readingsresulting from a particular criticaimelhodology. has contributedsomelhing to lhe understanding of0'Neill's fictive universe. One criticai

melhod is not necessarüy incorrectas compared to another; nor is oneinherenlly superior and to befavored for reaching some type ofultimate interpretalion of lhe per-ceptions lhat lhe playwright has en-coded inlo his lheatrical works. On

A

Estudos Germânicos Belo Horizonte V.9 N° 1

APeircean Reading of0'Neill's Emperor Jones (1920)

the contrary, each approachgenerally adds somelhing to an on-going process of understanding asthe texts live on afler their authorhas ceased to exist. As Tiusanen

says. the dramatic text is a work ofart, and "when treating this elusivethlng. the best results are achievedlf it is dlscussed not from one butfrom several poinls of view." (1968:19-20) I propose a particular read-ing. using Peircean semiotics. oftheplay lhat "established 0'Neill as anInternational figure" (Carpenter1979: 52). I hope lo bring togethermany elements already noted anddlscussed by some critics. while, atthe same time. offering a somewhatdifferent understanding and inter-pretation.of lhe work.

A number of semiolicians of

theater have found Peirces work lo

be mosl useful in analyzing anddescribing how the sign funclionson the stage (cf. Elam 1982: 21:Pavis 1982: Pladotl 1982). AsPladoll has noled:

The main aduanlage ojapply-ing this model lies in thepossi-bilily oj classifying ali thesigns of a theatrical performance strueture according totheir 'representational' junc-tion... On the basis ofthis cias-sificalion we may then explorethe various types oj relalion-ships that lhe globalfunctionalsystems jorm with oneanoüier. ConsequenÜy. we areable to avoid such unneces-

sary antinomies as wriltentext/perjormance: il-lusionist/ non-illusionisttheatre. etc. (1982:30)

With Peirce's definition and division

of the sign in terms of how the signvehicle relates to its object, we canexplain lhe dynamic of 0'Neill's textsyslematically in terms ofsign func-tion.

For Peirce a sign is "some-=** Universily of Norlh Carollna

p.11-17 DEZ. 1988

11

thing that stands to somebody forsomelhing in some respect orcapacity." (CP 2.228) II is of adynamic, triadic nature, composedof three momenls in a constant

mediating relation: the sign in itself(the sign vehicle). the object (thereferent; the somelhing for whichthe vehicle stands). lhe interpretant(the sign created in lhe perceivingmind; this sign functions as a signof a sign). Peirce defines a numberof trichotomies ofthe sign; lhe threemajor ones based on the relation ofthe sign to the three elements of lheIriad, however. constitute the basisof his semiolic: (1) the sign in relation to itself: (2) the sign in relalionto its object; (3) lhe sign in relationto its interpretant. These categories,in turn, yield furlher divisionsresulting in sixty-six classes ofsigns. The most explolted of thethree basic divisions, particularly bysemioticians of theater, and themost fundamental according toPeirce (CP 2.275) is thal which con-cems sign and object; this breaksdown into the well-known Iripartitemodel of icon. index. and symbol.

The relalion between lhe iconic

sign and ils objecl is grounded onsimilarily: the icon "has no dynam-ical connection wilh the object ilrepresenls; it simply happens lhatits qualities resemble lhose of thatobject. and excite analogous sensa-tions in the mind for which it is alikeness. Bul it is really uncon-nected with them" (CP 2.299). Theindex functions as a sign when itpoints lo its objecl: the relalion between the sign and its objecl is pure-ly causai or conliguous. The indexi-cal sign "is physically connecledwith its objecl; lhey make an organicpair. bul the inlerprellng mind hasnothing to do with this connection.except remarking it, afler it is estab-lished" (CP 2.299). The relalion between iconic and indexical signsconslitutes an interesting aspect oftheatrical sign syslems in lhat thespectalor generally tends to see indexical signs as iconic; as Pladottnotes, "while iconicily takes indexical elements. such as gesiure. costume, etc. for granted. the viewertends to see ali geslures as iconic"

12

(1982:36). The symbolicfunction ofthe sign rests on the arbilrary andconventional relalion of sign to itsobject; in lhe theater (as in art ingeneral) this sign function is contextbound and is associated wilh the

aesthetic function ofwork. The symbolic sign "is connected with its object by virtue of the idea of symbol-using mind, wilhout which no suchconnection would exist" (CP 2.299).In using this trichotomy for pur-poses of analysis of theatrical signs,lt is important to keep in mind amost important fact: a sign mayfunction as icon, index, and symbolsimultaneously, and "it is even pos-sible for it to refer to the same objectin ali three ways at once" (Ransdell1986: 688). The notion of hierarchyis important here; Peirce, in hisdescriplion of lhe phenomenologicalcategories, associales the icon withfirslness. the index with second-ness, and the symbol with thirdnessin a hierarchical strueture, thehigher category always implying thelower one(s). As we will see in ouranalysis, most of lhe signs in thetext are ali three. but lhe speclatordoes not necessarüy identify alithree at lhe same time. On the con-

Irary. as we will see in this readingof the text il is the conslanlly shift-ing sign function (lhe tension between lhe iconic and the symbolic)and the foregrounding and back-grounding of one or lhe olher function in lhe various theatrical signsyslems (cf. Kowzan 119681 whoidenlifies and defines 13 such sys-tems) that creale. or at leasl movetoward, an understanding of lhesign that the text becomes.

The Emperor Jones revolvesaround the fali from power ofa peltydiclalor, and his subsequent disin-legration as a human being. It is lhestory ofthe Black man Brutus Joneswho has become the slrong man of"an island in the West Indies as yetnot self-determined by WhiteMarines." (0'Neill 1954: 2; subsequent references to the text are tothis edilion). This is prelextual in-formalion supplied in bits andpieces in Scene I in an exchangebetween Jones and Smilhers, acockney trader who has helped

Jones reach his suecess throughcorruption. Smithers informs Jonesthat the natives have íled the palaceand are preparing lo assassinate theEmperor. The remaining sevenscenes of lhe text chronicle the externai (iconic and indexical) and internai (symbolic) flights of Jones upto the point of his death.

Various sign syslems merge tocreale the tension and contrasl of

reality and illusion — the dynamicof the text — as their signs are per-ceived eilher as iconic and indexical

or symbolic. The most immediateand obvious are the visual (actors.props. decor, gesture, movement.costume) and the auditory (language. sound effects). The spectatormusl view Jones' journey as an ac-tual flight through a forest on anisland at night: at the same time,because of the tension, he is forcedto rethink this and see il in ils symbolic function, i.e., as a journeythrough a troubled and frustratedmind. from the personal to the col-lective. if an understanding beyondthe mere mimetic is to be reached.

The spectator. in a sense. is placedin lhe same position as Jones. Cer-tain moments of the performanceconstitute Jones' inlerpretants. i.e..the signs produced in his mind ashe perceives and interprets theworld around him. The spectalor, asis Jones. is torn between the realityand illusion of the situation as heviews lhe ghosts of Jones' personaland racial past. However, unlikeJones. who is in this situation because ofguill and fear, the spectaloris finally able to discem the realfrom the illusory of the text andunderstand that lhe illusions are

produced by lhe protagonisfs guillsand fears. Jones remains entrappedin his situation and becomes a vic-

tim of his own devices.

The seis that capture lhedualily of sign funclion. and thusJones' entire being (externai and internai), consist of lhose from SceneII through Scene VII. i.e.. those lhatoceur at lhe edge ofand in the GreatForest. The forest. as porlrayed onslage, suggests bolh the externaiand internai as a place of great

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

harshness and chãos; it is "a wall ofdarkness dividing the world." It is asymbolic division between the realand the illusory, night and day. andlife and death. The darkness shouldbe intensified, as 0'Neill indicates inhis sidetext: "Only when the eye becomes accuslomed to the gloom canthe outlines of separate trunks ofthe nearest tree be made out. enor-mous pillars ofdeeper blackness" (p.17).

As Jones progresses on hisflight through the forest. escapinghis supposed pursuers, the iconic istransformed inlo the symbolic as heenters not only the forest but alsohimself. The dialogue of Scene I becomes a monologue as characlerswho could exist only In his mindappear on stage — The Lillle Form-less Fears (Scene II); Jeff. a manwhom Jones had killed before thetime of the text (Scene III); convictsand a prison guard on a chain gangwhere Jones had served Ume (SceneIV); an auclioneer. plantalionowners. and slaves at a slave auc-lion of the last cenlury (Scene V);slaves on a slave galley (Scene VI); aCongoWilch-Doctor and a CrocodileGod (Scene VII). None of these con-stitules independent personalilies;they are simply projeclions of theprotagonisfs mind (i.e.. inter-prelants) and function at his will assigns ofhis personal and racial past.The conlrast and tension between

sign functions are emphasizedthroughout the text by a number ofother contrasls, which Carpenter(1979: 89) refers to as physical andpsychological, and Tiusanen as "in-teraclion within and between the

scenic images" (1968: 107). Thefigure of Jones synthesizes ali thecontrasls as he becomes a symbol ofthe entire text; ali lhe signs on thestage. which are really Jones' inter-pretants (his perception of the worldaround him) create other inter-pretants for the spectator who at-tempts to impose order and understanding on the text.

The various scenes in the forestrepresent different states of mind.bolh conscious and unconscious.personal and colleclive (what Car

penter |1979: 88] calls a combina-tion of the "reality of lhe actualjungle wilh the confused fanlasy ofJones' mind"). Jones serves as theprincipal unifying element of ali thescenes. Allhough the spectatorremains aware that an actual flightis occurring. the unconscious stalecomes to dominate the events on

stage. This is foregrounded by lhetheatrical sign syslems of sound ef-fects, specifically the tom-tom andgun shols. lhat function indexicallyand symbolically. In each scene.beginning with the end of Scene IIwhere Jones enters the forest,through Scene VII, where he dies,lhe stage space is transformed (andthis can be done only through lhesymbolic function) into differentphysical and temporal spaces (whilestill functioning as a forest in thepresent moment. which is a periodof one night) in Jones' personal andracial exislences.

The scenes represent abrupl,rapid movements back in time,while maintaining the element of lhepresent moment:

Scene I: the present moment:lhe palace oj the EmperorJones:

Scene II: the present moment:Jones hasjled the palace andis on the edge oj the GreatForest; Üiis scene, with the Lillle Formless Fears and lhesense oj "edge" serves as aIransilion in the transforma-tionojtíie stage space that wiüoccur in the jollowing scenesand signals the audience lhatJones is beginning to sujferdelusions (the Little FormlessFears willassume specijic andconcrele forms as the textprogresses);

Scenes UI-Vl: Jones is losl inthe jorest: however, eachscene represents a differentplace and lime;

APeircean Rcading of0'Neill's Emperor Jones (1920)

Scene III: Jones has moved tothe poinl in the past in whichhe kills the negro Jeff; heshoots him again and Jeffdis-appears inapujfofsmoke;

Scene IV: Jones' days on lhechain gang when he killed aguard and escaped; Scenes V-VII predateJones' personal ex-istence: they relate to his racialpast;

Scene V: an auclion on a

soulhern plantalion:

Sceiie VI: lhe ocean crossing oja slave ship;

Scene VII: an encounler wilh a

Congo Wilch-Doctor and theCrocodile God.

The order of the time sequence isbroken, as Tiusanen indicates. withthe placing of Jeff before lhe killingof lhe guard. which is a more recenlevent (1968: 105). This interruptionof lhe order. however. simply servesas anolher sign of Jones' chaoticslate of mind in his flight.

On lhe leveis of the iconic and

indexical (the mimelic) Jones becomes losl because it is night and hedoes not know lhe terrain well. Thesense of being physically lost becomes symbolic of his mental con-fusion. chãos, and ultimate disin-

tegralion as a person. As he wandersaround. this is reflecled in hisglorious emperor's uniform ("a lightblue uniform coat. sprayed wilhbrass buttons. heavy gold chevronson his shoulders. gold braid on thecollar. etc. His pants are bright redwith a light blue stripe down theside. Patent leather laced bools wilh

brass spurs..." (Scene I; p. 61), whichis torn to shreds. This sign ofauthorily is symbolic of Jones' ar-rogance in this position in lifewhichis unnalural for him; as emperor heprelends lo be something that he isnot. different from olhers of his ~

13

race, lhose whom he dominales andrefers to derrogatorily as "low-flungbush niggers". Over the followingscenes the outfit becomes symbolic of Jones' disinlegralion as ahuman being:

"He has losl his panama hat..his brülianl uniform showsseveral large rents" (Scene III,p. 21);

"His uniform is ragged andtom" (Scene IV. p. 23);

"His pants are in tallers, hisshoes cut and misshapen,Jlapping about on his jeel"(Scene V, p. 26);

"His pants have been so tomaway thal whal ís lejl oj themis no belter than a breechclolh" (Scene VI, p. 29).

His disintegraling uniform is lhenindexical of flight through a roughplace. while at the same lime. it issymbolic of lhe slripping away oflayers of his being. i.e.. his state ofmind. He regresses from Emperor(i.e.. civilized; reflected in the sellingof the palace in Scene I) to his racialorigins (i.e., primitive; reflected inlhe forest scenes). The civilized andlhe primitive are suggesled by thename Brutus (irrational; stupid)Jones (a common human name).The disintegralion is also reflectedin a symbolic fali from the palace,which is described as situated onhigh ground and where Jones isemperor. to the forest where he islosl and a fugitive.

0'Neill carefully indicates cer-lain kinesic aspecls (movements, facial expressions, geslures. ele.) inhis sidetext. particularly those thatrelate to lhe anlinomy of lhe realand the imagined. The imaginedpersonages who appear in the forestscenes move in such a way as tosuggest that they are not real;generally. the descriptions imply

14

corresponding facial expressionsand body postures. Although themovements, and the pantomimethat occurs, are iconic in that theyrefer to real movements. they be-come symbolic of Jones' chaoticconfusion of the real and the imagined. In other words, the meaningemerges from lhe context and is ar-bitrary. not necessarily signifyingthe same outside the text. Jones

moves around the stage in a mannerthat is an iconic and indexical repre-sentalion of a man in flight. On oc-casion, his movements change andare similar to those of the creations

of his mind (in Scene VII he entersinlo the dance with the Wilch-Doc

tor: "...he beats time wilh his hands

and sways his body to and fro fromthe waist." (p. 32]). At these momenls there is a sense of metaper-formance achieved; Jones par-ticipales in a drama lhat his mindcreates and lhen wilhdraws from

this when he realizes that il is not

real. In general, however. a contraslis realized to indicale thal the other

figures on lhe stage during the forestscenes exist only in Jones' mind atthat moment:

Scene II: lhe Liitle FormlessFears are blackand shapelessjorms that move around withdijficully and in süence on lhestage;

Scene III: Jejj moves withmechanical movements like anautomaton, in süence. and dis-appears in a cloud oj smokewhen Jonesfires on him;

Scene IV: lhe convicls' movements are "lhose ojaulomalons, — rigid, slow,and mechanical" (p. 24); in thesame scene, Jones, reliving thekiUing oj (he guard, performsthis in pantomime with an in-visible shovel; he realizes,however, that his hands areempty andjor a moment lhecharactersarecaughl betweenthe illusion and reality oj thesituation: "They standfvced in

motionless altitudes, theireyes on the ground. Theguardseems to wait expectantly, hisback turned to the attacker."

(p. 24);

Scene V: at the slave auction,theplanters and spectators ojthe sale, "exchange greelingsin dumb show, and chat süent-ly together. There is somelhingstiff, rigid, unreaL marionetlishabout theirmovements''(p. 27);Jones becomes caught up inthis silent speclacle andput onthe auction blockbut suddenlyrealizes that it is not real asseen in hisjacial expressions:"He dares to look down and

around him. Overhisjace object terror gives way to mys-tijicaiion, to gradual realiza-tion..." (p. 28);

Scene VI: lheslaves on theshipare silent and motionless aslhe scene opens, but Thenthey begin to sway slowlyjor-ward loward each and backagain inunison. as ifthey werelaxly letling themselvesjóllowthe longroll oja ship at sea" (p.29); theonlypropsused tosuggest a ship are two rows ojchairs and seated figures inloincloths;

Scene VII: lhe place is sug-gested by the coslume and ac-tions ofthe Wilch-Doctor, Le„his chanl and dance thatgivesway toa narrativepantomime:"...his croon is an incantation,a charm toallay thejiercenessoj some implacable deitydemanding sacrijices. Hejlees, he is pursuedby devas,he hides, he jlees again Everwilder and wilder becomes hisjlight, nearer and nearerdraws the pursuing evü, moreand more lhe spiril of terrorgains possession of him" (p,31). As Jones observes this. heis seeing a mirror image ojhim-selfand his ownJlight, terror,andjears. »*

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

As Carpenler has noled. thereare two devices that function as

unifiers for the various scenes: lhe

two very noliceable sound effecis oflhe tom-tom and the gun shols. Thiscritic sees these in terms of bolh lhe

physical and psychological (cf. Carpenler 1979: 89). which corre-sponds somewhat to our nolion oflhe shlfting function of lhe sign. AsTornqvist (1969: 157) says. "wevacillate between regarding lhesound as internai and externai

reality as our minds fluctuaie between lhe rational and the irration-

al. reason and emolion." Tiusanen(1968: 102) also explains the lom-tom in terms of the real and symbolic: "At this poinl [in the openingscene] there are no symbolic over-lones; lhe lom-tom is simply a signlhat lhe Empcrofs subjects havedeserted him and galhered on lhehills...". Bolh lhe tom-tom and lhe

gun shots. as these crilics havepointed out in different terms. aresigns that function in differentways. The sounds are physically ex-perienced by lhe audience. i.e.. theyare reproduced lo serve as iconicsigns wilh indexical functions. Theyare. in other words. mimelic.

However. they also funclion sym-bolically in thal lhey come to signifyJones' inner chãos, his being lornbetween lhe real of the present moment and the imagined from lhepast. as he flees through the physical chãos of lhe forest. The sounds

of lhe lom-lom funclion indcxicallyas a war call and symbolically as asign of nervousness. refletiingJones' hcart bcal ai various mo

menls of the lext. The gun shots areindexical in thal lhey poinl lo thefacl that a gun has been fired andsymbolic in thal they signify Jones'fears and nervousness as he tries lo

dispell the ghosis of his personaland racial past. Bolh sound effcctsare used in lhe foresl scenes lo

puncluate lhe emolional stale oftheprotagonist. and thus support lheunderlying lensions ofsign funclionin different sign syslems thal signifyJones" confusion of lhe real and lhe

imagined.

