The second chapter of this thesis will deal with the novel itself. It will for the most part consist of close-reading of selected instances that I have chosen so as to illustrate the theme of frustration of communication. I have divided this chapter into two parts, corresponding to the themes I will treat under each heading. As the problems of communication seem exceptionally clear in relationships of heterosexual nature, the first section will deal with communication between men and women, or rather male and female characters in the book. The relationship between them seems partially to be a struggle for power through the control of discourse, and partially a struggle for positioning within patriarchy or matriarchy. I will particularly look at the relationship between Euchrid’s parents, Jane Crowley and Ezra Eucrow, the relationship between the Ukulite religious leader Sardus Swift and his wife Rebecca Swift, and finally I will look at the relationship between Sardus’ foster-daughter Beth and the protagonist, Euchrid Eucrow.
The second part of this chapter will deal with communication as an aspect of the Magic Realism that is used the novel. After a short presentation of the concept of Magic Realism, I will show how communication seems to exist on another level in And the Ass Saw the Angel, a level different from that typical of purely realistic fiction. Included in this treatment will be instances such as Euchrid’s communication with his brother in the womb, his communication with animals and celestial beings, i.e. God and angels. I will also consider his longing for the womb throughout his life, the womb being the only place he felt that he really could communicate.
In And the Ass Saw the Angel communication problems are abundant. The most potent symbol of the difficulties of communication in the novel is perhaps that the protagonist, Euchrid, is mute. He has problems with communicating with anyone but a few animals. After his mother’s death, his father tries to communicate with him, but Euchrid reacts with fear,[1] and eventually with violence by killing his father.[2] Other characters in the novel also display violent behaviour when communication is frustrated. When Kike unsuccessfully tries to make Poe confess that he wrote a letter inviting hobos to their church, Kike beats Poe to death.[3] Kike claims that if Poe had confessed, he would have shown mercy: "Asked him to come clean and when he did not, I beat him. Yep. Beat him right up."[4] Of course, Poe did not confess because he was not the one that wrote the letter, but Kike was unable to understand this, and the result was violence. At other occasions, the communication problems in the novel can seem almost comical, as they do when Euchrid is lying under a bridge listening to the men that are chasing him:
'Wha-a? Is that you Sal?' called back another man from the other
side of the bridge.
'Yeah. Ah said how's ya fucken batteraries holdin' out?'
'Batter him? Ah'm gunna bash the little fucker black and blue...'
[...]
Again
there was a silence, only longer this time. Beams probed.
'Where's Groper and ... ah dunno ... what's his name ... the
youngster?' asked Prong.
'Chisolm or Prism or Jism ... ah dunno ...' [...]
'How's your side, Groper?' called a voice.
'What was that?' replied Groper.
'Wha-a-a?'
'Ah said, what was that?'
'Ah said, how's your si...oh forget it, it don't matter any.'
'Yeah, mine too, and ah only bord 'em last week.'[5]
It is clear that the men do not know each other's name, and they are almost constantly mishearing or misinterpreting each other's statements. This frustration of communication can be seen as a dominant and recurrent theme in this novel. However, it is obvious that communication is not only a general problem, but it is also a somewhat gender related problem. This can be argued on the basis of the fact that the communication between men and women in And the Ass Saw the Angel is clearly flawed. Men and women do not understand each other at all in this novel, and in all the three cases that I will present, the lack of communication between man and woman results in violent behaviour. It seems that Nick Cave suggests that there is a gender-related struggle to be in power of discourse at play in And the Ass Saw the Angel. However, this struggle appears to be meaningless, as it invariably leads to some sort of violent behaviour and a disruption of social ties. Nick Cave attacks this gender-based power-struggle, as it destroys the character’s ability to communicate and, ultimately, it destroys their lives. His attack does not, however, suggest any solutions to the problem. The novel itself seems content to display a rather utopian longing for an idealistic world in which communication is unproblematic. It does this by presenting a world that is so horrible and frustrating that a yearning for a state in which communication is possible becomes almost palpable. I will try to illustrate this in the following examples. Let us first look at the relationship between Euchrid’s parents, Ezra and Jane.
Their relationship is most clearly in focus in the prologue. As the first narrative of the novel seems to be Euchrid Eucrow’s dying hours as he is lying in quicksand, much of Ezra and Jane’s story is clearly an analeptic anachrony. This is of course symptomatic for large parts of the novel, and especially the prologue, where the anachrony’s reach often goes beyond the birth of the protagonist. The narrative in the prologue seems to be a nonfocalized intradiegetic subsequent narrative, as it is not told by a character in the novel, but by an unknown narrator. This gives the narrative a less subjective tone than the parts narrated by the protagonist, and this narrator’s narrative seems more reliable than when the story is narrated by the autodiegetic narrator. However, the full story is shared between these two narrators, and this gives us a sense of objectiveness as Euchrid’s narrative is balanced by the nonfocalized narrative. This changes in "Book Three", where the nonfocalized narrator almost merges with Euchrid, and stops reporting things other than those that directly concerns Euchrid. This is due to Euchrid’s attempt of claiming power by controlling discourse, but I will come back to this later.
