Investigating the Death of the Author in Paul Auster's City of Glass

Cab Calloway, public domain on Wikimedia Commons

by Eileen Chen

While many critics of Toni Morrison’s novel Jazz choose to focus on her use of the music form’s distinct structure in the narrative voice, jazz music itself also plays a vital thematic role in the story. By incorporating motifs of jazz into her Harlem-based narrative, Morrison urges readers to draw comparisons between jazz music and the decadent yearnings of her characters, as well as notice the City’s influence over these seemingly personal drives through the intimate connection jazz has to it. In parallel with the temptation-filled City, the motif of jazz alludes to the danger of indulging in desires, but simultaneously suggests that embracing and recognizing, rather than avoiding, that indulgence is what finally allows the possibility of reconciliation.

In justifying why she chose the title “Jazz” for the novel, Morrison explains: “[Jazz] has implications of sex, violence, and chaos, all of which I wanted in the book” (Carolyn, Toni Morrison: Conversations, 94). Indeed, the genre of jazz is marked by elusive chromatic scales and enigmatic, often dissonant chords, creating a charm unique to its anarchism. In addition, each piece tends to showcase a variety of solos by different instruments, enriching the performance by featuring a dizzying array of styles through each player’s improvisation. In the novel, jazz is easily associated with Harlem’s frenzied and promiscuous everyday scenes. The narrator, when introducing the City, bunches the sound of “clarinets” with “lovemaking, fists and the voices of sorrowful women” as “blasé thing[s]” taking place in shadows (Morrison, Jazz, 7). Jazz complements and normalizes all the private, stimulating elements in the lives of individuals of the city, associating itself naturally with passion, violence, and grief from the moment it is introduced. More directly, Morrison allows one of her central characters, Dorcas, to engage with the concept of jazz in her licentious fantasies. Even under her aunt’s careful protection, Dorcas is “happy knowing that there [is] no place to be where somewhere, close by, somebody [is] not licking his licorice stick, tickling the ivories, beating his skins, blowing off his horn while a knowing woman s[ings] ain’t nobody going to keep me down” (Morrison 60). Through Dorcas, elements of jazz are fused with sexual connotations through word choices such as “licking” and “tickling”, emphasizing jazz’s importance as a token of alluring decadence.

Despite how personal an individual’s desires may seem, the strictly structured form of jazz – a motif interwoven with the City’s presence – makes it a fitting symbol for the City’s subtle control. Almost all mentions of jazz in the novel are of street music, and most instances are a part of the narrator’s in-depth descriptions of the City. Moreover, while often creating a sense of languor, jazz music conforms to precisely calculated tempo and syncopation. The infamous swinging beat, for example, must meet the specific criteria of being “divided into two parts,…the former part…longer and more accented than the latter,” with the relationship of durations being “67:33” (Music Theory – Swing). Similarly, when commenting on how Joe “thinks he is free” (Morrison 120) to develop an extra-marital affair, the narrator claims that “you can’t get off the track a City lays for you” (Morrison 120). Very soon, Joe becomes enslaved to his obsession  with Dorcas, leading him to shoot her and bring upon more suffering for himself, making him another example of the City’s everyday “Black and bluesman” (Morrison 119) with his grief. The use of a record’s “track” as a metaphor further heightens the similarity between the City’s control and jazz as a systematic art. In addition, while allowing lengthy improvised solos, a jazz piece always adheres to a central theme. With the City representing the central theme and the characters the solo improvisations and melody variations, the narrator’s comment on Joe’s inability to escape becomes even more compelling.

However, the City does not simply constrain; its pervasiveness stems from the indulgent pleasures with which  it provides the characters, which is well represented by the sensuality of jazz. When describing the effect of the City on Black immigrants from the South, the narrator declares that people end up loving “[their stronger, riskier selves] so much they forget what loving other people was like” (Morrison 33), with only a thrilling “desire” (Morrison 34) for others lurking everywhere. What turns Joe into a “bluesman” is his addiction to the pleasure he gets out of his relationship with Dorcas, which causes him to succumb to the extreme of “[shooting] her to keep the feeling going” (Morrison 3). Alice Manfred, Dorcas’ cynical aunt, labels jazz as “dirty, get-on-down music the women s[ing] and the men [play] and both [dance] to” (Morrison 58), and attributes promiscuity and racial violence directly to it. Through Alice, the notion of jazz changes from a symbolic presence into a literal source of wrongdoing, amplifying its arousing effects. Playing out Alice’s worst fears, her niece falls prey to “a City seeping music that beg[s] and challenge[s] each and every day” (Morrison 67). Even Dorcas’ death is heavily connected to jazz, with piano-playing and the singing of a song for which she “know[s] the words by heart” (Morrison 193) accompanying the scene. Her preoccupation with music and others’ activities, as well as her reminiscing  even on her deathbed about her power status “in [Malvonne’s] room” (Morrison 193)  are evidence of her deeply delusional compulsion for pleasure and attention. Both her admission into Harlem’s “life-below-the-sash” (Morrison 60) and departure from it through death are marked by jazz, signifying the completeness of the City’s influence.