0'Nelll inlroduces the sound effecl of lhe tom-tom in Scene I and

repeats it in each of the followingscenes until Jones' death in the lasl:Scene I: "From the distanl hills

comes the faini. sleady ihump of alom-lom. low and vibraiing. Il stansout at a rate exactly correspondingto normal pulse beal — 72 lo theminute — and continues ai a

gradually acccleraling rate from thispoinl uninlerruptedly to lhe veryend of lhe play" (p. 14). The sígnifi-cance of this sign. in addilion lo apurely mimelic function. is estab-lished in lhe wrilten text in lhe firsl

scene. However. this is pcrhaps nolcomprehended by the spectalorunlil Scene II and subsequenl oneswhen lhe insiruclions are carefullyreiterated by lhe playwrighl. usuallyin conjunetion wilh lhe gun shols:

Scene //: "ile fires. There is aJlasli u luud repori. lhe süencebrokcn only by lhe jarojj.quickening ilirob oj lhe lom-lom' (p. 20);

Scene III: "Hejires... 77te bcalofthejar-ojf'lom-lom is percep-tiblylouderand morerapid" (p.22):

Scene IV: "ilejrccs lhe revolverand fires poirit blank at ilieGuarcis back... The onlysounds are a crushüig in l/ieunderbrush... and the ihrobUing qflhe lom-tom slilljar distam, bul inercased in volumeof sound and rapidity ojbcat"(p. 2:11:

Scene V: "lie fires ai the Auc-lionecr und ai the Pluiuer...Only bluvkness remuins undsilence brokcn... by lhe quick-enecL ever louder bcal of Üietom tom" Ip. 2Hi:

Scene VI: there is no shol in Üiescene wlicre Jones becomes apari ojllie iinayuicd aspect ojlhe sluivs on lhe ship: hejoinsii\ lheir wuils oj despair. üieshols up lo tíiis point have

-4 Peircean Readinx, of0'Neill's Emperor Jones (1920)

been established as a paliematid lhe lack oj one in ihisscene thus is a sign in itselfsignijying Jones' Joining hispast and nol altempling to"kill" it; l/te tom-tom is used.however; it accompaiúcs tivevoices oj lhe slaves. lheirdespair "direcled and comrol-led by lhe Ihrob oj lhe tom-tom..." (p. 20); as ilie sceneends and Jones retums to tlie

reality oj his physical Jlight.lhe lom- tom "beats louder.

quicker. wilh a more insistem.triumpliant pulsaiion" (p. 20):

Scene MI: the tom-lom accom-

panies the dance ofthe Wiich-Docior: "...lhe tom lom groivslo a fierce. exultunl boomwl\ose üirobs seem lofill diluir with vibraling rhyíhm'; aslhe scene ends Jonesfires t/ielasl bullct (tlie silver one lhathe has used to dupe tlie natives inlo thinking that il is tlieonly tltinglhat will kill /tf/n/ inlolhe hcad oj lhe crocodile: lielieson íhegrowid "whimperingwithjear as the Ihrob oj tlielom-lom fdls lhe silence al)outhim wilh a somber pulsalion ofa bajjled but revengefulpower" (pp. 32 33):

Scene Mil: the tom lom conUniws and Scems tobeonllicvenj spot. so loud und conlinuously vibruting are ilsLeais" Ip. 33): lhe sounds hereare indexical ofthe closenessqf Jones' pursuers and st/mbolic of his Jinal momenls ojlife: when lhe rí/Ie shots areheard. "lhe bealiiig ofthe lomlomabruptly ceases". "indicaiing ihul the chase has endedand symlx)liy.ing the end ofJones' internai jounuy.

Ullimately lhe Great Forest. asa sign of Jones" inti-ni.il and externai realities. contes lo funclion svin-bolically as a sign whose objecl islhe prolagonisfs sense of loialentrapmenl. The stage. divided »•

15

between the real and lhe imagined,the here and now vs. the then andthere. becomes in the momenls ofthe imagined (lhe then and there)interpretant signs in lhe mind ofJones —i.e., 11 is whal he is actuallythinking. his aclual perceplion ofreality. These lnterpretanls provokeinterpretant signs in the mind ofthespectator who becomes caught between the presented lnterpretanlsand his own. He synthesizes theinterpretants as he compares andcontrasls lhe Iwo states clearlydrawn out by the opposing signfunctions of iconic and indexicaland lhose converted inlo symbolicfunctions in Jones' imagination. Thestage space. which is a space ofconflnemenl and enclosure In Ils

own right marked off for performance as opposed lo olher aclivlties.comes to represent a space of con-finement and enlrapmenl in whichthe lensions between sign functionsoccur. This parallels and reflecls lheinner sense of Jones' imprisonmenias lhe stage space is transformedinlo a symbolic sign of his confusionof lhe real and lhe imagined. Thestage thus conslilules a commen-lary on the individuais reality asconsisting of bolh lhe imagined andlhe aclual.

A number of elements supportthe construclion of a final under

standing of the text being a sign ofman's entrapment and the cor-responding feelings of alonenessand frustralion. These appear invarious sign syslems of lhe performance text: the visual signs of lheseltings. including lhe aclors; lheuse of what is essenlially amonologue throughout most of thetext; the circular plot strueture.

The stage decor includes anumber of visual images that sug-gest the overall metaphor of entrapment and isolation. Each scene con-

tains some image in the setting thatsuggests enclosure or confinement.The physical signs are indicaled inhis sidelext. beginning with the no-lion lhat the entire aclion is playedout on a remote. unknown island.

Scene I occurs in the emperor'spalace with ils "bare, white-washed

16

walls" situaled on high ground awayfrom the other inhabitanls of lheisland. The natives. wilh whomJones feels no racial solidarily asevidenced in his constant referencesto lhem as "low-ílung.bush niggers"(p. 7). have fledand abandoned theirleader. As Smithers says of thepalace, giving Hmore an air of conflnemenl. This palace of his is likea bleeding tomb" (p. 4).The remaining scenes take place eilher on theedge or In the Great Forest. Scene II:the edge of lhe Great Forest wherethe world is divided inlo plain andforest: the forest and the sense ofaloneness it manifesls visually("...its brooding. Implacable süence"— p. 17) become signs of Jones'physical entrapment as he becomeslosl and cannol escape. Wilhin theforest scenes the prolagonist isalone wilh his ghosls; lhe dialogueof Scene I becomes monologue forlhe remainder of lhe text, and themonologue becomes a sign ofJones'aloneness and entrapment. It is language direcled lo himself since thereis no other person in lhe forest excepl his ghosls. Language lhen inthe text is a self-expression ofali theprolagonisfs fears and frustrations.When Jones speaks wilh the figuresthal appear in his delirium, lhey donot reply; lhey are simply projec-llons of his inner self, his own crea-lions that cannot answer him.

Scene III: "A dense low wall of underbrush and creepers is in thenearer foreground. fencing in asmall triangular clearing. Beyondthis ls lhe massed blackness of lheforesl like an encompassingbarrier"(p. 21). Scene IV: "A wide dirt roadruns dlagonally from righl. fronl. toleft. rear. Rising sheer on bolh sideslhe foresl walls it in" (p. 23). SceneV: "A large circular clearing.enclosed by the serried ranks ofgigantic trunks of tall trees whoselops are lost lo view" (p. 26). SceneVI: "A cleared space in the foresl.The limbs of lhe trees meet over it

forming a low celling about five feetfrom lhe ground. The lnterlockedropes of creepers reaching upwardto enlwine lhe tree trunks give anarched appearance to the sides. Thespace thus enclosed is like lhe dark.noisome hold of some ancient ves-

sel" (pp. 28-29). Scene VII: the scene

represents a space with an altar between a foresl and a river.

Olher signs, while funclioningsymbolically signifying Jones" innerdisintegralion in his journey back inlime. serve as indices of enslave-ment and conflnemenl. The choiceof a black man as protagonist. par-ticularly at the moment when thetexl was written. is Significam: O-Neül chose a member of society already recognized as restricled andlimited in freedom. Jones' blacknessis indexical of his race and symbolicof his lack of freedom. These signsrefer to race. bolh in the past and Inthe present; some actually occurduring Jones' life. olhers appear inhis delirium:

Scene II: lhe Little FormlessFears ojJones'first hallucina-tionare black; these are "formless" in lixaiJones'fears havenot become concrelized and

defmed into specific forms aslhey will in lhe followingscenes:

Scene III: Jeff. lhe man lhatJones killed, is a black anddressed in a Pullman's

uniform, a sign of a servileprofession. limited mostly loblacks at Üie time ofcomposi-tionof lhe play;

Scene TV: costumes and guardindicale a prison scene: aü theconvicts are black:

Scene V: lhe auction scene —wilh black slaves being sold towhiles:

Scene V7: the slave ship:

Scene MI: the Congo Witch-Doctor, suggesling lhe blackman's earliesl ancestry andperhaps an enslavement tobeliefs and magic.

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

In these scenes Jones is lom

between the enlrapmenl of lhe actual moment in the forest and lhesituation of the enslaved characlersof his hallucinallons. His enlrapmenl is lhen bolh real and im

agined. In Scene VIII. Jones entersa final enslavement. the finalentrapment: death. This isreileraled by lhe facl that his journey. internally a regression lo his

origins and nothingness. is exler-nally circular. Jones has nolmanaged to escape his pursuersand ends up in lhe exacl spot wherehe enlered the forest. A final ironyemerges In lhat Jones ls killed by asüver bullet like lhe one he con-

sidered his "rabbifs foot" (p. 10).

Jones is a man torn and

trapped belween reality and illusion

BIBLIOGRAPHY

because of his fears and guilts. Heis the synlhesis of bolh reality andÜlusion. as confirmed by lhe visualaspecls of iconic. indexical and symbolic signs of the stage. In a sense.he is like the stage. like theateritself— i.e.. a synlhesis of the realand the illusory. a sign thal the realconsists of both the aclual and lhe

imagined. Ü

CARPENTER, Frederic I. Eugene 0'NcilL New York: Twayne Publishers. 1964.

ELAM. Keir.The scmiolics oftliealre and drama. London and New York; Methuen. 1980.

KOWZAN. Tadeusz. The sign in the thealre. Diogenes 61. 1968. p. 52-80.

0'NEILL. Eugene. Nine plays. New York; The Modern Library. 1954.

PAV1S. Patrice. Languages ofthe stage. New York; Performlng Arts Journal Publications. 1982.

PEIRCE, Charles S. The coüected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vols. I-VI. Hartshorne. C. & Weiss. P. (eds.):Vols. VII-VIII. Burkes. A. W. (ed.). Cambridge; Harvard Universily Press. References to Peirce's Collecíedpapers are Indicated in parenlhesis by volume and paragraph number respectively. 1931-1958.

PLADOTT. Dinnah. The dynamics ofthe sign syslems ofthe thealre. In: Hess-Lullich. E. W. B. (ed.). Multimedialcommunicalion. Vol. II: Thealre scmiolics. Emest W. B. Hess-Lullich (ed.). Tubingen; Gunter Narr Verlag.1982. p. 28-45.

RANSDELL. Joseph. Charles Sanders Peirce. In: Sebeok. T. A. (ed.) Encyclopedic diclionary ofsemiotics. Berlin;Mouton/DeGruyler, 1986. p. 637-695.

TIUSANEN. Timo. 0'NeÜl's scenic imagery. Princeton: Princelon Universily Press. 1968.

TORNQVIST. EgÜ. A drama ofsouls. New Haven: Yale Universily Press. 1969.

-4 Peircean Reading of0'Neill's Emperor Jones (1920) 17

Summary

Tlie objectiveoflhis paper is loanalyse some aspects of Wil-liam Faulkner's short story "Arose for Emily" using as basiclheoretical reference some oflhe concepls developed by CS.Peirce in his theory of signsand also some of the ideas

T^t, A f-. found in the psychoanalyti-l fie Absencecai w°rk °s j- ^can. as

lheoretical instruments ofanalysis Oiey will be used

wilh the specific purpose ofJT xL. T^ elucidaüng the process of

OJ tlte ROSei reading and interpreüng the** lilerary text.

Resumo

Emily, Faulkner° objeüuo dês*** trabalho consiste

em analisar al-

_* .*_* ••-» * ^ guns aspectos doand the Reader coiuo Arose for

Emily de WilliamFaulkner usando

como referencia teórica básicaalguns dos conceitos desenvolvidos por C. S. Peirce emsua leotia dos signos, assimcomo algumas das idéias encontradas no traballw

psicanalilico de J. Lacan. Enquanto instrumentos teóricosde análise tais conceitos serãoutilizados com o propósitoespecifico de elucidar aspectos do processo de leitura einterpretação do lexlo literárío.

A rose for Emily1 is lhe lillegiven to a slory narrated by afirst person plural narralor.

The poinl of view seems lo be thal ofa whole town, forwhom Miss EmilyGrierson is an object of bolh theiradmiration and their fear. When shedies ali of them go lo her funeral:

Ausência da Rosa: Emily,Faulkner e o Leitor

Die Abwesenheit der Rose:Emily, Faulkner und der Leser

Maria de Fátima Marcaidos SANTOS"

Estudos Germânicos

18

Belo Horizonte V.9 N" 1

"The men through a sort of respect-ful affeclion for a fallen monumenl.the women moslly out ofcuriosily losee lhe inside of her house"...

(Faulkner. 1948. 119). Throughoulthe story ali her movements andacts are observed by this altentiveaudience. somelimes with sym-palhy and in olher occasions wilh amixlure of resenimenl and fear. Bul

ali we readers get to know aboutMiss Emily is lhat nobody knowswho she really is or whal exactly sheis doing.

Whal lhe reader has is a se-

quence of events organized in suchway thal he has access to what thetownspeople gel to know about MissEmily Ihrough the same limitedmeans established by lheir relaiion-ship with lhe character. We seem lohave ai leasl iwo possible interpretai ional layers here, one established by lhe lownspeople's ob-servalion of Miss Emily's lifeand lheolher established by our aprehen-sion of lheir observaiions throughlhe narrative ilself. Both their

curiosily about Miss Emily and ourinterest in lhe slory through lheircuriosily converge to determine therelationship between lhe two layers.which creales a third one. where a

more elaborate interpretaiion lakesplace.

The reader is infomied first thalMiss Emily is dead. The slory beginswith her funeral. Site had finallygone "to join lhose august nameswhere they lay in lhe cedar-bemused ceinelery among theranked and anonymous graves ofUnion and Confederate soldiers"...(Faulkner. 1948. 119). Then we areinfomied lhat "Alive. she had been atradilion. a duly and a care: a sortof heredilary obligation upon lhetown*... (119). She had had her tax

obligalions remilted afler herfalher's dealh. Bul lhe newauthorilies do not find such s*

• This was presented as a term paper inProf. Júlio Cintos gradualc course onnarrative fictlon at FALE, firsl scmesti-r.15)88.

•• Gruduult' studcnt at Faculdade de LetrasUFMC.

p. 18-21 DEZ. 1988

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

record in their books. and thus senda deputation to see her aboul thematter. At this poinl we have thefirst description of Miss Emily'sphysical appearance and of lhe interior of her house. by then alreadyinaccessible lo the townspeople.Nobody had passed through herdoor for at least eight years.Through lhe eyes of the city repre-sentatives we can see lhat she is a

small. fat lillle woman and that she

looks "bloated. like a body long sub-merged in motionless water". (121)In this episode her description. slug-gish dust and the ticking of an In-visible walch together with the factthat Miss Emily refers her visitors loColonel Sarlory. already dead foralmost len years. work as indexicalsigns of an important interpretantin lhe text: time.

Time is at the levei of narrative

that which organizes the reader'saprehension of the events in thelext. In Faulkners story we have aseries of lime shifls from past lopresent. We begin with Miss Emily sfuneral, go on to the above men-tioned episode, then back thirtyyears before. when a smelldeveloped from her house. bother-ing the whole commumly aroundher. Again retrospectively. from thisepisode backwards we are loldabout her father's death and her

peculiar atlítude towards it. Thenwe come lo the Homer Baron

episode. which is retrospective con-cerning the smell and posterior toher falher's dealh. The limilations

encountered by both lhe reader andthe narrator as an óbserver of a

series of events whose inlerprela-tion refers always lo olher evenlslocated at a different period. bringabout a new perspective concemingthe role of time. and conlingenlly ofmemory. in the significance of thewhole text.

In that respecl lime seems to filinlo at least two different categories.which may be illustrated andclarified by resorting lo Peirce's ideaof secondness and ihirdness. According to Peirce

predominam in the ideas ofcausation and ofstaticalforce.For cause and effecl are two;and statical forces alwaysoccur between pairs. Con-slraint is a Secondness. In the

Jlow oj time in the mind. thepast appears lo act directlyuponthefuture, its effecl beingcalled memory, while the future only acts upon the pastthrough lhe médium ofÜiirds.^

About Thirdness he says that

A fork in a road is a lltird, itsupposes three ways; astraight road. consideredmerely as a connection between two places is second.bul sofar as itvnplies passiitgthrough intermediale places itis tlürd. Position is first.velocily or Üie relalion oj twosuccessive positions second.acceleralion or the relation ojthree successive positionsthird. (Peirce. 80)

So we have lhat in the develop-menl of the narrative. time consli-tules. in a ccriain sense. an elementof Secondness as it establishes

through indexical reference lo pastevents the relationship of cause andeffect between whal happenedbefore and what is happemng now.Miss Emilys refusal to admit thedealh of her falher and her with-

holding of his body are described bymeans of a recolleclion of her pastexperiences. However. such a recol-lection is lhe townspeople's inler-pretalion of her past experiences:"We remembered ali the young menher falher had driven away. and weknew thal wilh nothing lefl. shewould have to cling to thal whichhad robbed her. as people will".(Faulkner, 1948. 124). Consequent-ly they did not say lhat she wascrazy then, but they did produce anargument of an abduclive nature. aIhird. on the basis of indexical(dicent) signs.

