The IAFOR
Academic Review
Volume 1 | Issue 6

Essays on Modern Classics
from the 20th Century
ISSN: 2188-9570

THE IAFOR ACADEMIC REVIEW

3

CONTENTS

18

12

1-2

Nigel H. Foxcroft,

Feminism?

Editorial Committee

University of Brighton, UK

Lufti Hamadi, Saint Joseph
University, Lebanon

Introduction
An introduction to the

10-13latest edition of The IAFOR The Drama of

21-25

Academic Review by

Loneliness: Its Evolution Gender Performance

Michael Liam Kedzlie

from Chekhov to Pinterin James Joyce’s

and Bond

Characterization of

4-9

Loretta Visomirskis

Stephen Dedalus andPsychogeographic

Harold Washington

Molly Bloom

Impact on Malcolm

CollegePin-fen Huang, National
Chung Cheng University,

Lowry’s Consciousness:
From the Zapotec and

14-20

Aztec Civilizations toSimon de Beauvoir:

TaoismMother of Modern

TaiwanTHE IAFOR ACADEMIC REVIEW

27

31
26-31
Modernist London
through English andJapanese Eyes: Virginia
Woolf’s The London
Scene and Natsume
Sōseki ‘s The Tower ofLondonAndreas Pichler
Aix-Marseille Universite,
FranceCover by Simon K (Flickr
Creative Commons)

The IAFOR Academic Review
Volume 1 | Issue 6

Editorial Committee
Rev. Professor Stuart Picken – Chairman of the IAB
Dr. Joseph Haldane – IAFOR Executive Director
Mr. Michael Liam Kedzlie – IAFOR Research andPolicy Manager
IAFOR Advisory Board, Literature Conference
Chairs & Advisors
Professor Myles Chilton – Professor in the
Department of English Language and Literature at
Nihon University
Dr. Richard Donovan - Member of the International
Advisory Board
Editor of The IAFOR Journal of Literature andLibrarianship
IAFOR Publications © Copyright 2015
ISSN: 2188-9570

Editorial Committee Introduction
One of the central missions of The International
Academic Forum is to provide avenues foracademics and researchers to be international,
intercultural and interdisciplinary. One of the ways
in which we do this is through our in-housemagazine Eye, our various conference proceedings,
our Journals, and now beginning in the first half of2015 our special editions of the IAFOR
International Academic Review. In this the sixth
issue of the IAFOR International Academic Review
we the editorial committee bring together a selectionof the most interesting contributions from ourrecent Asian Conferences on Literature with a
special emphasis on modern classics from the 20th
century.

The five papers selected by the editorial committee
for this special edition certainly reflect theinternational, intercultural and interdisciplinary
approach that lies at the heart of both IAFOR andthe study of the modern literature classics. We trust
you will enjoy reading them.

In the first paper of the five selected authors for thismodern classics edition, Nigel Foxcroft investigates
the evolution of the cosmic consciousness of the
English Modernist novelist and poet, Malcolm
Lowry(1909-57)
byscrutinizingthepsychogeographic and subconscious dimensions of
the Mexican Day of the Dead Hispanic festival. The
second paper presented in this edition by Lufti
Hamadi of Lebanon, sheds light on the role theFrench author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir
has played in the development of women’s
movement in general and feminist intellectual
achievements in particular through her long andinfluential body of work. American based Russian
academic Loretta Visomirskis examines theloneliness of human existence, an overriding theme
in literature and drama of the 20th century. She
explores this emotion through the plays of Chekhov,
Harold Pinter and Edward Bond. In her paper
Taiwanese author Pin-Fen Huang in reveals theconflict between the traditional conception ofgender through the Joycean characters of characters
Stephen Dedalus and Molly Bloom. And finally
Andreas Pichler’s paper sheds light upon theimportance of space in modernist literature as it
captures a writers visual impressions of the world
around them. In particular he examines the viewingof modernist early 20th Century London through theeyes of Japanese writer Natsume Sōseki and English
writer Virginia Woolf, postulating the question how
does London look like when perceived fromdifferent cultural backgrounds, and written in
substantially different languages?

Rev. Professor Stuart Picken - Chairman of theInternational Advisory Board

Michael Liam Kedzlie
IAFOR Editorial Committee

IAFOR International Academic Review Editorial
Committee

Dr. Joe Haldane - IAFOR President
Mr. Michael Liam Kedzlie - IAFOR Research andPolicy Manager

The IAFOR International Academic Forum
Advisory Board Literature Conference Chairs &Advisors
Professor Myles Chilton – Professor in the
Department of English Language and Literature at
Nihon University
Dr. Richard Donovan - Member of theInternational Advisory Board
Editor of The IAFOR Journal of Literature andLibrarianship

The IAFOR International Academic Review
Volume 1 – Issue 6 – March 2015
Published by The International Academic Forum(IAFOR), Japan
IAFOR Publications. Sakae 1-16-26-201, Nakaward, Aichi, Japan 460-0008
Design: Michael Liam Kedzlie & Thaddeus Pope1

Lebanese International University, Saida Campus aswell as Business English at Saint Joseph University,
in Saida. Dr Hamadi completed his Ph.D. thesis at
Beirut Arab University, entitled "Women as
Resistant Figures in the Novels of Kamala
Markandaya, Nuruddin Farah, and Toni Morrison"in 2013.

About the Authors
Nigel H. Foxcroft
University of Brighton, UK
Psychogeographic Impact on Malcolm Lowry's
Consciousness: From the Zapotec and Aztec
Civilizations to Taoism

Pin-fen Huang
National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan
Gender Performance in James Joyce's Characterization ofStephen Dedalus and Molly Bloom

Nigel Foxcroft is a Senior Lecturer in English
Literature and Russian & European Studies at the
University of Brighton, UK. Dr. Foxcroft has
published extensively on modern Anglo-American
literature with a specialization on Malcolm Lowry
and Toni Morrison. He has also conducted
researched into Russian Literature figures such as A.
S. Pushkin and M. Yu.

Dr. Pin-fen Huang when she wrote this paper forthe 2012 Asian Conference on Arts and Humanities
was a doctoral student from the National Chung
Cheng University in Taiwan. Her interest in genderstudies, led her to explore the diversity of social
phenomena found amongst gender issues. This
exploration led her towards literature, andsubsequently the works of James Joyce because inher view only literature was able to vividly depict
humanity.

Loretta Visomirskis
Harold Washington College
The Drama of Loneliness: Its Evolution from Chekhov
to Pinter and Bond
Dr. Loretta Visomirskis from Harold Washington
College, USA was born and educated in Vilnius,
Lithuania and received her doctorate in West
European and American Literature, Moscow State
University, Russia. Dr. Visomirskis research andpublications background have focused on post-War
British and European drama and currently teaches at
Chicago’s Harold Washington College.

Andreas Pichler
Aix-Marseille Universite, France
Modernist London through English and Japanese Eyes:
Virginia Woolf's The London Scene and Natsume Sōseki
's The Tower of London.
Dr. Andreas Pichler received his Ph.D. from the
University of Utah in English and Comparative
Literature in 2002 and has taught at Aix-Marseille
Université, Aix-en-Provence, France since 2004.
His publications include essays on Wilde in the
Oscholars (London), Rue des Beaux Arts (Paris), on
Leonard Woolf (University of London), and on
Lytton Strachey (SAES). He currently works on alarger project involving the Bloomsbury Group andliterary Modernism.

Lufti Hamadi
Saint Joseph University, Lebanon
Simon de Beauvoir: Mother of Modern Feminism?
Dr. Lufti Hamadi taught at UNRWA schools in
Lebanon between, 1978 to 1993 and embarked on
his M.A from the Lebanese University in Beirut,
which he received in 1984. He currently teaches
English language and literature Makassed HighSchool-Saida, the Lebanese University, and at the

2

目

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“The Great Bonfire of Toba” (2014). Photograph Courtesy of Thaddeus Pope

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the first annual IAFOR Documentary Photography Award. This new award
seeks to promote and assist in the professional development of emerging
documentary photographers and photojournalists (restrictions apply).

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Psychogeographic Impact on Malcolm
Lowry’s Consciousness: From the Zapotec
and Aztec Civilizations to Taoism
NIGEL H. FOXCROFT, UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON, UK
the Volcano (1947), Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid
(1968), La Mordida (1996), and The Forest Path to the Spring(1961).

Abstract
This paper provides an intercontinental, cross-cultural, multidisciplinary framework for an analysis of the influence of
cultures and civilizations - both east and west – upon literatureand national identity. It investigates the evolution of thecosmic consciousness of the English Modernist novelist andpoet, Malcolm Lowry (1909-57) by scrutinizing thepsychogeographic and subconscious dimensions of the
Mexican Day of the Dead Hispanic festival which he observedin Cuernavaca in 1936.

Furthermore, a consideration of the impact of Sir James
Frazer’s research into the Aztec and Zapotec civilizations, as
reflected in the Day of the Dead festival, leads us to an analysis
of Lowry’s unique combination of Modernism with cosmic
shamanism. The Lowrian world-view provides us with ananthropological basis for Kandinskian psychotherapeutic andshamanic healing, together with a sense of regeneration by
ethnographic and artistic means.

In its analysis of the material and spiritual domains of both the
Aztecs and the Oaxacan Zapotecs, it considers
anthropological, cultural, and ethnographic influences
associated with pre-Columbian, Mesoamerican rituals. In
doing so, it determines Lowry’s dedication to his quest foratonement with the spirits of the dead in works, such as Under
the Volcano (1947), Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid
(1968), La Mordida (1996), and The Forest Path to the Spring(1961).
In recognition of his need to repent for the debts of the pastand for the alienating sins of mankind, synergies are made withcosmic, shamanic, and animist concepts of the universe, as
reflected in the celestial visions of the Aztec and Zapotec
civilizations. In pursuit of Lowry’s search for universal
harmony, cosmopolitan connections are established between
the rhythms of the universe reflected in Aztec and Zapotec
world-views, the significance of the Pleiades star cluster, theintergalactic symbol of Eridanus, and the philosophicalconcepts of Taoism.

Introduction
This paper provides an intercontinental, cross-cultural, multidisciplinary framework for an analysis of the influence of
cultures and civilizations - both east and west – upon literatureand national identity. It investigates the evolution of thecosmic consciousness of the English Modernist novelist andpoet, Malcolm Lowry (1909-57) by scrutinizing thepsychogeographic and subconscious dimensions of the
Mexican Day of the Dead Hispanic festival, which he observedin Cuernavaca in 1936.
Malcolm Lowry by Arturo Espinario (Creative Commons)

In its analysis of the material and spiritual domains of both the
Aztecs and the Oaxacan Zapotecs, it considers
anthropological, cultural, and ethnographic influences
associated with pre-Columbian, Mesoamerican rituals. In
doing so, it determines Lowry’s dedication to his quest foratonement with the spirits of the dead in works, such as Under

Russian Literary Influences

4

Lowry’s magic is born of a highly inquisitive mind – one whichspans the continents in its assimilation of world literature,
stretching from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, fromthe Americas to Europe. His enormous, esoteric literary diet

focusses on Russian, as well as Scandinavian, Czech, andGerman writers. His heterogeneous erudition is rooted both incontinental European and in Anglo-American literature. He
embarks upon a spiritual odyssey in pursuit of truth andsalvation. His aim is to renew what he perceives as being an
increasingly materialistic, Western civilization through thepower of literature and culture.

Lowry suffered from deep psychological scars affecting themand requiring adaptation. Spivey refers to:(1) […] A basic life crisis, which – though often but not always
hidden in the unconscious – causes various small physical andmental instabilities; (2) a way of seeing one’s life as apilgrimage to find a lost love and joy; and (3) the gradualovercoming of a deep death wish and the achieving of a psychic
growth in which life and death, love and violence, are seen in aperspective that makes possible a full acceptance of life (Spivey
151-52).

Judging from the frequency of their mention in his daily
correspondence, we can identify numerous writers of theGolden Age of nineteenth-century Russian literature as Lowry
favourites: Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, i Fyodor
Dostoyevsky, ii and Anton Chekhov. Indeed, he sees himself
not only as a new Goethe, or a Kafka, but also as a Pushkin,and, even, as a “second order Gogol” (Lowry, Sursum Corda! II
885; and I 292-93).

Undergoing a continuous Nietzschean struggle over thefundamental question of what it is to be human, Lowry
attempts to attain a higher state of consciousness and selfrevelation in order to determine how mankind can realize its
full potential.

Such parallels are pursued in Dark as the Grave where Sigbjørn
Wilderness reads himself into a newspaper report, as was thecase with Major Kovalyov in the Gogolian fantasy, “The Nose”(1842) (Lowry, Sursum II: 779). A troika of divine retribution,
Gogol’s Dead Souls (1842) is described by Lowry as “one of themost lyrical and nostalgic novels ever written”. Indeed, theburning of parts two and three reminds us of the loss of his
own manuscript, In Ballast to the White Sea which would haveconcluded the trilogy, The Voyage That Never Ends. Gogolian
and Dostoyevskian links are also evident in Lowry’s
recognition of the importance of an aesthetic appreciation of
beauty in the celestial spirit of Eridanus in The Forest Path
(1947-61).

Lowry’s anthropological and psychotherapeutic investigations
are inspired by Sir James Frazer, Robert Graves (an admirer ofDr Rivers’s psychoanalytic method at Craiglockhart)(MacClancy 87) and by Tom Harrisson (founder of the MassObservation Experiment) (Heimann). His study of the JudeoChristian metaphysical system of the Cabbala is motivated by
Charles Stansfeld-Jones - alias Frater Achad - a whitemagician (Bowker 320-21 and Day 294-95). Following in
Frazer’s footsteps and embarking upon his own transcendental,
supernatural quest for the Garden of Eden, Lowry (and,indeed, the Consul of Under the Volcano) traces back the rootsof the Aztecs and Zapotecs. These civilizations became caught
in the jaws of Spanish conquistadors, contributing to theirsubsequent decline. Enthralled by the Day of the Dead in
Cuernavaca, Geoffrey Firmin, our shamanistic consul, seeks
the existence of a divine order - the ‘Holy Grail’ of supremetruth and salvation – through the Cabbalistic and cosmic
wisdoms of the past. He embarks upon a mystic pilgrimage, aspiritual mission to discover death in life and life in death.

The Cultural Renewal of Civilization
Essential connections between the sciences and the humanities
have been identified by Sir John Polkinghorne (1930- ), thedistinguished Cambridge mathematical physicist andtheologian (Polkinghorne 109, cited in Spivey xiii). According
to Ted Spivey, the solution to civilization’s dilemma is “formodern man to experience cultural renewal” (Spivey 186).
Furthermore, he proposed that “ethics and aesthetics must be
integrated with science and technology in new social patterns”,
as Modernism intended (Spivey 186). This would necessitate a“new synthesis of knowledge, reason, and the powers of heartand soul” (Spivey 47).

Lowry’s Dead Souls: Under the Volcano, theDay of the Dead, and the Cabbala
The Day of the Dead festival derives from shamanic andcosmic perspectives akin to those of the animist tribes ofnorthern Mexico. Indeed, the Yaqui and the Huichol
communicate with gods and spirits, giving thanks to images,
such as that of the Virgin of Guadalupe. With its focus on the
Day of the Dead, Under the Volcano represents what Perle
Epstein has described as “the great battle […] for the survivalof the human consciousness” (Epstein 50). iii A “tragic
protagonist… like Tchitchikov in Dead Souls”, thedipsomaniac and psychotic Geoffrey Firmin is afflicted by a
Gogolian sickness observed by the attentive Dr Vigil (Lowry,
Sursum I 507 and 581). This ailment, we are told, is “not only
in body but in that part used to be call: soul” – a malady which
the Consul, like Lowry himself, expiates through suffering andself-sacrifice (Lowry, Under the Volcano 148). It is throughpsychoanalysis - the science of “nature inside”, dealing with“the obstacles to reason within the psyche” (Frosh 118) - that astate of “intense self-revelation” is achieved (Bowker 224 andMartin 92-93, 45, and 204). Our clairvoyant Consul
hallucinogenically aspires to a higher dimension of mescalinduced consciousness. By imbibing the ritualistic drinks ofpulque and mescal, he is transformed from a priest into a god,

Since Descartes there has been a tendency for Western
philosophy to fragment into two divergent movements:
objectivism (based upon scientific reason) and subjectivism(referring to the soul, religion, and aesthetics). It is this fissure
in modern consciousness - between the analytical, empirical,
rational nature of science, on the one hand, and theimaginative, intuitive, visionary aspects of the arts, on theother, which has been identified as threatening to dissolve thevery basis of humanity itself. Dating from Sigmund Freud(1856-1939), prominent psychologists have established thatmodern rationalism has tended to exclude the existence of thesubconscious mind.
Aware of the need for psycho-analysis, Lowry established his
own mode of psycho-therapeutic writing under the supervisionof Conrad Aiken, the illustrious American poet and caring,‘surrogate father’ to whom, in February 1940, he writes, “Whattruer father have I than you” (Sursum I: 293). Both Aiken and5as is the Aztec custom (Miller and Taube 138). Through“simultaneity of experience”, he embarks upon a telepathic
crusade in search of civilization’s elixir of life (Orr 166).

claims, “the garden can be seen not only as the world, or the
Garden of Eden, but legitimately as the Cabbala itself, and theabuse of wine […] is identified in the Cabbala with the abuseof magical powers […] à la Childe Harolde” (Lowry, Sursum I:595). An emblem of modern Faustian man, he has sold histransmigratory soul to Mephistopheles in his desire to achieveomnipotence. By untethering the riderless horse, our consul
causes a purifying thunderstorm of Messianic divineintervention which resurrects Yvonne, his Aztecan ritualsacrifice who has imagined “herself voyaging straight up
through the stars to the Pleiades”, as predicted for the sober(202-03, 216, 335, and 373-74).vi

According to Epstein, Lowry’s incorporation of the theme ofWilliam Blackstone (c. 1595-1675) - a seventeenth-century,
shamanic reverend who fled from Cambridge to New England
to join the Indians - links Lowry’s ethnological andpsychological worlds (Epstein 51). Indeed, “in his outward
search for seclusion, Blackstone represents man’s inner search
for awareness” (Martin 195). In this respect, the youthful
Lowry was mesmerized by Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough(1890) – a spellbinding study of the correlation between
anthropology and religion, “a voyage of discovery” into
ethnography, folklore, and magic (MacClancy 79). In it Frazer
documents attempts at exorcizing evil spirits in order to attainrebirth. As he explains, “in the primitive mind […] it wasthought that by transferring the evils of a whole people to anindividual and sacrificing that individual, it might be possible
to get rid of the accumulated sorrows of the entire community”(Downie, James George Frazer 33-34 (see also 21, 23, and37)).iv
In Aztec culture, death – as “a mirror of life” - is a symbolic
celebration, necessitating sacrifice in order to nourish the soulsof the deceased on their underworld journey into the afterlife(Miller and Taube 74). Associated with the culmination of the
Pleiades star cluster (Lowry, Sursum II 367), the tradition of
the Day of the Dead - whereby the living communicate withthe spirits of the departed - is a widely commemorated festivalof pre-Hispanic, pagan-spiritual origin, deeply rooted in the
Zapotec and Aztec civilizations. In Under the Volcano our
Consul makes the ultimate Christ-like, sacrificial surrender,
dying for the sins of a bellicose mankind. He reveals “hisadversaries as figures of evil by offering himself up as asacrificial victim”, at the mercy of the trochoidal Máquina
Infernal, the great eternal Ferris wheel of life (Orr 157). Suchsymbols are derived from Aztec mythology which “believedthat each human being was, by predestination, inserted into a
divine order, ‘the grasp of the omnipotent machine’” (Soustelle
112, quoted in Wutz 66).
Under the Volcano sets the stage for the annihilation of the
Aztec Garden of Eden, the desecration of Mexico by Spanish
invaders (evoked by the dying Indian theme), and the recurring‘Fall of Man’. It is our Adamic Consul whom Lowry empowers
to bear the burden of guilt for the sins of the world (Lowry,
Selected Letters 85).