Still, even with jazz’s link to senseless indulgence, Morrison’s treatment of silence as being sickly in contrast with jazz’s boisterousness makes the lack of music an even greater concern in the novel. As Joe and Violet’s relationship experiences degradation, the narrator uses the phrase “poisoned silence” (Morrison 5) to describe their distance. If music in the novel represents desire, then the obstacle of silence between Joe and Violet is not just an absence of communication, but a lack of mutual desire, or at least a wariness towards acknowledging it. Both preoccupy themselves over the dead Dorcas instead, Joe from an inability to move on and Violet out of spite and ambition. On the level of individual characters, silence reflects a suppression of self-identity. In explaining Violet’s fall into silence, the voice that appears to be Violet’s realizes: “I got quiet because I didn’t know what my hands might get up to….The business going on inside me I thought was none of my business and…going crazy would make me lose [Joe]” (Morrison 97). Her silence is a result of her fear of submitting to a more active, desiring self, but serves only to increase internal discord to the point of splitting personalities, not to mention drawing Joe apart from her. Even Alice Manfred, the proposer of the idea that street music brings harm to the common good, is deeply troubled by internal tumult born within silence. In the midst of enjoying rare moments of silence in bed, “a melody line she doesn’t remember where from sings itself, loud and unsolicited, in her head…,hard to dismiss because underneath…are the drums that put Fifth Avenue into focus” (Morrison 60). If jazz is as influential as Alice claims, not even she can deny the positive ties between it and the social movement that consoled her from her anxiety and loss of family. Her love-hate relationship with jazz music and the Black community that shaped it is fundamentally messy. Jazz, in representing inner desires, represents her various suppressed emotions, such as her shocking appetite for “blood” (Morrison 86) in the form of revenge from a cheating spouse. Moreover, it is symbolic of African American pride, with the 1920s Harlem Renaissance signifying the merging of “Black culture and ‘high art’” (Harlem Renaissance and American Music). Her blaming of racial violence on Black jazz reflects a deep self-consciousness of her own culture – a result of the racist attitude of her time. The fact that her accusations against it come from “sermons and editorials” that condemn it for being “just colored folks’ stuff” (Morrison 59) makes Alice’s avoidance of jazz even more self-abhorring than justifiable, combined with her contrived denouncement of her own emotions.

As the plot of the novel unfolds in a drastically different way than envisioned by the narrator, the importance of confronting and overcoming one’s subdued urges for the sake of reconciliation emerges as a new theme, not without the aid of the motif of jazz. The reconciliation of Joe and Violet occurs after Felice’s emotional confession about Dorcas’ death, encouraging Joe to “stop carrying on [fixating over Dorcas’ death]” (Morrison 207) and activating the process of bonding through music and dancing among the three. Similarly, Violet resolves her own internal dissonance by allowing herself to identify with her frightening alternate ego and realizing that “that Violet is [her]” (Morrison 96) through the revisiting of emotionally-charged memories. Even Dorcas’ death is romantic at the very least with the accompanying jazz music to represent her search for an identity in her fervent desires, despite her ultimate surrendering of control to appeasing others and allowing injustice to be done to her. Towards the end, the narrator is alarmed at being wrong about “the past [being] an abused record with no choice but to repeat itself at the crack…” (Morrison 220). The story the characters compose is no broken record, but something that more greatly resembles a piece of live jazz, inventive and dynamic. The City’s influence over the characters is still valid; the characters have merely become far more conscious and committed in their pursuit of feelings, allowing them to evolve in a way the distanced narrator cannot. Jazz and desire themselves are not dangerous like Alice or the narrator believe. Violet and Joe do not kill each other as a matter of course; like jazz, each piece of sound does not play for the sake of outdoing each other or conforming to a theme, but to daringly express and engage with one another to synthesize music that is truly “original, complicated, [and] changeable” (Morrison 220).

While undeniably associated with the act of submitting oneself to desires at the discretion of external sources such as the City, jazz under Morrison’s pen is indivisible from the emotional urges that form an integral part of one’s identity. By addressing and integrating these emotions as a jazz player nourishes their music, one not only achieves an identity, but develops the power to extend their impact to both affect and harmonize with their surroundings. After all, as Violet says near the end: “What’s the world for if you can’t make it up the way you want it?” (Morrison 208)

Works Cited

Morrison, Toni. Jazz. London: Pan Books, 1993. Print.

Morrison, Toni, and Carolyn C. Denard. Toni Morrison: conversations. Jackson: U Press of Mississippi, 2008. Print.

OY/ML, Medusaworks. “Music Theory – Swing.” Sibelius Academy, n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2017.

Bertini fresco of Galileo & Doge of Venice, public domain on Wikimedia Commons

By Archie Stapleton

May 2017

Creating a binary between looking inward and outward when thinking about philosophy is obfuscatory, particularly when dealing with the works of Galileo and Plato. Galileo literally gazes at the sun until he is blind, while Plato looks into his mind at a metaphorical sun, revealing the primary distinction between them in their search for epistemic and metaphysical truth. For Plato and Galilei, in the realm of epistemology, the distinction between inward and outward is evident, while in the metaphysical arguments the lines are blurred beyond recognition. Galileo looks consistently outwards to determine both epistemological and metaphysical truths, while Plato — who looks inward for his epistemology — looks in both directions for his metaphysics.