This shows that when it comesThe idea oj second is

The Absence ofthe Rose: Emily. Faulkner and the Reader

to lime as a Ihird what we have is a

relation involving meaning. AsPeirce says meaning is a triadic relation. inexpressible by means ofdyadic relalions alone. Thereforetime as thirdness involves not justthe straight connection betweenevents. as the cause and effectrelationship between past andpresent, but a more elaborateprocess of understanding which re-quíres a more elaborate interpreta-tion of what had previously beenestablished by such connection.What we have is the future actingupon lhe past, as we have quotedfrom Peirce, through the médium ofthirds.

In A rose for Emily the narrative advances. through a series oflime shifts. lo lhe unclosing of aroom which had been locked forforty years. The room is forced openby the townspeople and what isrevealed to the reader takes him

back again in time. now toreconslrucl his interpretalion oftheslory. Now. the fact that the narrator. knowing ali through lhe storywhal was inside the locked room,chooses not to reveal il until lhe end

of his narrative leads the reader torealize lhat he had been Iricked inlo

an interpretive construclion thatdoes nol correspond to what was"really" happening. It ls only by in-terpreling lhe text at this new leveiinlroduced by the realization of themissing information that the readercan advance to aprehend time as anew interpretant for lhe text. Thenarralive device represents. itself.an important clue to this new leveiof interpretalion.

Rimmon-Kenan (1983) makes avery inleresting comment aboutwhat she calls "the paradoxical position of lhe lext vis-à-vis its reader":

There is one end every lextmust achieve: it must make

ceriain lhat it will be read: itsvery existence, as it were,depends on it. Interestingly.the text is caught here in adouble bind. On lhe one hand.in order to be read it must

makeüseljunderstood, itmust».

19

enhance inielliyibilily by un-choririg itself in codes.jrames.Cestalten jamiliar lo thereader. Bul ijllie lext is under-stood loo quickly. il wouldthereby come lo an wuimclyend.4

If we look inlo lhe process ofexchange wilhin the narrative andbetween texl and reader we may beable to find that such process isbased nol on lhe exchange of Ihings.such as a mere sequence of events,but on the exchange of somelhingwe could call an absence. In our

slory. inslead of time as a faclor oftextual coherence. what we have is

a series of lime shifts interwoven insuch a way thal what is exchangedbelween text and reader could besaid to be the absence of time. This

absence is marked by traces of lhedelelion of certain evcnls along lhetemporal axis. The sequencepresented by the narrative is a crea-tion. invenied by the townspeopleand ali based on what their own

framework of reference made lhembelieve tobe true. But thal could nol

in facl be otherwise. for lhe past. aswe realize from lheir mistaken inler-prelalion. is not whal determineslhe future; it happens lhat it is thefulure what determines the past! Ifwe carry on with our interpretalionwe have lhal afler ali there is no

such thing as lime as linear flow. foril seems to be just an illusion whenit comes the realm of literalure.Meaning is nol related lo whal isthere. bul lo our interpretalion ofwhat is nol. It is by reading thal we"recover* lime. through lhe filling ofmeaning gaps.

Returning lo Miss Emily. lo lhelownspeople's curiosily about herand lo our inlerest in the slory weagain come across an absence.Nobody knows exactly who she is orwhat she means. There is no exchange belween Miss Emily and lheolher inhabilants of Jefferson. Thenarralor lells us thal lhey had longlhought of lhe Griersons "as alableau. MissEmily a slender figurein while in the background. herfalher a spraddled silhouetle in theforeground. his back to her and

20

clulching a horsewhip. lhe two oflhem framed by the back-flung frontdoor". (Faulkner. 1948. 123). If wetake Peirce's definilion of Firslness.Secondness. and Thirdness as "the

being of positive qualitalive possibi-lily. the being of aclual facl. and thebeing of law lhat willgovem facls inlhe fulure" (Peirce. 75) we seem lobe able lo relate Miss Emily lo Firslness. lhe presenlation of events toSecondness. and narrative and ourinterpreta tion to Thirdness.

Peirce (76) explains Firslness as

lhe mode oj being which con-sisls in ils subjecfs beingposi-lively such as il is regardlessojaughl else. That can only bea possibility. For as long asIhings do nol act upon oneanother there is no sense or

meaning in saying lhat theyhave any being. unless il belliat lhey are such í/i them-selves lhat they may perhapscome into relalion with othcrs.

We could also try to establish arelalion wilh Lacan's classificalion

of mental processes into the Real,the Imaginary and lhe Symbolic.Wilhin discourse lhe Real corres-

ponds to lhal which commands theunknown. It is nol an objecl ofdefinilion bul one of evocalion. It

escapes symbolization and issituated oulside language. The onlyway il can be aprehended is throughlhe Symbolic. The Symbolic corres-ponds to lhe realm of lhe exchangebelween subjecls. II is lhe place ofmediation. of triangular relaüons, ofdesire and meaning. The Imaginaryis lhe region of relationships form-ing pairs of mutually exclusivelemis. lhe region of symniclry andoppositional dualilies. From ihisperspective we would be able lo takeMiss Emily as filling wilhin thecategory of the Real. narrativewithin lhe Imaginary and interpretalion or the exchange betweenthe lext and lhe reader within theSymbolic. v | s

l\-y>Mr : - ")The similarities between

Peirce's categories of being. Firsl

ness. Secondness and Thirdness.and Lacan*sproposed functions, theReal. lhe Imaginary and lhe Symbolic are striking and deserve fur-ther consideration; bul this is not

our objective here and therefore wewill take inlo account only lhoseaspecls thal can be used to helpwith lhe clarificalion of the specificpoinls of our analysis of Faulkner'sstory.

Back to Miss Emily. refusalseems to be what consistentlypunetuates her behavior and whaldefines her relationships. Sherefuses lo pay her taxes, refuses lomove from her old house. which lifls"ils slubbom and coquetlish decayabove the collon wagons and thegasoline pumps —• an eyesoreamong eyesores" (Faulkner. 1948.119). Time for her does not flow.

When she is visiled by the repre-senlatives ofthe Board ofAlderman

about the payment of her taxes shesends lhem lo see Colonel Sarlori.

who had been dead almosl ten

years. When her falher dies she doesnol admit of his dealh. When lhe

ladies carne to her house "Miss

Emily mel lhem at lhe door, dressedas usual and wilh no Irace of gricfon her face. She lold lhem thal herfalher was not dead". (123) In spileof her altitude lhe lownspeople didnot say she was crazy.

In psychoanalytical lerminol-ogy the words rejeclion, refusal anddisavowal are used relaled lo the

idea of refusal. which conslituteslhe poinl of deparlure in thedevelopment of psychosis. It is op-posed to repression, which is thecorrespondent basic mechanismconstiluting neurosis. In Lacanianterms_the psychplic repuáTatèsTfie"name-of-lhè-falher". or lhe Law.and therefore does not access lheSymbolic order. which is the domaihof language. «-'

According to the theory. it isthrough the Symbolic relationshipof the Oedipus complex lhal thechild is integrated inlo a dialeclicaland triangular relationship wherethe mediation of desire makes pos-sible the emergence of language. »•

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

The Symbolic order is conslructedaround lhe "name-of-lhe-falher" orthe Law. If the Law is rejecled (andnol repressed) the whole Symbolicorder will be rejected with il andtherefore there will be no language.In his dellusions the psycholic em-ploys a language in which signifierand signified are nol distinguishedfrom one anolher. His discoursewould be then a message aboutwords. instead ofa message employ-ing words.

At this poinl we have seen thalthere is no exchange belween MissEmily and the lownspeople-narralorof lhe slory. Thus we have a lack.The analysis of the temporal signshas led to lhe conclusion thal what

we have in fact is anolher lack.

Based on that there should be no

difficulty in our underslanding lhecomplete absence of a ROSE alithrough the narrative of A rose forEmily. lt is by means of our interpretalion of the other elemenls in

NOTES

lhe story lhal we arrive at the meaning of tlie rose. The rose is exacllywhal is not there and therefore can

be exchanged. Il refers us to lherepresenialion relalion iiself andcan be regarded as lhe very condi-tion for lhe exislence of lhe slory wehave just read or of any other story.each of lhem lheir own "emily" andtheir own "rose". J

1FAULKNER. William. Collcctcd slories ojWilliam Faulkner. New York. Random House. 19-18. (p. 119-130). Alifurlher references to the slory are lo be made In the lext to page numbers.

2 "An index is a sign. or represenialion. which refers to its objecl not so much because of any similarity or anal-ogy with il... as because it is in dynamical (including spacial) connection bolh with lhe individual object. onthe one hand. and wilh lhe senses or memory ofthe person for whom il serves as a sign. on lhe olherhand..." (From Peirce's Collected wrilmgs, p. 107).

3 PEIRCE. C. S. Philosophical writings.. Buchler. J. (ed.). New York: Dover. (p. 79). Henceforth menlioned paren-thelically in the text.

4 RIMMON-KENAN. Schlomilh. Narrativefiction: contemporary poeties. New York; Mcthuen. 1983. (p. 122)

The Absence oftheRose: Emily. Faulkner and tlie Reader 21

Resumo

Partindo do conceito de"literatura menor" de Deleuzee Guattari, este trabalhoprocura mostrar como aliteratura e a critica são en

caradas por autores pertencentes ao Terceiro Mundo e a

grupos minoritários dentrodos- grandes centros. Ao com-

Descei\trcLncLQjarar as °pinioes d°mar-tiniquense Edouard Glis-sanl e do crítico negro

americano Henry Louis GatesJr. com as idéias de autores

brasileiros contemporâneos,podemos perceber como, embora originários de culturasdiversas, estes autores se

_ _ 0 - aproximam em

A Literatura das *** p°^°s devista, principalmente na defe

sa do direito à diferença.

Summary

Writers and criticsofüie ThirdWorld and of minorily groupsin developed countries,despile representing differentcultures, share similar pointsof view. especially the ajfirm-ation of tlu? right to one's dif-ference. In the light ofDeleuzeand GuattarCs concept of"minor literalure", this paperendeavors lo present Üteideasof the Martiniquan writerEdouard Glissanl and of lheNegro criticHenry Louis Gates,Jr., as well as to compare lhemto the opinions of some con-temporary Drazilian writersand critics.

a Crítica:

*

Minorias

Dicentering Criticism: TheLiterature of Minoriíies

Dezentralisation der Kritik: Die

Literatur der Minoritáten

Eliana Lourenço de LimaREIS**

atitude critica dos filósofos

deste século em relação aospostulados tradicionais daA

Estudos Germânicos Belo Horizonte V.9 N° 1

22

filosofia levou a um questionamentodos conceitos básicos da metafísicaocidental. Consequentemente,abalaram-se muitas das certezasque norteavam as reflexões crilico-filosóficas. Segundo Jacques Der-rida. é preciso ler "de uma certamaneira" os textos filosóficos, abandonando a noção de que sua linguagem é transparente; os própriosconceitos teriam um valor de ver

dade apenas relativo e deveriam serutilizados unicamente com valor

metodológico. Os três conceitosbásicos da metafísica ocidental sãocolocados em dúvida: o fonocenlris-mo (a fala não pode ser consideradasuperior à escrita), o logocentrismo(Ioda linguagem é representação) e.finalmente, o elnocentrismo (a raçabranca não tem primazia sobre asoutras). Já que. como afirmou Lévi-Strauss, não existe mito dereferencia. Derrida defende o abandono a uma referência, ou centro, auma origem ou arquia absolutas.Como não há um significadotranscendental ordenando umaestrutura, qualquer signo podeestar no centro. O discurso

filosófico, dessacralizado. des-construido. descentrado. perdeenlâo seu estatuto de veiculo oficial

da verdade.

Se antes a noção de que existeapenas uma verdade induzia ãprocura de uma ordem nor-malizadora. que buscava a identidade, passa-se agora à legitimaçãoda diferença. Os resultados destanova maneira de encarar o discurso

filosófico refletem-se logo naliteratura. Depois de nivelar fala eescrita, Derrida procura colocarlado a lado o discurso filosófico elilerário sem que o primeiro detenhauma posição privilegiada de discurso puro. transparente e. consequentemente, verdadeiro. Além disso, jáque não se pode opor margem ecentro, não se pode conferir umasuperioridade às "grandes "

• O presente artigo é baseado no trabalhofeito para a disciplina Metodologia daCritica Literária I, ministrada pelaprofessora Eneida María de Souza.

•• Mcstranda cm Letras llnglcs). Faculdadede Letras UFMG.

p.22-29 DEZ. 1988

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

literaturas", isto é, à produçãoartística das culturas dominantes.O resultado é a valorização dasliteraturas de países de TerceiroMundo e também daquelasproduzidas por grupos "marginais"dentro dos grandes centros.

Ao publicarem Kajka: por umaliteratura menor, em 1975. GillesDeleuze e Félix Guallari fazem umaanálise da obra de Franz Kaíka sobo ponto de vista de literatura deminoria. As chamadas "literaturasmenores"se distinguiriam das grandes literaturas não por serem inferiores ou dependentes, masapenas por serem diferentes: "Umaliteratura menor não é a de umalíngua menor, mas antes a que umaminoria faz em uma língua maior."(Deleuze e Guallari. 1977, 25) Noadjetivo "menor" não estariapresente um juízo de valor, mas aconstatação da inferioridadenumérica dos falantes. Na mesmasiluaçáo de Kafka. judeu escrevendo em alemão em Praga, estãogrande número de autores pertencentes a grupos que se vêem nanecessidade de usar várias línguas.Naverdade, cada uma delas cumpreuma função diferenle emconseqüência das relações de podere de ideologia envolvidas. Ao lado dalíngua vernácula, materna ou territorial, às vezes rural, ligada ao"aqui", alinham-se outras: aveicular, língua urbana do comércio, da burocracia e da sociedade

(como o latim no passado e o inglêsatualmente), a referencial ou línguada cultura e. finalmente, a línguamítica, de uso religioso. No caso deKaíka. escrever em alemão significausar uma língua ao mesmo tempoveicular e cultural, que tem atrás desi Ioda a tradição de uma grandecultura e literatura. No entanto, o

alemão de Praga é uma línguadesterritorializada, "afastada dasmassas, como "uma linguagem depapel" ou artificial (...) própria a estranhos usos menores." (Deleuze eGuattari, 1977. 26) Para Deleuze eGuattari. o que caracteriza Kafka éo uso "intensivo"1 (Deleuze e Guattari. 1977.35) que ele faz do alemão.Portanto, não imporia a língua queo escrilor escolhe, mas apenas se ausa de uma maneira não conven

cional, desfamiliarizando-a paradotá-la de novas significações:"Grande e revolucionário, somente omenor (...) Estar em sua próprialíngua como estrangeiro (...) Aindaque maior, uma língua é suscetívelde um uso intensivo que a fazcorrerseguindo linhas de fuga criadoras(...)" (Deleuze e Guattari. 1977. 40-41). O conceito de "literatura menor"designaria então "as condiçõesrevolucionárias de toda literatura noseio daquela que chamamos degrande (ou estabelecida). Mesmoaquele que tem a infelicidade denascer no pais de uma grandeliteraiura. deve escrever em sua

língua, como um judeu tchecoescreve alemão, ou como um usbe-que escreve em russo. Escrevercomo um cão que faz seu buraco,um rato que faz sua loca. E. paraisso. encontrar seu próprio ponto desubdesenvolvimento, seu própriopatoá. seu próprio terceiro mundo,seu próprio deserto." (Deleuze eGuattari. 1977.28-9)

Os conceitos de "grandeliteraiura" e "literaiura menor", portanto, embora se oponham, podemconviver numa mesma realidade,

achando-se ligados basicamente àsidéias de tradição e autoridade. Agrande literatura pode ser vistacomo o veículo da ideologiadominante e da tradição, ou seja. deuma convenção já estabelecida. Jáa literatura menor seria a voz emer

gente que busca um caminho novo.independente e pessoal; umaliteratura que. apesar de não se submeter à tradição, não a nega totalmente, pois existe "no seio dagrande literal ura." Trata-se. pois. deuma questão de escolha, de endossar a posição da maioria ou de assumir-se como minoria que tem vozprópria, e que assume sua diferença. É ai que reside ocaráter eminentemente político das literaturasmenores, em que o caso individualvale na medida em que remete auma realidade mais ampla e em quea enunciação. ao invés de in-dividuada. passa a ser coletiva.

As idéias de Deleuze e Guallari

são bastante úleis como pontos departida para se examinar como alileratura é encarada alualmente

Descentrando a Crítica: a Literaiura das Minorias

nos países situados fora dos grandes centros culturais ou porgruposminoritários dentro desses mesmoscentros. É interessante notar comoos escritores e críticos das litera

turas menores, mesmo vivendo empaíses diferentes e expressando-seatravés de línguas e culluras diversas, aproximam-se em sua maneirade ver a literaiura. Tendo isso emvista, pretendo examinar as idéiasde Edouard Glissanl em entrevista(Glissanl, 1984, 83-100) concedidaa Wolfgang Bader em 1982 arespeilo da literatura das Antilhas.e lambem as opiniões de HenryLouis Gates Jr. sobre a literaiuranegra (Gates. 1984. 1-24 e 285-317). Dentro do possível, pretendorelacionar o que os dois autores pensam com linhas de pesquisa semelhantes no Brasil, já que tambémnos situamos num contexto de paisfora dos grandes centros.

O martiniquense Edouard Glissanl. militante da descolonizaçãodas Anlilhas, propõe como base deseu Irabalho o que denomina"poética da relação", ou seja. aconsciência de que as culluras ecivilizações eslão em permanenlecontato umas com as outras. Para

ele. o importante é que haja umrelacionamento em pé de igualdade,recusando a idéia de que. no encontro entre duas culluras. uma fatalmente irá dominar ou absorver a

outra. Glissanl condena também o

nacionalismo estreito e os en

gajamentos políticos que impedem opoeta de ver o que se passa realmente no mundo. O escrilor precisase abrir para o mundo lodo e nãoapenas para os antigos eixos: "Amon avis. à 1'heure actuelle. unpoete n'est poete — pour moi. je nedis pas que c'est une verilé lotale —que quand il éprouve dans sasensibililé ei dans son exigenced'exprcssion tout ce qui se passedans ce champ de Ia relalion mon-diale et qu'il essaie d"exprimer àtravers lui ei à travers les

valeurs de sa propre cullure." (Glissanl. 1984. 84) (É interessantenotar como o discurso de Glissanl.

que procura abertura para visõesdiferentes da realidade, também nasua enunciação foge de qualqueratitude dogmática e autoritária na »•

ressalva de que trata-se somente desua opinião, que não pode ser tomada como verdade última). Para Glis-sant. não se trata apenas de descrever a situação especifica das An-tilhas. mas de trabalhar uma realidade mais ampla a partir do pontode vista de quem ali vive.