Malcolm Lowry at home in Dollarton B.C (Courtesy U. of British Columbia)

Exorcizing the Spectres of the Past: Dark as
the GraveWith the cataclysmic combustion of his two-thousand-word
script of In Ballast to the White Sea, Lowry has no alternative
but to amend his plans for The Voyage That Never Ends,
conceived as an “ordeal, a going through the hoop”, an“initiation”, and “a doing of God’s will” (Lowry, “Work in
Progress” 3, cited in Grace, Voyage 9). Hence, we glimpse
Lowry the voyeur, the visionary, the new Sergei Eisenstein ona montaged Battleship Potemkin, storming the Barents Sea.

According to Mercia Eliade (1907-86), “the primitive
magician, the medicine man or shaman, is not only a sick man,
he is, above all, a sick man who has been cured, who has
succeeded in curing himself”(Eliade, Shamanism 27, cited in
Spivey 8 and 183). Portrayed as a reclusive “dark magician in
his visioned cave” (151 and 206), our consul resorts to
consulting his “numerous cabbalistic and alchemical books”(178). A shamanic priest on a pilgrimage, he seeks communionwith his imagined, harmonious cosmic order, incorporating the“life-giving force of love” and joy (Spivey 15).v

Dark as the Grave exposes a Benjaminian “lost harmony
between mind and world” (McCarthy, Forests 209). With its
Dostoyevskian and Gogolian influences, this novella strives forharmony expressed through the concept of the artist as avisionary. We discover that “life flowed into art: […] art gives
life a form and meaning and flows on into life, […] and […]However, Geoffrey Firmin’s dabbling in the supernaturalforces of the Cabbala has culminated not in an attainment of
the transcendental power of love, but in a loss of “theknowledge of the Mysteries” (Epstein 27). As Lowry himself
6this flowing, this river, […] became a flowing of consciousness,of mind” (Dark 60).

key to Sigbjørn’s spiritual renaissance. Furthermore, Lowry
himself was captivated by the ancient rituals of the 800 BC
Mitla, of the pyramids of the 500 BC Monte Albán, with its
astronomical Building J where Zapotec gods were venerated,and of the 200 BC Teotihuacan. Indeed, Lowry modestly
acknowledges that he «did, however, live in Oaxaca for a time,
among the ruins of Monte Albán and Mitla» (Lowry, Sursum I
315).

In The Valley of the Shadow of Death (Under the Volcano’s
original title), Dark as the Grave, and La Mordida (1949-96) we
encounter the spiritual odyssey of Sigbjørn Wilderness(Bareham 109). Indeed, Sigbjørn is, what Lowry calls, a
Dostoyevskian “underground man”, a “modern anti-hero”(Lowry, Sursum II 424, 430, 538, and 540), “a doppelganger”,
with all his contradictions (Lowry, Dark 7). He dreams that heis both a Lermontovian executioner of fate and a murderer
extradited from Mexico to Canada (Dark 70-71). Unable todistinguish between the novel authored by himself and that by
his daemon, he is shocked by the suspicion “that he is not awriter so much as being written” – a true identity crisis (Lowry,
Selected Letters 332). On his return journey with Primrose from
Vancouver to Cuernavaca to exorcize the ghosts, plaguing him
since his last visit, Sigbjørn searches for Juan Fernando
Martinez, his old friend and guardian spirit, as well as areincarnation of the legendary Juan Cerillo, the Dr Vigil ofUnder the Volcano. Introduced to voodoo as a way of tapping
the supernatural to displace science which “can only help the
person whose experience is beyond it”, Sigbjørn uses it as ashamanic force to qualm anxieties (Dark 167). Moreover, its
dynamic power is seen by Lowry as a means of subduing thedark Dantean forces of nature, for it is:

Hotel de Luna (Creative Commons)From Eridanus to the Pleiades, and on to
Taoism: The Forest Path to the Spring

A religion, to be regarded with reverence, since unquestionably
it is the matter-transcending religion based upon the actual
existence of the supernatural as a fact that is fundamental to
man himself […] But that is not to say that one should notregard with awe the great dignity & discipline that is behind it
at its highest, nor its conception of God, nor the meaning thatit gives to life […] (Lowry, Sursum II 364).

Influenced by Walter Benjamin’s concern that the ascent of
reason was actually turning life into knowledge (that is,
information manipulated to human advantage), Lowry firmly
believed that technological progress was extinguishing humancontact with the natural environment. It is in The Forest Path replete with its Manx myths and legends - that, having
traversed Sigbjørn’s wilderness on his Proteus path to paradise,
we encounter the soul of Eridanus, which emphasizes aharmonious interaction with our environment.

Furthermore, it is a voodoo ritualistic cross that enables
Sigbjørn, in his transition to rebirth, to communicate with thespirits of the dead, transformed into gods. It also provides “away out of the infernal, closed circle into renewed voyaging”(Grace, Voyage 73).

Bearing in mind the metaphysical concepts of Lao Zi, theChinese philosopher, Aiken, and Walker Percy, Spivey
attempts to “mold a philosophical view that makes man’s
knowledge – his science, that is, - a part of his human andnatural environments” (Spivey 187). As a trained
anthropologist, Wassily Kandinsky pursues a parallel shamanic
ideal in search of cultural regeneration through ethnographicartistic methods (MacClancy 90). Similarly, Lowry’s shaman“can be healer and guide as well as mystic and visionary”(Eliade, “Yearning” 86, cited in Spivey xiii). It identifies thespiritual need for a Benjaminian, neo-Romantic return to aharmonious relationship with our environment: in aspiring
towards a rapport with the world around him, man should bepart of nature, nature part of man.

However, Sigbjørn’s trip to the Zapotec high priest’s palace
involves a parallel physical descent into the cruciform
prehistoric tombs of Mitla, down towards the subterranean
Column of Death. Representative of the Underworld, Mitla isperceived as the Land of the Dead (Spence 49 and 110, citedin Sugars 155). Sigbjørn’s renewal of faith is accompanied by“the mediating influence of the dead” and “the mediating spiritof […] the Holy Virgin”, resulting in a realization of “themystical experience that suffering had caused him to undergo”
and precipitating the acute “feeling of something Renaissance”(Dark 262). Sigbjørn is reminded of the constellation
Eridanus, the mythological Styx, encompassing Hades - the“river of life: river of youth: river of death” (Lowry, Dark 263,
258, 26-27, and 261).vii

Lowry’s utopian vision of the cosmos involves interpersonaland environmental relationships based on “the encompassing
power of love” (Spivey xi). Culminating “on a note of harmony
and rebirth”, the sensuous lyrical novella, The Forest Path – “atestament to hope” – enables Lowry to tap the power of his
imagination and also his spiritual desire for freedom (Grace,
Voyage 100 and 102; Cross 105; and Lowry, Selected Letters
266).viii The Forest Path has been described by Daniel Dodson
as a “prose poem on man in nature, a Wordsworthian
benediction on nature’s benevolent power to transform theIt is in the Hotel La Luna in Oaxaca where, having survived
the perils of the lunar eclipse, Maximilian’s Palace, and thetemple of Mitla (‘the City of the Moon’), Sigbjørn is reunited
with his wife, Primrose, a reborn phoenix and moon-goddess(Sugars 158). It is Primrose who enables him to attain a stateof psychogeographic harmony with life and Juan Fernando
with death. In his dominion over the Mitlan tombs and the
Edenic garden endowed by the Banco Ejidal, Juan provides the7heart capable of seeing and receiving” (Dodson 41). In it
Lowry advocates a romanticism - reminiscent of the souls of
the forests in Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (1862) which
exalts a closer relationship with our natural environment.

the sun, transformed into clouds, and falling again into the sea.
While within the inlet itself the tides and currents in that sea
returned, became remote, and becoming remote, like thatwhich is called the Tao, returned again as we ourselves haddone (Forest, 285-86).

The Forest Path – with the sinister sign of the ‘Hell’ oil refineryon the horizon (Forest, 258) - also conjures up the struggle
between man and nature immortalized in Alexander Pushkin’s
The Bronze Horseman (1833). Familiar with this narrative poem
through Edmund Wilson’s translation, Lowry refers to a“serious spirit of Pushkinship” in his letters (Lowry, Sursum II:
105 and 889).ix It is in The Forest Path that he alludes to “thevery elements, harnessed only for the earth’s ruination andman’s greed” (Forest, 241). They “turn against man himself”,
taking their revenge in the forest fire whose relentless advance“is almost like a perversion of the movement of the inlet”(Forest, 245 and 260). However, with its seasonal cycles, nature
is indeed capable of decontaminating itself, in a regenerative
way, from the heinous oil slicks violating the purity of theEridanus Inlet (Forest, 236 and 281).

Conclusion
In conclusion, in recognition of a need to repent for the debts
of the past and for the alienating sins of mankind, Malcolm
Lowry makes synergies between the cosmic, shamanic, andanimist concepts of the universe, reflected in the celestialvisions of the Zapotec and Aztec civilizations. It is in pursuit ofhis search for universal harmony that he establishes
cosmopolitan connections between the rhythms of the universe- as reflected in their world-views - and recognizes thesignificance of the Pleiades star cluster, of Eridanus as anintergalactic symbol of civilization, and of the philosophicalconcept of Taoism.

Works Cited

In Lowry’s “vision of paradise or moment of achieved balance”,
the mutually trusting, hard-working community of Eridanus
symbolizes an equilibrium in which love for one another issupreme, as witnessed by Lowry who lives here happily after
his own honeymoon (Grace, Voyage 115). Eridanus is amythological synonym for the River Po, alongside which
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is said to have commenced
composing his Paradiso (Lowry, Selected Letters 245).x By using
nagual to depict Sigbjørn’s entry into “the soul of a past self” toconfront its wild forces in the form of the animistic cougar, or
puma in The Forest Path, Lowry connects shamanically with his
own childhood ordeals in Wallasey, Liverpool (Forest, 246 and
226). xi Sigbjørn comes to terms with his current anxieties
through “a continual awakening”, to be “baptised afresh”(Forest, 235 and 273).

Ackerley, Chris and Lawrence J. Clipper, A Companion to“Under the Volcano”. Vancouver: U of British ColumbiaP, 1984.
Atwood, M. A., Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy. New York,
1960.
Bareham, Tony, Malcolm Lowry. Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1989.
Bowker, Gordon, ed. Malcolm Lowry: “Under the Volcano”: A
Casebook. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987.
—, Pursued by Furies: A Life of Malcolm Lowry. London:
Flamingo, 1994.
Cross, Richard K., Malcolm Lowry: A Preface to His Fiction.
London: Athlone, 1980.
Dahlie, Hallvard, “A Norwegian at Heart: Lowry and theGrieg Connection.” Ed. Grace. Swinging the Maelstrom.
31-42.
Day, Douglas, Malcolm Lowry: A Biography. Oxford: Oxford
UP, 1973.
Dodson, Daniel B., Malcolm Lowry. London: Columbia UP,
1970.
Downie, R. Angus, Frazer and the Golden Bough. London:
Victor Gollanz, 1970.
—, James George Frazer: The Portrait of a Scholar. London:
Watts, 1940.
Doyen, Victor, “Elements Towards a Spatial Reading.” Ed.
Bowker, Malcolm Lowry. 101-13.
Dunne, J. W., An Experiment with Time. London: Faber, 1927.
Eliade, Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane. Trans. William R.
Trask. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959.
—, Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Trans. Willard R.
Trask. New York: Pantheon Books, 1964.
—, “The Yearning for Paradise in Primitive Tradition.” Ed.
Richard M. Ohmann. The Making of Myth, New York:
G. P. Putnam, 1962.
Epstein, Perle S., The Private Labyrinth of Malcolm Lowry:“Under the Volcano” and the Cabbala. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1969.
Foxcroft, Nigel H., “The Shamanic Psyche of Malcolm Lowry:
An International Odyssey.” CRD Research News 26(Summer 2010): 18.

“Known both as the River of Death and the River of Life”,
Eridanus is both a bay and a southern celestial constellation(Forest 226-27). Relating the terrestrial to the cosmic, thenatural to the supernatural universe of myths and legends, it
connects us to the Chinese concept of the Tao (The Way).
Faith in the wisdom of a “timeless heaven” invigorates Lowryin his pursuit of metaphysical truths concerning humanity andthe processes at work in his universe of “eternal flux and flow”(La Mordida 216 and Forest, 236 and 226-27). In its emphasis
upon a harmonious interaction with our environment, the Tao
promotes the appreciation of an integral, primal innocence lost
to modern civilization. It recognizes “man’s hunger and needfor beauty, for the stars and the sunrise” sought in Under the
Volcano (Forest 234). The resultant amicable interface withnature is based upon a balance in the universe, transformingyin (the Moon and rain) into yang (the sun and the earth), andvice-versa. In The Forest Path it is reflected in the centrifugal
motion of a raindrop kissing the sea:
Each drop falling into the sea is like a life, […] each producing
a circle in the ocean, or the medium of life itself, and widening
into infinity […] Each is interlocked with other circles falling
about it […] the whole dark water was covered with bright
expanding phosphorescent circles. […] As the rain fell into thephosphorescent water each raindrop expanded into a ripple
that was translated into light. And the rain itself was waterfrom the sea, as my wife first taught me, raised to heaven by8

Frazer, Sir James George, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magicand Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Frosh, Stephen, “Psychoanalysis in Britain: ‘The rituals ofdestruction’.” Ed. David Bradshaw. A Concise Companion
to Modernism. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. 116-37.
Grace, Sherrill E., “The Luminous Wheel.” Ed. Bowker.
Malcolm Lowry. 152-71.
—, Swinging the Maelstrom: New Perspectives on Malcolm Lowry.
London: McGill-Queen’s UP, 1992.
—, The Voyage That Never Ends: Malcolm Lowry’s Fiction.
Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 1982.
Lowry, Malcolm, Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid,ed. Douglas Day and Margerie Lowry. London:
Jonathan Cape, 1969.
—, “The Forest Path to the Spring.” “Hear us O Lord fromHeaven Thy Dwelling Place” and “Lunar Caustic”.
London: Picador, 1991. 216-87.
—, “Garden of Etla.” United Nations World (June 1950): 45-47.
—, Selected Letters. Ed. Harvey Breit and Margerie Bonner
Lowry. London: Jonathan Cape, 1965.
—, Sursum Corda!: The Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry. Ed.
Sherrill E. Grace, 2 vols. London: Jonathan Cape, 1995—, Under the Volcano. London: Penguin, 1962.
—, “Work in Progress: A Statement”. Malcolm Lowry Archive,
University of British Columbia, 1951.
McCarthy, Patrick A., Forests of Symbols: World, Text and Self in
Malcolm Lowry’s Fiction. Athens, USA: U of Georgia,
1994.
—, Ed. Malcolm Lowry’s “La Mordida”: A Scholarly Edition.
London: U of Georgia P, 1996.
MacClancy, Jeremy, “‘Anthropology’: ‘The latest form of
evening entertainment’.” Ed. David Bradshaw. A Concise
Companion to Modernism. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.
Martin, Jay, Conrad Aiken: A Life of His Art. Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1962.
Mellors, Anthony, Late Modernist Poetics: from Pound to Prynne.
Manchester: Manchester UP, 2005.
Miller, Mary and Karl Taube, An Illustrated Dictionary of theGods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya.
London: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Mota, Miguel and Paul Tiessen, eds, The Cinema of Malcolm
Lowry: A Scholarly Edition of Lowry’s “Tender is theNight”. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 1990.

Orr, John, “Lowry: The Day of the Dead.” The Making of theTwentieth-Century Novel. Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1987, 148-68.
Polkinghorne, John, The Way the World Is. Grand Rapids MI:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983.
Prescott, William H., History of the Conquest of Mexico. 12 July
2012.
<http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PreConq.
html>.
Rebollo, Alberto, “In the Footsteps of Lowry in Oaxaca.” The
Firminist: A Malcolm Lowry Journal 1 (1) (October2010): 41-44.
Reilly, F. Kent III, “Art, Ritual, and Rulership in the Olmec
World.” Eds Michael E. Smith and Marilyn A. Mason.
The Ancient Civilizations of Mesoamerica: A Reader.
Oxford: Blackwell, 2000, 369-99.
Soustelle, Jacques, The Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the
Spanish Conquest. Trans. Patrick O’Brian. London:
Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1961.
Spence, Lewis, Arcane Secrets and Occult Lore of Mexico andMayan Central America. Detroit: Blaise Ethridge Books,
1973.
Spivey, Ted R., The Writer as Shaman: The Pilgrimages ofConrad Aiken and Walker Percy. Macon, GA, USA:
Mercer UP, 1986.
Sugars, Cynthia, “The Road to Renewal: Dark as the Grave andthe Rite of Initiation.” Ed. Grace. Swinging theMaelstrom. 149-62.
Tucker, Michael, Dreaming with Open Eyes: The Shamanic
Spirit in Twentieth-Century Art and Culture. London:
Aquarian Thorsons, Harper Collins, 1992.
—, “Towards a Shamanology: Revisioning Theory and Practicein the Arts.” Ed. H. Van Koten. Proceeds of Reflections on
Creativity, 21 and 22 April, 2006. Dundee: Duncan of
Jordanstone College, 2007: ISBN 1 899 837 56 6.
Turner, John Kenneth, Barbarous Mexico.12 July 2012.
http://archive.org/stream/barbarousmexico00turnuoft#p
age/n7/mode/2up.
Vickery, John B., The Literary Impact of “The Golden Bough”.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1973.
Wutz, Michael, “Archaic Mechanics, Anarchic Meaning:
Malcolm Lowry and the Technology of Narrative.” Eds
Joseph Tabbi and Michael Wutz. Reading Matters:
Narrative in the New Media Ecology. Ithaca: Cornell UP,
1997, 53-75.

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  

ix
In his letters he also refers to A. S. Pushkin’s Boris
Godunov (1825) and to Mozart and Salieri (1830). Lowry,
Sursum II 105, 155, and 885.
x
Ackerley and Clipper 414.
xi
McCarthy, Forests 206.	
  