An analysis of the sun in Plato and Galileo’s work reveals the fundamental opposition in the metaphysical and epistemic logic of the two men. Plato presents the sun as a metaphor for absolute truth, referred to as “the good” (211): “in the knowable realm, the last thing to be seen is the form of the good [the sun] and it is seen only with toil and trouble” (211). The sun casts shadows which humans see in the visible realm, which, for Plato, are merely imitations of true forms. We must make an “upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm” (211) to truly understand “the good” which the sun symbolizes. For Galileo, the sun itself — in its physical form — is the epitome of true reality in a non-metaphorical sense. Of the sun, he tells us that, “as the chief minister of Nature and in a certain sense the heart and soul of the universe, [it] infuses by its own rotation not only light but also motion into other bodies which surround it” (Galileo 4). Galileo uses his perception of the Sun to make observations that justifies his heliocentric ethos in The Starry Messenger:

[N]ow we have not just one planet rotating about another while both run through a great orbit around the sun; our own eyes show us four stars which wander around Jupiter as does the moon around the earth, while all together trace out a grand revolution about the sun in the space of twelve years. (15)

For Galileo the shadows cast by the sun allow him to make claims regarding the relief of the mountainous landscape on the moon, as well as proving that the earth revolves around the sun; for Plato these shadows are merely indicative of the epistemic uncertainty we should feel in the realm of the visible. Plato tries to see the absolute truth (the sun) through logic, or inward reflection, while Galileo literally stares at the sun and the shadows it casts, thus looking outward for his epistemic truth.

Galileo gathers understanding of the world through sensory experience as opposed to the Platonic method of dialectic. The former attests the necessity of observation in a search for epistemic certainty. In describing the moon in The Starry Messenger, Galileo makes the claim for empiricism, arguing that “the things I have seen … enabled [me] to draw this conclusion … as follows” (5). His conclusions are predicated on descriptions of the visions he sees through the spyglass. Plato firmly denies this scientific method as a means to reach truth, instead relying on a conversational “dialectic”, calling on internal logic. Plato criticizes the mathematicians who use physical representation to determine exact truths, claiming that “they now in turn use as images in seeking to see those other things themselves that one cannot see except by means of thought. (206). His view that knowledge can be derived from within oneself, rather than relying on experience, is epitomized by his conversation with Meno’s slave. He evokes basic geometric truths from the uneducated slave boy, then reflects with Meno:

Meno: Yes, Socrates; but what do you mean by saying that we do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection? Can you teach me how this is?

Socrates: I am saying that there is no teaching, but only recollection […] Now, has any one ever taught him all this?

Meno: … I am certain no one ever did teach him.

Socrates: And yet he has the knowledge?

Meno: The fact, Socrates, is undeniable (Plato, 27)

The scientific method, as held by Galileo, would reject this conclusion that knowledge is a priori[1], which is evidenced by an espousal of Copernicus’ methods to Madame Christina. Galileo claims that Copernicus “stands always upon physical conclusions pertaining to the celestial motions, and deals with them by astronomical and geometrical demonstrations, founded primarily upon sense experiences and very exact observations” (5). Galileo is so convinced of his a posteriori position that he calls on the Church’s officials to alter their interpretation of scripture so as to fit physical perceptions of the world: “it appears that nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes … ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words” (8). His argument is epitomized by the claim “I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them” (9). Therein lies the fundamental opposition in the epistemological philosophy of the two men; one relies on senses, the other on logic. The method to reach truth is distinguished along the inward and outward binary.

In the realm of metaphysics, or the study of reality, the inward/outward distinction is blurred. Plato looks inward (using logic) and sees truth which has physical existence outside of our own mind, in the realm of the forms. Galileo undermines the neoplatonist tradition of the Catholic Church, thus making him the antithesis to Plato, or at least to the iterations of Platonist arguments in the early 17th century. In The Republic, Plato argues with Glaucon that a true philosopher will not simply look at beautiful things, but with thought will approach “beauty itself” (169). He claims that “the lovers of listening and seeing […] [are] unable to see the nature of the beautiful “itself”, while “on the other hand, won’t those who are able to approach the beauty itself, and see it by itself, be rare?” (169). This rhetorical questioning reveals what Plato sees as metaphysical truth; there are the things we see (beautiful sights and sounds), then there is another realm where “the beautiful itself” (169) exists. We cannot sense it, and instead is available only to those who can reason their way to an understanding of it, or are “able to observe both it and the things that participate in it, and does not think that the participants are it, or that it is the participants” (169-170).

This understanding of forms is applied by Christian theologians to God, who is seen as the true and fundamental reality, ontologically preceding the existence of our physical world. This adoption of near Platonic metaphysics is referred to as neoplatonism.  While Galileo never denies the existence of God, he does make claims which directly contrast with the metaphysics of the Church. His thesis of heliocentrism dominates this anti neoplatonist sentiment, espousing what he determined based on observation: “the sun, as the chief minister of Nature and in a certain sense the heart and soul of the universe, infuses by its own rotation not only light but also motion into other bodies which surround it” (6). The Earth no longer is the center of the universe, and thus the God who imbued us with all life seems to no longer preference our existence over the other planets. Furthermore, Galileo argues that there can be commensurability between science and The Church, which challenges the belief of the neoplatonist Christian thinkers who see their understanding of God as underlying every element of human knowledge. Of faith and science, Galileo says “I think that in discussions of physical problems we ought to begin not from the authority of scriptural passages but from sense experiences and necessary demonstrations. (4). Galileo looks outward, but in doing so impacts the metaphysics of the Church (and thus neoplatonic arguments), and challenges the inward looking, deductive arguments of his contemporaries.