The first instance that I want to look at concerns the first meeting between Ezra Eucrow and Jane Crowley. Ezra’s original surname was Morton, which was the family name of the inbred mountain clan he belonged to. As his brothers commit more and more excessive acts of violence and brutality, his family is hunted down and killed by the local sheriff and his men. Barely escaping, Ezra changes his name from Morton to Eucrow to avoid persecution. During his escape, he becomes severely drunk and shoots off his own left ear by accident. This can be seen as symbolic of his inabilitiy to communicate: with his ear shot off, his hearing is impaired, and therefore communication is more difficult. Carried by his mule he arrives to Ukulore Valley and Jane Crowley’s house. She is, without knowing it, a widow. Her husband killed himself twelve years earlier, but no-one has dared to tell her:
Casually,
the widow would ask each visitor: ‘Have ye spied Ecker
Crowley today?’ and the men would shuffle and reel as they
tapped off a pint and awaited their answer. ‘No mam, not
this day,’ each would reply from behind a trembling hand,
‘Not today, mam.’ And as they clambered back on to the
pick-up and roared off toward Maine they would burst into fits of
laughter, rolling around the back and knocking back slog upon
gagging slog of the widow’s gut-rot.[6]
Fear of violence is most likely the reason why Jane Crowley’s visitors do not dare to tell her the truth: "no member of the community had been willing to shoulder the responsibility of informing the wife of the deceased."[7] Her wedding was conducted at gunpoint, forcing her spouse to marry her. When he committed suicide two weeks later, no-one wanted to tell her, fearing that they might become victim to her violent tendencies, as it is implied by the 'trembling hand(s)' that hide the faces of those questioned about him. We can already see the outline of a viscous circle: the fear of violence stops communication, but as you will see, eventually, the lack of communication leads to violence. When Ezra arrives, Jane actually believes that he is her long dead husband:
For
twelve years Jane awaited the return of her husband, drinking
herself day upon night into madness. The image
of her truant partner began, in time, to fade into obscurity,
becoming eventually a vague and abstract notion that hung like a
shroud over the ever increasing be-shitment of her rationale.
So when the mule carried Ezra - earless by one and in a state of acute delirium, a river of dried blood caking the mule’s belly and hind legs - into the widow’s yard, the vagaries and obscurities of the past decade began to solidify once more, and, as if hearing a great golden bell tolling in the stillest of nights, she knew her man had found her.[8]
This is an obvious example on the consequences of frustrated communication. Jane does not know her husband is dead, and when Ezra comes, she immediately accepts him as her husband. When Jane says to Ezra "Ah waited twelve years but ah knew ya'd come on back", he cannot do anything to rectify the misunderstanding, as he is nearly comatose. [9] He has no other choice than to accept the miscommunication between them, he is in fact force-fed liquor from the moment he awakens, and has no chance to speak at all. Even though it is made clear that Jane Crowley in time learns the truth about Ezra, they both organise their lives around the lie. Ezra moves in with Jane and takes her dead husband's place, and they live like a married couple for the rest of their lives. This, however, is not to say that they live in harmonious co-existence and perfect communication. Ezra hardly says anything, and Jane is drunk more often than not. In this state, she is hardly communicative, although she sends out signals that are left to her surroundings to interpret. In an analeptic iterative anachrony, Euchrid says:
[S]he
would [...] begin to sing a version of 'Ten Green Bottles'
in an increasingly furious bark. When she reached the part that
goes '... and if one green bottle should accidentally fall,
there'd be no green bottles...', she would simply run amok
- yes, launch into a fit of such unbridledd violence that it
simply wasn't safe to be within bat-swinging range of her.
As soon as he heard the opening strains of 'Ten Green Bottles', Pa would drop whatever it was that he was doing and belt out the screen door, me toddling after him.[10]
What Ezra and Euchrid hear is a song, but it is interpreted as a warning, much in the same way as the low growl of an animal or the hissing of a snake. In fact, her song is likened to a "bark", and this canine utterance serves as a potent alarm bell for father and son. The communication that is going on is very basic: Jane's song is not meant as a warning, neither is it directed towards anyone. Ezra and Euchrid are just picking up signals and acting upon them. She is always the sender of the message, and the men only receive. It seems clear that she is the dominant figure in their home, and, unlike the men who are mostly silent, she dominates their discourse. The situation calls to mind Michel Foucault’s theories:
Power
is what says no. And the challenging of power as thus conceived
can appear only as transgression. It allows the fundamental
operation of power to be thought of as that of a speech-act:
enunciation of law, discourse of prohibition. The manifestation
of power takes on the pure form of ‘Thou shalt not’.[11]
For Foucault discourse is always inseparable from power, because discourse is the governing and ordering medium of every institution. Discourse determines what it is possible to say, what are the criteria of ‘truth’, and who is allowed to speak with authority. Clearly, Jane Crowley controls the discourse within the confines of their home, and thus, she is also the person that holds power over their household. This situation seems to be the opposite of what some feminist critics suggest is the norm of our society. Dale Spender’s Man Made Language, as the title suggests, considers that women have been fundamentally oppressed by a male-dominated language:
Women
are muted because men are in control and the language, and the
meanings and the knowledge of women cannot be accounted for
outside that male control. If woman’s meanings are to have
unfettered impression, then it seems that men must cease to have
control.[12]
If we accept
Foucault’s argument that what is ‘true’ depends on
who controls discourse, then it is apparent that men’s
domination of discourse has trapped women inside a male ‘truth’.