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
i

Lowry, Sursum I 292-93, and 506-07; and II 274, 625, 656,
779, 885, and 889.
ii
Lowry, Sursum I 183, 322, 325-26, 396, 433, 444, 500,
543, 636, and 642; and II 53, 104, 131, 426, 518, 820, 842,
849, and 932.
iii
Ackerley and Clipper 32.
iv
Lowry, Sursum II 364 and 379; Downie, Frazer 52; andVickery 36, 42-43, 110-11, and 139.
v
See also xiv and 166.
vi
Doyen 112 and Grace, “Luminous Wheel” 162 and 165.
vii
Lowry, ‘Forest Path’ 231.
viii
Although Lowry claims that he read Anton Chekhov’s
comedy, The Demon of the Wood (1889) only in 1952, healludes to Dante’s dark wood too. Lowry, Sursum II 518 and524.
9The Drama of Loneliness: Its Evolution
from Chekhov to Pinter and BondLORETTA VISOMIRSKIS, HAROLD WASHINGTON COLLEGE, USA
The loneliness of human existence becomes an overriding
theme in literature and drama of the 20th century due to theemergence of the European Avant-garde movements, Sigmund
Freud's theory of the subconscious, and the philosophy of
Existentialism (Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus), which
focused on an individual in an alienated world devoid of
meaning or purpose. Though written at the turn of the 20th
century, the Russian author Anton Chekhov's work has been amajor influence on the formation of European and British
drama in its treatment of the human condition and its
innovative dramatic techniques. All of his major plays: The
Seagull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1897), The Three Sisters (1901),
and The Cherry Orchard (1904), are tales of human existence
stripped of fulfillment and happiness.

the state. The peasants began to lease from the gentry and wereleft, therefore, at the mercy of this class" (Hosking 144). The
rising poverty among the emancipated peasants drove them tothe cities in search of work thus giving a boost to theIndustrialization of Russia and its growing middle class. The
Russian middle class was asserting its powers in the shifting
political paradigm of the time: the emancipation of serfs took
away free labor from the landed aristocracy and weakened theeconomic foundations for their existence.
A progressive step in itself, the abolition of serfdom did not
create civil liberties for all Russia's citizens, and the country's
intellectual climate remained in the firm clutches of the Tsar's
political and moral censorship. The last two reigns of the
Romanov Dynasty: Alexander III (1881-1894) and his son
Nicholas II (1894-1917), invoked the ideological doctrine of
Official Nationality which claimed Orthodoxy, Autocracy, andNationality as cornerstone values of Russian citizenship. The
doctrine resonated with Russia's rulers at the end of the
century as "the triad was inherently unbalanced in favor ofcentralized autocracy. The Russian Orthodox Church was
impoverished and incapable of being an independent politicalforce. Nationality through empowerment of the people was nota choice from the start." It became even less probable after thedreaded nationalist revolutions of 1848 in Europe and after theParis Commune of 1871 the mere idea of which reduced theRussian emperors "to a state of almost catatonic fear" (Hosking
149).
The Tsar's fear of social revolution and his severe repression
against any influence that could challenge the Establishment
did not stop Russia's intelligentsia from showing a keeninterest in the newest social and political theories infiltratingfrom the West. The spread of Darwinism and the emphasison empiricism in natural and social studies along with Marxist
theory prepared an ideological platform in Russia's intellectual
circles for a materialistic world view fiercely opposed by the
Tsar's official propaganda. In response to the ideologicaltensions of his time, Chekhov defined his philosophical credo
in a letter to his publisher Alexei Suvorin, “Materialism is not aschool or doctrine in the narrow journalistic sense. Everythingthat lives on earth is necessarily materialistic. Creatures of ahigher order, thinking humans, are also necessarily materialists.
They can seek out truth only when their microscopes, probes,
and knives are effective. Outside the matter there is noexperience or knowledge, and consequently, no truth” (Letter
35 in Anton Chekhov’s Life & Thought).

The Cherry Orchard by Michael B (Creative Commons)Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) wrote at the time when Russia's
history was shaping itself against the polarized tensions of the
centuries-old political rule of autocracy and the demands of the
new rising powers for constitutional rights and parliamentarydemocracy. Emerging from a 300-year-old system of serfdom
abolished in 1861, Russia's socio-economic structure was stilllargely dependent on agriculture where "only limited land wasleft to the peasant which had to be redeemed by payments to

A doctor by profession, a writer by calling, Chekhov came tofame at the age of twenty-six as a short-story writer, and by thelast decade of his life when his major plays were written, his
philosophy and aesthetics had been well defined. He claimed
realism as his creative method, “One has to write what one
10sees, what one feels, truthfully, sincerely. …Living truthfulimages generate thought but thought cannot create an image”(Letter 21 in Anton Chekhov’s Life & Thought). His core
aesthetic principles, itemized with precision in a letter to his
brother Alexander Chekhov, included, "Absence of lengthy
verbiage of political-socioeconomic nature, total objectivity,
truthful descriptions of persons and objects, extreme brevity,
audacity and originality, compassion" (Anton Chekhov’s Life
& Thought). These principles masterfully molded into his
dramatic work produced the question play, a new genre
fundamental to the modernist drama and literature of the 20th
century "which was driven by a conscious desire to overturn
traditional modes of representation and express the newsensibilities of the time" (Childs 2008, p. 4). Consciously or
intuitively, Chekhov rejected didacticism and proscriptive
politicking in art; instead, he saw the artist's mission in an
intellectual inquiry into the issues of human condition andtheir objective portrayal as a result of this process. “Anyone
who says the artist’s field is all answers and no questions has
never done any writing. The artist observes, selects, guesses,
and synthesizes. The very fact of these actions presupposes aquestion. …We are dealing here with two concepts: answering
the questions and formulating them correctly. Only the latter isrequired of an author” (Letter 26 in Anton Chekhov’s Life &Thought).

Moscow stage. He commits suicide when he loses Nina who
cannot return his love. Nina, the Seagull, a young aspiring
actress, is in love with Trigorin, an established writer andArkadina's lover. Trigorin is painfully aware of his mediocrity
and inability to control his life when he seduces Nina andleaves her later to come back to Arkadina. Trigorin’s aging
mistress lives in a frail world of illusion of her past successes on
the stage and struggles desperately to win him back from Nina.
Uncle Vanya’s theme of unhappiness is built on an intricate
pattern of frustrated relationships: the title character, Uncle
Vanya, is hopelessly in love with Elena, professor Serebriakov's
beautiful wife; Elena is attracted to the country doctor Astrov
but scared by Astrov’s passionate confession to her, stays with
her aged husband, thus leaving both, Uncle Vanya and Astrov,in complete desperation; Sonia, the professor’s daughter,remains heart-broken under a heavy burden of unrequited love
for doctor Astrov. In The Three Sisters, the feeling ofloneliness and tragic loss is as dominant as in his earlier plays.
The sisters Olga, Masha, and Irina Prozorov are dreaming
about moving to Moscow where they spent their happy
childhood. Masha, bored with her husband Kuligin, falls inlove with the Lieutenant Colonel Vershinin who is stationed intown but cannot commit to Masha as he is married and has toleave with his artillery battery for Poland. Irina’s fiance baron
Tuzenbach dies in a duel on the eve of their wedding. The
sisters lose their chance of happiness as they will not be able toleave their provincial town and return to Moscow, the city of
their dreams.

In probing the complexities of Russia's life and the individual'sability to survive in it, Chekhov created a modern drama whereloneliness became the basic premise of his characters' existence.
The deeply ingrained sense of loneliness in his plays stemmed
from his own existential angst: as a doctor, he was acutely
aware of his failing health, especially after having been
diagnosed with an advanced stage of tuberculosis; due to his
condition, he spent most of his life in the milder parts ofRussia, away from Moscow's cold winters and its vibrantcultural scene which he painfully missed. He often wrote of hisloneliness to his friends and family, and his contemporaries
spoke of a discernible sadness in him which Chekhov himself
denied.

Chekhov’s last play The Cherry Orchard continues the themeof loss which is summed up in the image of the cherry orchard:
Madame Ranevsky loses her young son and her husband whodies of drinking; her lover takes her money and abandons her
in Paris; she loses her family estate to debt; the upstart
merchant Lopakhin, son of her former serf, buys the estate andcuts down the cherry orchard.

Loneliness in Chekhov's plays is also rooted in his awareness ofthe societal issues of the time, his keen perception of imminent
political change, his deep understanding of the Russian
national character, the emotionality and impracticality of "theRussian soul," and his empathy for his fellow human beings
trapped in an unjust and frustrating world. The idea of a lonely
individual in a fundamentally painful condition ties Chekhov's
plays to the Symbolist movement, especially to the philosophyof Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) whose work Chekhov
read and admired. Schopenhauer's main philosophicalconstruct, the "Will to Live" (Wille zum Leben), represented
a malignant metaphysical force which controlled the actions ofan individual; since Schopenhauer believed that humans were
motivated only by their own basic desires, he saw them as futile
and illogical, and so was all human action prompted by thesedesires.

A tragic sense of loss in Chekhov’s plays underscores theloneliness of his characters, which he disguises with trivial
conversations and routines on the stage. But their everyday
conversations inadvertently crescendo into philosophicalpostulations on human character and the meaning of human
life. Chekhov’s characters become his mouthpiece in theircriticism of their own class, the landed gentry and the educatedintelligentsia. In Uncle Vanya, doctor Astrov says to Sonia, “I
simply can’t stand our Russian provincial philistine life. I havethe utmost contempt for it. Our dear old friends all have petty
minds and petty feelings, and they don’t see further than theirnoses. In fact, they are simply stupid. And those who arebigger and more intelligent are hysterical, given to self-analysis
and morbid introspection” (Chekhov 84). Astrov sums up the
futility of their lives in his remarks about Elena, “She isbeautiful, but all she does is eat, sleep, go for walks, fascinate
us by her beauty and-nothing more. She has no duties. Other
people work for her” (84).

Schopenhauer's idea that human desiring or "willing" causes
suffering and pain becomes the underlying theme in Chekhov's
plays where his characters suffer indomitably in their hopelessstruggle to reach fulfillment and happiness. In The Seagull, theyoung writer Konstantin Treplyov suffers from an acute feelingof insufficiency of his writings which deepens when his play isrejected by his mother Arkadina, a prima donna of the

Chekhov’s characters' inability to apply themselves in life is
opposed to the idea of work. In The Three Sisters, Irina wakes
up one morning with an idea that “man must work by thesweat of his brow, whoever he might be. That alone gives ameaning and a purpose to his life, his happiness, his success”(Chekhov 120). In the same scene, baron Tusenbach relates
the idea of work to the imminent social change, “Dear Lord,11

how well I understand this craving for work. The time iscoming when something huge is about to overwhelm us. A
mighty hurricane is on the way; it is quite near already, andsoon, very soon, it will sweep away from our society idleness,complacency, prejudice against work, and effete boredom. I
shall work, and in another twenty years everyone will workeveryone" (120-21)!

20th century drama and were adopted by numerous
playwrights regardless of their philosophical or aestheticorientation.
Chekhov's drama of loneliness with a deep subtext underneatha polyphonous, seemingly superficial dialog impacted the workof Harold Pinter (1930-2008) who came to the British stage
with the First Wave of post-war dramatists in the 1950s.
Pinter, the author of the comedy of menace, wrote his plays inthe tradition of the French anti-drama or the Theatre of theAbsurd. Influenced by Schopenhauer's philosophy, French
existentialism (Albert Camus), and the work of his friend andmentor Samuel Beckett (1906-89), Pinter explores theabsurdity of human existence in the menacing anddehumanizing world.

Chekhov's characters speak of work with a fervor of a newly
found religion: the juxtaposition of the class that neverdepended on their work for survival and the object of theirworship creates a comic effect which reinforces the meaning ofChekhov’s subtitles as comedies. Comic is also professor
Serebriakov's admonition to Uncle Vanya and Sonia before heleaves the estate, "We must work, ladies and gentlemen, wemust work!" (68). This grotesque character, a scholar who "hasbeen lecturing and writing about art for twenty-five years, andyet doesn't know anything about it" has lived solely at theexpense of Uncle Vanya's and Sonia's hard work without everacknowledging it (68).
As much Chekhov's characters see work as the only remedy
against social evil, it does not become a substitute for theirpersonal happiness but rather a disguise for their unhappiness.
Doctor Astrov works harder “than anyone else in the district”
but “fate is hitting hard” at him, and “there is no lightgleaming in the distance” (84). After Elena and Serebriakov's
departure, Uncle Vanya says rummaging nervously through his
papers, "I'm sick at heart. I must get to work quickly. Do
something-anything... To work, to work" (111)! His final
words to Sonia, "My child, I am so unhappy! If only you knew
how unhappy I am!" - are an outcry of his wounded soul (113).
The inertia and passivity of Chekhov’s characters are brought
to light by their endless talk about work without ever resortingto any action. Their realization of the need for a change
generates more conversation about it but not the change itself.
Chekhov felt deeply the ineptitude of the Russian intelligentsia
and called it a national malaise. Vershinin sums it up in The
Three Sisters, “A Russian is particularly susceptible to highthinking but why does he aim so low in life? …If only we could
add education to diligence and diligence to education …”(141). In the final scene of The Cherry Orchard, Lopakhinstarts working diligently on his newly acquired property so that
he can develop and resell it at a profit. The ax strokes offstage
as Madame Ranevsky is leaving the estate are symbolic of thevictory of Lopakhin’s entrepreneurial spirit over the inertia of
the gentry, a dying class. Though socially progressive,
Lopakhin’s impatience “to take an ax to the cherry orchard” isethically reprehensible and insensitive towards the heartbroken Ranevsky. The ambiguity of this scene speaks ofChekhov’s uncertainty about the imminent social change andits outcomes.

Photo by Marian Gonzalez (Creative Commons)
The hopelessness of the human condition, menace from theoutside, and fear of annihilation become the main themes in
his first play The Room (1957). The main characters Rose andBert are confined to the room, their private space, which is
opposed to the dark and threatening world outside. The moodin the room is tense, the characters are incapable ofcommunication: Rose attempts to care for Bert but Bert
ignores her efforts. He speaks of his car referring to it as “she”
and imbues his account of traveling home in his beloved van
with undisguised sensuality.

Chekhov’s innovation in drama lies not only in his treatmentof the human condition but also in the core principles of its
portrayal on the stage: he shifts from an action-based plot to a
discussion play which speaks of the influence of Henrik Ibsen’s
drama on his work but unlike Ibsen, Chekhov diffuses theintensity and pointedness of the intellectual discussion by apolyphony of voices, thus creating an appearance of casual,disjointed conversationwith layers of meaning hidden in thesubtext. Chekhov’s precision in the use of language, his disdainof verbosity, and the use of pauses as cadence in the flow of
dialog and dramatic action laid the stylistic foundations for the

Pinter's dramatic situation is based on the existentialist ideathat human existence is inherently absurd. "Absurd is thatwhich is devoid of purpose... Cut off from his religious,
metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his
actions become senseless, absurd, useless" (Esslin 5).
Therefore, the characters cannot share thoughts, emotions or
12exchange words in any meaningful way. Pinter's dialogue
becomes a dialog of non-communication where the charactersspeak in monologs that cannot be heard or understood byothers:Another British dramatist Edward Bond (b. 1935) has
acknowledged his interest in Chekhov and Chekhov' influenceon his dramatic style. He started his career in1960s as part of
the Second Wave of British drama. Bond writes about violence
and its causes in the modern world. He considers
contemporary society to be inherently unjust; therefore,
affecting human lives in dangerous and destructive ways.
Summer (1982) is also about violence and its effects on thehuman psyche and human lives but it is Bond’s most
Chekhovian play in its psychological insight, poetic detail,ambiguity, and allusion. Like his other plays, Summer reveals
Bond's recurring theme of the oppressors and the oppressed
through a collision of class consciousness during World War
II. Xenia, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, comes fromEngland to vacation on the Adriatic in her family home thatwas expropriated after the war and is owned by her former
servant Marthe. On her arrival, she discovers that Marthe isdying of cancer.

Mrs. Sands. Why don't you sit down, Mrs.Rose. Hudd. No thanks.
Mrs. Sands. What did you say?
Rose. When?
Mrs. Sands. What did you say the name was?
Rose. Hudd. (Pinter 102).
The symbolic figure of the blind black man Riley is a force
from the outside that invades Rose's space, the room, andthreatens her relationship with Bert. Riley brings her a message
from her father to come home. Riley calls her Sal which is areference to her possibly Jewish background. Bert kills Riley.
Rose becomes blind.
According to the critic Martin Esslin, "The Room alreadycontains a good many of the basic themes and a great deal ofthe very personal style and idiom of Pinter's later and more
successful work-the uncannily cruel accuracy of his
reproduction of the inflections and rambling irrelevancy of
everyday speech; the commonplace situation that is graduallyinvested with menace, dread, and mystery; the deliberateomission of an explanation or a motivation for the action. The
room, which is the centre and chief poetic image of the play, is
one of the recurring motifs of Pinter's work" (Esslin 232).

Xenia's relationship with Marthe and people who worked forher family is characterized by kindness: she offers to bring
Marthe to England for the newest treatments for her condition
and to take care of her while she is sick; Xenia saved Marthe’slife during the war when she was taken hostage by theGermans. Kindness and generosity run in Xenia's family as her
father was known for his generosity to his employees, forgiving them education, even for collaborating with the guerillas
during the Nazi occupation. But Xenia carries a tragic memoryof her father's reprisal and death after the war at the hands ofthe same people who he supported.

The room as a symbol of human existence, loneliness, andisolation is not a secure place: in Pinter's plays, it is always
threatened by the menacing forces from the outside. The
characters who inhabit the room are frail bleak images of thehuman beings trapped in their inability to articulate theirthoughts and needs. Their helplessness and passivity makes
them kin to Chekhov's characters but their regression into analmost childlike condition makes them worthy inhabitants of
the absurd world. Pinter evokes the image of this world
through a highly stylized vernacular where allusion,
implication, tautology, the meaning of words, and subtext playa special role. The dialog is punctuated by an abundance ofsilences and pauses, which mark the cadence of the characters'
speech and the dynamic of the dramatic situation. In Pinter'swork, silences are more meaningful than words. According toPinter, "There are two silences. One when no word is spoken.
The other when perhaps a torrent of language is employed. ...
One way of looking at speech is to say it is a constantstrategem to cover nakedness" (Billington 82).

During Xenia's conversation with Marthe about the past,
Marthe gathers her last strength and spits Xenia in the face.
After all these years, she still sees Xenia as the daughter of a
wealthy capitalist and her gesture of ultimate scorn is in thename of all the victims of the war and oppression. She has no
forgiveness for the oppressors. The tension between Xenia andMarthe is disguised in a Chekhovian manner by subdued
conversation about the inconsequential details of theinconvenience of travel and the lost keys to Xenia's luggage.
Xenia's dissatisfaction with the life after the war in her country
is felt in her casual remarks about the new hotel, the polluted
water in the sea and about the sloppy visitors who put out theircigarettes in her cacti bowls.
As in all Bond's plays, there is an antithesis to hatred, violence,and death: Martha dies but her son David and Xenia's
daughter are in love and expecting a baby. The new life is apromise of hope, peace, and innocence.

