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"A broken bundle of mirrors": Identity in the work of John Barth

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"A broken bundle of mirrors": Identity in the work of John Barth

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Content "A B R O K E N B U N D L E O F M IRRORS":
IDENTITY IN TH E W O R K O F JO H N B A R T H
by
Judith Livingston Aklonis
A Dissertation Presented to the
FA C U LTY O F TH E G R A D U A T E S C H O O L
UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillm ent of the
Requirements for the Degree
D O C T O R O F PH ILO SO PH Y
(Comparative Literature)
M ay 1977
UMI Number: DP22531
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U N IV E R S IT Y O F S O U T H E R N C A L IF O R N IA
T H E G R A D U A T E S C H O O L
U N IV E R S IT Y P A R K Q , ^
LO S A N G E L E S , C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7 \ ^ v U ^
C o
i — j - j
A 3 I 5
T h is dissertation, w ritte n by
Judi t h.. L i vi rigston _ A k Ion is..
m /
under the direction o f h3X.... D issertation C o m
mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has
been presented to and accepted by T he G raduate
School, in p a rtia l fu lfillm e n t o f requirem ents of
the degree of
)C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Dean
Date.... h ] ^ . i fcy ! . ± 3 ± . .
DISSERTATION COM M ITTEE
.............
Chairman
tJs.
DEDICATION
For m y mother and father
and for John
i i
CONTENTS
DEDICATION............................................................................................................... i i
C H A P T E R
O NE. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................ 1
T W O . "THE S E A M L E S S UNIVERSE".................... 14
THREE. IDENTITY ........................................................................................ 88
FO U R . SUMMARY...............................................................................................172
APPENDIX................................................................................................................. 190
SELEC TED BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................... 209
i i i
C H A P T E R O N E
INTRO DUCTIO N
P R O L O G U E
D o you know what I think is interesting, by the w ay? . . .
It's the spectacle of these enormous universities w e have now,
a ll over the place, teaching courses is usj These birds . . .
like me, w ho haven't even reached menopause yet, Notable
Nobodies in the Novel, and already they're giving courses in us.
. . . But I wonder what effect i t w ill have on literatu re. For
example, where I work there are 600 English majors--maybe 6,000,
I don't know. S o m e can't read and write. But imagine 600
people in central Pennsylvania knowing and caring w ho Haw kes
and Donleavy are--maybe before Hawkes and Donleavy find out
themselves! . . .God knows what we're up to.
John Barth1
There's really naught in the world up here but clever music;
y e 'll take pleasure in 't i f ye've been reared to like that
sprt of thing.
The Sot-Weed Factor (491)^
I supposed he was referring to the doctoral degree; very well,
I'd abandoned m y efforts in that line years since, w hen I
eloped with the muse. . . . To m ake is not the sam e as to
think; there are more roads than one to the bottom of things.
Giles Goat-Boy (xxv)^
A m o n g the d iffic u ltie s connected with writing a dissertation
on a livin g , writing, talking author is the possibility that he
may, like John Barth, m ake frequent public comm ents questioning
the value of such things as advanced degrees, dissertations, or
even the study of literatu re. It is as i f Socrates were to te ll
a meeting of the American Philosophical Society that the unexamined
2
life is certainly worth living , and any notion to the contrary had
been based on a graduate student's error in translation.
Despite the facts that two of his novels (The E nd of the Road
and Giles Goat-Boy) have academic settings of a sort, and that most
of his work deals with an "educational" process of som e kind, Barth
is not m uch for the rituals of academe. Neither Jake Horner nor Joe
Morgan has completed his dissertation for the Ph.D., and Ebenezer
Gooke fa ils to obtain his degree from Cambridge. Even Henry
Burlingame "had for reasons unexplained not completed his baccalau
reate; yet for the range and depth of his a b ilitie s he w as l i t t l e
short of an Aristotle."^ The professor-novelist w ho claims to have
received the Revised N ew Syllabus from Stoker Giles has also stopped
working for the doctorate (as did Barth himself); and Giles Goat-Bo.y
proceeds to suggest that the pass-fail distinction on which so m uch
of the scholarly world is based is illusory, even destructive.
The student of Barth is constantly aware of his cheerful disdain
for people and institutions which take themselves too seriously.
H e responded to an interviewer's com m ent about the merging of firs t
and third person in Nabokov's Pale Fire by saying, "Nabokov's a real
sport.What on earth must he say about, for example, a dissertation
title d , "Towards a Novel of the Absurd: A Study of the Relationship
Between the Concept of the Absurd as Defined in the Works of Sartre
and C am u s and Ideas and Form in the Fiction of John Barth, Sam uel
£
Beckett, Nigel Dennis, Joseph Heller, and Jam es Purdy"?
In any case, to m ove from reading Barth's novels to writing
about them is to experience a variety of the schizophrenia which
3
is his frequent topic. O ne minute you are in the cheerful, bawdy,
unusually alive world of Ebenezer Cooke and Todd Andrews; the next
you are in a d im ly-lit Kafkaesque bureau, squinting myopically at
cryptic notes on small scraps of paper, trying to analyze that world
with scholarly objectivity. To add to the d iffic u ltie s , som e of the
''critical" reactions to Barth do not conform to the traditional
academic mode, running from published articles written with an almost
stream-of-consciousness technique^ to meetings of the Society for
the Celebration of Barthomania, where m em bers gather around an
eggplant and pass out "JO H N B A R T H F O R G R A N D TU TO R " bumperstickers.^
Leslie Fiedler has remarked that, despite the rich possibilities,
no really good comic novel about academic lif e exists--mainly, as he
sees i t , because "College novels . . . are not nearly grotesque enough
for their subjects."^ Perhaps, on the way to finishing the grand
Inquiry begun in The Floating Opera, or in the midst of that "m uch
larger and more complicated project, a novel called Letters" ^ on
which he is currently working, Barth w ill take pity on a ll the
academic Jake Horners everywhere and te ll the story of a ll the
unfinished dissertations. I f he does, I hope i t w ill be in the
m ode of The Sot-Need Factor, long and fu ll of laughter—and unpublished
until at least late 1977.
Footnotes
*John L. Enck, "John Barth: A n Interview," Wisconsin Studies
in Contemporary Literature, 6 (1965), 6,
^John Barth, 2nd. ed. (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1969).
Further references in the text w ill be to this edition.
3 v
John Barth (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc.,
1966).
4
Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor, p. 7.
^Enck, p. 5.
°Jean Kennard, Diss. University of California, Berkeley 1969.
7See, for example, Benedict Kiely, "Ripeness W as Not A ll: John
Barth/S Gtfes goat^Boy, M Hollins C ritic , 3 (December 1966), 1-12.
Q
Such societies exist; the one in Washington, D.C. is , or was,
quite active. See Ronald Shafer, "A Group of Scholars Gathers by
Eggplant For.., Yes, Well, W ow," The- Wall Street Jourital (24
January 1973), p. 1, col. 4.
g
u The W ar Against the Academy," Wisconsin Studies in Contem
porary Literature, 5 (1964), 7.
-^John Barth, Chimera (New York: R andom House, 1972), p. 202.
IDENTITY
"A broken bundle of mirrors!"
. . . your true and constant Burlingame lives only in your
fancy, as doth the pointed order of the world. In fact you
see a Heraclitean flux: whether 1 tis w e w ho sh ift and alter
and dissolve; or you whose lens changes color, fie ld , and
focus; or both together.
The Sot-Weed Factor (357)
John Barth does not exist,
Beverly Gross^
Years ago, when I took m y fir s t philosophy course, I w as struck
with Descartes' courageous resolution to question the rea lity of all
things, but I w as bothered when he re-b u ilt the world as i t had been,
and based his reconstruction on the existence of a G o d w ho would not
trick us, It seem ed to m e a crucial flaw in his procedure; only the
doubting m ade sense, all of the answers were dubious. W hen I pre
sented m y questions to m y professor, he responded that at least I
could not doubt the basic premise, "I think, therefore I am."
Typically, I suppose, I asked, "H ow do you know?" H e w as irrita te d ,
and said, "Oh, for heaven's sake; of course you know that you exist!"
Our relationship was never quite the sam e again.
Many of John Barth's protagonists share that peculiar in ab ility
to see the obvious fact of their o w n existence as clearly as they
should, or to believe in i t with the confidence which creates m en of
action. They wonder whether an individual can be said to have "a n ^
identity," whether he can ever be aware of himself as one being,
whether he can ever represent his "real" self to others or know the
true nature of another hum an being.
The question is not new to philosophy or literatu re. From Ovid
and Hom er to Pirandello's "Henry IV" and M ax Frisch's S tille r ,
artists have examined a sense of shifting or multiple identity, and
the relationship between the role and the actor ( i f any). The
twentieth century seem s particularly interested in identity--wondering
whether it is possible for an individual to find anything in or about
himself which is unique, which is "him"; and, i f so, h ow he can ever
communicate i t to another separate and unique being. With Einstein's
theories te llin g us that a m an must no longer "define rea lity solely
as he perceives i t through the screen of his senses," and that even
"objectively" measured time is a relative measurement, w e are more
and more unsure about our a b ility even to perceive, m uch less affect,
our world. A nd i f I cannot be sure that the grass I see "is" really
green, or the time I measure "is" really ten minutes, how can I be
sure that m y perceptions of myself are accurate? Perhaps the event
I remember from three years ago never happened, or at least not
exactly as I remember i t . Maybe the "kind" thing I did for som eone
is really, on closer inspection, just one of the "G am es People Play."
And i f m y perception of myself as well-intentioned is mistaken,
perhaps m y perception of myself as a free agent, a person w ho has
7
free w ill, is also an error? And so i t goes, along Descartes' old
road, back to his stopping place--and beyond.
Jacob Horner, for example, takes l i t t l e comfort from the fact
that he "thinks"; there are days w hen he sits in his chair, without
weather, and would probably swear to you that he was not thinking,
and even was not, in any significant sense. B illy Pilgrim ,* existing
simultaneously in multiple time frames and even in two different
worlds, would be unable to choose the "real" B illy , or to perceive
som e unique quality--his essential identity--which a ll of his mani-
festations have in com m on. Joe Christmas is unable to distinguish
between his "real" blackness, or lack of i t , and the blackness he and
others be!ieve he has inherited.
Jacob Horner and Henry Burlingame I I I represent opposing
tendencies: to refuse all roles, a ll action, to refuse to "be"; or
to try to encompass and reflect in fin ity , defining the "I" as the
" a ll." Another possibility is to define the "I" as its voice, its
articulation, its a rt, as the narrators of Lost in the Funhouse and
Chimera sometimes.try to do. In any case, in Barth's work "to think"
is not enough to create a satisfactory sense of self-id en tity; there
is a constant effo rt to interract in som e way with the other, with
the world outside the s elf, in order to create a Real "I." The
opposing tendency, in tension with this desire, is the strengthening
suspicion that both the process and the end product are imaginary.
_ .
The protagonist of Kurt Vonnequt's Slaughterhouse Five.
The protagonist of William Faulkner's Light in August.
8
S o m e of Barth's heroes have elements of Dostoevsky's underground
man, devouring themselves in cycles of spiteful self-consciousness,
resenting and admiring less aware and more active men, apparently cut
off from the "salvation" of simple and enduring love. At other times
they reflect a calmer state, more like that expressed in Hume's
reflections on "Personal Identity":
There are som e philosophers, w ho imagine w e are every m om ent
intimately conscious of what w e call our SELF; that w e feel its
existence and its continuance in existence; and are certain,
beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of its perfect
identity and simplicity.
Unluckily a ll these positive assertions are contrary to that
very experience, which is pleaded for them, nor have^we any
idea of s e lf, after the manner i t is here explain'd.0
The problem of identity is one of Barth's clearest concerns,
and his characters talk about i t , as they talk and think about every
thing, at great length. There are times w hen his tendency to
philosophize becomes so obtrusive that the reader wonders whether he
perhaps read Walden Tw o at a susceptible age and never recovered.
Barth has said,
I don't know anything about philosophy. I've never even
studied i t , m uch less learned i t . But ontology and cosmology
are funny subjects to improvise. I f you are a novelist of a
certain type of temperament, then what you really want to do
is re-invent the world.4
His disclaimer is perhaps too modest, just as his statement that he
is "improvising*' philosophies of personal and cosmic being m ay be a
l i t t l e extreme. Barth is not primarily a philosopher, not in the
sense that Sartre is primarily a philosopher, and i t m ay be partly
for that reason that he escapes the deadly calm and seriousness of
som e of the lite ra ry works which were created to "demonstrate"
9
philosophical issues. O n the other hand, Barth does seem s to be
"using the action of his fiction to expound a philosophy of action
which cannot properly be presented discursively."
Barth is writing in the context of, and with at least a general
awareness of, a philosophical tradition--from Descartes to Sartre--
which deals with the interrelated questions of an apparent sp lit
between man's mind and body and the resultant d iffic u ltie s of
establishing a personal identity, Since there is evidence that
Barth is writing with this tradition specifically in mind (he refers
to Descartes, H u m e and Sartre in various novels and interviews),
and because i t m ay provide an instructive perspective from which to
observe his work, the views of Descartes, Hum e, Kant and Sartre are
b riefly summarized in Appendix A.
What 1 w ill refer to as Barth's "philosophy" of personal
identity inhabits the ground mid-way between a complete and rigorous
system of beliefs about a subject and a collection of notions which
are in tu itiv ely associated. There are times w hen even this moderate
position seem s to cause him problems--when his interest in philosophy
seem s to result in weak or superficial characterizations (The E nd
of the Road, Giles Goat-Boy , for example), or w hen his interest in
plot appears to reduce philosophy to over-simplified dualisms.
Whatever the weaknesses of his struggle with ideas, however, I do not
agree with Alan Holder that Barth's great failu re is that his ideas
are "inadequately fe lt" or "not serious or passionate attempts to
give shape to experience, but things to play with."^ W e have a long
tradition which says that the best way to catch a serious idea is to
10
play with i t fir s t; but beyond that i t seem s to m e that a serious,
at times almost desperate concern with certain ideas--among them the
nature of m an as a divided being, and the nature of personal identity
as s p lit, dual—is clearly visible in John Barth's work.
Very b rie fly , I believe that Barth clearly views hum an nature
in terms of dualities, and he focuses particularly on the division
between the mind and the body, head and heart, and that between the
"I" and the "me." (These two areas are dealt with in Chapters Tw o
and Three of this study.)
In the fir s t case, his protagonists m ove from a simplistic
notion that "head" and "heart" are separate aspects of hum an a c tiv ity ,
and that reason should dominate and even erase emotion, to the m uch
more complex vision evidenced in Lost in the Funhouse and Chimera.
Here, body and emotion are seen as essential qualities which provide
the necessary impetus for a rtis tic achievement. O n the other hand,
mind is s t ill seen as the primary maker of art and even the source
of a ll meaning, a ll re a lity . Only in the process of making art do
the two elements participate on equal footing, perhaps even merge;
although mind s t ill appears to be the dominant force, especially for
the a rtis t.
The division between the "I" and the "mej" consciousness and
the ego, appears to be linked to, perhaps even to have developed from,
the mind/body s p lit. Again, the perception of this division in Barth's
work develops from a general sense that identity is either entirely
missing or is not the solid, simple, clear-cut thing which the pro
tagonists had been led to expect, to a very Sartrian vision of
identity as com posed of two entities: pure, impersonal consciousness,
and the ego, the "me," which exists almost entirely in the world.
This view of personal identity becom es merged for Barth with the
problem of the identity of the a rtis t as i t is , or is not, repre
sented in his work. These two aspects of the self are perceived as
basically divided, separated from each other; and Barth's recent
work portrays the anguish of the unseen, conscious "I" as i t struggles,
and fa ils , to m ake its e lf seen as i t is. Only in the brief m om ents
w hen consciousness creates and perceives its artifacts is the basic
separation between the two parts of identity overcome.
Thus, a strong sense of the duality of h um an nature is apparent
throughout Barth's work; and he increasingly looks to a rt—the act
of creation—for the experience, however fleeting, of unified
identity.
12
Footnotes
^"The Anti-Novels of John Barth," Chicago Review, 20, No. 3
(November 1968), 106.
^Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, 2nd. rev. ed.
(New York: William Morrow & Company, 1966), p. 58,
^Charles W . Hendel, J r., ed., H um e: Selections (New York:
Charles Scrtbner^s Sons, 1955), p. 83.
^Enck, p. 8..
^Robert Scholes, The Fabulators (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1967), p. 141.
'What Marvelous P lo t.., W a s Afoot?1 History in Barth's The
Sot-Weed Factor, 1 1 American Quarter!.y, 20 (1968), 603.
C H A P T E R T W O
"TH E S E A M L E S S UNIVERSE"
14
The term schizoid refers to an individual the to ta lity
of whose experience is s p lit in two main ways: in the fir s t
place, there is a rent in his relation with his world and,
in the second, there is a disruption of his relation with
himself.
R. D. Laing1
A nd the most tragic problem of philosophy is to reconcile
intellectual necessities with the necessities of the heart
and the wi 11.
Miguel de U nam uno^
I a m Suitor of T o tality, Embracer of Contradictories, . . .
I crave the Whole—the tenon in the mortise, the jointure
of polarities, the seamless universe . . .
3
Henry Burlingame I I
Henry Burlingame's desire to experience the "seamless universe"^
is a good metaphor for one of the quests upon which almost all of
Barth's protagonists are embarked. Invariably caught in a welter of
"contradictories," they struggle to resolve the conflicts within
themselves, to overcome duality. From Todd Andrews' battle with his
head and heart, and Jacob Horner's paralysis between knowledge and
imagination, to George Giles' efforts to resolve his humanity with
his goatishness, the impulse is always the sam e—to find or create
syntheses which can embrace or unify the contradictions of h um an
experience.
15
Barth is fascinated by antitheses, and his Bildungsromane are
structured--sometimes to an irrita tin g degree—on conflicts between
opposing elements of all kinds. Since opposition is reputed to be
the source of plot (traditional notions of plot, at least), there
are probably worse obsessions for a novelist, but the "twinness" of
his vision can also becom e oppressive, as i t does, I think, in
Giles Goat-Boy. Nevertheless, there are good reasons (in addition
to a rtis tic ones) to see man's problems as the result of splits in
his o w n nature. A s R. D. Laing's work indicates, the division between
mind and body has psychological rea lity for a number of people? and
the survey in the Appendix demonstrates, hopefully, that the philo
sophical tradition which has most strongly influenced twentieth-
century Western culture is one based on m an as a divided being. A nd
i t seem s clear that this view of m an is closely associated with
t
another of Barth's major concerns, the loss of identity which plagues
his characters.
The essential s p lit which runs through Barth's novels, and
which is returned to again and again, is that between mind and body,
frequently seen in terms of reason versus emotion. Around this primary
opposition a host of others revolve. A n exhaustive listin g of Barthian
polarities would be nearly endless; major recurring conflicts are:
mind/body; reason/emotion (love); art/love; self/love; re a lity /
imagination, illusio n, myth, a rt, lies; innocence/experience; absolute/
relative values; freedom/determinism; self-interest/responsibility for
others; male/female; s e lf/ro le , author/voice; and humanity-mortality/
immortality. Not all of these divisions have as obvious a connection
16
to the primary mind-body sp lit as that symbolized by the awkward
symbiosis between Eierkopf and Croaker in Giles Goat-Boy, but I
believe that most of the significant conflicts which concern Barth's
heroes are closely related to this basic schism.
The whole notion of duality per se as a valid way of structuring
our concepts about hum an beings and society--the "either/or" approach
which permeates Western thought--is also examined in Barth's novels.
O ne stage of the inquiry culminates in Giles Goat-Boy, which tries to
reject the principle of "differentiation" as'an adequate way of
approaching re a lity . The novel's solution is ambivalent, however,
and duality as an apparently insurmountable condition of hum an experi
ence remains a concern in the following sketches and novellas; even
as the nature of art becom es a more prominent theme in the later
works, the question remains; Is mind or emotion the ultimate source
of art? A nd how does the a rtis t perform the ultimate act of
" atonement--the making of two into one "?5
In this chapter w e w ill look briefly at each of Barth's novels
in turn, focusing o n the treatment of the mind/body, reason/emotion
f t
antinomy which is central to the identity crises of Barth's heroes.
* * *
The divided self is already present in Barth's fir s t novel,
The Floating Opera (1956)^; Todd Andrews is the fir s t of a series
of protagonists to experience a drastic separation between his head
and heart and to find in this tension the beginnings of a rtis tic
creation--and the impulse toward suicide!
17
Todd Andrews' whole lif e , he says, has been an e ffo rt "to master
the fact with which I liv e " (241)--that is , to deal with the problem
of his "heart." O n one level this fact is simply a physical condition
which, he believes, may cause his heart to stop beating at any
moment; in fact, he suffers from co m m o n hum an m ortality, and he is
trying to com e to terms, as a ll m e n must, with the knowledge of
impending death. (This association of the body with death is a con
tinuing theme in Barth's work, coupled with the urge to escape,
somehow--into heroism and myth, into art and the word--into immortal
ity .)
The "heart" problem has other aspects, however; i t also repre
sents Todd's primitive emotional nature. O n the one hand he insists
that he honestly recognizes his o w n "animality":
It;is one thing to agree intellectu ally to the proposition
that m an is a species of animal; quite another to realize,
thoroughly and for good, your personal animality, to the
extent that you are actually never able to oppose the terms
m an and animal, even in casual speech; . . . In m y case
this has been true since that night, and no one--not m y
father, nor Jane, nor myself--have I ever been able even
for a m om ent to regard differently. (71)
However, his emotional life has been lim ited; he claims to have
experienced strong feeling only five times in his lif e , and insists
that he has "never understood personally what love is and feels like"
(44).
The uneasy relationship between mind and body, and reason and
emotion, often takes the guise in Barth's work of som e d iffic u lty
connected with sexual functioning, frequently examined in triangular
personal relationships. Todd's second physical problem is thus a
prostate condition which leads to frequent impotence, and demonstrates
18
again that he has not, in fact, com e to terms with his physical
nature. His fir s t sexual experience with a g irl w as the "second
of two unforgettable demonstrations of m y animality" (131); and his
reaction was to burst out laughing.
Todd's reaction to his physical, emotional aspects seem s to
consist of a recoil into rational, intellectual control and explana
tion of his lif e , a lim itation and denial of his "heart." H e works
at "thinking clearly" and doing things "correctly" (77), and practices
law, which he sees as an intellectual gam e in which he is able to
O
control the events of other peoples' lives, i f not his own. M uch of
his remaining time is spent gathering material for his Inquiry, a
massive effo rt to explain "m y uncertain heart" (235-236)--his father's
life and death, his relationship to his father, and fin a lly his o w n
life . A nd the ultimate triumph of reason over emotion seem s to com e
in Todd's sudden realization that he should commit suicide, because
there is "no 'reason' for liv in g ." (243)
However, Todd's efforts to master his "heart" with his "head,"
or to keep the two aspects of himself hidden from each other (as he
says the "masks" he has worn throughout his life were intended to do
C239D), are ultimately unsuccessful, largely because his apparently
"reasonable" reactions to various situations were themselves the
result of emotional reactions which he failed to admit. For example,
the roles Todd has assumed to try to cope with his existence have
Q
not been the manifestations of pure reason that som e critic s suggest.
A s Todd explains, the masks were rationalizations of changes in him
self caused by outside events which affected him quite by accident
19
(29); "M y masks were each fir s t assumed and then ju s tifie d ." (239)
A s he prepares to die, he focuses on the reasonableness of his suicide:
I w as without emotion . . . just then m y whole self w as the
subject of m y ratio n ality, and what emotion logically follows
from any situation? (262)
Again, he has forgotten that the origin of his suicidal impulse was
the despair caused by his final recognition that "m y heart w as the
master of a ll the rest of me, even of m y w ill." (241) Later, he admits
that he is "dying, as he had lived, by sophistry."(263)
The final conclusion about "head" and "heart" in The Floating
Opera depends on the version of the novel which w e choose to accept
as "correct." The discrepancies between the 1956 and 1967 versions
have been discussed at som e length elsewhere;^ but in the form in
which i t was fir s t published emotion plays an important role in the
conclusion. Todd is snapped out of the "reasonable" paralysis which
follows his suicide attempt by a sudden, irrational feeling of con
cern for Jeannine, w ho has had som e kind of seizure; and his decision
not to accompany the Macks hom e seem s to reflect his acceptance of
responsibility for others as well as for himself. The 1967 "original"
version of the novel, however, seem s to conclude with reason s t ill
dominating emotion. Todd plans to k ill a ll of the people on board
the showboat, along with himself; and w hen the boat fa ils to explode
on cue, he feels no remorse for nearly destroying his "loved" ones.
Instead, logic triumphs—the belated realization that i f there is no
reason for living there is equally no reason to die.
These apparently contradictory versions of Barth's fir s t novel
lay the groundwork for later attempts, like that in Giles Goat-Boy,
to resolve dichotomies through a process which includes both reason
and emotion. In both its forms The Floating Opera seem s to infer
that heart and mind cannot be separated, that choices should be m ade
by the whole man--what U nam uno would call the "m an of flesh and bone"
who understands that "reason builds upon irra tio n a litie s ." ** (Unam uno
also anticipates Todd's struggle with m ortality, seeing i t as a
fundamental positive force in man's nature:
. . . the longing not to die, . . . our very essence, . . .
this is the affective basis of a ll knowledge and the personal
inward starting-point of all hum an philosophy, . . .* 2)
But even the original novel' s commitment to feeling remains
ambivalent, Todd's sexual problems are resolved only by his abandon
ment of a ll significant sexual activity after the day of his attempted
suicide, as he concentrates on the ra tio n a l-a rtis tic explanation of
his lif e of which The Floating Opera is a part. And the novel ends
with more rationalizations, this time of Todd's decision not to
commit suicide and his need to continue the Inquiry:
. . . the investigation of myself had to be reopened at once--
for certainly i f I was ever going to explain to myself w hy
D ad committed suicide, I must explain to him w hy f did not .
(271)
The only thing which is clear is the impossibility of reason ever
really getting free of emotion.
The Floating Opera also makes another kind of argument for the
physical realm of existence. Todd's keen awareness of the small
sensual pleasures of his lif e permeates the novel, from his enthusiasm
for Maryland beaten biscuits ("hard as a haul-seiner's conscience and
dry as a dredger's tongue, and they s it for hours in your morning
stomach like ballast on a tender ship's keel" [61U) to his appreciation
21
of the smell of crabhouses and the performance of the Ethiopian
Tidewater Minstrels. In this way the positive power of physical
and emotional experience are reflected in the novel not so m uch in
Todd's rather simpleminded philosophizing as in the narrative technique
its e lf.
At the conclusion of The Floating Opera, then, Todd Andrews
has achieved a point of uneasy equilibrium am ong his various con
flic ts , based on an acceptance of relative values as adequate for
the business of living and a limited affirmation of his freedom to
choose and act in spite of the effect of outside forces on his life .
Fundamental to these new perceptions is at least a limited under
standing that emotional and rational processes cannot be separated--
indeed, that they are completely interconnected. The tentative
balance thus achieved clearly w ill not la s t, however; and although
The Floating Opera ends with our hero "ignoring with a smile the
absurd thunderstorm that just then broke over Cambridge" (272), the
reader is uncomfortably aware that Todd’ s solutions w ill not hold up
very well in the storms of absurd existence.
* * *
1 3
The End of the Road (1958) m oves to a more serious and
detailed examination of the philosophical issues raised in Barth's
fir s t novel and tests the solutions there proposed. Not unexpectedly,
they f a il. A s Barth said,
I deliberately had him [ToddH end up with that brave ethical
subjectivism in order that Jacob Horner might undo that posi
tion in UnovelD #2 and carry a ll non-mystical value-thinking
to the end of the road. ^
22
In Barth's second novel w e seem to be several steps closer to
the world of Dostoevsky's underground man. The s p lit between "reason"
and "emotion" which plagues Todd Andrews has becom e even more severe
in Jake; he is even less able than Todd to love, or to form emotional
tie s , while his self-consciousness and intellectual skills are more
highly developed.
O n one level this division is represented by the Morgans, w ho
are at times almost embarassingly symbolic of the rational and animal
elements of man; their uneasy marriage parallels the incomplete union
of mind and body in Jake Horner. Rennie is generally described as
physical, sexual, an "unharnessed animal" (57) at h o m e only in action:
A s a rule she was a clumsy animal, but in any sort of strenuous
physical activity she was completely at ease and even graceful. (40)
In Rennie the notion of the body as the trap of m ortality, which w as
represented by Todd's ailing heart in The Floating Opera, surfaces
again; her death is a direct result of her physical nature, her
sexual activity.
In contrast to Rennie, Joe Morgan seem s to be the epitome of
ratio n ality, of mind controlling matter; he insists that a m an should
be able to "explain" (47) his behavior, to "act coherently." (47)
Jake describes him as a " monomaniac: he's fixed in the delusion that
intelligence w ill solve a ll problems." (123)
Neither of the Morgans is as one-sided as they sometimes appear,
however, and i t is this fact which causes their problems. For example,
Rennie is not so completely a physical being that she does not worry
about her lack of identity:
23
I think I completely erased myself, Jake, right dow n to
nothing, so I could start over. . . . I don't think I ' l l
ever really get to be what Joe wants . . . (62)
And i t is largely Joe's rational approach to their marriage, which
she has tried to internalize, which leads to her death; she cannot
live with the ambiguity of re a lity , the possibility of bearing Jake's
child.
Joe's character is also more complex than he w ill admit; he is
practicing a kind of double-think, more conscious, and thus more
damaging, than Todd's earlier in a b ility to see the contradictions
in his behavior. The other side of his "rational" nature is revealed
when Jake and Rennie peek through a window and discover Joe, w ho is
supposed to be working on his dissertation, marching around the room,
making faces at himself in the mirror, and fin a lly "masturbating and
picking his nose at the sam e time. I believe he also h u m m ed a
sprightly tune in rhythm with his work." (71)
In terms of the conflict embodied in Joe and Rennie, then, the
d iffic u lty is m uch like that in The Floating Opera—not so m uch a real
division between reason and emotion, or mind and body, as a desire to
believe that these two aspects of hum an nature are radically different
and separable and, above a ll, that "reason" can and should exert its e lf
to control and repress: emotion.
Jake's involvement with the Morgans exposes him to the opposing
pulls of their predominant qualities. The Barthian triangle reappears;
this time it is Joe w ho engineers an a ffa ir between Jake and Rennie as
a test for his wife. But as is frequently the case in Barth's work,
the relationship between the two m en in the triangle is more important
24
than that between the m en and the w om an; as Jake says, maybe " it
was Joe Morgan, after a ll, that I loved." (146)
The effect of Jake's exposure to the Morgans' mind/body tug-of-
war is catastrophic. H e is unable to lose his self-consciousness long
enough to thoroughly enjoy the a ffa ir with Rennie, m uch less to find
in physicality, or feeling, a solution to his o w n immobility. O n the
other hand, he is too m uch aware of the complexity of re a lity to
accept Joe Morgan's simple and hypocritical rationalism: "Great
heavens, Morgans, the world's not that easy 11 1 (23) The quasi-resolu-
tions of The Floating Opera w ill not work here. Todd Andrews m ay have
had som e emotional attachment to "his" child; but the child of the
triangle union in The E nd of the Road is never even born, and Rennie
dies because of i t . Joe continues to play the one-sided role he has
chosen for himself, and Jake is returned to his original state of
hopeless indecision: "I said I don't know what to do.n (197)
With Rennie's death, "mind" seem s to triumph in the novel —
a triumph which is generally associated, in Barth's world, with
paralysis and s te rility . This most negative of all of Barth's
novels does seem to lead to the "end of the road," where a ll solutions
have been tried and found wanting. But Jake has com e a step beyond
Todd Andrews' understanding of life . H e has fe lt the meaninglessness
and chaos about which Todd largely theorized; and, although i t le ft
him paralyzed, he has entered the realm of re a lity where superficial
motives fa ll away, where "there's only the lig h t." (74) I t is against
this vision, and with an understanding that " life lends its e lf to any
number of stories—p a ra lle l, concentric, mutually habitant, or what
25
you w ill" (5), that his followers w ill have to do battle.
★ * *
In his third novel Barth's tendency to structure his writing
around antitheses com es even more prominently into view. The Sot-Weed
Factor (I960)-*-5 is largely about the world as s p lit, dual, contradic
tory; and the pairs of apparently opposed forces, people and ideas in
the novel m ake an extremely long lis t: Baltimore and Coode; good and
e v il; civilizatio n and "salvagery"; Burlingame and Eben; re a lity and
illusions of all kinds--myth, cliche, art; innocence and experience;
public and private identity; free w ill and determinism; relative and
absolute values; knowledge and imagination; male and female; and, of
course, mind and body. Duality its e lf is here treated exp licitly
and at length, both acknowledged and challenged as the primary
structuring principle of man's experience.
The Sot-Weed Factor's formal and s ty lis tic differences from the
fir s t two novels led som e c ritic s to believe that Barth had abandoned
his earlier thematic interests as well; but when an interviewer asked
him about th is , Barth replied that the fir s t three novels, in fact,
1 fi
form a coherent effo rt to deal with co m m o n themes. Certainly in
terms of the conflicts with which w e have been dealing the continuity
is apparent.
The old Cartesian gap between mind and body, reason and emotion,
once again underlies the major antitheses explored in The Sot-Weed
Factor. The novel is launched with Eben Cooke's simultaneous denial
of his sexual nature and definition of himself as a Poet; and he
26
continues to try and align himself with the forces of "mind" —
v irg in ity , innocence, c iv iliza tio n , a rt--in a battle against sex and
emotion until he is fin a lly driven by Burlingame to embrace the "sign
and emblem" (505) of the world. Let us look fir s t at the mind/body
schism as i t is connected to Eben's refusal to accept his sexuality.
Eben's original rejection of Joan Toast stems from his lack of
self-id en tity ("he was no person at a ll" C50D), which is , in turn,
connected to his in a b ility to m ake positive choices about his life :
"when a situation presented its e lf he could never choose one role to
play over all the rest he knew." (50) A s is often the case in Barth's
work, sexual involvement suggests a larger commitment to life in
general. However, Eben rapidly sublimates his weakness into a life 's
mission--to be a virgin poet—and his fir s t poem concludes
Preserv'd, m y Innocence preserveth M e
From Life, from Time, from Death, from History;
Without i t I must breathe Man's mortal Breath:
C om m ence a Life--and thus com m ence m y Deathl (66)
Eben's determination to preserve his innocence, both physical
and mental, demonstrates not only his in a b ility to com e to terms with
the physical part of his being, but also his hypocrisy in refusing
to see what he has done—his sublimation of self-love into "love"
for Joan Toast, and of cowardice and penury into "art." Again w e
see the implied connection between sexual knowledge and death which
is fam iliar from The Floating Opera and The End of the Road. (The
connection was m ade m uch earlier than Barth, of course; frequent
references to A d am and Eve, and to Burlingame as the serpent in
Eden [742, 751J, tie Eben's dilemma to the context of original sin.)
The poem also states something that the poet himself seem s to
27
understand only incompletely--that the things he is trying to avoid,
while linked to death, are essential to life its e lf. Eben's studied
virg in ity thus represents his refusal to com e to terms with the
re a lity of life as i t is. I t is part of Burlingame's task to force
Eben to face the rea lity of his sexuality and its significance, to
teach him that no m an can avoid his o w n m ortality, or honestly be
"innocent."
O n the other hand, there is a certain Quixote-like charm to
Eben's " knight-errantry of Innocence and Art," which m ay have
in i t "all nobleness allowed to fallen m en" (680), as he later
realizes.
Just as The End of the Road tested the ideas developed in The
Floating Opera, the Sot Weed-Factor tests Eben's determination to cast
his lo t on the side of "mind," to live in the world of imagination
and articulation, m uch as Jake Horner ended his travels. Interestingly,
Eben too believes that Poetry--"articulation"--can exist without
significant emotional involvement in life .
The Poet Laureate's hypocrisy about his o w n desires is m onu
mental. Despite his strong sexual-emotional ties to both his sister
and his tutor, and a vain effo rt to seduce "Susan Warren," he s till
professes ignorance of half of his constitution.
Twice now he had com e within an ace of fornication--worse, of
meaningless rape--and his integrity had been preserved by
chance, through outside agencies. . . . O n the scales of
Prudence one pan lay empty, while Reason's entire weight
tipped dow n the other- , what dark force, then, on the scales
of Choice, effected counterbalance? (348-349)
Midway through his experiences he s t ill argues against sexual
experience and explains further his fear of it:
28
What knowledge is i t , Timmy, that is the root and stem of
all? What v ile experience sow s the seeds of death in m en? . . .