However, in the shack of Ezra and Jane it is Jane who is in control and who holds power. Not only does she control discourse, she is almost the only person ever to speak. Euchrid is mute, and Ezra hardly ever speaks while Jane is alive. If he speaks, his sentences are no longer than four words, e.g. "Too pissed to push."[13] Jane, however, does not only speak, but she actively constructs a truth that is to preside within the bounds of her home. She has taken it upon herself to instruct Euchrid in what she considers to be essential knowledge:
Weaving
about in front of me with her brown stone bottle in one paw and
an old plastic fly-swat in the other, she would first give the
lesson, which could take anything up to an hour, sometimes two,
and then she would shoot questions at me. If the answer was
'yes', ah was to raise mah right hand, and if the answer was
'no', ah was to raise mah left. If ah answered incorrectly and
raised the wrong hand, she would deliver a stinging blow to the
top of mah scalp with the fly-swat. If ah did not answer at all,
which was often, as both mah hands had been tied to the front
legs of the chair, she would swat me across the right ear or the
left ear depending on which she thought was the right answer.[14]
She tells Euchrid stories about his father, and in doing so she is defining Ezra and his role in the household. Her role is that of a matriarch, as well as a provider of income. Ezra is mainly a hunter, whereas she sells her home-brew to the cane-workers and the hobos, thereby making some money. Her position is underlined by the fact that she has kept her maiden name. She is not called Jane Eucrow, and her first husband was referred to as Ecker Crowley, even though his original name was Ecker Abelon.[15] She makes the rules, and tells Euchrid what his boundaries are. When he is four years old, she frightens him severely to prevent him ever entering her room, so severely, in fact, that he does not dare enter it until long after she is dead. In the words of Euchrid, "she continued to tyrannize the household" throughout her whole life. [16] However, it seems that the idea of patriarchy is somehow rooted in the mind of Ezra, for as the years go by, it becomes harder and harder for Ezra to accept the situation he is in:
Pa
obeyed her without complaint, as did Euchrid, but as the years
passed and the matriarch persisted in testing to the limit her
husband's resilience, his body could be seen to shudder some, his
hands begin to shake, and Euchrid, watching through one of the
peep-holes, could not help but notice the way Pa's jaw would
clench and his eyes narrow at each barked command, and a white
ring of suppressed rage appear around his mouth.[17]
Finally, Ezra is no longer able to suppress his rage, and suddenly he kills Jane in a fit of temper. He has not tried to reason with her, or told her to ease down on the way she treats the men in her home. He has kept quiet and bottled up his rage, and he comes to a point where he cannot contain himself any longer. With the use of violence he removes Jane from the position of being the one in control of discourse. By committing murder he replaces matriarchy with patriarchy, and only then Ezra starts to speak. He defines his own truth, and communicates it to Euchrid. He tells him the story of his life, and recites parts of the Bible to him to explain his actions. As an inversion of the "lessons" Euchrid experienced with Jane, Ezra also touches Euchrid physically after his "lesson", but as opposed to Jane's hitting, Ezra's is a tender and comforting touch. [18] Strangely enough, it seems as if Ezra represents more "maternal" values than Jane did. Through an act of extreme and brutal violence he has imported what can be seen as tenderness to their home, something that is usually regarded as a feminine feature. Ezra’s need to communicate erupted in violence, but this violence opened up a way for him to express himself more gently. This suggests that the power of discourse is so strong that if the need to express oneself is totally blocked, a violent disruption will take place. The power of discourse and communication is real, and the only way that Ezra manages to deal with his lack of communicative power is through violence.
This suggests that control of communication is possession of power, and that the struggle to communicate is a struggle to be in power. The fact that this struggle is mostly gender related can be seen as a critique of both patriarchy and matriarchy. Nick Cave’s point seems to be that the power struggle is meaningless, as oppression ends up in violent behaviour no matter who the oppressors are. As suggested earlier, he yearns for a utopian world where communication is not flawed, or a world where frustrated communication at least does not lead to violence. This world is of course very different from the world of Ukulore Valley, where Ezra, as we have seen, is able to communicate only after having used violence. As you will see, this is a strategy that is also used by Euchrid, but first I will turn to matters concerning Rebecca and Sardus Swift.
The situation Rebecca Swift finds herself in, is somewhat different from that of Jane Crowley. She is definitely part of a patriarchal system, being married to the leader of the religious sect, the Ukulites. The Ukulites' religious faith is basically a perversion of Mormon beliefs. Nick Cave says:
The
Ukulites are based on a real life sect called the Morrisites.
When the Mormons came to America, there was a guy, Joseph Morris,
who had many revelations and went to the Mormon leaders and
disclosed these things. They excommunicated him. He took a band
of his followers to a place called Weeber Creek and set up a
sect. He became more and more obsessive, walking around in a robe
with a gold sceptre and a crown on his head. Eventually, a sniper
shot and killed him. The Morrisites took this as a further
justification of their faith. It is not known if this was done by
insiders or vigilantes who were killing Mormons all over the
place.[19]
The religious society of Ukulore Valley is a theocratic patriarchy with strict rules concerning the interaction of men and women. Sex is allowed only within marriage, and then only if the purpose of the sexual intercourse is to conceive children. Rebecca Swift is naturally aware of this, and she has realised that being a mother is the role that she is expected to play, and it is a role that she desperately wants. As the rain keeps hammering down over Ukulore Valley, and she and her husband try in vain to conceive a child, Rebecca gradually loses her sanity. She is denied the only function that she can fill in life, and she becomes manic:
Like
a laughing lark in a fountain of mirth, Rebecca would hop and
chirp, her chatter kittenish and fanciful, flapping about her
heart-sore husband as she gushed forth her eidetic vision like a
child. Sardus would listen, battling to keep a smile upon his
lips, indulging her in her monomaniacal chatter as if he had not
heard it all before. With tiny hands dancing about her in a
succession of fluttering gestures, the childless Rebecca Swift
would gaily evoke a world of frosted pink and baby blue, of
booties and bonnets and bunny-rugs, of rattles and rubber
teething rings.[20]
Sardus sees how Rebecca retreats into madness, but he does nothing to help her. He remains silent and uncommunicative, while she is nonsensical and desperate. Even though it is Rebecca that speaks, it is not she who controls discourse. She only speaks of the things that the patriarchy has granted her as her realm of social existence. Her discourse is just a reflection of the expectations that the patriarchal society of Ukulore Valley has put upon her. Since she is unable to answer to the expectations put upon her, the focus on the life that she is supposed to lead makes her retreat from real life. This can of course be seen as an attack on patriarchy in general, but I think it is wiser to regard it as a critique of oppressive systems in general. Nick Cave’s political orientation in this matter is not so much anti-patriarchal as it is anti-oppressive. He seems to think that the oppression of one’s desire to express oneself and the control of discourse and communication is equally non-desirable whether it comes from patriarcy, matriarchy or religious systems.