References
Abel, Jonathan E. Redacted: the archives of censorship in transwar Japan. Berkeley: Univ Of California Press, 2012.
Angles, Jeffrey. Writing the love of boys: origins of Bishōnen culture in modernist Japanese literature. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2011.
Edogawa, Ranpo. Edogawa Ranpo, chikuma nihon bungaku zenshū. Chikuma shobō, 1991.
Edogawa, Ranpo. Kotō no oni. Shunyō dōshoten, 1987.
Pflugfelder, Gregory M. Categories of desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950. 1. pbk. print. Berkeley: Univ
Of California Press, 2007. ISBN 05-202-5165-2.
Putna, Martin C. Homosexualita v dějinách české kultury. Praha: Academia, 2011.
13

Simone de Beauvoir: Mother of Modern
Feminism?
LUTFI HAMADI, BEIRUT ARAB UNIVERSITY, LEBANON
	
  
	
  
The	
  purpose	
  of	
  this	
  paper	
  is	
  to	
  shed	  light	
  on	
  the	  role	
   the	   French	
   author	
   and	   philosopher	
   Simone	
  de	
   Beauvoir	
   has	   played	
   in	
   the	   development	
   of	
  women’s	
   movement	
   in	
   general	
   and	   feminist	
  intellectual	   achievements	
   in	
   particular.	
   To	
   this	  end,	
   this	
   paper	
   explores	
   Beauvoir’s	
   intellectual	
  struggle	
  to	
  urge	  women	  to	
  get	
  rid	  of	
  the	  manacles	  of	
   the	   patriarchal	
   system,	
   which	
   has	   long	  imprisoned	
   them	
   within	
   its	
   norms	
   and	   values,	  denying	
   them	
   the	   freedom	
   and	   autonomy	
   they	  deserve	
   as	
   equal	
   human	   beings.	
   To	   show	
  Beauvoir’s	
   significance	
   in	
   this	   respect,	
   the	   paper	
  traces	   her	   influence	
   on	
   feminist	
   academics	
   and	  authors,	
   with	   special	
   emphasis	
   on	
   the	   notable	
  feminist	
   critic	
   Kate	   Millet	
   for	   the	   simple	
   reason	
  that	
   many	   critics	
   consider	
   the	   latter’s	  masterpiece	
   Sexual	
   Politics	
   as	
   the	   foundation	
   of	  what	
   is	
   called	
   radical	
   or	   second	
   wave	
   of	  feminism,	
   minimizing	
   or	
   even	
   ignoring	
  Beauvoir’s	
  effect.	
  	
  Feminism	
   is	   a	   discourse	
   that	   involves	
   various	
  movements,	
   theories,	
   and	   philosophies,	
   which	  are	
   concerned	
   with	
   the	   issue	   of	
   gender	
  difference,	
   the	   advocacy	
   of	
   equality	
   for	   women,	
  and	
   the	   campaign	
   for	   women's	
   rights	
   and	  interests.	
  In	
  short,	
  feminism	
  can	  be	
  defined	
  as	
  the	  belief	
   that	
   women	   have	
   equal	
   political,	
   social,	  sexual,	
   intellectual	
   and	   economic	
   rights	
   as	
   men	
  
do.	
  	
  
	
  
Most	
   feminists	
   and	   critics	
   divide	
   the	   movement	
  historically	
   into	   three	
   waves.	
   The	   first	
   wave,	
  referring	
   to	
   the	   nineteenth	
   and	   early	
   twentieth	
  centuries,	
   was	   originally	
   interested	
   in	
   the	  promotion	
   of	
   equal	
   contract	
   and	   property	
   rights	
  for	
   women.	
   This	
   wave	
   focused	
   later	
   on	
   gaining	
  political	
  power,	
  particularly	
  the	
  right	
  of	
  women's	  suffrage.	
   Almost	
   after	
   achieving	
   these	   goals	
   by	  the	
   mid	   of	
   the	   twentieth	
   century,	
   joining	
   the	  personal	
  and	  the	  political,	
  the	
  second	
  wave	  took	
  a	
  
new	
   track,	
   	
   emphasizing	
   on	
   women's	
   right	
   to	  bodily	   integrity	
   and	   autonomy,	
   abortion	
   and	  reproductive	   rights,	
   including	
   access	
   to	
  contraception	
   and	   quality	
   parental	
   care.	
   So,	
  14feminists	
   saw	
   women's	
   cultural	
   and	   political	
  inequalities	
   as	
   inextricably	
   linked	
   and	  encouraged	
   women	   to	
   understand	
   aspects	
   of	  their	
   personal	
   lives	
   as	
   deeply	
   politicized	
   and	   as	
  reflecting	
  sexist	
  power	  structures.	
  In	
  brief,	
  it	
  can	  be	
   said	
   that	   the	   second	
   wave	
   of	
   feminism	
   began	
  
with	
   a	
   radical	
   view	
   towards	
   matters	
   related	
   to	
  woman's	
   position,	
   while	
   the	   first	
   wave	
   was	  mainly	   interested	
   in	
   civil	
   rights.	
   In	
   her	   "Radical	
  Feminism	
   and	   Literature:	
   Rethinking	   Millet's	
  Sexual	  Politics",	
  Cora	  Kaplan	
  sees	  that	  patriarchy,	
  according	   to	
   radical	
   feminists,	
   was	
   a	
   "political	
  institution'	
   rather	
   than	
   an	
   economic	
   or	
   social	
  relation	
   and	   political	
   institutions	
   were	   in	
   their	
  turn	
   conceived	
   as	
   hierarchical	
   power	
   relations"	  (157).	
  	  	  Beginning	
   in	
   the	   early	
   1990s,	
   third-­‐wave	
  feminism	
   emerged	
   as	   a	   response	   to	
   what	
   was	  considered	
  failures	
  of	
  the	
  second	
  wave.	
  	
  
	
  
Beginning	
   in	
   the	   early	
   1990s,	
   third-­‐wave	
  feminism	
   emerged	
   as	   a	   response	   to	
   the	   over	  emphasis	
  of	
  the	
  second	
  wave	  on	
  the	
  experiences	  of	
   upper-­‐middle-­‐class	
   white	
   women,	
   ignoring	
   the	  more	
  oppressed	
  women	
  such	  as	
  women	
  of	
  color	
  
and	
  of	
  the	
  working	  class.	
  	
  Throughout	
   years	
   of	
   development,	
   a	
   variety	
   of	  movements	
   have	
   emerged	
   from	
   feminism,	
   most	  important	
   of	
   which	
   are	   socialist	
   and	   Marxist	
  feminisms,	
   radical	
   feminism,	
   liberal	   feminism,	  black	
   feminism,	
   psychoanalytical	
   feminism,	
  postcolonial	
   and	   third-­‐world	
   feminism,	
   post-­‐structural	
   and	   post	
   modern	
   feminism.	
   At	
   another	
  level,	
  feminist	
  theory	
  is	
  an	
  extension	
  of	
  feminism	
  into	
   theoretical	
   or	
   philosophical	
   fields,	
  encompassing	
   work	
   in	   a	   variety	
   of	   disciplines,	
  including	
   anthropology,	
   sociology,	
   economics,	
  women's	
   studies,	
   literary	
   criticism,	
   art	   history,	
  psychoanalysis,	
  and	
  philosophy.	
  Regardless	
  of	
  all	  differences	
   and	   trends	
   in	
   feminism,	
   it	
   is	   almost	  certain	
  that	  feminist	
  theories	
  have	  become	
  of	
  the	  most	
  important	
  in	
  the	
  field	
  of	
  literary	
  criticism.	
  In	
  
an	
  article	
  in	
  Modern	
  Age,	
  Anne	  Babeau	
  Gardiner	  writes,	
   "according	   to	
   one	   Modern	
   Language	  Association	
   survey,	
   feminist	
   criticism	
   in	
   recent	
  times	
   has	   had	   'more	
   impact	
   on	
   the	   teaching	
   of	
  literature'	
  than	
  any	
  other	  school.	
  It	
  is	
  claimed	
  to	
  
be	
  'already	
  an	
  indispensable	
  part	  of	
  the	
  study	  of	
  literature'	
   in	
   universities	
   in	
   Britain,	
   Canada,	
   and	  the	
   United	
   States"	   (1).	
   It	
   was	   during	
   the	   second	
  wave	
   that	   feminists	
   started	
   to	   show	   interest	
   in	
  women's	
   literature,	
   noticing	
   how	
   this	
   literature	
  was	
   ignored	
   and	   shunted	
   off	
   the	   mainstream	
  despite	  the	
  fact	  that	  among	
  women	
  writers	
  were	
  
some	
  of	
  the	
  most	  important	
  of	
  the	
  nineteenth	
  and	  twentieth	
   centuries.	
   Consequently,	
   feminist	
  academics	
  and	
  thinkers	
  turned	  their	
  interest	
  not	  only	
   towards	
   analyzing	
   male's	
   literary	
   works	
   in	  innovative	   ways	   but	   also	
   shedding	
   light	
   on	
  women	
  authors	  and	  the	
  literature	
  they	  produced,	  re-­‐evaluating	
   in	
   the	   process	
   the	   preconceptions	
  inherent	
   in	   a	   literary	
   canon	
   dominated	
   by	
   male	  beliefs	
  and	
  male	  writers.	
  	  Although	   it	
   was	   published	
   in	
   1949,	
   Simone	
   de	
  Beauvoir's	
  masterpiece	  The	
  Second	
  Sex,	
  together	  with	
   her	   other	
   writings	
   and	   activities,	
   was	   a	  source	   of	
   aspiration	
   for	   radical	
   feminism,	
   which	
  started	   to	
   crystallize	
   in	
   the	   1960s.	
   	
   In	
   fact,	
   the	  remarkable	
   role	
   Beauvoir	
   has	   played	
   in	
   the	  history	
   of	
   women's	
   emancipation	
   is	
   undeniable,	  despite	   the	   neglect	
   and	   harsh	
   criticism	
   she	   has	  undergone	   for	
   a	
   long	
   time,	
   and	   the	   attempts	
   to	
  restrict	
   discussion	
   to	
   her	   relationship	   with	   her	  close	
  lifetime	
  friend,	
  Jean	  Paul	  Sartre.	
  The	
  Second	
  Sex,	
   which	
   is	   a	   detailed	
   analysis	
   of	
   women's	
  oppression	
   and	
   a	
   foundational	
   tract	
   of	  contemporary	
   feminism,	
   has	   always	
   been	
  considered	   the	   bible	
   of	
   women's	
   movements	
   all	  over	
   the	   world	
   and	   has	   placed	
   Beauvoir,	  according	   to	
   The	   Guardian,	
   as	
   the	   "mother	
   of	
  modern	
   feminism	
   and	
   a	
   champion	
   of	   sexual	
  freedom	
   (1).	
   In	
   Simone	
   de	
   Beauvoir:	
   A	
   Critical	
  Reader,	
   Elizabeth	
   Fallaize	
   sees	   that	
   Beauvoir's	  name	
   "has	
   come	
   to	
   be	
   synonymous	
   with	
   the	  feminist	
  voice	
  of	
  the	
  twentieth	
  century"	
  and	
  that	  "her	
   life	
   and	   writing	
   have	
   continued	
   to	
   inspire	
  passionate	
   debate"	
   (1).	
   In	
   his	   The	   Norton	
  Anthology	
   of	
   Theory	   and	   Criticism,	
   Vincent	
   B.	
  Leitch	   thinks	
   that,	
   "While	
   Beauvoir's	
   argument	
  
that	
  in	
  patriarchal	
  cultures	
  man	  is	
  the	
  norm	  and	
  woman	  the	
  deviation	
  has	  become	
  a	
  commonplace	
  of	
  feminist	
  theory,	
  in	
  1948	  it	
  was	  revolutionary"	
  (1404).	
  In	
  an	
  article	
  in	
  The	
  Independent,	
  Gemma	
  O'Doherty	
   quotes	
   a	
   newspaper	
   headline	
   in	
   1986	  reading,	
   "Women,	
   you	   owe	   her	   everything!",	
  asserting	
   that	   The	   Second	
   Sex,	
   "an	
   encyclopedic	  15

analysis	
   of	
   women's	
   oppression,	
   is	
   still	  considered	
  the	
  greatest	
  feminist	
  tract	
  of	
  all	
  time"	
  (1).	
   According	   the	   Guardian,	
   The	   Second	
   Sex	  "catapulted	
   the	   writer	
   to	
   worldwide	
   fame	   and	  spurred	
   a	
   feminist	
   revolt	
   within	
   the	   French	
  middle	   classes	
   that	   spread	
   to	
   the	   United	
   States	
  
and	
  as	
  far	  as	
  Japan"	
  (6)	
  	
  
	
  
The	
   Second	
   Sex	
   was	   published	
   in	
   1949	
   in	
   two	  volumes	
   and	   was	
   so	
   controversial	
   that	   the	  Vatican	
   put	   it,	
   together	
   with	   her	   novel,	
   The	  Mandarins,	
   on	
   the	   Index	   of	
   prohibited	
   books.	
  Analyzing	
  women	
  from	  a	
  variety	
  of	
  perspectives,	
  including	   the	   biological,	
   psychoanalytic,	  materialistic,	
  historical,	  literary	
  
and	
  
anthropological,	
   Beauvoir	
   contends	
   in	
   the	  chapter	  entitled	
  "Facts	
  and	
  Myths"	
  that	  one	  is	
  not	
  
born	
   a	
   woman,	
   but	   becomes	
   one.	
   	
   In	
   the	   second	
  book,	
  she	
  examines	
  women	
  from	  their	
  own	
  lived	  experience,	
   showing	
   the	   processes	
   through	
  which	
   women	   internalize	
   the	   ideologies	
   of	  otherness	
   that	
   relegate	
   them	
   to	
   immanence	
   and	  to	
  the	  position	
  of	
  being	  man's	
  other.	
  	
  
	
  
In	
   the	   introduction,	
   she	   tries	
   to	
   find	
   a	
   definition	
  of	
   woman	
   according	   to	
   the	   above	
   mentioned	
  fields	
  to	
  conclude	
  that	  none	  of	
  them	  is	
  sufficient.	
  Some,	   she	   says,	
   consider	
   woman	
   as	   a	   womb,	  while	  they	  describe	
  certain	
  women	
  as	
  not	
  women	  just	
  because	
  they	  don't	
  share	  "in	
  that	  mysterious	
  and	
   threatened	
   reality	
   known	
   as	
   femininity"	
  (Second	
   Sex	   2),	
   although	   biologically	
   they	   are.	
  Criticizing	
  women	
  who	
  would	
  like	  to	
  behave	
  like	  men	
   and	   deny	   their	
   womanhood	   and	   feminine	
  weakness,	
  she	
  criticizes	
  the	  notion	
  that	  considers	  woman	   a	   mystery	
   and	   asserts	
   that	   this	   gives	
   man	  a	
   justification	
   to	
   evade	
   facing	
   his	   ignorance	
   of	
  
what	
   a	
   woman	   really	
   is.	
   Indirectly	
   referring	
   to	  the	
  image	
  given	
  to	
  woman	  in	
  literary	
  works,	
  she	
  wonders	
  whether	
  woman	
  is	
  an	
  angel,	  a	
  demon,	
  or	
  
an	
  actress.	
  Her	
  answer	
  is	
  that	  a	
  human	  being	
  is	
  to	
  
be	
   measured	
   only	
   by	
   his	   acts,	
   so	   a	   peasant	  woman	  is	
  described	
  a	
  good	  or	  a	
  bad	
  worker,	
  and	  an	
   actress	
   has	   or	
   does	
   not	   have	
   talent.	
   The	  relation	
   "of	
   the	   two	
   sexes",	
   Beauvoir	
   argues,	
   "is	  not	
   quite	
   like	
   that	
   of	
   two	   electrical	
   poles,	
   for	   man	  represents	
  both	  the	  positive	  and	  the	
  neutral,	
  as	
  is	
  
indicated	
  by	
  the	
  common	
  use	  of	
  man	  to	
  designate	
  human	
   beings	
   in	
   general;	
   whereas	
   woman	  represents	
  only	  the	
  negative"	
  (3).	
  
	
  
In	
   a	
   historical	
   preview,	
   Beauvoir	
   shows	
   how	
   the	  ancients	
  believed	
  that	  the	
  absolute	
  human	
  type	
  is	
  
the	
   masculine,	
   whereas	
   woman	
   was	   imprisoned	  in	
   her	   body,	
   which	
   has	   always	
   been	
   seen	
   as	   a	
  hindrance.	
   Beauvoir	
   supports	
   her	   perspective	  referring	
   to	
   ancient	
   philosophers	
   and	   thinkers.	
  Aristotle,	
   for	   example,	
   considered	   that	   the	  "'female	
  is	
  a	
  female	
  by	
  virtue	
  of	
  a	
  certain	
  lack	  of	
  qualities'",	
   while	
   St	
   Thomas	
   saw	
   that	
   woman	
   is	  an	
   "imperfect	
   man"	   (3).	
   Plato,	
   she	   says,	
   thanked	
  God	
   for	   two	   things:	
   being	
   free	
   and	   being	
   a	
   man,	
  
not	
   a	
   woman.	
   Beauvoir	
   continues	
   her	   reasoning	  to	
   conclude	
   with	   her	   brilliant,	
   innovative	   idea	  that	
  woman	
  has	
  always	
  been	
  “the	  incidental,	
  the	
  inessential	
  as	
  opposed	
  to	
  the	
  essential.	
  He	
  is	
  the	
  Subject,	
  he	
  is	
  the	
  Absolute-­‐she	
  is	
  the	  Other"	
  (4).	
  It	
   is	
   worth	
   remembering,	
   as	
   Lisa	
   Appignanesi	
  says	
   in	
   her	   "The	
   Heart	
   of	
   Simon	
   de	
   Beauvoir",	
  that	
   this	
   term,	
   "the	
   other",	
   coined	
   by	
   Beauvoir,	
  and	
   The	   Second	
   Sex	
   "served	
   as	
   the	   source	
   for	  those	  discourses	
  of	
  the	
  "other"	
  which	  shaped	
  the	
  identity	
   and	   orientalist	
   politics	
   of	
   the	   1980s	
   and	  1990s."	  	  In	
  his	
  groundbreaking	
  book,	
  Orientalism,	  Edward	   Said	
   clearly	
   refers	
   to	
   Beauvoir's	
   notion	
  to	
   describe	
   how	
   Western	
   thinkers	
   and	   writers	
  have	
   always	
   seen	
   the	   East	
   as	
   the	   primitive,	
   weak,	
  and	
   feminine	
   "Other",	
   juxtaposed	
   with	
   the	  civilized,	
  strong,	
  and	
  masculine	  West.	
  	
  Comparing	
  women	
   to	
   other	
   minorities	
   like	
   Negros,	
   Jews,	
   or	  even	
   proletarians,	
   she	   argues	
   that,	
   unlike	
   these	  groups,	  women's	
  subjugation	
  to	
  men	
  isn't	
  a	
  result	
  of	
   historical	
   event	
   or	   a	   social	
   change.	
   It	
   has	  always	   been	
   there.	
   Women's	
   situation	
   is	
   much	  worse	
   as	
   "legislators,	
   priests,	
   philosophers,	  writers,	
   and	   scientists	
   have	
   striven	
   to	   show	   that	  the	
   subordinate	
   position	
   is	
   willed	
   in	
   heaven	
   and	  advantageous	
  on	
  earth"	
  (qtd	  in	
  Selden	
  535).	
  
