Nightmares of Realism: "Working through" the dream-like characters of Traumatic Events

I am currently taking an independent study course on Trauma Narratives. I was surprised, not quite delighted, to see Northrop Frye mentioned in LaCapra’s Writing History, Writing Trauma. Personal Narratives, oftentimes out of psychological necessity, adopt a redemptive pattern of telling.

Such narratives “like” to fall into Northrop Fry’s classification of biblical archetype: paradise, the fall, and redemption. Whether you have a humanistic hope in social salvation, or one that works towards metaphysical transcendence, it is clear that this displacement of the biblical has appeal to both the reader and the author. LaCapra critiques Shindler’s list as offering a “Yellow Brick Road” in its ending, offering to redeem what was lost. But what if what is lost, is simply that?

Some critics of Trauma narratives, particularly in Holocaust Studies, say that any notion of redemption, within a “limit excess” situation, is not being true to the experience. Elie Wiesel’s eternal quest of asking “why?” is, to a great extent, in holding on to the dead—bringing them back into the conscious minds of the living. He carries this image of thanatos with him; It is poignantly recorded in Night: “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me” (109).

Some of Wiesel’s works stress “friendship” as the ladder out of the pits of Hades. But it is clear that a part of remembering the dead is keeping this gate or ladder clear for movement. Wiesel cannot simply shut the past behind, nor can he simply and neatly transcend into the “normalized” world we live in. I find it interesting that certain excess social-political situations begin to resemble the dream world when they are examined closely enough. This happens through obtaining the primary characteristics evident in dreams: appearances of the absurd, the nightmarish amoral, and the microcosm world which shuts in around itself—becoming a place almost outside of time, in a self-sealed vacuum. I’m not sure how much the psychological process of the victim has to do with archetypes, other than the mentioned; it is certain that psychic repetition can take place in healthy or less healthy modes.
These are patterns which, because they are so personal, are more difficult to say that they are simply displaced from somewhere else. Personal regression into the world of the dead can be a horrifying journey and confrontation. But that is part of the soul of the living, and survival and integration may require this descent. In some cases, working through the buried memories and placing them accurately in the past, present and future can give a victim a better understanding of the affectedness of these categories on each other. Should the past be “resurrected” in these real life dreams? Or is silence the most appropriate recollection?

Pan's shadow

The Jungian archetype of Puer Aeternus (eternal boy) is a romantic hero. Northrop Frye has designated the phases of Romance: 1) 'the myth of the birth of the hero 2) the innocent youth of the hero 3) 'the normal quest theme 4) 'the maintaining of the integrity of the innocent world against the assault of experience 5) 'a reflective, idyllic view of experience from above and 6) the end of a movement from active to contemplative adventure (198-202). These are clearly portrayed in Pan’s story—perhaps the most emphatic is the maintaining of the innocent world vs. the world of experience. The quest is really embedded in this theme—not so much that the other world needs saving.
As an “Underground Man,” a boy pretending to be an adult, and one who has been long-weary of Realism…I have to confess something: I love Peter Pan. Disney’s “Peter Pan,” “Hook,” and the recent film “Finding Neverland” each explore a facet of romantic youthfulness. Frye would place the story of Pan in the second phase of Comedy—the quixotic phase. This phase is characterized by the hero who runs away to a congenial society without transforming his own. What I find about this genre of heroes’ journeys is how they fit within the realm of satire. By exposing a new world with an other set of expectations, Pan-figures (the Romantic Child—Southey’s Joan of Arc, Don Quixote, modern day sci-fi time travelers, Gulliver, and Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: the child of imagination). One the most fascinating aspects of “Finding Neverland” is how Johnny Depp’s character is, psychologically and spiritually, in another world (though he is still outwardly in the world of realism). Tinkerbell is present whether his audience acknowledges her or not. The most touching part of this film is the contrast between the “youthful-puer” escape of the author and the death of Kate Winslet’s character. In a sense, she is on the same comic journey of escape—it can hardly be described as a tragedy. I have heard this movie described, in reviews, as being “soft as a baby’s breath.”
According to Wiki, the Senex is the archetypal opposite of the Puer. He is a wise old man for whom the promises of youthful chimera have faded. He offers advice and wisdom—he does not “quest.” Socrates, Tim from Monty Python, and the oracle in “O Brother Where Art Thou” are good examples.