'Twas carnal knowledge, Tim boy, experience of the flesh that
caused man's f a ll! I f I a m Adam , I a m Eveless, and A d a m
Eve!ess is immortal and unfallen. (435)
W h en he is tricked into marriage with the pox-ridden Susan
Warren, Eben runs away rather than consummate the union; and he
continues to deny his incestuous yearnings for his sister (despite
the fact, as w e later learn, that the gam es the twins had played
as children had not a ll been Platonic!). Unwilling to accept his
carnal nature as part of his "essence," the Poet's very humanity is
repellent to him.
'What have I said but that thou'rt hum an?'
Ebenezer sighed. ' 'Tis quite enough.' (537)
The basic dualism of m an is also explored in the question of
"civilization" and "salvagery," a natural outgrowth of the novel's
setting in the new world; and Eben's exposure to the savages is
partly responsible for his change in attitude toward his Innocence.
Eben approaches Maryland with the notion that "civilization"
is equated with such things as the arts, culture, law, good manners--
all cerebral a rtifac ts , evidence that reason now dominates the
primitive instincts. "Salvagery," on the other hand, stands for
physicality, brute sexuality, uncontrolled emotion; and w e see
again, in one of the Laureate's poems, the 1 ink between such qualities
and Original Sin and death.
29
His Visage wild, his Form exotick
Barb'rous A ir, and Dress erotick,
His brawny Shoulders, greas'd and bare
His Member, all devoid of Hair
A nd swinging free, his painted Skin,
A nd naked Chest, inviting Sin
With Ladies who, their Beauty faded,
Husbands dead, or Pleasures jaded,
Fly from Virtues narrow W ay
Into the Forest, there to lay
With Salvages, . . .
Are Salvages but beardless Jews?
Or are they sprung, as so m e maintain,
From that sam e jealous, incestuous Cain,
W h o with twin Sister fain had lay'd
A nd whose o w n Brother anon he slay'd: (407-408)
The belief that a m an is either savage or civilized (either
dominated by "body" or by "mind"), and that the two states are
radically different, is parodied in the novel. B illy Rumbly
actually manifests this hum an duality; one day an uneducated, violent
Indian w ho rapes an Englishwoman, he appears a few days later quoting
the classics, well dressed and -mannered, the epitome of the cultured
Englishman--transformed, apparently, by love; and Anna undergoes the
opposite transformation, from the Church Creek Virgin to a filth y
squaw smeared with bear grease and blood, a ll because of her sexual
experiences with the Indian. The foolishness of the assumption
that either mind or body, reason or emotion (but not both) is the
real nature of ro a n is mocked in a chapter t it le :
The Tale of B illy Rumbly Is Concluded by an Eye-Witness to His
Englishing. Mary M ungom m ery Poses the Question, Does Essential
Savagery Lurk Beneath the Skin of C ivilizatio n, or Does Essential
C ivilization Lurk Beneath the Skin of Savagery?--but Does Not
Answer It . (649)
Nevertheless, Eben resists facing up to the savagery in himself
and other "civilized" m en for as long as possible, despite mounting
30
evidence that the savages he meets--Drakepecker and Quassapelagh, for
instance--are considerably more refined than the uncouth Englishmen
in Maryland. (320)
A s his experience of America grows, so does his sympathy for
the Indian cause; and a major turning-point for Eben occurs w hen
he is drawn, as Dante was, past Limbo Straits and into the heart
of a ll he has feared--the center of the''salvage"nation. Expecting
to be k ille d , the poet and his friends instead reach a state of
" general absolution " (579); and Eben is able for the fir s t time
to accept complete responsibility for his actions. H e also com es to
the realization that both the exploited Indians and the exploiting
white m en are "hum an" (589), and that the savages are his brothers.
This insight prepares the way for the discovery that his dear friend
Burlingame is apparently the long-lost son of an Indian chief, and
thus himself half "salvage" Indian and half "civilized" Englishman,
the perfect representative of the union of contraries.
After leaving the Indian nation, Eben is able to see that
" there's a deal of the salvage in all of us " (638), and to find
himself " half on the Indians' side o' the question " (638); i t
would seem that he has com e a long way toward accepting his o w n
humanity, with its physical and irrational as well as aris tic and
rational aspects.
In its treatment of the law The Sot-Weed Factor also makes
fun of Eben's efforts to believe that our reasoning faculties can
be separated from emotion. W e have already seen Todd Andrews in
The Floating Opera treating the law as a game, a m eans of manipulating
31
others to accomplish his o w n ends. Eben Cooke s t ill believes,
however, that " Justice is blind " (418), based on innocence of
the world rather than on worldliness, and existing in a Platonic realm
separate from everyday hum an experience--1 ' transcendent entities,
noumenal and pure " (419). Burlingame disagrees, insisting that
1 1 where blind Innocence is judge, the jury is blind Chance! " (419)
The matter is put to a test when they encounter a court in session--
a court where the tria l is seen as a form of "entertainment" (420)
by the people, the judge is openly influenced by bribes, and no
effo rt is m ade to ascertain the "facts" of the case. Outraged, the
poet intervenes and renders a judgment based on "blind Justice." (429)
F ittin g ly , he unknowingly deeds his o w n estate to another m an and
sets up the conditions which w ill later require him to marry a
diseased prostitute.
A similar legal proceeding concludes the novel, when Governor
Nicholson must determine the real owner of Malden. The estate fin a lly
com es to Eben, the "true" owner, but not because of "pure" justice.
Rather, i t is a combination of trickery and thheats on the part of
Burlingame and Joan Toast which assure that "justice" is done.
The law, then, is no more purely rational than is Eben himself.
A s far as The Sot-Weed Factor is concerned, there seem s to be no
way of purifying reason of emotion, and no real reason to try.
His experiences and Burlingame's repeated arguments gradually
change Eben's views of his o w n "essence" as he m oves from a state of
innocence to one of greater knowledge; and the change is reflected
in his sexual activity. There is , for example, an ambiguous scene
32
where Eben and Anna are the prisoners of pirates; the poet refers to
the two of them as " Eve and A dam ? " (742) and then appears to
launch an unsuccessful attempt to deflower his sister before the
pirates can do it !
His liberation is never completed, however; he cannot fin a lly
escape his heritage of Christian, dualistic thought. W h en Eben
fin a lly agrees to consummate his marriage with Joan Toast, the
" very Whore o' Babylon " (800), the "sign and Em blem " (505) of
the world, it is more than a physical act; but i t does not signify
his real affirmation of his sexuality, or a joyous acceptance of
life 's to ta lity , as i t would do for Burlingame. Instead, it is an
act of repentance, an effo rt to wipe out the g u ilt he feels for all
the harm he has unwittingly caused others. " I l i t t l e care now
for m y legacy, save that I must earn i t . 'Tis atonement I crave:
redemption for m y sins " (800)--especially for the sin of innocence.
Eben thus commits himself to the lif e which carries within i t
the seeds of his death, but he does so more in the s p irit of self-
denial than of self-unification. Like Jake Horner Eben has chosen
the role of a"penitent," even though he can only repent of being
hum an. Barth's third protagonist is able to accept himself as
human, a "m an of flesh and bone" (Unamuno) as well as reason and
imagination, only by taking on the burden of g u ilt which has tra d i
tionally been associated in the Western world with the things of
the body; his real "legacy" is not Malden but Original Sin. The
flawed nature of Eben's union with the world is seen w hen their
child is born dead; and Joan Toast dies shortly thereafter. Again
33
w e hear echoes of The End of the Road.
They are only echoes, however. For all his miseries, Eben has
com e a long way from Jake Horner's dead end: he has thrown himself
into lif e with genuine good spirits; he has almost m ade love to his
sister; and he is gloriously funny!
I f there is a "solution" to the mind/body, reason/emotion
s p lit in The Sot-Weed Factor--a resolution which anticipates that
of Giles Soat-Boy-- i t is approached in Henry Burlingame I I I , a hero
w ho is fin a lly the equal of the chaos of experience depicted in
Barth's fic tio n . Described by Eben as " a Faustus of the flesh—
a very Lucifer! "(435) and " Eden's serpent " (436), Burlingame
plays the role of tempter and engineer of the Poet's fa ll from
innocence to knowledge of the world—an extension of the Doctor's
role in The End of the Road. H e is the most complete embodiment in
Barth's work of the individual w ho is , as Jacob Horner would say,
"in fin ite ly divisible." A God/Devil/father/alter-ego figure, almost
a ll of the dualities operating in The Sot-Weed Factor are embraced in
Burlingame's multiple personality.
A s a m an w ho is half Indian and half English, half "salvage" and
half "civilized," Henry embodies the reason/emotion division commonly
thought to exist in hum an beings. But he seem s to have developed both
aspects of his being as fu lly as possible, with no conflicts between
them; he discourses on the nature of identity as i t relates to memory,
or writes a poem, or understands a complex political intrigue with
ease and zest. But is is as a lover that he is most remarkable:
34
. . . I love the world, s ir, and so m ake love to i t . I
have sow n m y seed in m en and wom en, in a dozen sorts of beasts,
in the barky boles of trees and the honeyed w o m b s of flowers;
I have dallied on the black breast of the earth, and clipped
her fast; I have wooed the waves of the sea, impregnated
the four winds, and flung m y passion skywards to the starsN
♦ * •
1 1 Tis the only way for a poet to look at the world. (355)
In his more rational—or cynical--moods, however, his rather grim
view of existence—an extension of ideas from the fir s t two novels—
seem s to conflict with his emotional enthusiasm for a ll Creation:
. . . . man's lot? H e is by mindless lust engendered and by
mindless wrench expelled, from the Eden of the w o m b to the
motley, mindless world. H e is Chance's fool, the toy of
aimless Nature—a mayfly flittin g dow n the winds of Chaos! . . .
do w e seek our soul, what w e find is a piece of that sam e
black C osm os whence w e sprang and through which w e f a ll: the
in fin ite wind of space...................I f you saw i t clear enough
'twoud not dizzy you; 'twoud drive you mad! (372-373)
Burlingame's reaction to the contraries in himself and the
world is to try to encompass them all in his o w n experience; but
he also is striving to achieve som e ultimate unification of opposites.
I t is for this reason that the twins fascinate him; as he explains
to Eben, they represent the " dualism, polarity, and compensation "
of existence, 1 1 the twin principles of male and female, mortal and
divine, good and e v il, lig h t and darkness' " (532). His goal is to
possess the twins while they possess each other:
I a m Suitor of To tality, Embracer of Contradictories, Husband
to all Creation, the Cosmic Lover! . . .1 have know n m y great
Bride part by splendrous part, and have m ade love to her
disjecta membra, her sundry b rillia n t pieces; but I crave the
Whole—the tenon in the mortise, the jointure of polarities,
the seamless universe—wherof you twain are token, in coito! (537)
Henry's efforts to achieve this unity of experience, either
lite r a lly or metaphorically, are not completely successful. The
main section of the novel does end, as a com edy should, with a
35
sort of marriage; and the grouping of characters as they go
upstairs--Henry carrying Joan, the twins following while Anna
blushes— -does suggest Henry's union with the "world" and Ebenezer's
with Anna. However, the following section of the novel returns us
to the real world, where the implications of the marriage scene
seem to be negated. Eben and Anna live together as brother and
sister, while Burlingame disappears from their lives; the metaphorical
union of the three is represented only obliquely, by the child of
Anna and Henry w h o m the twins raise as i f he were the son of Eben
and Joan Toastl
This child is in so m e ways, however, the goal of the whole novel.
Burlingame, otherwise the complete lover, is basically impotent;
due to a congenital defect, his private m em ber is too small to
function normally, and he is unable to impregnate anyone. His fo il,
Eben, is physically capable of intercourse, but he lacks Henry's
lust to mate with life ; physical impotence is balanced against mental
impotence, and the drive toward union struggles with the impulse to
remain separate, and safe.
The entire novel fin a lly focuses in on three pages missing from
Sir Henry Burlingame's Privie Journal!, which supposedly have evidence,
on the verso, against John Coode, and which are ultimately recovered
at the cost of Eben's virg in ity and health. They are of greatest
interest because they also contain the Secret of the Magic Eggplant,
which renders Burlingame sexually potent and, w e are led to believe,
allow him to prove his identity to his Indian father and thus save
Maryland from a massacrel But again the resolution is incomplete.
36
The secret necessary for Burlingame's physical completion has been
purchased with Eben's innocence; and, although Eben's fa ll into
knowledge has been one of Henry's goals, there is a suggestion that
innocent, Quixotic undertakings have real value. A s Eben says,
' . . . What moral doth the story hold? Is 't that the
universe is vain? The chaste and consecrated a hollow
madness? Or is 't that what the world lacks w e must ourselves
supply? M y brave assault o n Maryland--this knight-errantry
of Innocence and Art--sure, I see now 'twas an edifice raised
not e'en on sand, but on the black and vasty Zephyrs of the
P it. Wherefore a voice in m e cries, "D ow n w ith 't, then!"
while another stands in aw e before the enterprise; sees in
the vanity o f't all the nobleness allowed to fallen man.' (680)
The point, after a ll, is to unite opposites, not to eliminate one
of them.
Further, along with Burlingame's sexual potency com es knowledge
of his identity—his father, his place in history. At times he has
bemoaned the "loneliness" of being an orphan, with "no link with
history" (143), and the quest for his father has been the underlying
motive for his adventures.^ O n the other hand, he has exulted in
his freedom; and i t is perhaps his position "outside" the natural
order which allows him to attempt to experience the "seamless uni
verse." " 'I have no parentage to give m e place and aim in Nature's
order: very well — 1 a m outside Her, and shall be Her lord and
spouse!' " (537) Once he has been reclaimed by history, and has
impregnated Anna, the v ita l, lusty Burlingame v irtu ally disappears
from the novel. Since his son is raised as i f he were the child of
Eben and Joan Toast, his (the son's) actual parentage and identity
is also obscured, thus creating another Burlingame w ho does not know
w ho his father is , perhaps beginning the cycle again.
37
S o w e are le ft with the "early" Burlingame, the actor par
excellence, w ho tried to live all his potential roles and
oppositions.
O ne must needs make and seize his soul, and then cleave fast
t o 't, or go babbling in the corner; . . . O ne must assert,
assert, assert, or go screaming mad. What other course remains?-
(373)
Mythotherapy, perhaps, but with a v ita lity that w as missing from
the Doctor's vision. Burlingame's cold view of life 's meaningless
ness is like that of Jacob Horner, or Todd Andrews, based on a
"reasonable" look at existence; but his lusty, despairing commitment
to lif e despite its lack of meaning has an emotional source. Jacob
Horner was paralyzed by his glance at the gorgon's head, but
Burlingame demonstrates the possibility of turning the cold rea lity
of an "absurd" existence into a source of life and action.
I once taught a Freshman English course at the University of
Southern California; and the Professor in charge of Freshman English
for that year came, at great cost--the class met at 8 a.m.—to
observe the proceedings, W e were discussing Albee's "A Delicate
Balance"; and the Professor, after watching the entire class, had
only one suggestion. These students were only freshmen; could I
not present the play as, somehow, more hopeful? For me, of course,
the fact that w e were a ll there—asserting, as Burlingame would say,
in the face of the " winds of Chaos " (372)—w as about as hopeful
as anyone could hope for; what more could a reasonable person want?
S t ill, I have remembered; and periodically I search the fields
of literatu re for sprouts of "hope." Viewed in this way, The Sot-
W eed Factor is considerably more optimistic than The End of the Road.
38
In Barth's third novel, body, sex, emotion, and the world "out there"
seem to be accepted as necessary for the proper functioning of the
hum an being, even of his mind. The novel approaches the union of
knowledge and imagination, mind and body; but the approach is frig h t
ening, as H u m e understood. I f our mind contributes something to
re a lity , does i t perhaps contribute a ll? A m I alone? W h o a m I?
A s M ax explains to George the goat-boy, i t is this last
question which is the essence of humanity; and Giles Goat-Bo.y
continues the "philosophical minstrel show"^ begun in The Floating
Opera.
While Barth's work demonstrates a constant concern with certain
themes, his ideas do not remain static; and each of the fir s t four
novels serves to "test" som e of the ideas or solutions proposed in the
one preceding. A m o n g its many concerns Giles Goat-Boy or, The
Revised N ew Syllabus (1966)^ continues the study of the philosophy
of duality which was begun in the earlier novels—the valid ity of
differentiation per se as a m ode of hum an experience. In particular,
it scrutinizes Henry Burlingame's belief in the possibility of
embracing and transcending oppositions, attaining the "seamless
universe"; and now, having apparently exhausted other possibilities,
?n
w e look at mystical (as opposed to "non-mystical ) thinking or
experience as a basis for man's values.
Of the fir s t four novels, Giles Goat-Boy centers most speci
fic a lly on the duality of mind and body, reason and emotion—indeed,
on the valid ity of seeing rea lity in terms of dualisms at a ll. M any
of the relationships in the novel reflect an apparent schism.
39
Eierkopf and Croaker, in their medieval symbiosis, are the most
blatant caricatures of "mind" and "body," reason and emotion,
in te lle c t and w ill (or s p irit) in the novel. Eierkopf and M ax are
also traditional adversaries, associated with the head and the
heart respectively. Lucky Rexford and Maurice Stoker are lords of
separate, mutually dependent domains. Stoker's Powerhouse is the
source of energy, connected with the heart and the emotions--
sexuality, humor, the "spiritedness" Sear com es to admire; his
brother's function is one of apparent pragmatic rationality and
decision-making, the "brain" of the campus. Even Peter Greene, the
archetypal American clod, is divided against himself, caught in the
coils of the Puritan ethic which dictates that sex is an e v il,
animal function, while "love" is spiritual and pure, and never the
twain shall meet.
The novel-s main focus, however, is on the division within
George himself, as he struggles, like Barthian protagonists before
him, to com e to terms with the seemingly contradictory elements of
his humanity. The t it l e , Giles Goat-Boy, encapsulates his problem:
is he goat or human, or perhaps the "Giles," a savior-figure created
by a computer which both incorporates and transcends the mind/body
division.
The fir s t two "Reels" of Volume O ne of the novel depict the
two stages of George's early life . Abandoned as a baby, he is
raised with a flock of goats and believes, until his thirteenth year,
that he is^a goat. A s B illy Bocksfuss the fir s t stage of his devel
opment is almost entirely physical, focusing on a strong and
40
uninhibited sexuality. ( It is significant that this is the fir s t of
Barth's novels where the sexual drive is originally presented as a
positive force, without associations of g u ilt, although M ax adds them
later; George's development thus m oves in the opposite direction of
Eben' s.)
The second phase of George's early life covers the period from
his dawning sense of his o w n humanity to his final determination to
" be a h um an student " with his earlier self " dead in the goat-
pens. " (109) His belief that he must reject his goatishness to
becom e hum an is a result of his education by M ax Spielman, George's
mentor and guide for the fir s t part of his quest. Originally an
influential scientist w ho was involved in the development of
W E S C A C , the all-powerful computer of the Western Campus, M ax withdrew
from h um an society to live as a goatherd after witnessing the events
of World W ar II in which the computer played a role. His rejection
of the intellectual part of man's existence obversely parallels Eben
Cooke's effo rt to avoid his physicality by withdrawing into the
realm of imagination. The question "W h o are you?" (106) is what
separates goat from hum an; and i t is to spare George the torment of
trying to answer the question, as well as the agony of man's negative
potential, that M ax has raised George as an animal.
M ax sees a hum an being in a very Cartesian-Kantian-Christian
way, as a creature composed of basically incompatible elements. For
example, he believes that physical being per se is sinless, because
unaware; i t is the mind which creates beauty and e v il, and which is
the source of real "humanity." Thus, as a goatherd, living separate
from hum an society, he is open and accepting about sex, and
especially fond of ewes. But as soon as he becom es George's'Virgil
during his quest to becom e Grand Tutor, M ax once again enters
the realm of society and its myths, and urges George to forswear
sex i f he wishes to becom e the "G ood Goatsman" (150), a variation
of Eben's notion that to be a poet—a kind of hero--he must remain
"pure." Max's o w n ambivalence about man's dual nature leads him to
believe, as Plato suggested in The Republic, than man's physical
and emotional being must be controlled by his better, more rational
part. The solution to the division within the h um an character is
to destroy, as far as possible, one half of our being; i f self-
consciousness and reason cannot be stamped out, then the body and
emotions must be denied so that the mind can function "morally."
(These are variations of the thinking of The Floating Opera.)
Steeped in this traditional wisdom, but with strong conflicting
instincts, George sets out to save humanity. H e is accompanied not
only by Max but also by his symbolic opposite, G . Herrold, George's
spiritual father and the m an w ho has initiated him into the delights
of hum an sex—a representative of the goatly part of man. (G. Herrold's
role is almost immediately taken over by Croaker, a symbol of pure
physical force, sexuality, animal spirits and w ill—and, oddly enough,
the only a rtis t in the novel.)
In his earliest adventures George succumbs to the temptations
of sex (Anastasia) and emotion (Stoker's "outrageous high spirits"
£1993), rejecting Max's idea of virtue: "Enos Enoch £Christ3 was
Shepherd Emeritus, and I'm the Goat-Boy. There's a big difference. "
42
(204) His in itia tio n into Stoker's realm is completed w hen George
"services" Anastasia at the culmination of the m ock f e r t ilit y rite
at the spring equinox celebration; but he inadvertently blows the
EAT-whistle, the signal of impending diaster, and rushes from the
Power House fille d with "rage, remorse, and doubt" (245). I t is
Croaker w ho transports him out of the Power House and further along
the road to Main Campus, emphasizing that his experiences to this
point have served mainly to acquaint him with the physical and
emotional potential of lif e , which now carries him onward.
In contrast, the "Third Reel," or cycle, of George's education
emphasizes intellectual experience. His entrance into N ew Tam m any
coincides with the period of Carnival which, M ax explains, originated
with the " 'farewell to flesh' that preceded any period of fasting
or mourning" (298). At this point Max, w ho has becom e ever more
closely identified with the "heart" rather than the "head," disappears,
and his role as guide and tutor is taken over by Kennard Sear, a
cynical, aesthetic intellectual w ho espouses a "tragic" view of
life . In his view, Knowledge is the only goal for m an.
That's my_Grand Tutor! . . .Poor blind Taliped COedipusH
and his fatal ID-card, stripped of innocence! Committed and
condemned to knowledge! That's the only Graduation offered
on West Campus, George-- (353)
Harold Bray immediately appears to proclaim that " Tragedy's
out; mystery's in! " (354) and that lie, not George, is the Grand
Tutor. Bray's challenge of the Western tragic tradition is also,
im p licitly, a challenge ;of the reason/emotion dualism; but George
is s t ill a long way from comprehending any of this, and his in itia tio n
into the realm of Reason continues with a v is it to Eblis Eierkopf.
43
The epitome of mind—only his head is functional, the rest of his
body underdeveloped and useless—Eierkopf takes a purely scientific
or ration alistic approach to nature, denying the possibility of
mystery in the world. "There a in 't any mysteries; just ignorance."
(379)
W h en he passes his fir s t test, the Trial-by-Turnstile, George
loses his shophar, goat fleece wrapper and his amulet of goat's
testicles; his fir s t ritual success thus coincides with a symbolic
shedding of his "goatly" qualities. Later he decides that the
Answer can be discovered by following the direction of Oedipus—
"through the dark and bloody Deanery of Cadm us" (427); at this
point, then, he chooses the path of knowledge and tragedy and
reason, rather than the path of mystery, whatever that m ay be,
which the elusive Bray has heralded. S t ill, he passes his next
test—Scrapegoat Grate—and receives his Assignment not because of
his reasoning powers but because of Anastasia's help, and the fact
that he is wearing the mask of Harold Bray, as he is to do for two
subsequent tria ls . The representatives of body-sex-love
(Anastasia) and mystery (Bray), rather than in te lle c t, preside
over George's in itia tio n into his career as Grand Tutor.
The Second Volume of Giles Goat-Boy is subdivided into three
"Reels" of information, as w as the fir s t part; and George's efforts
to complete his Assignment, and to "tutor" his acquaintances, pass
through three cycles. In the fir s t, George tries to apply the prin
ciple of differentiation, "reason," to subordinate the goatliness in
himself and others.
44
In his in itia l stin t as Grand Tutor George concludes that the
a b ility to distinguish contrary or unlike things is the basis of
"pure" reason* on which the computer W E S C A C is constructed, and i t
N
is also the "very principle of Passage" (487). " Passed are the
passed and flunked are the flunked, and that's that! " (465)
Applying this either/or approach, George urges his tutees to develop
only the virtuous aspect of themselves, purging themselves of
everything that contradicts i t .
The erstwhile Grand Tutor runs into self-doubt only when he
encounters Anastasia; i t is George's relationship to her which
fin a lly becom es the focal point of his quest. With her he begins to
understand the importance of feelings, and the possibility of love;
but he denies them, true to his either/or approach, and insists that
Anastasia, w ho believes that sex is not only natural but " the
v
passedest thing too " (179), should from now on "let no man, wom an,
or other beast mount her or in any wise know her carnally" (532).
The results of George's efforts to m ake a "clear distinction"
(535) between things is a wave of personal, social and political
chaos, in which the Grand Tutor himself is nearly lynched. Recovering
in detention, he realizes that
perhaps student rationality and brute unconscious w ill were not
separable, so that plucking the blossom killed the root. (593)
Soon, however, he has a new, contradictory, vision of The Truth,
and once again sets out on the way to "Com m encem ent Gate." (604)
In his second cycle as Grand Tutor George rejects the principle
of differentiation and "that distinction of Passage and Failure from
which depended a ll m y subsequent mistakes." (605) S till using a
45
dualistic, either/or approach, he now resolves to take the opposite
path from his fir s t attempt—to "shut his eyes to Reason" (618), to
deny distinctions, to affirm his goatliness, to feel (610) and
embrace. Instead of believing that passage is passage and failure
is failu re, his maxim now is , " Passed are the flunked. " (604)
This sounds at fir s t like a true effo rt at unifying contraries
to achieve the "seamless university" (627), the new version of the
"seamless universe" of which Burlingame spoke. In an apparent
recognition of the union of reason and w ill, George finds that his
"infirm ity" was
that I had thought myself fir s t goat, then wholly hum an boy,
w hen in fact I was a goat-boy, both and neither: a walking
refutation of such false conceits. (653)
But i t becom es clear that he has not succeeded in transcending
contraries so m uch as denying differences am ong things. The principle
of differentiatio n, dualism, is s t ill operating, disguised. H e
recom mends that people simply apply the contrary of his earlier advice,
to "embrace and affirm what I'd bade HthemJ suppress" (627). For
himself, the answer is to "affirm m y limp and goatliness" (634), to
feel the way to an Answer (610). However, his relationship to
Anastasia, which has becom e the crucial test of his views, is s till
confused. In a detailed physical examination he com es to "know"
her through his senses, although they do not have intercourse; but
the examination is interrupted, and he is s t ill unsure what the
words "I_. Love. You." (681) refer to. Love, like the w o m an herself,
remains unknown; it belongs to the third, transcendental level of
mystery. This second cycle ends in a second confrontation with Bray,
46
after which George is again nearly lynched by a furious crowd; and
he is again carried from the scene by Croaker, realizing that "once
more I'd been all wrong, in what wise I was too miserable to care/"
(698)
In the Third Reel of Volume Tw o w e are at last presented with
the Answer, which encompasses both of George's earlier one-sided
visions and, w e must suppose, enters the realm of "mystery" which
Harold Bray predicted. H e now recognizes that both of his previous
ideas about "salvation" are true—not d ifferen t, but also not
identical.
Passage w as Failure, and Failure Passage; yet Passage w as
Passage, Failure Failure! Equally true, none w as the Answer;
the two were not different, neither were they the same; . . .
(708-709)
The mind/body struggle is resolved sim ilarly, in the realm of
mystery—the unexplainable experience. In a m om ent which fuses sexual
and intellectual perception, he mates with Anastasia and, through
her, experiences the "entire, single, seamless cam pus . . . all one,
and one with m e" (731) — the union for which Burlingame hoped in
vain. Bray, w ho seem s to represent the flux and mystery of re a lity ,
is present in Anastasia, w ho wears his mask. George's rational efforts
to comprehend, and explain to others, the contradictory, multifaceted
unity of rea lity are fused with its physical emblem; but, interestingly,
his Answer is based on sexual, physical union, and the impetus for the
insight is emotional—the enigma of "love."
The source of the final leap into comprehension, then, com es
from the "Goatly" part of m an: an emotional impulse*which is closely
tied to the sexual instinct. N o w certain that he has "com e through
47
to bonafide Grand Tutorship" (735), George returns to the goat
barns where he ritu a lly renews and reaffirms his goatliness; and w hen
he returns to cam pus to drive out Harold Bray, he is again dressed
in a goat's fleece, carrying a shophar, and leading a young buck.
To this point, the novel seem s to argue that, while reason
must be developed, the crucial elements of an experience of the
"seamless universe" com e from the other side of our duality. The
s p irit, the w ill to discover reality and create meaning, has its
source in man's emotions; but neither reason nor emotion, developed
separately, is completely hum an. Thus, George says that neither
Croaker nor Eierkopf could ever "pass."(760) In this respect
George has abandoned a Western, dualistic philosophy for a more
Eastern approach, concentrating on the unity of contrary forces
(during their trip to the Belly he and Anastasia are positioned
like yin and yang, "that East-Campus sign of which her navel had
reminded m e" C729]) and the experience, rather than the explanation,
of re a lity .
However, the final events in the main body of the novel, and
the "Posttape," call this union of contraries into question.
The "Third Reel" concludes with the Shafting of M ax while George
performs the ritual of driving Harold Bray out of the campus. Bray's
nature is unclear; at times he seem s to be a clumsy mechanical con
struct, perhaps the work of W E S C A C , thrown onto the stage to give
George the necessary hero's opponent. At other times his guises within
guises and his astounding metamorphoses are more reminiscent of Henry
Burlingame (also an "H. B.") and of the m u ltip licity of life its e lf.
48
In either case w e must wonder why George drives him out, since such
an action seem s to be based more on the outmoded principle of
differentiation than on the Answer he experienced with Anastasia.
Max's Shafting poses a similar problem: why support a self-sacrifice
based on the Western morality of differentiation, good versus evil?
Finally, as the "Postscript to the Posttape" suggests, George
appears to withdraw into the tragic tradition of Oedipus in the
conclusion to Reel Three and the "Posttape":
Having brought us to the heart of Mystery, 'He' suddenly shifts
to what can most kindly be called a tragic view of His life
and of cam pus history. (766)
A possible answer to this dilemma has three parts. F irst,
the Answer—the Mystery—was tru ly comprehended only in George's one
transcendent experience with Anastasia; i t has never been repeated,
and i t is simply not communicable to anyone else—certainly not to
those w ho experience re a lity in terms of Western categories of
thought: "what I 'knew' neither ' I ' nor anyone could 'teach,' not
even to m y o w n Tutees." (759) The position of the "Posttape," at
the end of a .series of four novels which have dealt with increasing
intensity with the problems of splits in the hum an personality,
suggests that a resolution of these matters cannot be achieved in art
in a convincing way. The a rtis t w ho tries to break out of the
Western mold, to go past tragedy to mystery, is inevitably forced
back into the tradition which alone w ill m ake his work meaningful to
his audience.
This brings us to the second point, the role of the hero in
Western mythology, one of the main concerns of Giles Goat-Boy.
49
George's earliest desire to becom e a hero, a Grand Tutor, is
associated with his belief that heroism is a magnificent adventure,
in som e way an impression of the hero's personality onto the world.
B y the time of his final experience with Anastasia, however, George
has adopted a different view:
There w as no glamour to the work, nor any longer to the term:
Grand Tutor, W E S C A C , fountain-pen—all nam es of neutral
instrumentalities. Thus also even Bray, impostor, tro ll:
as he himself had once suggested, . . . i t was his function
to be driven out . . . (728)
Instead of being more free than other men, the hero is a slave of the
21
pattern he follows, a "neutral instrumentality" of larger forces.
A s a tragic hero, George f u lf ills two main ritual functions.
F irst, he com es to grip with a re a lity which is radically different
from that experienced by his contemporaries and tries to convey it
to them. But in this he fa ils , as he must, since the hero's role is
22
to strengthen the existing mores of his society, not threaten them.
I t is not his role to change his contemporaries' either/or mind
sets; the tragic hero is above a ll a scapegoat (the second connotation
of George's "goatliness"). A major figure must periodically be cast
out of society, so that individuals can feel that their guilts have
been eliminated with the outcast, and so that threatening concepts
23
can be eliminated from the group's awareness. The ritual in Gi1es
Goat-Boy combines elements of Greek tragedy and of a more prim itive,
neo-Christian, sacrifice. Max's Shafting is the simple expiation of
the community's sins; and i t is accompanied by the ritual casting
out of Bray, the herald of "mystery," the m ultiple, contradictory
em blem of Reality,
50
A s Burlingame said in The Sot-Weed Factor, most men, faced with
the re a lity of a meaningless or unexplainable world, would go m ad; our
options are to avoid the truth through "dull-headedness" (373) or to
"assert1 1 ourselves, convince ourselves that there is som e goal worth
accomplishing, som e task worth doing, to m ake our o w n meaning out of
the "winds of Chaos."(372) A third option would seem to be to oppose
and obscure this fearful re a lity , to drive the threatening idea out of
consciousness— 'a variation of the "dull-headedness" gambit?—as Bray,
and la te r George, w ill be driven out. In the "Posttape" George
understands that he now exists to be driven out in his turn: "Cycles
on cycles, ever unwinding, like m y watch; . . . like the University
its e lf." (755) Viewed in this way, a dualistic approach wins out in
the end in Giles Goat-Boy. Although George experiences a transcen
dence of opposing categories, he succum bs to his role in the good/
evil ritual of distinctions in the Western Campus. The brief unity
embodied in the goat-boy—an "Eastern" vision of unity in m ultipli
c ity — is subsumed in the heroic myth.
There is s t ill a third factor, however, which undercuts the
apparent surrender to dualism. The novel's firs t two sections, and
its three concluding ones, call all of the rest into question. A s
the "Publisher's Disclaimer" notes, even the disclaimer "was called
into question . . . as has been everything about the book since,
from its content to its authorship." (x i) Even the computer, which
is said to have compiled the book, "disclaims authorship"! (xi)
Barth cleverly includes in the preliminary material four types of
c ritic a l reaction to the novel, thus not only taking the wind out of
51
later c ritic s ' sails but also suggesting that the ensuing work
defies such categories. Sim ilarly, the "Posttape" undermines the
main body of the Syllabus. The narrator suggests that he has recorded
the events of the preceding two volumes under a duress of sorts, and
he reaffirms his belief that a ll distinctions, "including that between
S am e and Different" (755), are meaningless.
Even the "Postscript to the Posttape" questions the "authenti
city" of the "Posttape," noting evidence that its author is not the
sam e as that of the main document. But even here there is a question;
the "Postscript" is supposedly written by the sam e "J.B." w ho provided
the "Cover-Letter,’ *'■ but a further "Footnote" observes that
The type of the transcript pages of the document entitled
'Postscript to the Posttape' is not the sam e as that of the
'Cover-Letter to the Editors and Publisher.' (766)
Nothing is certain--except that the rea lity of the Revised N e w
Syllabus is som ehow the su m of its contradictory parts. The novel
its e lf has here assumed Henry Burlingame's a b ility to change his
form and thus to challenge our stereotypes. Whatever Giles Goat-Boy
m ay seem to be saying about the ultimate victory of tragic and
dualistic patterns, the form of the novel--constantly questioning
its ow n validity--presumes a quite different vision of existence,
something closer to the "Mystery" :glimpsed by George and intuited
by Jake Horner underneath all the simplifying roles created to
disguise it .
In Giles Goat-Boy, then, two basic, and conflicting, points
crystallize. The f ir s t is that our Western tradition is one of
duality—above a ll a duality between mind and body, reason and
52
feeling—and that, within that framework, i t is the mind, not the
body, which has always been considered central to "humanity," and
hum an identity. It is the mind which asks, "W h o a m I?" Second,
the mystery of love seem s to have becom e the ultimate experience
through which duality can be transcended; but love clearly has
its source in man's feelinqs. Our concepts about hum an identity
are in conflict with a primary urge to transcend opposing categories
of thought and experience rea lity as i t is , whole, the "seamless
universe." The dual nature of man, then, remains an unresolved
issue—although perhaps somewhat transmuted—which reasserts its e lf
in Barth's most recent work.
OA
Lost in the Funhouse (1968) makes a significant formal
departure from Barth's fir s t four novels; i t is a collection of
sketches, short stories, ruminations of various sorts, m any of
which fir s t appeared separately in various periodicals between 1963
and 1968. It is therefore impossible to look at the collection
as a whole as i f i t were chronologically later than Giles Goat-Boy;
and its overall unity as a work has also been questioned. ^ I t is
interesting that, after his less-than-successful effo rt to pull
together numerous disjunctions in Giles, Barth has for a time con
centrated on much.shorter fictional forms, more suited to depicting
a fragmented universe than to presenting a massive and complex whole.