	
  
In	
   a	
   lengthened	
   analysis	
   of	
   biological	
   and	  scientific	
   studies	
   of	
   human	   beings	
   __	
   males	   and	  females	
   __	
   and	   animals,	
   Beauvoir	
   asserts	
   the	  negative	
  and	  incorrect	
  concepts	
  adopted	
  by	
  many	  philosophers	
  that	  even	  by	
  nature,	
  a	
  female	
  is	
  the	  other.	
   According	   to	
   Hegel,	
   for	   example,	
   she	   says,	
  "the	
   two	
   sexes	
   were	
   of	
   necessity	
   different,	
   the	  one	
   active	   and	   the	   other	
   passive,	
   and	   of	
   course	  the	
  female	
  would	
  be	
  the	
  passive	
  one"	  (Second	
  Sex	
  
18).	
  
	
  
Concerning	
   psychoanalytic	
   point	
   of	
   view,	  Beauvoir	
   criticizes	
   Freud's	
   view,	
   which	
   she	  believes	
   is	
   based	
   upon	
   a	
   masculine	
   model,	  arguing	
   that	
   if	
   it	
   is	
   true	
   that	
   woman	   envies	
   man	  his	
  penis	  and	
  wishes	
  to	
  castrate	
  him,	
  she	  may	
  do	
  
that	
   "only	
   if	   she	   feels	
   her	   femininity	
   a	
   mutilation;	
  and	
   then	
   it	
   is	   a	   symbol	
   of	   all	   the	   privileges	
   of	  manhood	
  that	  she	
  wishes	
  to	
  appropriate	
  the	
  male	  16organ"	   (57).	
   Similarly,	
   in	
   another	
   chapter,	  Beauvoir	
   explores	
   the	   point	
   of	
   view	
   of	
   historical	
  materialism,	
   showing	
   that	   although	   the	   socialist	
  theory	  has	
  given	
  women	
  a	
  chance	
  to	
  get	
  rid	  of	
  the	
  oppression	
   they	   have	
   long	
   undergone,	
   she	   still	
  believes	
   that	   the	   theory	   has	
   failed	
   to	
   explain	
  several	
   important	
   concepts,	
   which	
   underlie	
   the	  theory	   such	   as	
   the	   origin	
   of	
   the	   family	
   or	
   the	  institution	
  of	
  private	
  property.	
  At	
  the	
  same	  level,	  Beauvoir	
   is	
   not	   convinced	
   of	
   Engels'	
   attempt	
   to	  reduce	  antagonism	
  of	
  the	
  sexes	
  to	
  class	
  struggle;	
  nor	
  does	  she	
  accept	
  regarding	
  woman	
  simply	
  as	
  a	
  
worker,	
   or	
   even	
   bringing	
   the	   sexual	
   instinct	
  under	   a	
   code	
   of	
   regulations.	
   Beauvoir	
   concludes	  that,	
   "we	   reject	
   for	   the	   same	
   reasons	
   both	
   the	  sexual	   monism	
   of	
   Freud	
   and	   the	   economic	
  monism	  of	  Engels"	
  (54).	
  	
  According	   to	
   women’s	
   image	
   in	
   literature,	  Beauvoir	
  believes	
  that	  "Literature	
  always	
  fails	  in	
  attempting	
   to	   portray	
   'mysterious'	
   women"	   (qtd	  in	
   Leitch	
   1412).	
   Under	
   the	   influence	
   of	
   the	  mysterious	
   image	
   fabricated	
   about	
   women	   in	  reality	
   and	   in	
   some	   theories,	
   novelists	
   have	  usually	
   tried	
   to	   show	
   women	   as	
   "strange,	
  enigmatic	
  figures",	
  although	  at	
  the	
  end	  of	  a	
  novel,	  it	
   appears	
   that	   they	   are	   rather	   "consistent	
   and	  transparent	
   persons"	   (1412).	
   Such	   images,	
   or	  myths,	
   are	   to	
   Beauvoir	
   the	   production	
   of	  patriarchal	
   society	
   for	   purposes	
   of	
   justification,	
  no	
   more	
   or	
   less.	
   To	
   support	
   her	   point,	
   she	   quotes	
  the	
   French	
   poet,	
   Jules	   Laforgue,	
   saying	   "Mirage!	
  Mirage!	
   We	   should	
   kill	   them	
   since	
   we	
   cannot	
  comprehend	
  them;	
  or	
  better	  tranquilize	
  them,	
  …	
  
make	
   them	
   our	   genuinely	
   equal	
   comrades,	   our	  intimate	
  friends"	
  (1413).	
  	
  
	
  
For	
   Beauvoir,	
   to	   see	   woman	
   equally	
   as	   a	   human	  being	
   doesn't	
   necessarily	
   impoverish	
   man's	
  experience,	
   make	
   her	   less	
   romantic,	
   or	
   destroy	
  the	
   dramatic	
   relationship	   between	
   the	   sexes;	
   "it	  is	
   not	   to	
   deny	   the	   significance	
   authentically	
  revealed	  to	
  man	
  through	  feminine	
  reality,	
  it	
  is	
  not	  to	
   do	
   away	
   with	   poetry,	
   love,	
   adventure,	  happiness,	
   dreaming.	
   It	
   is	
   simply	
   to	
   ask	   that	  behavior,	
   sentiment,	
   passion	
   be	
   founded	
   upon	  the	
   truth"	   (1413).	
   In	
   this	   respect,	
   Beauvoir	
  attacks	
   those	
   who	   think	
   that	
   modern,	
   liberated	
  women	  are	  not	
  women	
  at	  all,	
  because	
  to	
  be	
  a	
  true	  woman,	
   she	   has	   to	
   be	
   the	   “Other”,	
   as	
   patriarchy	
  wants	
   her	   to	
   be.	
   Even	
   those	
   men	
   who	
   claim	
   to	
   be	
  open-­‐minded	
   and	   liberal	
   may	   accept	
   woman	   to	  be	
  equal,	
  still	
  they	  want	  her	  to	
  stay	  inessential.	
  In	
  short,	
   Beauvoir	
   criticizes	
   those	
   who	
   can't	
  "contemplate	
   woman	
   as	
   at	
   once	
   a	
   social	
  personage	
   and	   carnal	
   prey”	
   and	   tells	
   them	
   that	  only	
   when	
   they	   "unreservedly	
   accept	
   the	  situation	
  into	  existence,	
  only	  then	
  will	
  women	
  be	
  
able	
  to	
  live	  in	
  that	  situation	
  without	
  anguish	
  [and	  only	
   then]	
   Laforgue's	
   prayer	
   will	
   be	
   answered"	
  (1414).	
  
	
  
In	
   a	
   clear	
   call	
   for	   action,	
   she	   emphasizes	
   that	  "society,	
   being	
   codified	
   by	
   man,	
   decrees	
   that	  woman	
   is	
   inferior:	
   she	   can	
   do	
   away	
   with	
   this	  inferiority	
   only	
   by	
   destroying	
   the	   male's	
  superiority"	
   (Second	
   Sex	
   57).	
   According	   to	  psychoanalysts,	
  Beauvoir	
  argues,	
  woman	
  tries	
  to	
  
drag	
   man	
   into	
   her	   prison	   by	
   keeping	
   his	   symbol	
  of	
   masculinity	
   under	
   her	   control.	
   Now	
   woman	  endeavors	
  to	
  escape	
  from	  this	  prison,	
  to	
  end	
  her	  immanence,	
   and	   to	
   emerge	
   into	   the	   light	
   of	
  transcendence.	
   It	
   is	
   now	
   man's	
   battle	
   not	   to	
   let	  her	
   go	
   and	   keep	
   her	   under	   his	
   sovereignty.	
   The	  solution,	
   she	   believes	
   is	
   in	
   recognition	
   of	
   each	  other	  as	
  equal	
  or	
  the	
  struggle	
  will	  go	
  on.	  	  
	  Interestingly	
  enough,	  Millet's	
  most	  famous	
  work,	  Sexual	   Politics,	
   which	
   brought	
   her	   to	
   fame	
   in	
  1970,	
  and	
  which	  offers	
  a	
  comprehensive	  critique	  of	
   patriarchy	
   in	
   Western	
   society	
   and	   literature	
  has,	
   in	
   fact,	
   striking	
   similarities	
   to	
   Beauvoir's	
   The	  Second	   Sex.	
   Vincent	
   Leitch	
   sees	   that	   the	   selection	
  from	
   The	   Second	
   Sex	
   which	
   he	
   includes	
   in	
   his	  anthology	
   "heavily	
   influenced	
   Kate	   Millet's	
   1970	
  feminist	
  classic,	
  Sexual	  Politics"(1405).	
  	
  
	
  
A	
  close	
  look	
  at	
  Millet's	
  Sexual	  Politics	
  shows	
  that	  even	
  the	  divisions	  and	
  subtitles	
  of	
  the	
  book	  are	
  in	
  
more	
   than	
   one	   way	   similar	
   to	
   those	
   in	
   The	  Second	   Sex,	
   with	
   some	   additions	
   such	   as	  ideology,	
   sociology,	
   and	   class.	
   In	
   her	   attempt	
   to	
  prove	
   that	   the	   relation	
   of	
   the	   sexes	
   is	   a	   political	
  one,	
   Millet	
   takes	
   races,	
   castes,	
   and	   classes	
   as	  examples	   of	
   how	
   relationships	
   are	   power-­‐structured	
   and	   how	
   one	   group	
   is	
   controlled	
   by	  another.	
   Except	
   perhaps	   for	   directly	
   considering	  this	
  “politics”,	
  her	  discourse	
  is	
  not	  much	  different	
  from	
   Beauvoir's	
   comparison	
   between	
   the	   sexes	
  and	
  the	
  blacks	
  or	
  the	
  Jews,	  where	  as	
  Millet	
  says,	  such	
   relationship	   "involves	
   the	   general	
   control	
   of	  one	   collectivity,	
   defined	
   by	
   birth,	
   over	
   another	
  collectivity,	
  also	  defined	
  by	
  birth"	  (Sexual	  Politics	
  
2).	
  As	
  Beauvoir	
  traces	
  patriarchal	
  culture	
  starting	  from	
   Plato,	
   Aristotle,	
   and	   St.	
   Thomas,	   Millet	
   also	  sees	
   that	   the	   relation	
   of	
   the	   sexes	
   throughout	
  history,	
   and	   even	
   "super	
   natural	
   authority,	
   the	  Deity,	
  'His'	
  ministry,	
  together	
  with	  the	
  ethics	
  and	
  17values,	
   the	   philosophy	
   and	   out	   of	
   our	   culture	
   __	  its	  very	  civilization…is	
  of	
  male	  manufacture	
  (3).	
  	  	
  Again	
   like	
   Beauvoir,	   Millet	
   criticizes	
   theories	
   that	  consider	   biological	
   differences	
   and	   physical	  strength	
   naturally	
   lead	
   to	
   man's	
   supremacy,	
  arguing	
  that	  the	  point	
  lies	  "in	  the	
  acceptance	
  of	
  a	
  
value	
   system	
   which	
   is	
   not	   biological"	   (5).	
   She	  adds	
  that,	
  “Endocrinology	
  and	
  genetics	
  afford	
  no	
  definite	   evidence	
   of	
   determining	
   mental-­‐emotional	
   differences	
   …[which]	
   even	
   raises	
  questions	
   as	
   to	
   the	   validity	
   and	   permanence	
   of	  psycho-­‐sexual	
   identity"	   (6).	
   To	
   Millet,	
   this	  identity	
   is,	
   therefore,	
   postnatal	
   and	   learned;	
   in	  other	
   words,	
   it	
   is	
   the	   result	
   of	
   "socialistion"	
   and	  "the	
   conditioning	
   of	
   early	
   childhood"	
   (9).	
   Isn't	
  this	
   the	   core	
   of	
   The	   Second	
   Sex	   that	
   "one	
   is	
   not	
  
born	
  a	
  woman"?	
  Similar	
  to	
  Beauvoir's	
  view	
  of	
  the	  role	
   of	
   religions	
   in	
   reinforcing	
   patriarchy	
  referring	
   to	
   St.	
   Augustine’s	
   writings,	   	
   Jews'	
  prayers,	
  and	
  others,	  Millet	
  discusses	
  "the	  Catholic	
  precept	
   that	   'father	
   is	
   head	
   of	
   the	   family,'	
   or	
  Judaism's	
   delegation	
   of	
   quasi-­‐priestly	
   authority	  to	
   the	   male	
   parent"	   (10).	
   In	
   addition,	
   Millet	
  criticizes	
  the	
  courtly	
  and	
  romantic	
  love	  which	  has	
  granted	
  characteristics	
  on	
  women	
  such	  as	
  virtues	
  and	
   confined	
   them	
   within	
   narrow	
   spheres	
   of	  behavior,	
   while	   Beauvoir	
   contends	
   that	   "The	  times	
  that	  have	  most	  sincerely	
  treasured	
  women	  are	
   not	   the	   period	
   of	
   feudal	
   chivalry	
   nor	   yet	   the	  gallant	
  nineteenth	
  century"	
  (qtd	  in	
  Leitch	
  1413).	
  	
  
	
  
In	
   another	
   striking	
   similarity	
   to	
   The	   Second	
   Sex,	  we	
  read	  in	
  Sexual	  Politics	
  that	  "Patriarchal	
  Legal	  system	  in	
  depriving	
  women	
  of	
  control	
  over	  their	
  bodies	   drive	
   them	
   to	
   illegal	
   abortions"	
   (Sexual	  Politics	
   19)	
   __	   a	   view	
   that	
   was	
   considered	
  scandalous	
  when	
  Beauvoir	
  wrote	  it	
  twenty	
  years	  earlier.	
   It	
   is	
   needless	
   to	
   say	   that	
   Millet's	
  discussion	
   of	
   what	
   she	   calls	
   "a	
   fear	
   of	
   the	  'otherness'	
   of	
   woman"	   (21)	
   is	
   clearly	
   Beauvoir's	
  innovative	   term.	
   Even	
   Millet's	
   discussion	
   of	
  
Freud	
   and	   his	   theory	
   of	
   "castration,"	
   echoes	
  Beauvoir's	
   detailed	
   analysis	
   and	   criticism	
   of	  psychoanalysts'	
   views	
   towards	
   women.	
   	
   Millet's	
  discussion	
   that	   the	   "uneasiness	
   and	   disgust	
  female	   genitals	
   arouse	
   in	
   patriarchal	
   societies	
   is	
  attested	
   through	   religious,	
   cultural,	
   and	   literary	
  proscription"	
   (22)	
   is	
   just	
   a	
   part	   of	
   Beauvoir's	
  lengthy	
   analysis	
   of	
   the	   difference	
   between	
   myth	  and	
  reality	
  concerning	
  the	
  feminine	
  body	  (qtd	  in	
  Leitch	   1408).	
   Even	
   the	   "Myths"	
   of	
   Pandora	
   and	  Eve,	
   which	
   Millet	
   discusses	
   in	
   page	   25,	
   are	  referred	
   to	
   in	
   The	   Second	
   Sex	
   such	   as	
   in	
   the	  introduction	
  (Second	
  Sex	
  8).	  	
  Another	  point	
  that	  shows	
  Beauvoir's	
  influence	  on	
  Millet's	
   Sexual	
   Politics	
   is	   political	
   and	   economic	
  position	
   of	
   women.	
   In	
   the	   introduction	
   to	
   The	  Second	   Sex,	
   Beauvoir	
   writes	
   that	
   men	
   still	
   "hold	  the	
   better	
   jobs,	
   get	   higher	
   wages,	
   despite	
   a	
   few	  rights	   achieved	
   by	
   women,	
   and	   have	
   more	  opportunity	
   for	   success	
   that	   their	
   new	
  competitors.	
  In	
  industry	
  and	  politics	
  men	  have	  a	  great	  many	  more	  positions	  and	  they	  monopolise	  the	
   most	
   important	
   posts…they	
   enjoy	
   a	
  traditional	
  prestige	  that	  the	
  education	
  of	
  children	
  tends	
   in	
   every	
   way	   to	
   support,	
   for	   the	   present	
  enshrines	
   the	   past	
   __	
   and	   in	
   the	   past	
   all	   history	
  has	
   been	
   made	
   by	
   men"	   (marxists.org	
   7).	
   Millet,	
  in	
   her	   turn,	
   shedding	
   light	
   on	
   the	   same	
   point,	
  cites	
   examples	
   and	   statistics	
   to	
   illustrate	
   man's	
  dominance"	
  in	
  such	  fields	
  (Sexual	  Politics	
  16).	
  In	
  
The	
   Second	
   Sex,	
   also,	
   Beauvoir	
   explains	
   the	  common	
   use	   of	
   the	   terms	
   "man"	
   and	   "woman"	
  where	
   the	   former	
   designates	
   human	   beings	
   in	
  general,	
   and	   the	   latter	
   represents	
   only	
   woman	
  
(qtd	
  in	
  Selden	
  533-­‐534).	
  Millet	
  explains	
  this	  idea	  of	
  patriarchal	
  language	
  considering	
  that	  "despite	  all	
   the	   customary	   pretence	
   that	
   ‘man’	
   and	  'humanity'	
   are	   terms	
   which	
   apply	   equally	
   to	
   both	  sexes,	
  the	
  fact	  is	
  hardly	
  obscured	
  than	  in	
  practice,	
  general	
   application	
   favors	
   the	   male	
   far	   more	  often	
   than	
   the	   male	   as	
   referent,	
   or	
   even	
   sole	  referent,	
   for	   such	   designations"	
   (Sexual	
   Politics	
  
29).	
  