To distinguish between inward and outward looking philosophies is often reductive and superfluous, but when analyzing the metaphysical and epistemic understandings of Plato and Galileo, it plays a legitimate role. For the sun to act as a metaphor for truth for Plato, yet for Galileo as a literal source of empirical knowledge about our world, there is a division along the inward and outward binary to determine truth. On the issue of metaphysics there is less clarity; Plato uses logic and internal processes, but ultimately realizes that absolute truth exists outside of human experience, forcing him to glean truth by looking out toward “the good” (211). Galileo’s impact on metaphysical understanding in the 17^th century forces the Church to self-reflect on its neoplatonic values, and argues that science should be preferred over biblical passages when a contradiction between the two occur. Looking inward, Plato found a version of truth, in looking out, Galileo found his own.

Works cited:

Galilei, Galileo. “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany.” 1615. MS. N.p

Galilei, Galileo. The Starry Messenger. Venice: U of Padua, 1610. Print.

Plato, C D. C. Reeve. Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co, 2004. Print.

Plato. Meno. N.p.: Cambridge U.P, 1961. Print.

[1] This conclusion is drawn from the two texts by Galileo as seen in the “Works cited” section of this paper, and does not purport to make a claim beyond what is revealed in those texts.

David Mazzucchelli, by Luigi Novi, licensed CC BY 3.0. (c) Luigi Novi/Wikimedia Commons

by Serena Huang

Paul Auster’s novel, City of Glass, fabricates a world in which appearances often fail to correspond to reality and the readers can be as confused and bewildered as the characters in the novel. To adapt City of Glass into a graphic novel, where images on every panel supplement a significantly-reduced amount of text, constitutes a considerable challenge. In Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli’s graphic novel retelling of the story, the plot, characters, and setting essentially remain the same as in the original text version, but the approach used to describe the protagonist, Quinn, and his attempts to solve a case differs noticeably due to the additional range of storytelling tools that the graphic novel provides. This essay examines the ways in which the graphic novel is either more effective or less effective in its message compared to the original text, as well as the specific features, such as the usage of panels, perspectives, and visual detail, which contribute to differences between the texts.

One of the most pivotal scenes in the story occurs in the Grand Central Station in New York City, as the events of this scene determine much of the course of the remainder of the novel. It is interesting to note that while the original text is approximately two hundred pages long and the graphic novel adaptation is a little over half its length, both versions devote around ten pages to this scene, which suggests that the adaptation cannot always omit or condense details from an original text. In the beginning of the scene, the author of the original, written text introduces the train station in which Quinn finds himself. Although the graphic novel adaptation does so as well with an abundant amount of visual detail in its long, horizontal panels, the first page only includes two captions’ worth of text, which leaves the reader to infer the remainder of the details from the images alone. For example, the text directly reveals to the reader that “[Quinn] saw by the clock that it was just past four” (Auster, page 81). In the adaption, however, a careful reader must pay attention to the visual detail to locate the clock in the background, located halfway in between Quinn and the border of the panel, on which the hour hand and minute hand indicate that it is approximately five minutes past four (Karasik, page 46). It can be easy to miss the clock, especially given that Quinn faces away from it in such a crowded panel, which implies that, on the whole, a graphic novel cannot lay out all the details as neatly and as clearly as the original text can.

As Quinn continues to move through Grand Central Station, the graphic novel provides an instance in which it is better equipped to convey the nuances and subtleties of the author’s message. In the original text, the reader learns of the effects on Quinn of taking the name of Paul Auster and the comfort and freedom which come with the illusion. The tone generally remains consistent throughout the passage of text, as if it is meant simply to convey the information to the reader. The graphic novel adaptation, however, adds a tangible sense of sudden drama, as within three panels, the point of view zooms in on Quinn to focus on his face (Karasik, page 47). As it is successively enlarged in the three panels, it shifts from his normal appearance to that of a determined, resolute, and fedora-wearing detective, drawn in solid black lines and surrounded by thick lines of emphasis which almost give the impression that a bright light emanates momentarily around him, in stark contrast to the dark backgrounds of the previous two panels. According to the thought bubble in the first panel, Quinn assumes the appearance of Paul Auster, but since the character of Paul Auster has not yet made an appearance in the story, neither Quinn nor the reader truly knows what Paul Auster looks like. Therefore, Quinn must choose another character with whom he is more familiar, and his appearance in the third panel bears a striking resemblance to Max Work, the narrator of Quinn’s own mystery novels, who is introduced in the beginning of the novel (Karasik, page 3). This sequence of panels implies that while Quinn wants to imagine himself as Paul Auster, he actually steps into the role of Max Work, as if living out one of his own detective stories.

In other parts of the Grand Central Station scene, however, the graphic novel adaptation cannot convey the wealth of detail present in the original novel, especially where it concerns the inner thoughts of the characters. When Quinn encounters the young woman reading the book that he wrote, the text reveals Quinn’s expectations for his encounter with one of his readers and describes how he wants to be “suavely diffident” and show “great reluctance and modesty” (Auster, page 85). When the bubble-gum-chewing reader does not live up to his expectations, however, Quinn reacts with indignation and annoyance and wants to “tear the book out of [the woman’s] hands and run across the station with it” (Auster, page 85). In the graphic novel adaptation, this encounter takes place over nine, uniform panels on a single page, which greatly reduces the amount of attention given to Quinn’s expectations and thoughts (Karasik, page 49). Quinn is portrayed as merely surprised in the first panel when he glimpses the cover of the book, and his inner desires, whether positive or negative, are inaccessible to the reader of the graphic novel. His expression in the last couple of panels is clearly frustrated or annoyed, but his downturned eyebrows and firmly-set mouth cannot show the level of precision present in the text as Quinn “[struggles] desperately to swallow his pride” and restrain the urge to “punch the girl in the face” (Auster, page 87).