O destinatário de seus livros

não é o leitor francês, mas todo opúblico possível, principalmente oantilhano. para quem quer transmitir a idéia de uma civilização cari-benha que existe nos fatos mas nemsempre nas consciências. Atravésda literatura. Glissant deseja evocarpontos que os anlilhanos teriam emcomum, mesmo sem estar consci

entes disto. Ao tentar unir comoparticipantes de um sentimento de"antilhanidade" os habitantes detodas as ilhas do Caribe. Glissantassume uma atitude à primeiravista um tanto idealista: até queponto é possível unir grupos delínguas nacionaisdiferentes (inglês,flamengo, francês) e de tradiçõesculturais provenientes de váriospaíses da Europa? Éverdade que asilhas possuem elementos comuns,como o sistema de plantações comobase da sociedade, o problema dadependência político-cullural ouapenas cultural e. sobretudo, o sentimento de que a civilização anti-Ihana está ameaçada de desaparecer devido à assimilação. O papelda literatura seria justamente confirmar e aprofundar os vínculos jáexistentes.

A questão do francês comolíngua usada por Glissant remete-nos às idéias de Deleuze e Guattarisobre o uso menor de uma línguamaior. Como a língua materna daMartinica, o "créole", é apenas oral,o francês torna-se aomesmo tempoa língua veicular e cultural. Exprimir-se em francês fora domovimento natural de evolução daliteratura francesa acaba por criaruma situação nova. pois a línguapassa a ser o veiculo de uma minoriaque rejeita a ideologia a ela ligada.O francês, desterritorializado naMartinica. é reterritoriallzado pelouso particular que dele faz umescritor como Glissant e peladiferença de contexto, de tal

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maneira que o leitor europeuprovavelmente terá dificuldade decompreensão. Ofrancês, ao Invésdeser apenas um instrumento deassimilação, pode se tornar um meiode recompor, através da literatura.a história objetiva que se perdeu:"nous devons réinventer Iapériodisalion de notre histoire pardivinalion poélique." (Glissant,1984) Como, ao contrário de povosda África ou Ásia. as Anlilhas nãotêm tradição ou passado culturalancestral (a população nativa foidizimada), a história esludada é ahistória do Outro. Portanlo, épreciso criar uma espécie de inconsciente coletivo, ou memória coletiva,que sirva de iraço de união entre osanlilhanos.

É justamente através do usomenor das línguas maiores que Glissant acredita unir as Anlilhas. pois"quelle que soil Ia langue que nousemployons dans Ia Caraibe. il mesemble que nous avons le mêmelanguage." (Glissanl. 1984. 91) Aoopor língua e linguagem Glissanlprocura resolver o problema das diversas línguas faladas na região.Apesar de seu plurilingülsmo e dasdiferenças individuais, os anlilhanos falariam uma linguagemcomum, já que suas palavras exprimiriam uma realidade nova ecoletiva, "une réaliléqul ne s'est pasencore exprimée." (Glissant. 1984.91) Por outro lado, os escritores dasgrandes literaturas "ont tropexprime une réalilé saturée de con-vention ou de contrainte." (Glissant.1984. 92) o que empobreceu suaprodução literária. Glissant achaque o fechamento dos europeus emsi repercute em sua literaiura, quese ressentiria da dificuldade que osantigos centros encontram de seadaptar às novas condições políticas nas relações internacionais:"être dans le monde avec les autreset non plus dominer et régenler lemonde." (Glissanl. 1984. 85) Glissant acredita que muitos elementosda poética européia estão mudandograças à literatura das antigascolônias, e que são os próprioseuropeus que devem procurar se enriquecer com a produção dos outrospaíses, pois qualquer tentaliva deinfluir diretamente correria o risco

de repetir a situação anterior. Portanto, para que a poética da relaçãofuncione, é preciso que os países secoloquem no mesmo nível e aceiteminfluências culturais reciprocas semque eslas sejam impostas através datentaliva de assimilação.

Já que as culturas devem serelacionar em igualdade decondições, as várias ideologiasprecisam conviver sem pretenderdemonstrar que têm o domínio daverdade. Glissant recusa o conceito

de Verdade universal e genera-lizante e advoga o direito de havervários sistemas de verdade que nãose excluem: "je conçois Ia vérilé de1'Autre, même si je ny ai pas accêsdirectement (...) Je pense que V-Occident petil à petit a accordé auxautres le droit à Ia différence." (Glissanl. 1984. 96) Para tanto é precisoabandonar o hábito de querer tudocompreender como forma de poder;é preciso aceitar as culluras.civilizações e sociedades que não sepode entender, pois elas têm umaverdade que só a elas pertence.

A poética da relação seria. pois.uma poética do diálogo, da pluridis-cursividade. da polifonia: o discursoantilhano. como todos os outros,não ficaria fechado em si nem naprodução nem na recepção. Aoescrever. Glissant aceita a tradiçãorecebida, seja a língua francesa e acultura européia, seja a tradiçãooral de seu povo (tradição ao mesmotempo africana e "créole"), o que fazcom que várias vozes falem atravésdele. Como dizem Deleuze e Guattari. na sua escrita "não há sujeito.há apenas agenciamentos coletivosde enunciação" (Deleuze e Guattari.1977.28) de caráter eminentementepolítico, como em toda literaiuramenor. A mesma abertura verifica-se na escolha de seu destinatário:Glissanl procura escrever paraqualquer público possível e nãoapenas o europeu ou o antilhano.Ele não deseja "privilegiarzonas dereceptividade", pois todos os povosse eqüivalem em importância. Suaobra estará, então, sujeita a leiturasvariadas, pois feitas a partir de pontos de vista totalmente diferentes.

Como vimos. Glissant procurareunir dentro de um mesmo projeto

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

político e literário toda a civilizaçãodo Caribe a partir de um sentimentode "Antilhanidade". que lhes forneceria "non seulemenl nos raisonsd'être. mais aussl les axes, les tacti-ques. les voies par lesquelles nousdevons parvenir à Ia réalisalion denotre être." (Glissant. 1984. 98)Trata-se. portanto, de colocar oCaribe como centro de seu mundo etomar sua cultura como ponto dereferência, sem, no entanto, perderde vista as oulras culturas, para asquais é preciso manter uma atitudereceptiva.

O americano Henry L. Gates.negro como Glissant. mas oriundode um diferente contexto, procuraexaminar outro tipo de literaturamenor, a produção literária negra. Oponto de referência passa a ser nãoa cullura de uma região, mas a raça.No livro que editou em 1984. Blacklileralure and íílerary theory. Galesreuniu artigos de crilicos negrosnorte-americanos e africanos sobre

literatura escrita por negros,procurando esclarecer três pontosprincipais: a questão da relação formal entre as literaturas negras e asocidentais, o estatuto da obra

literária negra e como se deve ler umtexto negro. Seu objetivo é mostrarque o negro precisa encontrar umamaneira própria tanio de escreverquanto de analisar a sua obra.

O fato de se caracterizar a

literatura negra como de minoriaexige alguma reflexão sobre qualseria o sentido de "minoria" nesse

caso. Nos Estados Unidos, onde osnegros constituem cerca de 12% dapopulação contra 80% de brancos,eles realmente formam um grupominoritário. Mas o que dizer dasituação dos países africanos, onde.obviamenle. são maioria? Parece-

me que o melhor seria entender"minoria" no sentido de grupo marginal, de menor peso econômico epolítico, tanto no âmbito nacionalquanto no internacional. O problema seria mais de ideologia e dejuízos de valor quanto ã raça. o quefaria com que os negros fossem vistos como seres inferiores, verdadeiros "androides falantes", comoobserva Gates. Se. desde Platão, araça negra aparecia como negação e

ausência, o movimentode negritudequis reverter a imagem, provar que"black is beautiful" e que há umsignificado transcendente na raçanegra. Usar o discurso de Outro etentar revertê-lo constituiu umaatitude defensiva, ainda tomando obranco como referência para tentarconvencê-lo de que existem razõespara se orgulhar de ser negro. Masos preconceitos de cor marcamainda uma certa tendência de seretirar do negro o potencial de criararte. Muito freqüentemente a literatura negra, especialmente a africana, tem sido estudada através de

critérios extra-lilerários. seja comoacontecimento político (mais umamanifestação de suas várias lulas),seja como documento deantropologia (cm muitas universidades o estudo dos autores

africanos é feito nos departamentosde Ciências Sociais).

O objetivo de Gales é dirigir aatenção para o texlo negro em si, afim de observar os usos que osnegros fazem da linguagem literária,das línguas ocidentais nas quaisescrevem e da tradição literária. Emvez de imitar as "formas brancas" (eaqui ele cila diretamente Cruz eSouza), é preciso procurar definir"formas negras", isto é, formas delinguagem e literatura que fazemparte da tradição negra, mas que serelacionam inevitavelmente com a

tradição branca. O escritor negro seinscreve, pois, em ao menos duastradições: a ocidental (européia eamericana), e uma das várias diferentes, porém relacionadas, tradições negras. Sua dupla herançatorna-o ao mesmo tempo branco eprelo, como diz tão bem AntônioJacinto: "O meu poema é eu brancomontado em mim prelo"; ou aindacomo o título do livro de FrantzFanon, Peau noire. masques blancs.Aquestão da língua toma-se. então,vital. O inglês (assim como ofrancês, português ou espanhol) emque escrevem é tambémuma línguadesterrilorializada. idioma veiculare cultural ao lado das inúmeras línguas nacionais.Através do"usomenor" que fazem dos idiomas dosgrandes centros é que os negros vãoconseguir uma escrita própria: "Theresult (...) is a lileralure "like" its

Descentrando a Crítica:a Literatura das Minorias

French or Spanish, American orEnglish anlecedents. yet differently"black." (Gates. 1984. 6)

Gates condena o que denomina"bovarismo coletivo", ou seja. atendência a ser levado pelassugestões do meio na falta de umaopinião própria. Para evitar esserisco, tanto o escritor quanto ocritico negro precisam procuraruma linguagem própria, embora tenham em vista o fato de que terãoque lidar com duas tradições "brancas" já existentes, a literária e acritica. Assim como Glissant. quepropõe que se coloquem as Anlilhascomo centro do seu mundo, osescritores africanos devem tambémpromover um descenlramento: nocentro deve ficar primeiro o pais. emseguida a região próxima e depois aÁfrica. Para isso é preciso recusarque a África seja uma extensão daEuropa, e que as línguas e literaturas européias tenham primaziasobre as africanas; as literaturaseuropéias constituem inegavelmente uma fonte de influência, mas aolado de outras, como a literaiura

suahili. árabe e asiática e, principalmente, a tradição oral. que constituia raiz de toda manifestação literáriaafricana. Portanto, é preciso des-cenlrar o lugar da literatura e daslínguas ocidentais, pois tudo deveser visto através de uma perspectivaafricana. Gates compara esta atitude à iniciativa das novas edições deThe Times atlas ojihe world em quecada país é representado bem nocenlro do globo para que se vejam osoutros em relação a ele. Aqui também a posição de Gates aproxima-seda de Glissanl: ambos postulamuma visão a partir de dentro, isto é.a partir de cada realidade particular, mas sem se fechar em umnacionalismo estreito que impeça oinlerrelacionamento de culluras.

O que mais interessa a Gates natradição cultural é o cãnon literário,que ele define como um conjuntofechado de textos escritos em geralpor brancos e ocidentais. Consequentemente, tratar-se-ia de umconceito pedagógico ideologicamente marcado já que usado comomecanismo de controle político:"The question of literary excellence

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implies a value Judgemenl as towhat is excellence. and from whosepoinl of view" (Gates. 1984. 13). dizo queniano Ngugi Wa Thiongo.citado por Gales. Junto com asgrandes obras, o negro recebetambém as teorias criticas ocidentais. Se ele aceitar tudo passivamente, terá a imposição não só doque ler. mas também de como ler.Portanto, em lugar de repetir ouaplicar as várias lendências dacritica, è preciso adaptar e questionar as teorias, além de aceitar ofato de que não existe apenas umaleitura correta. Gates lem uma visão

bastante aberta nesse ponto. Os ar-tigos que constam do livro pertencem a correntes diversas, pois elenão pretende apresentar um manifesto ou programa com um conjunto de respostas propondo ummodelo, mas mostrar que é possívela convivência de uma pluralidade devozes e opiniões. Se as teoriascriticas ocidentais constituem Ins

trumentos eficientes para a compreensão dos textos da tradição negra,não há razão para ignorá-las emnome de um racismo estreilo quenegue tudo o que não é negro.Entretanto, apenas adotar teoriascríticas vindas da tradição ocidentalé imitar, o que é uma forma deescravidão. É preciso então utilizartambém os princípios da tradiçãonegra e o que Gates denomina 'language of blackness'. the signifyin(g)difference which makes lhe black

tradilion our very own." (Gales,1984. 8)

Quando um negro usa ummélodo de leitura que não é seu. asua maneira de "aplicá-lo" para explicar um lexto negro carrega muitode sua visão de mundo, o que acabapor mudar a teoria, como afirmaGales: "Theory. like words in apõem. does not 'translate' in a one-lo-one relationship of reference"(Gates. 1984, 4). O repertório deconoiações. pressuposições ereferências do negro cria um determinado tipo de percepção cultural,verdadeiro filtro por onde passam asteorias "brancas", fazendo com queestas se modifiquem: "Ours (ourlheory) is repetilion. but repelitionwith a difference. a signifying blackdifference." (Gates. 1984. 3) O im

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portante énão aceitar antes de criticar e evitar usar as teorias apenasporque carregam a autoridade e ostatus de idéias provenientes dasmetrópoles culturais, o que poderiaser resumido nesta afirmação deGales: "Canonical westem texls arelo be digested rather than regur-gilaled. but digested along withcanonical black formal and ver-nacular texts." (Gales. 1984. 6) Impossível não relacioná-la com acitação que Silviano Santiago faz dePaul Valéry: "Rien de plus original,rien de plus soique dese nourrir desautres. Mais il faut les digérer. Lelion est fait de mouton assimile"(Santiago. 1978.21). Compreender,analisar e se posicionar diante destecontexlo dividido constitui a dificuldade e o desafio do crilico negro etambém do critico das outras

literaturas menores. Esta posiçãomais consciente só pode ser atingidaatravés de um lento processo dedescolonização, comparável aocomentário de Marx a respeilo doaprendizado de línguas estrangeiras(exemplo dado por Edward Said ecitado por Gates). Quando secomeça a aprender uma língua, atendência inicial é traduzir as

expressões diretamente da línguamaterna para a outra. Só se adquirecompleto domínio sobre a línguaestrangeira quando se conseguemanipulá-la sem referência a suaprópria língua e quando a línguamaterna é esquecida ao se usar anova. Do mesmo modo. formar umateoria da literatura menor demanda

tempo e amadurecimento político eliterário.

E qual seria o papel do criticonegro? Segundo Gates. "ultlmatelyour subjecl is literary discourse.and nol the blackness of blackness"

(Gales. 1984.8). Portanto, a questãomais importante seria o texto em sie a linguagem literária: porém, comose trata de críticos negros estudando literatura negra, é impossíveldebear de pensar na questão da cor.situada, como ele diz. lanlo no

sujeito quanto no objeto de suacritica. O critico negro teria comofunções básicas preservar astradições negras e, ao mesmotempo, direcioná-las: além disso, estabelecer um cànon negro (no caso

dos Estados Unidos) ou africano,muitas vezes fazendo um trabalhode arqueologia da tradição literária,ressuscitando textos esquecidospara depois estudá-los.

Ao mesmo tempo em que o interesse dos críticos se volta paracada literatura menor, modifica-setambém a maneira de se encarar asgrandes literaturas. Em vez do antigo tratamento cerimonioso dasobras canônlcas ocidentais, signosda verdadeira literatura e dasrelações de poder envolvidas, ocrítico negro passa a se afastar dasleituras já institucionalizadas e atentar fazer uma interpretação apartir do seu ponto de vista. Há umadessacralização dos textoscanônicos. não no sentido de queeles perdem seu status de grandesobras, mas de que é possível seaproximar deles e usá-los à suamaneira, lendo-os com um códigopróprio. Um bom exemplo disso estána primeira epígrafe do artigo deGates. rellrada do livro MumboJumbo, de Ishmael Reed: "Son.these niggers writing. Profaning oursacred words. Taking lhem from usand beating lhen) on the anvil ofBoogie-Woogie. putting their blackhands on lhem so lhal lhey shinelike burnished amulels. Taking ourwords. son. these filthy niggers andusing lhem like lhey were their god-given pussy. Why... why 1 of lhemdared lo inlerprel. critically mindyou. the great Herman Melville'sMoby DickF (Gates. 1984. 1)Trata-se de uma visão irônica da provávelreação dos brancos à atividadecrítica dos negros como seres queousam raciocinar, ler opiniãoprópria e até mesmo fugir àautoridade das elites culturais ins

titucionalizadas, criticando ou

apropriando-se dos textoscanônicos. O fato de os negros teremacesso à escrita dá-lhes novo poder,permite-lhes entrar num domínioque até então lhes era vedado e atémesmo usar as "palavras sagradas"da maneira que lhes aprouver. Ocãnon branco, apossado, passadode mão em mão. modificado pelouso. acaba tomando uma feição nova, temperada pelos caracteres donegro. E se há brilho, já não é maisporque trata-se de objetos de ouro

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

iluminados nos altares, mas como

resultado da própria profanação emanipulação: trata-se de um brilho"negro" em virtude do componenteafricano ("they shine like bumishedamulels"). O signo cultural do branco perde então sua inlangibilidade.mas mantém seu valor, já que setransforma em "amuleto polido", e éai que reside a diferença.