Rebecca Swift tries to escape her situation by starting to live in a fantasy world. Sardus sees this, but he is not able to help her. When she learns from the town doctor that it is she, and not Sardus, who is unable to produce children, her world falls apart. She knows that she is to be denied her designated role forever, but she does not get any support from Sardus. He does not even try to say to her that she is valuable as a person in her own right, but goes straight to bed after learning of his wife's barren womb. Rebecca steals away to commit suicide, but as she fails, she is sent away to an asylum. Near the well in which she tried to kill herself, she hides her suicide note:
Dear
Sardus,
I am struck barren and deemed unworthy to mother your child. I
will remain your wife through all eternity. We will be united in
a kinder world, for we have both known another so bitter and
terrible. I await your hand and in the Kingdom stand, for here in
my heart be your seated place.
Your advent embrace,
Rebecca.[21]
Rebecca considers herself unworthy of motherhood. This comes as a direct result of the expectations put upon her by the patriarchal society. If she is not able to breed, she is of no value. This is perhaps not spelled out directly, but it is clear that this is the attitude that Rebecca has registered, and she acts accordingly. She thinks that things that have no function, like herself, should be removed. The only way left for her to express herself is through doing violence upon herself. For her, this is the only way to show that she has fully understood the consequences of being a childless woman in a society where every woman should be a mother. Even though Sardus might not agree with her dispositions, he has made no attempt of communicating his attitude. He suggests that she is punished by God for her desires:
'O
terrible, o wicked Rebecca. So horribly wrong was she to think
that just because God ... the Preserver ... the Comforter ...
deemed it fitting and just to strike her dry of womb, to take
from her ... the one damnable desire she felt! Her sole reason to
endure! "Thou shalt not want." And my wife
wanted, and Doctor Morrow, so did I ... O so did I!!'[22]
He never told Rebecca to accept her fate, and she found no consolation in him. Only a year after her suicide attempt does he speak his mind, not to Rebecca, but to Doctor Morrow. Also, it is typical of their relationship that Sardus never finds Rebecca's suicide letter. It is found months later, by the mean-spirited boy Fists Wiggam. He pins it to the notice-board outside the town Courthouse, and within hours, almost everyone but Sardus Swift has read Rebecca's suicide note. Sardus has physically isolated himself from the rest of the valley after his wife's suicide attempt, much in the same way that he isolated his wife mentally when he did not communicate with her in her time of need. Rebecca writes in her letter that she and Sardus "will be united in a kinder world", presumably heaven. According to popular Christian faith heaven is a perfect place, and to Rebecca, this encompasses a reunion with her husband. In that respect, she shares her dreams with Euchrid, who sees heaven as a world of perfect communication and happiness that will unfold after death.
A year after Rebecca’s suicide attempt and her subsequent committal, Sardus Swift becomes the foster-father of an orphan child called Beth who is placed in the town square. The child is in fact the daughter of Cosey Mo, the town harlot. As the discovery of Beth coincides with the fact that the rain stops, her arrival is seen as a sign from God. The Ukulite women see her as a reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, and thinks that her offspring will bring the Second Coming. Therefore, they prepare Beth through her entire upbringing to become the bride of God, they prepare her for a role as the new mother of Christ.
Euchrid, however, is the only one that knows that Beth is the daughter of Cosey Mo. He thinks that she is a fraud, and even though he is obsessed with her, and heavily attracted to her, he thinks he is on a mission from God to kill this false prophet. He spends an increasing amount of time spying on her, and eventually they try to communicate with each other. Believing that he is God who has come to watch over her, and eventually make her pregnant, Beth recites a prayer that the Ukulite women has taught her, communicating a wish to be impregnated: "May the Holy Ghost come upon me/and the Highest overshadow me,/that I may bear blessed fruit/from which all generations shall spring."[23] Euchrid's intentions, however, are of a more malign nature, as his "mission" is far more sinister. He believes that he is a "hunter" sent by God to root out evil. In fact, both Beth and Euchrid look upon Euchrid's role in a similar way: Beth thinks that he is an embodiment of God, and Euchrid thinks that he is God's chosen tool on Earth. As they have different preconceptions of what his mission on Earth actually is, their attempts of direct communication are flawed.
Beth writes a letter to "God", in which she intimates that "[t]he wise ladies ... say I am ready ever since the sign of the blood."[24] Euchrid does not understand that Beth is talking about menstruation, and he wonders if she has been experiencing the same kind of nosebleeds that he has. To show her that he has received her letter, Euchrid writes a "G" for "God" in blood on her bedroom window, only to discover in her next letter that she has identified it as a sickle of blood. Her letters also communicate her wish to be impregnated, but Euchrid reads them as her message to him saying that she is ready to be sacrificed. When he reads her letter, begging him to "[m]ake it soon, no matter what"[25], he says: "The funny thing about it all was that she was right. It would be soon."[26] "It" is for Euchrid the completion of his mission, a mission that is clearly formulated: "God surged through me as ah razored the space before me - the blistering, the stifling, the still, still breath kill Beth kill Beth kill Beth."[27]
In a way, they are both very innocent, but at different levels. Euchrid perhaps knows that he is seeking sexual contact with her, and that this is part of his "drive". What makes him "innocent", however, is the fact that he is not able to formulate such thoughts, and he is not able to relate to the idea at all. This is why we never hear Euchrid narrate directly that he has had a sexual encounter with Beth; he is not only unable to express himself on that issue, but he has also suppressed the whole incident. I will elaborate on this in chapter 3, under the heading "3.2 Avoiding pain and critical moments: Trying Not To Say". Euchrid is not, however, very innocent when it comes to his violent plans of killing Beth.