"Ambrose His Mark" and "Water-Message" were fir s t published
27
in 1963, mid-way between The Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goat-Boy,
and they are the most traditional in techniques of a ll the tales,
presented as childhood reminiscences fu ll of vivid d e ta il, rich,
53
rea lis tic dialogue, and open humor. "Night-Sea Journey," the firs t
28
story of the collection, fir s t appeared in 1966, the year in
which Giles Goat-Boy was published; and "Lost in the Funhouse,"
29
which appeared the following year, functions as a sort of transition
piece, making the connection between the world of Ambrose and the
world of myth and art with which the collection concludes. "Auto
biography," "T itle," and "Petition" were a ll fir s t published in
30
1968, two years after the goat-boy's public efforts to resolve
the mind/body s p lit. The remaining tales—som e of which concentrate
with maddening self-consciousness on the nature of art and the role
of the a rtis t, and the concluding ones which continue the thrust into
myth which was strongly begun in Giles—appear to have been written
with the unity of the work as a whole in mind; at least they were not
published before the appearance of the complete collection.
The "Frame-Tale" which begins Lost in the Funhouse is , properly
assembled, a Moebius strip , which has printed upon i t the words "Once
upon a time there was a story that began . . . " I t is a neat m odel
of the frame-tale pattern which increasingly fascinates Barth, the
story within a story within, e tc ., which w e see in "Menelaiad" and
the tales of Chimera, and which seem s for him to be the archetype
31
of the narrative process its e lf as well as of the nature of
identity. I t also reminds us of the unexpected identities in Giles
Goat-Boy: George's notion that he and Bray are the same, or Max's
com m ent that "Pass" and "F a il" are "two sides the sam e page." (610)
Barth's "Frame-Tale" turns the two opposite sides of a page into the
sam e side, using a physical trick which is simple and, once you have
seen i t , obvious. Whether our perception of other supposed dualities
can be as easily shifted is the question of Giles Goat-Bo.y; and the
answer there seem s to be that Western thinkers w ill s till think of
the page as i f i t really has two sides, even though i t can occasionally
be m ade to look like i t only has one. But the use of a Moebius strip
to introduce Lost in the Funhouse show s us that the author has not
given up his effo rt to find the "trick" that w ill le t us see the
unity which may underlie our schizophrenic Western patterns of
experience.
In Lost in the Funhouse the major incarnations of the mind/body,
reason/emotion opposition are seen in terms of "love." True to form,
the work succeeding Giles Goat-Boy is testing the valid ity of the
solution proposed in the previous novel. Of course love has been a
crucial test for all of Barth's protagonists. Viewed with a mixture
of desire and fear, i t always seem s opposed to the things they most
value--reason; detachment; the making of a rt; heroism; freedom;
above a ll, their sense of th eir ow n identity. I t seem s to be
associated more with the body-emotion "half" of m an than with the
reasoning part, when seen in terms of such a s p lit, and i t almost
always originates in terms of sexual experience.
Love is not, however, equivalent to sexual desire, or as easy
to achieve. Insofar as i t represents a possible union of man's
warring elements, love is a threat to the assumption that w e are
essentially and fin a lly sp lit beings; and this is perhaps a reason
why Barth returns to i t again and again as a theme.
"Night-Sea Journey," the fir s t story of Lost in the Funhouse,
55
presents this complex of contrary impulses related to love. I t is,
on one level, the doubt-filled monologue of a sperm, driven by an
irrestib le impulse to battle toward a waiting egg, yet in tellectu ally
resisting the ultimate union toward which i t struggles. ( I t is n o
doubt this sort of sentence, written about sim ilarly amusing works
of lite ra tu re , which has convinced a ll of Barth's heroes to stop
short of writing their dissertations! They m ay be schizophrenic,
but they aren't dumb.) The narrator recalls that he and his
companions sang, " 'Love! Love!' " as they began their voyage; but
he now fears that "our night-sea journey is without meaning" (4 ),
and he has thus begun to resist the idea of its goal: "consummation,
transfiguration, union of contraries, transcension of categories."
( 10)
"Night-Sea Journey" thus reiteraties the theme of duality:,
the opposing pulls of emotion and reason; the desire to live versus an
intellectual recognition that life is absurd; a sense that personal
identity w ill be destroyed i f emotion triumphs. The final note is
"Love!" but the theme of resistance and even despair is strong, and
a number of the stories in this collection echo i t , asking over and
over for an end to meaningless existences. " I 'l l turn myself o ff i f
I can this instant." (36)
Other tales seem to caricature the opposite extreme from
emotional and physical involvement: isolated self-consciousness,
feeding upon its e lf, speaking to its e lf of its e lf. In "Autobiography"
the story its e lf speaks, asking for its end; and "Title" catalogues
the lim its of narrative possibilities, suggesting "silence" as an
56
alternative to w riting, and concludes, "O h G od co m m a I abhor
self-consciousness. I despise what w e have com e to." (110)
Lost in the Funhouse also returns to the questions about art
and the a rtis t which have been raised, without resolution, in
earlier novels, and which becom e predominant in this work and
Chimera. In Barth's world the a rtis tic process or impulse is
associated with the sexual impulse. The narrator of "Night-Sea
Journey," for example, can also be taken to be an a rtis t, or the
work of art; and the relationship of art to love, to identity, and
to a meaningless existence is questioned. And in "Life-Story" the
w riter's imaginary mistress or m use confronts him with the complaint
that
The passion of love . . . does not in fact play in your life a
role of sufficient importance to sustain m y presence here. . . .
For the a rtis t, . . . and in particular the w riter, whose
traditional material has been the passions of m en and wom en,
the choice is fa ta l. (120-121)
The stories of Lost in the Funhouse reflect facets of the general
dilemma, concentrating especially on the relationship of love and
sexual desire to art and identity.
The world of sexual maturity and involvement—the "fa ll" Eben
shunned--is s t ill frightening to the hero of "Lost in the Funhouse,"
although i t draws him powerfully. His final choice—to be the maker
of art rather than the lover— is ambivalent.
H e wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has.
Then he wishes he were dead. But he's not. Therefore he w ill
construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator--
though he would rather be am ong the lovers for w h o m funhouses
are designed. (94)
Barth also remakes several myths which demonstrate, am ong other things,
57
the potentially destructive nature of emotional, sexual entanglements.
Narcissus is destroyed by love, while Echo is imprisoned in art.
. . . she turns from lif e and learns to te ll stories with such
art that the Olympians implore her to repeat them. Others live
for the life of love; Echo lives for her lovely lie s , loves
for their livening. . . . Though her voice remains her own,
she can't speak for herself thenceforth, only give back others'
delight regardless of hers. (97)
But in another ta le , love conquers all despite rational mis
givings. "Menelaiad" is a seven-layered story centered on the
contradictions of love; Menelaus' tale is created but also lim ited,
as he is , by his unreasoning, never-ending desire for Helen. "She's
the death of m e and m y peculiar immortality." (127) His reason
needs to know W H Y she chose him, and he is unable to accept the
answer, " Love " (150), as a sufficient explanation. But Proteus
advises him to abandon his questions and accept the fact that love
is not susceptible to reasonable explanations. " Helen chose
you without reason because she loves you without cause; embrace her
without question . . . " (156) Like the narrator of "Night-
Sea Journey," Menelaus is swept away, "mote in the cauldron,
splinter in the Troy-fire of her love!" (159) At the story's end his
o w n identity has been transmuted to the "absurd, unending possibility
of love." (162)
But "Petition," a story which w as also fir s t published in
1968 and which has received l i t t l e c ritic a l attention, is less
ly ric a l, and the rational, despairing m ood dominates. In this tale
the s p lit which seem s inherent in hum an nature is clearly drawn,
again illuminated in terms of the fam iliar triangular sexual rela
tionship.
58
The "Petition" is ostensibly a le tte r, written by one of two
brothers w ho are bound together in a kind of Siamese-twin relation
ship, asking for som e release from the painful tie . The alliance is
reminiscent of that between Croaker and Eierkopf; the petitioner,
small and delicate--a being of imagination and "fancy" (60),
a detached "observer" (59) of life --is attached to the back of his
large, gross brother, w ho is in physical control of both of their
lives. The more physical twin is brutish--he "lusts after anything"
(60)--and a slave to the senses, gregarious, moody; but like Croaker
he seem s to have the g ift of making art. H e is "incoherent but
vocal" while his brother, watching, is "articulate and mute." The
larger brother denies the existence of his alter-ego, w h o m he never
sees; but the "watching" brother has his revenge, criticisin g the
efforts of his active part, driving him to "heroical self-pity" (59)
and anger. The reasoning twin finds consolation in the fact that
I can see him without his seeing me; can therefore study and
examine our bond, how ever to dissolve i t , and take certain
surreptitious measures to that end, . . . The alternative is
madness. (60)
Our schizophrenic twinshtp thus follows closely a Platonic-
Cartesian-Kantian division of labor. O ne "self" is primarily
physical, driven by appetites and emotion; the other part is largely
mental and rational, an observer rather than a participant in life .
The more rational part deem s i t correct, as Plato suggested, that
i t should direct the activities of the body and emotions; but the
physical brother resists.
S om e of the things normally associated with the creation of
a rt—imagination, articulation—are here the gifts of the detached,
59
observing brother. O n the other hand, he is mute; and i t is the
physical, emotional twin w ho makes floundering attempts to express
himself, to write poetry and play music. H e also lives the life
which gathers the material for a rtis tic expression; and love--its
expression and satisfaction--is largely his province. I t is this
fact--the sexual aspect of love--which precipitates the crisis.
Both brothers fa ll in love with Thalia, a contortionist w ho
enables the narrator to experience "coition" for the fir s t time.
(Since Thalia is also the nam e of the m use of bomedy, the parallels
am ong the efforts to achieve sexual completion and personal identity
and the struggle to becom e an a rtis t are strengthened.) H e does
not like it ; "how expect m e to share the universal itch to copulate,
whose soul lusts only for disjunction?" (62) W e are reminded here
of the difference between Burlingame and Eben: the one eager to
experience everything, to "hug, devour, absorb!" (62) as the narrator
says of his brother; the other afraid, wishing to stay apart, to
watch and write. The observing brother becom es convinced that
Thalia loves him, and only pretends to enjoy the sensual brother's
embraces in order to be near his chaster half. Out of love for him,
he believes, she even pretends to believe his brother's assurances
that he, the narrator, does not exist.
The situation disintegrates, however, w hen the w riter begins
to fear that "Thalia is becoming her disguise" (63), starting to love
his brother and to becom e hostile to him. Later he com es to believe
that the "real" Thalia--who loves him--is not "behind" or has
becom e imprisoned within the apparent Thalia; and he also begins
60
to fear for his o w n existence. At Thalia's urging, his brother is
trying to rid himself of contradictions, to " pull himself
together " (64); the writer senses that he w ill be absorbed, his
identity lost in that of his brother. His final plea is that he
and his twin m ay som ehow be separated,
such that one of us at least m ay survive, free of the other. . . .
To be one: paradise! To be two: bliss! But to be both and
neither is unspeakable. (68)
In "Petition," then, the reaction to man's divided being is
an effo rt to achieve oneness by destroying one of the conflicting
elements, even i f i t causes the destruction of both "halves" of the
total being. "To be both and neither" is perceived as an intolerable
condition-even though i t is becoming increasingly clear that to be
an a rtis t is to be just that. In Giles Goat-Boy, of course, such
a dualistic reaction would have belonged to George's fir s t period
of tutoring, when he was applying the principle of differentiation
which the novel discards as inadequate. In this sense "Petition"
offers l i t t l e that is new, except for the focus on the polarities
as they relate to a rt, and for the very fact that the issue, as
simple as i t is, is s t ill very m uch alive.
"Anonymiad," the final story in Lost in the Funhouse, closes
the collection on the double note which has pervaded i t . The nameless
w riter of the tale abandoned his love in order to gain the experience
and "knowledge of the world" which would, he thought, m ake him a
better poet; but he is now marooned on an island with only his past
love and his present miseries to sing of. H e pledges that he would
commit himself to love, and lif e , i f only he had another chance:
61
I could do well by you now, m y sweet, . . . and i f som e night
your voice recalls me, by a new name, I ' l l commit myself to i t ,
paddling and resting, drifting like m y amphorae, to attain you
or to drown. (193)
The poet's imagined world, then, echoes "Night-Sea Journey"; but
the story's conclusion, as the w riter sets his history afloat in
a wine jug, gives the last words to art and not to love or life .
The poet denies even the importance of anyone ever reading his
ta le , or knowing w ho its author was; the important thing is that
"a nameless m instrel/ Wrote it ." (194) Just as the goat-boy
disappeared in his myth, so here the poet's identity disappears
into his work of art.
Taken a ll together, Lost in the Funhouse reiterates m uch that
is fam iliar thematically, and su m s up major areas of interest.
"Petition" shows us the old mind/body dilemma, s till unresolved;
and w e see, as w e did in The Sot-Weed Factor, that w e cannot simply
avoid the d iffic u lty by escaping into "art," since art partakes of
the essential duality its e lf. Clearly, however, these stories show
a growing interest in the process of art and the nature of the
a rtis t; so i t w ill com e as no surprise that Chimera "tests" the
potential of art to serve as a unifying hum an activity.
The Funhouse narratives also demonstrate that Barth's concern
with the "mythos" of Western c iv iliz a tio n — especially with Greek
myth--is not a transient interest. The relationship of George the
goat-boy to his heroic persona; of Echo to her voice; of Menelaus to
his love—all of these things are interrelated, and i t is in the
realm of existing myth, com m unal a rt, that the next act of "J.B.'s
Original and Unparalleled Floating Opera" w ill be played.
62
And the mystery of love, while i t has s t ill not been understood
or overcome, is assuming a more prominent role in the Barthian cosmos.
From Todd Andrews' and Jake Horner's uncomfortable in a b ility to love
w e have m oved to Burlingame's wide passions, to George and Anastasia,
and to Menelaus, abandoned to "Proteus's terrifying last disguise,
. . . the absurd, unending possibility of love." (162)
In these three themes, as well as in the increasing fascination
with the problem of identity, both personal and a rtis tic , w e see the
continuity of thought between Giles Goat-Boy and Barth’ s most recent
works.
32
In Chimera (1972) Barth continues to work with short fictional
units, although these tales are long enough to be referred to as
novella by the narrator (28). A s the nam e implies, the Chimera is
three-parted; the stories which compose i t are complete in themselves,
but they are also interrelated, formally and thematically. Each
story is longer than the one which precedes i t , and the third is
more than twice the length of the second, suggesting the spiral form
which seem s to be the symbol of this new work (10, 18, 27): a
pattern of circles or cycles which do not simply repeat one another,
as George the goat-boy feared, but which enlarge and open out and
33
change as one m oves farther from the starting-point. Whether
Chimera in fact show s any philosophical "advance" in coping with
hum an duality is , of course, of primary interest to m e.
34
"Dunyazadiad," the fir s t of the three tales, focuses on the
process of making art. The narrator is Dunyazade, the sister of
Scheherazade, w ho has always fascinated Barth as storyteller par
63
excel!ence. The Barthian Genie w ho has written the tale announces
that the heroine of his story w ill be Dunyazade, whose dilemma on her
" wedding-night-to-come " is representative of that of "tale
tellers of his particular place and time," although Scheherazade's
situation—tellin g tales to save, or create, her l i f e —parallels
the condition of "narrative artists in general." (32) H e explains
that Dunyazade w ill also be in a 1ife-or-death situation, but both
she and her audience (her groom) w ill already have heard all the
thousand and one tales of Scheherazade. In addition, her bridegroom
w ill already have experienced all there is to know of erotic variety,
just as she has, albeit vicariously, watching her sister and the
King for a thousand and one nights. What is le ft for the twentieth-
century writer? "What are you going to do to entertain him,
l i t t l e sister?" (33) (Barth's concern with origin ality in a rt,
which is also related to the question of identity, is expressed
OC
more fu lly in his 1967 a rtic le , "The Literature of Exhaustion." )
The relationship between the storyteller and the reader, or
1istener—Scheherazade and her King, Dunyazade and Zaman--is assuming
greater importance in Barth's world; the fam iliar parallel between
the sexual act and the making of art is now extended to the connection
between the w riter and his audience.
Nothing works! But the enterprise is noble; it's fu ll of
joy and lif e , and the other ways are deathy. . . . Let's
make a philosophy of that as v f! (53)
I t is the sam e sort of act--of fa ith , or w illing suspension of
disbelief, or innocence—which is required for art to exist and for
love to com e into being and endure. What is required is a deliberate
64
refusal to be limited by our know!edge, our experience and cynicism;
whether the state thus achieved is best called innocence or ignorance,
or even stupidity, is not discussed, although i t is clearly a kind
of triumph of imagination. The philosophical distinctions of The
Sot-Weed Factor have been replaced by a more straightforward emotional
argument: this way is the way of life ; to be limited by our knowledge
is the way of death.
In Chimera's fir s t tale the oppositions fam iliar from Barth's
earlier work seem resolved, or at least subdued. Sex is fu lly
accepted, with no apparent guilts or attacks of impotence; in a
burst of raised consciousness the w o m en are even allowed to m ake
love to each other! The multiple question of fact and fic tio n ,
rea lity and art (illu s io n ), knowledge and imagination, seem s to have
been decided in favor of fiction with no great trauma. The Genie
and Scheherazade easily escape from the "realities" of life through
their a rt; and Shah Zam an defends his recital to Duny as " too
important to be lie s . Fictions, maybe--but truer than fact. " (53)
The equation of lif e with a story is also more prominent in "Dunyaza-
diad" than in m any of Barth's previous creations (30); the old mind/
body tension has seemingly been subsum ed in the symbolic merger of
love and a rt, where emotion and imagination combine as the a rtis t
lovingly creates the story of his life .
Within the tale its e lf a main conflict is between male and
female--a dichotomy which frequently represents the duality of nature
for Barth - - and even thi,sis converted into an ideal union in a
development reminiscent of the three stages of Giles Goat-Boy,
65
where two extremes of behaviour--male chauvinism and female
chauvinism—are followed by a final synthesis of the opposing
principles. "Dunyazadiad," then, seem s to be extending the m o o d
of the more hopeful, lyrical stories in Lost in the Funhouse, like
"Menelaiad." B y moving completely into the realm of myth, of a rt,
this tale has largely bypassed the mind/body dualism and its related
problems; w e see again a variation of the Answer from Giles Goat-Boy,
an interrelationship of art and love and sex which leaves them
separate yet part of a seamless whole.
O n the other hand, the dominance of art in "Dunyazadiad" is
stronger than in earlier works. A s Scheherazade says,
It's in words that the magic is. . . . but the magic words in
one story aren't magical in the next. The real magic is to
understand which words work, and when, and for what; the
trick is to learn the tric k . (7)
I t is words which are both the "treasure" they seek and its key;
" the key to the treasure is the treasure!" (8) Within the
tale the Genie constantly lectures us on the forms he is creating;
and the effect of these constant references to the w riter's craft,
and of the tale's pervasive in te lle c tu a lity —the Genie's rationaliza
tions about a rt, the geometric neatness of the interlocking patterns
of images within the tale its e lf—is to "affirm the a rtific ia l
36
element in art," to make the reader strongly aware of the presence
of an author "behind" the story. Certainly, once w e have m oved into
the realm of conscious a rtific e , the division between reason and
emotion no longer exists in its former guise. But i t is not clear
whether i t has been overcome or avoided; whether the apparent reso
lution has been achieved through a triumph of in te lle c t—a metaphorical
66
synthesis, a triumph of fiction over fact--o r through the realization
that sex and love and art a ll have their source in h um an emotions.
W e must look to the next two novellas to see whether the lyrical
m ood of the fir s t w ill be maintained.
In the "Perseid" w e seem to have stepped back into the world
of Giles Goat-Boy. Perseus, like George, is driven by his desire
to becom e a hero--in this case, a "mythic" hero—and achieve immor
ta lity . H e also muddles his way through two false cycles of experi
ence, during which he attacks his problem in the wrong way, before
arriving at "the Answer." The opposition between love and wisdom,
emotion and reason, is once again with us; sexual performance is
again a problem for the hero and his main test the fam iliar one of
love rather than valor.
The equation of lif e with art is becoming ever stronger. Here
w e see Perseus, w ho has forgotten m uch of his past, remembering or
recreating his history with the help of Calyxa's a rt, the murals
of his adventures which she has painted. Sitting in the center of
her spiral temple, he is " in the middle of the story of m y life "
(61), once again learning "about life from art" (62) as he set off
to do w hen he began the heroic adventures of his youth. H e explains
to Calyxa the goal of his effo rt to relearn, and then reliv e , the
heroic pattern of his youth:
Thus this endless repetition of m y story: as both protagonist
and author, so to speak, I thought to overtake with understanding
m y present paragraph as i t were by examining m y paged past, and
thus pointed, proceed serene to the future's sentence. (80-81)
Henry Burlingame's lesson, that we each create our history and our
selves, is exemplified in Perseus laboring to "remember" the events
67
of his past, "like a bard composing, w ho reviews each night his day's
invention in order to extend i t on the morrow."(97)
In his fir s t trip through the heroic pattern, Perseus followed
the advice of Athene, goddess of wisdom, in order to reach his goal:
the head of the Gorgon Medusa. His tasks accomplished, he gave up
heroing for administration—a not uncom m on pattern, even now--and a
lif e of "order, measure, self-d iscip lin e."(73)
Here his problems begin. Bored, battling with his w ife, Perseus
becomes obsessed with his former glory and longs to be his youthful
s elf, the hero, once again. Afraid that he is actually "petrifying"
(71), he senses that " along the way I'd lost something, took a
wrong turn, forgot som e knack, I don't know .j " (72) The final
crisis is precipitated by the arrival of the god Sabazius in his
kingdom--a Dionysian force which fin a lly undermines the fir s t period
of Perseus' lif e , the cycle based on W isdom.
A s the second round of his adventures begins, Perseus is
determined to retrace the events of his heroic days and relive his
youth; and he sets out to find Medusa a second time when he learns
that she has been reconstituted by Athene with a new g ift, the
reverse of her old one: " nowadays she turns stone to flesh instead
of vice-versa: makes old folks spry again. " (85) Returned to
Athene's temple as before, he requests to be sent again on the
mission he long ago completed.
I f there was a new Medusa, le t a new Perseus be resickled,
-shielded, -sandaled, and the rest, to reglorify himself by
re-beheading her. (87-88)
H e has as yet no understanding of spirals, but desires to be
68
reincarnated in the sam e wheel-like pattern he has lived before.
Here, however, he is advised by a hooded wom an, w ho m oves the
emphasis in this cycle in a new direction--" Love, not Wisdom' "
(88) She argues that things now are "truly altered" (91), and that
he must approach his tasks this time around in a completely different
way: his "weapon" w ill be love. This second approach to Medusa must
be "rather passive than active" (94), again the reverse of his
fir s t method; and he is not to cut o ff her head or expect to simply
be m ade young again by her gaze--" It's not that simple, Perseus. "
(92) A s in the second round of George's tutoring in Giles Goat-Boy,
the emphasis is on "embrace."
Slowly Perseus' goal begins to change, as the desire to see
Medusa's hooded face (101) supplants his original intention of
beheading her or forcing her to rejuvenate him. (Again, this is
similar to Giles Goat-Boy, where George's need to "see through"
Anastasia becom es the central metaphor for finding his Answer and
himself.) However, the conditions of Medusa's new g ift are hard:
while she m ay "juvenate or depetrify" (105) one person w ho sees her
face, in so doing she w ill again becom e a Gorgon. I f the m an w ho
unveils her is her true love, however, they w ill both "turn ageless
as the stars and be together forever." O ne final problem is the
possibility that Athene has not been honest with Medusa, and that
she is s t ill the Gorgon she always was and w ill petrify the m an w ho
sees her face. Perseus is s till uncertain: "How could I be sure
what was behind her veil? " 1 (107)
At this point Medusa disappears, and Perseus wanders in the
69
desert u n til, near death, he is rescued by Calyxa. The new s that
Andromeda is through with him apparently triggers an awareness that
he w ill never recapture his past--"lam p-oil, night, and heroic youth
ran out together"--and he is glad to be "free to be Perseus . . .
m y o w n m an" (111). Here, having overtaken "with understanding m y
present paragraph" (81), he regains fu ll sexual potency, and then
leaves Calyxa to resume his journey, hoping for something more than
a repetition of the heroic pattern of his youth.
Returning to Joppa to confront Andromeda, Perseus declares that
he can now view himself in three stages: the "young Destroyer,"
"middle Perseus," and the "New-Medusa'd man." But he is s t ill
fixated on himself as a "bloody mythic hero" (124) until Medusa
herself appears again, s t ill hooded. After a moment's hesitation
he turns his back on his past and his "fond dream of rejuvenation"
(125), and unveils Medusa.
Here the narrative m oves into "present" time, and w e discover
that the Perseus w ho has told our tale was transmuted into a con
stellation at the m om ent he saw Medusa's eyes--now, with her,
indeed "ageless as the stars." In rejecting heroism for love he has
achieved the immortality he sought; in a complete fusion of existence
and art he has becom e his story, his myth--visibly, as a constellation
of stars; and, more to the point, as his tale; a voice; fin a lly ,
the words w e see.
S o with this issue, our net estate: to have become, like the
noted music of our tongue, these silen t, visible signs; to be
the tale I te ll . . . (133)
Thus immortalized, Perseus cannot see Medusa; his world has becom e
70
voices, their love an unending gam e of twenty questions.
The resolution of this tale is not a simple reunion of reason
and emotion, art and re a lity , although i t does bear a strong
resemblance to the Answer seen by George in Giles Goat-Bo.y. A s
Perseus explains to Medusa, unveiling her he "saw" both himself
and the rea lity of love for the fir s t time:
i t wasn't you w ho discovered your beauty to me, but I w ho
fin a lly unveiled i t to myself. A nd what I saw, exactly, w hen I
opened m y eyes, were two things in instantaneous succession,
reflected in yours: the fir s t w as a reasonably healthy, no-
longer-heroic mortal with more than half his life behind him, . . .
grown too wise to wish his time turned back. The second, . . .
a quite miraculous, yes blinding love, . . . (132-133)
A s in Giles, "love" is the crucial catalyst for an experience which
combines feeling and understanding; but George's revelation w as
experienced during sexual intercourse, while Perseus is transfigured
by a far more intellectual impulse. The transcendent m om ent in
"Perseid" is based on knowledge, although i t m ay be knowledge of
love; George's epiphany, based on a physical experience, seem ed to
combine knowledge and feeling. In neither case can the experience
endure in "real" life . George spends his time trying to communicate
the incommunicable to others, becoming ever more closely identified
with the myth of the tragic hero. Perseus--at least his immortal
part--becomes his myth its e lf, the work of art which is his only true
identity. There is no longer any distance separating the myth from
the man, the tale from the te lle r , as there was in the "Posttape" of
Giles; art and identity have merged.
This ending reminds us of "Petition" in which the writer begs
for a total separation from his more "earthy" part; the earthly Perseus
71
keeps on living , or dying, unseen by his immortal counterpart. W e
must wonder whether w e are not seeing here the complete triumph of
"mind" over the body and emotion--half of the rea lity of h um an life .
To be sure, something called "love" is the apparent instrument of
Perseus' transformation; but "love" here is very m uch like "art," a
creative and transforming act through which a pattern of meaning is
brought into being, and m uch like the mental activity through which
"w e a ll invent our o w n pasts." (The- So.fr-W eed Factor, p. 805.)
At least i t is clear that a ll sexuality and all physicality
have been eliminated from Perseus' immortality; he cannot even see
Medusa's constellation, or be sure that i t is she w h o has been
immortalized with him. "M y fate is to be able only to imagine
boundless beauty from m y experience of boundless love." (133) I t is
d iffic u lt to forget the insistence in The Sot-Weed Factor that to
deny such aspects of mortality is to deny life as well, and to
deprive art of significance. Further, i t w as a fear of "p etrifica
tion" which drove Perseus to his second series of adventures; but in
what way is the immortality he has attained—the immortality the m a n
finds as his myth, the a rtis t a s ^ his a rt—different from the
immortality of petrification?
Even Medusa asks, " Are you happy, Perseus, with the way
this story ends? " H e answers that he is "content" (133) to have
to rely on his imagination and to "know that our story w ill never be
cut o ff, but nightly rehearsed as long as m en and w o m en read the
stars." (134) The distinction between "happy" and "content" remains
to question whether a truly satisfying fusion of reason and emotion
72
can be found in art.
From the point of view of som eone writing about Barth, i t is in
som e ways regretable that he is that pariah, a "living novelist."
Otherwise "Bellerophoniad," the third tale of the Chimera, would have
m ade such a fittin g final work. Indeed, i t is almost as i f this story
had been composed as a sort of "farewell to a ll that." I t is fu ll
of references to all of Barth's past works. Harold Bray writes to
Todd Andrews soliciting a grant to program a computer to write a novel
which has certain sim ilarities to Giles Goat-Boy; the story of
Bellerophon's relationship to Anteia is retold in several ways,
recalling the situations in The Floating Opera and The E nd of the
Road. References to Lost in the Funhouse are everywhere; several
37
passages are even quoted word for word. The narrator—whoever he/
she is--even goes into lengthy explanations of the previous novels,
clarifying and lecturing until certain things—the Heroic Pattern,
for example—are elucidated to death.
Questions about art are central to "Bellerophoniad," and art
is now the main arena in which the battle between love and wisdom
is fought; the roles of mind and body as they relate to the creative
process are here explained rather more e x p lic itly than in the
foregoing tales and novels.
Bellerophon's efforts to becom e a mythic hero center around
Pegasus, a symbol of a rtis tic creativity, inspiration, even the
story its e lf (145). To be a hero is now identified with being an
a rtis t, In the fir s t cycle of his adventures, Bellerophon searches
for Pegasus and, having found him, performs impossible deeds and
73
earns a hero's reward. In the second cycle, Pegasus is s t ill in
Bellerophon's service, but no longer flying to the heights he once
reached—indeed, scarcely getting off the ground. The second search
is for the secret which w ill restore to Pegasus-Bellerophon their
former creative powers. (O n one level, the entire novella is about
overcoming w riter's block!)
Bellerophon's original approach to capturing Pegasus is derived
from a vision experienced by Deliades, in which Athene told him
'Finding Pegasus is easy; he hangs around m y sister's CAphrodite'sJ
wells and bushes; . . .B u t to catch and ride him's another story;
for that you need th is .' She fetched from around her tunic a fine
gold bridle; even le t him take i t in his hand. But w hen he woke
i t was only his torpid tool he held, . . . (170)
Our hero seestn this the need to focus on reason and restraint in
creativity. I t is to Athene, goddess of wisdom, that he fir s t applies
for aid in his search for the winged horse; but the figure w ho appears
in a vision to hand over the bridle of Restraint seem s to be a
priestess of Aphrodite, not Athene, and she speaks somewhat dispara-\
gingly of restraint:
you've certainly exercised restraint, i f not hum an sympathy,
and Restraint seem s to be the nam e of this particular game. Here's
the bridle. . . . You'll find Pegasus out back. I don't envy
you your lif e to come: I'd rather be dead . . . (190)
But Bellerophon remains certain that i t w as Athene w h o appeared to
him; the bridle does enable him to mount the magic horse; and, with
the help of Pegasus, Philanoe and Polyeidus, Bellerophon manages to
perform enough "heroic" deeds to win Philanoe's hand and the kingdom
of Lycia. Apparently a ll is well; the fir s t part of the heroic
pattern has been completed on schedule.
However, once settled into his role as King of Lycia,
74
Bellerophon discovers that something is amiss. Any passion he m ay
have fe lt is gone; and his well-ordered life is stu ltifyin g . O n their
daily rides Pegasus flie s ever lower; and Bellerophon fin a lly flees
the "patient cultivation of understanding into wisdom " ' (140)
in a last effo rt to becom e a mythic hero. Clearly, a preponderance
of the forces of mind--wisdom, moderation, order—are not sufficient
for the a rtis t.
Polyeidus also explains that Bellerophon has m ade a mistake to
look to Athene and himself (Polyeidus) for help. The crucial thing
is to get Pegasus airborne again; and
riding the winged horse had always involved the goodwill of two
goddesses, not one, , . . Athene’ s bridle w as what reined him in
and steered him; but what put him in the sky w as Aphrodite's
sacred herb
'Hippomanes!1 (259)
Hippomanes is the sacred aphrodisiac herb of Aphrodite's c u lt, and
Polyeidus sends Bellerophon to "look up a ll the w om en you've ever
loved " to find the " big H." (260)
A s in "Perseid" and Giles Goat-Boy, then, Bellerophon's second
cycle is focused on love, emotion, sex, body--away from mind; and
he and Pegasus are indeed brought "back to life " (288) byMtflanippe's
Hippomanes, Again w e see the correspondence between sexual and
a rtis tic potency; as Bellerophon's "grand standing phallus" rises,
Pegasus soars.
The fir s t part of "Bellerophoniad" ends with an emphasis on
love, imitating the conclusion of "Perseid."(291) I f the story
stopped at this point, w e would have to conclude that the emotion-
body"half" of man's capabilities is not only the source of a rtis tic
75
creativity, but by far the most important element in its continuation;
restraint, wisdom, and mind seem to play a secondary role.
Part Tw o calls this "happily ever after" (288) ending into
question and, with i t , the sufficiency of "love." Melanippe
criticizes both their lif e together ("suspended animation" [294]) and
Bellerophon's lite ra ry efforts: ""if your immortality depends on
this piece of writing, you're a dead pigeon and she sends him to
continue his search for immortality--"go k ill Chimera for real."
(295) I t is s till her Hippomanes— -her sexual relationship to
Bellerophon-^which causes Pegasus to take flig h t; but Bellerophon's
goal is now beyond the realm of love within which Perseus remained
eternally "content."
In Part Three, which is also the third cycle of Bellerophon's
experience, Polyeidus is the narrator, and the emphasis is on shape-
shifting and art-making, not love. To be sure, Bellerophon nearly
achieves immortality as Perseus did; but Zeus, in the form of
Polyeidus, intervenes, and Bellerophon is kicked out of heaven and
forced to accept the specious immortality of becoming his ow n story
(301)--an honor which he confesses he would have foregone had he rea
lized he would be "imperfectly, even inneptly narrated." (138)
S o Bellerophon achieves immortality as a work of a rt, a result
which both mirrors and critizes the conclusion of "Perseid"; but he is
not content. H e questions whether such immortality is worth the
struggle:
76
Perseid to the contrary notwithstanding, it's hardly to be
imagined that those patterns w e call "Perseus," "Medusa,"
"Pegasus" . . . are aware of their existences, any more than
are their lettered counterparts on the page. Or, i f by som e
mystery they are, that they enjoy their fixed, frig id ifie d
careers. (305)
Art is no longer presented as the ideal union of mind and body, reason
and emotion. Bellerophon's final immortality is the product of mental
gymnastics, a highly cerebral pas de deux with Polyeidus which allows
his transubstantiation into words; and he moans, "I hate this,
Worldl" (308)
There are a number of reasons why a rt—and immortal ity —no
longer have the romantic aura of the "Perseid." A m o n g other things,
in "Bellerophoniad" the narrative process and the story its e lf are
talked about so much—and, often, so dully—that the reader's
38
enthusiasm must disappear. A s Bellerophon says, "a complete
understand!’ng of Bel 1 erophoniad' s narrative process . . . d iffic u lt
to acquire, is impossible to crave." (145) There seem s to be an
inverse relationship between conscious analysis of a goal—a well-
told ta le , heroism—and the a b ility to achieve it .
In addition, the old problem from The E nd of the Road surfaces
again. W ords cannot possibly represent re a lity as i t is:
written words: Bellerophonic letters afloat between two worlds,
forever betraying, in combinations and recombinations, the m an
they forever represent. (138)
But words are the only m edium available to Bellerophon to communicate
the rea lity he perceives. A nd at other times the story argues that
art is no less "real" than "reality"; in fact, a communication from,
appropriately, Jerome Bray announces that art j_s rea lity .
77
Inasmuch as concepts . . . are more or less necessary fictions,
fiction is more or less necessary. Butterflies exist in our
imaginations, along with existence, imagination, and the rest.
Archimedeses, w e lever reality by conceiving ourselves apart from
its other things, them from one another, the whole from unreality.
Thus Art is as natural an a rtific e as Nature; the truth of fiction
is that Fact is fantasy; the made-up story is a model of the world.
(246)
Bellerophon is himself a "made-up story," which w e can know only
through its words.