Embora Gales tome como

referência o fator racial para a buscada diferença, o que vale para aliteraiura negra vale também paraas outras literaturas menores. Suas

conclusões acabam se aproximandodas de Silviano Santiago em "OEnire-Lugar do Discurso Latino-americano", sobretudo na crençaem "um novo discurso critico, o qual(...)esquecerá e negligenciará a caçaàs fonles e às influências eestabelecerá como único valor critico a diferença". Ao postular "umaassimilação inquieta e insubor-dinada. antropófaga", o escritor"tenta surpreender o modelooriginal nas suas limitações, nassuas fraquezas, nas suas lacunas,desarticula-o e o rearticula de acordo com as suas intenções, segundosua própria direção ideológica, suavisão do tema apresentado de iniciopelo original." (Santiago. 1978. 21-22) Tal como o crilico e o escrilornegros, o escrilor latino-americanoarroga-se o direito de dessacralizare apropriar-se dos textos canônicos.desviando-os de seu sentido iniciale usando-os a seu bel-prazer: "Encontrar a escada e contrair a dividaque pode minimizar a distânciainsuportável entre ele. mortal, e aimortal estrela: lal seria o papel doartista latino-americano, sua

função na sociedade ocidental."(Santiago. 1978. 20) Nãose traia denegar o valor das grandesliteraturas, mas de mudar a aliludeem relação a elas. substituindo umaveneração que acaba conduzindo àimitação generalizada por umaposição mais livre e descolonizada.que considera as obras canónicascomopassíveis de uma leitura a partir de outro ângulo e. ao mesmotempo, como "modelos produtores."

O trabalho do critico, segundoSilviano Santiago, "se definirá antes

de tudo pela análise do uso que oescrilor fez de um lexto ou de uma

técnica literária que pertence aodomínio público, do partido que eletira. e nossa análise se completarápela descrição da técnica que omesmo escritor cria no seu

movimento de agressão contra omodelo original, fazendo ceder asfundações que o propunham comoobjeto único e de reprodução impossível." (Saniiago. 1978. 22-23) Seantes o que se propunha era aconfirmação de um modelo, agora oque se deseja é uma leitura náo-inocenle ou mesmo uma agressãoao modelo anterior. O critico e o

escritor tomam-se conscientes danecessidade tanlo de ler um pontode vista próprio, sul-americano,quanlo de desmistificar o discursodos grandes centros através de umaleitura mais consciente.

Os termos usados por S. Santiago para descrever a relação docritico e do escritor de 3o Mundopara com as grandes literaturasremetem-nos para a epígrafe do artigo de Henry Louis Gates: "Oescrilor latino-americano brincacom os signos de um oulro escrilor.de uma outra obra. As palavras dooutro tem a particularidade de seapresentarem como objetosque fascinam seus olhos, seus dedos, e aescritura do lexlo segundo é emparte a história de uma experiênciasensual com o signo estrangeiro."(Santiago. 1978, 23) Não seria, nofundo, como os negros, que seapropriam dos signos brancos,manipulando-os até que eles brilhem "like bumished amulels"? Asduas atiludes seriam sinais de umatransgressão ao modelo, umareviravolta, o caminho contrário daexploração colonial.

Para Silviano Santiago, nasliteraturas sul-americanas "falar,escrever, significa: falar contra,escrever contra." (Santiago. 1978.19) Consequentemente, muito doque se produz situa-se na linha daparódia ou do pastiche. O mesmoacontece com os escritores negros,principalmente da minoria negraamericana. Henry Louis Gatespropõe, então, uma teoria deinterpretação retirada de dentro da

Descentrando a Crítica: a Literatura das Minorias

cultura negra, que se baseia nafigura do "Signifying Monkey".presente em grande número de contos do folclore afro-americano: "Theironic reversal of a received racist

image ofthe black as simianlike. theSignifying Monkey — he who dwellsat the margins of discourse. everpunning, ever troping. ever embody-ing lhe ambiguities of language —isour trope for repelition and revision.indeed. is our trope of chiasmusitself. repealing and simullaneouslyreversing in one deft. discursive acl"(Gales, 1984, 286). O macaco natradição afro-americana. assimcomo na brasileira, é signo da esperteza, principalmente através dapalavra, desvirtuando o sentido doque os outros animais dizem. Seutrunfo é o manejo da linguagemfigurada, a mesma que o negroaprendeu a usar quase como umaquestão de sobrevivência nummundo dominado pelo branco. Portanto, "signifying". na linguagemdos negros, indica reversão de sentido e ambigüidade: "Signifyinglums on the play and chain of signifiers. and not on some supposedlytranscendem signified." (Gates,1984.287) Consiste em uma técnicade argumentação e persuasão indiretas através da esperteza e dabrincadeira ("lhe language of trick-ery"). dos jogos verbais e da ironia,alilude que faz parte da vida donegro. Este. sempre em situação deinferioridade, aprende a lidar comcódigos complexos e a interpretartanto a linguagem do branco comoosseus próprios "signifying rituais",nas palavras de Gates. Em lugar derejeilar a semelhança com omacaco, onegroapropria-seda imagem que o branco faz dele pararevertê-la e dar-lhe seniido positivoincorporando certas qualidades doanimal que. nos contos folclóricos,vence pela aslúcia e domínio da linguagem figurada. O escritor e ocritico negros entrariam nestatradição na medida em que saibaminterpretar bem os códigos do cãnonliterário, lendo-os a partir do pontode vista negro e expondo-lhes aideologia. Ou. como afirma S. Santiago, sua presença "se instala natransgressão ao modelo, no movimento imperceptível e sutil deconversão, de perversão, de s-

27

reviravolta." (Santiago. 1978. 27)Entretanto, consciente de que todoato de linguagem é apenas representação. Gales procura fazer umaleitura critica e desmisllficadora nãosó do discurso branco, mas lambemdo negro.

Não se pode deixar de observaraqui a convergência do conceito decritica negra baseada numa figurade "Iricksler" com a teoria dacarnavalizaçáo de Bakhtin. esla"alegre relatividade", em que "oscontrários se encontram, se olham

mutuamente, refletem-se um nooutro, conhecem e compreendemum ao outro." (Bakhlin. 1981. 153)Não seria justamente isso o queacontece com a literatura negra (etambém com outras lileraluras

menores) em relação às grandeslileraluras. segundo a visão deGates? Para esle. é preciso umaatitude de apropriação parodisticalanio em relação à tradição ocidental quanto à própria tradição negra:para ele. como para S. Santiago, nãohá leitura inocente, mas umaalilude critica frente ao texlo em

geral, uma total reversão de significados. O próprio falo de escolher o"Signifying Monkey" como modelode interpretação é significativo:longe de apenas "macaquear" paramimetizar. é preciso "macaquear"para reverter e renovar, numaatitude em que está presente oelemento carnavalesco.

Deniro da mesma linha.- ateoria de Gates aproxima-setambém do conceito de "literaiuraarlequinal". desenvolvido atualmente porAffonso Romano de Sanl'-

Anna. O "iricksler". personagemenganador, menino endiabrado."elemo Macunaima" que Inverte ascoisas, aproxima-se do macaco deGales enquanto figura "móvel, deslizante e descentrada" (nas palavrasde Affonso Romano): ele lambem é opróprio discurso em movimento eem construção, sem centro e sempreem jogo. A mesma ambigüidadeestrutural do arlequim encontra-seno "Signifying Monkey". já queanimal, porém dotado deinteligência e argúcia e usando alinguagem no que ela tem de maisfluido e sutil para mostrar o carátertambém fluido e deslizante da verdade. A literatura afro-americana ea critica negra leriam. pois. umcaráter eminentemente arlequinal.

O "Signifying Monkey"constituium equivalente funcional de Exu nodiscurso profano negro americano,já que é também um "Iricksler" e.por isso. um mediador. Exu. omensageiro dos deuses, é mancoporque suas pernas tem tamanhosdiferentes já que uma fica no reinodos deuses e outra no mundo dos

homens, pois é ele quem estabelecea ligação enlre o mundo divino e oprofano. Esta espécie de Hermesafricano é o detentor do logos com oqual o universo foi criado, oguardião das encruzilhadas, mestredo estilo e da escrita. Para Gales.Exu constitui uma metáfora do ato

de interpretação e de mediação e.portanto, uma espécie de padroeirodo critico. Apoiado de um lado natradição ocidental e de outro natradição negra, ele procura decifraros signos, compreender o texlo edeterminar o enlre-lugar do discur

so negro. Mas Irata-se de uminterprete que nãojulga deter iodaa verdade, idéia comum a SilvianoSantiago que. na "Nola Prévia" aUma literatura nos trópicos observa:"O intérprete perdeu hoje asegurança no julgamento,segurança que era o apanágio degerações anteriores. Sabe ele queseu trabalho (...) é o de saber colocaras idéias no devido lugar (...) Ointérprete é. em suma. ointermediário entre texto e leitor (...)"(Santiago. 1978. 9-10). Além disso,poderíamos acrescentar que ele étambém elemento de ligação enlreas diversas tradições culturais,literárias e criticas.

O que os críticos das literaturasmenores propõem, em últimainstância, é o estudo da literaiura

comparada, ou seja. dosrelacionamentos entre as diferentestradições literárias sem que uma assuma uma posição de superioridadesobre a ou Ira. A literaiura com

parada, lal como a "poética derelação" de Glissanl. nada mais é doque a leitura da relação. HenryLouis Gates também não fica atrás

e propõe o estudo comparativo dasliteraturas negras e seurelacionamento com os textos

canônicos oficiais. As linhas

mestras de todos eles também são

as mesmas: a busca da diferençaque confere individualidade a cadauma dessas lileraluras menores e a

noção de pluridiscursividade oudialogismo. a convicção de quevárias vozes ou várias culturas con

vivem em cada discurso artístico ou

critico. rJ

BIBLIOGRAFIA

BAKHTIN. Mikhall. Problemasda poética de DosloiévskLTrad. de Paulo Bezerra. Rio: Forense — Universitária. 1981.

DELEUZE. Gilles e GUATTARI. Félix. Kajka: por uma literatura menor. Trad. de Júlio Castanon Guimarães. Rio;lmago. 1977.

GATES JR. Henry Louis. Crilicism in the jungle. In: Black lileralure and lilerary theory. Nova Iorque e Londres:Methuen. 1984.

. The blackness ofblackness: a critique ofthe sign and lhe Signifying Monkey. In: Black literalure andlilerary theory. Nova Iorque e Londres: Melhuen. 1984

28 Revista de Estudos Germânicos

GLISSANT. Edouard. 1'oétique anlül.iisc. poétique de Ia relation — interview avec Edouard Glissanl.

Entrevista concedida à rcvisla Kompftrutistischc llcfie (9/101. Universidade de Hayreuth. lí)S-I.

SANTIAGO. Silviano. Umaliteratura nos trópicos: ensaios sobre dependência cultural. São Paulo; Perspectiva. 1978.

NOTAS

1 "Poderíamos chamar, em geral, de intensivos ou lensorcs os elementos lingüísticos, por mais variados quesejam, que exprimem "tensões interiores de uma língua".

2 As idéias de Affonso Romano foram apresentadas no I Congresso Internacional da Faculdade de loiras — UFRJna palestra "Arlequim: ojogo erótico da verdade"

Dcscenirandoa Crítica: a Literaiura dii* Minorias

Summary

A feminisl dose reading ofWalkerPercy's The moviegoer.

Resumo

Leitura feminista e minuciosado livro The moviegoer doescritor americano contem

porâneoWalker

Percy.Gesture and StyleMyfirst

idea was lhe buãding itself. Itlookslike a min

iature bankwith ils Corin-

ihian pilasters.pórtico and iron

scrolls over tlie windows. Tl\efirm's name. Cutrer, Klosier-matin & Lejier is leilercd inGolhic and below in smallcrlellers. the names of lhe Boston mutual funds we represent. Il looksfar more conser-valive lhan lhe modem baitksin Genlilly. Il announces to l/u?world: modem mcthods are rio

doubt excellcnl bul here is

good oldfashioncd stability.bul stability with imaginalion.A liille bit ofold New Englandwith a CrcoleJlavor. The Par-thenon jaçade cosi iwclvelliousand dollars bul commis-sions have doublcd. Tlie youngman uou see insidc is clcarlytliesoul ojintegrily: lie asks nomore llian lo beallowed loplanyourfuture. Tlxis is true.This isali l as/c.

in The Moviegoer

Gesto e Estilo em TheMoviegoer

Geste und Stil in The

Moviegoer

Emory ELLIOTT*

Estudos Germânicos

30

j

In the midst of lhe exisicniial la-

menl of John-Jack-Binx-Rollo-

Bolling. the humor of this pas-sage may not ai first be apparcnl.Like an image out of a novel byFenimore Cooper depicting thecomic amalgam ofslyles in America,the façade blends elements ofEuropean and American regionalarchitecture lo convey a permanenl.ambiguous advertising slogan ofpurilanical auslerily and classical

Belo Horizonte V.9 N" 1

splendor. Behind the façadelurks a paradoxical confidenceman/pilgrim who does nol believehimself lo be the soul of financialintegrily andstability thalheadver-tises but who does yearn forpsychological integrily. Encum-bered In his search for spiritualmeaning and self-knowledge by thevery jumble of cultural fragmenisprojecied on the façade. Binx doeswish ironically on a more profoundand idealistic levei to plan people"slives. and he waits to plan lives —his own and olhers. But like hislilerary forbearers. lhe unreliablenarrators Miles Coverdale. JakeBarnes. and Nick Carraway. andMelville's Pierre and the failedSouthern searcher Quentin Com-pson. Binx may be unable lo escapelhe double-bond of narcissism andself-deceplion which makes him aself-righteous crilic ofhis world whoemploys irony to deny the implica-lions of his own partlcipaiion andresponsibility. Or like anolher set oflilerary predecessors. Huck Finn.Ike McCaslin. Warren*s Jack Bur-den, and Ellison*s Invisible Man. hemay be able lo cast off some of lhelayers of the façade of the Purilan.Enlighlenmenl. Euro-AmericanSoulhem self to discover some rem-nanl of a human soul worlhy of afulure.

This comic passage points lolhe conllicl belween the public andprivaie man which is ai lhe themaliccenler of 7Vte moviegoer and of thecriticai controversies surroundinglhe texl. The problem of the book asil is usually posed is whal sort ofresolulion does Binx achieve ai lhe

end of the novel? Afler ali his high-minded talk of malaise. everyday-ness. cultural collapse. and theneed lo search for new values and a

personal spirilual calling. Üinx*ssilualiun at the conclusion is am

biguous at besl or is at worsl asentimental acceplance of his AuntEmily's imposcd mission. Of hisspirilual sceking. Binx says in theEpilogue. "I have nol the inclinalionlo say much on lhe subject" (187).

• Dcparlnu-nl of Knulish. UiiívitmIv oiCalifórnia. Klvvrsfüi'. USA.

p.30-37 DEZ. 1988

Revista de Estudos Gcrnutnicos

and he retreals behind the hard-

boiled language of a Hemingwayanti-hero: "much too late to edify ordo much of anything except plant afool in the right place as the oppor-tunity presents itself — if indeedasskicking is properly distinguishedfrom edification" (187-88). He seemsto have advanced only slightly fromlhe soldier his aunt told him to be

when he was elght to the rank of drillsergeant. After seeming to preparehis heart, and the reader, for hisspiritual conversion. he is now "shy"on the subject of religion. He ap-pears embarrassed and awkwardabout ali that has gone before andquick lo complete his manuscripl:"Reticence. therefore. hardly havinga place in a document of this kind.it seems as good a time as any lomake an end" (188). A reader maywell feel that Binx's Celestial Rail-road ride from New Orleans to

Chicago has merely come full circleto bring its pilgrim-seeker to an un-expected but hardly transformedstation in life. Such ambiguity hasled many critics to seek out lhe realWalker Percy himself to ask himwhat this ali means.2

When critics prepare for theseinterviews. lhey learn the essenlialbiographical facts. Percy had atragic childhood. His falher com-mitted suicide when Walker waseleven. and his mother died in anautomobile accident when he wasfifleen. He was raised by a secondcousln. William Alexander Percy. a"bachelor-poet-lawyer-planter"whoimparted to Walker the Greek-Roman Sloic vision expressed byAunt Emily in The moviegoer.Walker went lo the Universily ofNorth Carolina to study chemistryand to Columbia Universily medicaischool. During two bouts withtuberculosis. he read extensivery inFrench and Russian lileralure andphilosophy. In the late 1940s hemarried. converted to RomanCatholicism. settled permanently inCovington. Louisiana. and began towrile essays about alienation. exls-tentialism. malaise. and the failureofChristlanity In the modem world.He published his first novel Themoviegoer In 1961.

Gesiure and Style in The Moviegoer

Noting the obvious aulobio-graphical elements in the novel,critics often assume that Binx's

resolution parallels Percy's ownquest for answers. Like Percy. Binxis a young man who sees throughthe sham of public rhetoric anddiscovers the meaning of alienation,malaise. and náusea. Turning asidefrom the false values of materialismand empiricism, Binx. like Percy.was led by European philosophy todiscover a new sense of purposeupon which to base a radically newplan for life.3

The problem with this reading.however, is that it is not bome outby the text. especially that of thefinal chapter and epilogue. It alsooverlooks another dimension ofPercy's work thal he himself some-times mentions but that criticismhas tended to slight — his debt toAmerican writers. At various times.

Percy has said that he admires theworks of Poe. Hawlhome, Melville.Twain. Hemingway. Faulkner. O'-Connor. Welty. Ellison and Wright.and he dois his works with literaryalluslons and wilh references loAmerican hislory and popular cul-lure. In fact, alerlness to the manyalluslons to American predecessorscan reveal some quite delightfulparodies of the styles of otherwriters. The moviegoer opens wilhalluslons lo the opening ofAbsalom.Absalom! where Quentin is sum-moned by a note to visit his AuntRosa. and Mr. Sarlalamaccia's storyof the hunting party at RoaringCamp recalls Faulkner's The bear.including the breaking of Binx'swatch. which alludes to bolh works.When he tells of how Judge Anse(rememberAnse Bundren in As 1laydying) ordered him. like ThomasSutpen. to build him a lodge. Mr.Sartalamaccla "walts until thewords. the very words. speak them-selves" (177). And, of course. whenthey speak. they appear in italics.These humorous evocations ofAmerica and American literarytraditlons are not merely pari of aveneer of Americanism that Percylays over the philosophical.European core of his work. in theway that Binx employs the gesturesof movie aclors to mask his inner

emptiness. Instead. style and ges-ture are an integral part ofthe workas a whole. and call attention to thesublle forms of communication.bolh verbal and non-verbal. thatoperate between the characters.Body movement. physical man-nerisms. silences, and shifts in toneoften impart coded messages between characters and may suggestto the reader other possible explana-tions ofthe noveVs resolution.