Another way in which the graphic novel fails to convey the entire spectrum of details occurs as a result of the medium of the work. Notably, the adaptation by Karasik and Mazzucchelli is rendered in black-and-white, which means that it loses all the vivid colour described in the original text. A sea of passengers surges towards Quinn as he waits by the train, and Auster describes them as “men in brown and gray and blue and green, [and] women in red and white and yellow and pink” (Auster, page 88). In the graphic novel, all the colours are reduced to either black or white, leaving the reader with the task of determining which colour a passenger’s clothing is likely to be. Furthermore, the original text describes the sheer diversity of the passengers who come from every imaginable background, as if the crowd really is vast and limitless in its size, but in the graphic novel, the artists can only draw so many distinct figures due to the limitations of space on the physical page and the width of the pen strokes. In this way, the original text version has an advantage because of its ability to appeal to the reader’s imagination, whereas the graphic novel is restricted by the nature of its images, which insist that the graphic novel has to explicitly lay out the scene for the readers.

One panel in particular highlights the differences between the original text and the graphic novel adaptation, although it perhaps cannot even be considered a panel as it has no borders, almost as if to suggest that this scene’s importance to the story cannot be contained. Quinn finds himself conflicted between following either the first or second Stillman, who walk off in opposite directions, and the graphic novel artists convey the crucial decision that Quinn must make through the layout and perspective of the panel (Karasik, page 53). The only three figures present are the two Stillmans, who take up the majority of the space, as well as Quinn, standing stupefied in the background. By completely removing the rest of the background, the graphic novel artists draw the reader’s attention to the three characters alone, without any distractions present at all from the rest of the crowded train station — it is as if Quinn’s attention is so focused on the two walking Stillmans that the train station literally disappears. Furthermore, the use of perspective and the placement of the Stillmans directly in the foreground give the impression that the two Stillmans are on the verge of walking off the physical page, perhaps out of the book altogether, while Quinn is still stuck helplessly at the back of the page. The original text, on the other hand, cannot reproduce the effect of a disappearing background or a shift in perspective, and all it can tell the reader of Quinn’s struggles is that he craves the body of an amoeba so that he can pursue two different Stillmans in two different directions (Auster, page 90). In this way, the text lacks the richness and possibility of the graphic novel adaptation, as well as its ability to make such an important moment stand out for the reader.

Overall, as both text novels and graphic novels have their strengths and weaknesses, neither one nor the other is necessarily superior, but adapting a novel into a graphic novel results in the addition of emphasis to some areas as well as a decrease in details in other areas. Graphic novel artists have at their disposal the tools necessary for including a large number of details within the relatively-limited space of one panel or for adding drama and intensity to a particular scene. At the same time, graphic novels cannot include every meticulous detail which occurs in the original novel, and due to lack of space must omit many of the characters’ inner thoughts. Thus, the narrative which the graphic novel tells is not an exact copy of the original novel, but permits the reader to choose from two different approaches to the same story.

Bibliography

Auster, Paul (1987). City of Glass. New York, NY, U.S.A.: Penguin.

Karasik, Paul, David Mazzucchelli, and Paul Auster (2004). City of Glass. New York: Picador/Henry Holt.

Rorschach high-res test frame #2453, Flickr photo by Zeh Fernando, licensed CC BY_ND 2.0

by Naomi Girard

There are few things that are black-and-white in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel Watchmen. Instead, heroes and villains and the justification of violence blur together into one disheveled and messy humanity. The masked character Rorschach is a key example of this, despite his black-and-white attitude towards the world. Violent, ruthless and at times verging on the brink of sociopathic, it is not until his mask is stripped off that one can begin to make sense of this complex character and unpack his motives; yet even then, he remains an elusive figure. As a result, it is perhaps by seeing him in relation to other people that one can piece together a more accurate picture of him. Throughout the graphic novel, several women play influential roles in Rorschach’s life, each pushing him closer towards his crime fighter identity. Through the abandonment and abuse suffered at the hands of his mother, to the tragedies surrounding Kitty Genovese and a missing six-year-old girl, both victims of murder, Rorschach’s path to violence and heroism is twisted and often blurred. By examining the ways that all these women drive Rorschach towards violence and his desire to claim a new identity, it becomes clear that his obsession with fighting crime is his way of grieving over and coming to terms with the injustice he experienced as a child.

While Rorschach’s lack of a loving mother and moral guide leads him to create his own set of morals, the violence he experiences as a child and expresses as an adult suggests that he becomes more like his mother than he realizes. In an essay written at the age of eleven, Rorschach (then known as Walter Kovacs) writes, “I have two parents, although actually, I don’t have any” (6.31, Charlton Home Files). From a young age, he seems to be aware that he is on his own in the world, and never openly expresses the pain of abandonment, if he feels any at all. This almost nonchalant acceptance of his parents’ absence and even his mother’s death may be reflected in his ruthless approach to dealing with criminals. Having experienced first-hand the injustice of growing up with an abusive parent, the injustice he sees in the world and the consequences of people getting away with it cuts through him like a knife. Perhaps he simply sees everything as having a cost, and doesn’t care how far he has to go to ensure that people pay that cost. The violence that both Rorschach and his mother express may be in part due to the “structures of authority” that Timothy Dailey refers to in his article titled “Parental Power Breeds Violence Against Children” (314). The article explores the difference between violence in the home and violence in the workplace, explaining that “parents have essentially total authority with only very general guidelines for decisions. There are few limitations on the scope of their jurisdiction…” (Dailey 315). As a child, Rorschach was subjected to the complete authority of a mother who was unconcerned with raising her son, with no one to set moral examples for him. It is perhaps this lack of guidance that lead Rorschach to see the whole world as his “workplace”, a place where, in contrast to his home life, “most situations already have definitions established or rules made for handling them so that uncertainty tends to be minimized” (Dailey 315). He creates his own set of moral guidelines as a crime fighter, and consequently creates a world where everything is pushed to one side of morality. However, while his strict moral code reflects that of the workplace, one can see that the influence of his home life still lingers; after being controlled for so long by higher, abusive authorities, his violence in part stems from an intense longing for power and control that he never felt as a child. His abandonment as a child may also be reflected in the cases he is drawn to, along with the two women who play a crucial role in shaping his identity – people who were also abandoned, and who had no one to fight for them.