Beth, on the other hand, is very innocent and naive when it comes to the threat of violence. She has never experienced anything like it, and does not expect violent behaviour under any circumstance. However, she seems very ready to be impregnated. Her upbringing has focused on this being a goal for her, and she longs for the fulfilment of her duty. She tries desperately to communicate her needs to Euchrid:
DEAR
GOD, MY FATHER AND MY FRIEND FOR ALWAYS
I
am ready, God. I will not resist. No matter what. But please make
it soon. Every day they look at me to see if it has happened.
They ask me if I have been good and pure. Yesterday Mrs. Barlow
said that I must have been shaming the Prophet. I have kept your
sign a secret. The one you left by the window. The sickle of
blood.
But
please, come to me soon, I beg you,
Beth. [28]
It is clear that it is neither Beth nor Euchrid that are in control of discourse, and hence of power, in this situation. Beth tries to communicate with Euchrid, but Euchrid interprets her words according to the religious beliefs by which he is driven, thereby misinterpreting her message, and Beth fails to see that Euchrid is just a man posing as God, and she in turn misinterprets his feeble attempt at communicating. It seems that they are both rendered powerless by the religious beliefs that dominate the valley. Euchrid reads the Bible constantly, and sees signs and omens in everything, while Beth is dominated by the prophetic visions of Jonas Ukulore, as interpreted by his followers. Yet it seems that even though Euchrid has decided that he is to kill Beth, she holds a certain power over him. It is suggested that this power is of a sexual nature. Euchrid is easily influenced by her sexuality, because he identifies Beth with her mother, Cosey Mo, to whom he was sexually attracted. Euchrid thinks that Beth calls him to her, much like her prostitute mother would do with her customers:
Sometimes
ah would wait in mah turret, the telescope directed at her house,
dark and sleeping, below. Ah would wait for her signal.
And sure enough, around the midnight hour, the lamp at her window
would be turned up and its sticky yellow light would spill across
the porch. It was then that ah would go down.[29]
Euchrid seems to regard Beth as a red light-district prostitute who would turn on a red light in her window when she is ready to receive her customers. The light from her window is yellow, but he considers it an invitation, and his voyeurism is highly sexual, as is implied when he states that he is "battling with the buttons on mah trousers" when he is watching her. [30] Euchrid’s mixture of religious ideas and sexual attraction places him in a state of confusion. He thinks that his mission on earth is to kill Beth, but at the same time he is rendered helpless by her inviting sexuality. In the end, Euchrid has no way to express himself but through violence. He can no longer endure his own inability to complete his mission, a mission that he thinks he has been given by God himself. Unable to express himself in any other way, Euchrid, like his father, erupts in violence. He tries to kill Beth by stabbing her with a sickle, and thereby he reclaims his position as a member of the patriarchy. Patriarchy has designated roles for women to play, and in Ukulore Valley their primary role is that of being a mother. They should not be in control of sexuality, because this gives them a tool by which to manipulate men. Beth's threat to Euchrid is that she holds a sexual power over him. She has communicated her sexuality through her letters to him, and even though he misunderstood them, Euchrid is drawn to her. When he tries to use language to control her by writing a "G" for "God" on her window, his attempt of dominating discourse fails. She does not see a "G", but a sickle. From then on, it is she that dominates him with her letters and her supplications of sex. Finally, Euchrid is not able to communicate his frustrations, so he eliminates the threat made by sexuality as a form of discourse with the use of violence.
Euchrid struggles to be in control of his discourse, and to reclaim power as a member of patriarchy. If we consider the issue of narrative mood, his struggle can also be observed narratologically. Throughout the Prologue, Book One, Book Two and in the Epilogue, the narration is shared between Euchrid and the nonfocalized narrator. However, in Book Three, we never hear from the nonfocalized narrator again. This is represented in a shift in typographical style. The passages that seem to belong to a nonfocalized narrator are in Book Three represented in italics. This is one of the three things that imply that these are not the words of a nonfocalized narrator. The second thing is the following passage just before Euchrid’s death:
For
some a mere glance at the sky served to alert tham to the
oncoming threat, and no sooner had they looked up than they were
looking down again, their fury rekindled - for ah brought
the rain, ah brought the rain - for it was, after all, HE
who brought the rain.[31]
Throughout Book Three, the nonfocalized narrator has concentrated exlusively on the actions of Euchrid, whereas in the other sections of the novel he or she has touched upon the lives of other characters as well. The reason for this concentration of attention is revealed in the above passage: in an ecstatic moment the narrator uses the word "ah", thereby revealing himself as an autodiegetic narrator with internal focalization rather than an nonfocalized narrator. It seems that Euchrid has, throughout Book Three, presented us with a narrative that was an illusion of mimesis. He pretends that someone is objectively showing us the events that take place, when it really is his very subjective view of reality that is presented. The third thing that suggests that this is Euchrid’s own narration is something Nick Cave said: "The voice then changes between the narrator’s truth and Euchrid’s delusionary truth. The final book is Euchrid’s book which runs to the climax."[32] The fact that one does not really realise that the last book is Euchrid’s monolgue until the very last page, suggests that Euchrid has tried to finally take control of discourse, and that he wants to control the information that we receive. However, Euchrid loses control for a moment and reveals himself as the narrator, and his attempt of communicating his unopposed view of the world fails. We witness another instance of frustrated communication as Euchrid shows that he is unable to control the structure of his own narration.