Close attention to the functionsof style and gesture in The moviegoernot only provldes a key to the novel'sending, but it also can help us ac-count for the intricacy of Binx'srelationships wilh Kate and AuntEmiry and explain the meaning ofhis comment in the Epilogue that"bolh women And me comical andlaugh a good deal at my expense"(187). Percy himself has beenac-cused by several critics of sexlsm.and he does admit that his femalecharacters do not fare too well.4However. the women In Themoviegoermay fare better than it atfirst may appear.

In order to see the roles of Emilyand Kate in the novel clearly. it isnecessary to make distinction between the narrator and the narrativeaudience he addresses and theauthor and his authorial audience.Binx makes certain assumptionsabout social and cultural attitudesthat he believes he shares with hisprojected narrative audience. Forexample. Binx assumes that hisreaders share his liberal attitudeson race and social class and aredismayed, with him. at the raclstand aristocratic attitudes AuntEmily exhibits in her final outburstabout the decline of the old South.While it is possible that Percy mayalso make that assumplion abouthis authorial audience. he makesolher assumptions of which Binx isnever aware. Percy's literary alluslons and parodies of the style ofotherAmerican writers. for example.are signals to the author's audienceofanother levei ofcommunication atwork to which Binx is not privileged.

Once the reader begins to dis-tinguish between these two narrative voices. he or she may also »*

31

recognize other elements ofthe narrative to which Binx is blind. Henever records a conscious recogni-tion ofthe fact, for example, that henever really proposed marriage toKate but that she transformed hissuggestion that she might visit himto watch television into a proposalupon which they finally both act.Binx's belief that Kate is mentallydisturbed to the point of not beingable to control her life may prevenihim from seeing the degree to whichshe controls his life.Actually. his lifeis much more controlled by Emilyand Kate than he realizes. The waysin which Kate subtly uses style andgesture to control Binx's destiny areimmedtately evident because theyare never apparent to Binx himself.Focus upon the function ofstyle andgesture wilhin the text reveals thefallacyofthe autobiographical inler-pretation of The moviegoer and sug-gests that Binx is hardly the godlikeprime mover that Kate proclaimshim to be.

It is at first perhaps hard toimagine that Binx himself could bethe victim of another's use of style.forhe is so conscious ofusing externais to represent a chosen image ofthe self in order to achieve hisdesires. The most humorous andrevealing example of his process ofself-projection is his experience inchoosíng a car. He adheres to lheMadison Avenue association of carswithsex."You say it is a simpletKingsurery... to pick up a good-lookingwoman and head for the beach onthe first fine day ofthe year. So saythe newspaper poets. Well. it's notsuch a simple thing..." (99). "Thecaritself is ali important." Initially. hechose a car that fit the lmage hewished to present of himself as areliableyoung businessman. But onhis first date with Mareia in hisDodge Ram Six sedan, he "dis-covered to my dismay that my finenew Dodge was a regular incubatorof malaise." He recalls, "We satfrozen in a gelid amiabilUy. Ourcheeks ached from smiling.... Mareia and I retumed to New Orleansdefeated by the malaise. It wasweeks before wevenluredout again"(100).

32

Confident that his sexualfailure here (which parallels similarfailures with Sharon and even Kate)was the fault of a car rather thanhimself, Binx buys a symbol ofsexual potency, a red MG: "My littlered MG... is immune to the malaise.

You have no idea what happinessMareia and I experienced as soon aswe found ourselves spinning alongthe highway in this bright littlebeetle. We looked at each olher inastonishment: the malaise was

gone!" (100). When Binx sets out toseduce Sharon who, he says, willbring him the greatest "happiness"yet. Percy has his narrator describetheir ride in the MG in the imageryofBinx's movie fantasies. The comiclinking Binx's hyperbole of the carin battle to the serious nolion of

cultural malaise signals lhe gap between the aulhor and his narralor:

For the stakes were very high.Eilher very great happinesslay in storefor us, or malaisepast ali conceiving (Freudianslips on Binx'spari? Intention-ai puns on Percy's pari?).... Ispin along the precipice withthe blackest malaise belowand me greenest of valleysahead,... [1)1 seems to me that Icatch a whijfofmalaise. A litlletongue of hellfire licks at ourheels and the MG jumpsahead, roaring like a bomberthrough the sandy pine bar-rens and across Bay SLLouis.(101)

Binx assumes that theaudience ofhis document shares hisbelief in lhe power of the materialobject to symbolize h»s sexualpotency and attract Sharon to him,just as he had assumed lhal thebuildingofGentilly hadbroughlhimbusiness. In the debate betweenIsabel Archer and Madame Merle inTheportrait ofa lady (abook alludedto through Percy's choice of "Merle"as the name for Kate'spsychiatrist),Binx clearly sides wilh Merle lhatone's physical objects are an expres-sion of oneself. But just as GilbertOsmond's house and Binx's officebuilding may present a deceptivefaçade, so too lhe gloss of the MGconceals sexual limidity and even

impotence. Binx fails to note thecontradiclion in his theory aboutthe MG's immunity when he andSharon retumed from the failedweekend and "the MG becomes in-

fested with malaise" (133). WhenSharon rejects his lasl desperateoverture of his hand on her thighwilh her firm "'Son, don't you messwith me", he reports: "'Very well. IwonV I say gloomily. as willing nolto mess with her as mess with her.to tell the truth" (134). Kate saysearlier that Binx is "'Colder |lhanshe). Cold as the grave" (70).Sharon. having discovered herself tobe a victim offalse advertising ratherthan malaise, rushes back lo renewher affair with the man she nowinlends to many and over whomBinx expected to triumph. Kate. onthe olher hand. paliently persists inher own search of the real Binx andin the process to prepare him. nolfor grace, but for herself.

In spite of his MG, like bravadosabout his affairs with hissecretaries, it is evident lhat Binxfears women. needs to feel in controlin his relations with them, and findsit painfully difficult to communicatewilh women on a serious levei. As he

admils at lhe outset. his affairs withMareia and Linda were superficialand ended in "lelephone conversa-tions... made up moslly of longsilences" (15). In such silence he isnot unlike his falher, who left lhemarital bed to sleep in the back yardand who took ten-mile hikes alone.When Binx. who like Melville'sPierre is also on a search for hisfalher. asks his mother if his falherwas a good husband, she answersthat "'... he was a good walker"'(123). Lackinga strong self-image asa man, lhe way that he can conceiveofhimselfwilh women isbyinvokinghis fantasies of different movie ac-tors and lmitaling their languageand gestures. Whilé he claims to beattracted to the Amazon type ofwoman with a helmet-like Prince Vaihaircut whom he sees on the busand says mockingly that "Imjoslmen are afraid of them" (17), he doesnot approach the glrl even when hedetecls an invillng smile. Instead. hebecomes absorbed by his thoughtsof the search. Only Kate is able to

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

reach him. and this is because sheknows his secret language and howto appeal to him indirectry throughstyle and gesture.

Kate is first mentioned in thethird sentence of the book. and sheis constantly in touch with Binx; asSharon reports. many people saythey are married. Yet Binx's effortsto evade Kate's love and the seriouscommitment she represents causeshim to diminish the importance ofher presence for his narrativereaders. Thus. the authorial readermust infer much about her importance in Binx's life. For example.from the knowledge she displays ofhis ideas about movies, it is evidentthat they have lenglhy conversa-tions logelher that Binx does notreport. Just as Binx knows lhe language ofthe Catholic calechism wellenough to banter with Lonnie aboutsacrifice and grace. Kate knowsabout BInx's search and under-

stands his notion of repetitions andrevolutions. When they attend Panicin the streets logelher. she asks "'Isthis part of the repelilion? Part ofthe search?'" (69)

Because he cannot let himself

see the degree of her romantic inter-est in him and of his altachment to

her. Binx has developed strategiesfor ignoring her or dismissing heradvances as signs of her mental in-stabilily. Like John Marcher inJames' Beast in thejungle, he seeksfor something and yet refuses torecognize whal is in front of him.Kate says "'|ilt is possible. you know,that you are overlooking something,the most obvious thing of ali. Andyou would not know it ifyou fell overit" (70). Not havlng read his HenryJames and thus unable lo recognizelhe parallels between his search andMarcher's wasted life, Binx answerswith a dull '"What?" and then is

puzzled: "She would not tell me. In-stead. in the streelcar. she becomes

gay and affectionate toward me. Shelocks her arms around my waist andgivesme a kiss on the mou th..." (70).Still Kate has achieved her purpose.for in spite of his insislence lo hisreaders that he loves Sharon Kin-cade. Percy's readers note that it isto Kate that Binx's mind repeatedlyreturns.

Gesture and Style in TheMoviegoer

There are three scenes in particular in which Percy zooms hislens In upon Kate's romantic over-tures to Binx and his unconsciousevasions. One of the frequent hintsthat Kate and her aunt may actuallybe scheming to make this matchoccurs as Binx prepares to speakwith Kate for the first time in the

action. His aunt has summoned him

for the purpose ofthis meetlng, andas he prepares to descend to thebasement to speak wilh Kate. henotes: "...I can see my aunt sitlingby the fire.... She opens her eyesand, seeing me. forms a soundlessword wilh her lips." When Kate tellshim a few minutes laler lhat she and

her aunt talk about him ali the time.there is a slight hint that he may beon the verge of suspecling that thiswhole meeting has been slaged, butKate quickly changes to her "objec-live" tone which dislracts his possible suspicion. Her pose and ges-lures during this scene, however.are reminiscent of a movie scene

played by Bette Davis. As Binx observes, she has evengolten Into costume for this tete-à-tete: "As if toemphasize her sallowness and thin-ness. she haschanged inlo shirt andjeans. She is as frail as a ten yearold, except in her thighs" (39). Justas he has shared wilh her at pre-vious times his search and ideas

about moviegoing. perhaps he mayalso have revealed — as he does

throughout lhe text—the altractionhe feels toward certain boyishcharacterislics in women (he laternotices Sharon's boyish cheek andboy's pants) and his weakness forwomen's hips as their most sexuallyexciting feature. But her particularcostume certainly triggers the ap-propriate fantasies: he remembersthal "Sometimes she speaks of herderriere. sücks it out Beale Streetstyle and gives it a slap and thismakes me blush because it is a verygood one. marvellously ample andmysterious and nolhing to jokeabout." He says that at the moment"|s)he has the advantage of me..." asshe taunls him about his missionfrom his Aunt to counsel her.

"Tou"re to tell me ali sorts of

things." she says. but when he fal-ters. she says prophetically: "'It willend with me lelling you" (39-49).

Even as Binx reports smalldetails of her appearance and movements he continues to believe thathis interest In her is no more thanpatemal. "She is in tolerable goodspirits. It is not necessary to pay toomuch attention to her." But pay attention he does, in spite of himself.and perform she does: "Kateslretches out a leg to get her cigaret-tes.... Pushing back her shingledhair. she blows out a plume of graylung smoke and plucks a grain fromher longue. She reminds me of col-lege girls before the war, how theywould sit. seeming old to me andsullen-silent towards men..." (41).Could Kate's pose be consciouslydesigned to give him this repetitionand take him back across the void

of the last ten years after the war tothe vitality of his early twenties?Theextent of the couple's past intimacyis suggested when Kate's new scien-llfic tone suddenly reminds him ofconversations they used to haveabout her social work, and one casein particular comes to Binx's mind:he remembers Kate saying '"— andali the while il was perfectly obviousthat the poor woman had never experienced an orgasm.' 'Is such athing possible!' I would cry and wewould shake our heads in the strongsense of our new camaraderie."

Given Kate's appeal and the direc-tion of Binx's thinking. it is notsurprising that he brings up thematter of her impending marriage toWalter. But now he is coming tooclose to her anxieties, and she useshis broach as an opportunity to starta quarrel. The terms of the argu-ment, however, suggest what maybe on both of their minds. She ac-cuses him and his aunt of patroniz-ing Walter at lunch. But when sheuses the phrase '"[wjhat a lovelypairyou are," referring to Binx andEmily, he tums it to themselves: "'Ithought you and I were thepair." to which Kate snaps "'Youand I are not a pair of any sort."Binx rèmarks to the reader. "I con-sider this" (41-43).

Given the fact that only a fewminutes before Binx felt that it was"not necessary to pay any attentionto Kate." this serious act of con-sideratlon of this remark represents

33

quite a heightenlng of interest. yethe seems still oblivious to the »*possible design for him that mayunderlie her series of sexual ges-tures. But designs are certainlybeing made upon him by his aunt,as he discovers in the next scenewhen she proposes that he moveback to her home and prepare toattend medicai school. Both hisaunt Emily and his mother havelong hoped that Kate and Binxshould be married. Does Emily havethis in mind for Binx's future, aswell. and is Kate's approaching wed-ding date and her real love for Binxthe actual source of her presentpsychic crisis? But marriage is aword that Binx never uses in regardto Kate. until she proposes it.

On the night that Kate comes tosee Binx at three A.M.. and he fearsfor her mental state. he tries tohumor her by speculating abouthow they could live together. He hascome into money and speculatesabout buying a service station andliving his life in his present apart-ment: almost casually he says '"Wecould stay on here at Mrs.Schexnaydre's. It is very comfort-able. I might even run the stationmyself. You could come sit wilh meat night, ifyou liked.'"To this ratherdreary prospect. which would not atali seem to suit Kate's romanticmoodofthe moment, she still replieswith enthusiasm "You sweet oldBinx! Are you asking me to manyyou?" "'Sure.'" he says while tellingthe reader "I watch her uneasily."Binx expects her to play off of thisbantering remark in their usual language games, but to his surpriseand dismay, he sees that she isserious. Kate exclaims. "'Not a badlife you say. It would be the besl ofali possible lives,'" and Binxdespairs: "She speaks in a rapture—something like my aunt. Myheartsinks. It is too late." Binx's con

clusion is that Kate has slipped overthe edge emotionally and is nolonger herself, but his mental as-sociation with the tone of her voice

and that ofhis aunt is most significam, especially in view of the lalersituation where she and her auntlive together wilh him and laugh athis expense. This time Binx recog-

34

nizes the movie actress that Kate isplaying: "— as enraptured and ex-tinguished in her soul. gone. as acharacter played by Eva MarieSaint," but he fails once more lounderstand that he is not Just acasual observer of her performancebut her intended audience (95).

The turning point In theirrelationship occurs on Mondaynight when Kate proposes that sheaccompany him to Chicago. Thepreparation for that suggestion isespecially well-slaged. He is againbeing sent — this time by Sam — locounsel her. Even Sam appears tofurther the relationship by depictingKate as a Russian Princess ofthe oldaristocracy and by apparentlyproposing to her himself, whichKate later reports to Binx to makehim jealous. Allhough Kate is supposed to be in a very disturbed mental state, she seems quite well-prepared for this meeting:

Kale sits... and cheerfuüymakes room for me in theloveseaL Not unlü later do Ithink why it is she looks sowell she is ali dressed up.forthejirst time since Christmas,It is the scent oj her perfume,her nylon-whispering legs, thewhite dress against her darkskin. aproperdressJlutedandJlouncedand nowgatheredbyher andfolded awayfrom me.(141)

Though Binx remembers this pic-ture later. at the time he is dis-tracted and appears to pay little attention to her. As she talks on, he islislening to the dlnner conversalionfrom downstairs. Perhaps detectinghis distraction, she picks up uponthe idea that he had proposed marriage again: "'I thought about yourproposal and it seemed to me that itmighl be possible after ali" (143).While Binx appears not even tonotice this remark, he does begin tobecome sleepy — the same reactionhe had when his aunt told him ofher

plans for his life and the same reaction he has later on the train. Like

Jack Burden in Warren's Ali theking's men, Binx escapes into sleep.When he awakens. he is on the train

with Kale on a kind of pre-marriagemock honeymoon. Binx is still drow-sy, and Percy adds a touch ofFreudian humor to Binx's dream onthe train when Binx imagines stand-ing in Une in a crowdedbookstore tobuy a copy of Technique inmarriage:"I noticed that nearly ali the crowdJammlng against me are women,from middle-aged one-fiflypounders" (151). If his fear is thatwomen are pressing in on his lifeand that he may need such a bookin his relationship with Kate, il issoon borne out when Kate seduceshim and he proves impotent.

In his non-ficlion works. Percyoften writes about linguistics andthe function oflanguage, and he hascommented upon the concept ofdefamiliarization that he leamed

from the Russian formalists. Binxplays with the notion ofdefamiliarizalion when he speaks ofhow the movies take aspects of ordi-nary life and make them more realby pultlng them on lhe screen. Hisexperience of seeing Panic in thestreets. in a theater in the veryneighborhood in which lhe film wasshot, defamiliarizes the área for himand enables him to see it more clear-

ly. Simllarly. Binx describes his experience of talking with his half-brother Lonnie about religions asdecentering language and thusmaking it better able to be heard:"Lonnie's monotonous speech giveshim an advantage, the same ad-vantage foreigners have: his wordsare not wom out. It is like a code

tapped through a wall. Sometimeshe asks straight out: do you loveme?" (131) By alterlng the usualform ofspeaking, Lonnie gets Binx'sattention. Lonnie is the only othercharacter besides Kate who also un-

derstands Binx's way of readingmovies, and the experience ofseeingFort Dobbs at the Drive-in with Lon

nie is for Binx"a good rotation" (116-17).

Less apparent is the skillful waythat Kate uses the process ofdefamiliarization to get Binx to seeher more sharply. By altering herspeaking style, tone, and gesturesand playing out roles from the stageand screen in lhe character ofher •*

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

own person. she alters and variesher self-presentation. For example.in her telephone conversations withBinx she is unconvenlional: he says"(f)or some reason or anolher shefeelsobliged lo keep one jump aheadof the conventional. When I answer

the phone, instead of hearing 'Hello.this is Kale' |which Kate knowswould be everydaynessl. therecomes into my ear a low-pitchedvoice saying something like: "Well.the knives have started flying.'"which he then has to inlerpret:"which means that she and hermolher have been aggressive," or"What doyou know. I'mcelebratingthe riles of spring afler ali,' whichtums out lo mean that she has

decided in her ironic and reflectedway to altend lhe annual suppergiven for former queens of the Nep-tune Bali". She ends this conversa-tion by hanging up abruplly. Binxobserves: There comes a silenceand a click. But this doesn'1 mean

anything. Abrupt hang-ups are partof our analylic way of talking." Theonly danger with Kale's device islhat what is first defamiliarized maysoon become conventional. Bul she

slrives to keep him offguard (57-58).