In "Bellerophoniad," then, w e seem to see the culmination of
Henry Burlingame's suggestions that re a lity is a subjective--not
an objective—construct; that is , an a rtifa c t of "mind." A s Bray
sees i t , "concepts" and "fiction" are loosely equated; thus, in
the realm of art--and meaning--we are almost entirely in the domain
of mind. Body, emotion—they have som e function for the a rtis t;
without them Bellerophon would never have ascended high enough to
fa ll as far as he does—tal kiing every meter of the way. But the
final emphasis in Chimera is on the word and the concept: myth and
mind.
In our dualistic pattern, immortality has been associated with
mind rather than the mortal body; but Bellerophon's triumph over
death—which would perhaps have tempted Todd Andrews—is less than
joyous. W e have a constant refrain of "I hate this" (308) and "I
wish I were dead" (146); immortality has becom e a "curse."(164)
I t is doubtful that the story's narrative faults are the main
problem, although Bellerophon's dilemma no doubt reflects the dismay
of the w riter w ho must com e to terms with the fact that, for others,
he is^ the story he te lls , despite the huge gulf between even the most
perfectly wrought work of art and its creator. But Bellerophon's
78
basic frustration seem s to be with his immortality per se—with his
escape from death, or, more properly, with the cost of that escape.
H e mourns, i t seems, not his continuing existence, but its form—
his intellectualization into "fixed, frig id ifie d " (305) words.
A s U nam uno says, a ll m en desire to live forever; but as m en of
"flesh and bone," not disembodied sp irits . Too late, Bellerophon
sees that he has sacrificed love, sex, humanity for the myth of
eternal being; like Ambrose, he perhaps
wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he
wishes he were dead. But he's not. Therefore he w ill construct
funhouses for others and be their secret operator—though he
would rather be am ong the lovers for w h o m funhouses are designed.
("Lost in the Funhouse," 94)
In each successive tale of Chimera the resolution is progres
sively less physical: love described largely in physical terms in
"Dunyazadiad"; a more intellectual love in "Perseid," resulting in
mythic immortality; and, in "Bellerophoniad," love abandoned for
a rtis tic immortality. In the last two tales, and particularly the
"Bellerophoniad," the struggle to achieve immortality overwhelms
the desire to be hum an. Todd Andrews' yearning not to die, Ebenezer
Cooke's determination to be Poet Laureate, George Giles' dream of
becoming a hero--in Bellerophon they all merge. Only Scheherazade
creates her art not for "Art's sake," nor to create monuments to
herself or anyone else, but for the sake of life .
Interestingly, when w e look at the treatment of free w ill in
these stories, w e see that the balance—especiallyin "Bellerophoniad"—
has' tilte d toward a strong sense of determinism or "fatedness," an
impression that history is basically unchangeable. This element in
79
Barth's work has been noted by Gordon Slethang,^ w ho says that
Barth does not believe in the "idea of progress," but rather focuses
on ever-repeating patterns in hum an experience. But in
"Bellerophoniad" there is a stronger implication that the patterns
are circular, and thus closed, than in any other work except, perhaps,
Giles Goat-Boy.
Bellerophon's story is told with several time frames super
imposed, so that w e learn early that i t is Bellerophon (who has
becom e his story) w ho is tellin g us h ow he becam e his story; and so
on. A s he says, his story has a "circle rather than a logarithmic
spiral as its geometric motif." (142) The heroic pattern which he
doggedly follows is unchangeable in its essentials; and the fact
that he insists on following the exact pattern of Perseus's lif e as
well adds to the aura of repetition and in e v ita b ility .
Thus, Barth has deliberately placed a "circular" story at the
end of Chimera, following two which profess to be spirate—constantly
enlarging, opening outward. A nd the motif of endless repetition is
associated with the tale which deals most directly with the problems
of the a rtis t, and with a kind of triumph of mind over emotion.
The suggestion is that art is not necessarily the sort of
unifying activity which som e other works have presented i t to be;
that, as a solution to man's duality, i t has been tested and found
wanting. However, "Bellerophoniad" also finds love insufficient
as a unifying force in a h um an personality. The forces of
in tellect and self-consciousness dominate the story, and there is
a strong current of despair, and the helpless sense of being
80
caught in a useless cycle of endeavor.
Tw o motions which have been developing in Barth's work for a
long time have gradually crystallized and, in "Bellerophoniad," have
proved themselves incompatible. The fir s t involves the idea that
"love" is a transcendent hum an experience which can resolve con
traries and stimulate creativity. Barth's early heroes were, by
their o w n admission, incapable of sustained emotion; but the idea
has gained ground until Menelaus and Perseus, in the last two works,
can commit themselves to love and thus transcend themselves. The
growing importance of love implies that an important "reality" for
m an is that which is perceived through and created by the senses and
emotions, the realm of the body. A nd Barth's consistent association
of a rtis tic achievement with sexual involvement in the most recent
works tends to link art to this physical-emotional rea lity .
O n the other hand, a conflicting idea has been gradually
becoming clears the suspicion that a ll "reality" is actually a
construct of the mind, the imagination, and that a rt--"fic tio n "—
and this rea lity are part and parcel of the sam e thing. I t w as
Burlingame w ho fir s t argued this point at any length, but Jerome
Bray makes the definitive admission in "Bellerophoniad." W e are
back to a more refined version of Todd Andrews' head/heart
problem: how can the supposed importance of experience attained
through the senses and emotions be reconciled with an understanding
that the mind creates everything of significance? Bellerophon
seem s to give in to the claims of mind, but at the cost of deep
feelings of loss.
81
However, we can see real change between The Floating Opera and
Chimera. Art has been gradually envisioned, and then proposed, as
an activity which m ay unify our contraries; but under closer analysis
i t begins to appear as i f art m ay its e lf partake of the dualism.
The prevailing sense in Chimera is one of ambivalence; Perseus'
contentment is balanced by Bellerophon's agony, just as, in "Night-
Sea Journey," reason and love are alternately victorious. Finally,
the uncertainty about the placement of the tales of Chimera underlines
the ambivalence which Barth himself appears to feel about the value
of art as a unifying experience. A s w e have analyzed the tales, the
final note is negative or uncertain; but i f the collection were to
conclude with "Dunyazadiad" Barth's most recent statement would
appear to be positive and hopeful.
Whether Chimera, and especially "Bellerophoniad," indicate a
real development in Barth's thought can only be seen w hen his next
novel,, Letters, appears. (In one interview Barth promised i t for
the Bicentennial year, but in a lecture in 1975 he stated that only
two-sevenths of the novel had actually been completed.) O ne is
tempted to speculate on the basis of the novel's supposed setting--
the United States in the nineteenth century--that Barth may, in
fact, have run into a dead end in Chimera, with its focus on myth,
art and self-conscious narrative process, and is returning to the
world of The Sot-Weed Factor for renewal. Whether he w ill also
reaffirm Burlingamd's cheerful schizophrenia, including his insistence
that an acceptance of the body and hum an mortality is a necessary
prerequisite for a rtis tic creativity, remains to be seen. (For m y
82
part, however I w ill always be suspicious of manuscripts which appear
to have been soaked in marshes and stories which begin, "G ood night.
G ood night.")
Footnotes
Hhe Divided Self: A Study of Sanity and Madness (Chicago:
Quadrangle Books, I960), p, 15,
^Tragic Sense of L ife , trans. J, E. Crawford Flitch (1921; rpt.
N ew York: Dover Publications, 1954), p. 15.
"Y el m as tragico problema de la filo s o ffa i es el de conciliar
las necesidades intelectuales con las necesidades afectivas
y con las volitivas."
Miguel de Unam uno, Del Sentimiento Tragico de la Vida
(Madrid: Renacimiento, n«d.), p, 19,
^The Sot-Weed Factor, pp. 536-537.
^The sam e notion (the "seamless university") is frequently
referred to in Giles Goat-Boy, attesting to Barth's continuing
interest in the problem.
5The Sot-Weed Factor, p. 533.
C
Of necessity I w ill have to ignore almost all of the complexities
of the novels in order to separate out the elements in which I a m most
interested. Such a superficial survey w ill seem overly simple; but I
think that i t w ill sketch the outlines of an authentic pattern of
recurring concerns in Barth's work, as well as a general direction of
development.
7Page references in this text are to the Avon Books edition
(New York, 1965) which is a reprint of the 1956 edition. A somewhat
different version of the novel, which Barth now says was its original
form, was published in 1967 (Garden City, N ew York: Doubleday &
Company, In c .). It differs from the fir s t largely in the conclusion,
in which Todd Andrews tries to destroy the entire floating opera
instead of k illin g only himself. Although the planned explosion fa ils
to m aterialize, he is not pulled back into lif e by an emotional impulse
as was the case in the 1956 variation. These two different conclusions
are taken briefly into account in m y study, but they do not warrant
lengthy treatment in this context. For a more thorough treatment of
the differences between the two versions, see David M orrell, John
Barth: A n Introduction (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1976) and Enoch P. Jordan, "The Floating Opera
Restored," Critique, 13, No. 2 (1976), 5-16.
^A s in The Sot-Weed Factor, however, the law--supposedly the
epitome of man's rational Denavior--is show n to be based on emotional
considerations or pure chance. Todd tosses a coin to decide whether
to use the law of make the Macks rich, for example.
84
g
See Richard Noland, "John Barth and the Novel of Comic
Nihilism," Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, 7 (1966), 244.
1 0
See footnote seven for studies which discuss this problem.
11
Tragic Sense of L ife , pp. 1, 5.
"este hombre concrete, de carne y hueso"
"la razdn construye sobre irracionalidades"
Del Sentimiento Tragico de la Vida, pp. 6, 9.
12
Tragic Sense of L ife , p. 36.
"el ansi a de no morir . . . nuestra m ism a esencia . . . es la
base afectiva de todo conocer y el fntimo punto de parti da
personal de toda filosoffa hum ana"
Del Sentimiento Tragico de la Vida, p. 40.
13
Page references in this text are to the 1969 reprint (New York:
Bantam Books, In c .).
14
George Bluestone, "John Wain and John Barth: The Angry and the
Accurate," The Massachusetts Review, 1 (Spring 1960), 586.
15
Page references in this study are to the 1969 Bantam edition
cited e a rlie r.
16Enck, p. 11.
17
This theme of the search for the father runs through almost all
of Barth's work, and is closely connected to the search for personal
identity. Todd Andrews searches for his father's true motivation and
being through his Inquiry; George Giles seeks clues to his parentage
to confirm or deny his b elief that he is a Grand Tutor; and Bellerus
and Deliades ("Bellerophon") desire to know which of them was fathered
by a god in order to know which is an immortal hero.
18Enck, p. 7.
19
Page numbers in this study refer to the 1966 reprint (Greenwich,
Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc.)already cited.
20
Bluestone, p. 586.
21
See, for example, Lord Raglan, The Hero: A Study in Tradition,
Myth, and Dram a (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., n .d .), p. 193: "our
hero is a figure not of history but of ritu a l."
85
22
See, for example, William Willeford, The Fool and His Scepter: A
Study in Clowns and Jesters and Their Audience (Evanston, Illin o is :
Northwestern University Press, 1969).
23
See, for example, Willeford and Enid Welsford, The Fool: His
Social and Literary History (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1935).
24
Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice. Page
numbers in this study refer to the 1969 reprint (New York: Bantam
Books, In c.).
25
See, for example, Tony Tanner, "No Exit," Partisan Review, 36
(1969), 293-295, 297-299.
Barth has said, "when I'd written those two gigantic novels (not
only gigantic but gigantistic—deliberately bloated--novels), I
realized I would probably never want to do that again. I t was not just
because I decided that I had sinned:?eM.0§h-:asa'i-Wst^ej;vf'Tized attention,
but for aesthetic reasons." Frank Gado, ed., First Person: Conversa
tions on Writers and Writing (Schenectady, N ew York: Union College
Press, 1973), p. 124.
^"Ambrose His Mark" appeared in Squire, 59 (February 1963), 97,
122-124, 126-127; and "Water-Message" appeared in Southwest Review, 48
(Sum m er 1963), 226-237.
28Esquire, 65 (June 1966), 82-83, 147-148.
29At1antic Monthly, 220 (November 1967), 73-82.
30
"Autobiography: A Self-Recorded Fiction" was fir s t published in
The N ew American Review, No. 2 (New York: N ew American Library, 1968),
pp. 72-75; "Title" was fir s t published in Yale Review, 57 (Winter
1968), 213-221; and "Petition" was fir s t published in Esquire, 70
(July 1968), 68, 70-71, 135.
31
For a discussion of the frame-tale as "tabulation," see Robert
Scholes' The Fabulators, cited e a rlie r.
32
(New York: R andom House). Page numbers in this study refer to
this edition.
33
Barth has said that he deliberately worked the mathematical
equivalent of the spiral—the Fibonacci series— into the form of
Chimera: "in the three Chimera novellas each novella happens to be
about 1.6 times the size of the prededing novella, because that's the
Fibonacci series, the golden ratio." Jam es McKenzie, "Pole-Vaulting
in Top Hats: A Public Conversation With John Barth, William Gass, and
Ishmael Reed," Modern Fiction Studies, 22, No. 2 (Summer 1976), 151.
M
34
There seem s to be a problem with Chimera sim ilar to that of the
two published versions of The Floating Opera. Although no new edition
of Chimera has been printed, Barth now says (see David Morrell, John
Barth: A n Introduction [University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1976} ) that the order of tales in Chimera as
published is not that which he originally intended. O n his editor's
advice he allowed the original order—"Bellerophoniad," "Perseid,"
"Dunyazadiad"—to be changed. Such an order would encourage a m uch
more positive interpretation than does the published volume. However,
I believe that w e should take Barth's assertion with a grain of s a lt,
since he has said elsewhere (see footnote 33, for example) that he
deliberately planned the present arrangement of stories to create a
mathematical Fibonacci series in the lengths of the tales. Clearly
this would not have been the case had the shortest tale been placed
la s t, as i t would have been in Barth's suppoised original organization.
I have therefore dealt with the tales as i f they were intended to be in
th eir present order, making occasional references to this ambiguity.
3^The Atlantic Monthly, 220 (August 1967), 29-34.
36Enck, p. 6.
3^See pages 160, 161 and 168 of Chimera.
38
A n author like Jerry Powell, however, sees in "Bellerophoniad"
a s k illfu l reflection of the problems of w riter's block and the
literatu re of "exhausted possibilities." (Critique, 18, No. 2 [1976]),
69).
oq
"Barth's Refutation of the Idea of Progress," Critique, 13, No.
3 (1972), 11-29.
87
C H A P T E R T H R E E
IDENTITY
"Self-knowledge is always bad news."*
88
. . . by saying I_ w e affirm far more than w e know.
2
Jean-Paul Sartre
M y consciousness is not myself. The self exists in only two
ways: i t is the ideal essence of m y past, and i t is the never
realized ideal of the future which m y consciousness projects.
I do not exist as a bundle of potentialities and determined
tra its . Consciousness pursues a self; consciousness is a s e lf
making process, a self-projection which is never completed so
long as consciousness exists. The neurotic w ho seeks so
anxiously to identify his real self asks the wrong question;
he should inquire, rather, what self he wishes to create.
3
Hazel Barnes
. . . w e m ask ourselves with that which w e appear to be...
ah, that dress of theirs, this masquerade of theirs, . . .
they do not yet see it is identical with themselves...
4
Luigi Pirandello
Thus w e linger forever on the autognostic verge.
John Barth^
* * *
The mind-body s p lit which w e have been examining is an aspect
of--perhaps the cause of, or a result of--another basic issue in
Barth's work, the problem of personal identity, which is the primary
89
focus of this study.
The exact nature of the interrelationship between the two
issues is debatable. The Appendix which sketches the philosophical
precedents for the "identity problem," as well as m y decision to
deal with the individual as divided before confronting the question
of identity, suggest that the perception of oneself as a divided
being m ay be a root cause of, or a major contributor to, a sense of
lost identity. O n the other hand, a psychologist like R. D. Laing
would no doubt argue that a form of identity problem--a deep
fi
"ontological insecurity --is what gives rise to the tendency to
see oneself as a divided being. Nonetheless, the two kinds of
"problems" are frequently presented or examined together, with the
assumption that they are connected in som e crucial way.
A s I see i t , i t is the question of identity which is primary.
And I believe that there is evidence that, as Barth's work progresses,
he also is becoming less interested in the s p lit between mind and
body and is concentrating more on identity, although "Love" remains
an echoing motif from the earlier concern.
Barth is not, of course, alone in his concern with identity
or in his apparent belief that i t is a question of crucial importance
for modern man. The question "W h o a m I?" has recently becom e almost
an American obsession, i f w e can judge by the title s of a growing
number of paperback do-it-yourself psychology books and the avowed
interest in "finding oneself" which is no longer restricted to
college-age people.
In addition, as M ax Schulz has noted,7 the theme of "identity"
90
has recently been the subject of a good deal of attention from
8
lite ra ry c ritic s , as well as from philosophers and psychologists;
and the lite ra ry c ritic s , in turn, are reacting to a growing
number of books which focus on their subject. The question "W h o
a m I?" has been crucial for literatu re since Sophocles' Oedipus
T.yrannus, but i t has been confronted, in the twentieth century,
by an almost endless lis t of authors: S ti11er (Max Frisch);
Light in August (Faulkner); La Nausee (S artre); L1 Etranger (Camus);
Portrait d'un Inconnu (Sarraute); Les G o m m e s (Robbe-Grillet);
V (Pynchon); and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, to nam e only a few.
John Barth's general interest in the problem of identity is
thus not novel; and in this respect he must appear as one w ho reflects
ideas already strongly rooted in our society. However, his approach
is surprisingly systematic for a w riter w ho does not m ake a point of
9
being engaged on a philosophical quest; he examines possible aspects
of, and "solutions" to, the identity crises of his characters in
succeeding novels, discarding unworkable hypotheses and moving on
to scrutinize new possibilities in each work. Further, Barth's
presentation of identity problems as closely associated with the
mind/body s p lit is more in line with the serious Western philosophical
tradition than is the case with m any other novelists interested in
the nature of the self. Finally, Barth's treatment of identity seem s
to correlate highly with the view of consciousness and the ego which
was presented in Jean-Paul Sartre's La Transcendance de 1'Ego.
Barth seems, then, to be more solidly situated in a philoso
phical tradition than w e might, at fir s t glance, expect; and his
91
ideas, either because of direct influence or because he is in fact "re
inventing philosophy,"^ have more than respectable antecedents.
Indeed, his growing suspicion that w e are both glorified and
trapped by, and yet never expressed in, the roles w e play, and that
the creation of identity is an "artistic" process, suggest a mixture
of Ionesco and Sartre which m ay in fact have something "original"
in its proportions.
The "problem" of personal identity manifests its e lf in several
ways in Barth's work. His protagonists are never sure who, or som e
times even that, they are; as Giles Goat-Boy te lls us, "W h o a m I?"
is the quintessentially hum an question.
From one perspective, identity is portrayed as an aspect or
reflection of change, flu x, the unknown and unknowable rea lity
which underlies appearances. Burlingame, Proteus, Bray, Polyeidus--
an unbroken series of shape-shifters and role-players appear in
Barth's tales, reminding the reader that identity is not a simple
matter.
A s w e have seen, another complex of issues concerned with
identity is concerned with the division between the physical and
mental, the emotional and rational aspects of the self: is
Menelaus the being w ho loves Helen without question, or he w ho
constantly asks why she chose him, unable to believe in love or in
himself as lovable?
This division m ay be the basis of the separation between "public"
and "private" identity which seem s to have becom e increasingly
important to Barth. These two parts of the "I" becom e ever more
92
disconnected from each other, however; and the bond between the public
role or "artifacts" which the individual creates--his role as Poet
Laureate of Maryland, his poem, his actions as mythic hero—and the
subjective, creating self seem s continually harder to find. Eventually
there is a sense that the public s e lf, over which one has no control,
with which one m ay no longer have anything in com m on, is —perhaps
must be—taken to be "me," sometimes even by myself.
Resisting this extreme vision, and examining the opposite
side of the coin, Barth's protagonists m ake the e ffo rt to locate
the "self" in consciousness, as Descartes did. However, their
experience seem s to indicate, as Sartre's did, that "consciousness
is a great emptiness, a wind blowing toward objects."^ What then
is left? H o w find a “self" in an apparently impersonal consciousness
and an equally impersonal public identity?
I t is at least clear that Barth's heroes, with rare exceptions,
do not becom e resigned to Sartre's idea of personal identity as only
the "ideal essence of m y past" or the "never realized ideal of the
12
future which m y consciousness projects." This is one point which
the Western tradition has never completely relinquished: " J ^ think,
therefore I_ am " [emphasis mine3. Sartre's description of the ego
as an object "in the world" is like Hume's argument that the self is
simply a conglomeration of random impressions; the discussions are
reasonable, but neither philosopher really explains h ow our sense
of "I" com es into being, or how, i f i t is not "real," w e can get
rid of i t .
This is the dilemma of Barth's heroes. The search for the "I"—
93
either in subjective consciousness or in the world out there—is
never completely successful, but neither can i t be abandoned. I t
is perhaps the strongest motive force running through Barth's work:
to find myself, and then—to becom e immortal. A s Alan Trachtenberg
says, the central issue in Barth's writing is the "problem of
13
existence and identity."
In this chapter, then, I w ill trace the option of personal
identity, and the problems surrounding i t , through Barth's work,
following the development from The Floating Opera to Chimera.
The Floating Opera does not focus exclusively on the nature
of identity as its central issue; for Todd Andrews the question
"W ho a m I?" is significant—his whole Inquiry is devoted to i t —but
i t is subordinate to "W hy live?" However, Todd's experience is
the prelude to the identity crisis of The End of the Road, and
Barth's fir s t novel presents m any of the identity-related themes
which remain unresolved through Chimera.
Barth likes to view his work as a gnomon, which he understands
as a geometric term for a figure added to a pre-existing fig u re -
enlarging its size without changing its shape. Every book that
he writes he sees as a gnom on of all his previous ones.
In The Floating Opera Todd Andrews sets the pattern for later
heroes by letting us know immediately that he is above all concerned
with himself—with the theory and practice of his personality (" If
other people . . . think I'm eccentric and unpredictable, i t is
because m y actions and opinions are inconsistent with their principles,
i f they have any"), and with himself qua a rtis t ("the problem w ill be
94
to stick to the story, and fin a lly to shut myself up" E7J).
His lif e and art are guided by the convictions that the
"truth is multiform" (245) and that
to understand any one thing entirely, no matter h ow minute
i t is , requires the understanding of every other thing in
the world. (13)
These notions of the m ultip licity of re a lity and of its basic
unknowability recur throughout Barth's work; and, when taken as
axioms, they imply a good deal about the nature of identity. The
self w ill not be a simple unity, unchanging and clearly set apart
from the rest of the world; rather i t w ill be something changing,
in fin ite and undiscoverable, the conclusion which Todd's Inquiry
w ill never reach.
I t follows that Todd's sense of his o w n identity is confused
(although less so that w ill be the case for m any later Barthian
protagonists). H e is very m uch aware of the apparent conflicts in
his personality, and of the d iffic u lty in finding The Truth about
anything or anyone, himself included. In a statement which w ill
become the hallmark of a Barthian hero, he says, " I can understand
everything at once in about three different ways. " (169) Thus,
Todd's deliberately inconsistent behavior is not only an effo rt to
express and maintain his freedom (132) but also to represent the
mystery of his o w n changing, unknowable identity, "so that any
quick characterization of me, or general statement about me, w ill
probably be untrue, or at least inadequate." (66) Inconsistent
or conflicting behavior as a m eans of expressing both the flux
and complexity of personal identity (or re a lity ) and the inadequacy
95
of the novel's form to represent rea lity truly--ideas which have
been espoused by writers like Nathalie Sarraute and Alain Robbe-
15
G rille t —w ill be developed more fu lly in later novels, culminating
in the behavior of heroes like Henry Burlingame I I .
The massive Inquiry which Todd is writing perfectly represents
the basic enterprise on which almost all of Barth's heroes are
engaged: to m ove from innocence, or ignorance, toward knowledge
and understanding-first and foremost of themselves. The project
originated in an unfinished le tte r to his father in which Todd tried
to explain his "undertain heart" (235-236); but i t rapidly developed
into a study of his entire lif e , his relationship with his father,
and, after his father's suicide, of his father's life and death.
The e ffo rt to close the gap between his father and himself is
parallelled by the equally hopeless search for the explanations which
w ill close the gap between Todd's o w n actions and his understanding
of them. A s is the case with m any of Barth's later characters, the
search for personal identity is tied to, or symbolized by, the search
for the father—an e ffo rt to discover his identity or to understand
and com e to terms with him.
Todd's "research" is thus broader than an investigation into
his o w n nature, but that search is central to the activity of The
Floating Opera; in the Inquiry he is looking for himself. But the
project, which is clearly in fin ite , never arrives at its conclusion.
The novel its e lf is , in fact, just a part of the research for the
"investigation of myself" (271); i t is an attempt to explain just
one event in Todd's l if e —his failu re to commit suicide. Even in
96
Barth's fir s t novel, then, we see that the narrator's pursuit of his
identity becom es identical with the work of art which he creates in
the process. This pattern emerges ever more clearly in Barth's
work, at times appearing to be the Moebius-strip-like "solution"
which Barth proposes for the dilemma of selflessness.
A s w e have seen in Chapter Two, Todd's uncertainty about his
identity is involved with his sense that he is a divided being,
part "head" and part "heart." A nd in order to cover up this
division, to "hide m y heart from m y mind, and m y mind from m y
heart" (258), he has, over the years,, assumed a series of roles
or "masks." Such personae are a major Barthian concern; and the
hero's perception of himself as an actor adopting "attitudes, . . .
stances" (22) persists and becom es more pronounced in later novels.
O n the one hand, Todd sees his masks as basically the creation
of external events and other people, of "events outside myself
impinging forcibly upon m y attention--which I afterwards rationalized
into new masks."(29) H e seem s to view himself as something of a
tabula rasa, playing the roles which other people desire. W h e n
Harrison Mack discovers that Todd does not love him and his wife,
he is told, " Of course I was acting, but you all wanted an act."
(50)
At other times, however, Todd holds an opposite view, espousing
free w ill (107-108), openly manipulating others, and practicing
"limited inconsistency" (132) in order to demonstrate his o w n free
w ill. I t follows, logically, that i t is the desire of som e part
of himself to "master" or "solve" (22) his existence which helps
97
to create the roles he plays; and something he calls "I" rationalizes
to its e lf the reasons for adopting each new stance. However, The
Floating Opera does not really com e to terms with the question of
whether masks are a creation of exterior or interior forces; nor
does i t look closely at the way in which they m ay be the products
of an interaction between outer forces and something within the
individual.
The playing of roles is not the only kind of identity which
Todd sees as possible, however; opposed to the realm of masks is
"sincerity." H e despises Mr. Haecker, for example, for wearing
"wardrobe masks" instead of being "sincerely angry" (175), although
he fa ils to see that his o w n behavior resembles that of the old m a n
w h o m he dislikes. Even after his failed suicide attempt, Todd's
sincerity m ay be open to question. At the novel's beginning Todd
te lls us that he has "assumed four or five . . . stances" (22) in
his lif e , but he only details three which he had adopted before his
suicide attempt. The inference is that he w as wearing a m ask while
he tried to k ill himself--the reasonable n ih ilist? Camus's clear
eyed existentialist?--and another since then--the reasonable
relativist? or perhaps the artist-narrator "Todd Andrews."
I t is here, seen as aspects of a rt, that the wearing of m asks
and the playing of roles assumes a more positive ligh t. In the
person of Captain Jacob Adam , "owner and Captain" (86) of the
Floating Opera (and precursor to Henry Burlingame I I ) , w e are given
an example of roles being played with conscious a rtis try ; and here
masks are not seen as bad or dishonest. For example, from his
98
role as master of cremonies and director of the show Captain A dam
transforms himself "into an entirely different person" (257), the
interlocutor or straight m an for the Ethiopian Tidewater Minstrels,
the fool w ho allows the audience to feel "we were superior to a ll."
(258) In his dual role as both director of, and actor in, the
show, Captain A dam represents the ambiguous nature of the s elf,
which seem s to exist as both active director and helpless a rtifa c t;
and he also suggests the active, creative nature of the self as i t
chooses its parts and defines its e lf through its roles and actions
in the floating opera of lif e .
Todd Andrews does not appear to have learned the im plicit
lesson--that the m ask or role is an essential part of all a rt,
including the art of living--as he marches off to k ill himself;
but he m ay have learned i t by the time he writes The Floating
Opera. By creating and wearing the "mask" of a rt, Todd Andrews
does achieve a kind of identity; and the notion of self implied
in the actions of Todd Andrews and Captain A dam —identity=mask=art--
w ill be developed further in later works.
The Floating Opera thus establishes Barth's concern with a
double identity problem. H e is fascinated with the individual's
need to com e to terms with the relationship between the self-as-role
and the self-who-creates-the-role, to discover and experience his
"self"; and he is also involved in the related question of the
identity of the a rtis t.
These questions remain a primary concern for Barth in a ll of
his works; but for Todd Andrews they are not resolved: an uneasy
99
laugh, the decision to continue the s tu d y of himself, and then--the
"absurd thunderstorm that just then broke over Cambridge." (272)
The lack of absolute values in the world forces Todd into a
re la tiv is tic and subjective approach to existence. Such a stand
inevitably places a great burden on the "self" upon which i t is
largely based; and so i t is logical that The End of the Road w ill
proceed to take a closer look at this s elf, and particularly at
the subjective experience of the "I."
* **
O ne of the basic issues which Barth directly confronts in The
End of the Road is the problem of personal identity; and the theme has
probably received more c ritic a l attention in connection with this
novel than with any other Barth work.16 A s M ax Schultz says, Jake
Horner's "cosmopsis" is really the "disease of modern life . . . the
uncertainty of an essential I . " 1^
Jake Horner, the protagonist of the second novel, is highly
cerebral and self-conscious and almost completely out of touch
with emotion. In addition, he has no personal context--no past or
1 Q
family, no "environment":
a ll those things which condition thought seem to have receded
or been excluded and in the resultant emptiness the mind (Barth's
via his narrators') runs 'fr e e .'19
It is this character w ho has inherited the task of testing "that
brave ethical subjectivism" which Todd Andrews concluded should be a
possible basis for creating values. But the outcome of the test is
apparent in the novel's fir s t line: "In a sense, I a m Jacob Horner."
100
(1) Something has gone wrong; identity can be established only "in
a sense." A s Jake says la te r, "subjectivism doesn't really becom e
in te llig ib le until one fin a lly locates the subject" (142); and that
turns out to be the crucial, and impossible, job.
Jake is painfully aware of himself as a m an without "weather,"
without a central "I." There are two aspects to his selflessness:
an inner, subjective one, and an outer, public one. Jake describes
the subjective experience:
for m e at least there were frequently days without any m ood
at a ll. O n these days Jacob Horner, except in a meaningless
metabolic sense, ceased to exist, for I was without a person
a lity . . . . I had to be colored with som e m ood or other i f
there w as to be a recognizable self to me. The fact that m y
successive and discontinuous selves were linked to one another
by the two unstable threads of body and memory; the fact that
in the nature of Western languages the word change presupposes
something upon which the changes operate; the fact that
although the specimen is invisible without the dye, the dye
is not the specimen--these are considerations of which I w as
aware, but in which I had no interest. (36)
Abstract philosophical proofs are meaningless; at times he feels
selfless, he experiences himself as an empty space, just as H u m e
thought one should.
In addition to this periodic sense of emptiness, Jake's
t
in a b ility to find his subjective "self" has another component. H e
is able "to maintain with perfectly equal unenthusiasm contradictory,
or at least polarized, opinions at once on a given subject." (120)
His feelings are almost always "ambivalent" (126); he is unable to
choose:
when one is faced with . . . a multitude of desirable choices, no
one choice seem s satisfactory for very long by comparison with the
aggregate desirability of a ll the rest, though compared to any one
of the others i t would not be found in ferio r. (3)
101
This sense of the self as fragmented and changeable, a
conglomeration of conflicting en tities, was already fam iliar to
Todd Andrews; but Jake looks more carefully at the phenomenon-
a strong sense of one's personal unity.. . . is one of the things
I've always lacked . . . subjectivism implies a s e lf, and where
one feels a plu rality of selves, one is subject to . . . conflict
on an intensely intramural level, each of one's several selves
claiming the sam e irrefutable validity for its special point of
view that, in Joe's system, individuals and institutions m ay
claim. . . . judging from m y clearest picture of myself, the
individual is not individual after all, . . . he can be divided
further, . . . (142)
In addition to his subjective, private sense of being without
a s e lf, Jake also fa ils to create a satisfactory "public" self.
W h en he realizes, as Todd Andrews did, that there are no absolute,
intrinsic values in the world, so that "there w as no reason to do
anything" (75), he slides into a state of paralysis which he calls
"cosmopsis, the cosmic view" (74). But i t is impossible to remain
for long in such a state,logical though i t m ay be; he is "rescued"
by the Doctor, w ho explains that "choosing is existence" (83);
and Jake himself realizes that "not to choose at a ll is unthinkable."
(75)
Public identity is based upon choices and action; and Jake is
offered two approaches to creating himself. Joe and Rennie Morgan
dem and consistent, unchanging stands and clear points of view because
Joe assumes that each person has a clearly defined self which, on the
basis of reason, can m ake decisions which can, in turn, becom e personal
absolutes. Also, for them subjective and objective identity, the
private and the public s e lf, are seen as one and the sam e thing.
Rennie te lls Jake, "Real people aren't any different w hen they're
102
alone. N o masks. What you see of them is authentic." Jake
responds that "Nobody's authentic" (70); and their glimpse of Joe in
private-making faces at himself, picking his nose, masturbating—
tends to bear out Jake's point of view. In any case, Jake never really
has the option of choosing Joe's answer to cosmopsis, since, as he
says, i t is based on a "sense of personal unity" which he does not
have. I t is a sort of Catch-22; one must have a self to create a
self. Jake's in a b ility to "take a position and stick to i t so we'll
know who we're dealing with!" (151) leads Rennie to conclude
I* think you don't exist at a ll. There's too m any of you. It's
more than just masks you put on and take o ff— . . . you're
different all the way through each time. You cancel yourself
out., ., , , You're nothing. (67)
The Doctor approaches Jake's selflessness and inaction from a
different—even an opposite—direction. H e does not advocate a
search for the "real," underlying self; indeed, for him there is
no such thing.
Don't think there's anything behind them CmasksH: ego m eans I,
and X m eans ego, and the ego by definition is a mask. (90)
Advocating Mythotherapy, the Doctor appears to view identity solely
as the public performance. A s he explains i t , there are clear
parallels between Mythotherapy and the creation of all art of "myth-
making"; w e create ourselves as the "heroes of our o w n life stories"
(89). The particular role Jake chooses to play is unimportant;
there are no ethical considerations, no need for consistency: "a
m an is free not only to choose his o w n essence but to change i t at
w ill." (88)
Jake's reaction to the Doctor's advice is to consciously, role-
103
playingly seduce Peggy;Rahkin--and then, without conscious intention
or a role in mind, to sleep with Rennie! This second act, which leads
to the novel's tragic complications, is "without significance" (101)
to Jake; and he resists to the end Joe's most determined efforts to
define, categorize, and explain i t . (116)
This situation demonstrates the flaw in Mythotherapy; people
and the relationships between them are too complex and mysterious
to be adequately treated as roles in a drama.
The trouble, I suppose, is that the more one learns about a
given person, the more d iffic u lt i t becomes to assign a character
to him that w ill allow one to deal with him effectively in an
emotional situation. Mythotherapy, in short, becom es increasingly
harder to apply, because one is compelled to recognize the
inadequacy of any role one assigns. Existence not only precedes
essence; in the case of hum an beings i t rather defies essence.
(128)
Neither of the approaches offered by the Morgans and the Doctor
is able to provide Jake with an identity. Joe's brand of subject
ivism fa ils because the subject, or s elf, which he envisions at its
P
core is not discoverable and definable. But Mythotherapy is equally
inadequate because identity seem s to be more than a series of public
masks; there does seem to be, in Jake's experience, som e "mystery"
underlying the roles a person plays which defies his attempts to
simplify himself and others.
The precise nature of this "mystery" is not elucidated in The
E nd of the Road. It is only clear that Jake cannot experience his
private, transcendent self in any satisfying way; but neither can he
escape the sense that his "I" is something more than the role he is
playing at the moment, his public identity as the su m of his actions
in the world. Thus stymied, Jake can indeed be seen to have reached
104
the "end of the road."