Nick Cave says that "with no one to talk to and no way to talk, Euchrid, like a blocked pipe, bursts. For me, Euchrid is Jesus struck dumb, he is the blocked artist, he is internalised imagination become madness."[33] In the relationship between Beth and Euchrid it is possible to see the consequences of a lack of communication: Euchrid is unable to express himself in a positive way, to create something, and this inability leads to madness, which ultimately leads to violence and, for Euchrid, death. Euchrid also chooses death because, as you will see, he believes that he once again will be able to communicate, as he says he was before he was born. This is a theme that will be discussed in the following section.
Euchrid’s narrative contains some elements that can be hard to accept as "realistic". It is necessary to take a closer look at them decide whether these elements are to be considered as real or imagined. There are several occurrences in the text that can be seen as "supernatural", but at the same time most of them can have a "rational" explanation. Euchrid’s meeting with the angel can be seen as mere visions during epileptic fits, his communication with his brother in the womb as fantasy, and his communication with animals as imagination. Nevertheless, stylistically these events are "real". Euchrid tells us what he has experienced, and if we are to take his word for it, some of his experiences seem almost ‘magical’. Structurally, however, we do not need to believe that Euchrid actually met an angel, that he actually communicates with God, or that he actually spoke with his brother in the womb. These things can be explained with reference to Euchrid’s psyche. Not so with the rain, however. The rain is objectively there, it is referred to by the use of statistics[34], and is acknowledged by every character in the novel, not only by Euchrid. The rain seems supernatural, as it falls for three years without ever ceasing. These supernatural events seem to belong to two different categories: the things that Euchrid experiences, and the things that every character in the novel experience. Nevertheless, both these categories can be treated as variants of the literary technique of Magic Realism.
The definition of Magic Realism is an issue that has caused much debate since the 1930s. There are basically two main definitions that seem to oppose each other. The first one was formulated by the German art critic Franz Roh when he wanted to describe the work of a group of painters that wanted a new direction in the art of painting, away from expressionism. They
prescribed
a return to the representation of reality, but under a new light.
The world of objects was to be approached in a new way, as if the
artist was discovering it for the first time. Magic Realism, as
it was then understood, was not a mixture of reality and fantasy
but a way to uncover the mystery hidden in ordinary objects and
everyday reality.[35]
This definition of Magic Realism was later put to use not only on paintings but also on literature. It refers to a type of work that presents reality from an unusual perspective without crossing the boundaries of what is natural, but creating a sense of unreality in the reader. This definition of Magic Realism presents natural events and ordinary things as supernatural, but at the same time it excludes the supernatural as a valid interpretation. This approach can be exemplified with a scene from Gabriel Gárcia Márquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude, where gypsies bring "new inventions" to the remote village of Macondo:
When
it was opened by the giant, the chest gave off a glacial
exhalation. Inside there was only an enormous, transparent block
with infinite internal needles in which the light of the sunset
was broken up into colored stars. Disconcerted, knowing that the
children were waiting for an immediate explanation, José Arcadio
Buendía ventured a murmur:
"It's the largest diamond in the world."
"No," the gypsy countered. "It's ice."[36]
The later usage of the term, however, describes texts that deal with two contrasting views of the world, one "rational" and one "magical", but in which these two world-views are presented as if they were not contradictory. Stylistically, this usage refers to texts where the supernatural is presented as normal, and structurally it considers the presence of supernatural elements as essential to the text. This usage can also be examplified by looking at One Hundred Years of Solitude, where, as in And the Ass Saw the Angel, an incessant rain destroys a remote agrarian community by ruining crops year after year.
It
rained for four years, eleven months and two days. There were
periods of drizzle during which everyone put on his full dress
and a convalescent look to celebrate the clearing, but people
soon grew accustomed to interpret the pauses as a sign of
redoubled rain. The sky crumbled into a set of destructive storms
and out of the north came hurricanes that scattered roofs about
and knocked down walls and uprooted every last plant of the
banana groves.[37]
The older definition refers to a type of literary work which presents reality from an unusual perspective without transcending the limits of the natural, but which induces in the reader a sense of unreality. This does not work very well on the aspect of the novel that deals with the rain, as this definition of Magic Realism excludes the supernatural as a valid interpretation.
The later definition considers the presence of the supernatural in the text as essential for the existence of Magic Realism. This usage certainly fits in with certain aspects of And the Ass Saw the Angel, more specifically the rain and the instance where Mule seems to be dead, and Pa goes off to dig his grave, and Euchrid brings him back from the dead by "speaking" to him. As these two types of Magic Realism seem to be almost contradictory, efforts have been made to breach the gap between them. In his article Magic Realism: A Typology, William Spindler proposes a typology that will unify the different definitions of Magic Realism. He proposes three types of Magic Realism (Metaphysical Magic Realism, Anthropological Magic Realism, and Ontological Magic Realism), between which many points overlap. The mode that Spindler coins Ontological Magic Realism is particularly interesting when it comes to And the Ass Saw the Angel. He says:
This
type of text can be interpreted sometimes at the psychological
level, and the events described seen as the product of the mind
of a "disturbed" individual, as in Gogol’s
"Diary of a Madman". They should be regarded as Magic
Realism, however, for these "subjective" views are
endorsed by the "objective" impersonal narrator, by
other characters or by the realistic description of events that
take place in a normal and plausible framework. Instead of having
a subjective reality, therefore, the unreal has an objective,
ontological presence in the text.[38]
Clearly, this mode easily hooks up the instances that I have mentioned in And the Ass Saw the Angel with Magic Realism: the rain, the angel, the voice of God, the communication "in utero", and Euchrid’s communication with animals. I will now take a closer look at these instances in the text, and relate them to the theme of communication as seen through the perspective of Magic Realism.