There are two key passages thatwould seem to weigh against thesuggestion thal Binx is guidedtoward his fale, consciously or un-consclously. by Kate. One is lhe exchange in which Kate says thal shewill only be able to survive in marriage ifhe lells her whal to do. First,appealing to his sense of missionand duty, she says she is "never toobad" when she is with him; lhen,touching his own insecurity andreversing roles, she says that he is"nultier" than she is. The poinl thatBinx is really sicker than Kate ismade throughout lhe book, and is.I believe, correct. Next. she remindshim of his marriage proposal andsuccessfully provokes his jealousyby saying thal Sam has alsoproposed. Then. she suddenly shiftsher tone to a hard-boiled Brelt Ash-

ley style. and she risks ali by forcinghim to defend the notion thal lheycould make a successful marriage:"'Can'l you see lhat for us it is muchtoo late for such ingenious litlleschemes?'" Binx notes thal her voice

Gesture and Style in The Moviegoer

is steadier, but he atlributes thischange lo lhe motion ofthe train. Bythis taclic. however. she forces Binxfor the first time to take a stand infavor of their marriage. but aflerthey debate the issue, It is clear lhatBinx still does nol take her serious-ly. As he says. "I do not. lo tell thetruth. pay too much attention lowhal she says" (153-55).

But shortly Kale takes a newlack: She "shakes her head in therapt way she gol from her slep-molher." and she resorts to com

plete female submission. She tellsBinx he is her God ("'You are theunmoved mover"), and lhat themarriage willwork if in ali Ihings heshould tell her what lo do. She

proclaims her total submission lohis will and gives him a passionatekiss. This ancient strategy of declar-ing her own helplessness serves adouble funclion: it assuages Binxsfear of women by making him feelthat she is unlhreatening. and itencourages him to Ihink of her aseasily seduced. She is. like AliceDoan in The house oj lhe sevengables, hypnolized by a man"s powerand open to lhe suggestion of hiswill. Meanwhile. lesl Percy's readersbegin lo Ihink lhat Kale is really nolin control of this scene, he has Binxlook out lhe windovv at a symbol offemale power: Themoonlight seemspalpable. a dense purê matrix..."(156-57).

Binx. however, is not an easilymoved. unmoved mover, so Katetakes a more direcl approach: "I feelawful. Lefsgo uployour roometle."'There she tells him ofher discussion

with her psychialrist about herdesire to have an affair, and callingBinx Whipple. she reports hersexual fantasies sparked by reading"a Frenchy version" of Tiílte lheIoúer comics in which Tillie is takenby Whipple in the laundry room.Later when Binx tries lo explain hissexual failure wilh Kale to his imagined Rory Calhoun. he admils:"The irulh is 1was frightened half todealh by her bold (not really bold.nor whorish bold bul theorish bold)carrying on." So while on the sur-face. it may seem lhal Kate Is pul-ting herself in his control. she ac

tually uses shifts in tone and gesture. and antic poses to direct theentire scene: the only thing she cannot control is Binx's libido. The finalword goes lo Kate. who invokes bothRomeo's Julietle and HamlefsOphelia in her mocking "'Goodmght. sweet Whipple. Now you tuckKate in. Poor Kate.... Good nightsweet Whipple. good night. goodmght. good night." Percy, of course.invokes Eliot in The wasleland (157-159).

Even if lhe seduclion is a physical failure, however. it is apsychological victory for Kate. forwhen they arrive in Chicago the nextday, Kate assumes firm and per-manent command of the relation

ship. "Kale looks after me." he says(160). Binx has become a submis-sive husband even before the wed-ding as Kate atlends to the praclicaldetails of life, just as she had pur-chased lhe train tickets while he

slept. The extent of her dominanceis most apparent in the scene afterhis confronlation wilh Aunt Emily.The meeling itself deserves attention. for Emily is a master of styleand gesiure. employing lhe rheloricof lhe Puritanjeremiad and the en-lightenmenl language of republicanvirtue lo chastise him while wieldinga sword-like letler opener: "We bothgaze down at lhe letter opener. lhesofl iron sword she has wilhdrawnfrom lhe grasp of the helmetedfigure on the Inkstand." In a phallicrecolleclion Binx noies that the lipof lhe sword was bent because as aboy he had used il to try lo pry opena drawer. and he still worries lhatshe suspects him. Hypnolized byher gestures. he cannol take hiseyes off the sword: "We watch thesword as she lets it fali over thefulcrum of her forefinger.... Then. sosuddenly thal I almosl start. myaunt shealhes the sword and placesher hand on lhe desk. Turning ilover. she flexes her fingers andstudies lhe nails...."IfKate has beenlearning some of her gestures fromher stepmolher. as Binx earlier sug-gested. she has a powerful model toimitate (174-76).

When a limp Binx leaves thismeeting. he meeis a Kale who is =♦

35

"as brisk as a stewardess" flylnghigh as she tells him "You're stupidstupid stupid.... I heard it ali. youpoor stupid bastard" (180). Shedirects him to go home and wail forher. which he dutlfully does. Butwhen she does not arrive in fiflyminutes, he panics and Iries to callSharon. When her roommate saysshe is out wilh her fiancé. he makesa play in Brando slyle for the roommate. Only when he sees Kate's "stifflittle Plymoulh" — a car more fillingBinx's puritan nature than his MG— does Binx regain composure.Then, for the first lime, he acceptsthe idea that he will many Kate byannouncing thal she is "my ownfiancé, Kate Cutrer (183). In case lhesymbolism of Emily's sword and lhename Cutrer which Kate and Emilyshare is lost on the reader. Percyearlier had Binx meei a knife sales-man who exhibils what Binx refersto as his "cutter." It is significamthat Binx did nol tell his aunt thathe was going to many Kale, sincethat would have made ali the difference in her altitude toward lheirtrip together to Chicago. Katerebukes him for the oversight. andagain calls him an "idiot." While hewants to attribule his silence to sloicheroism, 11 is more likely that, asperhaps wary-eyed Kale suspecls.he still had not accepted lheproposalofmarriage as genuine. Toseal the matter, Kate immedialelytells her aunt herself who is thensoon reconciled to him. as Emilyshould be since he is going to doeverything she wished.

Theotherscene lhat might sug-gest that Kate is as weak and dependem in their relationship as shepretends to be is the final one in theEpilogue in which she tells him thatshe cannot go downtown wilhoutknowing that he is thinking abouther constantly. This is a curioussituation. because he has just ex-plained that withinthe past yearshewent on her own on a lark lo hearMarian Anderson perform In Dallas—certainly a much bolder trip thana streetcar ride downtown. But closereading of the scene suggestsanother possible motive for her

36

claim of dependency.

In this relationship dependenceis mutual, and Kale knows Binx wellenough to undersland hisprecarious psychic stale. She is always in danger of having him driftaway into his dreams of lhe search.Inlo sleep, or Into total psychicwithdrawal. Just as she had devisedstrategies to gel his attention beforemarriage. so she must constantlydefamiliarize herself lo hold his interest and keep lhe marriage alive.In this final scene Percy has Kategive a small demonstration of hercontinued use of cinemalic gestures. She has Binx pick a capeJasmin wilh which she lhen strikesa pose. She tells him to picture herin a very particular way: "Tm goinglo sil next to window on the lake sideand pul the cape jasmin in mylap.. ..And you'll be thinking of me in justlhat way?" (190-91)

By having him Ihink of her inthis defamiliarized and highly particular image of her — not a vagueimage of a wife — she forces herselfupon his imaginalion. just as shehad done wilh her anlic posesduring their courtship. In the finalimage of The moviegoer, as anentranced Binx watches her. Kaleframes herself as in a scene from amovie: Twenty feel away she lurnsaround. 'Mr. Klostermann? Mr.Kloslermann.' I walch her walktoward St. Charles, cape jasmineheld against her cheek. until mybrothers and sisters call out behindme" (191).

The reasons for the ambiguityofthe endingoiThe moviegoer, then.is thal for Binx's narrative audiencelhe ending presenls onlyone side ofa more complex situation that Percyhas inscribed in the lext indirectlyfor his authorial audience. Binxbelieves lhal he has made independem and conscious choices.grounded in his reading ofKierkegaard. to move from lhe aes-thelic to the moral and the religiousstage of spiritual development. Hebelieves lhat he has acceptedresponsibilily to take care of Kateand to embrace ali ofthe values that

he had so fiercely rejected earlier.including living in "one of the verysholgun coltages done over by mycousin Nell" (187). Bul even thallerm "sholgun." which evokes theimage ofa manmanying against hiswill. reminds the authorial reader

thal Binx's final siluation was notexaclly his idea. He is like MilesCoverdale in The Blííhedaleromance, who lhought he was in lovewith lhe girlish Priscilla but wasactually entranced by the moresexually Ihrealening Zenobia. OnFriday. Binx lhoughl he was in lovewilh Sharon. bul by Wednesday hewas engaged to Kate.

As in ali novéis wilh unreliablenarralors. the authorial reader is

privileged to view the narrator'sworld in a larger frame than he canhimself perceive. In thal largerworld. it is Kate who saves Binx. andin so doing perhaps also saves herself. For Kale and Emily recognizelhal he is their while hope for anyfuture the Culrer family and theSouth may have. Binx is a QuentlnCompson who lives because Kateholds his attention. By learninghissecrel language of moviegoing. andusing the gestures and techniquesof communication of lhe cinema —such as shifts in tone.cuis. framing.and posing—she makes herself inloa character in the movie he wisheshis life to be. Playacting as Ophelia.Julielte, Eva Marie Saint. a RussianNatasia. Belle Davis. and TillieToiler, she gives him the experienceofthe heightened reality. as he callsil. of the movies thal he longed forin his life. Just as her aunt has thepower lo scare the wits out of BinxIn a way lhat he confesses to find"nol altogelher unpleasant." Kalekeeps herself in his mind so that hisdocumenl. as he calls the book. ison lhe conscious levei an account ofhis search for the meaning of lifeamidsl modern malaise andeverydayness. but is on the unconscious levei a record of how peoplemay learn from arl how to surviveeverydayness and creale interestand meaning for one another. _)

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

NOTES

1 The moviegoer (New York. 1961). Ali references are lo this edilion.

2 Ofthe several existing volumes of interviews with Percy. the most useful for this essay was Lewis A. LawsonandViclorA. Kramer. |eds.] Convcrsalions with Waücer Percy(Jackson, Miss.. 1985).

3 Oflhe recent sludies of Percy's lifeand Ihought, I found lhe following most helpful: Jerome Taylor. In search ofself: life. dealh and Walker Percy (Cambridge. Mass.. 1986): essays by Harold Bloom and Tony Tanner inWalker Percy. ed. Harold Bloom (NewYork. 1986); William Rodney Allen. Waücer Percy: a Southern wayfarer(Jackson. Miss.. 1986); JackTharoe. Walker Percy (Boston. 1983) and the colleclions he edited. WaücerPercy.-art and ethics. (Jackson. Miss.. 1980): Panthea Reid Broughlon. Theart of Walker Percy: stratagems for being(Balon Rouge. 1979); Mary K. Sweeny. WaücerPercy and the modem world (Chicago. 1987); Martin Luschei.The sovereign wayfarer: Walker Percy's diagnosis ofthe malaise (Baton Rouge. 1972); John Edward Hardy.Theficlion of Walker Percy (Urbana. 1987); Robert Coles, Walker Percy: an American search (Boston. 1978:Patrícia Lewis Poleal. WaücerPercy and lhe old modemage: refleclions on language argumenl. and the tellingof slories (Baton Rouge. 1985).

4 Lawson and Kramer. Conversatiotxs with Walker Percy. p. 278.

Gesiure and Style in TheMoviegoer 57

Summary

This essay examinesHemingway's The fifthcolumn, a play he wrote inMadrid duríng thefali ofl937while lhat city was underbombardment. The essayaims at clarifying the motivesbehind Hemingway's involve-

• /• ment withThe Price ofDuty £*•**

and at il-

luminating the signiptcance of# # that involve-

m Hemingway s *?* <° hvr*^ ^ ttsttc develop-

ment.

The Fifth Column Resumo

O Preço do Dever na Peça deHemingway AQuinta Coluna

Der Preis der Pílicht in

Hemingways Die FünfteKolonne

Stephen L. TANNER

Este ensaio

analisa a peça denominada Aquinta coluna, escrita emMadrid por Ernest Hemingway, durante a Guerra CivilEspanhola. O ensaio procuraesclarecer os motivos do en

volvimento político/ideológicodo escritor norte-americano,assim como o significadodesse envolvimento para asua carreira artística.

FromJanuary. 1937 to October1940. when For whom the bell

lolls appeared. ErnestHemingway's thoughts and energieswere focused in one way or anotheron lhe Spanish CivilWar. As head ofthe Ambulance Corp Commiltee ofthe American Friends of SpanishDemocracy. he contributed time.money. and lhe preslige of hisrepulation to the Loyalist cause.Through wriling. money. andtechnical assislance for the bat-

llefield scenes, he contributed lo twodocumenlary films. Spain infamesand Tlie Spanish earlh. As an in-

Estudos Germânicos Belo Horizonte V.9 N° 1

38

defatigable promoter of the latterfilm. he presented it to the Writer'sCongress at Camegie Hall (accom-paniedby one ofhis veryrare formalspeeches). to a group of Hollywoodcelebrilies (from whom he got$17.000 for ambulances). and loPresidem Roosevelt in the WhiteHouse. Under contract with theNorth American Newspaper Al-liance. he made four trips. each ofseveral months duration, to Spainovera twoyear period, reporting hisexperiences in 28 dispatches. Hisolher contributions to lhe lileralureoi the Spanish Civil War include athree-act play TheJljth column. aseries of angry anti-fascist essaysfor the short- lived American perio-dical Ken, four semi-autobiographi-cal short slories conceming be-siegedMadridduring the spring andfali of 1937. and finally For whomthe bell lolls. perhaps the best novelabout the War in any language(Capellãn. 1985. 241-44; Baker.1969.313-16).

The motivation for Hemingway^ involvemenl wilh the War wasfar from simple. Angel Capellán inHemingway and the Hispanic worldstrongly defends him againsl ac-cusalions or insinualions lhal his

allegiance to lhe Loyalist cause wasnot serious and energelic enough.arguing lhal his commilment waslhorough and genuine and foundedon a deep love for Spain (243-44).Scolt Donaldson. on the olher hand.suggesls lhal Hemingway's motivesfor going lo Spain were not enlirelyallruistic, noting lhal he carriedwilh him credenlials and a generousdollar-a-word contract from theNorth American Newspaper Al-liance. Moreover. he was escapingdomeslic troubles, he planned toresume a liaison with MarlhaGellhorn. and he hoped to gainmaterial for his ficlion from close

observalion of war (100). AllhoughCommunists and fellow travelers

actively courted Hemingway's sup-port during lhe thirties and praisedhis apparent shift from political -

' English Department

Brigham Young Universily. USA

p.38-42 DEZ. 1988

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

neulrality to "social consciousness."Carlos Baker provides convincingevidence that he never capitulaledto Marxism (1969. 276-82).Donaldson suggests lhal. "by andlarge. it was the tide of events ratherarguments of 'lhe persuaders' lhanthe accounted for his seeming driftlo the lefl" and that insofar as the

motivation of his involvement in lheSpanish Civil War was polilical. "itderlved from two consuminghatreds: offascism and the horror ofmodem war" (99-100). Hemingwayrecognized at leasl five parties onlhe Republican side and admilledlhe difficulty in understanding andevaluating them (Baker. 1956.228).Perhaps his years of assiduouslyavoiding politics had lefl him un-prepared for copíng with a situationas complex as lhat in Spain. In anycase. he had no party. He favorecithe Popular Front. mainly becausehe agreed wilh ils approach to con-ducting lhe War and because itprovided him the kind of inside in-formalion he valued. "I like Com-

munists when lheyYe soldiers." heonce said in a polilical argumenl inMadrid, "but when lheyYe priests. Ihate them" (Baker. 1969. 330). Thetrulh is lhat his reasons for going tolhe war in Spain were polilical onlyin a qualified sense. In more significam ways they were humanitarian.personal. and arlislic.

As a way of clarifying the motives behind Hemingway s involvement with lhe Spanish Civif Warand at lhe same lime illuminalinglhe significance of lhat involvementto his artistic developmenl, I wish loexamine TheJijlh column. the playhe wrote in Madrid during lhe fali of1937 while that cily was under bom-bardment.

The selting of the play is theHolel Florida on the Plaza de Callao

just offthe Cran Via of Madrid. Thisis where Hemingway was livingwhen he wrote lhe play. During theperiod of writing. he tells us in hispreface. the hotel "was struck bymore than thirly high explosiveshells" (v). The protagonist. PhilipRawlings. a correspondem secrellyengaged in counterespionage for lheLoyalists. is a projection of

Hemingway himself. Baker notesthe autobiographical parallels andpoinls out that in some ofthe sceneshe used a virtual replica ofthe roomhe was occupying at the time (321).The emolion in the play. insofar asil derived from Hemingway's aclualexperience. was transformed Intoart wilhout benefit of any sort ofWordsworthian recolleclion in Iran-

quilily.

Tlieffth column. as criticai con-sensus clearly manifesls. is not asuccess. Perhaps Hemingway wasunable to use his material effectivelybecause he was too close to il — hegenerally allowed his experiencesseveral years to setlle in his mindbefore he tried to write about them— or maybe lhe main problem waslhat. allhough he was a master ofdialogue and dramalic situation inlhe novel, he had not equipped himself with the special lechniques andcraftsmanship that work for lhetheater demands. Some belleve lhe

real value of Tliefflh column lies inthe way il served lo purgeHemingway of his inlense Involvement in lhe fight againsl fascism solhat in For whom lhe bell tolls he was

able lo write with the maturily andproper aesthetic distance whichmade lhat novel great.