Acting as a catalyst for Kovacs’ decision to become Rorschach, the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese opens his eyes to the consequences of apathy and his calling as a crime fighter.

Almost forty neighbors heard screams. Nobody did anything. Nobody called cops. Some of them even watched. Do you understand? Some of them even watched. I knew what people were, then, behind all the evasions, all the self-deception. Ashamed for humanity, I went home. I took the remains of her dress…and made a face that I could bear to look in the mirror (10.7-9)

Kitty Genovese leads Rorschach to separate the world into two groups – those who will stand by as someone gets murdered, and those who are willing to fight for justice. He also chooses which side he is going to belong to. While his childhood may drive Rorschach away from himself, this experience appears to drive him away from others. “Ashamed for humanity,” he decides that retreating into himself is easier than attempting to fit into society’s mold. Kitty Genovese not only opens Rorschach’s eyes to the injustice of the world, but gives him an opportunity to truly escape from an identity he is ashamed of. The mask, made from the dress that she never picked up, remains an ever-present reminder of the tragedy that bystanders allowed to happen. Reminding Rorschach that solving problems through violence is better than apathy, the mask is his way of transforming into the kind of person he always wanted to be. The transformation is further revealed through the visual representations of Rorschach’s face during his sessions with Dr. Malcolm Long. In the panel immediately before he starts talking about Kitty Genovese, his hardened face seems to be split into two colours, the right side of his face almost resembling his Rorschach mask (6.9.4,7). Compare this with his face after recounting his childhood, where the expression is softer, almost hinting at his pain, and the contrast in colours is not nearly as apparent (6.5.2). One could see this distinction as signifying the physical and mental effect that becoming Rorschach has had on Kovacs and the internal conflicts he hides, an example of how “comic art is composed of several kinds of tension, in which various ways of reading—various interpretive options and potentialities—must be played against each other” (Hatfield 36). While one may gather from the text that Rorschach is driven to violence as a result of both Kitty and his mother, the visual aspect suggests that all these individual influences intertwine. When talking about his mother, the neutral colours of his face and his facial expression show how recalling his childhood pulls him back into the past, as if he reverts back to being Walter Kovacs. The contrasting image when talking about Kitty Genovese may signify Kovacs’ fierce desire to hold on to his Rorschach identity, even without his mask. Together, recalling those two experiences reminds him of why he became Rorschach – to escape from a place where he had no power, and to claim a new identity for himself.

While Kitty Genovese is the catalyst, the murder of a nameless six-year old girl is when Kovacs truly transforms into Rorschach, solidifying his impression of the world and the justification of violence. While Rorschach describes himself prior to this event as being “soft” and “naive” (6.14.4), his ruthless nature is born when he finds the owner’s dogs and slaughters them after realizing they are fighting over the little girl’s bones. As he has learned previously, everything has a cost that must be paid, and the ways he sees it, the dogs must pay that price, despite the fact that they are just following their animal nature. His decision may also be an expression of anger that he is too late to save the girl, once again being reminded of the meaningless suffering in the world. The role of dogs in this crucial moment refers back to a moment in Rorschach’s childhood, the first time he fights back and is referred to as a “mad dog” (6.7.7). Killing the dogs is arguably the final tie to his painful past that Rorschach severs himself from. Killing off his past self, he is finally free to reclaim his new identity without his previous identity trailing behind and haunting him. He describes himself as “reborn then, free to scrawl [his] own design on this morally blank world” (6.26.6). Although he sees a world full of meaningless pain, what drives Rorschach to fighting crime may be the same thing that drives all the characters in Watchmen to heroism – a search for meaning in a chaotic world and a desire to leave a mark. The tragic death of the girl makes him realize the importance of leaving a mark, for “it is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us” (6.26.5). Rorschach appears to make an unwavering decision about how he is going to see the world. To him, there exists a distinct split in society; it is a place where those with power and privilege take advantage of the vulnerable – people like Kitty Genovese, the six-year old girl, and his younger self. What remains ambiguous is whether he truly believes this, or if it is just an easier version of the world to accept than one where morality is not clearly definable. Without this clear definition, Rorschach cannot define himself.

As we witness Rorschach’s story unfold in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, it may be that Rorschach comes to regard his life as a crime fighter not as a choice, not even as a call to heroism, but instead as the only way he can live with himself. The female figures that enter his life, however brief, all play crucial roles in the way he chooses to live, with his mother driving him towards violence and Kitty Genovese and the little girl leading him to use that violence to fight injustice. While these women pull him in different directions, they ultimately lead him down the same path and towards the same realization:

The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever, and we are alone…live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves; go into oblivion. There is nothing else (6.36.2-3).