In another way, though, the road has not ended; at least a tra il
can be found, leading back to the Doctor and Mythotherapy, following
the pattern established in The Floating Opera. There is one activity
in which Jake is able to becom e almost wholeheartedly involved:
"Articulation:! There, by Jove, way m^ absolute, i f I could be said
to have one." (119) H e delights in word games, in turning peoples'
arguments back upon them; and he recognizes that articulation--"this
precise fa ls ific a tio n , this adroit, careful myth-making"--is a form
of Mythotherapy. "W hen m y mythoplastic razors were sharply honed,
i t w as unparallelled sport to . . . have at re a lity ." (119)
Articulation is a double-edged sword, since Jake is aware not
only of the pleasures and necessities of myth-making of a ll kinds,
but also of the inherent inadequacy, even dishonesty, which is rooted
deep in the very nature of language and thought its e lf.
To turn experience into speech . . . is always a betrayal of
experience, a fa lsific a tio n of it ; but only so betrayed can i t
be dealt with at a ll, and only in so dealing with i t did I
ever feel a man, alive and kicking. (119)
The connection between personal role-playing and the use of words
(and thus the making of art) is clear; a role bears the sam e relation
ship to the "I" as a word does to the thing i t is supposed to
represent:
Assigning nam es to things is like assigning roles to people:
i t is necessarily a distortion, but i t is a necessary distortion
i f one would get on with the plot, and to the conoisseur, it's
good clean fun. (142)
This discrepancy between "reality" and m any of the things O w e n
on
Barfield would call "appearances" --a r t, lie s , illusions, myth,
105
masks—is a problem which Barth constantly confronts; and i t is the
crux of the problem of personal identity.
In any case, Jake Horner returns to a rt, which is a form of
Mythotherapy, x in the end. His journal-novel, The End of the Road,
is all that w e know of "Jake Horner," just as The Floating Opera is
all that w e know of "Todd Andrews." In both cases the journals of
m en w ho are unsure of their identities have becom e their identities,
at least as far as an observer can see. I f , as Joe says, w e are our
actions; and i f Jake Horner's main activity is to articulate; then
The End of the Road is Jacob Horner. In a sense. (Speaking about
articulation, Jake says, "In other sense, of course, I don't believe
this at a l l ." [1191])
The E nd of the Road is often referred to as a novel with
22
"existentialist" elements, sometimes for reasons which most
23
existen tialist philosophers would find d iffic u lt to understand.
However, these comparisons have been m ade in a very general way, and
critic s have not noted the sim ilarities between the novel's view of
identity and Sartre's analysis of the ego, although they certainly
exist. I t is tempting to m ake a correlation between Jake's
"watching-I" and "watched-I" (m y terms) and Sartre's "impersonal
consciousness" and "ego."2^ A nd when the Doctor says " 'ego m eans
I_ f and I_ m eans ego, and the ego is by definition a mask1 " (90),
i t is easy to think of Sartre's
I'Ego n'est formellement ni materiellement dans la conscience:
il est dehors, dans 1e monde; c'est un etre du monde, c o m m e
1'E^o d'autrui
But the equation is not complete. Although Jake fa ils to locate
his central "I," a failure which is quite in line with Sartre's theory,
he nonetheless retains the feeling that his consciousness is his, and
not the "impersonal1 1 activity which Sartre posits; and Jake also
seem s to view consciousness as basically a passive attribute, rather
than the active, creative force Sartre envisions.
S t ill, there are a number of co m m o n assumptions; and, in terms
of our interest in identity, two are especially important. The fir s t,
as w e have said, is the realization that what is often referred to
as one's "self," as i f i t were an indivisible entity, is divided,
even to the person experiencing i t , into something lik e Sartre's
"ego" and "consciousness": into actions and sensations and even
thoughts which can be taken as evidence of one being's identity and
the awareness o f those actions and sensations which is separate from
them and which is , in som e basic way, "impersonal." This consciousness
is an essential component of the s e lf, but i t is not a part which is
in any way identifiably "mine," except as i t is aware of "me." The
second point which follows from this is that the " 'ego is . . . a
mask' " (90), and that m y "I" is therefore something which exists
t
* ? f \
for m e only as others seem to exist--"dehors, dans le monde. "
I must watch to see what I do and say and seem to fe e l; I can never
know myself to ta lly , but only through the thoughts and actions I
express.
With this as background, i t becom es possible to see the wearing
of masks and the playing of roles in a rather different lig h t—nrot
These points w ill be elaborated in Chapter Four.
107
as dishonest attempts to hide one's identity, but rather as perhaps
the only way for anyone to see, to make, to becom e aware of his
ow n identity. I t is not, however, a simple solution, and the
ambiguity about masks and roles--the playing of which becom es
increasingly frequent and deliberate in Barth's work—is never
resolved.
B y the conclusion of Barth's second novel Jake has m ade l i t t l e
progress in terms of finding or creating his identity, except to have
defined more clearly the conflict which is strangling him (and, of
course, to have produced The End of the Road) . H e is once again
"without weather," s t ill repeating " I don't know what to do."
(197) Neither of the two possible alternatives presented to him--
commitment to the mask, or a fruitless search for the "I" behind all
masks--is a possible solution for Jake; and a third alternative--
the creation of identity as a deliberate work of a rt, in which the
creative "I" and the m ask merge--has not yet been achieved. Within
the parameters of The End of the Road, there is no other way ;Out.
But i t is always possible for the novelist to change his
parameters; and Barth does just that, making The Sot-Weed Factor
possible. H e later explained that he had also com e to the end of a
road in his second novel:
I didn't think after The End of the Road that I w as interested
in writing any more realis tic fic tio n --fic tio n that deals with
Characters From Our Time, w ho speak real dialogue. . . . O ne
ought to know a lot about Reality before one writes rea lis tic
novels. Since I don't know m uch about Reality, i t w ill have to
be abolished. 7
Shades of Ebenezer Cooke!
108
* * *
True to form, The Sot-Weed Factor begins where The End of
the Road concluded; or perhaps i t begins again where Jake Horner
started out, hoping this time to spiral out of his circular
28
prison, A m o ng other things the novel examines several aspects
of identity, and especially several varieties of Mythotherapy, to
see whether i t could becom e a basis for identity and action i f
applied with more understanding and enthusiasm than Jake Horner
was able to muster,
The two heroes of The Sot-Weed Factor, Ebenezer Cooke and
Henry Burlingame, are in m any ways opposites, representing extreme
ways of approaching existence, Before the "momentous wager" which
begins his adventures, Ebenezer Cooke, the protagonist of the
novel, is a variation of Jake Horner:
Ebenezer was yet a virgin, and this for a reason . , ,
that he was no person at a l l : , , , w hen a situation
presented its e lf he could never choose one role to
play over all the rest he knew, , , . (50)
Unable to find a basis for making choices, Eben's lif e is determined
by people and events outside himself; "Tike ungainly flotsam CheH
rode halfrcontent the tide of chance," (12) Like Jake, his strong
point is imagination, fancy (_8), not "knowledge"; and he is thus,
lik e his predecessors, able to hold mutually conflicting opinions
about things, H e also experiences the now-familiar frustration with
109
the "arbitrariness of the particular real world . . . he found the
notion preposterous, almost unthinkable, that this was the only way
i t happened" (9). (As Barth has said, "M y argument is with the
facts of lif e , not the conditions of i t . " 29) Eben's in a b ility to
find absolute values o n which he can base choices leads him several
times to states of near-paralysis like those a fflic tin g Jake during
his attacks of "cosmopsis"; and the poet is sim ilarly rescued or
forced into action by others, most notably Henry Burlingame, as w as
Jake by the Doctor and Joe.
Finally, Eben is s t ill caught in the mind/body sp lit inherited
from Todd Andrews and Jake Horner, but with a new extension. The
Floating Opera suggested that body, emotion and sexuality are dangerous
because they are connected with life and hence, by extension, with
death; in The Sot-Weed Factor this connection is stressed and given
the added weight of Christian tradition, in which i t is Adam's fa ll
into physical sin which doom s him and his progeny to mortal suffering
and death.
Thus, i t is for a dual reason--to maintain both his physical
and mental Innocence, to reject both death and re a lity --th a t Eben,
faced with the momentous decision to bed or not to bed Joan Toast,
suddenly chooses, or is chosen by, an "identity":
Did I , then, m ake a choice? Nay, for there w as no T to m ake it !
'Twas the choice m ade m e _ : a noble choice, to prize m y love o'er
lust, and a noble choice bespeaks a noble chooser. What a m I?
Virgin, sir! Poet, sir! (66)
His choice of "essence" both denies the rea lity of his physical,
hum an mortality ("my Innocence preserveth me/ From Life, from Time,
from Death, from History" [‘6613) and affirms that imagination, fancy,
mind—"innocence"--will rule his life .
Here, with the e ffo rt—however mistaken—to define his identity,
Eben's path begins to diverge from Jake Horner's. Eben has engaged
himself in a kind of Mythotherapy by choosing the roles of "poet"
and "virgin," creating himself "from the outside in"; but, unlike
Jake, he w ill hang onto the roles he has chosen long after their
unsuitability and their basic conflict with "reality"—his and
the world's—has been demonstrated.
During Eben's long, mock-heroic in itia tio n into lif e , i t is
not only his notions about the world which are changed, by Burlingame
and the contradictory rea lity he represents, but also his ideas
about his o w n nature, his identity.
Eben's sense of his ow n identity is attacked on two fronts.
The roles he has chosen for himself—poet and virgin—are demolished
by his exposure to life ; and his ideas about the nature of identity
in general are also challenged and exposed as false and inadequate.
W e have already seen (Chapter Two) h ow the Poet Laureate is
ultimately forced to abandon his physical innocence—the "virginal"
half of his identity—and to embrace re a lity . The second part of
his essence—"Poet"—is also subjected to strenuous challenge, and
i t too proves to be a false role which succum bs to the repeated
assaults of rea lity.
W h en he chooses the role of poet, Eben has only the vaguest
notions about poetry. H e assumes that art exists to teach virtue
and to glorify what he would like to believe is re a lity —an ideal
state of affairs which has l i t t l e resemblance to the things he later
111
experiences. Indeed, he seem s to think of art as a protection
against things as they are. A s his experience broadens, Eben's
ideas about poetry change, and so do the verses he writes; The
Marylandiad, the panegyric lauding the glories of an unseen Maryland
which he had planned, fin a lly becom es "The Sot-Weed Factor," a satire
intended to warn others of its failings and vices. From Burlingame's
point of view, the more re a lis tic Eben is "twice the poet" ; (410)
he w as before; but for the Laureate the death of his illusions is
catastrophic. In his ow n epitaph Eben refers to the pursuit of
glory with scorn and to himself not as a poet but as a "posing,
Foppish Actor" (819). Thus, both of the roles which originally
formed his "identity" have been demolished by the novel's end.
In addition to the collapse of his "essence"—which was, in
fa c t, composed of two public roles which conflicted with his private
re a lity —Eben's ideas about identity per se are attacked in several
ways. W h en the budding Laureate expresses amazement at Henry's
fir s t transformation—into Colonel Peter Sayers—Burl ingame explains
that a m an "can alter himself, dow n to his very essence." (137)
For the tutor, change is the essential re a lity ; and he questions the
belief that a person has a constant and unchanging identity.
'Tis but a grossness of perception . . . that lets us speak of
Tham es and T ig ris, . . . but especially m ie and thee, as though
what went by those nam es or others in time past hath som e connec
tions with the present object . . . the very universe is naught
but change and motion. (137-138)
H e rebuts Eben's Cartesian argument that one's identity is his m em ory
by offering evidence of the uncertainty and f a llib ilit y of memory:
" Thou'rt seduced by metaphors, as w as Descartes of old. " (138)
112
In fact, there is no way of ever knowing for certain whether a
person is w ho he claims to be or only 1 1 'a clever actor' " (140) —
a fact which the numerous impostures of The Sot-Weed Factor amply
bear out. Perhaps most significantly, Henry explains that the sam e
d iffic u ltie s apply to being certain about one's o w n identity as to
being sure of the identity of another (140)—a very Sartreian
stance which attacks the co m m o n assumptions about "public" and
"private" identity—and concludes that " a ll assertions of thee
and me, even to Oneself, are acts of fa ith , impossible to verify."
(141)
The idea that the creation of identity is an "act of faith" is
crucial, although i t is not elaborated in philosophical discussion.
But the previous dialogue sets the scene for the multitude of
disguises and mistaken identities which are to follow. Very few
of the novel's characters do not experience an apparent change of
identity; the tutor himself plays at least twelve different roles,
until Eben is forced to admit, "my friend hath passed into realms
of complexity beyond m y compass, and I have lost him. " (613)
Such changes in others are deeply upsetting to Eben--'1 N o m an
is what or w h o m I take him for " (554)—but ever more disturbing
are the role-changes specifically connected to his o w n identity.
Almost as soon as he has defined himself as "Ebenezer Cooke, Virgin
and Poet Laureate," he becom es involved in a tug-of-war with others
over his identity—his nam e and the role he has chosen to play in
life 's drama. Various people impersonate him at least six times, and
he sometimes responds by playing the roles of others. The fir s t
113
impersonation occurs before he even sets sail for the N ew World;
forced to pretend to be his own-servant in order to get on board
the ship, Ebenezer ra ils that the impostor " hath robbed m e of
myself " (205), and he vows, " *Tis' the last time I ' l l be any m an
whate'er save Eben Cooke."' (226) H e is , of course, mistaken; in
fact, he is so often imitated that he remarks wryly, " Maryland
hath an infestation of laureate poets! " (579)
A s his adventures m ultiply, the Laureate com es to see "Eben
Cooke" (693) as a public role which m any people can, and do, play,
almost all better than he. The process of impersonating and being
impersonated culminates when his search for his o w n identity and for
Burlingame ends in the sam e man, and he discovers his o w n father
calling Burlingame "Ebenezer." This is exactly the situation
Burlingame previously described in order to demonstrate the impossi
b ility of ever proving identity:
Suppose I'd challenged your o w n identity, and m ade you out
to be the clever impostor. At best you'd have no proof,
would you now ? (140)
With this evidence that even his father apparently accepts som eone
else as him, Eben's already weakened sense of his identity collapses,
and he fa lls again into the paralysis from which Joan Toast and the
wager had originally released him.
After four days of illness, fille d with visions of shifting
id e n titie s , Eben wakens to a simpler new order. H e is " sick unto
death of false id en tities" ' (761); and the remainder of the novel's
main section seem s to work to reestablish "true," fixed identities
and relationships, as i t focuses on the question of w ho is the
114
"real" Ebenezer Cooke in order to determine the ownership of the
estate of Malden.
Although our hero is declared to be the real Ebenezer, his
decision to consummate his marriage to Joan Toast, and thus to
"earn" his heritage, is actually a rejection of the identity he
chose w hen his adventures began. The novel is structured around
Eben's efforts to reach and then to earn the estate which is his
heritage—that is , to com e to terms with his history. H e fin a lly
does so by rejecting the identity based on imagination and innocence
in favor of one centered in re a lity and knowledge of the world,
undergoing a ritual of acquiescence to society and history in
which the unusual characteristics he had chosen to represent "Ebenezer
Cooke" are renounced in favor of more "normal" behavior. H e takes his
father's wishes as his own, renounces his innocence, accepts respon
s ib ility for all of the harm caused by his actions, and seeks
" ' atonement1 ": " I lit t le care now for m y legacy, save that I
must earn it." (800) H e is reconciled with the general social order;
the m ock marriage ceremony which climaxes the novel is the traditional
ending of comedy, signifying that the balance in society has been
reestablished.
Eben's fa ll from innocence and acceptance of g u ilt also
parallels the original fa ll of Adam,’ to which Burlingame frequently
refers, giving the Laureate's ritual in itia tio n a religious as well
as a social symbolism. Unlike Jake Horner, Eben has m ade himself a
penitent while there is s t ill time to repent.
However, this apparent resolution of identity problems is called
115
into question by other aspects of the novel, and most particularly by
Burlingame. The disappearance of individual or private identity once
a social or historical identity has been established is seen even more
clearly in his case than in Eben's. Like his pupil, Burlingame o rig i
nally sets out to find his heritage,;, but he is specific about searching
for his identity, which he defines as knowledge of w ho his father was:
" the nam e and nature of m y father, the circumstances of m y birth, . . .
'Tis the one business of m y life ." (144) H e la te r merges this search
with his efforts to find, and perhaps destroy, John Coode, the mysteri
ous God-Devil figure w ho appears to be in control of events in Maryland,
To be an "orphan" with "no parentage to give m e place and aim in
Nature's order" (537) is a te rrib le " 'loneliness' " (143), according
to Burlingame; but i t also confers on him a great freedom. I t is be
cause he is "outside" Nature that he can aspire to be " her lord
and spouse " (537)—to transcend contradictions and experience exis
tence as a to ta lity . Outside the limitations of the natural order, he
is free to becom e innumerable versions of himself, to actually inhabit
the world of flux which underlies our stereotypes; he is thus free to
be, to create himself as completely as possible. Being an "orphan"
seem s essential to this sort of freedom, just as America's lack of his
tory gives i t the philosophic liberty , . . [whichU makes every m an
an orphan like myself" (181)', and when Henry fin a lly learns his history
and the identity of his father, the knowledge seem s to put an end to his
marvelous shape-shifting. Indeed, he vanishes from the story entirely
30
once a hum an explanation and context for him are found.
Burl ingame' s final long lecture to Eben—"A Layman' s Pandect of
Geminology Com pended by Henry Burlingame, Cosmophilist"—deals with
identity only by indirection; the talk focuses on the mythology of
twinness, the "dank identity that twins share in the womb." '(528)
His belief that Anna and Eben desire each other sexually, and his o w n
wish to possess the two of them "in coito" as a sym bol of the
" seamless universe " (537) suggests that real or complete identity
is to be found only in a to ta lity of " contradictories " (529),
rather than by isolating or emphasizing one element of a personality.
Thus, The Sot-Weed Factor remains ambivalent about personal
identity to the end. I t suggests, on the one hand, that the reality
of individual identity can be best expressed as Burlingame does i t ,
by trying to "exhaust" the rea lity of his self by representing i t in
31
as m any of its possible guises as time and circumstances permit.
O n the other hand, the freedom to inhabit this realm of experience
is w on at the cost of social and historical identity, and a sense
of h um an community. It appears that these two aspects of personal
identity are incompatible in a basic way.
The Sot-Weed Factor makes several points about identity. First,
change, flux and uncertainty are emphasized in connection with personal
identity as well as with the nature of re a lity in general, even more
clearly than was the case in Barth's fir s t two novels. The innocence
which Eben must lose.is largely his desire to resist change, to deny
the flu id mystery of the universe and his o w n m ortality, the passage
of time which w ill bring his death. Burlingame declares early on
that " the very universe is naught but change and motion"- (138),
and the novel gives ample evidence of the shifting, changing nature of
117
m any of the characters. But although Eben com es to p artia lly agree
with the notion that "Only for the dead do circumstances never
change" (655),' he never really com es to terms with the flux of
things himself; and his passion for atonement is a form of his desire
for fixed solutions and unchanging order, a need for a "knowledge"
which is as false as his innocence was.
A s usual, i t is the tutor w ho show s the way, with his vision
of a world which is both mysterious flux and meaningless chaos. B y
playing a multitude of often contradictory roles (Coode and Baltimore,
for example--"evil" and "good"), he manages to suggest the mysterious,
ever-changing self which can choose to reflect its e lf in so m any
O p
ways, although i t can never be adequately mirrored in any of them.
Next, The Sot-Weed Factor m ake the point that the "self"--
the ego—is almost entirely a public entity, both as i t is perceived
by others and by its e lf. A s the numerous quasi-legal proceedings
in the novel demonstrate,^ there is ultimately no way to "prove"
one's identity in the realm of public actions; a role, once created,
is out of our control. This complex of ideas w ill concern Barth
increasingly in the remaining novels.
Also, in The Sot-Weed Factor the comparison between the public
gestures which create one's identity and the public gestures which
are art is beginning to be m ade more clearly. W h en Ebenezer's p oem
is published, his intentions are ignored; indeed, they are invisible
to others. "The Sot-Weed Factor" becom es an act "out there," for
anyone to interpret; and i t is taken as evidence of Maryland's culture
and sophistication rather than as proof of its primitive condition
J.18
and corruption, as Eben had intended. This in a b ility of the author
to control his work of art after he has created i t , or to be certain
that he has achieved his aims or even m ade them clear to others, is
like the impossibility of ever embodying one's "true" identity in a
public role. Barth returns to this parallel again and again, fin a lly
completely fusing personal and a rtis tic identity in "Bellerophoniad."
The Sot-Weed Factor also examines a third general approach to
the question of personal identity which may, very loosely, be called
"mythic," In this category I have included several sorts of "myth"--
social, religious, and a rtis tic . Such a view is related to Burlingame's
explanation that all assumptions about identity--indeed, by extension,
a ll meaning—are products of the h um an mind: myths of a sort, works
of art of a sort, At the novel's conclusion Burlingame confesses that
he has never seen either Coode or Baltimore, the all-powerful figures
w ho seem to represent Satan and God, evil and good; " ‘ i t m ay be
they're naught but the rumors and tales themselves.' " Ebenezer
answers,
W h en i reflect on the weight and power of such fictions beside
m y o w n poor shade of a s e lf, that hath been so m uch disguised
and counterfeited, methinks they have tenfold m y substance! (764)
Such creations are in som e way like the fictions of " n re and thee 1 1
(137); but they seem m u ch more substantial because they are shared
illusions—myths which have a long historical tradition and which are
bound into the fabric of society.
I t is , in a small way, this sort of identity which Eben claims
w hen he gives up his personal illusions in favor of acceptable social
behavior. A nd he touches another realm of mythic identity in his
119
reenactment of Christian myth: the fa ll from grace, g u ilt, respon
s ib ility , atonement. A s Henry says, " 'tis Adam's story thou'rt
re-enacting. " (434)
The Laureate is also retracing a rather different, older mythic
pattern, the "tradition of the wandering hero"^--a fact of which
Barth w as unaware until he read som e c ritic a l responses to The Sot-
W eed Factor, but which he found so valid that he wrote Giles Goat-Boy
to do consciously what he had fir s t done without being aware of it .
For Eben, none of his tentative pretensions to these sorts of
"mythic" identity are a real substitute, or support, for his o w n
" poor shade of a self. " (764)
Burlingame's efforts to create himself also seem at fir s t to
have "mythic" or "heroic" elements; but, although art and myth are
often indistinguishable Henry Burlingame is more a rtis t than hero.
The Protean shape-shifter is often chosen by Barth as the symbol of
the a rtis t. A s such he demonstrates that the process of living and
creating an identity is in fact the creation of a rt--a major point
about identity which The Sot-Weed Factor makes.
Oddly enough, for all of Burlingame's efforts to change
Ebenezer, this notion would be fam iliar to the Laureate. A s children,
he and Anna had often wondered " whether all of life and the world
were not just . . . a dream ," and one of them "The Dreamer of
the World." (557) A nd he see the
facts, of Tife and the facts of history . . . from the story-
te lle r's point of view . . . That lives are stories, he assumed;
. . . But that the te lle r himself must live a particular tale
and die--Unthinkable! (294)
In som e ways, then, Eben's attitudes—including his devotion
120
to imagination—are vindicated in the life of the m an w ho criticizes
them; Burlingame is "dreaming"--creating--himself and his world.
Returning to the term introduced in The End of the Road, The
Sot-Weed Factor takes an ambiguous view of Mythotherapy as a possible
m eans of creating, or demonstrating, personal identity. Eben's experi
ence is the obverse of that of Jake Horner, w h o could not commit
himself to a role even fleetingly; Eben is able to decide on roles
for himself to play, and he clings to them despite opposition, but
their basic in fle x ib ility and inadequacy to encompass rea lity force him
to abandon them completely. Such rig id ity and narrowness of roles is
not what the Doctor suggested, however; and Burlingame's free and
frequent change of guise seem s to show us what can be done with
Mythotherapy in the hands of a master.
Burlingame's attacks on Eben's roles, and on his simplistic
ideas of identity, m ake sense i f w e realize that the tutor is not
trying to destroy the idea of role-playing per se, nor to convince
his charge that he has no identity, but rather that he is trying
to force Eben to play a variety of roles, to express and m ake himself
as widely as possible, to give expression to the in fin ite possibility
of his humanity by encompassing oppositions and contradictions
in himself. Burlingame's motif is change, and in the flowing variety
of his roles w e see m uch what Sartre saw at the heart of the "self"--
ultimate, free, creative consciousness. Only in this constant shift
and attack on stereotypes can Burlingame show forth the most essential
aspect of his being, his free w ill.
* * *
121
The question of identity permeates Giles Goat-Boy even more
than i t did The Sot-Weed Factor, extending even into the construction
of the novel its e lf. A s w e have seen (Chapter Two), the identity
of the author is now dubious, as is that of the narrator and other
characters. All of the documents which precede and follow the main
body of the novel call its authorship into question. The old
realistic technique of prefacing the body of a novel with documents
which are supposed to convince the reader of the manuscript's authenti
city are used, in this case, to undercut the reader's sense of
"reality," and to suggest the impossibility of identifying the "real"
author or narrator, or discovering the true relationship between them.
Todd Andrew's "deliberate inconsistency" has m oved into the technique
35
of the novel, with its original intention unchanged.
In addition, the "Cover-Letter" by J. B. reveals that there
are m any points in co m m o n between the present manuscript and the
novel on which he had been working for years, implying that the
manuscript which purports to be, fir s t of a ll, non-fiction ,and,
secondly, a religious document, is in fact a work of fictio n . Again
the question of rea lity and illusion is raised, with the now fam iliar
inference that myth is art. This suggestion is strengthened w hen
J. B. argues that the "question of its authorship is anyhow irrelevant"
(xxxvi), since "whether regarded as 'fa c t1 or 'fic tio n ' the book's
urgent pertinence should be as apparent." (x x ii)
The connection between personal identity in general and the
identity of an a rtis t has thus been made, as well as that between
the uncertain, unknowable nature of re a lity in general and that of
122
hum an identity. Giles Goat-Boy goes on to examine the problem of
identity in m any ways, with which w e w ill deal only b riefly.
Like The Sot-Weed Factor, Giles Goat-Boy is a kind of
Bildungsroman in which the hero discovers himself as he discovers
his world. The search for the self involves the search for the
father and the "real" name, as i t did for Henry Burlingame and, in
a way, for Todd Andrews. I t also involves the search for a function
in h um an society, as i t did for Eben Cooke; and George the goat-boy
decides, " ‘I'm going to be a hero. " (125) I t is toward himself
that the protagonist journeys—a definition of his identity.
A s in The Sot-Weed Factor identity is portrayed in terms of
change, uncertainty, and unknowability, although Harold Bray, w ho has
taken over Burlingame's mythic shape-shifter role and whose "real"
identity remains unknown, is the only main character whose guises
actually shift and change. But here the uncertainty of identity is
expressed mostly in terms of ambiguity and contradictions in m any
characters whose public and private identities, or appearances and
intentions, seem out of k ilte r.
Stoker explains that his brother, Lucky, is not " what he
pretends to be " (467); and George later wonders whether Stoker
himself, normally viewed as a negative force, is not the main
impetus toward salvation in the campus. Peter Greene, w ho sees
himself as the straightforward Puritain, is in fact a hypocritical
lecher; and Anastasia's "true" nature—saint or selfish nymphomaniac—
remains unclear throughout the novel.
The most significant identity confusion is that between George
123
and Harold Bray; but before Bray becom es predominant in the novel
George is associated, by suggestion, with Oedipus, symbol of the tragic
hero in search of his o w n identity.
A s soon as he enters N ew Tam m any, where he hopes to prove that
he is both h um an and a Grand Tutor, George is taken to see a play--
Taliped Decanus, a devastatingly colloquial version of Oedipus
Tyrannus in an academic setting.36 Barth's version of Oedipus
is given in its entirety, roughly at the center of the novel; and
both the space assigned to i t and its central location mirror the
importance of Oedipus as a symbol of George's quest.
There are numerous sim ilarities between Oedipus and George the
goat-boy--understandably, since Barth researched the heroic pattern
before beginning Giles Goat-Boy, discovered that Oedipus most per-
fectly reflected i t , and apparently set out to try to create a
"modern" mythic hero. Parallels between George and Oedipus can be
seen in their names, childhoods, and relationships with their mothers
qo
and their prophets. The images of sight and blindness which
dominate Oedipus Tyrannus are also central to Giles Goat-Boy. M any
of the characters have problems of vision which correspond to their
in ab ilities to properly apprehend re a lity ; and several of them--
Kennard Sear, Peter Greene, Leonid Alexandrov--are actually physically
blinded, like Oedipus, when they fin a lly "see" things as they are.
And George's final leap of understanding is an "in-sight" brought
about by an argument between Greene and Leonid, w ho each possess only
one eye, about the proper way to see Anastasia (Truth).
For our purposes, the main sim ilarity between George and
124
Oedipus is the fact that they do not know w ho they are; they are
both searching for their identities.
K n o w yourself. Begin your search with you. You'll see the m a n
you're after in a mirror; take your falseface o ff—you'll see
him clearer. (323)
In both cases this lack of self-knowledge causes catastrophes in the
state; George's "tutoring" nearly destroys N ew Tam m any, as well as
M ax and Virginia, before he finds his Answer.
A major point in Taliped Decanus is that discovery of one's
identity is associated with g u ilt, something which Eben Cooke sug
gested earlier. This vision—that self-consciousness and self-
knowledge must inevitably lead to an awareness of one's gu ilt and
responsibility for others' suffering—is , as Dr. Sear says, the
"tragic" view. It is associated with the search for Knowledge and
with the in te lle c t—and, by extension, i t must also be associated
with the failu re of man's reason to save him from disaster. Oedipus
assumes that one's identity is there to be found, clear and unchanging,
a matter of one's parentage and history, and that the only d iffic u lty
lies in discovering the "true" facts. I t is this sort of thinking
which guides George through most of his adventures; but such a simplis
tic notion of identity is eventually proved to be as inadequate as
the "either/or" approach to problems which he fin a lly transcends.
Immediately after the performance of Taliped Harold Bray appears
for the fir s t time to proclaim that "Tragedy's out; mystery's inj "
(354), suggesting that George's efforts to view his identity as
Oedipus did his w ill be challenged by a more complex, less rational
approach.
125
George's in itia l attempts to find and m ake his identity—to
discover his parentage and to becom e a Grand Tutor—reflect his
simplistic view of his task. Like Oedipus, George wants an ID-card,
even though to possess one w ill create an apparently impossible
dilemma. Bray explains that an ID-card is necessary in order to
matriculate (391) and undergo the tria ls which George believes are
necessary to prove that he is a Grand Tutor. But Bray also announces
that " N o one with an ID-card is a Candidate for graduation " (419);
and Graduation—salvation?—is , one would think, the necessary goal
of a Grand Tutor. It thus appears that one must both have, and
not have, a definite identity i f he is to be "saved."
George is presented wi/th a blank ID-card, but, as he signs his
name, he sees that i t once belonged to Ira Hector. Thus, even his
fir s t attempts to attain a public identity are based on deception.
At this point he simply signs himself "George," his "human" nam e (his
goat nam e had been B illy ); but he changes the signature to GILES
(the in itia ls which stand for "Grand-tutorial Ideal, Laboratory
Eugenical Specimen" [1433) once he is convinced that he is , indeed,
a Grand Tutor. His identity immediately becom es even more dubious,
however, when Bray is declared the "o fficial" Grand Tutor of N e w
Tam m any; and George survives the fir s t ritual test, Trial by
Turnstile, because a series of accidents result in the scanner seeing
nothing as he passes through. H e passes the next, crucial test,
Scapegoat Grate, by wearing the face—the mask--of Harold Bray, which
he had peeled o ff (revealing, underneath, "a face not different from
the one I'd snatched" [4271]). The Assignment which George receives,
126
then, and which is supposed to determine his fitness for Grand
Tutorhood, is obtained while he is disguised as Bray and m any in
fact have been intended for his adversary. The confusion of identity
between the two potential Grand Tutors thus exists from the beginning;
and this is only the fir s t of m any tests which George survives because
he is masked as Bray.
Having received his Assignment, George begins his tutoring;
and his ideas about his identity go through three cycles, just as
his approach to other issues does.
In the fir s t cycle of his experiences, George relies on reason
and the principle of differentiation; he sees himself as "human"--'
i.e ., rational--and strives to eliminate his "goatly" tendencies.
H e is , on the one hand, trying to eliminate his "self" or at least
his "selfishness"; while on the other hand he is striving to establish
his clear identity as Grand Tutor. After George's mother identifies
Bray as her son, George insists on a tria l in the computer's Belly
to fin a lly distinguish the real Grand Tutor. H e puts on Bray's
m ask again in order to pass safely through the crowd (" it f i t so
perfectly and lig h tly , lik e a second skin" [556H); but he discovers
only after he has passed through the Belly--and been, he believes,
certified as a Grand Tutor—that he is s till wearing the mask! For
a second time, then, Bray's m ask has allowed George to pass a ritual
test; and he continues to wear i t , accepted by a ll as the Grand
Tutor, until his mother appears again to deny that Bray—w ho is
now masked as George—is her son. At the conclusion of his fir s t
cycle of tutoring, George repudiates false iden tities, unm asks
127
himself and Bray, and declares, "I've failed everything." (578)
In the second period of his learning and tutoring, George reacts
against reason and differentiation, stressing emotion and trying to
"embrace" contraries. H e sees himself largely in terms of his o w n
"goatly" physical nature; and he seem s to reject the idea of a
defined identity for himself. H e erases the nam es from his ID-card,
and confesses to Anastasia that, " I don't even know what I a m
(671); I'm not anybody! 1 1 (672)
Just before the disaster which concludes his second cycle of
tutoring, he muses,
M y ID-card was blank, v irtu a lly , and the fain t G E O R G E that a
careful eye might discern yet upon i t would serve . . . as
well to identify Father and Examiner as S elf: I w as not born
George; I was not born anything; I had invented myself as I'd
elected m y name, . . . (693)
And he believes that he sees the truth at la s t, in the computer's
Belly:
there was no I_to complete the Assignment, as distinct from an
Assignment to be completed, in the timeless, seamless Univer
sity • . . GILES and W E S C A C [wereH distinctions as spurious as
son and father, . . . (695-696)
This sounds a good deal lik e Henry Burlingame's philosophy, but i t
is apparently s till not the final answer, since at the end of this
second phase Bray banishes George to the goat barns and he leaves
once again certain that "I'd been a ll wrong."(698)
In the.third, "mystic" phase of his experience, George m oves
beyond the opposing stands which he had taken in his fir s t two
cycles of learning: the f ir s t , that he had a definite and easily-
established identity; the second, that he had no "real" identity
except for arbitrary distinctions. After his experience with
128
Anastasia in the third cycle he speaks of the "lightless place where
I had seen, becom e myself" (732), and where he had fe lt that the
whole "single, seamless campus" w as "one with m e." (731) This new
vision seem s to include both the sense that he has a "myself" and
that he is, in som e way, inseparable from the to ta lity of all
things, and therefore without personal identity. In the "Posttape,"
"I" is used both with and without quotation marks: "what I 'knew'
neither ' I ' nor anyone could 'teach.' "(759) With regard to his
identity he now answers both "Yes and no."
Going to meet Bray for a last time before the final driving-
out, George at one time wears Bray's mask, and at another says that
he is the goat-boy. Both of these guises are now treated by him as
equally "real," just as he now sees that his function to drive Bray
out of new Tam m any and Bray's "to be drive out" are of "equal value."
(728) And when he and Anastasia mate in the computer's Belly after
George has seen "the Answer" (730), they are both masked; this time
i t is she w ho wears Bray's mask, while George's face is hidden by his
mother's purse. It is in Bray as m uch as in Anastasia that George
finds himself; and in his symbolic union with Bray George becom es
one with the universe.
I t is the perception of rea lity and identity represented by
Harold Bray which challenges George's classical notion of himself.
Bray is a God-Devil figure with m any of the characteristics of Henry
Burlingame, although there are also suggestions that he is a mani
festation of W E S C A C , the powerful computer.
Bray's "real" face and nature are never revealed; at one point
129
w hen George peels o ff Bray's face the face underneath is exactly
like the m ask he has removed. A nd in the final shafting ceremony
Bray enters a state of constant metamorphosis, assuming the appearance
of a ll of the main characters, from M ax and Anastasia to George
himself. H e m ay be e v il, pretending to be a savior; or a savior,
pretending to be evil in order to becom e a scapegoat; or everything
at once.
In the "Posttape" the confusion or merging of identity between
George and Bray continues and is strengthened. Anastasia's child, for
example, is referred to by George as the "lad she calls our son,
. . . in w h o m I see as m uch of Stoker, of Croaker, indeed of Bray,
as of myself." (755) The change of tone in the "Posttape"—to
weariness and cynicism—suggests Bray more than George; and the
narrator increases the confusion between himself and Bray w hen he
says,
a ll that could be said was that he was m y adversary, as necessary
to m e as Failure is to Passage. I.e ., not only contrary and
interdependent, but fin a lly undifferentiable.
