The recurring event in the tenth tale of The Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre is deception. In order for Amador, the hero of the tale, to pursue the object of his desire, Lady Florida, he engages in a series of ruses. Decorous behavior among the nobility in 16th Century Spain was such that emotions and intentions must be hidden at all cost. There was little guilt felt about the fulfillment of carnal desires (needs and ambitions). The situation most to be avoided was any public revelations about one's devious schemes and illicit involvements that could bring shame to one's name and reputation. The more than fifteen instances in this tale of hiding feelings as well as manipulative schemes requiring blattant lies indicate an obsessive anxiety about being discovered and dishonored, or worse. There is a general tendency among the characters in this tale to disbelieve what they are told. The climate of suspicion can be seen as directly responsible for a number of instances of misinterpretation of behavior.
This psychological narrative gives the reader partial access to Amador's feelings that are hidden from the other characters. Full disclosure of his true intentions is delayed until the end of the tale. Whereas we are told when he looks at Florida: "He was transported with joy, and was only able to utter a few words of greatful thanks" (p. 125), it is his behavior which indicates the extent of his excitement that has rendered him speechless, even though Florida fails to see that. His marriage to Avanturada who is Florida's close friend is both a foil and a means of being brought into Florida's proximaty and eventually her trust. Winning her mother's confidence is one more step toward achieving his goal.
Exactly what he is after is not yet revealed to us (how about to himself? Does he know?). The suggestion that what he really wants is a sexual conquest (this may be too strong) is made when he pretends to be making a confession of love to Florida when he begins by asking the question: "Tell me, is it better to speak or die?" (p. 129) In a culture in which feelings must be hidden, there is all the more irony in a feigned confession of love which is actually a manipulative ruse. The suggestion of what he really wants is made when he says: "But you must believe me, my Lady, when I tell you that I am not one of those men who would exploit this advantage. I desire no favour, nor pleasure from you, except what is in accordance with the dictates of virtue." (p. 130-131) By denying he intends to "exploit this advantage," he establishes deviously the possibility of such a thing. He plants this possibility in her mind. He does not say how he might exploit this advantage. Keeping this possibility vague gives him room to retreat. If she had something sexual in mind, this would be her opportunity to reveal her desire. If she were offended by the suggestion, he could deny he meant that.
Lady Florida is understandably suspicious, perceiving something extreme in his behavior that he should have to make "such a long, high-flown speech...." (p. 131) when she has already made him aware that he has what he now seems to be asking for, that is, her trust and favor. She makes herself vulnerable to his manipulations by being too candid about her doubts about his intentions. His speech which was in the guise of a confession is actually a set-up for a further manipulation. When he says: "The reason why I have made so bold as to say all this to you, is that Paulina has become very suspicious." (p. 132), he seems to be asking her to help him hide his feelings for her, but this is just a subterfuge to characterize her behavior toward him being that of someone who is in love with him: "...when you come to talk to me alone in your affectionate way...." She may not have been fully conscious of the nature of her own feelings or the meaning of her behavior toward him. He has found a way of inadvertently suggesting this possibility and thereby releases a new awareness in her. For the first time in the tale, we are given access to her feelings. "At these words Florida was filled with delight beyond bounds. Deep within her heart she began to feel stirrings that she had never felt before." (p. 133) He has also planted the seed of jealousy in her mind. She is so willing to comply with his request that his ruse backfires on him, causing her to avoid contact with him as well as making her self-conscious. Until this point her affection for him has been innocent and spontaneous.
It is now his turn to misinterpret her behavior: "Amador...concluded that she was keeping away from him, not just as a result of his advice, but because she was displeased with him." (p. 133) It is Florida who now tries to hide her jealousy of Paulina, but Amador is so angered by her lie that she is happy he is enjoying himself with Paulina (p. 133) that he finally admits he has no interest in Paulina. Next, we find him using the language that describes so much of their behavior when he speaks of the necessity of covering up his anger and hiding his joy. (p. 134) Only by being away from her can his feelings be kept under control. Only when he leaves, can she allow her feelings to surface: "Love, having been thwarted, was aroused now...." Again the reader is given access to her feelings, feelings to which she herself has been denied access. Soon after, there is a brief moment of reconciliation before Amador is off to war again.