Al firsl. while his experience inMadrid was fresh in mind. he had

high expectations for the play andwas disappoinled at having topublish it before it had appeared onstage. He compared the situation tothal of "sending a horse lo the dog-meal cannery when you had ex-pected 11 to win the Kentucky Derby"(Baker. 1969. 333). Later. however.he said. "I Ihink Tliejijlh column isprobably the most unsalisfaclorything I ever wrote.... It was an altempl lo write under what you couldhonestly call impossible condilions.Afler it. and after we were bealen inSpain. I carne home and cooled outand dlsciplined myself and wroleFor whom lhe bell tolls" (Baker.1969. 6). The play hada brief run onthe New York stage during thespring oí 19-10. with Franchot Tonein the leading role. and lhenremained unstagcd until areasonably successful television

Thc Price ofDuty in Hemingway's The Fifth Column

performance in 1960.

The play's central confliclplaces Philip's commitment to hiscounterespionage work. asdangerous and unsavory as it is. inopposition to the attraction ofDorothy Bridges. a Vassar andJúnior League-formed spectator ofthe War who would like lo take him

and leave the upheaval In Spain forthe delights of Iravel around thecontinent: sleeplechases and finedinners in France. shooting in Hun-gary. surfing on lhe beach at Melin-di. and similar pursuits of lhe idlerich. Allhough Philip is sick of thewar and fed up wilh his sordid roleIn It. he ultimately lells Dorothy."You can go. But I've been to alilhose places and IVe lefl lhem alibehind. And where I go now I goalone. or with olhers who go therefor lhe same reason Igo" (83).Criticsuniformly agree that this loveversusduly theme is inadequately realized.Dorothy's vacuily undermines lheplausibility of her being a genuinelemplalion. and lhe cause at stakeis so vaguely defined lhat talk of iffails lo iranscend lhe kind windypraise for bravery and abslractideais thal Hemingway himselftaught us in his earlier work tomistrust. The play. according toJohn M. Musle. contains "a sloicposluring in the face of danger andhardship which almosl parodiessuch earlier Hemingway heroes asJake Bames and Frederic Henry"(64). In his 1939 review. LionelTril-ling made lhe illuminaling observa-lion lhat TlieJijlh column was wril-len by Hemingway lhe "man" ratherthan Hemingway the "artist":"Hemingway lhe 'artist' is conscious. Hemingway the 'man' is self-conscious: lhe 'artisl' has a kind ofinnocence. the 'man' a kind ofnaivety: lhe 'artist' is disinteresled.lhe 'man' has a dull personal ax togrind: the 'artist' has a perfectmédium and lells the trulh even if it

be only his trulh. bul the 'man'fumbles at communication and fal-sifies"(123).

Whatever ils slrengths or weak-nesses. The Jijlh column tells usmore about Hemingway than aboutthe war in Spain. and it is more s-

39

interesting for whal Hemingway in-tended it to express than for what itactually does express. The real subject of lhe play, the subject evenmore fundamental than the struggleagainst fascism, is encompassed intwo concepls that orientedHemingway's mind set and conse-quenlly his artislic vision: duty andnostalgia.

Duty is the more familiar con-cept to readers of Hemlngway's fic-tion. It underlies lhe nolions ofcodebehavior and "grace under pres-sure" that inform so much of lhe

commentary on Hemingway's lifeand writing. In Hemingway's world.battlefield conditions — both literal

and metaphorical — predominate.and conventional ideais and tradi-

lional spirilual values are wilhoulvitality. Duty takes lhe place of suchideais and values — nol a sense of

duty to God or country or partisancause bul rather a sense of duty loself. Consequenlly, duty became forHemingway an end in itself. an ul-tima te value to replace the tradilion-al absolutes that seemed in his ageno longer credilable. To behave wilhcourage, Integrily, and dignity — tofulfill these dulies to self — was a

way for the individual lo generatemeaning and purpose in an olher-wise painfully bewildering and pur-poseless world. Naturally. thismetaphysical sense of duty becameindividuated in Hemingway"s lifeand writing as allegiance to particular principies and causes,notably to the profession of writingitself. but underlying these specificoccasions for duty — for example.the Loyalist cause in Spain — wasthat fundamental need for life-or-dering and life-juslifying purpose.His fascination wilh war andmilltary strategy is largely explainedby the fact lhat in this arena duty isso clearly primary.

As much as he loved Spain anddetesled fascism, the ulterior motiveforhis involvementwilh the SpanishCivil War was a desire to be close to

the war experience. in which theprice and rewards of duty aredramatlcally delineated. This is in-timated in Slephen Spender's reviewof The Jijlh column and Jour un-

40

published stories oftheSpanish civãwar: "He was expected to writeabout war because war was his ob-session. To him it was a purê condi-lion of being, transcending even hisloyally to the Republican side" (537).It is also suggesled by the quarrelbetween Hemingway and Dos Passos over the filming of The Spanishearth. Dos Passos wanted lo em-phaslze the plight of the commonpeople; Hemingway was far moreinteresled in lhe milltary aspecls(Baker. 1969. 300). Moreover. histrips to Spain afforded Hemingwaysignificam opportunily to exercisehis own capaclty for duty and paythe price duly exacts. In the prefaceto The Jijlh column, and the JlrstJorty-nine stories, he says,

Ingoing where you have togo,and doing what you have todo, and seeing what you havelo see, you dull and blunt theinstrumenlyou wrüe wilh ButI would rather have it bent anddulled and know I had toput ilon the grindstone again andhammer it into shape and puta wltealstone on it, and knowt/iat / had somelhing to writeabout. than to have it brightand shining and nothing losay, or smoolh and well- oiledin the closeL but unused. (vii)

A considerable weakness in Thefifth columnresulls from the way hisexperience in Spain in 1937 ener-gized his deep-seated preoccupalionwith duty. but. being still too closeto lhe experience and also lackingseasoned skills for writing plays, hewas unable to transmute his emo-

tions inlo an artislic form that would

evoke similar emotions In his

readers.

The second concept at the heartof Hemingway's artislic vision. nostalgia, is less frequently recognizedand appreciated. Nevertheless. asWright Morris once observed,Hemingway's "subject", pushed toils exlremily. is nostalgia (25).Remembering was a principal satis-faclion for him as a man and aprimary wellspring for him as awriter. His workroom, as GeorgePlimpton describes it in his well-

known Hemingway interview.reveals "an owner who is basicallyneat but cannot bear to throw any-thing away— especially ifsentimental value is attached." One book case

has an odd assortment ofmementos— broken toys, insignificant knick-knacks — a collection much like"the odds and ends which turn upIn a shoebox at lhe back of a boy'scloset." It is evident to Plimpton.though. that these tokens. as well asthe trophies decorating the walls.have value growing out of lheir as-soclalion with a special person.place. or experience in the past. "Itcheers me to look at them".Hemingway says (21). Hemingwayvalued physical aclivity and sensoryexperience — travei, outdoor sports.eatlng, drinking — and a good partof lhe pleasure of such things forhim was reflecUve, a pleasure inremembering. Malcom Cowley saidof him: "Ernesto never leamed lhat

you can't go back. He always tried togo back" (Cowley interview). And ofcourse this joy in remembering wasa large part of his motivation as awriler, and he clearty recognized thevalue of such remembering for awriter. He advised his brolher

Leicester. an aspiring young wriler."Try to remember everything abouteverything" (Leicester Hemingway.156).

Nostalgia oflen serves in hiswriting as the key to what a man is.II seems to constitute what we call

the self. for in terms of Hemingway^naturalism, a man is what he hasexperienced — what he remembers— and nostalgia seems lo be theprocess by which the most meaning-ful of those experiences are selectedto be actively remembered. In orderfor a man to be in control of himself.he must be in control of his

memories. This explains the fre-quent and important juxtapositionof duty and nostalgia inHemingway's ficlion. The character.in order lo fulfill a duty. must keeplhe potent altraction of nostalgia incheck. Nostalgia can be a source ofcomfort and stability in times ofstress, as when Santiago in The oldman and the sea remembers hisyouth during his battle with thegreat fish — the beaches of África

Revista de Estudos Germânicos

and his victory in lhe arm wrestlewith the strong black man in thetavern at Casablanca — or whenNick Adams. struggling with the ef-fects of shell shock. fishes in hismemory the favorite trout slream ofhis boyhood. But nostalgia mustnever become an avenue of escapeor a cause for dereliction of duty.

Returning now to The Jijlhcolumn. the duty motif is obvious.but what does nostalgia have lo dowith the play? Hemingway providesthe clue in his preface. where hestates that Dorolhy's name "mightalso have been Nostalgia" (vi). Thepriceof duty for Philip is nol simplyDorothy, but nostalgia and ali thatconcept meanl for Hemingway. Theprincipal failure of the play is theaulhor's failure to embody fully andconvlnclngly in Dorothy the veryreal enlicemenls of nostalgia. Mal-colm Cowley sensed this failurewhen he poinled oul lhat beautifulDorothy may be the symbol ofPhilip's nostalgia and might be asymbol for ours if we saw her in theflesh. but she is nolhing of lhe sortIn the play. "She is presented lhereas a challering. superficial fool. aperfect specimen of the JúniorLeaguer pitching woo on lhe fringesof the radical movement. wilh theresult that she keeps the play frombeing a tragedy or even a valid con-flict belween love and duty" (1938.197).

When Thefifth columnis viewedin the larger conlext of Hemingway"swork. it is obvious that he inlended

to dramatize the conflict between

duty and nostalgia as he understoodthese concepls in the imaginativereaches of his own experience. Il isthe conflict lhat so effectively in-forms such later works as For whomthe bell tolls, The old man and thesea. and Islands in tlie slream. Theplay perhaps served as a trial run inwhich he leamed. by failing. thal hemust understate the aspect of dulyand accentuate lhe allure of nostalgia. In Islands in the slream for example. he devotes the first two parisof lhe novel to establishing in richdetail what nostalgia means in theprotagonists life. Then. in partthree. a narrative of military aclion

in which duty is the crucial issue.he stralegically counlerpoinls theaclion with nostalgic recolleclion.This provides not only a pulse orrhythm for lhe narrative. butmovíngly heighlens the reader's ap-precialion of the price and value ofduty. so lhat when the protagonistsays, "Duly is a wonderful thing."the slatement rings wilh some trulhand significance. The old man andthe sea likewise successfully establishes memorable nostalgic recolleclion as a foil lo a powerfullyunder-slated portrayal of duty fulfilled.

The degree to which Dorothyfails as an embodiment of nostalgiais readily apparent when contrasledwith the way nostalgia functions inFor whom the bell lolls. Using 471pages to describe the events of threedays. Hemingway had ample spacelo creale layers of nostalgic imagesrevealing lhe proiagonisfs innerbeing and making his commilmentto duty poignant. For example. hisMonlana youlh is evoked in a pas-sage like this: "He smelled lhe odorof lhe pine boughs under him. lhepiney smell of the crushed needlesand the sharper odor ofthe resinoussap from the cul limbs.... This is lhesmell I love. This and fresh-cut

clover, the crushed sage as you rideafter callle. wood-smoke and thebuming leaves of autumn. Thatmust be the odor of nostalgia, thesmell of the smoke from the piles ofraked leaves buming In the slreetsin lhe fali in Missoula" (260). And inaddilion lo such evocalive passages.Hemingway skillfully uses lhe flaskof absinlhe, or "giant killer". RoberlJordon carries wilh him as a symbolof nostalgia:

one cup of it look tlie place ofthe evenmg papers, of ali í/ieold evenings in cafés, of alichestnul irees lhat would be inbloom now in this monlh qftliegreat slow Ivorses oj lhe oulerboulevards. oj book shops, ojkiosques. and of gallcrics. ofChaumont. of the CuarantyTrusl Company and lhe lie deIa Cite.oJFoyoVsold hotel andoj beingable toreadand relaxin lhe evening: qfall the Ihings

The Price ofDuty in Hemingway s The Fifth Column

he had enjoyed andjorgoltenand that carne back lo himwhen he tasled lhat opaque.bitler, longue-numbing.brain-warming, stomach-warming. idea-changing liquid.alchemy." (51)

In the final scene. in which hesacrifices his lifefor the sake ofduty.he reaches for lhe flask and finds itgone. "Then he felt that much morealone because he knew that there

was not going to be even that. Iguess Id counted on that. he said"(467).

This is Hemingway the "artist*writing. and the price of duty assumes a moving and even tragicdimension. The novel is art rather

than propaganda. TheJijlh column islittle more than melodramatic

propaganda in which duty and itsprice remain vaguely deflned. Thecomparison is inslruclive. Sym-pathy for a cause and first-handexperience and observatlon ofdramatic life-and-dealh events are

not enough by themselves loguaranlee significam literary art.Such Ihings as aeslhelic dislance,evocalive images. and emotíonalnuance are also essenlial.

The fifth column has providedammunition for the critics of

Hemingway who complain that lhenolion that loyally. bravery, andduty are the cardinal virtues andthal physical aclion as lhe basis ofthe good life does not add up to ameaningful philosophy. But. asTomStoppard remarked in commentingon the play. Hemingway'sphilosophy should not be despisedby ivory tower philosophers. "Theforce of a code of behavior. of apersonal morality. is thatphilosophy does not account for itbut is accountable to it" (26). Thetrouble wilh Thefflh column is notthe essenlial philosophy thal under-lies il but that the philosophy wasinadequately incarnated. largely because of the pressure for leflistpolitical commitment exerted uponHemingway by lhe climale of thethirties and particularly the cir-cumstances of the Spanish CivilWar. ü

41

BIBL10GRAPHY

BAKER. Carlos. Ernest Hemingway: a life slory. New York; Charles Scribner's Sons. 1969.

Hemingway: the writer as artist. Princenton; Princenton UP. 1956.

CAPELLAN. Angel. Hemingway and the Hispanic world. Ann Arbor; UMI Research P. 1985.

COWLEY. Malcolm. A tape-recorded inlerview included in a ninely-minute radio program on Hemingwayproduced by the Canadlan Broadcasling Corporation.

Hemingway in Madrid. New republic. 2 November 1938. p.367-68.

DONALDSON, Scotl. Byforce ofwilt lhe life and art of Emesl Hemingway. New York; Viking. 1977.

HEMINGWAY. Ernest. Thefifth column and thefirslforty-nine stories. New York; Charles Scribner's Sons. 1938.

. For whom lhe bell lolls. New York; Charles Scribner's Sons. 1940.

HEMINGWAY. Leicester. My brother. Ernest Hemingway. Cleveland: World. 1963.

MORRIS. Wrlght. The function of nostalgia: F. Scotl Fitzgerald. In: MIZENER. A. led.) F. Scotl Füzgeral± acollection of criticai essays. Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prenlice-Hall. 1963: 25-31.

MUSTE. John M. Say thal we saw Spain die. Scallle: U. of Washington P. 1966.

PLIMPTON. George. An inlerview with Emesl Hemingway. In: BAKER. C. |ed.| Hemingway and his critics. NewYork; Hill and Wang, 1961. p. 19-37.

SPENDER. Stephen. Rev. oi TlieJijlh column andjour unpublished stories ojlhe SpanishCivil War. In: MEYERS.J. |ed.) Hemingway: the criticai heritage. London; Roulledge and Kegan Paul. 1982. p.537-540.

STOPPARD. Tom. Refleclions on Emesl Hemingway. In: NAGEL. J. (ed.) Ernest Hemingway: the wriler incontext. Madison; U. ofWisconsin P, 1984, p. 19-27.

TRILLING. Lionel. Hemingway and his crilics. In:TRILLING. Diana |ed.|. Speaking ojlilerature and society. NewYork; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1980. p.123-134.

42 Revistade EstudosGermânicos

DISSERTAÇÕES DEFENDIDAS NO Alír,DE 1988 NA ÁREA DE INGLÊS

1) "Sobre a tradução de cien anos de soledad parao Inglês-a crítica de uma critica"

Autor: Lúcia Maria Resende AssumpçáoTítulo obtido: mestre

Orientador: Prof. Carlos Alberto Gohn

N9 de páginas: 100

Sinopse:

Este trabalho é uma crítica a uma critica de tradução Ttradução de Cien anos de soledad para oinglês, feita por Grecorv R°h ^ 3Acrítica de Gerardo Vásquez-Ayora (1978) sobre otrabalhodeR/h ^aqui o objeto de estudo. Para Ayora. a tradução feita por í^h^**inadequada por não utilizar procedimentos técnicos chamados éese circunscrever apenas àqueles chamados elementares. Nest ^ançaa°sconsidera-se que a "tradução próxima", que caracteriza otrabí *?alho"Rabassa. é uma exigência do texlo de partida e se mostra f deBusca-se na crítica literária evidências para confirmar tal pont HC'Uada'tomando como base a análise de Rodrigues (1985) sobre oferir V*Sla'espelhismo em Garcia Márquez eaplica-se àteoria da tradução °meno doções de Possenti (1987) sobre aimportância da questão formal na^8^3Aprincipal sustentação deste trabalho éque atradução éessen ,eyatura-um processo de produção de textos, rejeilando-se qualquer see° enledesse processo em fases estanques. R entaçâo

2) "Pushing the boat from within: ananalysis of historical andsociological factors in EFLTAutor: Herzila Maria de Lima Bastos

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Marco Antônio de Oliveira

N° de páginas: 182

Sinopse:

Este trabalho, composto de uma parte teórica eoutra emni •do ensino do Inglês como língua estrangeira no Brasil sob uma otrT ^^histórica e sócio-cultural. Pectiva

9uanto ao seu embasamento teórico, esta lese apresentdivisões: a) a teoria sobre motivação eatitudes na aprendizagem d* ^língua estrangeira, de acordo com Gardner eLambert (1972); D) est H""^autores brasileiros eafricanos sobre ocolonialismo e/ou neocolon- i?S dCsob oponto de vista da formação de imagens estereotipadas do dom? a°edo próprio dominado; c) MacBride Report. trabalho da UNESCOcomunicação mundial. S0Dre a

Os trêsgrandes grupos teóricos acima mencionados informutilizados na Interpretação dos dados coletados através de qu ""^ S3°Estes foram aplicados em colégios particulares eem cursos des. .arios-Belo Horizonte, numa amostragem que envolve apenas aclass n.s em

Chegou-se àconclusão que a ênfase na motivação int mseja. a identificação do aluno com os valores da cultura eslra aliva> 0udesejável neste contexto de terceiro mundo no qual o Brasil o ,a nao é

«»u se insere.

Estudos Germânicos Belo Horizonte V. 9 N9 1 „ ^DEZ. 1988