The reporters are right when they quip, " 'You say you're Bray in a
way, hey?' " (759) Rum ors circulate that George is , in fact, Bray;
and people wonder
Could there have been two or several "Brays," whereof one w as a
true Grand Tutor, w ho for that matter might have taken m y
semblance to rout m e in his? (759-760)
To such questions George makes no answer. Thus the novel's final
statement seem s to be that an individual's personal identity must
always remain in doubt—a matter of "faith," as Burlingame said,
rather than knowledge.
130
Giles Goat-Boy makes one more major contribution to Barth's
study of identity; i t extends and examines the possibilities of
"mythic" identity which were hinted at in The Sot-Weed Factor.
George's Mythotherapeutic choice results in a clear decision
about his role: " I'm going to be a hero. " (125) Three versions
of heroism or Grand Tutorhood are presented to George, and a ll of
them eventually influence his conception of his role. Max, George's
mentor, in itia lly discourages him from the heroic path, insisting
that heroes are simply people w ho are especially well suited to do
"realistic work upon the failings of life on campus." (308) There
is nothing supernatural in the‘hero's actions, as M ax sees them, no
glamour or personal glory: George is "the tool designed for the
work, nothing more • • •" (302)Heroes provide a b it of "adrenalin"
(305) to speed up important social processes, and they also reflect
the major experiences of their societies: "what everyone went through
for himself, . . . Grand Tutors went through on the level of the
whole student body." (309)
In contrast to Max's view of heroism, Kennard Sear, w h o
becom es George's second guide, is an advocate of the "tragic"
heroism best embodied in Oedipus. The tragic hero is committed
to Knowledge, of himself and of the world.
That's m^ Grand Tutor! . . . Poor blind Taliped and his fatal
ID-card, stripped of innocence! Committed and condemned to
knowledge! That's the only Graduation offered in West Campus,
George--and, m y dear boy, w e are Westerners! (353)
A third view i-s represented by Harold Bray, w ho opposes Sear's
ideas about heroism--" Taliped Decanus and his sort are flunked
forever! Tragedy's out; mystery's J j t^ I " (354)—and, by implication,
131
Max's rational humanism as well. It appears that Bray's concern is
with the heroic ritual and pattern its e lf, and its fu lfillm en t, and
not with the individual people w ho play particular roles. Thus, it
is crucial that a scapegoat be found or m ade and driven out of the
social body; and i t is crucial that a "hero" drive him out. But
whether he or George plays scapegoat or hero is not important; the
ritual must be completed.
George fin a lly adopts a view of his quest in which a ll three
sorts of heroism are blended. H e retains Max's understanding that
a hero is only a tool to accomplish society's ends:
I knew now I was meant for Grand-Tutorhood, and saw m y way, work,
and fate with sure indifference—as, for instance, that I would
drive out Harold Bray, but with neither rancor nor relish, only
as part of m y larger Assignment. A knife cuts; a fish swims; a
Grand Tutor, am ong other things, drives from the cam pus such as
Bray. There was no glamour to the work . . . (728)
But early in his time in N e w Tam m any he also becom es convinced
of the validity of Oedipus' approach to existence:
Dean Taliped, in the horror of his knowledge, was . . . as
passed as one can be w ho understands and accepts that in
studentom is only failu re. I f anything lay beyond that awful
Answer . . . then the way led through the dark and bloody
Deanery of C adm us . . . (417)
A nd "tragic" heroism remains an important component of George's final
actions. Clearly, know!edge and understanding of the role he is
playing is a primary factor in his acquiescence to his function:
Compassion lightened hopeless duty; the cam pus wind was c h ill,
but Knowledge warmed m e. I knew what must be done, and that I
would do it ; a ll that would now com e to pass w as clear, hence
m y tears—but now they were for studentom, not for m e. (732)
His general fatalism about the hum an condition in the "Posttape"
/
suggests the tradition of tragic heroism; and the end George forsees
132
for himself has, along with elements of primitive ritu a l, echoes
of the passing of Oedipus in Oedipus at Colonnus.
However, the experience which fin a lly convinces him of his
Grand Tutorhood and which he fru itlessly tries to teach to others
is indescribable, unteachable--a mystic blend of reason and emotion
which cannot be transmitted to another; and with this experience he
enters Bray's realm, "mystery." Sim ilarly, the change in George's
view of himself as hero--from the desire to be "marvelous" to
acquiescence to becoming simply a function in a mythic pattern--
goes beyond Max's concern for the improvement of the hum an lot and
Sear's desire to plumb the depths of hum an experience. B y becoming
a hero-scapegoat, George loses the private identity for which Oedipus
battled and merges with all of the mythic figures w ho have played the
role before him. This step into myth is the ultimate mystery.
George fin a lly settles, then, for an impersonal "mythic"
identity, whtch*is reflected in the novel's t it le , where his nam e
is not given as "Billy" (his goat-name) or "George" (his h um an name),
but as GILES, the acronym for "Grand-tutorial Ideal, Laboratory
Eugenical Specimen." (143) But what does this sort of identity m ean?
In Giles Goat-Boy w e can see that the desire to be a "hero"
is a kind of compromise between being outside nature and society,
like Burlingame and Bray, and giving in to a ll of the strictures
of a normal life as society defines i t . In the mythic pattern the
hero is frequently thought to be the son of a god ("Dean Taliped's
the Founder's son" H342H), and he is thus free to break h um an rules
while at the sam e time remaining an admired m em ber of h um an society.
133
Such a role would seem to allow for both a private identity and a
social one, even to combine them w hen the Grand Tutor's personal
experiences are lived "on the level of the whole student body." (309)
However, Giles Goat-Boy seem s to say that such a compromise
is not possible. George's mythic or heroic identity seem s gradually
but completely to overwhelm his ;private identity; the GILES absorbs
the goat-boy, as he com es to see himself as a tool, a function and
"neutral instrumentality." (728) I t is in this s p irit that he confronts
Harold Bray at Max's Shafting; and i t is d iffic u lt to te ll whether
George is playing the role of "hero" or "scapegoat." A s he told Max,
"true scapegoatery is not to die for studentom's sake, but to take
their feelings upon oneself and liv e ."
The "Posttape" suggests the narrator's sense of the " fu tility "
(735) of his work and his disillusionment with the people around him;
but i t does not repudiate the heroic pattern its e lf, which he is
enacting. I f anything, his personal identity has been even more
completely subsumed by his mythic function, so that he n ow sees
himself and Bray, hero and scapegoat (or scapegoat and hero), as
"undifferentiable." (759) Only in the eyes of Tombo, the son of
Peter Greene and George Herrold's daughter, does George "see the
reflection of myself, m y hard history and m y fate." (762-763)
And even here his references to Tom bo as a possible successor in the
quest--"he w ill . . . one day hear, in his far sanctuary, a c a ll, a
sum m ons" (763)--imply that he sees himself as hero, not his "private"
identity, in the child.
I t would appear that the attempt to find in heroism a compromise
134
between an unfettered private identity and a significant social or
public identity is doom ed to failu re. The public, mythic, a rtis tic
role overwhelms the self which once chose i t , and carries i t along
to the pattern's inevitable end, destroying the separation between
the subjective and objective se lf—or the assumption of a subjective
self—which obtains for “normal" m en.
Barth's fourth novel, then, approaches personal identity in
two primary ways. First, the mystery, the ultimate unknowability of
identity is depicted largely in terms of oppositions—human/goat,
Croaker/Eierkopf, George/Bray—which must som ehow be reconciled.
These oppositions are like those which Burlingame encompassed in
his m any roles--Coode and Baltimore, for example--and they have a
similar function, to stand for the unrepresentable rea lity behind them
which produces both extremes, just as Eben and Anna would have
represented, in coito, the "seamless universe." This is true both
for re a lity in general and for personal identity. Such a union of
opposites, on either the public or private scale, does not take
place in The Sot-Weed Factor; but i t does in Giles Goat-Boy, so that
George is able to say that he had "seen, becom e myself" (732) as well
as discovering that all other things were"one, and one with me." (731)
The union of opposites however, is achieved only through a
mystic experience which can never be conveyed to anyone else. Even
so, i t would seem to be a tentative positive step beyond the multiple
role-playing adopted by Burlingame to explore his identity; an
experience of one's "real" self, even i f fleeting and unprovable,
does now seem possible.
135
O n the other hand--and here w e com e to the novel's second main
approach to the question of id en tity^-it seem s that George's experi
ence of his identity serves largely to encourage his definition of
himself as a hero-scapegoat, a function in a public, social pattern
in which, i t seems, his individual freedom is lost, or at least sub
sum ed.
Mythic identity, it would seem, is a variety of identity-as-
a rt, with the added limitations that the actor w ill play only one
role, and that i t w ill be a role which is co m m o n and fam iliar
and which allows no variation, no improvisations. In return for
this s tric t lim itation on the individual's a b ility to express his
"private" identity, he gets and receives a public identity which is
secure and predictable, whose future actions are predetermined,
and which has superhuman proportions.
Mythic identity as a possible solution to the problem of
finding or creating personal identity has thus been explored in a
preliminary way in Giles Goat-Boy. Despite the inadequacies of
this novel, i t points som e of the directions of Barth's most recent
work: a tendency to return to classical mythology for subjects;
a merging of the figure of the "hero" or the mythic character with
that of the a rtis t; and a continued--even intensified—effo rt to
unify subjective and objective, private and public identity—con
sciousness and ego.
136
W h en w e reach Lost in the Funhouse, Barth's fifth long work,
the question "W h o a m I?" has resurfaced as an unmistakable main
theme, which is confronted head-on, rather than obliquely as in
Giles Goat-Boy. The inquiry into the nature of identity recurs
in various ways in v irtu a lly every story; indeed, the thematic
coherence thus provided is one of the basic unifying elements in
the collection.
In Lost in the Funhouse there are several main areas in which
the concern about identity is focused. ( I) There is a continuation
of the established emphasis on identity as change and flux, and on the
unknowability of the basic reality underlying various manifestations
of the self. ( I I ) Identity is again represented as divided or
s p lit, this time with the major schisms seen as those between the
"I" and "love" and the "I" and its mask. ( I l l ) A clearly related
theme is the relationship between an a rtis t and the work of art
which he creates. Indeed, the examination of the relationship
of the a rtis t to his art is a second major theme of Lost in the
Funhouse; and i t leads back to the more general idea that identity,
in all of its forms, Is art.
I.
The inadequacy of simplistic notions about identity is seen
in several basic ways in Lost in the Funhouse. There is, fir s t of
a ll, the emphasis on its essential changeability. For example, w e
have the by now obligatory shape-shifter in the figure of Proteus in
"Menelaiad." Menelaus' efforts to catch and hold Proteus image the
137
search for one certain, underlying self; but Proteus' multiple
changes of form—he even becom es Menelaus, and/or Menelaus' ta le —
demonstrate the impossibility of the task. In addition, the notion
that the "self" can change completely, which w as argued .by the
Doctor in The End of the Road,has now, apparently, becom e a given of
Barth's work; the narrator of "Anonymiad" accepts the changing nature
of his identity and refers to "that stranger m y former s e lf."(190)
The impossibility of even finding one's true and unchanging
identity is also seen in the concern with roles, masks and appearances
which pervades this collection of tales. The concern is ambivalent.
At times the characters argue that there is a real self behind
appearances which could and should be m ade visible; but at other
times they seem to feel that the self is nothing but its mask.
In "Petition" the narrator is convinced that a "real" Thalia
exists behind the "mask" (67) of her apparent s elf, but he also
worries that she "is becoming her*disguise."(63) A nd Ambrose com
plains that he and his "sign"—in this case, his nam e— "are neither
one nor quite two"; he describes "Ambrose" as "that beast,
ungraspable, most queer, pricked up in m y soul's crannies!" (32)
In "Lost in the Funhouse" the inadequacy of public appearances
to represent "real" identity is again lamented: " If you know all the
stores behind a ll the people in the broadwalk, you'd see that
nothing was what i t looked like" (37); but this does not keep the
narrator from longing to m ake his "real" self completely visible,
to be seen "entire, like a poem or story." (88)
Although w e is till see a Burlingameian approach-rto play as m any
138
roles as possible in order to "exhaust"^ the rea lity of the unknown
identity behind them-- a sense that the m ask j_s the s e lf, or at
least is a ll that can ever be^seen of i t , is also strong in Lost in
the Funhouse. O ne of the protagonists of "Life-Story" worries that
while he certainly fe lt rather often that he was merely acting
his o w n role or roles he had no idea w ho the actor w as (116-117).
And in "Menelaid" Menelaus seems, at times, to have become, like
Echo, only his voice, his mask--"this voice j_s Menelaus, all there
is of him" (127)--although at other times he is very aware of himself
as player and chooser of roles, "he alone, ungraspable, real" (149).
Finally, with the last story in the book, "Anonymiad," even the
t it l e suggests the author/narrator's lack of any identity beyond
the story its e lf. His in a b ility to see his "self" has always
existed:
M y ow n course was a rude anthropophage that had swallowed m e
whole at birth and suffered indigestion ever since; could
Merope see what I couldn't, w ho i t w as spoke from his
gripSd bowels? (167)
But the minstrel's early desire to know himself—
I studied myself, musewise at least: w ho i t w as spoke through
the bars of m y music like a prisoner from the keep; what i t w as
he strove so laboriously to enounce, i f only his name; and h ow
I might accomplish, or at least abet, his unfettering (178)—
gradually changes after he is cast away on an island and spends
years alone, writing tales. H e loses interest in himself, even
forgets his name, and com es to see his stories at his "enciphered
s p irit" (188); he has "invented" himself. (193) H e longs to "to
be relieved of myself"; and decides that the "only valid point of
view" from which to write a story is " firs t person anonymous." (192)
139
Thus w e see that the search for the s e lf, the identity at the
center of the onion, is seen as increasingly fru itless. The existence
of an "I" which invents or chooses the roles for its public self to
play is not completely denied; but there is l i t t l e support for the
hope that i t can ever be found or m ade visible, even to its e lf, in
its to ta lity . Rather, the suspicion seem s to be growing stronger
that one's identity—at least insofar as i t can be seen, grasped,
defined in any way—i_ s one's masks, roles, actions and appearances
in the world.
I I .
In Lost in the Funhouse identity is persistently viewed as
s p lit, a matter of schizophrenic tensions. There are two basic
manifestations of this division in the self, both connected to the
mind/body disjunction discussed in Chapter Two. First is the
opposition between the "I" and "love," which was posited as a possible
unifier of oppositions in Giles Goat-Boy. There is also a different
kind of division within the "I" its e lf, between the conscious,
w illing self and the self as i t is manifested in its roles,
appearances, and actions in the world.
While Giles Goat-Boy proposed "love"--somewhat equivocally—
as the m eans by which oppositions could be overcome and identity
discovered and experienced, at least temporarily, Lost in the Funhouse
seem s to reject this view, although reluctantly and while s till
paying som e lip-service to i t .
The Narrator of "Night-Sea Journey," the fir s t story, rejects
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love because i t m eans the obliteration of his identity, its absorption
in another. "LTJhis fellow transported by passion is not I; I a m he
w ho abjures and rejects the niqht-sea journey!1 1 (11) Although
"Love" has the last word in the ta le , the sense is strong that
personal identity is largely a function of denial—of emotion and
of "union." Sim ilarly, the story—art--exists only as long as such
a denial is alive; when "Love" triumphs, the story ends.
In "Echo" the extremes of love and art are tested as bases for
identity, and both seem to f a il. Narcissus, consumed by love—for
himse1f--=commits suicide. Echo is driven by her experience of love
"away from life and learns to te ll stories"; but she also loses
her identity in her art. "Though her voice remains her own, she
can't speak for herself." (97) Both Narcissus and Echo destroy
themselves: "he perishes by denying all except himself; she
persists by effacing herself absolutely." (99)
In "Menelaiad" the apparent stalemate reached in "Echo" is
modified somewhat, and both love and art are show n to have positive—
as well as destructive—potential for the creation of identity. For
Menelaus, Helen—love—is both "the death of m e and m y peculiar
immortality." (127) In the consummation of his love for her,
Menelaus' "self" w as lost: "Menelaus was no more, never has been
since." (150) But at the tale's end Menelaus has both lost himself
in his love for Helen and, through that love, "found" himself in two
guises or manifestations. O ne is his story—"he'll turn ta le , story
of his life " (161); but a different "I" also exists: " I, in
Proteus' terrifying last disguise, Beauty's spouse's odd Elysium:
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the absurd, unending possibility of love." (162)
Here, then, w e see that love is not only the annihilation of
identity; i t is also one m eans of achieving i t , the source of the
tales which eventually becom e the narrator's nearly-immortal self.
Love is s till opposed to reason and explanations; but i t is no longer
necessarily antipathetic to a rt, as i t seemed to be in "Night-Sea
Journey." Indeed, the desire to love or be loved seem s to have
merged with the desire to find and m ake visible one's identity, as
the double-headed source of the a rtis tic creation which is public
identity.
In "Anonymiad" the narrator is an a rtis t, undisguised; and
his concern with his love, his art and his identity go through several
stages. In his original Eden-like state of innocence and lack
of self-consciousness his love for Merope and his art flourish
together, nourishing each other; but he later abandons her in order
to gain experience of the world, which he believes is necessary
for the creation of art.
W h en he is abandoned on an island alone, he devotes himself
entirely to art. Merope and love are nearly forgotten, and he sees
his "self" as completely external; i t is to be found in the art he
has created and set a d rift in amphorae in the sea:
somewhere outside myself m y enciphered s p irit d rifted, realer
than the gods, its significance as objective and undecoded as the
stars. (188)
In the second stage of his experience on the island, the
minstrel loses interest in lif e , as well as in a rt, and his identity
evaporates entirely: "M y very nam e lost sense, anon I forgot it."
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(189)6 H e is rescued from his version of cosmopsis by a message from
the world—an unreadable, water-logged manuscript washes onto his
island—and, his interest in art rekindled, he decides to write the
story of his life . Longing "to be relieved of myself," he concludes
that the story must be "written from m y only valid point of view,
fir s t person anonymous." (192)
The minstrel thus seem s to have undergone a progressive devel
opment away from love and a strong sense of subjectively experi
enced self and toward id en tity-as-artifact, mask, art. However,
the "Tailpiece" of the story (lik e the "Posttape" of Giles Goat-Boy)
complicates the picture. The minstrel suddenly thinks again of
Merope and love, seeing all of his stories as "a continuing, strange
love letter" to her. H e speaks of his experiences on the island
as i f they were a sort of preparation for love--"I could do well
by you now, m y sweet"—and vows,
i f som e night your voice recalls me, by a new name, I ' l l
commit myself to i t , paddling and resting, drifting like
m y amphorae, to attain you or to drown. (193)
After suggesting again the likeness of the a rtis t to his, ta le , the
story ends by emphasizing that only the creative act its e lf has
ultimate significance.
Will anyone have learnt its [the story'sH nam e? Will
everyone? N o matter. Upon this noontime of his wasting day,
between the night past and the long night to come, a noon
beautiful enough to break the heart, on a lorn fa ir shore
a nameless minstrel
Wrote i t . (194)
Thus, the final tale of Lost in the Funhouse suggests more
complexity and subtlety in the relationship of love to identity than
existed in "Night-Sea Journey." The fear that identity and creativity
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w ill be overwhelmed and blotted out by "love" is apparently lessening;
and love its e lf, while s t ill seen as a mysterious and powerful force,
is not portrayed as an uncontrollable malestrom. The minstrel loses
interest in Merope and is able to leave her to seek Experience.
However, the fact that the minstrel lives in total isolation from
others, only remembering his former love, while he creates his art,
suggests that the vision of "Lost in the Funhouse" is s till dominant:
"he w ill construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator--
though he would rather be am ong the lovers for w h o m funhouses are
designed," (94)
I f the placement of the stories in Lost in the Funhouse has
significance, w e can see som e change between the fir s t and the
last--from a denial of love to at least a modified affirmation of its
value, and from a vision of the "I" as mainly a nay-sayer (" I a m he
w ho abjures and rejects . . .") to the "I" as som e combination of
lover, a rtis t and work of a rt. The final words of Lost in the Funhouse
suggest that the "I" m ay exist in a brief instant of transcendence
and unification, at the fleeting m om ent when the lover-artist m akes
the work of a rt. The mind/body sp lit is bridged, not through "love,"
but through the act of creation.
Parallel to the apparent antithesis between the "I" and love
is another division within the self. In The End of the Road Jake
Horner was sometimes aware of one part of himself which watched the
rest of him as i t experienced emotion or took action; but in Lost
in the Funhouse the division between the conscious I , or even just
consciousness its e lf, and those parts of the self of which i t is
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conscious has becom e m uch more pronounced.
The divided identity in "Petition," for example, is not simply
a matter of a "mind" and a "body" part of the self. The narrator-I
is above all a watcher: "I can see him without his seeing me."(60)
Although he is subject to passions, and even, he says, endowed with
a physical form, he is apparently invisible to his "brother," the
other part of himself (58); and there seem s to be no way for him
to make himself visible, to act in such a way that others--especially
Thalia--w ill know that i t is hie, and not his brother, w ho is acting.
Thus the situation described in The End of the Road, where the self
is aware that i t exists in two aspects, has been taken one further
step; now the conscious-I is not only aware of its e lf as separate
from the "other" I , but i t also wishes to som ehow m ake its e lf
know n in the world, both to its e lf and to others. The story suggests
that consciousness has no way of expressing its e lf as i t really is ,
an idea reminiscent of Sartre's distinction between "pure" con
sciousness and the ego which exists separately from i t (see Chapter
Four and Appendix).
In "Anonymiad" this duality of self--anonymous, creative
consciousness and the public act--is accepted as given, and the
narrator appears resigned to i t . Although early in his career he tries
to find and "unfetter" his inner " I," he later loses interest in this
invisible, subjective self, even wishing to be "relieved" (192) of
i t . The important "I" is the persona he has created in the world--
his a rt, his "enciphered s p irit . . . realer than the gods." (188)
The narrator's decision that he must write his final work from "m y
145
only valid point of view, fir s t person anonymous" (192) and the t it le
of the story seem to crystallize this vision of the duality of the
self: a basically anonymous but creative consciousness, and a public
identity created by that consciousness, the self-in-the-world, which
is a work of art.
I I I .
The relationship of one's "invisible" self (one's w illing
consciousness) to the "m ade" self (the m ask or role or ego which
that consciousness creates) exactly parallels the relationship of
the a rtis t to the work of art which he creates. And as Barth in
creasingly concerns himself with the relationship of the a rtis t
to his work, the two themes tend more and more to merge; i t is in
this guise that the problem of identity is most thoroughly treated in
Lost in the Funhouse. The stories examine the relationship
between the author's "real" self and the story he writes or te lls .
Does he even have an identity separate from his art? Or is he
simply an impersonal creative force, like Sartre's pure consciousness,
which can only know its e lf by looking at what i t has created?
The answers to these questions are im plicit in "Autobiography:
A Self-Recorded Fiction." A s Barth explains in the "Author's Note,"
the "I" in the ta le —the narrator--is "the story, Sjpeaking of its e lf"
(x); the story is intended to be played from a tape, near which w e
should see the "visible but silent author." (ix ) The locus of the
authorial-narrative "I" has now shifted to the story its e lf.
I t is now the story which wonders w ho i t is ("CaU l i t t l e crise
146
d1identite for you") and complains that the connection between author
and tale seem s no longer to exist once the process of creation is
completed. Even the narrator's assertion that "M here there's a
voice there's a speaker" (33) serves to undercut the assumption that
the tale in som e way reflects its author, since, in this case, the
"speaker" is the story its e lf.
"Echo" also seem s to deny the possibility of finding the author's
"real" voice in his art. A s Barth explains in the "Author's Note,"
Inasmuch as the nym ph in her ultimate condition repeats the
words of others in their o w n voices, the words of "Echo" on the
tape or the page may be regarded validly as hers, Narcissus's,
Tiresias's, mine, or any combination or series of the four of
us's. (x)
A symbol of the a rtis t and his dilemma, Echo is not simply a passive
mirror; "CsUhe edits, heightens, mutes, turns others' words to her
end." However, she has been punished by Zeus, so that "HtHhough
her voice remains her own, she can't speak for herself thenceforth,
only give back others' delight regardless of hers." (97) I t is
fin a lly impossible to know w ho i t is w ho is speaking to us through
the words w e read; "w e linger forever on the autognostic verge." (100).
In "Menelaiad" w e again have the theme of identity reduced only
to art. Like Echo, Menelaus exists only as the "story of his life "
(128); "this isri't the voice of Menelaus; this voice i^Menelaus, all
there is of him," (127) I t later becom es clear that Menelaus-the-
character m ay not be Menelaus-the*-author in even this way; the
story m ay in fact be Proteus the shape-shifter, w ho has taken the
form of Menelaus^-the-story, But i t m ay also be that the "dream w as
Proteus." (138). In the seven-layered tale i t is impossible to
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discover the "real" narrator, m uch less the real author.
Finally, "Anonymiad" reiterates both the tendency to see the
work of art as the only possible expression of the a rtis t's identity
and the somewhat contrary tendency to recognize that the work of
art can never express the "real" or complete identity of its creator
in any truly satisfactory way. Thus the narrator can speak of his
identity as being completely contained in his stories; but since the
self can and does change constantly and completely, he can also
reasonably speak of "that stranger m y former self" (190) and fa il to
decipher his o w n earlier-w ritten tale.
Thus the situation of the anonym ous minstrel-turned-writer
is that of a ll artists . The two aspects of the self are automatically
connected only in the m om ent o f creation. A s in the case of all
identity the only visible, graspable self is that which can be
manifested in artifacts created in the world; and i t is thus on
the self as "art" that Barth increasingly focuses.
In Lost in the Funhouse, then, som e notions about identity
seem to be crystallized—the flux of re a lity , our in a b ility to either
find or m ake visible a "real" self underlying its various manifesta
tions. Love, despite its strong attraction for the protagonists,
appears to be wanting as a final vehicle for self-knowledge, self-
expression and self-unification. The major new development is that
the act o f a rtis tic creation has been substituted as a new mystical
experience, like George Giles' experience of "love," which m ay bind
body, mind and emotion, subjective and objective identity, in a
m om ent when self-knowledge and self-creation becom e one. This
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hypothesis w ill be tested in Chimera, as w ill the return to classical
mythology for themes and for an arena in which to examine the experi
ence of identity-as-myth.
George Giles tried fin a lly to find his identity by becoming his
mythic role, but Lost in the Funhouse and Chimera demonstrate that
i t is not that simple. In several of the tales from Funhouse, and
even more in Chimera, Barth starts with characters from myth and
examines their relationship to themselves-as-myth. The problems
of identity remain, even intensify, as we dissect ever more minutely
the relationship between self-as-consciousness and self-as-actor/
object.
* * *
Chimera (1972) is , for the moment, Barth's last word on the
subject of identity, although he once promised that :his next opus
would be published in time for the Bicentennial. The tales in Chimera
are concerned with the two major themes which, as w e have seen, are
by now nearly inseparable: the creation of art and the creation
of identity. "Dunyazadiad," the introductory s t o r y ,s e t s the
scene by conjuring up Scheherazade, Barth's archetypal s to ry-teller,
and concentrating on the making of a rt.
Identity per se is scarcely discussed, although som e points
are m ade by im plication,^ Rather, "Dunyazadiad" focuses on the
problem of a rtis tic o rig in ality, of finding the "key to the treasure"
(11); this theme is present in all three novellas, surfacing again
strongly—but viewed m uch more negatively—in "Bellerophoniad."
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"Treasure" in "Dunyazadiad" has a multiple meaning: i t refers to
literatu re (the "treasury of art" [171), to inspiration, and to
love. A nd the enigmatic "solution" proposed for both areas is the
same: "The key to the treasure is the treasure." (11)
The process in both cases depends upon a kind of leap of faith .
Love, like a rt, is also founded on an act of imagination; and
Dunyazade's husband insists that they must love "as if" honest and
enduring love were possible. "Maybe i t [loveH is a fic tio n , but
it's the profoundest and best of a ll! . . . Let's m ake a philosophy
of that a£ if_! " (53)
In "Dunyazadiad" love and art are intertwined, mutually
fecundating; Scheherazade's role as ta le -te lle r leads her to becom e
the King's beloved, while the Genie's new love seem s partly respon
sible for his discovery of new a rtis tic vigor. The tale eschews
reason and analysis in favor of lyricism and hope: "Nothing works 1
But the enterprise is noble; it's fu ll of joy and lif e , and the
other ways are deathy. Let's m ake love." (53)
Chimera thus begins on the "high," romantic note which Barth
has touched frequently before; but the two following tales are
successively less hopeful and more despairing. A nd this "downward"
movement coincides with a growth in the concern with the theme of
identity in the following two stories.
After the hopeful introduction of "Dunyazadiad," the second and
third parts of Chimera becom e more analytical—"Bellerophoniad" m uch
more so than "Perseid"--and get dow n to the "testing" of hypotheses
which w e have seen in Barth's other works. The primary notion about
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identity which are examined are: (1) that personal identity must be
viewed as "art," a shared, consciously created a rtifa c t; (2) that
loving, or being loved, is a m eans of creating or experiencing personal
identity; and (3) that personal identity can be experienced in the
creative act its e lf.
"Perseid" deals largely with the fir s t two topics. Its theme
is the search for, and the creation of, identity; and the protagonist's
main quest is, again, for himself. Perseus does not set out to find
his true identity, however, or to m ake i t , as Burlingame did, day
by day; rather, like Eben Cooke, he determines a priori what his
real self is—Perseus the Hero, an immortal being--and then tries to
becom e one with it .
At the tale's beginning Perseus has becom e convinced that he is
becoming "petrified" and has lost his real identity (Perseus the Hero);
so he embarks on an effo rt to be rejuvenated and repeat again exactly
the heroic feats of his youth.
Other forces lure him away from this endless circular repeti
tion, however, in the direction of the widening in fin ite spiral which
is the symbol of this tale. Medusa presents the counter-motif to
Perseus' belief that identity is congruent with one's public actions,
one's myth; with her always-hidden face, she seem s to represent the
unknowability of the self and the rejection of a stereotyped identity
based on appearances.
Medusa was originally punished by Athene for her fascination
with her o w n image in a mirror, which led her even to watch herself
being raped; so i t was fittin g that i t w as the terrib le sight of
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herself as a Gorgon, pictured in Perseus' shield, which preceded her
death at his hands. Although she is brought to life again, ostensibly
beautiful as ever, Medusa's punishment is that she m ay never again
look at her "reflected image" or le t anyone see her face. The sight
of her face w ill be beneficial both for her and for the one w ho sees
her only
i f the m an w ho uncowled her, and on w h o m she laid her one-shot
grace, were her true lover, the two of them would turn ageless
as the stars and be together forever. (107)
So Medusa's punishment and her new qualities stand as a warning
to Perseus that his desire to again becom e Perseus-the-Hero is , in
fact, an effo rt to find his identity in appearances, in the eyes of
others, and that this is not the proper direction to go.
Even the image of life as a story resists Perseus' original
notion of identity. H e explains to Calyxa that the "endless repeti
tion of m y story" had a purpose:
as both protagonist and author, so to speak, I thought to over
take with understanding m y present paragraph as i t were by
examining m y paged past, and thus pointed, proceed serene to
the future's sentence. (80-81)
But Calyxa later counters that his s to ry-life m ay be like the spiral
temple on whose walls she has painted the events of his past, and
that i t m ay extend in fin ite ly in both directions:
Mightn't i t be, then, that like the inward turns of the spiral,
m y history would forever approach a present point but never
reach it? . . . i t seem ed to her the story might be presumed
to be endless. (103)
Just as i t is impossible to reach the point from which the spiral
originates, so Perseus cannot overtake "himself" by recreating his
previous lif e , in fact or in story; the! self from which the spiral
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flows remains as hidden as Medusa's face.
The resolution of Perseus' search for his identity com es when,
after his final rejection by Andromeda, Perseus embraces the cowled
Medusa and unveils her to look into her eyes. The result of his
action is that the "immortal parts" (127) of Perseus and Medusa are
transformed into constellations of stars, "silent, visible signs"
(133) (and words) of their story. At fir s t gldnce i t seem s that
love has created not only identity but immortality for Perseus. The
leap of faith he makes in unveiling Medusa is rewarded by his
becoming the self he originally wished to become: Perseus, the
Hero, immortal. However, questions immediately arise about the
adequacy of this sort of "mythic" identity.
To begin with, in their fin a l, immortal ("petrified") state,
both the underlying nature and even the appearance of Perseus and
Medusa remain unknown, to them as well as to us. After her unveiling,
for example, Medusa saw herself reflected in Perseus' eyes--and
she saw a Gorgon. I f her vision w as a "true" one, i t would m ean
that Perseus was not her true lover, and that she is once again a
Gorgon and he simply turned to stone. O n the other hand, since
Athene had decreed that i f Medusa ever looked at herself in a
mirror she would see a Gorgon, and since "Eyes are mirrors!"
Medusa realizes that i t is also possible that what she saw was a
" false reflection. " (131) S t ill, she must always remain uncer
tain about her appearance; and since her constellation is not
visible to Perseus, she w ill also remain eternally unseen by him.
I f w e believe Perseus, i t makes no difference. Medusa's
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rea lity is her love for him; through that love he is able to accept
himself as Perseus-the-mortal rather than Perseus-the-Hero—and,
ironically, thus be transformed into the mythic, heroic Perseus
forever. However, even here a question remains: what was Perseus'
real intention when he raised Medusa's veil? Medusa realizes i t
is possible that
your kiss w as in complete bad faith: an act not of love but
of suicide, or a desperate impulse to immortality-by-
petrifaction.
His reply--"suppose it true. H o w would you feel?" (132)--does not
set the matter to rest; and she does not answer his question. Thus,
at the heart of even this evidence of true love there are questions,
ambiguity; Perseus and Medusa w ill never be completely know n to one
another. The "real" Perseus remains as mysterious as the "real"
Medusa, Identity, i f creatable, is unknowable even to the creator
himself.
O n the one hand, then, "Perseid" continues the hopeful tone
established in "Dunyazadiad," arguing that love is the impetus to
both a rtis tic creation and self-creation, a viable m eans of creating
or finding one's identity; and that one can be "content" with the
mythic identity—the identity as a public a rtifa c t—so created.
O n the other hand, the problems associated with these views
are beginning to becom e more apparent. The d iffic u lty with identity
attained through love is partly, as w e have seen, the essential
doubt about the intention of both oneself and the other. But the
crucial problem seem s to lie in the "petrifying" quality of accepting
oneself as one appears to another, as Perseus accepted himself as the
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person he saw mirrored in Medusa's eyes. I t is identity as public
action and appearance rather than fleeting, changing, subjective
re a lity , a kind of "other-directed" choice of being. I t is as i f ,
through love, one becom es a work of a rt, but a work of art created
by another person. This m ay be a new, subtler version of the fear
of being subsum ed by love which was voiced in "Night-Sea Journey."
B y imp!ication, these sam e general criticisms must apply to the
more general, but related, notion of identity as a public, objective,
external artifact--w hat Sartre referred to as the "ego." The posi
tive aspects of such a choice of being are those which appealed to
Perseus. O ne has a d efin ite, certain identity (Perseus the Hero,
Perseus the Beloved of Medusa) which is at least partly created
by someone outside oneself, and is therefore not dependent on sub
jective feelings alone--one has the illusion of having escaped the
self. And i f one's identity is seen as a work of a rt, i t gives the
appearance of having "meaning"--a satisfying aesthetic pattern--
and also of being "immortal."
O n the other hand, a public persona, once created, is a lif e
less, static form which cannot reflect the shifting, flu id conscious
ness which created it . Further, in such a situation one can only
be--but never know or experience--himself; one remains to oneself
an object as mysterious as any other being in the world.
"Perseid" thus makes an equivocal statement: although Perseus
himself says, "I a m content," the ramifications of the story create
doubts about the ultimate adequacy of his choice of identity.
"Bellerophoniad," the concluding tale of Chimera, plunges into the
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depths of this ambiguity.
"Bellerophoniad" is the last novella of Chimera and, true to
Barthian form, i t seem s to undercut m any of the ideas presented in
the fir s t two tales, and especially in "Perseid." For example,
"Bellerophoniad" begins with the words which concluded "Perseid";'
and Bellerophon--who, w e discover, has read "Perseid"--struggles
mightily to make his lif e follow the pattern of Perseus1 lif e , to
becom e a mythic hero. He, too, is transformed into "visible signs"--
"written words" (138), a story--and he even tries to conclude "his"
story as Perseus did:
th eir love, Bellerophon's and Melanippe's, winds through
universal space and time and a ll; noted music of our tongue,
silent visible signs, et cetera; Bellerophon's content; he
really is; good night.