Taken prisoner in a great battle between the Spanish forces and the Moors, Amador does not return to Barcelona for two years. In the meantime, Florida has been married off to the Duke of Cardona. Her marriage is described as "a life that seemed to her little better than death." (p. 138) When she sees Amador again, she lets him know that she married against her will and that he is the one she loves. Then we are told that "she was ready not merely to accept Amador as a devoted servent, but to admit him as a sure and perfect lover." (p. 139) Given what we know from the events that follow, this disclosure of the narrator could be deemed as much a lie as the lies her characters tell each other. It is simply to keep us interested in the rest of the story. Just as we are told that "Florida was almost won" Amador is again called away by the king. This news causes Amador's wife to faint, fall down the stairs and die. Both Florida and Amador are thrown into deep despair, but his dejection is so great, mainly on account of being called away from Florida, that he is willing to risk all and make his true wishes known. But he will not say what he wants. Twice we are told: "He said not a word." (p. 140) "Amador still said nothing." (p. 141) His actions, however, make it quite clear to her what he wants, and "Florida, terrified, thought he must be out of his mind." Finally, on pages 141-142, he does speak the truth of his desire. Her appeal to honor and virtue shames him into one more attempt at deception when he claims he was only testing her: "Your honor is vindicated...." (p. 143) She doesn't believe him, though she cannot stop loving him: "She resolved, in short, to go on loving Amador, but, in order to obey the dictates of honor, never to let it be known, either to him or anyone." (p. 144)
After three years of glorious deeds at war, Amador decides to "score a victory over her as his mortal enemy...." (p. 145) The use of the military metaphor alerts us to the fact that first and foremost Amador is a soldier and, true to his character, conquest is what he is really interested in, not love. Behind his willingness to destroy in order to conquer is his belief he has lost her love forever, which is the result of her decision to hide her feelings from the world. In a secret mission for the king (again the theme of secrecy), Amador devises a way of meeting with the countess of Aranda so he can see Florida. The Countess, always in Amador's corner, arranges a meeting (or tryst?) with her daughter. But Florida goes to the oratory to pray and in order that her beauty not cause feelings of lust in Amador, she bashes herself in the face with a rock and disfigures herself. Here we have one more instance of up, in this case, by destroying, which is immediately followed by her mother covering up the damage by applying bandages to her face. Then, finally alone with her, he tries to overpower her. After all of her attempts to talk him out of raping her, Florida finally calls for her mother, who responds immediately. Amador tries to lie his way out of what could be fatal consequences for him, saying he had only grabbed her hand and tried to kiss it. The countess only half believes him. And Florida, when questioned, lies and refuses to give any details, one more cover-up. After so many veils cast over the truth, the tale ends with Florida taking the veil (a cover!). Amador, off at war again, blots out his life, when trapped in battle, by plunging a sword through his body.
Amador threw his life away in pursuit of a goal he should have known was impossible to obtain. One wonders why Amador failed to see that the person he was after would never be able to respond to him sexually, a person he had known so long but never understood. He was nineteen years old when they first met; she was twelve. Ironically, it may be that she became the creature of his own making, who hearing him preach so many years about the virtues of courtly love, began to believe his lies and learned to abhor the idea of carnal desire.