Painting the Archetypal Journey

Thomas Cole, one of my other favorites, was a member of the Hudson River School of painters. His tryptich work: "The Voyage of Life" is divided into the parts, "Childhood," "Youth," and "Old Age." In a Fryian understanding, Youth is full of symbolism of the Romantic phase, Old Age is experential, but highly concerned with the high mimetic (the meta world of the gods), and I am not sure where childhood falls--the coming into being, the product of spring, and a verdant regeneration. Some of the symbols associated with spring are: the city, the tree of life, the Godess. Spring and youth are both shrouded in romance--I think appropriate to "Midsummer Nights Dream," "Finding Neverland" (although this shows a stange mixture of youthfulness and death), and the poetry of the Pastoral type. The above painting is "Voyage of Life: Youth." The crystal palace of "what might be" is the driving ambition of the young hero, just beginning his or her journey.

New Dreams

This dream is already broken; split in fragments and lost in repression. I was entering into a circus type scene--appropriate for Fat Tuesday. This was no ordinary circus because there was food everywhere. A behemoth, steel machine was pumping out noodles. I think it was for spaghetti.... There were buttons and knobs on it and there were several old operators in blue suits. My friend, the Italian named S, was wandering around inside the tent. I didn't seem to have any grand purpose at the circus that day. All that I know is that I was drawn to the center stage. I inched closer into the mad, furreling, sweating crowd--somehow the energy made me nervous. The stage opened up and I saw my friend...I couldn't believe it...Jeremy Tiedman, my basketball buddy, from 6th grade 3 on 3 tournaments, was doing gymnastics. Perhaps it was a strange form of Yoga. He was jumping off of his nose. His feet were warping around his body like a contortianist Somehow, his rubber-like limbs enabled him to literally jump off of his own face. As he bounced, his face was repeatedly smushed into a grotesque mask. This scene repeated like I was stuck in time--the recording somehow slowed down. From behind me, I heard a noise, the roof of the circus rended open to show the sky. It all split in half, exposed and then I woke up. No spaghetti taste in my mouth...nothing but an empty room.

Old Man Winter

What is Winter?

The signs of Winter are more present than ever...Bozeman has received a dumping of snow in the last few days. Although it is not quite to the extent of biblical plague or mythical proportions, it carries symbolic weight. Winter is the season of purgation; the earth is cleansed from all of the refuse of yesteryear and it clears the old evils in preparation for new life. Because Winter is between Autumn (characterized by chaos and mourning for the loss of of verdant life) and Spring (representing regeneration and vitality and original purity--Eden), it seems that it must be a season of profound ambiguity. Everything in the symbolic world is waiting and inbetween. Some authors have made this winter period into the reign of shadowy villians. The White Witch, in Lewis' Narnia, has dominion over this period of time. As long as she holds power, the seasons will not change and moral uncertainty has usurped the natural cycle of regeneration. She is accompanied by wolves--an animal which feeds in a pack, and whose realm is found in the now "evil" forest--evil because it is a state of death. Winter may be an arena which is initially blurry because it is in a state of asleep; However, in a sense, this ambiguity allows it to be tyrranized by the dead--by the world of dreams. In Narnia, this is a world of prolonged nightmare awaiting the waking by a child's turn of a knob, a Lion's blood, and a broken table.

A displaced Fairy Tale

I found this "modernized" script of the "Cinderella Story" on the web. To my shame, this version stars Hillary Duff. It shows an interesting digression from Fairy Tale form towards realism. If the Romantic organizing ideas were, according to Fry, "chastity and magic," then this example of the low mimetic movement shows the ironic dialectic between the worlds of Romance and the world of experience. It is a parody of the aesthetic ideal...but it is content to be in that place. Her kingdom is a farce of the imaginary--a movement between two modes, or worlds. The archetypal identity and symbolism is limited by the vision of reality of the girl from the Valley--prince charming is at In and Out Burger and her nefarious nemisis sounds like it is her waist-line. This story is a 10.

A Cinderella Story Script:

once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom,lived a beautiful little girl...
...and her widowed father. it's beautiful. okay. it wasn't that long ago.
And it wasn't really a faraway kingdom. it was the San Fernando Valley.
it looked faraway... ...because you barely see itthrough the smog. But to me, growing up, the Valley was my kingdom.
i was my dad's best friend. And he was mine. Being raised by a man put me behind inthe makeup and fashion departments. But i never felt like i missed out on anything.
i was the luckiest girl in the world. My dad owned the coolest diner.
i loved hanging out there. Diet was a four-letter word here...

"In our tradition we have a place for verisimilitude, for human experience skillfully and consistently imitated" (An. of Criticism 135). What is this? An imitation of a musician carefully distorted to show what may be there behind the musician...a revealing of his muse, an unshrouding of the true face, and the difficulty of playing a green Violin. Ha.