But in "Bellerophoniad" the story refuses to end, and the simplistic
notions of "Perseid" are immediately challenged. " 'Good night is
rig h t,' Melanippe said when she read Part One. 'I can't believe you
wrote this mess.' " (291)
"Bellerophoniad" seem s to question v irtu ally a ll of the
notions about identity which have been tentatively suggested in
Barth's last few works. Of special interest is what this story
says about the emotional adequacy of recognizing that w e must create
ourselves as an a rtis t creates his work, and that w e appear to our
selves and to others only as characters in the stories of our lives.
In attacking the fir s t point--that hum an identity can be com
passed in what Sartre would call the "ego," in acts which exist "in
the world, like the ego of another"--"Bellerophoniad" once again
lays particular stress on the unknowability and ungraspability of both
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hum an identity and reality in general, and thus on the inadequacy
of appearances to represent underlying rea lity .
In Polyeides, for example, w e have again the Burlingame-like
shape-shifter w ho reasons:
N o one w ho sees entire the scope and variety of the world can
rest content with a single form. G ods and seers have such sight;
hence our propensity for metamorphosis. (296)
Polyeidus represents the artist-magician w ho controls the reality
of the story, manipulates its characters and eventually even becom es
the story its e lf. His refusal to accept "a single form" suggests the
inexhaustibility of the creative power which is the underlying
source of a ll forms, the inadequacy of one persona to represent the
changing rea lity of a hum an being.
A second image of the mystery of reality and identity is that of
the chimera. In an effo rt to escape from a ja il c e ll, Polyeidus
mistakenly turns himself into the beast; but w hen he reassumes his
o w n form, the chimera continues to exist independently of its maker
(207). This description applies, am ong other things, to the act of
the a rtis t, w ho transforms himself into a new creation and then
dissociates himself from i t , leaving i t to continue an independent
existence; hence Barth's choice of Chimera for his t it le .
At times the chimera seem s to be Polyeidus himself, or one of
his lies; at other times, i t is a symbol of a work of art or the
process of creation; but i t fin a lly becom es a symbol of the
protagonist's identity:
. . . I saw the chimera of m y life . B y imitating perfectly the
Pattern of the Mythic Heroism, I'd become, not a mythic hero,
but a perfect Reset . . . Not mortal me, but immortality, w as
the myth. (303-304)
157
Thus, the chimera with which Bellerophon constantly does battle i;s
above a ll illusion, and the tendency to believe that i t is the
rea lity i t masks.
But the main arena for the examination of identity in
"Bellerophoniad" is the protagonist himself; and again the inadequacy
of public or mythic definitions of self is emphasized. Here i t is
the protagonist w ho deliberately creates confusion about himself;
instead of trying to present his "own" identity in the story, he
tries to convince us that he is som eone else. H e has, in fact,
tried to becom e someone else--to becom e another person's myth.
Barth returns to the twin motif as the basis for the identity
confusion, with Bellerophon, the protagonist, asserting that he is
Bellerus, who killed his twin brother in error. His name, he explains,
m eans "Bellerus the k ille r." (203) W e gradually learn, however, that
he is in fact Deliades, the less-gifted twin w ho had always yearned
to be lik e his brother—lover, half-god, immortal. Jealousy apparently
led him to arrange his brother's death; hence the second meaning of
his name--"killer of Bellerus." (226)
Deliades' complicated motivation for his "impersonation" can
only be guessed at. His o w n desire to be an immortal hero—to be
his brother—is added to his apparent need to m ake am ends for k illin g
his brother, whether deliberately or accidentally. H e argues that
his motives are "selfless," that he wishes to create his brother's
myth for him, to m ake his brother immortal as Bellerus would have
done himself had he lived.
158
Deliades I buried in Bellerophon, to live out in selfless
counterfeit . . . m y brother's demigoddish life . It's not m ^
story, never was . . .; the voice that spoke to them all
those nights was Bellerus's voice. A nd the story i t te lls is n 't
a lie , but something larger than fact . . . (306)
S t ill, i t is clear that he is repaid for the loss of his "own"
identity by attaining the mythic identity he has always desired;
following the pattern foredained for Bellerus and living his lif e ,
he ultimately becom es the story of Bellerus. The third meaning
of "Bellerophon" is "Bellerus's voice" (267); and Bellerophon,
fa llin g from Olympus to his death, begs Polyeidus to save him and
"turn m e into this story, Polyeidus? Let m e be Bellerus' voice
forever, an immortal Bellerophoniad. " (307)
In fact, whoever the protagonist was—that is , whatever his
original nam e was--he has now becom e "Bellerophon," w ho is in turn
only the story of his life . Even this identity, however, is called
into question, since Polyeidus f u lf ills the request by changing
"myself from this interview into .you-in-Bellerophoniad-form"
(307); so that i t becom es impossible to know whose "voice" is
speaking to us through the story.
The identity of the narrator of the tale is as dubious as that
of the protagonist. Although Part O ne is supposedly narrated by
Melanippe, Part Tw o by Bellerophon, and Part Three by Polyeidus,
Bellerophon complains from time to time that he is not in control
of his ta le , not authoring i t himself (236-237) and not its
narrator. (138) Polyeidus also refuses authorship (237), and
Melanippe insists that " I didn't write any of it ; you did, every
word." (291)
159
The mysterious relationship am ong the protagonist, the narrator
and the author of a story is suggested frequently in "Bellerophoniad."
The narrator-protagonist, for example, is anxious to find the author
of the story ("I'm working toward you, viper, toward you, gnat, and
w ill swat you without fa il" C237H-), but he also is aware that he is
being pulled and influenced by other narrative voices "as though the
pure Bellerophonic voice were tugged and co-opted now by Polyeidus this
way, now Melanippe that." (144) W e are again returned to the fact
that the tale is the only evidence w e have of the existence of the
te lle r, but that i t is w ill never be sufficient evidence to show
us w ho the te lle r really is, Sim ilarly, the "I" is both revealed
and hidden by its actions in the world.
This leads us directly to the question of the relationship
between rea lity and a rt, and thus between identity and a rt, which
i;s a primary concern of "Bellerophoniad," In "Bellerophoniad" i t
is clear that the most important kind of "reality" is a kind of a rt—
myth; this is a major premise of a ll of the tales of Chimera. The
making of fiction is seen as a paradigm for the way in which w e
create all of the meaning which w e find in the world.
Butterflies exist in our imaginations, along with existence,
imagination, and the rest. Archimedeses, w e lever re a lity by
conceiving ourselves apart from its other things, them from one
another, the whole apart from unreality. Thus Art is as natural
an a rtific e as Nature; the truth of fiction is that Fact is
fantasy; the made-up story is a model of the world. (246)
Seen this way, fic tio n --a rt--o f a ll kinds is not really different
from other sorts of "reality"; i t is simply the process by which w e
make patterns in, and give meaning to, our experience. Meaning does
not exist in the world without us; w e create i t , a rtis ts —w illing
160
or unwilling—one and a ll.
Myth is a particular kind of fic tio n , although i t has a special
power and importance,a "story" which is "larger than fact." (306) For
Bellerophon, the reality and significance of myth is such that i t
overshadows everything else, including himself:
. . . the difference between lies and myth, . . . the la tte r
could be so m uch realer and more important than particular m en
that perhaps I must cease to be the hero of m y own, cease even
to exist, cease som ehow even to have existed. (295)
I t is this for which, like Perseus, Bellerophon has been striving:
to em body himself in an immortal a rtifa c t, to becom e his myth.
Nonetheless, despite the persuasive philosophical justification
(246) and the assertion that myth is realer than fact (295, 296),
"Bellerophoniad'1 is not whole-hearted in its support of identity as
fic tio n . The narrator/protagonist is keenly aware of the in ab ility
of words to portray living reality:
you merely set the words dow n as they come, . . . once-living
creatures caught and fossiled in the clay*, bones displaced by
alien mineral, , , . disjecta membra, from which the sleeping
dragon is ever harder to infer. (140)
Thus, he recognizes that although these "Bellerophonic letters"
w ill be his only immortality, his only visible identity, they w ill
nonetheless be "forever betraying, in combinations and recombinations,
the m an they forever represent." (138) Caught up in this process,
"I must . . , cease even to exist," (295)
The limitations of myth in representing h u m an identity are also
reflected in Bellerophon's frustration with the immortality which he
has at last achieved. In his youth his "real objective and true
reward w as immortality" (188); he even sees "petrification" (189)
161
as a positive goal. However, once having becom e his story—or at
least someone's story-^Bellerophon experiences the negative aspects
of such immortality. His story is poorly told, he finds, by its
m any voices (142); i t does not represent "Bellerophon" as i t should.
The last line of the story is , " I t ’ s no Bellerophoniad. It's a
." (308)
Mythic identity has a crucial fa ilin g , he finds; describing
the constellations Perseus and Medusa, he argues that they are not
"aware of their existences, any more than are their lettered counter
parts on the page." (305) Their immortality is a hoax, since it
does not*-cannot—include self-consciousness.
O n a more personal level, DeliadeS’-Bellerophon realizes that he
is basically a hoax, whose "fraudulent hature" (234) becom es evident
as he tries and fa ils to achieve a mythic identity. A s he says, he
has succeeded only in destroying himself, not in becoming Bellerus:
"By imitating perfectly the pattern of Mythic Heroism, I'd become,
43
not a mythic hero, but a perfect Reset." (303) In an echo of the
despair of "Petition," he cries, "Die, Polyeidus, or le t me!" (184)
S t ill, when Polydidus offers him a continuation of that kind of
immortal existence—as Bellerophon's story—Bellerophon accepts,
although with ambivalence: " I 'l l take i t . . . I hate this." (308)
"Bellerophoniad,*4 then, questions the emotional satisfaction,
as well as the philosophical adequacy, of mythic identity—identity
as a rt, as public signs or actions. But the story does not really
present an alternative. Love, which permeated the fir s t two tales
of Chimera, is as inadequate as myth to provide the protagonist with
162
a satisfactory identity or to m ake him content with his lo t.
In Barth's world love seem s to becom e less important as a rt--a t
least self-conscious a rt—becom es more important; and Bellerophon's
overwhelming concern is to "tell his ta le ."(255) Although Bellerophon
feels pulled between Melanippe (love) and Polyeidus (art) (144), i t
is Polyeidus w ho wins the tug-of-war in the end. In Bellerophon
Barth has fin a lly merged the two aspects of his search for identity—
that of the individual and that of the a rtis t. Just as Bellerophon
the individual is inadequately represented by the myth in which he
has chosen to cloak himself, so Bellerophon the a rtis t recognizes
the impossibility of ever completely showing himself in—ever com
pletely becoming—his a rt. Like everyone else, the a rtis t is
trapped by the necessity of only being able to m ake himself visible
through public actions which, the instant they are made, becom e
"dead," empty artifacts of the living consciousness which produced
them. Bellerophon's dilemma—being forced to decide on a particular
chance for public existence, a m ode of a rtis tic expression, as he
fa lls toward his death—represents very aptly the situation of every
individual and every a rtis t w ho must each instant choose the m eans
of representing and making himself in the world. Bellerophon's
identity both is and is not represented in "Bellerophoniad."
Something of him is there—a m ask he once chose to wear—but the
words which te ll his tale only le t us guess at the "sleeping dragon"
they once covered,
S o Chimera concludes by both asserting A nd denying that personal
identity is a public creation, a private myth turned into a visible
163
mask, a petrification of a flu id / changing re a lity . The belief in
a "private self" has not been abandoned:
. . . distinct from her 'Melanippe-self,' immortal because
impersonal, Melanippe know s a private, uncategorizable self
impossible for her ever to confuse with the nam e Melanippe--as
Perseus, she believes, confused himself with the mythical persona
Perseus, Bel 1erophon Bellerophon. (238)
But no m eans has been found to make that private self visible, even
to its e lf, m uch less to others, except through its fragmentary
public gestures. Although no other option seem s available, the
exuberance of Henry Burlingame's role-playing is gone, replaced with
the painful sense that the player has som ehow becom e trapped in
the m ask that he wears, unable to change i t or to speak through i t
once he has put i t on,
In Chimera, then, w e see an increasing concern--even an
obsession-rwith the problem of personal identity, developing in
conjunction with a self-conscious fascination with art and the role
of the a rtis t. The optimistic view of "Dunyazadiad," in which
love and art are inextricably meshed and happily coexistant and
identity is not an issue, gives way to compromise and doubt in the
succeeding tales,
The view that personal identity is largely a public a rtifa c t—
a persona, a myth, a work of "fiction"—grows in importance in each
tale. In "Perseid" the hero accepts and is ostensibly content with
his identity as his public myth, his constellation and story. But with
"Bellerophoniad" a fu ll sense of the frustration of being trapped
in appearances emerges. The protagonist is above all an a rtis t, self-
conscious and analytical; and he is thus more painfully aware than
164
previous characters that he is both making himself and trapping
himself in what he makes. Yet this frustrating and incomplete
duality seem s to Bellerophon to be the only possible way to "be"
oneself at a ll: " I'll-ta k e i t . . . I hate th is." (308)
"kirfc
A s w e look at Barth's work from The Floating Opera to Chimera
i t is apparent that the theme of identity has becom e increasingly
important, and that it has undergone major change and development
(more than is often the case with primary themes for novelists).
Viewing the novels chronologically, w e see in the protagonists a
growing uncertainty about the nature of their ow n identities and
an increasing sense of identity as the major problem both for the
a rtis t and for the individual in general. A more and more analytical
approach to the matter is also evident in successive works. Interest
in the role of the a rtis t and the process of making art becom es more
pronounced; and at the sam e time the s p lit between the "I" and the
"m e" fir s t becom es visible and then widens to an almost unbridgeable
gap.
Love and a rt, often viewed as aspects of one process, are
frequently suggested by Barth as solutions to the problem of finding
and maintaining the self. The thing which they have in com m on, i t
seem s to me, is the fact that they are both ways of overcoming the
subject^-object division within the individual. The only way to
experience one's identity—that is , to both m ake and be oneself
at the sam e time—is an act which allows one to be both subject
165
and object at once. Loving (or being loved) and the making of
art are such actions.
However, i f w e take an overall view of the work Barth has
produced so fa r, neither emotional commitment nor the creative act
appear to be satisfactory permanent m eans of creating a convincing
sense of their o w n identity, Love, unattainable for Barth's early
heroes, proves insufficient for his later ones, although they
acknowledge its essential role as a stimulus for a rtis tic production.
Art remains the ultimate potential source of identity, and through
i t Barth's characters do, in fact, manage to create at least som e
"outward and visible sign of (th eir) inward and invisible"44 beings.
But the logical conclusion of this movement is seen in
"Bellerophoniad," where Bellerophon must even abandon the view that
"I a m m y story." In its place are several even less satisfying
possibilities; I a m a ^ story; or, I a m som eone else's story; or
even, som eone else is now m y story, which was m e , . . The fiction
which is his identity m ay be p artially created by the audience,
or the reader, over whose reactions he has no control, or even by
a former self, likewise a stranger, w ho created this present persona.
W e, like Bellerophon, can only see the story, and w e can never know
for certain w ho the te lle r is. The narrator of "Bellerophoniad" is
now an "I" which exists only as i t tells-hears its o w n story; the
m om ent of te llin g is the m om ent of hearing and the only m om ent of
existence, H e is dependent o n the story for his existence as w e are
* This point w ill be explained further in the final chapter
of this study,
166
dependent on making ourselves "visible," through our acts, for our
rea lity as anything but pure consciousness.
Seen from this later perspective, even though Barth's ideas
have developed a good deal from The Sot-Weed Factor, Henry Burlingame
seem s more than ever to demonstrate the best approach to the expres
sion of one's identity. Since there is no way for the "I" to show
its e lf truly or completely in any one act or creation or role, i t
is only by moving from role to role, from tale to ta le , that i t can
hope both to maintain its o w n sense of its e lf as a free being, and
also to hint to others the existence of a free, changing, w illing
being invisible behind the shifting masks.
Such a representation must of necessity be imperfect, betraying
re a lity with every effo rt to em body i t . A s Burlingame said,
'Tis but a grossness of perception, is 't not, that lets us
speak of Tham es and T ig ris, or even France and England, but
especially m e and thee . . . the very universe is naught but
change and motion. . . . all assertions of thee and me, e'en
to oneself, are acts of fa ith , impossible to verify.
(137-138, 141)
Finally, a man's identity is like a ll other re a lity , a matter of
conjecture and hypothesis, alternative fictions which m ay approach
but can never reach the central "I":
Gone--ah, gone--untouched, unreachable!
• * •
A nd all the rest of her a shifting change,
A broken bundle of m irro rs...!
("Near Perigord," Ezra Pound)
167
Footnotes
Giles Goat-Boy, p. 121.
The sam e words are used in Barth's Afterword to Tobias Smollett's
The Adventures of Roderick R ansom (New York: N e w American Library,
1964): "And what refreshment, for an age when self-knowledge is always
bad new s and self-despisal perforce a staple of our fictio n , to holiday
sriefly in a world free from the curse of insight."(p. 477)
2
Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego: A n Existentialist
Theory of Consciousness, trans. Forrest Williams and Robert Kirkpatrick
(New York: Noonday Press, 1957), p. 51.
3
Sartre (Philadelphia and N ew York: J. B. Lippincott Company,
1973), p. 60.
4
"Henry IV," trans. Edward Storer in Contemporary Drama, selected
by E. Bradlee Watson and Benfield Pressey (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1941), p. 526.
5
Lost in the Funhouse, p. 100.
^The Divided S elf, p. 41.
^Black Hum or Fiction of the Sixties: A P luralistic Definition of
M a n and~His World (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1973), p. 30.
O
The lis t of books which deal with the question of identity as i t
relates to lite ra tu re , psychology and philosophy is nearly endless. A
few are: Wylie Sypher, Loss of the Self in Modern Literature and A rt;
Lionel T rillin g , The Opposing S e lf; R. D. Laing, Self and Others; Jean
Piaget, O n the Development of M em ory and Iden tity; Jam es F. Bugental,
The Search for Existential Identity; William Glasser, The Identity
Society; and Rollo May, Man's Search for Himself.
9
In a recent public discussion, for example, Barth unburdened him
self of a surprisingly "philosophical" question:
I have a philosophical question; it's not tr iflin g . It's this: I
realized the other day that I don't know what I've written when I've
written a book. . . . Even i f i t were a perfect copy, as they never
are I suppose, it's not the book, it's a copy of the book. The book,
unlike a ly ric poem, is not even the author's m em ory of the words of
the book, because no author can remember all the words. . . . S o I
don't know what the book is; I don't know where the novels are that
I've written. (McKenzie, p. 141)
10
Enck, p. 8.
11
Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego, p. 22.
168
12
Barnes, Sartre, p. 60.
^"Barth and Hawkes: T w o Fabulists," Critique, 6, No. 2 (1963), 9.
14
Israel Shenker, "Complicated Simple Things," N ew York Times Book
Review, 24 September, 1973, p. 36.
15
See, for example, Alain Robbe-Grillet, For a N ew Novel: Essays on
Fiction, trans. Richard Howard (New Ygrk: Grove Press, 1965) and
Nathalie Sarraute, Tropismes (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1957).
16
See especially John Stubbs, "John Barth A s a Novelist of Ideas:
The Them es of Value and Identity," Critique, 8, No. 2 (Winter 1965-
1966), 101-116.
^Black Hum or Fiction of the Sixties, p. 30.
18
John Bradbury, "Absurd Insurrection: The Barth-Percy A ffair,"
South Atlantic Quarterly, 68 (1969), 321.
19
Tony Tanner, "The Hoax That Joke Bilked," Partisan Review, 34
(1967), 104.
20
Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry (New York: Harcourt,
3race & World, 1965).
21
See Gerald E. Graff, "Mythotherapy and Modern Poetics," T ri-
Quarterly, 11 (1968), 76-90.
22
See, for example, Richard Lehan, A Dangerous Crossing: French
Literary Existentialism and the Modern American Novel (Carbondale and
Edwardsville: Southern Illin o is University Press, 1973); Richard
Schickel, "The Floating Opera," Critique, 6, No. 2 (Fall 1963) 53-67;
and Ihab Hassan, "The Existential Novel," The Massachusetts Review,
3 (Summer 1962), 795-797.
23
Except for Hassan and Lehan, most of the critics w ho refer to
Sarth's work as "existentialist" do so in a very loose fashion, refer
ring to his "nihilism" or to the "despair" evident in such works as
The E nd of the Road rather than to any of the substantive tenets of
existentialist philosophy.
24
See the Appendix for a longer discussion of Sartre's use of these
terms.
25
Jean-Paul Sartre, La Transcendance de L'Ego: Esquisse d'une
Jescription Ph§nomgnoloqique (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin,
1965), p. 13.
169
26Ib id ., p. 13.
2^Enck, p. 11.
28
The images of a closed, circular pattern and an open, in fin ite ,
spiraling one are developed at length in Chimera.
29
Enck, p. 13.
30
See Alan Trachtenberg, "Barth and Hawkes: Tw o Fabulists,"
Critique, 6, No. 2 (1963), 16.
31
M ax Schulz makes this point in Black Hum or Fiction of the
Sixties.
32See Tanner, p. 105.
33
The two primary quasi-legal proceedings are that in which Eben
inadvertently gives away Malden and that in which he receives i t again;
and in both cases the property is acquired through fraud.
34
Enck, p. 12.
35
Barth's technique here begins to approximate that advocated by
such "new novelists" as Nathalie Sarraute and Alain Robbe-Grillet.
36
Any academic professional w ho finds Giles Goat-Boy impossible to
read in its entirety should skip to this play, i f only to see Oedipus as
a Dean, Sophocles' priest transmuted into a faculty committee chairman,
"head of the Speech and Forensics group" (312), or to hear the chorus
of faculty defend Oedipus thus: "Since the Dean pays us our wages, W e
declare the charge outrageous." (3M ) ~ ~
3^Enck, p. 12.
38
George's original name, for example, B illy Bocksfuss, m eans B illy
goat-foot, just as Oedipus' nam e refers to his injured foot ("swollen
foot"). Like Oedipus, B illy was cast out as a baby, and his leg w as
injured in the process. Although George is unaware of his real father's
identity, he feels that he is responsible for the death of his "Founder-
Father," G. Herrold; and Max, his spiritual father, dies on the Shaft
at least partly because of George's determination to find his heritage.
There are also comic parallels to Oedipus' relationship to his mother.
In an early dream George tries to copulate with the ew e w ho functions as
his mother in the goat pens; and he later tries to "Be" with Virginia
Hector, the w o m an w ho w as probably his physical mother, and she is
eventually driven m ad by the events which George in itia te s . M ax and
Kennard Sear seem to share between them the role of the blind prophet
Tiresias (Gynander) in Oedipus; and Sear continues his efforts to
explain George to himself until the \ery end, identifying himself with
Tiresias to the point of self-destruction.
IZQJ
— —
See Schulz.
^See Footnote 34 of Chapter Two.
^*At his low point, the Genie laments, " 'I'm going in circles, fo l
lowing m y o w n tra il'. . . . I've lost track of w ho I am ; m y name's just
a jumble of letters; so's the whole body of literature: strings of
letters and empty spaces, like a code that I've lost the key to .' "
(10-11) The fact that the Genie associates his lite ra ry problems with
his o w n lack of identity suggests the close relationship between
personal identity and art; so that the "key to the treasure" m ay also be
the key to the s elf. A nd "Dunyazadiad"'s repeated emphasis on lif e as
art or a "story" (8, 30, 52) also signals that Chimera w ill be b u ilt on
the assumption that the most significant kind of "reality" is that of
art or "fiction." (53)
42
I t is in this sense--the act of creating patterns of meaning--that
I have been using the word "art."
43
O n a computer console the "Reset" button is equivalent to "Erase."
I f you push i t , whatever you have typed on the computer screen w ill be
erased.
44
From the Episcopal Prayer Book.
171
C H A P T E R F O U R
S U M M A R Y
"John Barth does not e x is t."1
172
The process of testing the ideas developed in one novel in
succeeding ones has, at least in the case of the notions of duality
and identity, led to a considerable development and refinement of
Barth's original concepts; so that by Chimera he has passed con
siderably beyond the level of the "Philosophy-101 earnestness about
O
ideas' of which he has been accused, His treatment of the mind/body
duality as i t relates to the making of art is of considerable interest.
A nd his analysis of the s p lit in identity (which would appear to
have its origins in the mind/body division) is quite complex,
eventually reaching a very Sartreian vision of a self divided
between a w illin g , perceiving consciousness and all of its manifesta
tions,
I f we look at Barth's work chronologically, w e see real change
in the portrayal of the dichotomy between mind and body, reason and
emotion. Both The Floating Opera and The E nd of the Road present
protagonists w ho perceive that their "heads" and "hearts" are
separate, and w ho try to rule body and emotion with the mind. While
The Floating Opera suggests that a union of these two aspects of
the h um an being should be sought, The E nd of the Road demonstrates
the hero's complete lack of success in the enterprise.
In The Sot^Weed Factor Eben Cooke continues the pattern of
173
denying the body, although the novel argues that emotion cannot be
separated from reason and m ay even be the primary of the two a t t r i
butes. In the person of Henry Burlingame, however, w e see for the
fir s t time a character w ho nearly encompasses contraries, w ho is as
active a lover as he is a thinker. At the sam e time, though, he
argues that a ll meaning is created by the mind, an idea which m ay
later be the undoing of a ll brave efforts to reconcile the two
realms.
George the Goat-Boy begins lif e as Eben's opposite, moving
from a to ta lly physical existence to incorporate the life of the
mind into his experience. H e is the f ir s t , and perhaps the only
one, of Barth's characters to experience himself as whole, through
his union with Anastasia; but even he "falls" back into the realm
of mind, reason and tragedy at the novel's conclusion.
The tales of Lost in the Funhouse and Chimera continue the
struggle to unify opposites, with art and love most frequently
representing the poles of mind and emotion. Lost in the Funhouse
argues a ll positions: the complete denial of emotion and body
("Night-Sea Journey," "Petition"); the s te rility of articulation
without love or commitment ("T itle ," "Life-Story"); the triumph of
love, with art a close second ("Menelaiad"); the triumph of a rt,
with love qs an inspiration ("Anonymiad"). I t is clear that the
issue is not yet resolved, but that mind and body are most nearly
reconciled in the creation of art. Chimera's fir s t tale presents
us with the apparent union of love and art in one process; but the
following stories "fall" away from this achievement and dualism again
174
gains strength. In "Bellerophoniad" love is again separate from, and
subordinate to, the realm of mind and art.
The conclusion reached in Barth's work to this point seem s to
be that the duality of h um an experience cannot be overcome or
erased in any permanent way, although there are brief m om ents of
apprent union. Recent works have abandoned the simple mind/body
dualism for a more complex opposition between love, seen as the
unifier of opposites and the emotional source of a rt, and mind,
viewed as the maker of art and creator of all meaning. The body-
emotion "half" of m an is now seen as a necessary and valuable aspect
of hum an ac tiv ity , essential to the process of meaningful articula
tion, and not just a deplorable weakness which must be denied.
Finally, there is the suggestion that the process of making art
m ay fuse emotional force and rational meaning-making.
This basic division between mind and body, or subject and
object, is closely related to, i f not the origin of, a similar
dichotomy in the individual's perception of his o w n identity. This
sense of separation between the "I" which watches and another self
which feels and acts is already present in The End of the Road,
along with an awareness that the roles which an individual plays,
although a necessary m ode of his existence, must inevitably distort
the ''true" nature of his identity. The Sot-Weed Factor proves at
length that one's identity is almost entirely a public entity. A
private, subjective aspect of identity is not denied—quite the
contrary-^but, as Burlingame demonstrates, i t is impossible to
175
"prove" one's "real" identity, even to oneself. However, his m ulti
ple shifting roles at least attest to the existence of that private
self and reflect its nature as in fin ite ly changeable, w illin g , free.
Although Giles Goat-Boy seem s to propose the possibility of
an experience of unified identity, its basic thrust is to continue
the dichotomy between subjective and objective identity. W e see
two parallel movements or themes: the flux and mystery underlying
the appearances of the s e lf, and the stereotyped public role of
hero-scapegoat which seem s to subsum e other aspects of George's
identity by the novel's end.
The protagonist in Lost in the Funhouse and Chimera is , with
increasing frequency, also an a rtis t; and the question of the rela
tionship of the a rtis t to his creations merges with the question of
identity in general^the relationship of the subjective, invisible
"I" to its public acts. And while many tales of Lost in the Funhouse
retain the sense of a private, changing, unknowable self behind
visible appearances, the collection in general seem to take a major
step toward saying "I a m (only) what I do." Various protagonists
(including stories themselves) arrive at the realization that, as
far as anyone else w ill ever know, they are only their stories: "I
a m this voice, no more . , . when the voice goes h e'll turn ta le ,
story of his life " ("Menelaiad," £1611). But the collection concludes
with an emphasis on the creative act C"Wi11 anyone have learnt its
nam e? Will everyone? N o matter . . . a nameless minstrel/ Wrote it."
("Anonymiad," C9d)H, suggesting that the creating and created
aspects of identity "touch," or becom e one, in the instant of
176
creation.
Chimera ambivalent attitudes about identity are even more
clearly differentiated, "Dunyazadiad" presents the union of dis
parate possibilities in the process of making art and love; but in
M Perseid" the division between the public and private aspects of
identity surfaces again, with the hero opting for a public identity
of signs. However, the final novella sees only an unavoidable and
painful dilemma; although public acts are the only m eans of
creating one's identity, making i t re a l, the part of the self which
w ills and creates can never be truly reflected in its manifestations.
Indeed, the pain of the inadequate guise in which the "I" must
manifest its e lf seems, in "Bellerophoniad," to overwhelm the satis
faction of achieving enduring public identity. The tremendous need
of the "I" to m ake its e lf seen as ijLllL cannot be realized, but
the need remains.
W e can thus see a development in Barth's work from a vague
sense that the protagonists's identity is either missing or con
fused to a clear awareness of a subjective, creating but unseen "I"
which is separated from, and never equivalent to, its artifacts. :;i
Barth's most recent perception of identity is remarkably
similar to that proposed by Jean-Paul Sartre in La Transcendance
de 1 'Ego (1937). A brief look at Sartre m ay help .to both cla rify
and explain Barth's views,*
La Transcendance de 11 Ego marks the beginning of the development
" k
Sartre{s La Transcendance de I 1 Ego is reviewed at greater
length in the Appendix to this study.
177
of Sartre's unique philosophy; and i t is this discussion of the
"ego"—the sense of s elf, of personal identity—which forms the
basis for his later thought. His main point is simple: the
"transcendental ego," an. "I" whose existence w e commonly assum e as
O
a "structure de la conscience absolue," does not exist. W h en w e
look at i t very carefully, w e find two things: pure, impersonal
consciousness and the "moi." This "m e" is the s u m of the actions,
appearances and even thought which are associated together in
consciousness as i f they were one unified identity; but there is
no evidence for the existence of an "I" which is a part of
consciousness its e lf:
1'Ego n*est formellement ni materiellement dans la conscience:
il est dehors, dans le monde; c'est un etre du monde, c o m m e
1 'Ego d'autrui.**
What w e are used to calling "m y" consciousness is , in fact,
impersonal, "pure."
Q uand je cours apres un tramway, quand je regarde 1'heure,
quand je m'absorbe dans la contemplation d'un p o rtrait, il n'y
pas de Je. II y a conscience du tramway-devant-etre-rejoi n t,
e tc., et conscience non-positionnelle de la conscienceT®
W e should not say " j'a i conscience de cette chaise , " but
1 1 1 1 y a conscience de cette chaise . Finally, consciousness
operates spontaneously; that is, i t is in no way controlled or
determined by the "me,"
Sartre compares the process by which consciousness creates the
ego to an a rtis tic act, a fact which is of interest in relation to
Barth, Consciousness makes the ego by adding together, as i t were,
remembered and anticipated states; i t is "1'unite ideale de tous les
r‘ i
etats et les actions."' Because of this relationship, the reality
__________________________________________________________ iza
of the self is reconstituted in each conscious perception of i t ,
and m ay be perceived quite differently in different instants or
"intuitions." A peculiar result of this situation is that w e are
as unknowable to ourselves as others are to us--and as knowable;
A
"la seule methode pour le Hthe MoiH connaitre c'est 1'observation,
1 -approximation, 1'attente, 1'experience."^
O n the one hand, such a stand m ay seem to erase the old s p lit
between mind and boy, the "I" and the world. Sartre argues that since
both "le Moi" and " le Monde" can n ow be seen as "deux objets pour
la conscience absolue" it is now possible to "fonder philosophique-
ment une morale et une politique absolument positives."9 O n the
other hand, i t can be argued that the division between consciousness
and the "moi" is simply a new version of the old mind/body, subject/
object problem, which Sartre simply revitalized, but did not solve.
Barth's view, as expressed in his most recent works, would
tend to support this la tte r argument. A s w e have seen, his basic
conclusions are very similar to Sartre's. Both writers see identity
in terms of duality; and I believe they generally agree that one
aspect of it--which Sartre calls the "moi"—exists "dans le monde";
that is , it is an object of consciousness and separate from i t .
Barth's version of this argument is seen, for example, in The Sot-Weed
Factor, "Anonymiad," and "Bellerophoniad." A nd i t follows for
Barth, as for Sartre, that w e can only com e to know this "m e" in
the sam e ways w e can know n another person, as Burlingame explained
to Eben in The Sot-Weed Factor.
However, the nature of consciousness its e lf—the other "half"
179
of the identity dichotomy^provides more d iffic u lty .; Sartre, as w e
have seen, argues that consciousness is "pure" and "impersonal."
Barth's stand is less clear-cut. Certainly at times his work seem s
to argue that the center of the self is empty, "without weather"
(The End of the Road), and that the only visib le, proveable identity
is that which exists "in the world." Nevertheless, I believe that
Barth's novels and tales generally (and especially the more recent
examples) depict a creative, w illing consciousness which is personal,
which som ehow partakes of the identity of the "m e" and m ay even be
the locus of a transcendental " I." I t is the painful struggle of
this "invisible" self to make its e lf visible, to manifest its e lf
as i t really is , which w e have seen with increasing c la rity in
Barth's work; and this struggle is personal, not simply a spontaneous
flash of "pure" consciousness. The subject/object duality within
identity is s t il l , for Barth, a very real issue.
Nevertheless, the effect on Barth's protagonists is very m uch
what one would expect i f consciousness were, in fa ct, impersonal.
The gap between one's consciousness-identity and one's iden tity-in -
the-world seem s unbridgeable; indeed, as w as the case for Sartre,
consciousness is only aware of its e lf w hen i t sees that i t is not
the sam e as that of which i t is conscious. Further, in Barth's
world the "I-in-consciousness" can neither be located subjectively
nor manifested objectively. Nonetheless, an overriding need s t ill
Even here Barth and Sartre m ay not be so far apart, since
Sartre's insistence on freedom--his assertion that every
individual is free at every m om ent to create himself anew--
seem s in fact to assume that pure consciousness js_ som ehow
subject to the influence of the "me," or the "I."
180
exists to erase the gulf between the "I" and the "me," to unify one's
personal identity; and this desire leads to Barth's choices of love
and a rtis tic creation as possible unifying experiences. Here again
Sartre's viewpoint^ m ay help to illuminate Barth's thinking.
In m y opinion, love and the making of art have been chosen
by Barth as possible ways of experiencing a unified identity because
they are both actions where the self is actualized as both subject
and object, consciousness and ego, at the sam e time. The two cases
d iffe r a good deal, however, and the differences m ay account for
the fact that love is ultimately found lacking as a m ean of creating
identity in most of Barth's work.
Tw o aspects of love feature in connection with identity: being
loved (experiencing oneself as beloved) and actively loving another.
W h en Barth talks most exp licitly about being loved in this respect,
i t is in terms of the protagonist seeing himself mirrored in the
eyes of the w o m an w ho loves him--as in the cases of George Giles and
'fc
Anastasia, or Perseus and Medusa, For George Giles, this experience
is not a culmination; realizing that he is loved simply makes him more
aware that his o w n identity is a mystery, and leads him on to a
la te r, larger experience of himself. The other direction in which
being loved m ay take one is demonstrated by Perseus, w ho seem s to accept
the fact that his identity is himself-as-he-appears-to-the-lover.
H e agrees to becom e the Perseus he sees mirrored in Medusa's eyes.
_
The eye-mirror image further indicates that the protagonist
is both watcher and watched, subject and object at once.
181
Such a process of making identity is lacking in essential
respects. It accepts one appearance as the to ta lity of one's
identity; that is , in Sartre's terms, i t treats one of the m any
events which together normally comprise the "m e" as i f i t were
the transcendental " I." Perseus' choice also abdicates any respon
s ib ility which the "I" has for creating its e lf, for impressing
its e lf onto the world, in favor of accepting a view created by, or
through, the other. Not only the true nature of consciousness, but
also its very existence, are thus denied.