Tuesday 17 June 2008
Monday 16 June 2008
Problems of Interpretation in Apuleius' The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass is not an explicitly didactic work, though if we look at the way it ends with a religious conversion and an initiation as a priest into the cult of Isis, we could see everything that came before as an allegory of a pilgrim's progress through hellish events in the barbarian outer regions of the empire, chaotic, violent, self-demeaning events until the final safe arrival in the ordered new home of the author, Rome. The work is a celebration of the ordered society, which the capital of the empire offers the traveler. The horrific events, which precede Lucious' religious conversion, offer an extreme contrast to the solace and thrilling ceremony of the religious discipline Lucious devotes himself to. The erotic zest and brio of his dalliance with Photis is not necessarily out of synch with his new religion. Or we might not hope that the requirement of chastity, fasting, and a vegetarian diet are only temporary trials of his initiation, and that he can resume his erotic life. The cult of Isis was essentially a fertility cult, celebrating a cycle of violent death and resurrection. The winter-spring cycle, the death and regeneration of nature. An interpretation of this sort is to be considered an hypothesis.
We can entertain the game of interpretation, looking for clues and guideposts, which might support the argument that such was intended by the author, knowing it could never be proven definately, anymore than a positive or negative judgment of an art work can be proven. It is a matter of backing up our statements with good reasons, which we hope are persuasive, but know that they are not objective truth anymore than our opinions are. We can not be sure that what we infer is actually what the author intended to imply.
If you compare the Golden Ass written in Latin to Daphnis and Chloe written in Greek by Longus, one notes the first major difference is that the former is a first person narrative, and the latter a third person narrative. The difference in this antique way of managing these two kinds of narrative technique is that first person allows the main character to reveal his conscious life, dreams, fears, memories, desires. The third person narrative as it is conducted by Longus describes events and scenes in a pastoral setting from the outside. While it is true that Lucious in the Golden Ass tells us much more about himself, his erotic ecstasy, his feelings of humiliation, and later his religious enthusiasm, what he does not tell us is how to interpret these psychic events or how to interpret the many stories he tells or the novel as a whole or in part.
Earlier I mentioned guideposts or clues which suggest that the author wants us to make certain connections because events were repeated or there is a pattern of similar events which may show that he wants us to pay attention to a particular theme. In other words these events are given prominence in the work, indicating importance. The author does not explicitly state that he wants us to think about these themes. What we are dealing with is implicit discourse, which demands our own participation and may tempt us to develop an interpretation of the meaning of these connections we have made.
The first example is the way events of transformation are explicitly rendered, such as a witch turning a man into a pig as Circe does in Homer's Odessy or in the Golden Ass Photis' mistress turning herself into a bird and flying away or Photis accidentally or on purpose turning Lucious into an ass. These are explicit events told to us. There is another series of metamorphoses which are reversals in the outcome of these stories, which Lucious is conscious of and which are not difficult for us to discern though he does not usually comment explicitly that these transformations have taken place. The first of such transformations is in the story of the witch who kills Socrates with a sword, placing a sponge in the wound. The transformation is a reversal of Lucious' expectation or his own interpretation of what has happened. The dead man gets up and walks with him and the story teller thinks that Socrates is not dead. The wounded man falls, the sponge pops out in the bank of the stream, and it turns out that he is dead. This is an obvious case of a reversal of either expectation or his appraisal of a situation--also emotions felt are opposite of what is appropriate or expected. (Metamorphoses P. 27, vol. 1) Some of these transformations play on the mistaking a dream for reality. (Meta. P. 39-43, vol. 1)--Turns out to be not to a dream. The stories about people who must leave their homes because of shame or guilt. Traveling becomes the allegory of the journey of life.
Only when Lucious becomes an ass does he start living his own story. The fact is is that he is used as the butt of a great joke. And after he comes out of the great scare of being a convicted muderer--his lovemaking continues until he becomes so self-possessed that he wants to be transformed into Eros with wings. As a reward for Lucious' delusions of grandeur Photis picks the wrong potion and Lucious is turned into an ass. The duality is the real Lucious as consciousness within the body of an ass.