The womb as a recurring image in both the autodiegetic and the extradiegetic narration of the novel seems to underline Euchrid's longing for a symbolic "return" to the womb. This longing seems to be connected with his wish to communicate. His whole life Euchrid has been mute, but as he lies dying, being sucked into quickmud, a symbolic reversal of birth and a retraction into the womb, his narration spills over with an enormous flow of words, contrasting his silent life on Earth. He is once again able to communicate, the last time being when he was in the womb with his twin brother:
[W]ith
one grub-sized knuckle ah knocked out a message, using a system
of coded raps, taps and gaps that mah brother and ah had devised
while adrift in the purling fremitus of the womb.
Do-
- Not- - Forget- - Your- - Brother- - Replly[39]
This is clearly a magicorealistic instant. Euchrid actually says that he remembers his birth, and that he and his brother were able to communicate with each other even before they were born. But when Euchrid tries to communicate with his brother after birth, his brother is already dead, and Euchrid finds that he is unable to communicate with anyone else, partially because he is mute, and partially because of the non-communicative people around him. His whole life, Euchrid longs for the safety of the womb and hence for a state in which he is able to communicate. He expresses this physically by retreating to tight and narrow places. He hides in a pickle-barrel[40], he seeks refuge "in the womb of the old Chevy"[41], he escapes from the cane-workers and hides underneath a bridge, and is calmed by "the thoroughly obstetric secureness of mah pouch of earth, the pulse and lull of its clay."[42] When he decides that it is time to commit suicide, he fastens a rope to the outskirts of the swamp that will lead him quickly and directly to the quicksand. When he later uses the rope after his assassination attempt on Beth, he likens it to an umbilical cord: "Ah felt as though the line that ah followed, hand over hand, was, in fact, attached to me - that it was a part of me, and that ah mahself was being reeled in - that ah mahself was being called home."[43] Finally, he steps into the quicksand, and he feels as if he has made a return to the womb: "Full of God, ah stepped bravely out and gently lay mahself down in the very centre of the circle, in the mire's eye. Upon mah side, knees pulled up to mah chest, head tucked in, ah was secure, sainted, unborn."[44] Euchrid curls up in foetal-position and symbolically returns to the state in which he was able to communicate. The first narrative of the novel is narrated by the autodiegetic narrator, and it is told in his last hours. Only when Euchrid has started his re-entry to the womb he "speaks". It is from this position that he is finally able to express himself. He has stood alone as a silent figure all his life, but now, in his dying hours, he pours out the story of his life, and is somehow already able to relate to us the events that has made up his life.
Throughout
his life, Euchrid has not been successful in his attempts to
communicate with other people. However, in line with the concept
of Magic Realism, Euchrid has sometimes communicated directly
with animals. When he spies on a group of hobos, he is almost
discovered by a dog moving towards him: "Without using mah
mouth ah said to the mongrel, to his one dead eye 'Go to him!
Run! Before he gets too close!' at which the dog span a circle
and bounded toward the approaching mob. ... That's how ah knew ah
could speak to dogs."[45]
Euchrid's ability to communicate with the dog actually saves him
from being beaten up by the hobos, and this suggests that his
ability to communicate prevents the use of violence. On
another occasion, however, the violence has already been
executed. Pa has beaten Mule to death, and is digging a grave for
him when Euchrid approaches the mule. Euchrid "speaks"
the mule's name, and, like Lazarus, Mule raises from the dead. It
seems as if when Euchrid is able to communicate with animals, it
prevents violence, or reverses the consequences of violence. This
incident can also be linked, as Euchrid suggests, to the title of
the novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel.
The quote "and the ass saw the angel" is taken from the Bible, Numbers 22. 23-31. This parable depicts how Balaam fails, unlike his donkey, to see the angel of the lord standing in front of him. This parable can be seen to represent man’s inability to notice the rather obvious. In the case with Mule's death and resurrection, this might be represented by a suggestion that Mule merely was unconscious, and that Pa has mistaken him for dead. Euchrid can then be seen as the angel, opening both Pa's and Mule's eyes. The representation of this incident in the novel, however, does not suggest that Mule was alive before Euchrid awoke him. Therefore, this incident has very clear magicorealist traits: Something supernatural happens, and it is immediately accepted and not questioned. It is possible that the whole thing has been a misunderstanding, but this is never presented as a solution. This, however is not the only manifestation of the Biblical parable in the novel.
The incident regarding the preacher, Abie Poe, and the town harlot, Cosey Mo, is an example worth mentioning in this respect. In order to stop the rain, Abie Poe prescribes the removal of "sin" from Ukulore Valley. "Sin" is of course represented by the town whore. The townspeople, her former customers and their wives, beat her half to death, and drive her out of town. Like Balaam, they, in their violent rage, fail to see that Cosey Mo has done them no harm, and that she is not to blame for their misery. Their eyes are opened when they see that despite the things that they have been promised, the rain does not stop. They then realise that Cosey Mo rather had had her function in their society, and that her beating was unnecessary. In fact, the whole incident is a perversion, or rather a reversal, of the ideals of Christianity itself. It opposes directly Christ's actions when he saves a whore from being stoned.[46] The Ukulites have, like Balaam, been blind.
Issues of religion are of course ever-present in this narrative, and one of the themes in the novel reflecting its title would be the inherent paganism of the Ukulore society. They worship God, but they are unable to see that they in reality have strayed from the norm in their worship. They fail to see the obvious, that they in fact are committing idolatry; they are regarding Beth as a holy person, and direct their worship towards her rather than towards God. Unlike Balaam, however, the villagers eyes are never opened. Even before Beth dies, they have found a way to continue their idolatry; they will worship Beth’s son.