In this sense, "love"—being loved--is clearly not a valid
solution to the problem of s p lit identity. However, the process of
actively loving another also seem s to have had a place in the
creation of one's being. Seen in this way, "love" is not so m uch
an emotion directed at a real person as i t is a longing to overcome
one's o w n division and one's separation from the rest of existence—
Henry Burlingame's desire to possess the twins and thus experience
the "seamless universe." Throughout Barth's work this aspect of
love is accepted as a necessary aspect of the creation of a rt—
Hippomanes, the inspiration and impetus. I t is this sense of
separation from the rest of creation and the urge to regain a place
in it--perhaps the separation of consciousness from its o w n mani
festations, and the urge to unify them—which is the source of the
a rtis t's voice.
Thus the act of creation appears to be the ultimate m eans of
both making and experiencing one's identity, i f only for an instant.
Seen in Sartre's framework, i t makes sense that "creation" is seen
182
as a possible "way out" of the identity dilemma, since i t is an
act w hen consciousness sees and makes the ego and thus also becom es
aware of its e lf—a m om ent w hen the two aspects of identity "touch."
Rollo May, in The Courage to Create, also perceives creation
as a m eans of overcoming duality. In the creative act "ecstasy" is
achieved; he uses the word
in its historical, etymological sense of 'ex-stasis'--that is,
lite r a lly , to 'stand out from,' to be freed from the usual
s p lit between subject and object which is a perpetual dichotomy
in most hum an a c tiv ity ,^
A s w e have seen, Barth focuses on this act of making a rt--o f
making oneself into one's story—in m uch of his work, and increasingly
so in Lost in the Funhouse and Chimera. However, there is a good
deal of evidence that even the identity so achieved is deficient in
several ways,
F irs t, as w e have seen, any single act or creation of con
sciousness can never completely em body the in fin ite ly changeable w ill
which originated i t ; so there must always be a great discrepancy
between the potential of the "I" and any of its artifacts. Even the
largest possible collection of varied actions—like Burlingame's
roles^r-can only hint at the rea lity behind them. In addition, since
w e can know ourselves only as w e know others, our "true"—potential
and comp!ete--identities must remain unknown even to ourselves.
(In "Menelaiad" w e see the parallel and interlocking problems of
being barred from ever knowing the true being of another H "W hy does
Helen love me?"j while at the sam e time being unable to express
one's real self to som eone else.) Another fatal weakness of
identity-as-art is the fact that the connection between consciousness
183
and the "m e" is not retained after the m om ent of seeing-making; the
"I" does not stay "in" its story, as Bellerophon laments.
In addition, the creative act—both "sides" of the process—is
out of the control of the individual in two important ways. First,
having produced som e visible a rtifa c t of the self—a story, a
persona like Lord Baltimore or John Coode—the a rtis t has no further
control over his creation. It is relinquished to the world, opened
to the gaze of others, w ho m ake thier contributions, however mis
guided, to the creation of his identity. Eben Cooke mourned the fact
that the public gave both his p oem "The Sot-Weed Factor" and his
persona meanings completely opposite to those which he had intended;
and Lost in the Funhouse and Chimera frequently mention the reader's
function in making the meaning of a work of art. In a way this is
similar to the process of being loved, in which one accepts as a
part of his identity his image as i t is perceived by another; i f
so, this m ay be an additional attraction of a rtis tic creation,
which adds this facet of self to identity as consciousness and
identity as ego, However, the pain and frustration of having no
control over the reaction of others to one's creation or one's
actions—of being unable to influence one's identity, as i t is
perceived by others—surfaces again and again in Barth's work.
Barth's protagonists also seem to suspect that the creative
act is out of the individual's control in another, even more important,
way. In "Bellerophoniad" and "Menelaiad," for example, the narrators
feel that they m ay not be te llin g their stories, that som e other
voice m ay be creating the story and hence creating them. I f w e
184
think of consciousness as the sto ry-teller, the maker of the persona,
this again fits comfortably into Sartre's scheme. A s he sees i t ,
consciousness is spontaneous and self-determining, functioning
outside the realm of the perception or control of the "me."
Ainsi chaque instant de notre vie consciente nous revele une
creation ex nihilo. N on pas un arrangement noveau, mais une
existence nouvelle. II y a quelque chose d'angoissant pour
chacun de nous, H saisir ainsi sur le fa it cette creation
inlassable d'existence dont nous ne so m m es pas les createurs.
I t is this sense that "we are not the creators" (or even the
destroyers) which makes its e lf f e lt, for example, in "Autobiography":
, . . I ' l l turn myself off i f I can this instant.
Can't. Then i f anyone hears roe, speaking from here like a
sunk submariner, and has the m eans to m y end, I pray him do u s
both a kindness.
Didn't. (Lost in the Funhouse, 36)
Here the whole notion of "free w ill" as i t is generally defined is
called into question; "m y" consciousness m ay be free, but a m I? A nd
the question " ' ■ "The Voice is yours; whose are the words?" ‘
which occurs with increasing frequency in Lost in the Funhouse and
Chimera, also reflects the anguish of realizing that w e are creations
"ex nihilo" of which "nous ne .som m es pas les createurs."
Seen in this lig h t, Barth's perception of the identity problem,
while always potentially Sartreian, appears to have developed to its
present state in stages. The fir s t (The Floating Opera, The E nd of
the Road) w as simply an awareness of a general problem in finding
that solid, definite personal identity which one was expected to
possess. Next cam e a clearing sense of identity as divided into
subjective and objective aspects (The E nd of the Road, The Sot-Weed
185
Factor) ; and then a focus on the external aspects of identity—
the "m e" which exists "in the world"—with its attendant d iffic u l
ties. Finally, in his two most recent collections of short works
w e see a growing awareness of the "other side" of the identity
duality, consciousness its e lf, and its relative independence of
the "m e" which would like to lay claim to i t . I t appears that,
of a ll the problems associated with identity, the suspicion that
consciousness it not only impersonal but also out of one's control
is the hardest to bear,
I t thus seem s that Barth has indeed arrived, in his most
■fe,cent works, $ t a very Sartretan view of the nature of identity,
I; a m not, of course, arguing that Barth is consciously adopting
a Sartretan stance) i f such were the case he would surely have
talked about i t more obviously than he has done (witness Barth's
laborious elaborations of the myth of the hero, in Giles Goat-
B oy and Chimera, after he learned from a c ritic that he had been
describing the mythic pattern in The Sot-Weed Factor). Rather,
the fact that Barth appears to have arrived independently at
his experiential view of identity adds extra credence to the
stand which he and Sartre share, and suggests that they m ay
indeed be describing the "real" nature of consciousness, and not
just a psychotic aberration, Barth's perception is m uch less
rational than Sartre's, but perhaps, for that reason, more
convincing; i t is as i f Barth is showing us the subjective,
human, feeling rea lity about which Sartre only theorizes.
Particularly in "Bellerophoniad" w e sense that Barth
186
is trying to do the impossible, to demonstrate in a first-person
narrative the simultaneous existence of consciousness and its
manifestations; to convey a sense of the “I" which is both invisible
"behind," and trapped within, the story,
I t is this act of creation—creation of the s e lf, often
equated with the making of a work of a rt, becoming one's story—
which is the main possibility presented in Barthes work for a
solution to the dilemma of identity. At least in the m om ent of
making oneself visible the watching, making "I" and the made, seen
"ipe" are integrally connected, i f not united. Hope resides in that
m om ent w hen "a nameless minstrel/Wrote i t . " 1^
Howeyer, i t is clear that Barth remains ambivalent; he had not
yet reached a "final solution" to the question of identity. O n the
one hand w e are presented with the destruction of identity by both
love and a rt, as typified by Narcissus and Echo ("he perishes by
denying a ll except himself; she persists by effacing herself
absolutely. Yet they com e to the same"15); while, on the other hand,
"Dunyazadiad" and "Menelaiad" offer hope for the joyful union of
love and art in the process of self-creation. I t remains for Barth's
next works to te ll us whether the ambivalence has been accentuated,
balanced or resolved.
In this respect, i t is interesting to look at what Barth has
said about the book, which he intends, or intended ( i t w as originally
planned to appear in the Bicentennial year) to publish next. Chimera
187
is replete with references to the narrator's next novel, to be
called Letters or Notes, a "morass of plans, notes, false starts, in
which I grew more mired with every attempt to extricate myself."
(202) H e speaks particularly of the "Revolutionary" (246) new form
of the novel which he plans to write; i t w ill be "scientific
fiction" (249), the "perfect form" (250) of the novel, probably
written by a computer. I t w ill have no " 'character,' 'p lo t,' . . .
'content,' 'subject,' CorU 'meaning",':
the Revolutionary Novel N O T E S is to dispense with all of them
in order to transcend the limitations of particularity; . . .
i t w ill represent nothing beyond its e lf, have no content
except its o w n form, no subject but its ow n processes.
Language its e lf i t w ill perhaps eschew . . , (256)
Interestingly, the"paradigm" for this coming opus is "Bellerophoniad."
These ruminations indicate that the theme of identity, so pre
dominant in "Bellerophoniad," w ill s till be strong in Barth's next
novel, A nd the narrator's desire to turn form into content, or to
make them one, suggests the continuing effo rt to overcome the duality
in identity, to merge ego and consciousness. Since Barth's pro
tagonists have increasingly com e to see that their identities are
equivalent to their stories, the union of form and content m ay be
the only remaining m eans of unifying appearance and reality.
In any case, since the narrator of "Bellerophoniad" asserts that
he has fin a lly overcome his "Writer's Block" (202), w e m ay look fo r
ward to m any a disquisition on "True Id e n tity "^ from "The Dreamer of
the World", ^ in defiance of Burlingame's reasonable advice that "all
assertions of thee and me, e'en to oneself, are acts of fa ith ,
impossible to verify. " 18
188
Footnotes
Severly Gross, "The Anti-Novels of John Barth," Chicago Review,
20, No. 3 (1968), 107.
?
Robert Garis, "What Happened to John Barth?" Commentary, 42
(October 1966), 89.
3
Sartre, La Transcendance de L'Ego, p. 25.
4
Sartre, p. 13.
5
Sartre, p, 32.
S a rtre , p. 37.
S a rtre , p. 69.
S a rtre , p. 68.
S a rtre , p. 87.
10
This is , of course, m ^ interpretation or extension of Sartre's
position as i t would apply to the topics Barth treats.
^Rollo May, The Courage to Create (New York: Bantam Books, Inc.)
p. 49.
^ S a rtre , p. 79.
13
Lost in the Funhouse, p. 146.
14
Lost in the Funhouse, p. 194.
15
Lost in the Funhouse, p. 99.
^She Sot-Weed Factor, p. 136.
*She Sot-Weed Factor, p. 557.
*She Sot-Weed Factor, p. 141.
APPENDIX
In the schizoid condition here described there is a persistent
scission between the self and the body. What the individual
regards as his true self is experienced as more or less
disembodied, and bodily experience and actions are in turn
fe lt to be part of the false-self system.
R, D. Laing*
M an is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know w hy he
has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal.
2
Miguel de U nam uno
This sceptical doubt, both with respect to reason and
the senses,is a malady, which can never be radically cur'd,
but must return upon us every moment, however w e m ay chace
it away, . . .
David H u m e
John Barth's vision of m an is like a contradictory mixture of
the thought of Miguel de U nam uno and the rationalist philosophers
against w h o m he was complaining; but the personal predicaments which
the novelist describes, however humorously, look at times like case-
histories from a modern psychology text. R. D. Laing does not see
the schizoid conditions he describes in terms of their possible
philosophical parallels, or even origins; but schizophrenia seem s
perfectly compatible with--perhaps seem s even to follow inevitably
from--the pattern of thought established by m en like Descartes,
Locke, H u m e and Kant. A nd from novel to novel Barth's protagonists
_______ 190
struggle to ignore, escape, or transcend their dual nature, suspecting
like U nam uno that "feeling is fir s t," but unable to elude their
Cartesian consciousness.
The s p lit between the "self" and the body which Laing sees as
basic to the identity crisis he calls schizoid is also fundamental
to the thought of numerous modern philosophers--from Descartes on--
w ho m ay be said to have laid the groundwork for the sort of identity
crises which plague Barthian heroes. There is good reason to
believe that s p lit, in various guises, has completely permeated Western
culture; and Barth's novels examine this whole philosophy of dualism
as they struggle with related questions of personal identity.^
In this chapter I would like very b riefly to review several
philosophers' approaches to these issues, with the hope of illuminating
Barth's more recent efforts to cope with them. I a m not thereby
suggesting that Barth has been "influenced" by these specific
thinkers, although he does m ake definite reference to, and is clearly
fam iliar with Descartes,- H u m e and Sartre, and i t would clearly
be unlikely that he has remained untouched by Western rationalistic
tradition. Rather, I hope that this brief recapitulation w ill help
both to locate Barth's concerns in terms of a tradition and to
c la rify som e of the d iffic u lt matters with which his works are
grappling.
Barth is not, of course, primarily a philosopher, or a
psychologist, and I do not intend to suggest that he is; although
I would argue that, at least in the study of personal identity, he
has progressed considerably beyond the "Philosophy-101 earnestness
191
about ideas"5 which one c ritic condescendingly noted. In interviews
and articles Barth does not focus on himself qua thinker, and i t is
easy to emphasize the com edy of his novels, or his concern with the
"element of story—just sheer extraordinary, marvelous story"®, or
to accept his statement that he has been dealing with simple content
in complex forms’.
while . . , the stories Pve been tellin g for the past
six years have been essentially quite simple stories, the
m odes of narration that have seem ed to m e the only possible
ways that those stories can get told have been rather
complicated m odes of narration.
Scattered am ong his com m ents about origin ality and structure
and the sources of his novels, however, are passages which attest
to his philosophical concerns. H e intended The Floating Opera to
be a "philosophical minstrel show," and another section of his
interview with John Enck is revealing.
Along those lines of structure and such, you mentioned doing
a philosophical minstrel show. D o .yo u m ake any kind of corre
lation between the novel and philosophical methods?
I don't know anything about philosophy. I've never even
studied i t , m uch less learned i t . But ontology and cosmology
are funny subjects to improvise. I f you are a novelist of
a certain type of temperament, then what you really want to
do is re-invent the world. G o d wasn't too bad a novelist,
except he was a Realist. . , . But a certain kind of
sensibility can be m ade very uncomfortable by the recognition
of the arbitrariness of physical facts and the in a b ility to
accept their fin a lity , . . , A nd i t seem s to m e that this
emotion, which is a kind of metaphysical emotion, goes
almost to the heart of what art is , at least som e kinds
of a rt, and this impulse to imagine alternatives to the world
can becom e a driving impulse for writers . . . . S o what g
you really want to do is re-invent philosophy and the rest •
Frustration with the "arbitrariness" and "fin ality" of co m m o n notions
of rea lity echoes throughout his work, as Barth's protagonists strain
to assert their freedom and reinvent the world. But whether he is
192
actually creating his ow n system of thought, or attacking problems
inherited from other, more "realistic" philosophers, Barth constantly
returns to the problems involved with man's dual nature and his iden
tity which have been central to philosophy since Descartes.
I would like to glance at a few representative thinkers w ho
seem especially pertinent to Barth's view of things, philosophers
for w h o m the nature of the self-human consciousness, the processes
by which w e gain knowledge of ourselves and the world--is the primary
object of inquiry. Of necessity I can consider only their conclu
sions which relate specifically to m y topic. Using Descartes as
a jumping-off plane, w e w ill touch on the views of Hum e, Kant and
Sartre,
'k'k'k
I f Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is the "founder of modern
philosophy,"^ i t is largely because he combines a belief in rational
methodology with a concentration on the "I," the consciousness of
s e lf, as the cornerstone of his thought. Resolved to rebuild the
"whole of h um an knowledge"^ by subjecting all of his knowledge to
doubt, he discovers only one rock-solid, indubitably certain fact
on which his edifice can rest: "Cogito, ergo sum ," * H e can doubt
everything else--he m ay be mad* he m ay be hallucinating--but he cannot
doubt that he is doubting. O n the rock of his mental processes, and
with the help of the existence of God, modern theory of knowledge is
constructed.
I t is the "I" of the cogito which has been, for Western thinkers,
193
the traditional notion of personal identity: an experienced, or
assumed, but unanalyzed "self" which is at the "center" of a man's
being, which is aware and analytical and is assumed to direct the
activities of its host, Descartes does not m ake a distinction between
the "I" which is thinking and the "I" which is thereby proved to
exist. The identity of the self is assumed to be an obvious and
irreducible unity whose existence and nature w ill be clear to all
m en with co m m o n sense.
This self is a function of a man's mental processes, his
thought, completely independent of his body,
I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence
consists only in thinking, and which, that i t m ay exist, has
need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so
that "I," that is to say the mind by which I a m what I am ,
is wholly distinct from the body , . .12
H e explains that the body is "subject to mechanical causal laws"
while the mind is "free from them" (74), but he adds that they are
som ehow "so closely conjoined therewith as together to form something
lik e a unity." (80) But despite this almost-unity, or the com
forting reassurance that
there is in re a lity a world, that m e n are possessed of bodies,
and the lik e , the truth of which no-one of sound mind ever
seriously doubted,*13
the s p lit between body and mind which Descartes formulated has
remained one of the most crucial questions raised by his philosophy.
I t is interesting to note that Descartes was able to claim that
w e can have reasonably certain knowledge about the external world only
by fir s t "proving" the existence of God, and then arguing that God's
nature is such that he could not allow us to be deceived about such
194
things. Using his general method, without som e such absolute
interim step, w e would be le ft with only our subjective world. This
is the d iffic u lty facing m any of the thinkers w ho follow Descartes.
The entire Cartesian system rests on the a b ility of h um an
reason to solve a ll problems. H e believes that a sort of mathematical
logic, and a certain c la rity and distinctness of ideas, are the
source and c rite ria of knowledge, rather than the evidence of the
senses or the creations of the imagination. This emphasis on the
power of the mind--on "reason," whatever that m ay be—to explain
existence has continued as the basis of almost all significant
Western thought, even that which is supposed to have its basis in
14
man's emotional experience.
Thus, with his focus on reasoning h um an consciousness as the
basis of knowledge; his definition of the self as an "I-which-thinks";
and his distinction between mind and body, reason and emotion, as
to ta lly separate, different things, Descartes has set the stage on which
Todd Andrews and Jacob Horner w ill eventually act.
* * *
With the sceptical philosophy of David H u m e (1711-1776)
several fa irly radical, although completely logical, developments
occurred.
Descartes, and, la te r, John Locke, had both assumed that the
intuitive knowledge of the self and the continuity of personal
identity were self-evident. A nd while both philosophers perceived
a dualism between mind and matter, or between an idea and the
195
external object which caused i t , they also believed—for different
reasons—that the idea w e have of an object in our consciousness
does derive from external re a lity , that there is a direct connection
between subjective and objective re a lity . I f I have an idea of a
tree in m y mind, I can be pretty sure there is a tree "out there"
very m uch like m y idea.
H u m e takes a small but significant step away from this posi
tion; he breaks the assumed link between our ideas of things, our
perceptions, and the objects which are supposedly external to us.
B y asking how w e can be sure that a world outside of our perceptions
exists at a ll, he arrives at the conclusion that
The mind has never anything present to i t but the perceptions,
and cannot possibly reach any experience of their connection
with objects,15;
W e can only know for certain the ideas in our minds; all else is
logically in doubt. I m ay have an idea of a tree in m y mind, but I
a m not ju stified in assuming that there is a "real" tree somewhere
outside m y consciousness from which I originally received m y idea.
The sam e approach which pries mind and matter apart also calls
the very existence of the self into question. The problem is causation.
Just as I assume that m y perception of a tree has a cause—i . e . , a
real tree outside the window— I take i t for granted that the notion
I have of m y "self" has a cause—i.e ., a real, extant self. H um e,
however, asked where the very idea of necessary causation com es from—
do w e really know that a ll things, all perceptions, have causes? H e
is forced to conclude that what w e take to be an obvious and real law
of cause and effect is really only a tendency of the mind to
196
associate perceptions a s ^ rf they were related in a causal fashion.
This habit of mind, this tendency to associate things which have no
discoverable "real" relationship, creates our notion of the self as
an existing and unified personal identity. The rather startling
truth, however, is that our "selves" are
nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions,
which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and
are in a perpetual flux and movement. (85)
Whenever he tires to find his o w n s e lf, H u m e says, he invariably is
able to find only "som e particular perception or other"; in a state
without perceptions, a dreamless sleep, for example, "I . . . m ay
truly be said not to exist," (84) Shades of Jacob Horner, sitting
weather!ess in his rocking Chair! A s Stuart Hampshire said, c r it i
cizing Descartes' fallacy, the "most that Descartes can properly
16 '
conclude is 'cogitatur,' 'there is som e thinking going on.' "
S t ill, after all this reasoning, H u m e admits that w e do have
a strong feeling of a self which no amount of logic seem s to destroy;
and he ends his discussion of personal identity with the very
Jacob Horner-like com m ent that "all the nice and subtile questions
concerning personal identity can never possible be decided." (91)
Clearly, a number of Hume's conclusions—the need for a
"scientific" approach to our subjective experience; the breakdown
of causality; the disappearance of the self—have clear parallels
in John Barth’ s fictional world,
* * *
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) also perceives a gap between the
197
mind and the world beyond i t , but he tries to resolve the conflict
between rationalism and empiricism by postulating an area of inter
action where the mind its e lf makes a major contribution to our
knowledge of the world. The mind possesses certain ways/of structuring
experience, organizing perceptions in terms of space, time, causality
and so on. Both the mind and the world external to i t participate in
the process of knowledge; the world, w e assume, is the origin of the
raw phenom ena upon which the mind operates. W e can, however, never
know any th in g -in -its e lf outside ourselves, although Kant does
not doubt that they exist.
I t remains completely unknown to us what objects m ay be
by themselves and apart from the receptivity of our senses.
W e know nothing but our manner of perceiving them. . .17'
Kant also creates, or discovers, a new dualism: w e now have
a divided or two-part self. The "empirical" or "phenomenal" self
which is know n through sense impressions, and which a psychologist
or biologist imight study, is "completely determined": — i t is ruled
by emotion and determined by the laws of cause and effect.
However, Kant posits a second, "transcendental" s e lf, which w e
experience only in the realm of moral behavior, or w ill. W h en w e w ill
to do something w e ought to do, even though i t m ay be quite different
from the way in which w e wish to act, i t is the transcendental self >
which is operating. Such behavior demonstrates that our moral,
w illing self is not subject to the laws of causation; the transcen
dental self is free.
This self is again associated with ratio n ality; Kant's
categorial imperative--"Act only o n that maxim whereby thou canst
198
at the sam e time w ill that i t should becom e a universal law"ffi—
suggests a triumph of reason over self-interest and emotion.
Interestinglyv though, the proof of the freedom of the transcendental
self is not rational; i t is f e lt , experienced. A s Will Durant notes,
"w e prove i t by feeling i t directly in the crisis of moral choice."^
Kant's concept of a transcendental, free, w illing self leads
us directly to Jean-Paul Sartre's La Transcendence de l'Ego (1937)2*,
the work in which Sartre broke with established phenomenology and
pointed the direction toward his later thought. The essay its e lf
is too complex to be explained here in depth, but the basic percep
tion is that the "ego"—what w e might very loosely call the "self" or
the personal identity of an individual—does not exist, at least as
w e are used to thinking of i t . M y "I" does not exist as so m e
mysterious, unified, subjective structure of mind, separate from
the world; rather, i t exists in^ the world, an object of consciousness
lik e any other. And this consciousness is "pure" and spontaneous; it
has no identity, cannot be said to be "mine."
The ideas are d iffic u lt to grasp, but they have som e relevance,
I think, to Barthes work. Jacob Horner, unable to find his central
"I," lives in a post-Sartreian world.
Sartre begins his discussion by asking whether there is any
evidence that the "Je transcendantal, structure de la conscience
a b s o l u e " 2 2 exists, separate from pure, impersonal consciousness, on
the one hand, and the "moi," on the other hand. This "m e" appears
199
to be the su m of all the actions, appearances, thoughts which are
associated together as i f they form a unity, an individual--my image
in the mirror, the feel of the typewriter keys, m y recollection as
I write. C an we find evidence for yet another kind of s e lf, an "I"
(ego) which is som ehow associated with consciousness itself? Sartre
answers that w e cannot:
1 * E go n'est ni formellement ni materiellement dans la
conscience: il est dehors, dans le monde; c'est u n etre
du monde, co m m e 1'Ego d'autrui. (13)
Looking at Descartes' cogito, Sartre finds that the "I" of the "I
think*' is basically the sam e as the "I" of the "I am"; neither has
anything to do with the active consciousness which spontaneously
originates the whole thought. This "I" is m uch like that of Hume's
notion of a self which is created out of a series of perceptions; as
Sartre says, we visualize this "I" as something like a "contraction
in fin ie du Moi materiel," (37)
Sartre concludes that "pure" consciousness—and this is what
w e are used to calling "m y" consciousness—is impersonal.
Quand je cours apres un tramway, quand je regarde 1'heure,
quand je m'absorbe dans la contemplation d'un p o rtrait, il n'y
pas de Je, II y a conscience du tramwa.y-devant-etre-rejoint,
e tc,, et conscience non-positionnelle de la conscience, (32)
W e should not say " j'a i conscience de cette chaise," but " il y a
conscience de cette chaise. " (37)
Interestingly, Sartre compares the process by which conscious
ness creates the ego to an a rtis tic act, a fact which is of interest
in connection td Barth, Consciousness makes the ego by adding
together, as i t were, remembered and anticipated states; i t is
"1 * unite ideale de tous les etats et les actions." (69) Because of
200
this relationship, the reality of the self m ay be reconstituted in
each conscious perception of i t , and m ay be perceived quite differently
in different instants or "intuitions." At one moment, for example, I
m ay perceive that I a m insane; at the next, that I a m perfectly normal.
Transcendent reality is always dubitable, because i t can never be
know n in its to ta lity . Again w e are in the world of Barth's
protagonists, the realm of "mythotherapy."
A peculiar result of this situation is that w e are as unknowable
a
to ourselves as others are to us—and as knowable; "la seule methode
pour le [the MoiJ connaitre c'est 1'observation, 1 'approximation,
1'attente, 1'experience." (68)
Your m e and rn^rne are created by consciousness, which is
impersonal and spontaneous, self-determining.
r* s.
Ainsi chaque instant de notre vie Consciente nous revele
une creation ex nihilo. N o n pas un arrangement nouveau,
mais une existence nouvelle. II y a quelque chose d'angoissant
pour chacun de nous, a saisir ainsi sur le fa it cette creation
inlassable d'existence dont nous ne so m m e s pas les createurs. (79)
This spontaneity is that which w e call "w ill," and i t is "au dela de
la 1 iberte"—its possibilities exceed the lim its w e can perceive.
Sartre thus arrives at an interesting idea: perhaps the ego's
A •
"role essentiel e s t-il de masquer a la conscience sa propre spon
taneity." (81) I f w e honestly grasp the idea of spontaneous con- :
sciousness, beyond the control of the I , w e must see that w e are
powerless to affect the basis of our conscious existence. I f
consciousness becom es aware of this, the "fa ta lite de sa spontaneite"
(82), anguish results. The illusion that "m y" consciousness and m e _
are one and the sam e is thus an "effort que V a conscience fa it pour
201
s'echapper a elle-m&ne" (83), an effo rt which can never completely
succeed. Again, w e must think of Barth, whose characters struggle
uncomfortably with the suspicion that their identities are only
masks--masks covering a reality which can never be comprehended or
expressed.
All of this has interesting implications for the old s p lit
between mind and matter, subject and object*, the division, at least
in its traditional sense, has been erased. There is no longer any
"inner" s e lf, the contents of which might be the only re a lity ; I
exist as all things exist, as an object and product of consciousness,
which also produces—or intuits--the world. Sartre argues that this
is a positive state of affairs:
Le Monde n'a pas cree le Moi, le Moi n'a pas cree le Monde,
ce sont deux objets pour la conscience absolue, impersonelle,
et c'est^par e lle quails se trouvent relies.. . . Et le rapport
d1 interdependence qu'elle e tab lit entre le Moi et le M onde
s u ffit pour que le Moi . . . tire du M onde tout son contenu.
II n'en faut pas plus pour fonder philosophiquement une
morale et une politique absolument positives. (87)
And two of his translators agree that "with no transcendental ego
, , . to clutter up consciousness" philosophy can proceed to
important a ffa irs , "hum an existence in its concrete relations to
the world,"23
O nce drawn into Sartre's argument, i t a ll sounds S o reasonable,
so clean and tidy; no X to "clutter" things up 1 But the baggage of
personal identity is not so easily discarded, even for Sartre. For
in his insistence on freedom--his assertion that every individual is
free at every m om ent to create himself anew—he seem s to assum e that
pure consciousness i^ s som ehow subject to the influence of the m e ^ .
202
There appears to be som e ambivalence in this freedom, this awareness
that at any m om ent "consciousness m ay in fact lite r a lly evoke the
birth of a new personality by choosing a new way of relating its e lf
? 4 '
to Being," It is an ambivalence which would be fam iliar to Jacob
Horner, w ho is aware of his in fin ite freedom and his lack of self at
the sam e time.
With respect to this freedom, Sartre's ideas have changed
considerably over the course of the years', and in his most recent
major work, Critique de la raison dialectique (1960), the sense of
external forces which lim it and condition a man's behavior is m uch
stronger than i t was in the earlier work.
The idea which I have never ceased to develop is that in the
end one is always responsible for what is m ade of one. Even
i f one can do nothing else besides assume this responsibility...
For I believe that a m an can always make something out of
what is m ade of him. This is the lim it I would today accord
to freedom: the small movement which makes of a to ta lly
conditioned social being som eone w ho does not render back
completely what his conditioning has given him.25
W e are reminded of Jacob Horner, discussing the position he takes
in his chair when being interviewed by the Doctor:
Your position, then (. . . has the appearance of choice,
because you are not ordered to s it thus, but . . . is chosen
only in..a very limited sense, since there are no alternatives)
26
* * *
The movement from Descartes to Sartre demonstrates som e very
basic changes in the way in which personal identity is viewed. The
changes can be m ade concrete, although overly simplified and dis
torted somewhat, i f w e think of them in terms of a co m m o n model.
203
The "I" of Descartes and Locke can be visualized as a l i t t l e m an
sitting in a chair inside each person's head, watching a large screen
on which various perceptions are flashed. Even i f nothing were
being show n on the screen—i f the individual were in a dreamless
sleep, for example—or i f the images being show n had no connection
with external re a lity , the l i t t l e m an would s t ill be in his chair,
sure of his ow n existence, watching and judging. Joe Morgan, in
The End of the Road, appears to have this sort of notion of his
identity.
Hume's ideas of personal identity cause d iffic u ltie s for
our model; since the self is "nothing but a bundle or collection
of different perceptions," w e must apparently dispose of the
chair and its occupant, retalining only the screen with its flickering
display of images. A nd Kant's "dual" self is equally hard to picture.
The phenomenal, determined self can perhaps be imagined as the li t t l e
man, again in his chair, but now hooked into a control console in
such a way that h£ is the one controlled by the images on the screen,
with completely automatic responses. I f he sees fir e , he automatically
withdraws, Hovering near this self is a second one, not controlled
by the data fed in from the console, acting only with regard to moral
decisions. This "I" can interrupt an automatic response and replace
i t with another action, forcing an individual to run through fire to
rescue a trapped child, for example. I t is this transcendental
self which is the real source of personal identity, which determines
our stance in relationship to the world.
Faced with Sartre, our model breaks dow n completely, evidence
204
that i t has never been very functional, despite its predominant
place in Western thought. The fir s t inclination is to say that
the l i t t l e m an has becom e an appearance on the screen, like the image
of a tree, while the chair is now occupied by pure consciousness.
But the chair must go, and with i t the screen, since they imply passi
v ity and a division between the watcher and the watched. A better
model might be to imagine an invisible world, and an invisible
eye moving through i t . Whenever the eye com es in contact with som e
part of the world's Being, both that object and the eye becom e
visible— "real" or actualized. The s e lf, however, is not the sam e
thing as the eye; i t is one of the things which the eye encounters.
W e have moved, then, from a notion of self-iden tity which
is fa irly secure and unquestioned—an "I" somewhere inside m e which
is identical with m y consciousness of things—to an extremely
ambiguous situation where consciousness and "m e" have been separated,
and I have no control over consciousness. Sartre's belief that he
had, by destroying the myth of the I-in-here, laid the groundwork
for an "absolutely positive" system of thought is easier to grasp
rationally than emotionally. I f an individual were to experience
his consciousness as impersonal, as Sartre says is theoretically
possible; or i f he were simply to becom e aware of Hume's empty
chair; would he not, like Jacob Horner, suffer from an enduring
in ab ility to act, to believe that he "is" his roles, to throw him
self—what self?—into his Mythotherapy the way a good patient should?
But having experienced the empty wind of consciousness, would he not
find i t equally impossible to return to a simple-minded Cartesian
205
view of himself and the world?
The tradition w e have sketched here outlines the dilemmas
created by rationalistic philosophy when i t attempts to deal with
the nature of the individual and with personal identity. Man's
nature is inevitably seen as dual, with an unbridgeable gap between
the conscious "I" and everything else; even Sartre does not
successfully resolve the issue, since the distinction between Being-
in -its e lf and B eing-for-itself remains as large as ever. A nd as an
awareness of this traditional s p lit grows, from Descartes to the
present, the sense of self becom es ever weaker.
Footnotes
*The Divided S elf, p. 82.
2
Tragic Sense of L ife , p. 3.
3
H um e: Selections, p. 74.
4
These are not, of course, the only two significant themes in
Barth's work—simply the ones which I a m emphasizing.
5Garis, p. 89.
8Enck, p. 4.
^Israel Shenker, "Complicated Simple Things," N ew York Times B ook
Review, 24 September 1973, p. 35.
8Enck, p. 7.
9
Enck, p. 8.
*8Ren§ Descartes, Discourse on Method, trans. Arthur Wollaston, ed.
E. V. Rieu (Baltimore: Penguin Classics, 1960), p. 7. Page numbers in
the text refer to this edition.
1 1
Descartes, p. 7.
12
The Age of Reason: The 17th Century Philosophers, ed. Stuart
Hampshire (New York: N ew American Library, 1958), p p .58-69.
13
Quoted in Hampshire, p. 75.
14
In Sartre Hazel Barnes notes that even Sartre w as m u ch influenced
by "Cartesian rationalism": "the Cartesian cogito as lucid, reasoning
consciousness is omnipresent in Being and Nothingness and is perhaps
the primary influence in keeping Sartre the most rational of all
existentialists." (pp. 14, 15)
15
H um e: Selections, p. 180.
16
Hampshire, p. 66.
17
Quoted in Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (New York: Sim on
and Schuster, 1961), p. 206.
18
C. E. M . Joad, Guide to Philosophy (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.,
1936), p. 389.
207
19
Kant: Selections, ed. Theodore M . Greene (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1957), p. 302.
20
Durant, p. 10.
21
Page numbers in the text refer to the Paris, 1965 edition cited
aarl ie r.
22
La Transcendance de L'Ego, p. 25.
23
Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego, p. 25.
24
Barnes, p. 64.
25
Barnes, p. 149.
The End of the Road, p. 2.
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201
"Barth Defended," Commentary, 43 (January 1967), 16, 20.
Beagle, Peter S. "John Barth: Long Reach, Near Miss." Holiday, 40
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Bradbury, John M . "Absurd Insurrection: The Barth-Percy A ffair."
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"Briefly Noted." The N ew Yorker, 30 September 1972, p. 125.
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Byrd, Scott. "Giles Goat-Bo.y Visited." Critique, 9, No. 1 (1966),
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Donoghue, Denis. "Grand Old Opry." The N ew York Review of Books, 18
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Enck, John L. "John Barth: A n Interview." Wisconsin Studies in
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"Existentialist Comedian." Time, 89 (17 March 1967), p. 109.
Fiedler, Leslie A. "Cross the Border, Close the Gap." Playboy, 16
(December 1969), 151, 230, 252-254, 256-258.
________. The Return of the Vanishing American. N e w York: Stein and
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210
Gado, Frank, ed. First Person: Conversations on Writers and Writing.
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Garis, Robert. "What Happened to John Barth?" Commentary, 42
(October 1966), 89-90, 92, 94-95.
Graff, Gerald E. "Mythotherapy and Modern Poetics." Tri-Quarterly, 11
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Creator Aklonis, Judith Livingston (author)

Core Title "A broken bundle of mirrors": Identity in the work of John Barth

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Comparative Literature

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag literature, American,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor [illegible] (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-734771

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Legacy Identifier DP22531.pdf

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Document Type Dissertation

Rights Aklonis, Judith Livingston

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