When Psyche is married, instead of a marriage it is experienced by her and everyone else in her community as a funeral. And--if you look at the prose there are at least two transformations that take place, in which a normal state of affairs turns to the negative. For example, "Now the light of the wedding torch grew dim with black, sooty ashes." (Meta. p. 247, vol. 1) The music changes from happy to sad, to the Lydian mode which was used for dirges. In the Lydian mode miner keys and dissident intervals are used, creating a mournful or sad mood.
Venus believes she can fulfill her purpose to preserve her superiority by eliminating Psyche who everyone thinks is more beautiful than she is. But Cupid is working behind the scenes unbeknownst to his mother, against her purposes, in his own self-interest. Zephyr, god of the wind, is acting as an agent of Eros to save Psyche from a violent, fatal fall. (Meta. P. 251, vol. 1)
Psyche is saved from death but is imprisoned in a totally isolated life (Meta. P. 261, vol. 1), in which she is alone throughout the day, waiting for night to come and the arrival of her lover. This story is an allegory of the transition from childhood to womanhood, after puberty when a woman is taken into marriage she looses her family and early life. There is a grief as this figure of every woman moves from her parents' household to her husbands', to live under his authority. Psyche's experience has been described by Eric Neumann, a Jungian psychoanalyst, as the allegory of the death of the maiden, which takes place, not only with puberty (sexual maturity) but more especially with the loss of her virginity. The loss of her original home, which she gives up for that of her husband, is what she is grieving for. She has left the place where her mother was the central figure, what Neumann sees as the conflict between the matriarchal, the mother's realm, in conflict with the patriarchal, her husband's realm. In other words Psyche's story is read as every woman's story, in the life cycle. There is no way of knowing that Psyche's story is meant to be read as the story of all women. And that is what the critic is doing when he claims that a story is an allegory. He is taking the leap of relating the particular to the general, which may never have been explicitly stated in the text. This myth serves the psychiatrist well to express issues of women's lives which he wants to speak about, but I would think that such notions would be very far from what people in antiquity would have thought about these myths, which were used in ritual celebrations to evoke catharsis.
There is an interesting kind of tension before Lucious regains his human form, almost superstitious: "I did not, however, dash forward in an unrestrained rush under the influence of my sudden joy, because, obviously, I was afraid lest the peaceful progression of the rites be upset by the sudden rush of a four footed beast." (Meta. P. 315, vol. 2) Lucious is hypersensitive and fearful lest he loose his chance to gain freedom from the de-personifying body of an ass. And again: "Instead, with calm and almost human steps, I slowly edged my body little by little through the crowd...." (Meta. P. 319, vol. 2) As if the ass form Lucious had held was another person.
The irony is that when Lucious is transformed back into his own self with his original body, that the person he was is not the person he is transformed back into, but he becomes a better person, having benefited from this conversion process. The word conversion is in it's denotative, meaning a kind of transformation--specifically spiritual. A kind of transcendence has taken place. We come back to the question, how does this ultimate event in the story narrated to us by Lucious relate to all the stories which came before. Is the personal transformation that Psyche undergoes parallel to the spiritual transformation Lucious undergoes? The answer is no: It is not parallel. How does Lucious' transformation at the end relate to the repetition of suicidal wishes expressed every time the going gets tough for either him or story tellers whom he happens to be listening to, whose bizarre tales he relates to us? One might say that the picture presented to us of life in the colonies of Rome is dire and so threatening that one looses all hope and can no longer cope; rather one looks to death as a comforting release from a terrifying life. Such an embattled relation to life is the perfect opportunity for the solace which religion offers. So making that connection between the way the book ends up and certain salient features of the narrative which preceded it, is a simple interpretation which maybe makes sense out of the book. Nonetheless, we are left with the question, is this interpretation what the author intended us to make. One final question: Is the character of Lucious fictional or autobiographical? Therefore, is the conversion experience offered as a message of hope for us? Or is this story a fictional tale that has a happy ending?