Perhaps the clearest of the manifestations of this parable in the novel is that of Euchrid representing the ass. He is, like the donkey, mute, and therefore unable to express himself adequately. He also has visions of an angel inspiring him, and he is beaten severely on numerous occasions because he is unable to explain the intention of his actions. Euchrid is, however, unable to open the eyes of his tormentors. He is not able to show them the divine inspiration of his actions, and therefore he is constantly met with violence. We see once again that inability to communicate leads to violence.
Euchrid, however, sees himself not as the ass, but as the angel of the parable. From Euchrid’s point of view, the mule, apart from various other representatives of the animal kingdom, is the only one who can see him and know him for what he is: an emissary from God. Later on, Euchrid even acts out the role as an avenging angel in his encounter with the hobo Kike. Kike has a girlfriend named Queenie, and Euchrid has left a note to a gang of hobos informing them where they can find her. They rape and kill her, and Kike finds the note that Euchrid has written, inviting the hobos. Euchrid has communicated via writing, but Kike does not believe that the "voice" of the text can belong to Euchrid the mute. Kike thinks that his drinking-buddy Poe wrote the message, and consequently he kills him. Only when Euchrid has poisoned Kike, he reveals himself to the dying hobo. Like the angel, Euchrid lets Kike see what was hidden; Euchrid knows how to read and write, and has tricked the unsuspecting hobo. The different manifestations of this parable seems to underline the difficulties that the characters of the book experience when it comes to their ability to communicate. Euchrid seems to prevent violence when he communicates with animals, but otherwise, communication is frustrated or intentionally distorted and it's shortcomings are a prelude to violence.
His communication with God and an angel is no different in that respect. Nick Cave says: "Throughout the story, God fills the mute boy with information, loads him up with bad ideas, 'hate inspiration straight from God,' as he calls it."[47] Euchrid hears voices in his head, and receives messages from God throughout the story. He also experiences several visitations from an angel that comes to comfort him. Whether these visions and voices are real or if they are merely results of an overactive imagination or epileptic fits is not important. What is important, is that they are portrayed by the autodiegetic narrator as something that actually happens, he tells us what he sees, and that he accepts these supernatural events unconditionally. This makes the label Magic Realism possible.
But what function does this technique have? Gabriel García Márquez says of Magic Realism: "A 'realistic' text is hardly a satisfactory mode, much less an accurate presentation of the thing in itself ... because disproportion is part of our reality too. Our reality is in itself out of all proportion."[48] By saying this, Márquez suggests that Magical Realism is in fact more realistic than Realism. When it comes to the use of this technique in And the Ass Saw the Angel, it works on at least two levels: it presents us with the unnatural rain that underlines the feeling of helplessness and abandonment, and at the same time it helps to amplify the themes of loneliness and the urge for communication in the life of the protagonist. It also seems to confirm that a lack of communication leads to violence. The need for real communication is emphasised by the focus on Euchrid’s supernatural forms of communication. He is unable to interact with humans, and then he accepts the supernatural and mystical as a means of communication. However, this does not seem to fulfil his needs, and he stays firm in his beliefs that communication and community is best achieved after death, so he decides to kill himself:
Death
is the poultice to the pain of Life - that’s mah news to the
world. And ah stood there before the bog, sweating salt into mah
wounds and consciously suffering the pricks of mortality, that
mah death be that much sweeter - and it is! It is! [49]
Euchrid seems almost ecstatic at the prospect of dying. He has experienced almost nothing but pain and agony in life, and he assumes that life after death is a better existence. He believes that his longing for understanding and fellowship and his yearning for communication will finally be extinguished. Euchrid believes that he will no longer be a lonely mute. But what is the function of his muteness? Why is Euchrid mute? These are questions that I will turn to in chapter 3, where I will compare And the Ass Saw the Angel with William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.
[1] Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel, p. 198.
[2] Ibid., pp. 201-204.
[3] Ibid., pp. 257-260.
[4] Ibid., p. 257.
[5] Ibid., p. 272.
[6] Ibid., p. 28.
[7] Ibid., p. 28.
[8] Ibid., pp. 28-29.
[9] Ibid., p. 27.
[10] Ibid., p. 19.
[11] Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge (The Harvester Press, 1980), pp. 139-140
[12] Dale Spender, Man Made Language (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980, 2. edition), p. 77.
[13] Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel, p. 7.
[14] Ibid., p. 75.
[15] See And the Ass Saw the Angel, pp. 27-28.
[16] Ibid., p. 138.
[17] Ibid., p. 138.
[18] Ibid., pp. 198-199.
[19] Lindzee Smith, Nick Cave (BOMB volume 31, 1990, spring), p. 13.
[20] Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel, p. 60.
[21] Ibid., p. 98.
[22] Ibid., p. 132.
[23] Ibid., p. 235.
[24] Ibid., p. 242.
[25] Ibid., p. 244.
[26] Ibid., p. 244.
[27] Ibid., p. 289.
[28] Ibid., p. 243.
[29] Ibid., p. 233.
[30] Ibid., p. 242.
[31] Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel, p. 308.
[32] Lindzee Smith, p. 13.
[33] Cave, King Ink II, pp. 142-143.
[34] Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel, p. 53.
[35] William Spindler, Magic Realism: A Typology (Forum for Modern Language Studies 1993, Oxford, Vol. xxxix No. 1), p.75.
[36] Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (Penguin Books 1972), p. 320.
[37]Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, p. 18.
[38] Spindler, p. 82.
[39] Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel, p. 9.
[40] Ibid., p. 19.
[41] Ibid., p. 67.
[42] Ibid., p. 274.
[43] Ibid., p. 304.
[44] Ibid., p. 306.
[45] Ibid., pp. 37-8.
[46] John 8:7.29.
[47] Cave, King Ink II, p. 141.
[48] Scott Simpkins, "Magical Strategies: The Supplement of Realism" (Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal, 1988 Summer 34:2), pp. 143-4.
[49] Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel, p. 306.