	
  
A	
   final	
   similarity	
   worth	
   mentioning	
   between	
   the	  two	
   books	
   is	
   the	   image	
   of	
   women	   in	
   literary	
  works.	
   It	
   is	
   true	
   that	
   Beauvoir,	
   unlike	
   Millet,	  doesn't	
   muse	   on	
   this	
   issue	
   with	   detailed	
  examples,	
   as	
   Millet	
   does,	
   yet,	
   she	   discusses	
   it	  enough	   to	
   make	
   her	   point.	
   Criticizing	
   the	  unrealistic	
   image	
   given	
   to	
   women	   in	
   the	   "gallant"	
  nineteenth	
   century,	
   Beauvoir	
   criticizes	
   “the	  savage	   indictments	
   hurled	
   against	
   women	  throughout	
   French	
   literature.	
   Montherlant,	
   for	  example,	   follows	
   the	   tradition	
   of	
   Jean	
   de	
   Meung,	
  though	   with	   less	
   gusto.	
   This	   hostility	
   may	   at	
  times	
   be	
   well	
   founded,	
   often	   it	
   is	
   gratuitous,	
   but	  in	
   truth	
   it	
   more	
   or	
   less	
   successfully	
   conceals	
   a	
  desire	   for	   self-­‐justification”	
   (qtd	
   in	
   Selden	
   535-­‐536).	
  Echoing	
  Virginia	
  Woolf	  in	
  A	
  Room	  of	  One's	
  Own	
   and	   "Professions	
   for	   Women",	
   while	
  exploring	
   women's	
   literature	
   in	
   the	   West,	  Beauvoir	
   tries	
   to	
   unearth	
   the	   reasons	
   why	   no	
  woman	
   has	   written	
   books	
   such	   as	
   The	   Trial,	
  
18

Moby	
  Dick,	
  Ulysses,	
  or	
  Seven	  Pillars	
  of	
  Wisdom	
  in	
  
a	
   patriarchal	
   society.	
   She	   reasons	
   that,	
   "Women	
  do	
  not	  contest	
  the	
  human	
  situation,	
  because	
  they	  have	
   hardly	
   begun	   to	
   assume	
   it"	   (536).	
   What	  limits	
  women	
  to	
  be	
  as	
  great	
  as	
  the	
  few	
  rare	  male	  artists	
  is	
  not	  a	
  special	
  destiny;	
  it	
  is	
  rather	
  lack	  of	
  liberty.	
   To	
   Beauvoir,	
   "Art,	
   literature,	
   philosophy	  are	
   attempts	
   to	
   found	
   the	   world	
   anew	
   on	   a	  human	
   liberty:	
   that	
   of	
   the	   individual	
   creator”	  (536),	
   so	   she	   wonders	
   how	
   someone	   who	
   is	  deprived	
   of	
   liberty,	
   restricted	
   by	
   education	
   and	  custom,	  and	
  whose	
  attempts	
  to	
  find	  one's	
  place	
  in	
  
this	
   world	
   are	   too	
   "arduous"	
   would	
   be	
   able	   to	
  achieve	
   such	
   a	
   task	
   of	
   recreating	
   the	   world.	
  Beauvoir	
   calls,	
   this	   "the	
   free	   spirit"	
   women	
   is	  denied,	
   and	   that's	
   why	   "in	   order	
   to	
   explain	
   her	  limitations	   it	
   is	
   woman's	
   situation	
   that	
   must	   be	
  invoked	  and	  not	  a	
  mysterious	
  essence"	
  (537).	
  To	
  
be	
   free,	
   to	
   use	   Virginia	
   Woolf’s	
   words	
   in	  “Professions	
   for	   Women”,	
   women	   need	   to	
   kill	  their	
  angels,	
  or	
  phantoms,	
  so	
  that	  they	  can	
  write,	  not	
   depend	
   on	
   their	   charm	
   for	
   a	
   living,	
   and	   reject	
  their	
   sole	   role	   to	
   soothe,	
   flatter,	
   and	   comfort	
  males.	
   Undoubtedly,	
   Millet's	
   discussion	
   of	
   this	  issue	
   is	
   so	
   comprehensive	   while	
   criticizing	
  Norman	
   Mailer,	
   Henry	   Miller,	
   and	   D.H.	
   Lawrence,	
  trying	   to	
   illustrate	
   men	   writer's	
   use	   of	   sex	   to	  degrade	
   and	   undermine	
   women.	
   In	   a	   rare	
  reference	  to	
  Beauvoir,	
  and	
  while	  discussing	
  what	  she	
   calls	
   Lawrence's	
   insistence	
   on	
   "celebration	
   of	  the	
   penis"	
   and	   "on	
   inherent	
   female	
   masochism",	
  Millet	  says,	  "It	  is	
  no	
  wonder	
  Simone	
  de	
  Beauvoir	
  shrewdly	
   observed	
   that	
   Lawrence	
   spent	
   his	   life	
  writing	
  guidebooks	
  for	
  women"	
  (qtd	  in	
  Eagleton	  137).	
  	
  	
  
	
  
However,	
   though	   remarkable,	
   groundbreaking,	
  and	
   unprecedented,	
   The	   Second	
   Sex	   has	
   caused	
  ambivalent	
  response	
  in	
  France,	
  as	
  it	
  was	
  attacked	
  by	
   some	
   feminists	
   as	
   masculinist,	
   especially	
   in	  relation	  to	
  its	  controversial	
  accounts	
  of	
  biological	
  sex	
   and	   motherhood.	
   In	
   an	   article	
   in	
   Simone	
   de	
  Beauvoir	
   Studies	
   in	
   2008,	
   Ursula	
   Tidd	
   believes	
  that	
  Beauvoir	
  was	
  cast	  off	
  adrift	
  as	
  a	
  "first	
  wave"	  feminist	
   because	
   the	   1970s	
   and	   80s	   French	
  feminism	
   mainly	
   depended	
   on	
   psychoanalysis	
  and	
  semiotics,	
  the	
  negative	  effect	  her	
  intellectual	  and	
   personal	
   partnership	   with	   Sartre	
   has	  brought	
   about,	
   and	   the	   bad	   English	
   translation	
   of	
  Beauvoir's	
   The	   Second	
   Sex.	
   However,	
   Tidd	
  assures	
  that	  the	  "discovery	
  in	
  the	
  early	  1990s	  of	
  Beauvoir's	
   phenomenological	
   approach	
   to	  understanding	
   gender,	
   combined	
   with	   a	
  recognition	
   of	
   her	   original	
   syntheses	
   of	  

existentialism,	
   Hegelianism,	
   Marxism	
   and	  anthropology	
   in	
   Le	
   Deuxieme	
   Sexe,	
   has	   led	   to	   a	
  major	
   re-­‐evaluation	
   of	
   her	   contribution	
   to	  feminist	
   thought"	
   (2).	
   So,	
   according	   to	
   Tidd,	
   this	  has	
   led	   to	
   acknowledgement	
   of	
   her	   importance	
  and	
   influence.	
   The	   psychoanalytic	
   Writer	
  Elisabeth	
   Roudinesco,	
   for	   example,	
   asserts	
   that	
  Beauvoir	
   is	
   "the	   first	
   thinker	
   in	
   France	
   to	
   link	
  explicitly	
   the	   question	
   of	   sexuality	
   with	   political	
  emancipation"	   (qtd	
   in	
   Tidd	   3).	
   Through	
   her	   two	  books	
   Simone	
   de	
   Beauvoir:	
   The	   Making	
   of	
   an	
  intellectual	
   Woman	
   and	   Feminist	
   Theory	   and	  Simone	   de	
   Beauvoir,	
   the	   well-­‐known	
   feminist	
  Toril	
   Moi	   has	   highly	
   contributed	
   to	
   this	  recognition	
   of	
   Beauvoir's	
   achievements	
   and	   her	  influence	
   on	
   radical	
   and	   on	
   contemporary	
  feminism.	
   Tidd	
   quotes	
   Moi	   arguing	
   that	
  "Beauvoir's	
   concept	
   of	
   the	   body	   as	
   situation	
   is	   a	  crucially	
   original	
   and	   often	
   overlooked	
  contribution	
   to	
   feminist	
   theory"	   (5).	
   On	
  celebrating	   Beauvoir's	
   centenary	   in	
   January	  2008,	  Moi	
  writes	
  in	
  The	
  Guardian	
  that	  Beauvoir,	
  "the	
  greatest	
  feminist	
  thinker	
  of	
  her	
  century,	
  is	
  a	
  
phenomenal	
   achievement"	   (1).	
   Moi	   argues	
   that	  although	   The	   Second	
   Sex	
   was	
   a	
   source	   of	
  inspiration	  and	
  insight	
  for	
  countless	
  women	
  even	  before	   the	   women's	
   movement,	
   "major	
   writers	
   of	  the	
   women's	
   movement	
   –	
   Betty	
   Friedan,	
   Kate	  Millet	   and	   Germaine	
   Greer	
   __	
   barely	
   mention	  Beauvoir,	
   as	
   if	
   to	
   deny	   the	   influence	
   of	   a	  threatening	
   mother	
   figure"	
   (1),	
   while	
   other	
  dominant	
   "French	
   theorists	
   such	   as	
   Helene	  Cixous	   and	   Luce	   Irigaray	
   were	   openly	
   hostile	
   to	
  Beauvoir"	   (2).	
   In	
   this	   respect,	
   Alison	
   Holland	
  quotes	
   Moi	   writing,	
   "By	   becoming	
   intellectuals,	
  such	
   women	   have	
   made	
   themselves	
   the	   true	
  daughters	
   of	
   Beauvoir:	
   no	
   wonder	   that	
   many	  have	
   felt	
   the	   need	   to	   separate	
   themselves	
   from	
  
such	
   a	
   powerful	
   mother	
   imago"	
   (9).	
   Briefly	
   and	  directly	
   Moi	   insists	
   that,	
   "Everyone	   who	
   cares	  about	
   freedom	
   and	   justice	
   for	   women	   should	
  read	
  The	
  Second	
  Sex"	  (2).	
  	
  
	
  
In	
   an	
   interview	   in	
   Society	
   with	
   John	   Gerassi	
   in	
  1976,	
  Beauvoir	
  mentions	
  the	
  neglect	
  she	  receives	
  from	
   some	
   feminist	
   writers,	
   and	   she	   mentions	  Kate	
   Millet	
   as	
   an	
   example.	
   Without	
   showing	
   any	  blame	   or	
   anger,	
   She	   modestly	
   says	   that	
   such	  feminists	   "may	
   have	
   become	   feminists	
   for	   the	  reasons	
   I	
   explain	
   in	
   The	   Second	
   Sex;	
   but	   they	  discovered	   those	
   reasons	
   in	
   their	
   life	
  experiences,	
   not	   in	
   my	
   book"	
   (1).	
   Surprisingly	
  enough,	   in	
   Beauvoir	
   and	   The	   Second	
   Sex,	  Margaret	
  A.	
  Simons	
  quotes	  Millet	
  saying	
  nineteen	  19

years	
  later	
  that	  “She	  ‘couldn’t	
  have	  written	
  Sexual	  Politics	
   without	
   [The	   Second	
   Sex]’”	
   and	   that	
  “’Now	   I	   realize	
   that	
   I	
   was	   probably	
   cheating	
   all	  over	
  the	
  place’”	
  (145).	
  
	
  
The	
  purpose	
  of	
  showing	
  the	
  influence	
  of	
  Beauvoir	
  on	
   Millet's	
   Sexual	
   Politics	
   is	
   not	   to	
   underestimate	
  Millet’s	
   remarkable	
   work,	
   or	
   to	
   cast	
   doubts	
   on	  her	
   artistic	
   talent	
   and	   potential,	
   as	
   the	   role	   she	  has	
   played	
   in	
   the	   development	
   of	
   the	   feminist	
  movement	
   and	   feminist	
   literary	
   theory	
   is	  undeniable.	
  What	  this	  comparison	
  is	
  trying	
  to	
  do	
  
is	
   to	   show	   that	
   Beauvoir's	
   innovative	   ideas	
   and	  her	
  monumental	
  analysis	
  of	
  women's	
  conditions,	
  aggressively	
   though	   criticized	
   by	
   some	
   feminists	  and	
  other	  critics,	
  have	  definitely,	
  as	
  Romain	  Leick	  says	
   in	
   "A	
   fresh	
   Look	   at	
   Simone	
   de	
   Beauvoir”,	
  “established	
   the	   theoretical	
   underpinning	
   of	
  modern	
   feminism"	
   (1).	
   If	
   this	   and	   many	   other	
  similar	
   testimonies	
   mean	
   something,	
   it	
   is	
   that	
  Beauvoir's	
  influence	
  is	
  not	
  limited	
  to	
  Kate	  Millet,	
  
but	
  it	
  extends	
  to	
  other	  feminists	
  of	
  various	
  trends	
  and	
   interests.	
   	
   Despite	
   all	   criticisms,	
   Vincent	
  Leitch	   asserts	
   that	   "The	   Second	
   Sex,	  revolutionary	   in	
   its	   own	
   time,	
   offers	
   a	
   powerful	  analysis	
   of	
   the	   status	
   of	
   women	   and	   remains	
   a	
  foundational	
  text	  for	
  feminist	
  theory"	  (1405).	
  
	
  
No	
   matter	
   how	
   positively	
   or	
   negatively	
  Beauvoir's	
   role	   in	
   feminist	
   movement	
   and	  feminist	
  literary	
  criticism	  is	
  seen,	  hardly	
  is	
  there	  a	
   serious	
   academic	
   study	
   on	
   feminism	
   without	
  acknowledging	   Beauvoir's	
   essential	
   role	   as	   a	
  turning	
   point	
   not	   only	
   in	
   academic	
   and	   literary	
  studies	
   but	   in	
   the	   position	
   of	
   women	   as	
   well.	
  After	
   Beauvoir,	
   it	
   would	
   not	   be	
   that	
   easy	
   to	
  ignore	   women's	
   writings	
   again	
   and	   shunt	
   them	  off	
   the	   mainstream.	
   Nor	   would	   Shakespeare's	
  sister	   of	
   Virginia	
   Woolf’s	
   A	
   Room	
   of	
   One’s	
   Own	  have	
   gone	
   mad	   or	
   killed	
   herself	
   	
   without	
   being	
  able	
   to	
   write	
   any	   word	
   as	   she	   would	
   in	   a	
  misogynistic	
  patriarchal	
  world	
  of	
  the	
  past.	
  	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  

References	  	  Appignanesi,	
   Lisa.	
   [8	
   Jan.	
   2008].	
   "The	
   Heart	
   of	
  Simone	  de	
  Beauvoir."	
  Available	
  from:	
  
	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts-­‐literature/feminist.>	
   [Accessed	
   10	
   October	
  2008].	
  	
  Beauvoir,	
   Simone	
   de.	
   [February	
   2005].	
   The	  Second	   Sex.	
   Online	   Posting.	
   [Accessed15	
   Dec.	
  2008]	
  	
  
	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  Available	
  from:	
  <http://www.marxists.org.>.	
  	  Eagleton,	
   Mary.	
   ed.	
   (1991).	
   	
   Feminist	
   Literary	
  Criticism.	
  London	
  and	  New	
  York:	
  Longman,	
  	
  
	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  157-­‐170.	
  	
  Fallaize,	
   Elizabeth.	
   ed.	
   (1988).	
   Simone	
   De	
  Beauvoir:	
  A	
  Critical	
  Reader.	
  London:	
  Routledge.	
  	
  
	
  
Gardiner,	
   Anne	   Babeau.	
   [3	
   March	
   2008].	
  "Feminist	
   Literary	
   Criticism:	
   From	
   Anti-­‐
Patriarchy	
  to	
  the	
  
	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  Celebration	
   of	
   Decadence."	
   First	
   Principles	
  Journal.	
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  	  Gender Performance in James Joyce’s
Characterization of Stephen Dedalus andMolly Bloom
Yi-Ling Yang and Pin-Fen Huang
National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan
The conflict between the traditional conception of gender andthe way James Joyce presents his characters has aroused a seriesof critical discussions. In traditional thinking, women are
required to behave submissively, while men have to be
dominant and even aggressive. However, some critics claimthat Joyce has reversed this kind of tradition, and thecharacterization of Stephen Dedalus and Molly Bloom can be
the most appropriate examples to prove this argument.

“This dispersion of the source and nature of language beyond
the confines of a discrete, fully cognizant agent undermines
Stephen’s attempts to assert such an agency for himself. By
staging the materiality of language and the diffusion Stephen
with the corporeality and diffusion of sexuality more firmly
than can Stephen’s hyperbolic denials or embracing of his
sexuality” (21).
Through this observation, language is a very importantelements for Stephen due to his peroformativity in text.
Stephen uses language to perform his feminine characteristic.
It displays that Stephen against social exception in society ruleas he is writing and thinking. In other words, a man speaks insissy tone, which is a sort of rebellion to the social vision. Of
course, Molly is also another character who, fights against thesocial value.
Why does Stephen Dedalus become a womanly man in sexualintercourse? How can Molly enjoy sex easily like a man? Why
does Joyce reverse the gender stereotypes of the two characters?
Based on the description of Joyce, the plot of having sex with aprostitute also shows Stephen’s different features from othernormal men because he imagines himself to be a submissive
woman when he is with a prostitute. On the other hand, Molly
announces her body to possess and to dominate man’s body as
she frankly admits that she enjoys the process of owning a
lovely man. Hence, the focus throughout this essay will resideon the reversed gender performance of Stephen and Molly byadapting the concept of gender performativity, which is
proposed by Judith Butler. I attempt to argue that Butler’s ideaof performativity, not only demonstrates the gender identity ofStephen and Molly whether in physical or psychologicalaspects, but also symbolizes the new gender meaning in thisworld because of the interaction between the social ideology
and the individual value in the 20th century. That is, James
Joyce subverts Molly Bloom and Stephen Dedalus’ sexual
performance, which is similar to Judith Butler’s performativity.

James Joyce by Simon K (Creative Commons)
Actually, there has been a large of literature concerning withthe gender issue in Ulysses, especially the personality of Molly
and Stephen. For instance, Richard Pearce has pointed outthat “Molly is engendered in a male-dominated establishment,
and, equally important, the way gender-specific assumptions
about the nature of women were encoded in society” (5). By
observing this comment, Molly seems like a reformist who
intends to change the male-dominated view. Her monologue isthe best evidence to prove this belief because she createsanother vision to analyze the woman identity in the society.
Additionally, Stephen is another character who uses his bodyto pursue the extreme beauty in his discovery. Joshua Jacobs
discovers that:

The Definition of Judith Butler’s
Performativity
What is the difference between women and men? Based on the
biological analysis, womb and penis are the key points todisplay their uniqueness. Applying this recognition into thesocial system, therefore, the meaning of sex is established by
the biological definition instead of the mental situation. Here,Aristotle regards that “the female is female by virtue of acertain lack of qualities” and St Thomas Aquinas says that21

“woman is an imperfect man” (Selden 115). That is, penis
seems like an authoritative symbol in the patriarchy society.
Therefore, Freud further announces penis envy to demonstrate
the authority of patriarchy. To fight against this kind ofideological oppression, feminism begins to be prevalent. It
focuses on the historical stereotype of women.

follow what it thinks. That is, language creates a world what it
is. Also, you believe language without any hesitate. Here, it
accords that men and women perform their gender identity insociety. The authority makes an order, and then, people haveto perform their gender role unconsciously.
Therefore, Butler points out gender should not only include
men and women but also they may exchange what they want.
For instance, women’s performativity is still ambiguous topeople. Butler also says that “ [it] is difficult to say precisely
what performativity is not only because my own views on what‘performativity’ might mean have changed over time, mostoften in response to excellent criticisms, but because so manyothers have taken it up and given it their own formulations”(Salih 94). Based on her confession, performativity changes
over times, also, the meaning changes. Therefore, it is not easy
to define exactly what performance of gender is.