Works Cited:
Apuleius, METAMORPHOSES, edited and translated by J. Arthur Hanson, Harvard University Press 1996.
Erich Neumann, "A Commentary on the Tale by Apuleius," translated from the German by Ralph Manheim, Princeton University Press 1956.
Longus, DAPHNIS AND CHLOE, translated by J.M. Edmonds, Harvard University Press 1996.
We can entertain the game of interpretation, looking for clues and guideposts, which might support the argument that such was intended by the author, knowing it could never be proven definately, anymore than a positive or negative judgment of an art work can be proven. It is a matter of backing up our statements with good reasons, which we hope are persuasive, but know that they are not objective truth anymore than our opinions are. We can not be sure that what we infer is actually what the author intended to imply.
If you compare the Golden Ass written in Latin to Daphnis and Chloe written in Greek by Longus, one notes the first major difference is that the former is a first person narrative, and the latter a third person narrative. The difference in this antique way of managing these two kinds of narrative technique is that first person allows the main character to reveal his conscious life, dreams, fears, memories, desires. The third person narrative as it is conducted by Longus describes events and scenes in a pastoral setting from the outside. While it is true that Lucious in the Golden Ass tells us much more about himself, his erotic ecstasy, his feelings of humiliation, and later his religious enthusiasm, what he does not tell us is how to interpret these psychic events or how to interpret the many stories he tells or the novel as a whole or in part.
Earlier I mentioned guideposts or clues which suggest that the author wants us to make certain connections because events were repeated or there is a pattern of similar events which may show that he wants us to pay attention to a particular theme. In other words these events are given prominence in the work, indicating importance. The author does not explicitly state that he wants us to think about these themes. What we are dealing with is implicit discourse, which demands our own participation and may tempt us to develop an interpretation of the meaning of these connections we have made.
The first example is the way events of transformation are explicitly rendered, such as a witch turning a man into a pig as Circe does in Homer's Odessy or in the Golden Ass Photis' mistress turning herself into a bird and flying away or Photis accidentally or on purpose turning Lucious into an ass. These are explicit events told to us. There is another series of metamorphoses which are reversals in the outcome of these stories, which Lucious is conscious of and which are not difficult for us to discern though he does not usually comment explicitly that these transformations have taken place. The first of such transformations is in the story of the witch who kills Socrates with a sword, placing a sponge in the wound. The transformation is a reversal of Lucious' expectation or his own interpretation of what has happened. The dead man gets up and walks with him and the story teller thinks that Socrates is not dead. The wounded man falls, the sponge pops out in the bank of the stream, and it turns out that he is dead. This is an obvious case of a reversal of either expectation or his appraisal of a situation--also emotions felt are opposite of what is appropriate or expected. (Metamorphoses P. 27, vol. 1) Some of these transformations play on the mistaking a dream for reality. (Meta. P. 39-43, vol. 1)--Turns out to be not to a dream. The stories about people who must leave their homes because of shame or guilt. Traveling becomes the allegory of the journey of life.
Only when Lucious becomes an ass does he start living his own story. The fact is is that he is used as the butt of a great joke. And after he comes out of the great scare of being a convicted muderer--his lovemaking continues until he becomes so self-possessed that he wants to be transformed into Eros with wings. As a reward for Lucious' delusions of grandeur Photis picks the wrong potion and Lucious is turned into an ass. The duality is the real Lucious as consciousness within the body of an ass.
When Psyche is married, instead of a marriage it is experienced by her and everyone else in her community as a funeral. And--if you look at the prose there are at least two transformations that take place, in which a normal state of affairs turns to the negative. For example, "Now the light of the wedding torch grew dim with black, sooty ashes." (Meta. p. 247, vol. 1) The music changes from happy to sad, to the Lydian mode which was used for dirges. In the Lydian mode miner keys and dissident intervals are used, creating a mournful or sad mood.