And that, perhaps, is the question that Rorschach forces us to ask ourselves – whether or not he’s right.

Works Cited

Dailey, Timothy B. “Parental Power Breeds Violence Against Children”. Sociological Focus 12.4 (1979): 311–322. JSTOR. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.

Hatfield, Charles. Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 2005. Project MUSE. Web. 24 Mar. 2016

Moore, Alan, and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen. Burbank: DC Comics, 1986. Print.

Fashion photo by Erik Liljeroth, from the Nordiska Museet, on Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0

by Alexis Gervacio

“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly” (Mulvey 11). This quote from Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema”, outlines her thoughts on classical Hollywood cinema, wherein woman is projected as image, and man is projected as the bearer of the look. Utilizing Hitchcock’s renowned film, Vertigo, as a specific example, she analyzes the the sexist, voyeuristic, and fetishistic representation of the character Judy, and Judy as Madeleine. What about the film’s alternative female character, Midge, however? Bespectacled, bold, and slightly boyish, Midge Wood does not easily fit into Mulvey’s analysis – she does not possess the “strong visual and erotic impact” characteristic of female characters (11). As such, this investigation will attempt to not only explain how Midge confounds the norm, but also why  she is so different from the typical damsel-in-distress.

Despite the fact that Midge and Scottie were once engaged, the depiction of Midge in Vertigo, is hardly reminiscent of a potential love interest. There is no true element of romance in their interactions, and it appears instead that Midge takes on two different personae: that of a man, and that of a mother. Firstly, regarding Midge’s wardrobe, the shapelessness and baggy nature of her clothing denotes a manliness that is especially exaggerated when juxtaposed with Judy’s feminine outfits. Decked in round, thick-rimmed glasses, lengthy, dark skirts, and long-sleeved cardigans with masculine collars, Midge seems to care very little about her appearance – an ironic situation since she, herself, is a professional undergarment designer. Midge dresses modestly, keeping the same hairstyle all throughout the film, and even denies Scottie’s suggestion for her to wear a hat when she goes outside, saying instead that she “[does not] need it” (Vertigo). These simple, and loose-fitting costumes and make-up display Midge’s character as less feminine, and in comparison to Judy’s tailored outfits which exhibit her feminine curves, Midge can almost appear manly. Her physical appearance certainly never attracts the male attention of Scottie, and in this regard, Midge does not align with Mulvey’s argument of female characters as an erotic spectacle, fetishized by the male gaze in film.

Another manlike characteristic to Midge is the fact she has a job and is financially independent. Although her “first love” (Vertigo) is painting, Midge is practical, and has managed to prosaically profit from her passion, designing undergarments for commercial sales. She does not need to marry a man in order to provide for herself, and this fiscal independence has masculine connotations in itself. In addition to this, numerous times throughout the film, Midge actually works while speaking to Scottie, multi-tasking, and not giving Scottie her full attention. Figure 1 [not included here due to copyright] displays Midge seated at her work desk, similar to how Gavin speaks to Scottie from his own mahogany desk. Midge does not simply focus on Scottie, and her life and actions exist outside of his presence.

Furthermore, Midge does not speak like a “typical” female, either. Sassy, and abrasive, she is not afraid to challenge Scottie, one particular example being when Scottie abruptly enters her apartment and she replies: “Now, that’s the kind of greeting a girl likes. None of this ‘hello you look wonderful’ stuff. Just a good straight ‘who do you know’ –” (Vertigo). She even makes physical threats like “you’ll tell, or you’ll be back in that corset! Come on!” (Vertigo). The corset, being the cast that Scottie is put in after his initial injury, is a specific symbol of the gender role reversal between Scottie and Midge. Historically used to reinforce an hour-glass figure in women, the garment has clear connotations of femininity – an association of which Scottie is aware when he self-consciously asks: “Midge, do you suppose many men wear corsets?” (Vertigo). This situation of Scottie wearing a corset, and Midge threatening to put him back in one through injury, displays the role reversal in their relationship.

This reversal can further be seen when Midge catches Scottie, after he once again faints from his acrophobia. Like Prince Charming saving a troubled princess, Midge catches a faint-hearted Scottie, and as seen in Figure 2 [not included due to copyright], Midge takes a dominant position in the frame as she places a comforting hand on Scottie’s back. Despite an obvious height difference, Scottie is in a lower position, demonstrating his dependence on Midge in this particular scene. Dependence, especially in the context of mainstream Hollywood cinema, is an attribute very commonly connoted with females, and by literally and metaphorically leaning on Midge, Scottie’s vulnerability, weakness, and lack of manliness are visually apparent. Consequently, Midge’s strength, independence, and manliness are displayed. Further analyzing this relationship, the embrace can most effectively be compared to the hug between Scottie and Judy, also shown in Figure 2. In standard Hollywood fashion, Scottie, as the male, takes the physically higher position, while Judy, as the female, leans her weight on Scottie, and even cuddles into his neck. While Scottie takes this masculine position with Judy and Madeleine, his relationship with Midge is more unconventional as he succumbs to his own weaknesses, and Midge adopts the masculine role.

For Midge, masculinity can also be seen in her agency and her demonstration of aggression. Her power and control over her own actions, and the fact that numerous times throughout Vertigo, it is she that calls Scottie, it is she that suggests a date, and it is her apartment that Scottie goes to (all my italics), all indicate her dominance in the relationship. Generally, she initiates the events between them, and it is even Midge who ended their engagement, not Scottie (Vertigo). All of these events are of her own choice and will, exhibiting an agency that Scottie himself does not possess. Her aggression can also be plainly seen when Midge wrecks her own portrait, and throws the paintbrush at a window, before violently pulling at her own hair, and exclaiming “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” (Vertigo). This intense display of aggression further connects Midge’s persona to that of a man, spurning Mulvey’s impression of females solely as an image in cinema.