According to feminism, biological inequality between men andwomen is the key point to cause social injustice. Judith Butler,
who is a crucial queer theory critic, borrows J.L. Austin’s idea
performative in her theory. Here, Kira Hallin says that:
The origin of the term performative can be traced back toAustin's posthumous How To Do Things with Words.
Austin, objecting to the logical positivists' focus on theverifiability of statements, introduced the performative as a
new category of utterance that has no truth value since it does
not describe the world, but acts upon it—a way of “doing
things with words”. (1, original emphasis)

Sexuality follows the main stream, which is heterosexuality, tocreate a rule of what men and women should be. Here, Butler
points out gender formed by our history. The history process,which controls by authority. Therefore, it not only depends onsocial rules but also reflects on literature. “As literary theory ingeneral, however, began to acknowledge the uncertainty of its
premises, the nature of sex, sexuality and gender studies moved
decidedly away from a position of censoriousness and toward
one of intense ideological significance” (Gillespe 47). In otherwords, people can define their own sexuality, which is notcontrolled by society. That is, sexuality defines by you. For
instance, it defines what you performance for your attitude. It
is not depend on your gender. So, sexuality is defined by the
personal decision. Hence, gender is open up to men andwomen because they do not have to care social limitation.

In this passage, Austin’s performative is based on language ofphilosophy. For Austin observation of performativity inlinguistic is that “[sentence] is used in making a statement, andthe statement itself is a ‘logical construction’ out of the
makings of statements” (Austin 1). By observation, sentencemeans word, which makes a statement to limit in area. Also,
the statement is law and logic, which makes you believe. Thatis, people’s original recognition toward gender should be
judged as the consequence of the social evaluation system
instead of innate ability.
Influenced by J.L. Austin’s performative, Judith Butler hasaddressed that the social ideology has regulated the behavior ofmen and women, and the characteristic of gender is limited by
the society. For Judith Butler’s gender performativity, she not
only indicates the link between gender and society, but also
applies it into the explanation of individual spirit. Actually, thisidea can be traced back to the words of Simone de Beauvoir,“one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (Norton
1403). That is, girls are educated to wear pink dress rather thanblue because pink symbolizes female, in other words, boy
should dress in blue. In other words, our history is to educate
us to be a man or a woman. Hence, Butler says that “nothing isnature even sexual identity” because we living in social
constructed natural world in our gender (Norton 2485).

Also, “ Ulysses is a ‘female’ book and that a radical
reinterpretation of masculinity and femininity [in this text]”(Brown 102). James Joyce attempts to subvert the traditional
impression toward male and female to stimulate readers to
notice their uniqueness. Therefore, sexuality is one of the main
points for Joyce who reinterprets male and female identity inthis fiction.
As the studies show James Joyce’s work which gender
performance vividly shows in Ulysses and A Portrait of theArtist as a Young Man. Joyce not only famous his skill inmodernism but also challenges reader’s nation of gender.

In Judith Butler’s Bodies That Matter, she casts doubt that“constraint is thus built into what that language constitutes as
the imaginable domain of gender” (13). Here, Butler totally
points out that our gender is restricted by language. In otherwords, language limits gender’s performance which language
made us believe what it is. Therefore, Butler combines manyideas to explain the definition of performativity:

Comparison of Molly Bloom’s and Stephen
Dedalus’s Sex Replacement Molly Bloom’s
Sexual Desire
In Ulysses, Molly Bloom’s monologue regards another femaleview to reader. For instance, McMullen says “Undeniably,
Joyce through Molly provides a cross-section of thoughts,
expressing the needs and desires of everywoman andsupporting new understanding of the feminine psyche.” (1,original emphasis).From this argument, it shows the differenceof Molly from other traditional women.

“linguistic performativity refers to speech acts that effect what
they announce, for instance, ‘I dare you’; ‘I sentence you’.
Butler adapts this into theory of gender performativity whereby
certain announcement or performance of gender produce theeffects they seem to describe. Central to the theory of gender
performativity are the mechanisms of citation and repetition”(Brady 140).

Molly Bloom’s sexual desire and performance display the issueof sexual disorder in order to present her uniqueness in Ulysses.
For instance, Charles Darwin says, “Man is more courageous,

Based on sentence, from linguistic part of performativity refers
that when the sentence announces to you, then, you will be22pugnacious and energetic than woman, and has a moreinventive” genius” (316). That is, men’s behavior is more
driving and powerful than women. In other words, womenshow themselves by passive behavior in front of men.

him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me tosay yes” (Ulysses 782). She apparently knows man andperforms them in reality. Man loves woman to say affirmation
as they make love. Yes seems to be a positive word to male. By
observing the sentence, Yes sounds aphrodisiac to male.
According to this analysis, Molly is familiar with malecharacteristic especially in sexual aspects.

However, Molly does not belong to the traditional woman
when she talks about sexual intercourse. It totally changes theimage of the female character in traditional novel. When Molly
recalls the memory of how she and Boylan made love on thebed, it shows that she does not blush as she wants to have sex.
“I wished he was here or somebody to let myself go with andcome again like that I fell all fire all inside me” (Ulysses 754).
By observing this sentence, Molly admits her desire which iseager to have Boylan’s body or someone would touch her since
she is on fire. The word, fire, symbolizes that Molly cannot
control herself. For this reason, Molly is not shy to ask for sex
to man. Moreover, Molly likes a leader to have a sexualintercourse. She pursues her freedom and enjoys the process.
Additionally, it is similar to anther plot that Molly announces
like a man to assign Boylan’s position as she has sex. “ If I
could dream it when [Boylan] made me spend the 2nd time
ticking me behind with his finger I was coming for about 5
minutes with my legs round him I had to hug him after”(Ulysses 754). Through this comment, Molly asks Boylan totouch her back while she feels impulsive. Therefore, Molly is
not hesitated to ask Boylan what she wants. Also, my legsround him I had to hug him, which represents that Molly is anactive woman when she has desire.

Image by Greg (Creative Commons)
The word yes seems like an icon to Molly. She repeats yes
many times in “Penelope”. In the end of this chapter, Molly
gives a chance to Bloom and she visualizes that “first I put myarms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could
feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like
mad and yes I said yes I will yes” (Ulysses 783). This sentenceindicates that Molly fancies Bloom will do what she thinks.
Also, she becomes a leader to lead Bloom to discover her body.
The performance of Molly, she says yes as an inspiration toman. It seems praise to men. Now, Molly switches the statusof man and woman as she enjoys the process.

Beyond that Molly prefers to control man as she has sex. For
instance, she says “I didnt like his slapping me behind”(Ulysses 741). From this sentence, Molly regards that Boylan
offends her when he slaps her bottom. She does not likeslapping due to the transfer for power. Here, the action of slap
represents authority who have power to control the situation hewants. Boylan slaps Molly’s bottom which he reminds Molly tofollow his steps as she enjoys sex. It is similar that the power
exchanges while the action of slap remind Molly is a woman.
So, Molly senses that she cannot follow her desire as she enjoys
the intercourse. Therefore, Molly feels that Boylan cannot slap
her bottom because she wants to control the feeling. Joyce puts
this action to perform the double images of Molly’s innerworld.

Stephen Dedalus’s Sexual Desire
James Joyce depicts Stephen Dedalus in a very different way
compared with Molly Blooms’ understanding of herself in her
want. His behavior is not similar to male attitude as they havedesire. For instance, when Stephen was a child, he wants tomarry a girl called Eileen. But Stephen is scared when hediscovers his parents seem to deny his yearning. His mothersaid to him.

Molly uses playful words as she looks like a man. She vividly
describes man’s behavior when they make love. “yes I think hemade them a bit firmer sucking them like that so long he mademe thirsty titties he calls them I had to laugh yes this one any
how stiff the nipple gets for the least thing Ill get him to keepthat up and Ill take those eggs beaten up with marasala fatten
them out for him” (Ulysses 753). In this passage, it appears
that Molly describes that man named woman’s breast in titties
and she laughs at man. Hence, she also names man’s testicles
with eggs, which seems a revenge of man. Molly just likes toplay a game with male as she teases man. Therefore, she sneers
at man’s organ to make fun of male’s situation such as eggs
beaten up with marasala fatten.

--- O, Stephen will apologies.
Dante said:---O, if not, the eagles will come and pull out his eyes (APortrait 8).
This memory in Stephen’s childhood makes him to be a badboy for religious reasons. Stephen’s parents want him toforsake romance, because his parents do not accept thissituation because---- their religion is different. Therefore,
Stephen is like a coward; he does not fight for his love, yet,afraid of it. In traditional stereotype, man should be a strong
person to face troubles. However, Stephen is different theimage of man totally. Here, gender performativity exposes thatwhen human face dread, gender is not a main issue because
they are the same. For instance, Stephen cannot challenges his
parent’s authority and fight against for his love, however,

Molly not only enjoys sexual relationship with man but also
perceives male’s thought as she gets control in sexualintercourse. She imagines what would man think and she
becomes a director to control the process of sex. Molly
becomes man-like as she watches man in sex process. “I gave
23

Molly has sexual intercourse with Boylan without fear evenBloom knows. Based on these examples, it collapses thestereotype of man and woman.

His lips would not bend to kiss her. His lips would not bend to
kiss her. He wants to be held firmly in her arms, to be caressedslowly, slowly slowly. In her arms he felt that he had suddenly
become strong and fearless and sure of himself. But his lips
would not bend to kiss her. But his lips would not bend to kissher. (A Portrait 101)On the other hand, Kiss to Stephen has very different
meanings to him. When he was a teenager as high school
student, his classmates asked him a question:

The meaning of kiss for Stephen symbolizes the pure image ofhis mother. Therefore he will hesitate to kiss the prostitutebecause of the conflict image between his mother and thiswoman. Stephen is similar to woman because his hesitation isjust like a woman to who pursues truth of love. But theprostitute initiatives to lead Stephen to reconsider the behaviorof his performance during the beginning of make love due tohis hesitation. Women restrain their real feeling when they
have desire. Hence, Stephen is passive to prostitute’s passion
because he regards kiss is for his mother.

--- Tell us, Dedalus, do you kiss your motherbefore you go to bed?
Stephen answered:--- I do.
Well turned to the other fellows and said:--- O, I say, here’s a fellow says he kisses his mother every
night before he goes to bed.
The other fellows stopped their game and turned round,laughing. Stephen blushed under their eyes and said:--- I do not.
Wells said:--- O, I say, here’s a fellow says he doesn’t kiss his motherbefore he goes to bed.

When Stephen wanders on the beach, he finds a girl who is
wearing white dress. “A girl stood before him in midstream,along and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom
magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful
seabird…… Her slateblue skirts were kilted boldly about her
waist and dovetailed behind her” (A Portrait 171). In thispassage, Stephen sees woman as a seabird. The seabird issimilar to dove or purity. It is coherent with Stephen’s image ofhis mother. And this image is the function of purity andinnocence, which responds to Stephen’s innocence of sexualdesire. Stephen reverses man should have social skills insociety, which includes sexual experience. Stephen reflects his
innocence and purity in sexual behavior, which accords the
traditional female like a white angle in society including sexualintercourse. Therefore, feminine personality accords Stephen’spassive attitude.

They all laughed again. Stephen tries to laugh with them. He
felt his whole body hot and confused in a moment (A Portrait
14).
The teenage Stephen seems afraid to confess his love to hismother. When his classmates ask the question to make fun ofhim, he denies his passion to his mother after his face blushed.
Moreover, he also feels uneasy in his behavior as he felt hiswhole body hot and confused in a moment. In other words,
Stephen’s behavior is like a woman as he confesses his passion
to his mother. He is similar to a woman who will be shy when
she explains her desire. Stephen’s whole body is hot andconfused which is familiar with woman as woman do notcomprehend her body. It matches that Stephen performs the
feminine as he confesses his desire. Another time, when
Stephen is an adult, his friend Cranly asks him a question:

According to Simon de Beauvior, “He is the Subject, he is theAbsolute- she is the Other” (16). According to her argument,
woman is totally an outsider in the society. In other words,
man is one voice to interpret vision in our world. However,
Joyce changes the traditional veiw and invents anther vision toreaders. Therefore, Joyce puts Molly in “Penelope” to become awoman’s voice export. Additionally, Stephen has a feminine
personality as he faces sexual desire.

--- Have you never loved anyone? Cranly asked.
--- Do you mean woman?
--- I am not speaking of that, Cranly said in colder tone. I ask
you if you ever felt love towards anyone or anything (A Portrait
240).

Under Joyce writing, Molly and Stephen displays that theyexchanges their gender. Molly seems to be a pioneer towoman. She not merely exposes her desire but also reveals her
male personality as she has sexual intercourse to man. Molly is
totally different from Stephen. Molly prefers to control her
body and assign her lover movement to give her enjoyment.
She seems like man to appoint that woman position as they
make love. She is positive and aggressive on her sexual desire
especially on sexual position. On the contrary, Stephen ispassive to his desire on woman. During his sex with prostitute,
his attitude and behavior totally matches the image of woman.
Otherwise, Molly teases man as she looks man’s reaction insexual intercourse. Joyce puts this part to liberate many
women’s monologue about man. And Stephen’s sissy
personality during sexual behavior reverses traditional way innovel. Therefore, Joyce exchanges their sexuality to make otherangles to show the difference man and woman. It is a challenge
to Joyce. Also, he discovers not only man’s voice but also
woman’s voice in the world.

From this passage, Cranly wants to know if Stephen has
emotions to somebody. But Stephen answers him in strange
answers. The sentence of Do you mean woman in text suggeststhat Stephen hasn’t been in love before. His response indicatesthat he never loved someone and understood woman except his
mother. Stephen exposes that he lacks experience about
woman and he shies to explore female. He appears that he is
an introvert due to his characteristic. Stephen is like female
when they met question about love.
For Stephen, kiss has a special meaning to him. When he has
sexual desire he looks for a prostitute to solve his problem.
During their sexual intercourse, the prostitute requests that
Stephen has to reaction to her:--- Give me a kiss she said.
24

attitude of women as they face sexuality. Judith Butler’s
performativity is a good way to explore the dilemma of sexualdesire. Hence, Joyce reveres not just the stereotype of sexualemotions on human desire but also challenges the identity ofsexuality. So, Judith Butler’s performativity indicates the way
Joyce vividly explores. Also, the skill colors Joyce’s works. In
conclusion, Joyce uses his ways to reverse the gender roles ofmen and women. So the gender of Stephen and Molly istransformed in text because Joyce displays the multiple voices
and interlaces their monologue in their conversation.

Conclusion
James Joyce reverses our conventional view toward men andwomen as he exchanges Molly’s and Stephen’s mental sexual
characteristics. He reinterprets women’s monologue toward
men, and also tries to change the traditional male image. The
personality of Molly and Stephen in this novel candemonstrate this idea. Therefore, Molly’s masculine
performance shows that women are not passive and shy as they
face their desire. Also it is a way to display their power of
emotions. Stephen’s feminine performance appears passive andunnatural as he has sexual intercourse. It is coherent with theReferences
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Leitch, Vincent B., Ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. USA: Norton, 2001. Print.
---. “Simone de Beauvoir.” 1403-14.
---. “Judith Butler.” 2485-2501.

25Modernist London through English andJapanese Eyes: Virginia Woolf's The
London Scene and Natsume Sōseki 's The
Tower of London
ANDREAS PICHLER, AIX-MARSEILLE UNIVERSITÉ, FRANCE
of London when analysing the way of regarding, seeing andtrying to understand a metropolis on the brink of modernity?

Abstract
Images of stream-like tides and waves, trailing mists and fogs,
and afloating sensations of seeing and observing are present in
Woolf’s The London Scene and Sōseki’s The Tower ofLondon. Both, Woolf and Sōseki, lived for some time within
the famous Bloomsbury Square (Woolf at 46 Gordon Squareand later at 29 Fitzroy Square, Sōseki at 76 Gower Street),both visited the same iconic sites such as the Thames, theDocks, the Tower, the City and Carlyle House. Their views,
one European the Japanese, coincide in the way they seem toportray the modern metropolis from a highly personal andvisual perspective. This article aims at conveying to what extent
a sense of prevailing spaciousness has been the authors’ distinct
hallmark. Through English and Japanese eyes, native and nonnative alike, this publication will shed some light upon theimportance of space in modernist literature to capture some of
their visual impressions.

With close to seven million inhabitants in 1905 (London City
Council, 23), the Greater London area was the world’s
ultimate surreal, disorientating urban landscape compared withthe relatively small scale of Tokyo’s two million in 1900
(Tokyo Statistics Division). The founding of the Metropolitan
Police Service in 1829, the inauguration of the world’s firstunderground line between Paddington and King’s Cross in
1862, and the creation of the London County Council in 1889
to organise London’s first elected administration, allcontributed to the increasing size of the world’s largest urban
centre. Towards the end of Victoria’s reign and during the
Edwardian period London’s sheer vastness surpassed any
previously known municipal dimension.
Sent to London on a Japanese government scholarship in 1900,
Natsume Sōseki arrived in this phantasmagoric city on 28
October and moved in at 76 Gower Street in the Bloomsbury
District just north of the British Museum. Life in England andin London for Sōseki was characterised by profound historicaland cultural changes during his two years’ stay, marked by
Queen Victoria’s death on 22 January 1901 and London’s
emergence as the world’s leading metropolis. Setting up houseon 85 Priory Road, West Hampstead, then on 6 Flodden
Road, Camberwell, on 2 Stella Road, Tooting and finally on
81 The Chase in Clapham Common, Sōseki lived in a numberof distinctively different districts experiencing the city fromdiverse geographical locales. When returning to Japan in 1903,
he started working on seemingly disconnected short stories in
an attempt to put on paper his encounters with London. Twoof the stories – “The Tower of London” and “The Carlyle
Museum” – were published in 1906 in a volume entitled
Drifting in Space, while “Fog” and other short stories werecomprised in Short Pieces for Long Days in 1909.

Image by Maistoria (Creative Commons)Introduction
What would a “viewing of modernist London” throughJapanese and English eyes look like? How would London look
like when perceived from different cultural backgrounds,
written about in substantially different languages? Is it
conceivable to avoid the pitfalls of a metonymic representation
26

Virginia Woolf on the other hand was born in the posh districtof Kensington in 1882 and spent most of her cherished years in
the British capital. In order to escape the rather grim
atmosphere following the death in 1904 of her father, Sir
Leslie Stephen, she decided to move together with her sister
Vanessa from Hyde Park Gate to 46 Gordon Square,
Bloomsbury. In contrast to Kensington, 46 Gordon Square
figured, as Michael Whitworth observes, “as a place of light,
space, and freedom after the darkness and claustrophobia of 22
Hyde Park Gate; as a place of rational if slightly chilly beauty
after the ugliness of their old home” (Whitworth, 10).

Through the informal Thursday evening events first organisedby her brother Toby, the initial core of the so-called
Bloomsbury Group came into existence. The regular meetings
with Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Desmond MacCarthy, Roger
Fry, Maynard Keynes and E. M. Forster allowed Woolf toadvance and share her literary talent through a mutually
supportive network of friends.