Venus believes she can fulfill her purpose to preserve her superiority by eliminating Psyche who everyone thinks is more beautiful than she is. But Cupid is working behind the scenes unbeknownst to his mother, against her purposes, in his own self-interest. Zephyr, god of the wind, is acting as an agent of Eros to save Psyche from a violent, fatal fall. (Meta. P. 251, vol. 1)
Psyche is saved from death but is imprisoned in a totally isolated life (Meta. P. 261, vol. 1), in which she is alone throughout the day, waiting for night to come and the arrival of her lover. This story is an allegory of the transition from childhood to womanhood, after puberty when a woman is taken into marriage she looses her family and early life. There is a grief as this figure of every woman moves from her parents' household to her husbands', to live under his authority. Psyche's experience has been described by Eric Neumann, a Jungian psychoanalyst, as the allegory of the death of the maiden, which takes place, not only with puberty (sexual maturity) but more especially with the loss of her virginity. The loss of her original home, which she gives up for that of her husband, is what she is grieving for. She has left the place where her mother was the central figure, what Neumann sees as the conflict between the matriarchal, the mother's realm, in conflict with the patriarchal, her husband's realm. In other words Psyche's story is read as every woman's story, in the life cycle. There is no way of knowing that Psyche's story is meant to be read as the story of all women. And that is what the critic is doing when he claims that a story is an allegory. He is taking the leap of relating the particular to the general, which may never have been explicitly stated in the text. This myth serves the psychiatrist well to express issues of women's lives which he wants to speak about, but I would think that such notions would be very far from what people in antiquity would have thought about these myths, which were used in ritual celebrations to evoke catharsis.
There is an interesting kind of tension before Lucious regains his human form, almost superstitious: "I did not, however, dash forward in an unrestrained rush under the influence of my sudden joy, because, obviously, I was afraid lest the peaceful progression of the rites be upset by the sudden rush of a four footed beast." (Meta. P. 315, vol. 2) Lucious is hypersensitive and fearful lest he loose his chance to gain freedom from the de-personifying body of an ass. And again: "Instead, with calm and almost human steps, I slowly edged my body little by little through the crowd...." (Meta. P. 319, vol. 2) As if the ass form Lucious had held was another person.
The irony is that when Lucious is transformed back into his own self with his original body, that the person he was is not the person he is transformed back into, but he becomes a better person, having benefited from this conversion process. The word conversion is in it's denotative, meaning a kind of transformation--specifically spiritual. A kind of transcendence has taken place. We come back to the question, how does this ultimate event in the story narrated to us by Lucious relate to all the stories which came before. Is the personal transformation that Psyche undergoes parallel to the spiritual transformation Lucious undergoes? The answer is no: It is not parallel. How does Lucious' transformation at the end relate to the repetition of suicidal wishes expressed every time the going gets tough for either him or story tellers whom he happens to be listening to, whose bizarre tales he relates to us? One might say that the picture presented to us of life in the colonies of Rome is dire and so threatening that one looses all hope and can no longer cope; rather one looks to death as a comforting release from a terrifying life. Such an embattled relation to life is the perfect opportunity for the solace which religion offers. So making that connection between the way the book ends up and certain salient features of the narrative which preceded it, is a simple interpretation which maybe makes sense out of the book. Nonetheless, we are left with the question, is this interpretation what the author intended us to make. One final question: Is the character of Lucious fictional or autobiographical? Therefore, is the conversion experience offered as a message of hope for us? Or is this story a fictional tale that has a happy ending?
Works Cited:
Apuleius, METAMORPHOSES, edited and translated by J. Arthur Hanson, Harvard University Press 1996.
Erich Neumann, "A Commentary on the Tale by Apuleius," translated from the German by Ralph Manheim, Princeton University Press 1956.
Longus, DAPHNIS AND CHLOE, translated by J.M. Edmonds, Harvard University Press 1996.
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