As for Midge’s motherly persona, the characters themselves overtly express this relation. For example, when Midge worriedly suggests that Scottie should “go away for a while” (Vertigo) following his initial acrophobic incident, Scottie rejects the advice, saying, “Don’t be so motherly, Midge” (Vertigo). In addition to this, Midge refers to herself as Scottie’s mother when she is comforting him in the sanatorium, pleading, “Ah, Johnny, please try. Johnny, try! You’re not lost. Mother’s here” (Vertigo). In this scene, Midge proceeds to lean down and kiss him lightly on his forehead, an affectionate gesture that adds to their mother-son dynamic. These verbal admissions of Midge’s maternal actions and concerns for Scottie extinguish any possible romantic undertones, despite the fact that a romantic partner might be just as concerned as a mother figure. In addition, Midge’s advice and concern is almost always one-sided and unreciprocated. While Midge is proactive in her attempts to find solutions to Scottie’s momentous troubles, Scottie never really helps her in any significant way, much like how children are never aware of any problems that their parents may have or endure.

Moreover, like a mother, there is no sexualisation to Midge’s character even when brassieres are quite literally out in the open. Conventionally one of the most sensual and feminine garments, it only elicits curiosity, and not arousal from the protagonist, Scottie. When he asks after the “do-hickey” (Vertigo), Midge almost condescendingly responds, “It’s a brassiere. You know about those things. You’re a big boy, now” (Vertigo). Like a child stumbling upon his mother’s laundry, this referral to Scottie as a “big boy now” implies a superiority within Midge as she appears to possess greater knowledge about the “adult” world.

Although this investigation primarily aims to analyze Midge, Scottie’s presence in her characterization thus far is unmistakeable. To address this circumstance, Mulvey’s quote from Budd Boetticher must be considered. According to him, “What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero […] In herself the woman has not the slightest importance” (Mulvey 11, my emphasis). Taking from this, the heroine or female character is only supposed to exist in relation to the male protagonist – they are there not only for the male characters’ enjoyment but also for the male viewers’ enjoyment. Why is Midge so different, then? She, unlike typical heroines, has an identity outside of Scottie, and though she can be described as “Scottie’s ex-fiancée” and “Scottie’s friend”, she can additionally be labelled as an “artist”, and an “undergarment designer”. Furthermore, though she explicitly professes love for Scottie, she is never sexualized by him or the audience – a baffling circumstance which can be explained through another quote from Mulvey, stating that “In [Hitchcock’s] Vertigo, subjective camera predominates. […] the narrative is woven around what Scottie sees or fails to see” (16). Since the film is based on Scottie’s perception of the situation, the atypical portrayal of Midge begins to make sense. She is not displayed as a potential love interest, but instead as a man and a mother, simply because Scottie perceives her as a man and mother. To him, she is no more than these two roles, and placed within this zone of friendship, Midge is treated as such. Consequently, it is not so much that Midge does not “fit” Mulvey’s analysis of women in classical Hollywood cinema, but instead that it does not apply to her. Despite her own desires, Midge’s role in Vertigo cannot contradict with the protagonist’s perception, as it is his subjective point-of-view that predominates the film.

Regardless of this ostensible futility in the face of the male gaze, however, Midge certainly attempts show Scottie her “more-than-friendly” intentions, most evidently demonstrated in her gift of a self-portrait. Painted in the style of the Carlotta painting, which has so enraptured Scottie’s heart, Midge forcibly tries to make Scottie view her as a potential lover by likening herself to his current romantic obsession. She sexualizes and objectifies herself, and this moment is pivotal as both Scottie and viewers alike are privy to the image that Midge, herself, paints – how Midge perceives herself. Of course, Scottie cannot handle this new perspective to his friend and maternal figure, and he quickly exits the room, cancelling their prior plans, and stating that it is “not funny, Midge” (Vertigo). Thus, Midge’s overt offer to adopt a more romantic role is rejected, and the effect is momentous, signified by her reversion to a purely platonic role in her next scene wherein she comforts Scottie and tells him that “Mother’s here” (Vertigo). The character settles and succumbs to what Scottie wants, or perceives her to be, cementing herself as a man, a mother, and ultimately, a friend.

Throughout history, and even now, women are objectified and sexualized in media. Laura Mulvey’s analysis of “woman as image” (11) in classical Hollywood cinema is certainly relevant, but despite this circumstance “ordered by sexual imbalance”, there are still female characters that defy and even transcend the debasing norms. Although Midge is represented more as a man and mother, than a strong female character, her insistence on simultaneously being independent and a romantic interest lends hope for future acceptance that the two characteristics are not, in fact, mutually exclusive. Contrary to what is represented in classical Hollywood cinema, females can have both independence and sexual appeal, and it is not the women that need to change, but instead, the perception of these established roles. Hollywood may attempt to swindle viewers into thinking that “the woman has not the slightest importance”, but it is characters like Midge Wood, that gradually expand expectations, asserting a dominance and strength that can hopefully put the cliché damsel-in-distress trope to rest.

Works Cited

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema.” Screen (1975): n. pag. Web.

Vertigo. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Paramount Pictures, 1958.