Mark Chagall's work is saturated with mythic imagery. His Jewish Background, knowledge of Greek culture and his travels (from Belerus, to St. Petersburg, to Paris) all contributed to the rich symbolism he drew on in his work. The Exedus, Diaspora and cultural vibrancy of Jewry is a major theme of his work. The meanings of such stories are deeply imbedded in his impressionistic style. It might be argued that these core stories created the template for all of his art work. The death of his wife, Bella, is the most traumatic and poignant of these "painted and retold" narratives. I was privaledged to see a major showing of his work at the MOMA, in San Fransisco.

Here are some Wikepedia interpretations of his commonly used figures and symbols:
Cow: life par excellence: milk, meat, leather, horn, power.
Tree: another life symbol.
Cock: fertility, often painted together with lovers.
Bosom (often naked): eroticism and fertility of life (Chagall loved and respected women).
Fiddler: in Chagall's village Vitebsk the fiddler made music at crosspoints of life (birth, wedding, death).
Herring (often also painted as a flying fish): commemorates Chagall's father working in a fish factory.
Pendulum Clock: time, and modest life (in the time of prosecution at the Loire River the pendulum seems being driven with force into the wooden box of the pendulum clock).
Candlestick: two candles symbolize the Shabbat or the Menora (candlestick with seven candles) or the Hanukkah-candlestick, and therefore the life of pious Jews (Chassidim).
Windows: Chagall's Love of Freedom, and Paris through the window.
Houses of Vitebsk (often in paintings of his time in Paris): feelings for his homeland.
Scenes of the Circus: Harmony of Man and Animal, which induces Creativity in Man.
Crucifixion of Jesus: This is not, as many believe a symbol of the Holocaust and persecutions of the Jews as this happened years after his time as an artist. He was and is not considered a psychic. Marc Chagall was very sympathetic towards the christian faith and especially Jesus' ideals and sympathy, and expressed this through his paintings.
Horses: Freedom.
The Eiffel Tower: Up in the sky, freedom.

Dream-texts

The recurring Terror:

When I was seven I dreamed that wolves were after me. It happened almost every night in the same monotonous but excrutiating manner. I would be laying in my bed, paralyzed, but with my eyes open. I saw their eyes--luminescent and shining up from the heater vent-shaft at the other end of my room. As they crept out of the heater, their bodies grew in stature and fearsome-ness. They were coming...
The lead wolf made a ritual of this macabre, nightly feasting. He lead the way and the others crept right behind him--just soft enough so my parents could not hear...just loud enough to echo my heartbeat. The three climbed my second story bunk bed. The lead wolf opened his mouth wide. I was being swallowed, cranium first. Then I woke up.

Recent Dreams:

I was at a medieval style carnival. Two gals I know, K and K were at the giant table--almost an Arthurian table--playing cards. I watched them play the game without interacting with anybody. It was the most profound sense of being out of place, being an other. I was watching from the same room, but in actuality I was behind a one way glass--no one noticing my presence. Suddenly, some figure peeked over my shoulder and whispered: "You can't make paper mache out of cards."

No psychoanal needed: So, I was checking out chicks...at Walmart. Sadly, I did not receive any digits. Yes, my reader, you may doubt my choice of location and my sanity in this matter--In reality, I have not seen many beautiful women at Walmart. However, this Walmart was in Mexico; hola senoritas! Incidentally, my roommate just received a job at the big W. Since the dream I have not been back.

Home Sweet Home: Upon returning home my parents praised me for my mastery of Latin. This is funny since I don't know my Ecco Homo's and quid pro quo's from my Veni, Vedi, Veci...exactly. After being falsely lauded, I went into the kitchen. My mom showed me an enormous, mis-shaped turnip. It had two giant eye-like holes missing from its center; it appeared like a figure eight. The entire room was overgrown with vegetables. I did not know how to respond.

Burning Philosophy: I was on an island for the annual Muses of Delphi and Erudititionary-Close Reading conference of 1942. Actually, that is not true...I made it up, and I could have been there for any obscure reason. It was 1940's era; I could tell that by the clothes of the people there. Many of my 121 students were attendees. In any case I wound up in a debate. "Herzig" was the philosopher on the dock. His philosophy was a Descartes-ian reversal. He believed that knowledge started with the cosmos and worked downwards and inwards to the cogito. I understood that much from this debate, on which I was a panelist. My opponent claimed that "Herzig" was a sort of fraud--that he had a false method of some kind. There was a time lapse in my dream and it broke through to another Act; perhaps Act IV iii...........I was at the top of a steep hill in an old jeep. It broke loose and I could not steer it. Somehow I was able to bail out. My friend Ryan was below and as the vehicle swooped back and forth along the dirt trail, it narrowly missed him. The Jeep flew off the cliff. It hit the wall and burst into a symphony of flames. It scared both of us and then I woke up. I hope this is not a prophecy of my academic career.