Most critics have focused on the London cityscape as a literary
subject matter, modern-culture readings, empiricist,
impressionist and symbolist renderings of the city. Works suchas Bradbury’s Modernism, Dennis’ Cities in Modernity,
Freeman’s Conceiving the City, Brooker’s Geographies ofModernism, and Ackroyd’s London The Biography, all focus on
geographical representations of the city in a metonymic way.
Woolf’s The London Scene is at its best only marginallyportrayed; in her notorious biography Lee devotes only half apage to The London Scene and says that “there was nothinginsular or complacent about her view of her city. Suchpatriotism as she had was for places, not people or traditions or
beliefs” (Lee 554). Sōseki’s The Tower of London has been
entirely ignored by recent critics; most have focused on his
novel I Am a Cat and Kokoro including Yiu’s remarkable study
entitled Chaos and Order in the Works of Natsume Sōseki.
Brooker is correct in pointing out in his introduction that “thedistinction between the physical and imagined city proves
important [...] and is closely related to the distinction between
literary or artistic modernism and social modernity” (Brooker,
5). Arguing that physical geography and the built environment
function as a “determining influence upon consciousness andconduct” (Brooker, 5), I shed some light upon Woolf’s The
London Scene and Sōseki’s The Tower of London analysing arationally geographic view on modernist London.

The London fog
Linking geography to The London Scene (Lee is right in sayingthat Woolf had a patriotism for places, in particular for
London which she loved and preferred over the countryside)
and The Tower of London to advance an innovative approachthat is both physical and metaphorical is based upon asurprisingly single geographical feature: the London fog.
Image by Federico (Creative Commons)

Fog was construed as an image of hiding and covering up by
authors such as Dickens, Doyle, Stoker and Wilde in the latter
half of the nineteenth century. The geographical environment
is not topographically linked to reality and mystifies places inworks such as Dracula: “I find that the district he named is in
the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of threestates, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of
the Carpathian mountains ; one of the wildest and least known
portions of Europe. I was not able to light on any map or work
giving the exact location of the Castle Dracula, as there are nomaps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance
Survey maps” (Stoker, 1). The image of fog used to shroud
specific and rational settings is an all too familiar one: “In thisfog, my dear Basil? Why, I can’t even recognise Grosvenor
Square. I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I
don’t feel at all certain about it” (Wilde, 167). Wilde’s use offog in The Picture of Dorian Gray to blur the clear contours ofGrosvenor Square in central London is similar in its
metaphorical depiction to Doyle’s covering up of the murder in
The Hound of the Baskerville: “I have said that over the great
Grimpen Mire there hung a dense, white fog. It was drifting
slowly in our direction, and banked itself up like a wall on thatside of us, low, but thick and well defined. The moon shone onit, and it looked like a great shimmering ice field, with theheads of the distant tors as rocks bore upon its surface.
Holmes’s face was turned towards it, and he mutteredimpatiently as he watched its sluggish drift” (Dolye, 189).

Peering about
In her collection of short storied entitled The London Scene,
Woolf describes “the power and the ‘vast conglomeration’ of
the city” (Lee, 554). London, as Lee says in her biography, is“the modern ‘surface’ which stimulates and absorbs her, and yetin which she is ‘alien’ and ‘critical’” (Lee, 554). Images of
stream-like tides and waves, trailing mists and fogs, afloating
sensations of seeing and observing make up the fabric of themodern city in an ever-changing environment of the vast
metropolis. What seems to dominate Woolf’s vision of
London is the fact of seeing, or rather peering about, of justbecoming visible: “Waving long blades of wood to which lamps
have been fixed, we peer about” (Woolf, London Scene 21).
Sōseki’s The Tower of London similarly portrays London
through a haze of sensual awareness and gazing: “When I gazefrom the Tower Bridge at this Tower of London, there before
my eyes across the river Thames, I lose myself in an intensityof gazing” (Soseki, Tower 93). Conveying to what extent a
sense of prevailing visual perception, of personal gazing and“peering about” has been the authors’ distinct hallmark, I argue
that a “visual” stream of consciousness is present in their essays
in an attempt to link rational geography to the literary
portrayal of London.
27

essay Fog, Sōseki returns to the evaporating vision of London
in the fog: “From the bottom of the lawn below to the top of
the brick walls over six feet high that surround it on threesides, nothing is visible. Only a total emptiness clogs the air.
[...] Now this garden, so rich in memories, is also buried in fog,
and between it and the unkempt garden of my own boarding
house there is no boundary, as one seamlessly fuses into theother” (Soseki, Fog 146). The Dictionary of PhysicalGeography defines fog as " the index (Ip) is expressed by :Ip=f(dw, tp, Sp, ep), where : dw is the distance from and thespatial extent of standing water ; tp is a function of the local
topography at point p ; Sp is a function of the road topography
at point p ; ep is an expression of any environmental feature
likely to help or hinder the formation of [...] fog" (Whittow
196).

More importantly, fog is intrinsically related to the physicalgeography of London. Fog as a meteorological phenomenon
belongs to the study of geophysics which in turn is asubcategory of physical geography as part of the atmosphericlayers of the earth. And as such, fog conveys a physical barrier
to seeing and perceiving. Both authors, Woolf and Sōseki,
employ fog as such a physical and real geographicalphenomenon when “peering about” London.
In his sequence entitled Drifting in Space (1906) Sōseki
mentions fog in terms of the urban landscape: “Walking acrossthe park before dinner, I sit down in a seat by the riverside andgaze at the opposite shore. The deep fog so characteristic ofLondon is particularly evident by the river” (Soseki, Tower
117). Sōseki traces the layers of fog with his own eyes: “I [...]
look straight ahead at the shadows of fog creeping along theroad on the far distant bank as they become gradually darker”(Soseki, Tower 117). Fog is equally present in Woolf’s The
London Scene: “And the season of the house – for every househas its season – seems to be always the month of February,
when cold and fog are in the street [...]” (Woolf, London
Scene 40). The house Woolf talks about is the Carlyle House1
just north of the Chelsea Embankment, the very same which
Sōseki observes shrouded in fog from the opposite Thames’bank.

Fog is linked to space as measured in the distance from one
point to another point and always remains in relation to the
local physical topography because the environment dictates thespatial dispositions of the misty mass. The very sameenvironmental dispositions are present in Sōseki’s descriptions:“When I go outside only about four yards ahead is visible.
When one proceeds four yards, another four yards ahead
becomes visible. I walk along wondering whether the world has
shrunk to a four yards square, and the more I walk the more a
new four yards square appears. In its place, the world I havewalked through passes into the past and continuously
disappears” (Soseki, Fog 147). The fog’s space-time continuum
limits the visibility and the urban landscape recedes from view.
The local topography and physical environment simply meltaway.

But why the fog, one might ask. Fog, I argue, – as a material
geographical substance and as a literary metaphor – not only
occurs frequently in their works but is tied to question of visual
depictions of the London metropolis at the turn of the lastcentury.

Fog unveils its own dynamics due to its characteristics offormlessness (fog has no definite or consistent spatial form),
content-lessness (apart from the water particles), site-lessness(no specific geographical location), and time-lessness (not tied
to a specific time aspect).

Sōseki’s foggy London
The employment of fog as a material substance is distinctively
different in their essays. Sōseki’s London literally fades awayfrom vision due to the foggy layers: “In the midst of air
saturated with sepia-coloured moisture I vacantly stand andgaze at it. Twentieth-century London gradually disappears
from the back of my mind and, at the same time, the image of
the Tower before my eyes starts like a phantom to sketch thehistory of the past in my brain” (Soseki, Tower 93). Sōseki is“unable to see anything” (Soseki, Tower 111), “the whole
spectacle vanishes into thin air. When I look around there is no
trace” (Soseki, Tower 112). The moisture, drizzle and sepiacoloured smoggy atmosphere belongs to the London fog
shrouding the city behind an impermeable veil. The cityscapevanishes as “everything disappears little by little into thetrailing mist. In the end, like a distant, future world dragged in
front of my eyes” (Soseki, Tower 117). Drawn away fromvision, London gradually becomes invisible.

There is no beginning nor end for fog forms and dissolves
along the lines of its own dynamics. Fog acts like a selfvibrating region with its own intensities because its substance –white, empty and colourless – relies on the vibration of thewater particles constituting its own energy. Similar to Sōseki’s
evocation in The Tower of London: “But in an instant thecoloured object disappears into the middle of the turbid
emptiness. It is enveloped in the middle of a vast
colourlessness. As I cross Westminster Bridge, a white object
flaps fleetingly once or twice past my eyes. [...] At thatmoment Big Ben starts solemnly striking ten o’clock. When I
look up there is only sound in the emptiness” (Soseki, Fog147). Fog’s material substance has become so heavy-laden in
the air that the city’s invisibility only allows for the striking
sounds of Big Ben to come through.

Fog as a material substance lends itself to a much wider
interpretation in terms of the space-time continuum. In his

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
1	
  Preserved	
  since	  1895	
  this	
  writer's	
  house	  in	
  the	
  heart	  of	
  one	  of	
  London's	
  most	  famous	
  creative	
  quarters	
  tells	
  the	
  story	
  of	
  Thomas	  and	
  Jane	  Carlyle.	
  Thomas	
  Carlyle	
  (1795-­‐1881)	
  was	  a	
  Scottish	  satirical	
  writer,	  essayist,	
  historian	
  and	
  teacher.	
  The	
  couple	
  moved	  here	
  from	  their	
  native	  Scotland	
  in	
  1834	
  and	  became	  an	
  unusual	
  but	
  much-­‐loved	
  celebrity	
  couple	  of	
  the	
  19th-­‐century	
  literary	
  world.	
  [www.nationaltrust.org.uk/carlyles-­‐house]	
  28

nature of the metropolis, its freshness: “The delightful thing
about London was that is was always giving one something
new to look at, something fresh to talk about” (Woolf, London
Scene 82). Woolf’s London is present, here and now, afreshand alive while Sōseki’s London is absent and dull, wrapped
into a Victorian-like fog.

The effacement of subjectivity
The fog’s absence and presence as a material substance disclosedissimilarities in terms of its metaphorical modes. Linked to its
visibility and invisibility, the image of fog, is responsible for aneffacement of subjectivity. The image of fog veiling thelandscape is an all too familiar phenomenon of effacing theclear and pertinent contours of trees, houses, hills andmountains.
While Woolf uses fog as a metaphorical concept to shroud theVictorian past (she employs fog when talking about the Carlyle
House from the 19th century as quoted above), fog on the other
hand metaphorically objectifies Sōseki’s London. The
metropolis vanishes behind the layers of mist and looses its
subjectivity from grey shades into dark depths of shapelessforms: “and the world that has appeared grey until now
suddenly turns dark on four sides. Like thick liquefied peat
washing around my body, the heavy, black-stained fog has
started to assail my eyes and mouth and nose” (Soseki, Tower
14). The metropolis seems to melt into a hazy and formlessocean of urban blackness: “I blankly pause for a while in the
middle of this oppressive murkiness. [...] At that moment apulse of yellow light the size of a pea dully appears at a single
point in this ocean of haziness. With this as a target I move
forward about four paces” (Soseki, Tower 148). The fog has
dissipated street names, monuments and sights effacing themetropolis’ subjectivity. Street names, localities andmonuments have been lost to foggier climes.

Soseke Natsume courtesy Japan National Library

The charm of Woolf’s modern London
The emptiness and colourlessness of the misty mass are
similarly striking in Woolf’s The London Scene, not due to the
fog’s all-encompassing presence but due to its absence. Smog, acompound word coined from smoke and fog in 1905 by Henry
Antoine in the July 26 edition of the London newspaper Daily
Graphic, appears as the only residue of fog present in Woolf’s
renderings of London: “As we come closer to the Tower
Bridge the authority of the city begins to assert itself. The
buildings thicken and heap themselves higher. The sky seems
laden with heavier, purpler clouds. Domes swell; church spires,
white with age, mingle with the tapering, pencil-shaped
chimneys of factories. One hears the roar and the resonance ofLondon itself” (Woolf, London Scene 16). Similar to Sōseki,
the resonance of London itself pierces through the smog, themetropolis however does not appear to be enshrouded.

Exploring Sōseki’s topography of London appears to beanachronistic. Physical geography has simply disappeared
behind the veils of fog: “faint ghosts of spires disclose
themselves as the smoke clouds shift. ‘In the direction of
London’ is already an anachronism. [...] I cast my eyes towards
what he (Carlyle) would have called ‘the direction of London’.
But neither Westminster nor St Paul’s are visible” (Soseki,
Tower 123). The spatial and temporal characteristics ofphysical geography linked to the human interference in thenatural operation of the physical systems, belong to the past as
the two most imposing of London’s monuments, Westminster
and St Paul’s, have faded away from vision. London’s
subjectivity is a relic from the past: “I hardly knew one
direction from another and, of course, knew nothing at allabout geography” (Soseki, Tower 91). The use of the map, anobject of urban representation, seems to strengthen thegeographical anachronism: “I had to walk about gingerly using
a single map as my guide for sightseeing and errands every day”
(Soseki, Tower 91).

A crystalline clear transparency seems to reign over its roofs:“The charm of modern London is that it is not built to last ; itis built to pass. Its glassiness, its transparency, its surging waves
of coloured plaster give a different pleasure and achieve a
different end from that which was desired and attempted by
the old builders and their patrons, the nobility of England”(Woolf, London Scene 31). While the temporary nature ofmodern London seems to correspond to the temporary natureof fog as a material substance, its visibility is not affected by it.
On the contrary, London comes to light: “The Abbey is full ofKings and Queens, Dukes and Princes. The light falls upongold coronets, and gold still lingers in the folds of ceremonialrobes” (Woolf, London Scene 55). Its visibility to the observer
becomes an integral part of its modernity, to the changing

The fog has deprived the metropolis of its subjectivity; theexistence of the mind may likewise be at issue: “If I say, ‘I camenot knowing from whence I came, and left not knowing fromwhence I left’, it will sound Zen-like, but, even now, I have noidea which roads I passed along to arrive at the Tower or what
districts I crossed over to get back to my house” (Soseki, Tower
92). The blurring of the city runs in a parallel fashion to the29blurring of the mind: “I felt like being a Gotenba rabbit 2
suddenly set loose in the heart of Nipponbashi. Thinking I
might be swept away in a human wave when I went outside,[...] I had peace of mind neither day nor night” (Soseki, Tower
91). The reference to the dislocation of the Mt Fuji rabbit
within Osaka’s most commercial district, the Nipponbashi,
called Nagamachi (長町) during the Edo period, alludes to the
fogging of the mind and places Sōseki completely out of timeand space.

subjective and personal accounts have been effaced: “And wemust not admit a distinct tendency in our corrupt mind soakedwith habit to stop” (Woolf, London Scene 71). The visible
omnipresence of London has eclipsed and corrupted the mind
causing an ambiguous stream of consciousness: “Something of
the splendour of St. Paul’s lies simply in its vast size, in its
colourless serenity. Mind and body seem both to widen in thisenclosure, to expand under this huge canopy where the light isneither daylight nor lamplight, but an ambiguous element
something between the two” (Woolf, London Scene 52). The
ambiguity results from the effacement of subjectivity as mind
and body are challenged by the vastness of the metropolis.

London’s perpetual stream
While the effacement of London’s subjectivity plays a central
role in Sōseki’s The Tower of London, an effacement of adifferent sort seems to take place in Woolf’s The London Scene.
Rather than writing in the first person singular as opposed toan autobiographical account, Woolf uses the first person plural
we in her London impressions. The subjectivity of theobserver/narrator, in the role of an urban wanderer, seems togradually vanish giving way to an omnipresence of themetropolis. Eying the wholeness of London from Hampsteadin the north: “we find ourselves on top of the hill and beneathshall see the whole of London lying below us. It is a view of
perpetual fascination at all hours and in all seasons. One sees
London as a whole – London crowded and ribbed andcompact, with its dominant domes, its guardian cathedrals ; its
chimneys and spires ; its cranes and gasometers ; […] London
has lain there time out of mind” (Woolf, London Scene 46).
The fog has dissipated leaving the translucent metropolis
stretched out below eternally. London simply dominates, acts
as the dominant subject matter: “It is a commonplace, but wecannot help repeating it, that St. Paul’s dominates London. It
swells like a great grey bubble from a distance; it looms over us,
huge and menacing, as we approach” (Woolf, London Scene
49).

Modernist London appears distinctively differing and deferring
through English and Japanese eyes. Exchanges and encounters
between the fog and its dissipation, between the human mind
and the metropolis, between Woolf and Sōseki unveil thecomplexity of a city on the brink of modernity, with its
countless tube lines, its never-ending suburban terraces and its
all polluting smog. London has gained its status as the largest
capital of the world with over seven million people in 1910 –New York had 4.5, Paris 3, Berlin and Vienna 2 million
inhabitants (London City Council, 23) –, but has it lost its
visibility? As a literary subject matter definitely not, to thehuman eye maybe. It is interesting that both, Woolf andSōseki, seem to have been in their very own way overwhelmed
by London.

References
Abel, Jonathan E. Redacted: the archives of censorship in transwar
Japan. Berkeley: Univ Of California Press, 2012.
Angles, Jeffrey. Writing the love of boys: origins of Bishōnenculture in modernist Japanese literature. Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota Press, 2011.
Edogawa, Ranpo. Edogawa Ranpo, chikuma nihon bungaku
zenshū. Chikuma shobō, 1991.
Edogawa, Ranpo. Kotō no oni. Shunyō dōshoten, 1987.
Pflugfelder, Gregory M. Categories of desire: Male-MaleSexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950. 1. pbk. print.
Berkeley: Univ Of California Press, 2007. ISBN 05-202-51652.
Putna, Martin C. Homosexualita v dějinách české kultury. Praha:
Academia, 2011.

A threatening submission to the sheer vastness of the English
capital looms over “us”, crushed under the swelling monumentof St Paul’s. The city can not come to a conclusion, it appears
as an uncontrollable and perpetual stream: “But as one saunters
towards the sunset – and what with artificial light and moundsof silk and gleaming omnibuses, a perpetual sunset seems tobrood over the Marble Arch – the garishness and gaudiness ofthe great rolling ribbon of Oxford Street has its fascination. It
is like the pebbly bed of a river whose stones are for ever
washed by a bright stream” (Woolf, London Scene 26). Longago the mists dissolved exhibiting the bright and shiny urban
ribbon of Oxford Street rendered visible by its tasteless, butfascinating shops and department stores.
The urban subjectivity sways a human one: “Where
Shakespeare and Jonson once fronted each other and had their
talk out, a million Mr. Smiths and Miss Browns scuttle andhurry, swing off omnibuses, dive into tubes. They seem too
many, too minute, too like each other to have each a name, acharacter, a separate life of their own” (Woolf, London Scene50). The distinctive Shakespeare and Jonson are replaced by
faceless Smiths and Browns taken up by the ebb and flow of
the impersonal urban stream. The dissipation of the fog has
also unlashed London’s dominance upon the observer whose

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
2	
  A	
  Gotenba	
  rabbit	
  is	
  said	  to	  originate	
  from	  the	
  village	
  of	
  Gotenba	  on	
  the	
  flanks	
  of	
  Mt	
  Fuji.	
  	
  

30

目

IAFOR
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Supported by“The Changing Place of Making”. Grand Prize Winner & Best Newcomer Mini (2014). Image Courtesy of Jack Weisman.

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The IAFOR
Academic Review
Volume 1 | Issue 6

Essays on Modern Classics
from the 20th Century

Published by The International Academic Forum(IAFOR), Japan
IAFOR Publications. Sakae 1-16-26-201, Naka-ward,
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