Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony (1977) utilizes an apocalyptic tale as its narrative core. Thi... more Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony (1977) utilizes an apocalyptic tale as its narrative core. This apocalyptic narrative flies in the face of many of the conventions set forth by other Judaic, Christian, Islamic, and even Native American eschatological narratives. Indeed, Ceremony 's apocalypse is not a discrete, well-defined event, but an ongoing and potentially eternal cycle. As such, the apocalypse presented by Silko is not based in scheme of destruction and rebirth, but, rather, patterns of survival against an ever-encroaching, everpresent erasure of identity. It is an end time without an end, without culmination and, therefore, without a guaranteed salvation or denouement. In this way, Silko's Ceremony creates a bold new vision of apocalypse, one that finds its basis in Native American culture and experience but redefines what it might mean to experience an "end-time."
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Mar 22, 2009
While H. P. Lovecraft's work is populated by monsters and aliens, creatures from far-flung di... more While H. P. Lovecraft's work is populated by monsters and aliens, creatures from far-flung dimensions, and undying beasts older than the universe itself, it is also inhabited by humans--fragile, ignorant, frightened individuals who can only loosely be defined as "protagonists." These individuals have no hope for survival in the face of the cosmic terrors that confront them; they are far weaker and much less intelligent than the creatures that invade their lives. Humans are little more than ants, struggling to build pointless hills of civilization in an uncaring and vast wilderness. That Lovecraft had no illusions of humanity's supremacy in the universe is well established. (1) His fiction perpetually reiterates the idea that Donald Burleson, in his essay "On Lovecraft's Themes: Touching the Glass," refers to as "denied primacy"--the concept that, "as human beings on this planet, we were not first, will not be last, and have never been foremost" (136). Humankind, outmatched by myriad alien forces and holding no special place in the grand scheme of existence, may appear impotent to defend itself against ever-impending doom and disaster. This is not entirely the case. Lovecraft's stories, in particular "He" and "The Shadow Out of Time," exhibit a unique utilization of temporality, one which allows humans to hide behind the walls of the present and shield themselves from the horrific entities lurking just out of reach in the past and the future. Indeed, within these stories, and perhaps throughout all Lovecraft's work, the very dimension of time is an entirely psychological human construct, developed by humans, for humans, as a defense mechanism against a hostile, uncaring, ever-encroaching universe. Lovecraft's "He" follows an unnamed narrator into a world of armchair time-travel, in which the curtains that separate past from present and present from future are, literally, torn away. The story begins innocuously enough, with its narrator wandering New York City alleyways at night to avoid the throng of humanity and the despoliation of peace by technological progress. As he walks, he witnesses buildings lose their polished modernity to the deepening shadows and remarks that "darkness calls forth what little of the past still hovers wraithlike about" (214). Such sentiment is more than mere metaphorical musing on the past's causal influence upon the present. Indeed, the statement has its basis in the concrete, physical substance of reality, as becomes evident when, during his nocturnal stroll, the narrator meets the titular "He," a mysterious, antiquated gentleman who reveals to the narrator that he can exercise "some very remarkable qualities [of will] [...] over every variety of force and substance in nature" (217). The strange, wizened man can, through an act of mental force, summon portals to the past and the future. Via a window in his ancient manse, he shows the narrator pastoral scenes of New York City prior to industrialization and settlement and horrifies the narrator with a vision of the future, in which the narrator explains that "I saw the heavens verminous with strange flying things, and beneath them a hellish black city of giant stone terraces and impious pyramids flung savagely to the moon" (219). In bridging the present to the past and the future, the old man employs only his psyche, a fact which differentiates him from nearly every other individual in Lovecraft's work who accomplishes feats of the miraculous or the horrific. The Lovecraftian norm would be a rending of space-time through scientific devices or arcane rituals. (2) The old man's sole reliance on cerebral acuity implies that time is an extremely malleable force and is subject to manipulation by something as relatively insignificant as the human mind. Such an idea appears to run counter to Lovecraft's usual conception of the universe as what Steven Mariconda calls "a well-oiled Newtonian machine [...] governed by a fixed and only partially knowable set of laws" (188). …
... Within Lolita, traditional vampire imagery appears time and again, urging the reader to evalu... more ... Within Lolita, traditional vampire imagery appears time and again, urging the reader to evaluate the text as, at very least, something of a Gothic narrative. At one point, Humbert notes that Lolita has a 'purplish spot on her naked neck where a fairytale vampire had feasted' (139). ...
Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy ... DESTRUCTION IN SEARCH OF HOPE: BAUDRILLARD, SIMULA... more Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy ... DESTRUCTION IN SEARCH OF HOPE: BAUDRILLARD, SIMULATION, ... Chuck Palahniuk's Choke is a text that perfectly constructs a world of simulation ... I. MISSING REALITY, JEAN BAUDRILLARD, AND AN ...
The image of "vampire" as fanged, undead, bloodsucking monster has long been a staple of myth, li... more The image of "vampire" as fanged, undead, bloodsucking monster has long been a staple of myth, literature, and popular culture. From the incubi and succubi of ancient lore to Bram Stoker's Count Dracula and Anne Rice's Lestat, traditional vampires have been represented as supernatural entities with physical and mental abilities far exceeding those of average humans.
Diesis publishes essays that explore authorial, literary, and socio-political identities across t... more Diesis publishes essays that explore authorial, literary, and socio-political identities across time, space, and genre.
Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony (1977) utilizes an apocalyptic tale as its narrative core. Thi... more Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony (1977) utilizes an apocalyptic tale as its narrative core. This apocalyptic narrative flies in the face of many of the conventions set forth by other Judaic, Christian, Islamic, and even Native American eschatological narratives. Indeed, Ceremony 's apocalypse is not a discrete, well-defined event, but an ongoing and potentially eternal cycle. As such, the apocalypse presented by Silko is not based in scheme of destruction and rebirth, but, rather, patterns of survival against an ever-encroaching, everpresent erasure of identity. It is an end time without an end, without culmination and, therefore, without a guaranteed salvation or denouement. In this way, Silko's Ceremony creates a bold new vision of apocalypse, one that finds its basis in Native American culture and experience but redefines what it might mean to experience an "end-time."
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Mar 22, 2009
While H. P. Lovecraft's work is populated by monsters and aliens, creatures from far-flung di... more While H. P. Lovecraft's work is populated by monsters and aliens, creatures from far-flung dimensions, and undying beasts older than the universe itself, it is also inhabited by humans--fragile, ignorant, frightened individuals who can only loosely be defined as "protagonists." These individuals have no hope for survival in the face of the cosmic terrors that confront them; they are far weaker and much less intelligent than the creatures that invade their lives. Humans are little more than ants, struggling to build pointless hills of civilization in an uncaring and vast wilderness. That Lovecraft had no illusions of humanity's supremacy in the universe is well established. (1) His fiction perpetually reiterates the idea that Donald Burleson, in his essay "On Lovecraft's Themes: Touching the Glass," refers to as "denied primacy"--the concept that, "as human beings on this planet, we were not first, will not be last, and have never been foremost" (136). Humankind, outmatched by myriad alien forces and holding no special place in the grand scheme of existence, may appear impotent to defend itself against ever-impending doom and disaster. This is not entirely the case. Lovecraft's stories, in particular "He" and "The Shadow Out of Time," exhibit a unique utilization of temporality, one which allows humans to hide behind the walls of the present and shield themselves from the horrific entities lurking just out of reach in the past and the future. Indeed, within these stories, and perhaps throughout all Lovecraft's work, the very dimension of time is an entirely psychological human construct, developed by humans, for humans, as a defense mechanism against a hostile, uncaring, ever-encroaching universe. Lovecraft's "He" follows an unnamed narrator into a world of armchair time-travel, in which the curtains that separate past from present and present from future are, literally, torn away. The story begins innocuously enough, with its narrator wandering New York City alleyways at night to avoid the throng of humanity and the despoliation of peace by technological progress. As he walks, he witnesses buildings lose their polished modernity to the deepening shadows and remarks that "darkness calls forth what little of the past still hovers wraithlike about" (214). Such sentiment is more than mere metaphorical musing on the past's causal influence upon the present. Indeed, the statement has its basis in the concrete, physical substance of reality, as becomes evident when, during his nocturnal stroll, the narrator meets the titular "He," a mysterious, antiquated gentleman who reveals to the narrator that he can exercise "some very remarkable qualities [of will] [...] over every variety of force and substance in nature" (217). The strange, wizened man can, through an act of mental force, summon portals to the past and the future. Via a window in his ancient manse, he shows the narrator pastoral scenes of New York City prior to industrialization and settlement and horrifies the narrator with a vision of the future, in which the narrator explains that "I saw the heavens verminous with strange flying things, and beneath them a hellish black city of giant stone terraces and impious pyramids flung savagely to the moon" (219). In bridging the present to the past and the future, the old man employs only his psyche, a fact which differentiates him from nearly every other individual in Lovecraft's work who accomplishes feats of the miraculous or the horrific. The Lovecraftian norm would be a rending of space-time through scientific devices or arcane rituals. (2) The old man's sole reliance on cerebral acuity implies that time is an extremely malleable force and is subject to manipulation by something as relatively insignificant as the human mind. Such an idea appears to run counter to Lovecraft's usual conception of the universe as what Steven Mariconda calls "a well-oiled Newtonian machine [...] governed by a fixed and only partially knowable set of laws" (188). …
... Within Lolita, traditional vampire imagery appears time and again, urging the reader to evalu... more ... Within Lolita, traditional vampire imagery appears time and again, urging the reader to evaluate the text as, at very least, something of a Gothic narrative. At one point, Humbert notes that Lolita has a 'purplish spot on her naked neck where a fairytale vampire had feasted' (139). ...
Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy ... DESTRUCTION IN SEARCH OF HOPE: BAUDRILLARD, SIMULA... more Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy ... DESTRUCTION IN SEARCH OF HOPE: BAUDRILLARD, SIMULATION, ... Chuck Palahniuk's Choke is a text that perfectly constructs a world of simulation ... I. MISSING REALITY, JEAN BAUDRILLARD, AND AN ...
The image of "vampire" as fanged, undead, bloodsucking monster has long been a staple of myth, li... more The image of "vampire" as fanged, undead, bloodsucking monster has long been a staple of myth, literature, and popular culture. From the incubi and succubi of ancient lore to Bram Stoker's Count Dracula and Anne Rice's Lestat, traditional vampires have been represented as supernatural entities with physical and mental abilities far exceeding those of average humans.
Diesis publishes essays that explore authorial, literary, and socio-political identities across t... more Diesis publishes essays that explore authorial, literary, and socio-political identities across time, space, and genre.
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